( ^^^SJ^-v^ | i ^ I t i -,: ^^-^ TOWNS VILLAGES AND SCHOOLS VOL. I. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 2 vols. crown 8vo. price 18$. . REMINISCENCES CHIEFLY OF ORIEL COLLEGE AND THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. By the RBT. THOMAS MOZLEY, M.A. formerly Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. ' We have rarely taken up two more fascinating volumes." ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE. ' No modern delineator of man- ners lias sketched humours and eccentricities in high or low more brightly and humanely than Mr. MOZLBY.' The TIMES. 'Full of point, incident, apt characterisation, and humour. One of the great attractions of these volumes is the complete absence of any party bitterness.' BRITISH QUARTERLY BKVIEW. ' Not even the famous Apologia wilt compare with these two volumes of reminiscences in re- spect of minute fulness, close personal observation, and charac- teristic touches.' ACADEMY. ' One of the most amusing and interesting works we have ever read, even in the province of auto- biography.' LITBRARY CHURCHMAN. 'Mr. MOZLEY briefly sketches two lives, Cardinal NEWMAN'S and his own ; and round them he groups nearly all the prominent men in the Oxford of his day. The two volumes are full of interest.' DAILY NEWS. ' Mr. MOZLEY'S reminiscences will not only be found of great value by future writers, but are so skil- fully put together with so much vivacity, variety, knowledge of human nature, and fine sense of humour that they will be widely read.' NONCONFORMIST. London: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. REMI NISCENCES CHIEFLY OF TOWNS, VILLAGES AND SCHOOLS BY THE REV. T. MOZLEY, M.A. FORMERLY FELLOW OF ORIEL SUCCESSIVELY PERPETUAL CURATE OF MORETON PINCKNEY, NORTHANTS RECTOR OF CHOLDERTON, WILTS ; RECTOR OF PLYMTREE, DEVON AND RURAL DEAN OF PLVMTREE AND OF OTTERY AUTHOR OF ' REMINISCENCES OF ORIEL COLLEGE AND THE OXFORD MOVEMENT ' IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. SCO.VD EDITION LONDON LONGMANS. GREEN, AND CO. 1885 Al rights reserved LONDON : PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SO.VARK AND PARLIAMENT STREET PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. I COULD HAVE WISHED for a little more time to revise these volumes, to correct slips of memory or of the pen, and to profit by the comments of reviewers. But I do not really think there is much to be done in this way, even with the largest allowance of time. The printers have taken such good care of me, that I can only find a few trifling errors, for all of which I may say that I am solely responsible. But I gladly avail myself of the opportunity to introduce in this place a letter from an old Carthusian con- temporary, eight years my junior, reconciling my account of the Bell System at that school with that quoted by the present head-master from the evidence given by the late Dean of Peterborough : Gulval Vicarage, Penzance : February 16, 1885. Dear Sir, Pardon my troubling you with this letter, but I have just been reading your Reminiscences of Charterhouse with much interest. 2065276 vi PREFACE TO I went there as a child, not eight years old, in 1822, and re- mained there till 1832 ten long dreary years leaving when Russell did. In regard to Russell's system of Praepositi, I think the different statements of yourself and Drs. Saunders and Haig Brown may thus be reconciled. In my earliest years it was as you describe, promotion being given in the upper forms to successful teaching in the lower school. But soon after 1825, parents, I believe, in many instances objected to their sons teaching instead of being taught ; and many of the cleverest boys, moreover, were bad teachers. Hence, the head boy in the class then became Prsepositus. During the latter part of my time the number of boys so decreased that the forms were amalgamated, and in nearly every case each had its own master. I went much too young, and learnt nothing till I got under Russell ; but, with one or two exceptions, the teaching power was below par after your time there were two very able men, Churton and Boone. I was in Penny's house. Uobson and the two Venables, my seniors there, were talented fellows. Thackeray also was there ; but, singularly enough, never gave any early indication of his after celebrity. The abolition of/aggingby Russell brought about a far worse and cruel system of bullying, of which I, as once the youngest of nearly five hundred boys, have a keen recollection. The incident you mention in which young Howard lost his life was the ' calling out,' the peculiarity of which savagery was that an- nually all the lower school had the right to call on any unpopular upper boy to run the gauntlet between the two rows of under boys, from Cloisters' doors to a point near the Chapel ; the latter were armed with implements of all kinds, from sticks to stones in stockings. Howard in the melte fell down the steps leading to Chapman's. You are right in saying that spite of its surroundings Char- terhouse was wonderfully free from all epidemics. In my ten years measles was the only malady that I remember, and that only on one occasion. One reason for this I arrived at some years since, when passing over the Green I noticed the excava- tions then going on for Merchant Taylors' Buildings, the sub- soil being some eighteen or twenty feet of clear bright golden THE SECOND EDITION. vii gravel. Again apologising for this infliction on your time and patience, Believe me, Dear Sir, Yours faithfully, W. W. WlNGFIELD. The Rev. T. Mozley. As the plan of earning promotion in the upper part of the school by giving instruction in the lower was certainly a remarkable experiment, and appears to have begun and ended with my own stay at the school, I may as well quote the corroborative evidence of the Charterhouse Blue-book for Easter 1824 the only one I happen to possess. At that date Joseph Jones and J. L. Irwin, both of the Second Form, were teaching the Fourth. John Murray and Samuel Coates, both of the Second Form, were teaching the Fifth. W. H. Rooper and Mosley Smith, both of the second division of the Second, were teaching the Sixth. G. Wallace and R. N. Bennett, both of the second division of the Second, were teaching the Seventh. Passing over the teachers of four other Forms, I find F. A. Marriott and C. Marjoribanks, both of the Third Form, teaching respectively two little squads of five boys and of four, called the Twelfth Form. As to the rough Good Friday game, and the inci- dent of poor Howard's death, my memory refuses to qualify itself, though I admit that Mr. Wingfield's account has a strong point of verisimilitude in the resemblance to the favourite Midland game of Pri- soners' Base. viii PREFACE TO In Vol. II. p. 338, I have mentioned a pretty pic- ture, a great favourite in its day, containing a portrait of Mrs. Walter Blunt, wife of Pickford's curate-in- charge at Cholderton. The Bishop of Colchester kindly writes : This picture is now in my possession, and I can supply a slight correction, and a little additional information. The pic- ture is by Harlow, and the title is not ' Congratulation,' but ' The Proposal,' one of the young ladies being supposed to have received an offer of marriage by letter. One of the others with Mrs. Blunt (then Miss Pearce) is her sister, who became Lady Dymoke, and only died last year. The third is my mother, Mrs. Blomfield, then Miss Cox, cousin to the other ladies. The circumstance about the cast in the right eye is exactly what my mother always told us. During all the latter half of last year I was under great and increasing apprehension that I should not live to see the publication of these volumes, and should therefore have no opportunity of either cor- rection or defence. I had a variety of threatening symptoms of which I am quite unable to give a scientific account. The feeling made me the more anxious to deliver myself to the full and say out what I had to say, and it eventually led to an earlier publication than I had intended, for my first idea had been to keep all the manuscripts in hand till the New Year, and I now found that I was exceeding my limits. One result has been that I have given a fuller and more documentary treatment to some matters not likely to interest all readers equally. I have ever thought my father's rescue of one of the THE SECOND EDITION. ix chief parish churches of Derby from private usurpa- tion one of the noblest deeds in all my Church and public experience. But I cannot expect all fine gentle- men, ladies, and litterateurs of the present period to share my filial enthusiasm on the point. For their sake, had time allowed, I should have attempted a more sketchy and picturesque treatment. This would have involved the use of generalities. But a recent ex- perience left it not improbable that some one, with at least the authority of years, might suddenly spring up and denounce the whole story as a fiction. In view of such a contingency I deemed it best to give as much fact and document as my space would allow, enough indeed to defend itself and to stand as a monument of my father, should I be no longer here to defend it. As to my reviewers, I thank them all very heartily. Some of them begin, very naturally, with drawing heavy groans at the length, the bulk, the incongruous- ness, the inconsecutiveness of the farrago they have to despatch, and digest, perhaps at a sitting ; but they have almost invariably become pleasanter, not to say affectionate, as they find the labour coming to an end. Nobody can feel more than I do for those who have to extract the essence of two bulky volumes in a few hours. A word more. I am told that I ought not to have introduced such topics as those treated in the con- cluding chapters, in a work of so miscellaneous a character. My answer is, that I have no other opportunity. I can only appear in my own proper x PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. form, and I have done my best to present that form in these volumes. Should I be spared for a year or two more I hope and trust one day to make a more suitable presentment of myself, and of the subject I have most at heart. 7 LANSDOWNE TERRACE, CHELTENHAM : March 1885. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER PAGB I. INTRODUCTION. TO MY REVIEWERS .... I II. TO MY REVIEWERS ....... 8 III. CONFLICTING RECOLLECTIONS X 6 iv. DR. PUSEY'S SERMON ON 'SIN AFTER BAPTISM' . . 21 V. TWO CHERUBS (TAIT AND GLADSTONE) ... 23 VI. ARCHBISHOP TAIT AT POWDERHAM CASTLE . . . 27 VII. RITUALISM. (A WALK AND TALK WITH TAIT) . . 33 VIII. THE LATE PRIMATE'S LAST WORDS . . . . 38 IX. A PARSON FROM THE CRADLE (SELF) .... 43 X. PARSONS AND PARSONS 50 XI. FROM CONISBOROUGH TO DONCASTER .... 54 XII. FROM DONCASTER TO GAINSBOROUGH . . . . 59 ii CONTENTS. CHAPTER PACK XIII. THE ' COUNTRY SPECTATOR ' . . . . .67 XIV. GAINSBOROUGH. UPS AND DOWNS . . . . 74 XV. GAINSBOROUGH. VARIETIES 80 XVI. THE TOWN GOURMAND 88 XVII. THE RACE OF LIFE IN TOWNS .... 94 XVIII. THE BEGINNING OF A TRADE. (BY A RELATIVE) . IO2 XIX. GAINSBOROUGH. THE CLERGY .... IO6 XX. GAINSBOROUGH. FAITH AND POLITICS . . . II 3 XXI. THE LIBRARY (AS A MEANS OF PRIVATE EDUCATION) Il8 XXII. CATHEDRALS AND CHAPTERS 124 XXIII. A SUN-LIT SPOT . . . . . . ,130 XXIV. BRIDLINGTON QUAY AND FLAMBOROUGH . . , 138 XXV. COUNTY KERRY. (AN ANCESTOR THENCE) . .144 XXVI. MY PARENTS 150 XXVII. NATALE SOLUM 158 XXVIII. TWO MISHAPS (ONE THE BIRTH OF MY BROTHER JAMES A ROMANCE) . . . , , .165 XXIX. ANGELS EVER BRIGHT AND FAIR 172 XXX. OUR WALKS AND WANDERINGS . . . .175 XXXI. 'THE MILL ON THE FLOSS ' (AT GAINSBOROUGH) . 182 XXXII. A MIGRATION (TO DERBY) ..... 185 XXXIII. SOME EMPLOYES , 196 XXXIV. OUR BEGINNING AT DERBY 203 XXXV. CHANGE IN THE TOWN AND IN THE COUNTRY . 212 CONTENTS. xiii CHAPTER PAGE xxxvi. A DUKE'S TENANT . . . . . 215 XXXVII. MY UNCLE ROBERT ....... 221 XXXVIII. THE WARDWICK (AT DERBY) 227 XXXIX. OUR SURROUNDINGS 2$2 XL. WILLIAM JEFFERY LOCKETT. (THE PRESENT LACE- MAKING MACHINE) 237 XLI. REV. EDWARD HIGGINSON 243 XLII. SOME SCHOOLFELLOWS 252 XLIII. AN ACCIDENT 26l XLIV. ACCIDENTS . . 265 XLV. THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS AND THE MECHANICAL . 275 XLVI. THE PRIVATE SCHOOLS OF THE PERIOD . . . 283 XLVII. A PRIVATE TUTOR 289 XLVIII. PEOPLE I HAVE SEEN, AND STILL SEE . . . 295 XLIX. RECREATIONS AND AMUSEMENTS 303 L. DR. SAMPSON (AN EARLY CLERICAL FRIEND OF THE FAMILY) ........ 309 LI. DR. SAMPSON 319 LII. DR. SAMPSON . . . 330 LIII. FROM DERBY TO LONDON. MY FIRST JOURNEY. . 340 LIV. MY SUBSEQUENT JOURNEYS 348 LV. LONDON IN 1 820 354 I.VI. LONDON IN l82O 361 LVII. MY DEBUT AT CHARTERHOUSE 373 :iv CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE LVIII. CHARTERHOUSE ON THE BELL SYSTEM . . . 380 LIX. THE DISCIPLINE OF CHARTERHOUSE . . . . 388 LX. CARTHUSIAN INCIDENTS 393 LXI. HOW' WE AMUSED OURSELVES 4OO LXII. THE CARTHUSIAN REGIME 407 LXIII. SOME CONTEMPORARIES IN THE SCHOOL . . . 417 LXIV. SOME CONTEMPORARIES IN LLOYD'S HOUSE . . 426 LXV. DAY-BOYS AND GOWN-BOYS 436 LXVI. FILEY (IN YORKSHIRE) 444 LXVII. CHARTERHOUSE TO ORIEL 453 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. TO MY REVIEWERS. IN the first place I thank you all very heartily. You have given me some useful information and a good deal of wholesome correction. You make me regret that I did not present myself to the world in my own name at twenty-five instead of seventy-five. It has always been my nature to learn by sad experience that is, by chastisement, of one sort or another for I am but a lump of clay, with as many sides as I have fallen upon, and as many impressions as I have suffered collisions. But I must acquit myself of a burden. My dear friends, I am ashamed of you. You had a chance such as never fell to a reviewer before, and not one of you discovered it. The head and front of my offending in the matter of spelling was the addition of the final e to the name of the famous Provost of Oriel. Certainly I ought not to have added it. Sixty-three years ago he kindly put my name down for admission to his college, and sixty years ago he wrote to Dr. Russell, directing him to VOL. I. B 2 INTRODUCTION. send me up at once for matriculation. But, for one reason or another, his name has not occupied a very prominent place in the world now for many years. So my vagrant memory drifted lazily to the name of the Devonshire hamlet, and to the story of the famous stone said to give the name to the hamlet and to the family. Copleston himself used to explain that this was a coping-stone, or a stone surmounting a gable. But it was hard to see how so ordinary a feature could be the distinction of a place or of a family. Prince, writing two centuries ago, described the stone as a dolmen, twelve feet clear of the ground, standing at the meeting of four parishes, where it probably had stood long before the parishes were constituted. I had also ringing in my ear a familiar Devonshire rhyme Crocker, Cruwys, and Coplestone When the Conqueror came were found at home. Now, as the rhyme does not stand on the consonants, it can only stand on the sound of the vowel, which implies a terminal e. In fact that has now long been the spelling of tne place, though I have to admit that Prince going back many centuries does always spell the name Copleston. But to think of you all yes, all of you, some dozen doughty knights of the pen not having found and flung at my head the following passage in the Memoir of the Bishop, by W. J. Copleston, published by Parker, 1851. It occurs in a letter from one of Copleston's quondam pupils to the writer of the memoir : EDWARD COPLESTON. 3 You will smile, I think, at the fo lowing characteristic trait of a relative whose turn of mind you knew so well. A note was delivered to your uncle while we were ' enucleating ' (as an excellent friend and olim soctus, T , used to style it) a tough part of the ' Agamemnon.' Having opened and perused the note, Mr. Copleston tossed it indignantly to me, pointing to the direction ' Now look there as if that man, who ought to know better, and has called here half a dozen times, could not recollect that my name is Copleston, as you may see it over my door, and that I was baptized Edward, which he must know also, or might have found out.' H. He indulges you, I see, sir, with two superfluous letters. C. Yes the Rev. Mr. Copples'.one ! Now, I cannot recom- mend a better habit to a young man, like yourself, entering the world in good society, than to ascertain the exact prefix, spelling, and pronunciation of every man's name with whom you have intercourse such, I mean, as he and his family choose habitually to adopt. Depend upon it that people in general infer a sort of oXiywpt'a from such lapses ; as if you took such little interest in their identity, as to forget the minor characteristics of it. This I quote, indirectly, from a review of the memoir in the 'Christian Remembrancer' of January, 1852, to which my brother Arthur, who wrote the review, has called my attention. But once upon my mis-spellings I must go on. What a storm there was about my writing Oakley for Oakeley ! All the nine villages of the name are spelt Oakley, and the suburban square is Oakley, and no doubt the e is an interpolation. Still I ought to have known the right spelling, even after forty years. It is true that I have myself suffered much persecution in the wanton mis-spelling of my own name half a dozen different ways. The very last letter I had from Ward, for five years my fellow-worker in the ' British 4 INTRODUCTION. Critic,' and very frequent correspondent, lies before me, spelling my name ' Mozely.' Did I quarrel with him? No. I knew he was too ideal ever to be real. My case could not easily be so bad as that of a departed friend, whose right name was Lewellin, but who kept in a portfolio more than a hundred various spellings of his name actually received through the post. But I think my mis-spelling of the well-known and much loved Master of University raised the greatest storm of indignant remonstrance. What, not to know how to spell Plumptre ! The very insuf- ficient answer is that I had been living twelve years at Plymtree, and had no acquaintance with the living representatives of the Master at Oxford. Then I have offended a whole college, and a college that thinks something of itself, by allowing myself to be misled by the rules of pronunciation, and giving it only two /'s in the course of three syllables. I took inadvertently the old spelling. In Hume I find it John Baliol. In Ecton's ' Thesaurus ' I find it Baliol College. The rule certainly is that when a is pro- nounced as in ' whale ' there must be only one /, and when as in the first syllable of ' alligator,' with two /'s. My saddest case of mis-spelling, for such it is, I do indeed deeply grieve, and can only plead ' extenu- ating circumstances.' Of course I ought to have known how to designate Newman's friend, Bowden, and the pope he wrote a life of; especially when I was undertaking to enlighten the public on these points. I had the names, in various connections, ly- ing before me. Had I felt a doubt, five minutes might have settled the question. The true man was John JOHN W. BOWDEN. 5 W. Bowden, and he published a Life of Gregory VII. I described him as Henry Boden, and his subject as Gregory the Great. There could hardly be worse blunders at least in the eyes of those who happen to be well acquainted with all the personages concerned. 1 should think that no one of all Newman's friends was so dear to him as John W. Bowden. Well, what have I to say for myself? I never saw John W. Bowden but once in my life. I never saw his brother, the true Henry Bowden, even once. I am not sure that I ever saw the outside of John W. Bowden's book, and am pretty sure that I never read a page, or a line of it. The only time I saw him was in a mile's walk from Rose Bank to Oxford, in Newman's company. I could not but be struck by the man, and remember him well. He was a very fine figure, graceful rather than stately, very hand- some, with a very expressive countenance, a melo- dious voice, and a fluent utterance. It could be no surprise that any one could become tenderly attached to him. But this beautiful vision I saw and heard once, and never again. Of course I ought to have known and remem- bered what John W. Bowden did in his brief career. I now find that, besides his share in 'St. Bartholomew's Eve ' and the ' Life of Hildebrand,' he wrote four of the 'Tracts for the Times,' beginning with the fifth, on the Constitution and History of the Church. I have just now run through them. To those who have yet to form an idea of a writer, who, as ti\o. fidus Achates of the Cardinal, must be an object of interest, I may say that the tracts recall the man. They are very easy, 6 INTRODUCTION. graceful, business-like pieces of workmanship ; but, though they might possibly secure some young Evan- gelical already on the move, I cannot think they would bring over any dissenters. Such people object to the doctrine, the discipline, and the secular associa- tions of the Church, and J. W. Bowden leaves these matters just where they were. He affects to start from the mission of the Apostles, but really builds on the foundation of Constantine. However, I recom- mend the four tracts, which read very musically, if music could win souls. John W. Bowden married into the family of a great Northern baronet, and was absorbed into it. An aristocratic connection is much admired and much coveted, but it often ends in personal annihila- tion. Inconsistency, too, even apparent inconsistency, is a destructive process. There certainly was some- thing incongruous in the admirer of Hildebrand, who was for putting his hook in the nose of every prince, power, and potentate in the world, settling into the appendage of a Northumbrian baronet's household. I have further to confess that a time came when the name had a painful association, which did not allow me to dwell on it. When I went to reside in town in 1848 I forget whether J. W. Bowden was still living I think not my wife, upon some en- couragement, ventured to call on Mrs. Bowden, whom she had met several times at Oxford, and who was then residing either at or next door to Sir John Swinburne. She was then invited to repeat her call at lunch-time. She made several attempts without being admitted. My own impression at the time was that TRICKS OF MEMORY, 7 nobody was likely to be admitted, unless stepping from a brougham, with a footman in livery. I could well have afforded this in those days, and perhaps ought to have done so, but I was spending all my receipts on Cholderton Church, and on another object equally romantic. However, the acquaintance dropped, and so it appears did Bowden's Christian name from my memory. In later years another solution has presented itself. My wife never failed to express her opinions candidly and plainly, and, judging by the result, I think it likely Mrs. Bowden did the same, in the opposite direction. On looking over some old memoranda I see that J. W. Bowden wrote an article on the ' Anglican Church in the Mediterranean ' for the July number of the ' British Critic ' in 1841. I was then editor, but I have lent and lost my own copy of that number forty years, and I never again saw another copy till the other day. These are tricks of memory of which I have had sad experience in my own case, and some too in the case of others. I find that a doubt once established never departs. There are words, not a few, which I can never spell without reconsideration. This is a small matter. But I find it the same in regard to the various aspects of things, the judgments I have deliberately formed upon persons and affairs, and the recollections in which I have summed up passages of my life. Does the mind revolve upon an axis ? Does it ebb and flow? Does it alternately swallow and disgorge like the Maelstrom? The mind requires rest and refreshment ; does it also require repair and 8 TO MY REVIEWERS. restoration ? What is the cure ? To be right and wrong alternate minutes is not a safe condition. I do hope that when I next have to speak of John W. Bowden, I shall not be on the Henry Boden tack, and that I shall not be found dreaming of him that sent Augustine to Canterbury. No mistake of mine made such a stir as my supposed alliance between the Denisons and the house of Rutland. One of my reviewers thought it an intentional slight on both houses. The fact is I had written Portland, and it was actually printed Portland. I had had a momentary doubt, which a second thought dispelled. But when, in a hurried revision, I saw Portland in the proof, I said to myself, ' Oh, that's impossible. The Denisons can't have married into those Dutch people.' The truth is, correctors of the press ought to have as few ideas as possible. CHAPTER II. TO MY REVIEWERS. OF course I knew that Medley was Bishop of Frederic- ton, and Field of Newfoundland. But when I cast my eye across the Atlantic in search of Medley, Frederic- ton modestly sidled into the background, leaving Newfoundland in the front. I am really thankful for the blunder, for it has brought me two pleasant letters from Fredericton. But all Devonshire was speedily T. FINCH HOBDAY BRIDGE. 9 upon me, for Medley was long there, and proud are they of him. Of Field I heard frequently at one time, and I will take the opportunity to associate with him a rather remarkable personage, who deserved not to be forgotten. T. Finch Hobday Bridge was my contemporary at Charterhouse a neat, compact, sprightly figure, with a resolute expression, and a pair of bright, black eyes. Russell had great hopes of him. His figure stood out well from the rank. His readiness and industry promised any career. But his name was down for Worcester College. On the other hand, a gown-boy, whose name I need not give, for besides being very dull he was exceedingly grotesque, was shortly going to Christ Church. Russell bribed him, or rather his friends, with an ' exhibition ' to exchange with Bridge, who was soon my opposite neighbour at Oxford, in one of the attics of Peckwater Quad. Poor Bridge became too much of a favourite : he was too much in society ; he found his work too easy, and his course too clear. His looks soon showed deterioration. He recovered himself in time to take a ' double second ' he could have taken a ' double first.' He went to Newfoundland, and Field made him his archdeacon. I heard that he did most of the work there. Field's path was beset with difficulties, and Bridge would undertake anything, and do it. The Bishop called him hi> ' Iron Bridge,' and the expres- sion recalled the very look of his schoolboy days. I met him once at a Founder's Day. He was then the most perfect figure of an ecclesiastic I had seen in this country. Even in France or in Italy he would have io TO MY REVIEWERS. commanded admiration. He had to work harder and harder at his post. Fever came, and he did not shrink from his duty. He took the fever and died, leaving a family with very small means. A year or two after, a lady, who wanted a girl to educate with her only daughter, asked me to call in the course of an afternoon. She told me I should find four girls from the Clergy Orphan School Is that the right title of it ? sent for her to choose from. She had already seen them, and had made up her mind to choose one of two. The moment I entered the drawing-room it was as if my old school- fellow was before me, so close the resemblance in figure, expression, and eyes. It was a complete sur- prise, for the lady had not mentioned names, and I had only heard incidentally some time before this that Bridge had left a family of what consisting, or where, I knew not. Another girl was prettier, but there could be no doubt Edith Bridge was the stronger and finer metal. She did her part, a trying one, well. She was valued and loved. I think she is now in a sisterhood. With regard to some of my errors and omissions, to a certain neutrality where decision might have been expected, and confusedness where order and accuracy were most desirable, I have to remind my readers that I only promised ' Reminiscences.' I was, in fact, the first to sound the note of alarm. I offered the cue, and my critics readily availed themselves of it. After a form of my own, which I do not venture to commend to general imitation, I am an honest man. My wife and old servants could testify to their merriment when PROVING ALL THINGS. 11 a possible purchaser came to examine a mare I wished to part with, and after he had felt all the legs and pronounced them sound, I called his attention to a suspicious appearance in one of them. This is exactly what I have done in this instance. But I did not think it necessary to call the reader's attention to the periods when, upon my own showing I could only speak upon the information of others, and with a second-hand authority. I stated particularly, with names, dates, personal relations, and specified opportunities, the claims I had to write and to be read. Very excusably I did not call the reader's attention to the negative aspects of this statement. Those aspects were plain enough. When I first be- came acquainted with the Newmans there was a swarm of little books of the Evangelical school flying and settling all about them. I did warn the reader that I had no acquaintance with the family before 1826, though I might not invite him to suspect the accuracy of my impression. That impression has been sharply attacked, I know not when and where. The echoes only have reached me. It is a point in which others have a right to the last word, and I am content to leave it with them. But I have to clear myself of levity. I did riot make my statement at random, or without much consideration. I have the greatest regard and affection for the memory of the lady whose name I have, perhaps unwarrantably, brought forward. For nearly three whole years before her death the ' Tracts for the Times ' were coming out, and were the subject of general conversation, She and her elder daughter, 12 TO MY REVIEWERS. who was her double as much as a daughter can be of a mother, had very strong objections to those tracts, and they both expressed their objections very freely. They liked neither the matter nor the tone of the tracts. They were most explicit on the subject to numerous callers, including some of Newman's par- ticular friends, indeed some of the writers. Long before the appearance of the tracts, they had seemed quite in accord with Golightly, a frequent caller, whose conversation always ran upon religious topics, and who was then, what he remained always, a decided, not to say extreme, Evangelical, showing more sympathy for Puritans than for High Church- men. Though I respected their sincerity and frankness, I thought it a pity these ladies volunteered their criticism under the circumstances. I often said to myself, ' Why plant themselves so near Oxford, indeed nearer and nearer, to come into possible collision with the son ? When, upon my marriage, I went to my Wiltshire rectory, I took a large supply of the tracts with me. I very soon had to keep them out of sight, and it was very rarely, indeed accidentally, that I looked into them. They kept coming, but as fast as they came I stowed them away. I did not venture to distribute them. Had I done so, my neighbours would have discussed them with my wife, and it would immediately have come out that we were not quite at accord on some questions then at the front of the religious controversy. AH this is a matter of notoriety. Fifteen years ago, when I was at Rome, writing letters about the ARM1N1ANS. 13 proceedings of the Council, I read in a Roman Catholic newspaper published in London that such was the peculiar malignity of my disposition that I had been on the point of going over to Rome to spite one wife, and was now attacking Rome to spite another. What then was the root of this antipathy, this antagonism, holding its ground for two generations ? Putting things together as well as I could, I did not write that the mother was a Calvinist, but I explained and refined to the utmost of my poor ability and very slight theological information. I fear I gave myself too much trouble about it, and got bewildered accordingly. I said that the lady in question was ' a modified Calvinist.' It was an unfortunate expres- sion, betraying uncertainty both as to the subject and as to the predicate. To say the truth, I don't know what Calvinism is, and never yet met with any one who could give a satisfactory definition of it. The people who admire Calvin are always anxious to ex- plain that they are not themselves Calvinists. The lady I am speaking of was not a Laudian ; I have seen her described as an Arminian but nobody, not even Arminius himself, could say quite what that meant. The Dutch divine has acquired a celebrity far beyond his wishes, but he began with a protest against the excesses of human presumption in Divine matters, and, driven on by controversy and persecution, he shewed rather the negative than the positive side of his theological system, if he had anything to call a system. I had no intention of describing the lady as singular, or ' sectarian,' or of a definite school. Nor could I say simply that hers i 4 TO MY REVIEWERS. was ' the religion of a lady,' as people talk of ' the religion of a gentleman.' From a diary in 1831 I find the ladies were read- ing Tillotson ; but the very same entry mentions Baxter, so not much is to be inferred from that. I believe the real question is, what were the prevalent religious views in the city of London in the first years of this century ? Yet there is still another account of the matter, which is probably in most cases the true one. The sweet religion of nature prevails between parents and children. The relation itself, and its various emergencies, suggest a sound faith and a salutary discipline sufficient for the occa- sion. Fathers and mothers must be divinities till they have forfeited the character, or till the believing eyes of children are unhappily opened and they are driven out of their little paradise. I have given a confused account of the starting of the ' Tracts for the Times,' and of the ' Hadleigh Conference.' The truth is I was at the time very closely engaged in my duties and undertakings at my Northamptonshire parish, seldom leaving home for a day ; and the tracts, as also the story of the ' Confer- ence,' and succeeding conferences, came to me after date. I often saw it stated, or implied, that Newman had been at the Conference, but I found it difficult to conceive it, or to reconcile it with his own distinct course. As my readers now probably know, he was not one of the very small party assembled at Had- leigh. They were Rose, Mr. William Palmer, of Worcester College, Froude, and Perceval. The first of these had sufficient goodness and genius to meet new SIX WILLIAM PALMER. 15 and great emergencies, had it pleased God to spare him. Upon Froude I am forbidden to speculate. Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata, neque ultra Esse sinent. But to any one who reads Sir W. Palmer's story of the Oxford Movement in the ' Contemporary Review,' or the ' Catechism of Church Principles ' which it was Mr. Perceval's one idea to force on the Church of England, it will be quite clear that the former was prepared to employ all the physical force of England to sweep Ireland clean of Popery, and the latter equally prepared, in like fashion, to purge England of Dissent. Their only notion of a movement was a proclamation of war, and I must do them both the justice to believe that they had the courage of their opinions. Unless my memory is very much indeed at fault, I feel sure that one of Sir W. Palmer's statements is calculated to give a very wrong impression. He says : The publication of my ' O 'igines Liturgica? ' had the gratify- ing result of introducing me to the acquaintance, amongst others, of Newman, who was then reputed to be one of the most rising men in Oxford, and also to the acquaintance of Froude, whose reputation as a scholar and a man of genius stood very high. Both were Fellows and Tutors of Oriel College. Sir W. Palmer adds that the acquaintance had no time to ripen, as just when it was likely to increase Newman and Froude went to the Mediterranean. The word ' publication ' here surely includes the preparation, the search, and collection of materials, as 1 6 CONFLICTING RECOLLECTIONS. well as the actual composition, extending over four years. I repeat, unless I have been dreaming, I met Palmer frequently at Oriel, in Newman's company, in 1829, 1830, 1831 ; and upon these occasions there was always some talk upon the work he was engaged in. Nor are Sir W. Palmer's own expressions con- sistent with the date of actual publication. Newman might have been called a 'rising man ' in 1829, and he was still Tutor as too was Froude but any one familiar with the character and position of Newman and Froude in 1832, would smile at Sir W. Palmer's description of them as applied to that date. CHAPTER III. CONFLICTING RECOLLECTIONS. AFTER having myself made so great a mistake as to imagine Sir W. Palmer, whom I had never known by that title, to be no longer in the flesh in 1882, I am hardly in a position to criticise his accuracy. I feel, however, bound to anticipate the possible and indeed reasonable suggestion that his dates, orders of se- quence, and measures of significance in his ' Narrative of Events,' 1883, are occasionally at variance with mine. The variance is sometimes great, and to me unaccountable ; but certainly not owing to faulty memory on my part, or careless writing. Not a few of Sir William's statements are quite SUSPENSION OF THE ' BRITISH CRITIC: 17 at variance with my recollections, and incredible to my conceptions. Among other startling assertions, he claims to have brought about the suspension of the ' British Critic,' and so delivered the Church of England from a plague. Had he added that it was he who built Cholderton Church, I could not have been more surprised. Perhaps Sir W. Palmer's statement might be interpreted to mean that, upon my resigna- tion of the editorship, he was consulted by Rivington, who had published for him two important works, and that his advice was to discontinue the periodical. He does not, however, say this straight, so what he does say is only half a revelation, that is, a mystery. His reticence has suggested to me the possibil.ty of Rivington having offered him the editorship, and of his having declined it, which certainly would have been his wisest course. Since writing the above I have seen, in the proof, a letter of my brother James of the date, while pass- ing through the press. He states that, in December 1843, Palmer had just asked him to contribute to the ' British Critic,' of which he was now to be editor. The subjects suggested were not such as my brother James, or the English world, were likely to care much about. They would take some time, and could not be expected by New Year's Day. I am not in a position to say why Palmer made the offer, or why my brother declined it, though I should have been surprised if he had accepted. As I cannot explain the fact I will not comment on it ; I only substitute it for the very wide statement that it was Sir W. Palmer who extinguished the ' British Critic.' VOL. I. C 1 8 CONFLICTING RECOLLECTIONS. If any one had a taste for the employment he could make a curious and instructive collection of the mistakes made by considerable writers, whose names would suffer no disparagement by a few trifling deduc- tions. According to their bent, or to the exigencies of their work, historians either run into details, or dress up pictures of events or of men, or generalise ; and in any case they easily slip off the lines of pro- portion, congruity, and truth. Few people, indeed, except those who have to criticise and to be criticised, can have any notion of the immense number of errors as to names, dates, and other particulars, current in literature, and passing wholly unquestioned. They do not often signify much : the argument or the narrative runs the same. When the writer himself does not think it worth while to cast his eyes on the printed page before him, he generally takes a true estimate of the accuracy required. I have stated, for example, that by walking up our own street at Derby in 1817 I might have seen three men beheaded for high treason. Several histories say there were only two, and one of the minor Quarter- lies of 1883 puts the trial and execution at York. What matters it now ? I venture to give a more serious instance of inaccuracy from one of the most painstaking and conscientious writers of our times, the late Dean of Westminster. In his most interesting ' Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey,' second edition, page 243, we read : In St. Edmund's Chapel lies Nicholas Monk, the honest clergyman, who undertook the journey to Scotland to broadi SLIPS OF HISTORIANS. 19 the first design of the Restoration to his brother the General, for whom he had always had ' a brotherly affection,' but who was sent back, with 'such infinite reproaches, and many oaths, that the poor man was glad when he was gone, and never had the courage after to undertake the like employment.' His services, however, were not forgotten, and he was raised to the See of Hereford, and, dying immediately afterwards, was buried in the Abbey. No doubt the General did use some very rough language upon finding that his brother had disclosed his errand to his own Episcopalian chaplain, Dr. Price. He went so far as to say that he was bound to hang anybody that went into his camp and talked of a restoration. But Nicholas Monk, with his daughter, remained two months at Dalkeith Palace on the most affectionate terms with the General, who then dismissed them with ' a very particular kindness.' But the General did more : he gave Nicholas two very critical and difficult missions, and Nicholas under- took and discharged both with great promptitude, and with most important results. Immediately on his arrival at London he went to Sir John Granville, and told him the General could have nothing to say to any communication from Charles ; but at the same time stated that there had been matters between himself and the General, upon which he and others had been sworn to secrecy. From Sir John Granville, Nicholas Monk went straightway to Commissary Clarges, the General's re- presentative in town, and communicated to him the as- surance, which he was to transmit to Speaker Lenthall, that the General would support Parliament against the military faction. In a veiy few hours this message 20 CONFLICTING RECOLLECTIONS. set in motion the train of events leading by necessary consequence to the Restoration. Parliament instantly, and most rashly, as it seemed, declared its independ- ence, and so defied the army, against which it had no protection at hand but some ill-officered guards. Lambert, with equal rashness, surrounded the guards, and turned back the members as they were coming to the House. This was all General Monk wanted, and, as soon as he could make the requisite preparation, he crossed the Tweed, and, without the shedding of a drop of blood, restored the Crown. The late Dean's account of the matter is from Clarendon, and, as the historian wrote it very soon after the Restoration, it might be supposed reliable. But the truth was Clarendon hated Monk and all his belongings. He had tried hard to make Monk his tool, on the speculation of the tool running all the risks of failure, and being thrown away in the case of success. Monk had seen through and through him his back and his lont at once, so to speak and the result was Clarendon himself was thrown overboard. He was in exile when he wrote the few and hasty words quoted by Dean Stanley. I cannot but suspect that if it had been a philosopher, a statesman, or a man of letters, instead of a simple country parson, the Dean would have given a little more time and thought to the Rector of Plymtree, whose dust is now commingled with that of the Plantagenets in Westminster Abbey. PREACHED AND NOT PUBLISHED, 21 CHAPTER IV. PUSEY'S SERMON ON SIN AFTER BAPTISM. IN my remarks upon this famous sermon, chap, xciv., I say, ' I have not read the sermon, nor have I read the explanatory " Tract for the Times " on the subject. I have only my recollections.' In the next page I relate at some length the incident of Samuel Wilber- force coming up suddenly, about a fortnight after the sermon, to ask for an explanation, presenting himself , for that purpose, not to Pusey, but to Newman, and after another fortnight making a public and very energetic protest against Pusey's sermon, and the teaching supposed to be associated with it. About two months after the publication of the ' Reminis- cences ' I was surprised and, I may add, gratified by receiving the following : South Hermitage, Ascot Priory, Bracknell. MY DEAR MOZLEY, In your ' Reminiscences,' &c., there is a chapter on a sermon of mine on Heb. vi. 4, 5, 6. You say, ' I have not read the sermon, nor have I read the explanatory " Tract for the Times " in explanation of it.' Was it then printed ? I have not the faintest memory of it, nor of any ' Tract for the Times,' nor of S. W. making a public and very energetic protest against it. Can you tell me anything about any of the three which might recall them to me ? For you have criticised the sermon, pointing out what you think was defective, and I have no means of explaining myself. With every good wish, Yours very faithfully, Aug. 2, 1882. E. B. PUSEY. 22 PUSEY ON SIN AFTER BAPTISM. The Tracts on Baptism were a thing per se. They were written to save a Hebrew pupil from leaving the Church because it taught the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. I asked him to wait until I could put together the Scriptural evidence for it. In the course of it I wrote on Heb. vi. 4, et seq. The letter reached me a day or two after my arrival at Llandudno. I replied that here I was in Wales for my wife's health, my first visit to the principality, and away from my books, meaning chiefly my copy of the tracts. I could only beg for time, promising to reply at length immediately on my return home. I did this with a sad misgiving that I had little right to be sure we should either of us be living a month thence. I received the following very kind reply : MY DEAR MOZLEY, I am sorry to hear of your wife's illness. Do not trouble yourself about my sermon. I am satisfied that it was never printed. Probably I never heard that it was talked about. 1 have nothing to complain of in your statement. Indeed, I do not see the difference between your statement and what you say was mine. The defect of the sermon as you have reported of it would have been its omis- sions. I can hardly think that I said nothing to comfort those who were so stricken. Perhaps I shall find the sermon. I only wanted it for my own information. At a later period, I was blamed in the opposite direction for accepting and press- ing S. Gregory's commentary on ' The first shall be last, and the last first,' as involving that some who have gone much out of the way would, through their subsequent repentance and use of the grace of God, be higher than some who had been all along in it. But it matters little what one thought those many years ago, unless it becomes necessary to explain what one holds now. One can only hope that God stirred up some hearts then (as He, by your account, did yours), and that one's imperfections did not mar the work. Would that we were not so wide apart. I do not think that LAST WORDS. 23 you can understand that great stirring of mind ; but the question is not about the past, but the present and the Hereafter. With every good wish, Yours very faithfully, Aug. 7, 1882. E. B. PUSEY. On my return home I immediately wrote to Pusey in reply to his three first questions. On referring to the tracts containing Scriptural views on Holy Baptism, and particularly to the preface, I found it to be as Pusey stated. At the time referred to he was writing these tracts, and having to preach before the University he spoke on the matter that his heart was full of. Samuel Wilberforce's sudden appearance at Oxford soon after the delivery of the sermon, and his, visit to Newman's rooms and my own, as, too, his public protest soon after, must rsst on my recollections. There is nothing either for or against them in the published ' Life." CHAPTER V. TWO CHERUBS. WITH regard to two of the most remarkable of my contemporaries I have enjoyed a singular good fortune, indeed, as I feel it, a providential protection. Those two are Mr. Gladstone and Archbishop Tait. It has been my fate, or my folly, to differ from them both considerably I think always more or less. I have always been at heart too much of a Tory for the one, and too High Church for the other. They have both 24 . TWO CHERUBS. gone heartily with the country, but I have been only the humble servant of my country and a reformer rather against the grain. ' Broad Church ' has been to me all my life simply an abomination that is, Broad Church as enunciated by its foremost advocates. This led me to a strange complication of feelings with regard to the late Dean Stanley. While I was always fascinated by his style I could not help read- ing, generally twice over, every scrap of his I saw in the papers I recoiled utterly from what I believed to be his doctrine. As for Mr. Gladstone, I for many years have seldom thought of him and his measures without being re- minded of the terrible lines in which Horace describes one of the attendants of that fickle goddess whom he believed to be the arbiter of civil strife : Te semper anteit serva necessitas, Clavos trabales et cuneos manu Gestans ahena ; nee severus Uncus abest liquidumque plumbum. Often have I felt that I would rather grow cabbages like Cincinnatus, than be the public executioner of usurpations, monopolies, and other abuses. But after indulging in the sentiment I have swelled the triumph of justice, peace, and public good. I have gene- rally been so unfortunate in the use of my electoral privileges that I have come to think them hardly worth the fuss made about them ; but the most un- fortunate use I ever made of them so I felt at the time was when I went up to Oxford to vote for Mr. Gladstone, and he was actually elected. It was some excuse for this ridiculous inconsist- GLADSTONE AND TAIT. 25 ency that I scarcely ever looked into Mr. Gladstone's weekly organ -of course he hadn't a weekly organ in any other sense than he had a tail to his coat without seeing some very offensive and utterly untrue allusion to myself. No philosophy, no known species of Christianity, can prevent a little, just a little annoy- ance under such circumstances. But now, what is the singular good fortune or providential protection I began with ? Simply this : I never in all my life once saw Mr. Gladstone from the evening I met him in Hurdis Lushington's room, three or four days after his arrival from Eton, till he was so good as to ask me to breakfast in June 1882, and kindly suggest a correction or two in my book. On the former occasion he had all the purple bloom and freshness of boyhood, and the glow of generous emotion. Since that day I have seen portraits and caricatures of him a thousand times, but the original idea has never failed to return to the memory. My life's experience of Archbishop Tait has been much the same. I met him, several years my junior, in Oriel Common Room, and perhaps once or twice in the streets of Oxford about the same time. He was then a good-natured, chubby-faced, unmistakably Scotch lad, perhaps canny beyond his years. I never saw him again till very recently, at a meeting in the rooms of the National Society for the foundation of a college in memory of Bishop Selwyn. As the leader of the ' Four Tutors,' and on other occasions, he could not but give pain to Newman's friends and adherents. Nor could he fail to incur the charge of partiality when in after years, and invested with 26 TWO CHERUBS. official authority, he seemed not to shew the like alacrity in reproving excesses in an opposite direction. Nevertheless, he never lost to me his youthful form, and as I have thought of these two men I have often been reminded of the two beautiful angelic, or rather cherubic, faces looking upwards from the fore- ground of Raphael's Madonna di San Sisto. It is needless to say that the development into the existing statesman, as formed by half a century of incessant political warfare, is simply ludicrous, and I could not say that I find in this case the child to be father of the man. But it was so in the case of the late Primate. He was the fair, ingenuous boy to the last as far as looks are concerned, and those looks could not fail to speak the truth. To me the two recollections have been the source of as much plea- sure as some childhood memories of a more senti- mental character. It has often occurred to me how much schoolboys owe, in after life, to the sweet and vivacious company of ever-youthful faces still crowding their memories, surrounding them wherever they move, and flitting across their sight night and day. Still, I always felt something owing to myself and to my Oxford friends in the part which the former Tutor of Balliol had taken ; and this sense, after much deliberation, I expressed in what may seem a very puny form. Some years ago I recognised on my chancel-screen at Plymtree the rough portraiture of Henry VII., Prince Arthur, and Cardinal Morton. These I got o reproduced, with an account of Morton, chiefly from 'MY DUTY AND RESPECT: 27 Hook's ' Lives of the Archbishops,' but with the addition of some interesting matter from other sources. I could not omit, had I even wished it, send- ing a copy to Morton's living successor in the primacy, but I took care to accompany it with nothing more than ' my duty and respect' It was most kindly acknowledged. CHAPTER VI. ARCHBISHOP TAIT AT POWDERHAM CASTLE, FOUR years ago the late Primate, having recently lost his son and his wife, and, it may be added, his health and his strength, was taking a holiday in the west of England. To my surprise, and not less pleasure, I received an invitation from the Earl of Devon to meet him at Powderham Castle. It was almost exclusively a family party, Mr. Sadler, Vicar of Honiton, being the only exception besides myself. The Primate, attended by his daughter, now his only secretary, was a touching spectacle. Lady Anne Wood did the honours of the well-known historic pile which occu- pies so high a place in Devon story and Devon affections. It was Friday, if I remember right, and I was asked to remain over the Sunday. As I had a clerical friend staying with me and taking most of my duty, I could easily accept the invitation. The Primate and his devoted secretary had work all the day, and showed little. 28 ARCHBISHOP TAIT AT POWDERHAM CASTLE. One evening Lady Anne planted me on a sofa near the Primate, who at once began on Oxford acquaint- ances and Oxford doings. Of everybody and every- thing he spoke with a bright and tender kindness. His gentle and admiring allusions to Ward made me feel a little ashamed of the budget of grievances my soul still harbours with that gentleman. He talked most pleasantly of the Newmans, and reminded me of an incident I had long forgotten. While the Cardinal that now is was standing at the north side of the Altar at the old Margaret Street Chapel, a black cat suddenly descending, nobody knew whence, lighted on his shoulder and bounded off, nobody could see whither. Three or four years difference of age make much difference in mental recollections, and I was flattered to find the Primate had a distinct recollection of me in Oriel Common Room. He thanked me much for my book on Cardinal Morton. I had sent Lord Devon a copy also, and he very kindly had it laid on the drawing-room table. It had made the Primate acquainted with the very remarkable and utterly forgotten fact that his prede- cessor Morton had done the honours of Rome to the French King Charles VIII. and his army, on their return from the so-called conquest of Naples, when the Pope (Borgia) and all his own cardinals found it expedient to be out of the way at Orvieto. Morton had been present, with thirteen other cardinals, at the state reception of the king by the Pope, on the former's first passage through Rome, and had wit- nessed the succession of expedients by which each struggled to assert his pre-eminence. CANTERBURY AT ROME. 29 In regard to another matter, it was on his second visit that Charles VIII. laid the first stone of the Trinita di Monte, the first church in Rome with that dedica- tion, on the site of the temporary church used by his soldiers on their previous month's sojourn at Rome. The Primate kindly invited me to call at Lambeth the ensuing February, when he would take me over the Palace and show me what Morton had done there. I accepted the invitation, but when February came there was not a day I could have spared for so happy a pilgrimage. I was rural dean. I had to visit twenty churches, some near twenty miles off, and very inaccessible. I had to prepare candidates for Con- firmation. I had to accompany the Bishop in his little tour of the rural deanery. So I had to break my engagement. Calling at Lambeth later in the year, I found the Primate had left special directions that I was to be shown everything and receive all possible assistance. Having had to write to Golightly a few days before my visit to Powderham, I thought to amuse him by mentioning it. He wrote to me, enclosing a note ad- dressed to the Primate, with a particular injunction to deliver it with my own hand. This I did, though not quite liking the job. The note would not contain dynamite, but there are degrees of explosiveness. The Primate opened the note, glanced at its contents, and, with a pleasant smile, put it in his pocket. Going the round of our contemporaries, he took for granted I must have been well acquainted with his brother-in-law Spooner, whose influence had told so much on Mrs. Tait. I certainly remembered him 30 ARCHBISHOP TAIT AT POIVDERHAM CASTLE. very well as a mild and amiable member of our Oriel circle ; but he was several years my junior, and when I saw anything of him he was rather the recipient than the medium of impressions, and not even re- ceiving impressions in a demonstrative manner. It must have been in after years that he acquired force of character and of manner to impress his sister, indeed his brother-in-law too, as he appears to have done. But everybody who compares his early con- temporaries with their life careers will have been struck by the frequent discrepancy between the promise and the fulfilment, most apparent when really there had been no promise at all. I cannot for the life of me recall what led to my next move. It could not be any question as to my place in the Class List ; nor was it any allusion to my inconsistencies. I blurted out that most of the time I was at school, all the time I was at college, and for many years after, I had been under a very strange, if not absolutely evil, possession, a philosophy begotten in me, somehow or other, by my frequent conversation with an early instructor, the father of Mr. Herbert Spencer. The Primate was astonished and amused. Open- ing his eyes and his mouth, he awaited further revela- tions. I cannot have said a word on the matter for forty years, and how I came now to select the Primate of all England for my father confessor I can't conceive. I had to go on, and as I attempted to make things intelligible he asked me some per- tinent questions. Had I published anything on the subject ? How had it affected my writings generally ? In what respect did the process I had aimed at differ PHILOSOPHY AND LEGEND. 31 from the natural growth of all minds that is, all that do grow ? Of course he observed on the utter antagonism of such a method as that I tried to describe with the principles of the Oxford school. Though I wished to explain myself further, it was a happy deliverance when Lady Anne came up, pro- posed to introduce me to some one else in the room, took me off, and planted some one else tete-d-tete with the Archbishop. My monopoly of his presence had been long enough in all conscience, for I now remember I had favoured him with one of the derivations which experi- ence has taught me to inflict sparingly on old acquaint- ances. He alluded to my pictured chancel screen. What other figures were there ? These I enumerated. One I dwelt upon, either wholly forgetting what the Archbishop would have to say to it, or upon some latent suggestion. This was St. Sidwell. As painted on my chancel screen she carries a scythe over her shoulder, and her own head in her hands, a glory taking its place. The legend, I believe, is that upon some trial of her faith she fled across the corn-fields, and was pursued by the reapers, one of whom cut her head off with a sweep of his scythe. I derived the legend from its root, which I supposed to be the river Sid in my rural deanery. It is so called, I said, from its sinking or settling down into the shingle and sand before it reaches the sea. The Sid would have a source, which would be called Sidwell, as in the case of Clyst Wellham, corrupted into Clystwilliam in my own village. The locality of Sidwell would give a name to a family. This would be latinised into Sativola, the name of the saint. But Sativola if 32 ARCHBISHOP TAIT AT PO WDERHAM CASTLE. it means anything, means flying over a harvest-field. The martyrdom described would be a natural con- clusion, and my picture would be the orthodox repre- sentation. I added that no doubt the picture, which is not uncommon, had probably suggested the old story of the Irishman carrying a scythe over his shoulder, and, upon seeing a salmon in the water, striking it with the but-end of his implement, when, as the story goes, he cut off his own head and his neighbour's right ear. This I have seen in a caricature representing the head falling before him. As soon as I came to the name Sidwell the Arch- bishop said, ' Oh, come, let me hear about that name, for you know I am much interested in it.' As to my story he maintained a polite reserve. I see the Sit- wells of Rheinshaw derive the name from one Sca- wald, or Scadwald. There is not much to be made of old spelling. The English Liddells and the Irish Lidwills are of the same original stock, but the former derive the name from Lyddale. It must have been on the afternoon of Saturday that all went out together to the point where the pleasure-grounds resolved themselves into woods, and where one saw less of the castle and more of the country. The Primate had been well packed up in a Bath-chair, Lady Anne taking care of him. He invited me to accompany them round the woods. I suppose most people would say they would rather die than not accept such an invitation. That was exactly the choice I had to make ; so I felt ; and I concluded not to die immediately. It was cold. A DISAPPOINTMENT. 33 The air of the woods was dank. The pace had been a creeping one. The stoppages had been frequent. I felt a deadly chill coming up my arms. Three or four months before this I had had a serious warning, and had had to call in the doctor, the first time for half a century. It had, I believed, been the result of a chill. With extreme mortification, I declined, stating the reason ; and Lord Devon kindly took me at a brisk pace a wide reach round the domain, which may be described as an extensive spur of the Great Haldon, commanding the valley of the Exe. Among other remarkable specimens he showed me what I had not believed to be possible in this climate. It was a eucalyptus, that had attained the size of a full-grown forest-tree, with two feet diameter of solid wood. It was not the variety which runs into long pendent branches ; the leaves were small and few, affording little hope of further growth. It had never borne any of the blossoms whose beautiful and elaborate goblet-and-lid-shaped envelope gives the name to the tree. CHAPTER VII. RITUALISM. AT Powderham Castle there was morning and even- ing service in the chapel. This was part of the old building, whether originally a chapel I know not, but VOL. I. D 34 RITUALISM. now of a thoroughly ecclesiastical character. The chancel screen was temporary I think. In the order of the day, posted about the house, I saw that there was early Communion on Sunday. There had been some negotiation with the Bishop of the Diocese on the subject ; for though the community of a castle may be regarded as a parish, still there were parochial claims to be considered. Half-past seven had been selected as a time which would not come in compe- tition with any parish service. I think I was waked by the chapel bell, but I was in the chapel, though approached through a labyrinth of passages, before the bell went down. The congregation was assembled. The day before this I had turned to the right and taken a seat amongst the members of the household. I was now directed into the part enclosed by the screen, and I took my seat in a stall on the north side. In a minute, the Archbishop, in his overcoat, came in and took his seat opposite. In a minute more a door opened south of the Altar, and there came in the priest, and a very youth- ful attendant, both in embroidered vestments. Either there were frequent bowings and genuflections, cross- ings, an actual elevation of the Host, and a good deal more, or my imagination has overmastered me and supplied it all. The celebrant communicated in both kinds ; then administered in -both kinds to the acolyte, as I venture to call him. Then the Archbishop, crossing over, came and knelt at the rail towards my end of it. 1 took my place at his side. We received in both kinds and withdrew. Then THE CHASUBLE 35 came the family, the household, and the rest of the congregation, including about twenty young women of an industrial home I forget the exact name in the park, under Lady Anne's management. Alto- gether there must have been about fifty communi- cants. Everybody in and about the castle, I was told, communicated, except a stable-boy who had not yet been confirmed. We all went to the usual morning service at the village of Powderham. The church was full. Lord Devon read the lessons, and it was a pleasure to hear them so read. After service the Archbishop remained to look at the numerous Courtney monu- ments and the painted windows. I did also. On our leaving the church together, he turned round and asked, ' Did you ever see a chasuble worn at Com- munion before ? ' I had to make the disgraceful confession that I did not know what a chasuble was, and that I had supposed the vestment to be a cope. ' Oh no,' he replied, 'a cope encloses the whole body, leaving just room for the two hands, joined palm to palm, to come out in front,' and then he suited the action to the word. The chasuble is a close-fitting vestment, leaving the arms free, and designed appar- ently to save the ampler formation of the surplice from embarrassing the celebrant. Convenient as it is, and rather ungraceful, it is made the most of by a full-sized cross embroidered on the back. I cannot help asking my readers what creature wears a chasuble. Some will answer at once. Some would not for a hundred years. Look into any brook- flowing over gravel, and you may see a little bit of D 2 36 RITUALISM. straw, or wood, rolling over the pebbles, and coming to a short rest now and then. Fix your eyes on it, and you will see tiny legs before and behind. This is the caddis-worm, that envelops itself with a jacket of straw, or. of sand glued together, to protect its very frail structure from the points and edges upon which its lot is cast. The root of caddis and chasuble is the same. Anglers know the creature well, for it is a favourite bait ; but few of them can ever have invested it with ritualistic associations. ' I suppose,' said the Archbishop, ' all this would make a disturbance if done in a parish church.' I will not say that he added, ' People will do what they please in their own houses,' because it is what I have often said myself. The truth is, an English- man's house is his temple as well as his castle, and he reigns in it like the King of Salem, receiving homage from patriarchs and hierarchies. By the bye, has nobody with a good range of society favoured the public with a description of the many services and rituals he has had the happiness to join in ? Such a work might be commended to the attention of the gentleman who has published so many vivid pictures of the various orthodoxies and heterodoxies, and what not, to be found in the pulpits of the metropolis. ' But what opinion had the Archbishop himself of this ceremonial ? ' I seem to hear some of my readers asking. I cannot remember that he expressed either approval or disapproval. But this might be because 1 was myself in that mood. At dinner that day I found myself sitting next WHITHER THOU WOULDEST NOT. 37 the celebrant. ' I thought we should have the Arch- bishop's blessing this morning,' I said quite inno- cently. ' That is only when he takes a part in the service,' he replied. ' Otherwise his presence is not recognised.' I observed that I had been at services unconscious of the presence of a bishop, and only made aware of it by his giving the parting benedic- tion. ' They do that,' he said ; ' but it's quite wrong.' A rigid High Church friend of mine in the diocese goes beyond even the Powderham use. He has several times turned me bodily out of his chancel because I had not a surplice on, and I think him quite capable of turning out an archbishop too. The Archbishop was taken to visit the House of Mercy at Bovey Tracy, an institution conducted on High Church principles. I believe I was asked to join the party, but I could not have stood a drive of twenty miles or more in an open carriage in cold weather. Hard as I know myself to be, I should indeed have been hard not to be moved by the spectacle now for days before me. Here was a man who had attained the highest elevation possible to an English subject, only to feel the more acutely the most cruel blows of common affliction. A whole troop of little ones, his eldest son, his wife, and now the best part of his own powers and his confidence in them, had been taken away ; and, while charged with a high office and a mighty work, he had to feel that his part in it must be economised down to the strength of a child. The Canterbury succession contributes its full share to the lessons which chide ambition ; but for that 38 THE LATE PRIMATES LAST WORDS. protracted death to the world, which to those who bear it meekly is a living martyrdom, no example could beat this. I could not help being reminded of his Grace's great competitor in life's race alas, poor Yorick ! the late Bishop of Winchester. When Tait declined York, S. Wilberforce observed that no Scotchman was ever known to take the road to Scot- land. It would now be an interesting theme to com- pare their respective fortunes. S. Wilberforce was suddenly laid low, but was thereby spared a long agony, a tedious decay, and a memory charged with old and new, and still newer, sorrows. He left sons to sustain his honours, and to fight for his memory with all the pugnacity of the parent. Once again did I see the Archbishop, and that was in his own grounds, at a garden reception at Lambeth, calm, collected, and reserving his strength. I cannot remember whether it was then, or at our part- ing at Powderham Castle, that he alluded playfully to my day-dream of a new philosophy. CHAPTER VIII. THE LATE PRIMATE'S LAST WORDS. AFTER this account of my very recent and very interesting personal acquaintance with the Archbishop, I need scarcely describe indeed, I could hardly de- scribe how I felt his exceedingly kind notice of my book in ' Macmillan's Magazine.' He had bestowed EVANGELICALS. 39 on it almost the last of his strength. I have myself always found writing rather hard work, and I feared that even the fourteen columns he had given me might have contributed too much to the drain on his ebbing powers. The editor prefixed a note, which was unhappily rather out of date by the time most readers, including myself, could see it : ' The following article was written very shortly before the beginning of the serious illness from which the Archbishop is now happily recovering.' In the first week of October it was already known that the Archbishop's recovery would be slow, and was still doubtful. It was known too that he must spare himself and be spared. For some days I debated within myself whether I should write to his Grace, acknowledging his great kindness, and accepting, as I had every wish to do, and now solemnly do, his gentle rebuke for the asperity or rather exaggeration of my tone on the Evangelical party as I had known it sixty years ago. In my book I have spoken with affec- tion, or respect, of many Evangelical clergymen, numbering some of them among my dearest friends ; but I confess to an expression here and there of the sort that is apt to disfigure reminiscences and make them sour reading. But if I had written to the Archbishop at all I should certainly have felt myself obliged to respond to one particular passage, which I, and I suppose most people, regarded as the very point of the article. It had evidently been written carefully, and in full view of some chapters in my book which I had myself felt to require apology. I could not infer that the Archbishop agreed with me ; 40 THE LATE PRIMATE'S LAST WORDS. but, taking me at the worst, it was plain that he was prepared to claim toleration for me. The passage in ' Macmillan ' to which I refer is as follows : But meanwhile, throughout the length and breadth of England, what is the view of Christianity which is welcomed by the great mass of intelligent, religious men ? It is often said that Arnold is the father of the scepticism which unfortu- nately prevails so largely in much of our periodical literature, and those whom it leads. No statement can be more utterly untrue. Men point to the much loved character of Arthur Clough, and the way in which his faith seemed shaken from its foundations ; but his case was most peculiar exposed to the overwhelming influence of two contending torrents, one leading him to Rome, the other to the fathomless abyss of an unknown scepticism. It is not fair to argue from isolated and extraordinary examples. I repeat my opinion, that the life and letters of Dr. Arnold, and the last two volumes of his sermons, set forth that view of a comprehensive, loving, yet zealous Christian teaching, which approves itself to the conscience, and seeks to be embodied in the lives, cf the vast majority of intelli- gent persons throughout the kingdom. There is no talk here of high, or low, or broad. I believe that the best men of the time have a dislike of all ' schools of theology.' They desire a religion which shall save them and their neighbours in life and in death, without tying them up to unnatural phrases, or locking up their feet whether they will or no in the stocks of some antiquated system of discipline. Christ and God ever present, the Holy Spirit blowing where He listeth, the regu- larly ordained and familiar ordinances of the Church, are far more to them than any technical definitions or strict orders of the schools (p. 422). The whole article, and this paragraph in particular, became immediately the subject of excited and not quite respectful comment. It was described as 'super- ficial,' as indicating mental decay, and as something like a scandal, proceeding as it did from the pen of an Anglican Primate. Had I then ventured to make any ARNOLD. 41 acknowledgment, public or private, I had to consider well what I should say. This was a matter beset with difficulties, among which my own prejudices were not the least. I could not easily, or rightly, detach the consummation here desired from Arnold's teaching, and I know little or nothing of his later sermons and their final development. From the date of his unfor- tunate article on the ' Oxford Malignants ' to his death, I had been in Salisbury Plain, seeing no new publications except those sent to me. I shared the universal shock of the news of his sudden death. There reached me various reports of his softening of character, and his tenderness towards Newman. These reports, as it appears, multiplied the fact in my apprehension, for I am told that on his coming up to read his Lectures he met Newman only once, and could have but a short talk with him. Anyhow, I find myself incapable of discussing Arnold's opinions or wishes, and I must be content to leave them out of account. The matter seemed to lie between the Archbishop and myself, and I felt I could not address him without seeming to ask for some sifting of words and compari- son of ideas, either binding him to what he had said, or suggesting qualifications. I must not be in a hurry. Who would extract further admissions, or seek con- troversy, with a man on a sick bed ? At all events he would wait there for me. Soon one heard of the fatal relapse, and, after a long hanging between life and death, all was over. The words remain, and it would argue strange insensibility, and a still worse indifference, to a great 42 THE LATE PRIMATE'S LAST WORDS. question not to follow up what certainly reads like an invitation. I could not, at least I did not, avail my- self of the Primate's invitation to walk by his side round the Powderham domain, or his very express invitation to go with him the round of his own palace. But I can plead no infirmities, no engage- ments now, and I will do what I can to make up for my former defaults. But before I enter upon this very serious under- taking, I must take a hint from the poor lady in the ' Arabian Nights.' As I am about to offer myself for execution, I will obtain at least a long respite. It will not be in this chapter, or in the next, or for many a chapter, or even in this volume, that I shall distinctly offer myself as a messenger of peace from the late Archbishop's deathbed. I am entitled nay, I am bound to say what I am. I find myself described as a ' journalist,' above all things ; as out of my place in Orders or in the Church of England ; as more than half an Arian ; as bizarre, confused, half Popish, half rational ; as not knowing, or very much caring, what I am ; and as leaving others in a perplexity more painful to them than to myself. It would be tedious to enumerate all the pretty compliments of this sort that have been paid me. As these writers are anonymous, I do not know whether they are clergymen or not, but they seem to think of me exactly what I think of them viz. that they are but amateur theologians, with no body or basis of theology, and making up for the want of it by sharp criticisms. A large portion of our Christian people substitute SOMETHING MORE THAN A WRITER. 43 denunciation for religion. Possibly, however, some of these might be honest in their opinion that I knew and cared more about other matters than theology, or any spiritual question. With a little inquiry, these honest folks might have ascertained that I have had the charge of rural parishes altogether twenty-eight years ; and with a little more inquiry they might have learnt that I have resided as regularly and stuck to my duties as closely as any of my predecessors or succes- sors, and that I had always evidently taken pains in my preaching and teaching, as to what I should say in the pulpit, the cottage, and the school. CHAPTER IX. A PARSON FROM THE CRADLE. I CANNOT remember the time when I was not to be a parson, but what marked me for it is more than I can say. I was always unready. I never could answer a question sharply put. At the end of every term at Oriel I had to appear before the Provost and Tutors, and to be examined in the work of the term. I had all my books with me. The instant I put them down on the table the Provost invariably asked, 1 What have you been doing this term, Mr. Mozley ? ' and then, with the books before me, I could never answer a word. I was never either fluent, or distinct. I was never completely intelligible, or, indeed, always audible. 44 A PARSON FROM THE CRADLE. I was very liable to momentary forgets, transposi- tions and misplacings of words. When our chapel was being enlarged at Charterhouse we had our Sunday services in the Under School, and once or twice Russell called on me to read the Lessons. I still see the looks and hear the tones elicited by my reading, with all the energy I could muster, ' Your tires shall be upon your feet, and your shoes upon your heads.' I had never much presence or variety of accom- plishment. I remember Thackeray, after enlarging on the high qualities and multifarious acquirements of John Oxenford, turning round to me, and, whether to soften or to enforce the implied com- parison, adding, ' Oh, you're a bishop, but Oxenford's a man ! ' But this was not meant to be a compli- mentary recognition of my clerical character. As a simple fact, till I went to Charterhouse I was weak, puny, and, I am afraid, fractious, and rather mischievous ; as well as shy, absent, and slow. Oftener than my brothers I received from my father the gentle rebuke, ' You've as many megrims as a dancing bear.' When I began to see London people they wondered at the length of time it took to get an answer from me. A conversation with me was like a game of chess -by the post. I was clearly unfit for business. My serious thoughts ran in the clerical direction, and I have related elsewhere how eagerly I took the cue offered me in the incident of the ' Country Spec- tator.' It was not that I thought of Orders as the road to promotion. My brother James always showed CLERICAL DREAMS. 45 a just appreciation of dignities. I never did. They involved too much responsibility, trouble, and self- restraint. We both of us wished to be preachers : yet our dreams were different. He very early wished to be in the pulpit what he came to be in his publica- tions rather than in the pulpit, a great propounder of grand arguments and new truths. With him official as well as personal authority was to be something in the scale. He was to be introduced enough to pre- sent himself well to his hearers and to discard mere tricks of eloquence. At thirteen I brought James up to Oxford to stand at Corpus, and both then and on subsequent occasions had him under my care in lodgings. What incessant questions did he ask about every variety of academical vestment, every bell he heard, and every trifling ceremony ! Always too much wrapped in myself I felt torn inside out, but I answered him, doing my duty much like the iniquce mentis aselhis. Then what was my own clerical dream, if I did not dream of palaces and deaneries, or even of Uni- versity pulpits ? My dream, so far like my brother's, embraced passive and active elements, the former the groundwork of the latter. I was to be of the true seed of Aaron, and to grow up easily and quietly as an olive in the House of the Lord. Reverence was what I chiefly asked for ; but it was a very absorbing and comfortable idea, something one could always fall back upon. But reverence is a very passive idea. You can reverence with very little effort or demon- stration, and be reverenced with no stronger claims than that you are simply posing for it. Long after I 46 A PARSON FROM THE CRADLE. had ceased to be young, a Scotch lady, who had the invaluable gift of speaking her mind freely without giving offence, said, ' Mr. Mozley, you always look as if you expected to be worshipped.' It was too near the truth. I had always felt I had a right to be lis- tened to. But a dream, if it condescends to human affairs, must have some active element, and this in my case was a wish to be eloquent, not in a showy and declamatory fashion, but by appeals to those who already thought and felt as I did. At my Derby school we had to learn by heart bits of forensic or parliamentary eloquence ; but these I did not care for, and never learnt them well. Most prob- ably I did not understand them. With this very trifling exception, there was nothing in my education to develop any power of speech. The fact tha-t all the living eloquence was then on the side of revolu- tionists and dissenters enemies of Church and State was against it in our little circle. Orthodoxy and loyalty must be studied, written, and dry. I used to attend the Assizes regularly, and I heard very good speaking, but it gave me no wish to be a barrister. Indeed, I could never hope to be as humor- ous as Vaughan, as logical and dogged as Clarke, or as silver-tongued as Denman. From 1815 to 1832 there was not a single Derby clergyman who could be called eloquent, though no doubt they said much that I had better have listened well to. But during this period, and long before, there were many preachers, not of the Church of England, very eloquent in their respective ways, and wherever they came they drew crowds of eager SOME GREAT PREACHERS. 47 listeners. Domestic servants generally went where they pleased, and took the children where they pleased. I remember being taken to hear a great dissenting preacher at Gainsborough. At Derby I heard Robert Hall, and some Wesleyan stars. In town I heard Rowland Hill, Edward Irving, and other well-known preachers. Everybody returning home from a fort- night in town was asked what preachers he had heard, and what he thought of them. Extempore preaching was very rare in those days, and was thought almost miraculous. It was just be- ginning to find a place in education. In some religious families the little children were taught to preach, or at least to write short sermons. William Cayley, in my house at Charterhouse, used to boast that he preached at home every Sunday. He did not want for courage or for tongue. But to none of the examples I have named could I ascribe my ineffectual aspiration after eloquence. Robert Hall was fluent, easy, and agreeable ; but he was monotonous, he seldom rose to eloquence, he made no hits, and he had a snuffle which could not but annoy strangers. Rowland Hill, when I heard him, was long past his best days, and I remember him with reverence and a certain liking rather than anything to call admiration. Edward Irving was a prodigy, but not in my lines. His sentences were so long and so involved that no organ but his own could have taken a hearer into them or out of them. It was such a work of intonation and accentuation. I heard him preach for more than two hours my father thought it had been only one hour and I was sorry when he 48 A PARSON FROM THE CRADLE. stopped ; but he inspired no rivalry. The Wesleyan preachers I heard were earnest and vigorous, but jarred a little on one's taste. In proportion as all these preachers were classical, or what we should call educated, they introduced little Scripture. In proportion as they quoted texts they failed in style. But when style, that is, good taste, is once given up there ensues descent to a lower and still lower depth. For really powerful preaching all depends on that earnestness of tone and manner which implies and conveys absolute conviction. But this requires very little education nay, it finds in education its greatest difficulty. The most ignorant and unin- formed man can deal with a few simple truths better than the scholar who has been elaborating them into form all his life, and he can apply a score or two familiar texts better than the well-read critic or polemic. Had the plan of my life been an intention and a design, deliberately formed in a manner I was con- scious of, and for tangible reasons, I might have pursued it better and more consistently. As it was I allowed other fancies to come in the way, without much caring how far they were compatible with what I simply believed to be my destiny ; just as the old Pagan divinities exercised much free will and licence under cover of certain irresistible Fates. Any time from eight years old to fifteen I should have been delighted to run away from school or home, and find myself at sea anywhere between the Equator and the Poles, fighting Frenchmen or whales, no matter which. But as it would be wrong, and was also THE AMPHIBIOUS INSTINCT. 49 impossible, I could only dream, and my clerical destination was a fact. The sight of water in any quantity always took me out of myself, and seemed to change my very nature. A broad river reach, a good big pond, or a swimming-bath was enough. Is this inherited, or an accident of early formation ? Are we chickens, or ducklings, or sea-gulls from the egg? I stood one bright summer's day on Filey Brigg with my father, watching the clear blue waves rising far above our heads and falling in white foam at our feet, and felt an almost irresistible desire to plunge into the rising and falling wall of waters. My father remon- strated. I thought I knew better, but, happily, obeyed. Some years after, late in an evening, I was actually on the point of going into a pretty considerable surf in Alum Bay, in the Isle of Wight. Some men chanced to come up, and one of them said, ' Sir, if you go into that water you will never come out again.' Scarcely believing the warning, I felt it my duty to act upon it. Taking headers into the pool under the floodgates below Sandford Lasher was one of the most delightful of my Oxford enjoyments. It is an excellent imita- tion of danger, with just enough of the reality, for lives have been lost there, besides some placed in great jeopardy. I have seen the like instinct frequently cropping up under apparently adverse conditions. A bright farmer's daughter exclaimed one day, ' I do so love the water ! ' As two of her brothers were at sea, and the sea itself was not more than a dozen miles off, I VOL. I. E 50 PARSONS AND PARSONS. thought she might have had a taste, or at least a sight, of the sea. On my asking the question it appeared she had never seen a larger piece of water than her father's cattle-pond. CHAPTER X. PARSONS AND PARSONS. VERY early an old Gainsborough friend of our family, whom I and my brother John visited after our migra- tion to Derby, said my father had made a great mistake in marking out John for the man of business, and me for the parson. I rather think my brother thought so too. He was too dutiful even to complain, though his innermost heart's wish was to go to college. But when his elder brother broke loose from the business, John had to be put in his place. For myself I never doubted or criticised my clerical destination. There are those who think such destinations in- jurious. They would rather a man graduated in some other vocation, and in that way mixed upon more equal terms with the world : well in it, and rising through it, before claiming to be wiser or better than it. My own experience, but I must confess also my own predilections, are much in favour of the priest, or the Levite, or at least the Nazarite, from his birth. It is something to fall back upon, and that cannot be easily shaken off. My own retrospect suggests that there is much ARCHIBALD FOX. 51 more to be said for another objection to the common run of clerical careers. That objection is, that you set a man to preach to others for the salvation of their souls, who never felt the least anxiety as to the salvation of his own. He is to cry danger who never felt it ; he is to invite to a banquet who never hun- gered, to wells of life who never knew thirst Speak- ing for myself, I cannot remember ever to have felt a misgiving as to my own salvation. I was, so I felt, on the right road. I might diverge into flowery paths on the right hand or the left, but the road was still in sight, and easily regained. I might rest, and be too thankful, but a little extra exertion would soon make up for lost time. There was always the sense that I was saved. I remember having an hour's discussion with Archibald Fox, a pupil of Chalmers, in which he argued that every Christian course must be preceded by a terrible trial, a struggle between life and death, the agonies of one dying to the world before hi? spiritual rising again in Christ. I maintained that such moods were exceptional ; I think I even believed them to be morbid. True growth in grace I believed to be regular, like the growth of a healthy plant or a vigorous human frame. As for healthy plants and vigorous frames, perhaps the less .1 now say about them the better ; but I now cannot help seeing that few men, if any, have had much power, or even desire, to win souls who have not themselves gone through the dark and dismal passage which poor Archibald described, and from which I fear he never himself completely emerged. E 2 52 PARSONS AND PARSONS. My ideas of eloquence began, and ended, with the eloquence of the Bible. Of course, such a model must end as it began, unless I could believe myself inspired like Malachi Macbriars. The sublime poetry of the Old Testament, and the words of our Lord, defy imitation. There is nothing equal or second to them and woe to the rash imitator ! When the preacher mounted the pulpit to address listeners fresh from these sublime utterances, they could not but feel a vast interval. But in this very interval was there not space for something better than the pulpit eloquence of the period ? Meanwhile, for many years, there was no pressure upon me. I had not to preach ; I might still indulge in a dream without putting it to proof. At length I had to prove it. I took orders, and had to preach. I soon found that I could not hope to be eloquent. I had grown into a priest, but not into an orator. My pleasant ideas of spontaneous growth and happy development had been a bad foundation for the acquirement of a gift which eminently demands application and exercise. An old friend of mine, at once shrewd and kind, once told me that he would answer for my emptying any church, give me time for it. Happily I had been long before him in the discovery. I had a good deal to make up for, and by every means in my power I had to compensate for the want of the one special gift which, it may be said, dispenses with all other means of attraction, or usefulness. I could teach, for I had learnt that at Charterhouse. I cculd show, what indeed I felt, a neighbourly and WHAT I COULD DO, WHAT 1 COULD NOT. 53 even pastoral interest in those that Heaven had entrusted to my care. From childhood I had felt with passion, indeed with weakness, the sufferings, the indignities, of poor working-people. The senti- ment found more scope in the country than in the town, where labour marshalls itself into armies and assumes an arrogant bearing. For the first four years that I was in orders I had my fellowship as well as my living, and was a bachelor a rich man indeed, so far as means could make me. I could easily and honestly be liberal with my money, and this sort of charity both the giver and the receiver feel to cover many sins. All these subsidiary and adventitious aids I employed to make myself as acceptable and useful as my defects of enunciation and expression would allow. I could not envy gifts which I could not attain. I had no right to complain that Heaven had given me some of its gifts, the rest to others. I feel very sure that I would rather have stood in my shoes, and in threadbare garments, or even in a labourer's smock frock, with nothing on earth T could call my own, able to constrain the ears and hearts of a rustic crowd to the message of mercy and grace, than be the possessor of all that Fortune could bestow in her fondest and most capricious mood. Such was the spirit, and such the measure of myself, and with that I began a clerical career not continuous indeed, yet never completely interrupted now extending over half a century. Have I a right to speak on matters deeply af- fecting the position and efficiency of the Church of 54 FROM CONISBOROUGH TO DONCASTER. England ? It has been denied. I have been told that I am not really of her, and that I am more of the world than of the Church. As far as regards the claim of the world to regard me as her son, I often think of the saying of a nobleman to Lord Anson, the circumnavigator, ' My lord, you have been round the world, but never in it' If I am in anything it is the Church of England, not the world : that is, I am in and of the Church of England, but not as far as it is the Church of the world. CHAPTER XL FROM CONISBOROUGH TO DONCASTER. WHO am I ? How came I here, before you, my reader ? How was I formed ? How did I form myself ? How far was I formed by birth, circum- stances, and what people call accidents ? These are questions which everybody may well ask himself from time to time, for they affect his responsibility they should instil caution, they should move gratitude. In the interest of truth it is wise to inquire, from time to time, how one has been led up to it, how far possibly led away from it. Few of us know how much we owe to parentage, to our country, and to the religious community we were born in. But these are not everything. That were as much as to say that there is no truth at all, and no promise of a Power leading to all truth. Moreover, readers and THE FOUNDER OF OUR FAMILY. 55 hearers have a voice in this matter. It is always assumed, with good reason, that anybody who cares to read what a man has to say on important subjects may wish to know something about him. First for my ancestry. Now, my dear grandson, my good nephews and nieces, and great-nephews and nieces, do not excite yourselves. I seem to hear you exclaim, ' Pray give us somebody to be proud of ; or hold your tongue.' I will do the best I can for you. I cannot give you a Norman knight, or a Scandi- navian pirate. I cannot give you a rebel, or a Church robber, or a regicide. Our name is Saxon, and describes the wide, spongy, irregular lane, or 'green,' forming the approach to a village, much cut by wheel-track, and potched, or trod into ' pockets,' by cattle. There are, or were, many such ; so of course there are many of our name, spelt in one way or another. But our name represents only one line of ancestry. I must have had about a hundred ancestors living two hundred years ago, all contri- buting to the blood that flows in these veins ; but I will take the particular ancestor that I happen to know something about. He lived at Conis- borough, in Yorkshire. In the reign of Edward III., one William Mosley was Constable of Conisborough Castle. Why do I mention him ? I seem to see my nephews and nieces reassuring themselves. Wnat reason have I to think that we are descended from him ? None whatever that I know, beyond the name. There is no external evidence, or internal either. I am sure that I should not myself ever have made a Constable of a Castle. 56 FROM CONISBOROVGH TO DONC ASTER. I doubt whether I should have kept the enemy out, but I am certain I should not have kept the garrison itself in order, or duly economised the provisions. In my best days I should never have been fit for a place in the constabulary of our times. I should neither have been terrible to pickpockets, nor wel- come to the area. A good many years ago I was walking down St. James's Street one afternoon, when I saw Denison and Woodgate walking up arm in arm. ' These fellows have been lunching,' I said to myself. The instant of our encounter Denison exclaimed, for me to hear, ' Here comes Mozley. Doesn't he look like a police- man?' As far as I can see myself, I think I might be imagined a 'detective.' In Berkshire a policeman, stationed I believe on my special account, took much needless care of me for several years. At last, for an indiscretion that is, for knocking a disorderly ruffian down and not duly reporting it, thus giving the ruffian the whip-hand of officers and magistrates he was degraded. There- upon he hastily resigned. So the authorities sent him down to find out the pilferers and purloiners at the Portsmouth dockyards. In a very short time his body was found in the dock. I might myself have achieved that brief career, with its little halo of sentimental regards. But I must return to Conisborough. Some time before the Glorious Revolution there was born there my great-great-grandfather. He was a weaver whether master or man, I know not. He was prob- ably both, for in those days the men worked their A WEAVER* S SON. 57 own looms. He had fourteen children, whose educa- tion had to be neglected. It was not, however, for- gotten. ' If you want education you must get it yourselves,' was the stern decree. My great-grand- father Henry saw only one escape from the misery and ignorance about him. He had already been taking lessons in the school of nature, seeing what animals did at the last pinch, and learning a little of their craft. Playing one day on the mound of the famous ' Keep,' he saw a tired fox creep up and disappear in a hole in a wall. The huntsmen soon came. ' Have you seen the fox ? ' one of them asked sharply. ' I don't know where he is,' was the evasive reply, which time did not allow them to question. My ancestor accordingly, at a very early age, hired himself to a farmer to follow the plough one day and go to school the other. He had to keep himself, and he lived on oatcake and oatmeal por- ridge. He must have made great progress, for at a very early age he went to an attorney's office at Doncaster in some humble capacity, and no doubt did much engrossing, for he became an exquisite penman. He was also a good accountant, and he must have been a great reader. My own handwriting not that which now meets the compositor's eye, but such as it was in its golden age, and before I wasted the precious patrimony in scribbling is no doubt direct, through three descents, from the weaver's son and from Conisborough school. My father's hand was always as good as copperplate. Every line of it might have been engraved as a copy 58 FROM CONISBOPOUGH TO DONCASTER. at the head of a page in an exercise-book. I may say that my father never wrote a single letter of our rather slippery alphabet out of shape. But it was the hand of a schoolmaster, or of a banker's clerk, whereas the weaver's son wrote the hand of a scholar of the good old school. My father was his grandfather's pet and favourite, as I became his ; and was most like his grandfather as I was most like him. Adoption, in the old Roman sense, has very little place in English law or usage. Families are generally large enough to dispense with the necessity, while ba- chelors are generally too independent to fetter them- selves with quasi- parental obligations. But adoption within the family that is, the acceptance of a child as inheriting the largest share of the parent's nature is common enough, and frequently inevitable. Notwithstanding the chance of encountering un- desirable relatives, my father always hailed back to Conisborough, as the nest of the family. In 1842, three years before his death, he took me to Gainsborough, spending a night at Conisborough on the way. I afterwards found that my mother had wished to accompany him, but he preferred me. This was to be a pilgrimage, not a progress. After exam- ining the Castle, we walked into the village. Immedi- ately upon our entering it, a pretty girl of thirteen or so left a group in advance of us, walked up to my father, and, with a slight curtesy, presented him with a bouquet. Without waiting for any kind of reply, she turned on her heels and rejoined her companions. I was sentimental or superstitious enough to feel it must signify something that I did not know of. LIVE AND LEARN. 59 Our quarters at the village inn were straitened, and we occupied the same bedroom. In the morning I put on my coat and waistcoat together, as I always did. My father was astonished. He had never seen it done before, and it did not seem to have occurred to him that it was possible. Yet my father was a very ingenious man. I remember him frequently throwing a lighted paper into his boots before drawing them on, in the belief that a certain amount of suction would follow the cooling of the heated air. The belief itself would be a substantial element in the process. My father wore spectacles from the age of fifteen. Going out birds'- nesting with his schoolfellows, he found that any of them would see a nest before he did. This led to the discovery that his eyesight was at fault, and that both for near and for distant objects. For nearly as long as I can remember he wore spectacles of four different foci. The two eyes required different foci, and each glass was subdivided into an upper focus for walking, and a lower focus for reading. He had often to ex- plain this, for to the uninitiated it looked as if the glasses were broken. CHAPTER XII. FROM DONCASTER TO GAINSBOROUGH. FROM Doncaster, the weaver's son went to Gains- borough. To modern ideas, at least to such as prevail in the south of England, this must seem a downward 60 FROM DONCASTER TO GAINSBOROUGH. step, but I am not quite sure that even in these days any one in that region, having to make his way in the world, would so regard it. Gainsborough was then rapidly rising as an inland port for London and Baltic shipping on the one hand, and for canals, or ' navigations ' as they were called, on the other. Lincoln was no longer a port. This may seem very superfluous information to some of my readers, so I must explain. The Romans, though able now and then to make a great effort and scour the seas, generally relied on their military system, their hold of the strong points, their frontier fortifications and garrisons, and their lines of communication. They preferred to be at a little distance from the open sea. They made, or possibly only improved, a canal from Lincoln to Torksey, eight miles off, on the Trent, protecting the junction with a strong castle. When the Danes came on the scene, they were menacing, invading, and for long periods occupying the land from the sea, of which they had command ; and for this purpose they preferred Gainsborough to Lincoln. From Gainsborough they commanded all Lindsey that is, the northern half of Lincolnshire and could provision their fleets and sally forth to land, in a few days, on any part of the eastern or south-eastern coast. As soon as the Normans had established their supremacy over both Saxon and Dane, they seem to have reverted to the Roman plan of occupation. In 1 1 21, Henry I. cleared out the canal from Lincoln to Torksey, and rebuilt the castle at the junction. The result was that eighty years after, in the reign of THE ROMAN, AND THE DANISH PORT. 61 John, Lincoln was the fourth port in the kingdom, its trade being only exceeded, and that not consider- ably, by London, Boston, and Southampton. The canal, however, required continual scouring, and must have fallen into bad condition in the Wars of the Roses. A Bishop of Lincoln then cleared and deepened the channel half the way from the Trent to Lincoln, when the work was stopped by his death, and by the Reformation, which disabled bishops from attempting great works, and set nobody in their place to do them. Taylor, the Water Poet, has left us a humorous account of a voyage made in the Forcedike Flood, as it was inappropriately called, in the reign of Charles I. It took him nine hours to do the eight miles, so much was the passage obstructed by shallows, mud, and weeds, and it was often as much as his nine men could do to draw the boat like so many horses. My great-grandfather seems to have had a good many irons in the fire, trying first one employment, then another, all apparently with success. He kept a school long enough to have scholars that did him credit and were grateful. He was an accountant and as such was frequently consulted by tradesmen in difficulties, and invited to arbitrate in disputes. He made many wills dealing with considerable pro- perties. The duplicate of the will he made for his own father is a model of penmanship and of just expression. For some time he was a grocer. For a longer time he had a windmill for the crushing of linseed. The mill I remember, but the sails had now given place to steam. The particular 62 FROM DONCASTER TO GAINSBOROUGH. process I remember to have witnessed was the forma- tion of oil-cakes by the descent of heavy weights upon horsehair bags rilled with linseed, already crushed, I suppose. There were plenty of windmills, even to my days, great and small. On high ground, a little out of Gainsborough, was a subscription windmill, as lofty as a good church tower, with a gallery round, and an automatic steering apparatus to bring the six enormous sails always to face the wind. In the outskirts of Hull there must have been twenty such mills, presenting a most formidable aspect. In the immediate neighbourhood of Nottingham there were scores of windmills, more on the scale of Don Quixote's imaginary army of giants, against which he tilted with such disastrous consequences. In 1832, I found at Moreton Pinckney a windmill which had stood in the parish two hundred years before, and had been moved twenty miles into Warwickshire, to return home again, where I found it. But windmills are now almost gone, and water-mills are following fast. The only ' Mill on the Floss ' that I can remember was an oil-mill, that is, one for crushing linseed, on the Nottinghamshire side of the Trent, one of the three oil-mills in or about the town. I have always sup- posed it worked by steam. As I write this I hear the measured and musical cadence of the three weights raised and dropped in succession on the bags of linseed. Finally, my great-grandfather started bookselling, to which his son John added printing. Now more than a century ago the latter sent for a printing-press MERSES PROF UNDO, PULCRIOR EVE NIT. 63 from Edinburgh. It went down in a gale at sea, but its place was supplied by a better, for the printing- press was then rapidly improving. Spalding, Stam- ford, and Leeds were literary centres early last century, but I doubt whether there was a printing-press in the northern part of Lincolnshire, the Isle of Lindsey, as it used to be called, or in the adjacent parts of Notting- hamshire when my grandfather was printing in 1778. It must have been the first important work of his press that now lies before me bearing that date. It is ' The Christian's Universal Companion, containing the whole Prayer Book, with Notes, a Week's Prepar- ation, a Companion to the Altar, a Manual of Private Devotion, and Tate and Brady's Version.' It is really a good book, only just suggestive of a design to evade the monopoly of the Universities and of the King's Printer. My grandfather was a favourite in the Gains- borough world, but died young of gout. His father, the founder of our family, survived to 1788, leaving what in those days was a very handsome fortune to be divided between four or five grandchildren. The father and son subscribed each a hundred pounds to the building of the bridge over the Trent and the turnpike-road to Retford, not completed till three years after the death of the survivor. I do not know whether I ought to thank my great- grandfather for changing the spelling of my name from Mosley to Mozley. The family tradition is that he had good reasons for distinguishing himself from some of the Conisborough weaver's numerous progeny. Thanks to my own father and brothers, the new spelling now holds its own and wants no changing. 64 FROM DO NC ASTER TO GAINSBOROUGH. Thus, at a very critical time, a business with a large opening devolved upon my father, then a lad of fifteen. He had brothers, but their tastes clashed. It was a case for undivided management, and my father, if not quite autocratic, was always disposed to be single-handed. One brother went into the army, another into the mercantile navy first the East Indian, then the West Indian. I have no knowledge of the retail part of the business, if there ever was a retail part. There was none within my recollection. This I state as a simple fact, for I have always had much respect for shop- keepers, holding them to have the advantage of ' mer- chants ' as they love to be called manufacturers, and warehousemen, in some important respects. The snopkeeper converses with a greater variety of classes and characters. He is bound to be polite ; to be all things to all men, women, and children ; to come into immediate contact with people's wants and fancies, and to be continually practising the little arts of rhetoric which are not to be despised. I can never forget that the first European convert to the gospel, of whom we have any particulars, was a shopkeeper, a stallkeeper perhaps, the representa- tive of one of the many firms of clothiers and dyers at Thyatira. In the thick of a great competition, and among gold-diggers and travellers of all nations, she was pursuing her trade with the usual clever instincts and kindly feelings of the shopkeeping class, and now she had something better to tell of and to offer, at least on one day of the week. The more exalted class ensconces itself in counting- MERCHANTS AND SHOPKEEPERS. 65 houses and warehouses ; it sits surrounded by ledgers and mercantile directories ; it communicates with none but its own class, its own clerks, and its own work- people. The practice of lying freely ascribed to shopkeepers need not be fatal to self-respect, or ab- solutely to truth, for the people at the bazaars in the East lie enough, and remain gentlemen, and even men of honour. Wholesale people lie wholesale. Bona- parte would have been nearer the truth if he had called us a nation of merchants and manufacturers instead of a nation of shopkeepers. I have frequently had occasion to notice that mer- chants are bad advisers in political questions. They are very greedy and exacting. They want everything to run just their own way. They quarrel with every- thing and everybody that does not quite suit their cards. They would be ready to provoke a war with all the world to obtain a monopoly of custom. At Gainsborough, which was an insignificant market-town, but a very considerable inland port, the social ascendency of the wholesale class was complete. A population of five or six thousand people in an agri- cultural neighbourhood could not create a local trade that might vie with the opportunities of a wholesale or carrying trade. The owners of wharves, ware- houses, ships, and shares in commercial enterprises became rich some at least. They speculated in the market of the world. They made ' corners ' in tallow, oil, linseed, flax, hemp, hides, timber, pitch, and metals. As soon as they had made a few thousands they enlarged and decorated their houses, getting new furniture from town or from the Continent. They VOL. I. F 66 FROM DONC ASTER TO GAINSBOROUGH. made fresh starts in politics and religion, generally with a view to mark their social superiority. They proclaimed their success in great entertainments, sometimes given once for all. I well remember such a 'house-warming' on Mor- ton Terrace, after the fortunate issue of a speculation in tallow. All the gentility of the town was there, generally examining with evil eyes the new furniture and upholstery. At the close of the evening a lady running along a passage in quest of her cloak came on a tallow candle, and exclaimed, for all to hear, ' What ! mutton, in all this finery ! ' Lincolnshire men share with Scotchmen a reputation for being rather slow to take in a joke. It was not till quite the other day that it suddenly flashed on me this was a cut at the host's successful hit in tallow. But ostentation is often a matter of business, and extravagance a speculation. My father was one of the Commissioners of Income Tax. After a long run of prosperity a merchant made a very bad failure. For many years he had returned for assessment profits to the amount of several thousands. On examination of his books it was found that he had never made any profits at all. T. FANS HA W MIDDLETON. 67 CHAPTER XIII. THE 'COUNTRY SPECTATOR.' IN the year 1792, before my father had completed his nineteenth year, there came to Gainsborough Mr. T. Fanshaw Middleton, the future Vicar of St. Pan- eras, and the first Bishop of Calcutta. At Christ's Hospital he had been for several years the school- fellow and friend of S. T. Coleridge and Charles Lamb, the former of whom had followed him to Cambridge, and had been there his most loved and cherished companion. Shortly after coming to Gains- borough he commenced, through my father, the weekly publication of the ' Country Spectator ' I suppose the first periodical the town had produced. The wit is of the period, and the style is of the century. We must remember that even Charles Lamb did not im- mediately ripen into the style we all identify with him. From childhood the book always had a great fascina- tion for me, insomuch that I am hardly in a condition to criticise, especially as I should have to admit that here and there the taste is questionable. The papers are always interesting, and also instructive, if we choose so to apply them. I might expect to find more about my native town, and also more about the stirring events of the period, for the Revolution was then raging across the Channel ; but the book is really F 2 68 THE 'COUNTRY SPECTATOR: an outpouring of old thoughts. I content myself with quoting a single paper, which may be considered a fair specimen. NUMBER V. TUESDAY, 6 November, 1792. Audire est operce pretium, procedere recte Qui rem Romanam Latiumque augescere vultis. ENNIUS. Thou, that in NEWS-ROOM holdest fierce debate On Britain's glory or its fallen state, ' To thee I call : ' with willing ear attend, And hear the counsels of your COUNTRY friend : Small is my fee ; for who would e'er delay TWO-PENCE for wisdom or for wit to pay ? The passion for News and the love of dabbling in Politics, which distinguish our nation above all others, are not confined to the Capital alone, but have found their way to the remotest parts of the kingdom. In confirmation of this remark, we may observe that in almost every market-town a room is set apart for the use of those, who wish to be acquainted with the events of the day. Hither Country Politicians and rural statesmen hasten on the arrival of the Post from London, and according to their different tenets vilify or extol the Constitution. The News-Room is a place of so general resort, and is productive of so many advantages, not only to those who frequent it, but to the body of the people in the Country, that it well deserves the notice and commendation of the Country Spectator. I shall, therefore, devote to-day's specu- lation to a display of the great utility of News-Rooms, and shall subjoin a few rules, which may be of use to the company, who assemble there. Since, however, it is scarcely possible that I should write on such a subject without betraying my own Political sentiments, and since I do not wish to make proselytes of my Readers by taking them off their guard, I think proper to admonish them, that I myself am a stanch friend to Demo- cracy. It is not necessary that I should give my particular Reasons for having espoused the cause of the people, since nine THE NEWS-ROOM. 69 Authors out of ten have done the same, and since it seems perfectly natural that they all should do so. If a declaimer can by his eloquence persuade the people that they are oppressed by their governors, and can incite them to take the power into their own hands, he may surely hope to be rewarded for having meliorated their condition : and tho' there is some danger that his zeal for their happiness may be misconstrued into turbu- lence and sedition, and that the mob, blind to their own interest, may turn with fury on their Teachers, yet what can they do to us Authors ? They cannot give vent to their resent- ment by laying waste our land; and as to our houses^ we live in lodgings. In estimating the benefits, which every Town derives from its News-Room, we must consider how far it contributes, by reducing the price of News, to make the inhabitants better acquainted with the Papers. It is not possible to form any accurate calculations on this head, as it must depend on many extraneous circumstances, which no calculator can take into the account. We may, perhaps, lay it down as a general rule, that of the subscribers to every Room, not above one in ten would take in a Paper to himself. I shall, therefore, in my enumeration of the advantages arising from these admirable institutions, consider them as solely producing an effect, to which they contribute in so great a degree. The News-Room, then, is a source of useful information to all who visit it. The Papers, it is well known, are among the most instructive and elegant compositions of the present day. They seldom, indeed, display much extent of learning or depth of thought ; these they very prudently leave to the compilers of those huge musty volumes, which load the shelves of libraries ; but they teach us (what are of infinitely greater importance) life and manners, and acquaint us with the most interesting events of the age in which we live. By means of them we know on what day in last week his Majesty went a hunting, or the Princesses took the air in the Park ; we learn at what hour of the morning the Prince walks on the Steyne, and at what races the Duke of York was the only gentleman on the turf. This and the like interesting intelligence is gene- rally made known thro' all the towns in our latitude, within eighty or a hundred hours after the events actually took place. 70 THE 'COUNTRY SPECTATOR? But the Papers are never so extensively useful, as in the discussion of political subjects. The freedom of speech, which they employ on these occasions, assists greatly in enlarging our ideas and divesting our minds of the silly prejudices, which we all, more or less, inherit from our forefathers. Some of them, indeed, affect to speak with reverence of the Ministry and our glorious Constitution ; but all the reputable and inde- pendent Prints nobly display the corruptions, which disgrace our Church and State ; and that we may not be bigotted to our Religion or Religious establishments, their writers very laud- ably and ingeniously compose jokes on our Bishops and Clergy. Jn a word, they teach us to despise the slavish restraints, which all governments impose, and convince us that our Rulers deserve abuse by the patience, with which they bear it. These notions properly diffused enlighten the understandings of the Country people, and cannot fail to kindle in their bosoms the fire of patriotism ; for which reason a News-Room is in a Country-Town what the sun is in the system of the universe ; it dispenses light and heat to the surrounding bodies. It is, therefore, one of the fortresses, which protect our liberties : without it we should few of us know how our Representatives are acting in Parliament, nor should we be able to gain any genuine political information, unless from the Rights of Man, and one or two other good Books, which are sold cheap, tho' not tinder vahie, for the benefit of the poor. The News-Room is, moreover, an excellent school for young students in the art of oratory. I lately visited ene of these places, in a certain town of my district, where a Politician was holding forth with exultation on the Duke of BrunswicKs inglorious retreat. I could not help forming a comparison betwixt the scene then before me and that in a London Coffee- house ; which is certainly less convenient for haranguing than the Country News-Room. In the former, before an Orator has spoken ten minutes, he is interrupted by a waiter with a message from some impertinent coxcomb in the opposite box, who deposes that he came thither for the purpose of reading and not of hearing. If the speaker has any modesty, he is compelled to be silent ; if he has none, he is compelled to depart. I have known one of these clamorous Politicians fairly ousted by an advertisement inserted in his favourite Paper, declaring that A SCHOOL OF ORATORY. 71 : The ugly gentleman in the striped coat, who sits in one of the corner boxes of the Chapter Coffee-house, and harangues his neighbours every morning from half-past eleven to one o'clock, is a general nuisance : resolved, that he be turned out.' But in the Country, where people are better bred, this uncivil behaviour is never practised ; and no man will interrupt his learned friend in the middle of a speech, for the sake of read- ing the news. I would, therefore, advise all Gentlemen who are in training for Coachmaker 1 s Hall, for Debating Lellars, or for any other places of political discussion in Town, where young speakers are liable to be abashed by interruptions from the audience, to begin their career in some snug News-Room in the North : and thus, when the advantages of such an educa- tion become generally known, they may boast of their early practice, as the Country barber signifies by a board over his door, that he has studied in London. I must recollect, however, that I am probably writing to many, who will never move out of the circle of Country Politics. I shall, therefore, conclude this week's Essay by advising them, and, indeed, all who are of the fraternity how- ever dispersed, to fix their political opinions ; that whenever they are called upon, they may be able to make the same honest declaration, which I voluntarily made in the beginning of this Paper. But since it is not always easy for men to know precisely what opinions they hold, and since a conformity to some Creed is the usual method of discovering the prin- ciples and belief of those who believe any thing at all, and even of those who ' believe nothing, I shall subjoin two Po- litical Creeds, one for the use of each of the great sects, into which the French and, of course, the English are at this day divided. They, who do libenter et ex animo subscribe to either of these sets of articles, may be assured that they are orthodox in the tenets of their respective sects. There may, indeed, be found several persons of nice consciences, who will not con- form to a single article in either of these forms of belief; but such fellows I consider as heretics, who are determined to think for themselves ; and, therefore, it is needless that I should offer them any rules, by which they may model their opinions. 1 Vid. CONNOISSEUR, No. 9. 72 THE 'COUNTRY SPECTATOR} THE ARISTOCRAT'S CfcEEfc, I. I believe that virtue and talents are attached to dignity of birth ; which is the reason that all Kings are great and good men. II. I believe in the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, who reflected on the French Revolution. III. I believe that nothing can legally be done in Church or State without a precedent ; which is the better for being found in the annals of the nth Century. IV. I believe that the vulgar in all countries are a low set of people, fit only to submit to their betters ; that they are every where treated with too much lenity ; and that they ought not to imagine that they are of any importance. V. Lastly, I believe that whatever is, is right ; and, therefore, that nothing in our present form of government can be wrong. THE DEMOCRAT'S CREED will be somewhat longer than the former, which arises from my better acquaintance with the principles of my own party, than with those of any other. I. I believe that all genius and virtue resides among the people, who are disdainfully called the Mob. II. I believe in Thos. Paine and in every syllable of. the Rights of Man ; in the Editor of the Morning Post ; and in a certain impartial publication, which ought to be more generally read, called the Jockey Club. III. I believe that all men are naturally equal, not in talents or integrity, which are, and ever will be, real distinctions ; but in the absence of all distinctions whatever. IV. I believe that a popular government is the least excep- tionable form of government, but that all government should be made unpopular. V. I believe that the present age is more virtuous and en- lightened than any preceding one, as may be proved from the spirit of reform, which all Europe is introducing into Church and State. VI. I believe that my ancestors had no right to transmit a form of government to me, for which reason / will not TWO POLITICAL CREEDS. 73 be aiding and abetting in transmitting any form of govern- ment to my posterity. VII. I believe that all men have their Rights, except the King, and that he has no rigJit at all to have any. VIII. Lastly^ I believe that whatever is, is wrong ; and, there- fore, that opposition to the present system, whatever it is, is right. , From another paper I will add a sonnet written in imitation of 'some charming lines,' as the editor calls them, in Cowley's ' Dedicatory Elegy,' which I beg also to quote : O mihi jucundum Grantee super omnia nomen ! penitus toto corde receptus amor / Ah ! mihi si vestra reddat bona gaudia sedis Detque Deus docta posse quiete Jrui ! Qualis eram, cum me tranqtiilld mente sedentem Vidisti in ripd, Came serene, tud : Mulcentem audisti juvenili flumina cantu ; 1 lie quidem immerito, sed tibi gratus erat. Tune liquidis tacitisque simul mea vita diebus, Et similis vestrce Candida flu xit aqua; At nunc c<znos<z luces, atque obice multo Rumpitur cetatis turbidus ordo mece. CAMBRIDGE ! dear name, at whose transporting sound A pang of fond remembrance thrills my breast, O could those hours return, which Friendship blest, Which Letter'd Ease, the Muse, and c******** crown'd, How calm my soul, when oft at parting day CAM saw me musing by his willowy side, The while I would recite some raptur"d lay, Whose lingering murmurs floated down the tide. Yet ah ! too short is Youth's fantastic dream, Ere Manhood wakes th' unweeting heart to woe ! Silent and smooth CAM'S loitering waters flow ; So glided Life, a smooth and silent stream : Sad change ! for now by choking cares withstood It scarcely bursts its way, a troubled boisterous flood. The ' C ' followed by eight stars can be no other 74 GAINSBOROUGH. UPS AND DOWNS. than S. T. Coleridge, then twenty. This must be the first public recognition of his genius. The concluding lines are sadly prophetic of the troubles and difficul- ties, indeed the positive obstruction, which it was universally believed cut short Middleton's career of usefulness. As founder of the See of Calcutta, he had to make his position ; and there were not a few, nor they of little influence, who were resolved that he should have no position at all. CHAPTER XIV. GAINSBOROUGH. UPS AND DOWNS. MY father had many stories of his native town and his early days. Would that I had noted them. I have often been reminded of them by Horace's account of his father's conversation. I think he wished to make me the confidant of the more senti- mental part of his nature, his likings, his regrets, and his commiserations. His stories were of poor So- and-so. I believe that, in early life, when for twelve years he was a bachelor in possession of a thriving business, he helped various friends to the utmost of his means. From a hint he once dropped, I gathered at the time that he would have become a bankrupt had he not married and made a very prudent choice. He always seemed to me over-confiding; but for that very reason anxious to warn me against excessive confidence. ' The world is made of flats and sharps,' TO THYSELF BE TRUE. 75 he would say in a tone to intimate that he was him- self one of the former and more numerous class. Matthew Sooby had made a large fortune, and always boasted that he retained the simple tastes and homely style in which he had been bred. My father used to repeat his sayings, which were as wise as words could make them, and which were accepted at their value in the news-room. In 1812 the town was canvassed for subscriptions for a school for poor children. ' Edicashun,' exclaimed Matthew Sooby, ' hed I hed one, I shouldent a' been worth a groat.' I do not know what was the novelty of the proposi- tion, for there was a ' general school,' founded by Mrs. Hickman in 1784 ; and in my time, through this and several other foundations, more than five hundred children were receiving daily instruction. Many, how- ever, might still be left out in the cold. He used to say that he never cared to sit in a room in which he could not put his feet on the ' hud end,' open the door with one hand, and the window with the other. Such he was when we left the town. At the age of seventy, his married daughter and her friends could stand it no longer, and made him build a house in character with his position. The work once begun, he entered into it with the greatest ardour, helping the workmen whenever a hand was wanted. In so doing he fell from a high scaffold, broke a leg, and died, a wretched cripple, two or three years after. His example has often occurred to me when I have heard expressions easier to utter than to act up to. We are many of us apt to form our own lines 76 GAINSWROUGH. UP 3 AND DOWNS. of thought and conduct, and we are also apt to parade them if they seem to do us honour. Be those lines good, bad, or indifferent, they become our law and our appointed trial, and we have to be loyal to them, or to rue the consequences. It must have been the same Matthew Sooby that had his laugh at the doctors, till he fell into their hands with a vengeance. Whenever he felt out of sorts he had a large pitcher filled with toast and water, and, putting it on a shelf by his side, he neither ate nor drank anything else till he found himself right again. It was a common remedy then, and had at least its negative virtues ; but one never hears of it now. A wealthy couple, occupying a large gloomy house on the north-east of the town, were childless for twenty years, and made a grief of it. There arrived at last a son, and great were the congratu- lations of friends and the excitement in the town. The son lived to ruin and disgrace his parents, and to send them down in sorrow to their graves. Upon a great extension of business a merchant had ordered new account-books from London. Coming into his office, he found the clerks had not understood the system, and had spoilt a good many pages. He lost his temper, and gave it them roundly. News came just then that a ship and cargo worth io,ooo/. had gone to the bottom. He was stunned for half an hour, but then returned for the rest of the day to rave about his spoilt ledgers. One very old acquaintance of my father, the dullest of men, and, one might suppose, the least PARVUM PARVA DECENT. 77 liable to run risks, used to pay us annual visits at Derby and detect the annual recurrence of the same sermons at the Corporation Church. A widower, with a son independent, and himself spending little on himself, he saved money, and built a good house. I remember his amusing us with his unusual smartness and sprightliness when he came knowing that he would find Mary Nettleship with us. The poor man had not much enjoyment of his prosperity. He speculated, and lost all he had. The last I heard of him was that he was clerk in his son's counting- house at Liverpool, and quite as happy as it was his nature to be. I forget who it was that built a capacious and handsome warehouse, looking on the river, with the usual crane and landing-places for the reception of goods. He celebrated the completion of the work with a feast to all concerned ; and having drawn up a ship's cannon to the top tier, discharged it, thinking it much the same thing as firing from the port-hole of a man-of-war. He had forgotten that a man-of- war is not a glass house, and he had omitted to leave his windows open. The general in-draft caused by the out-draft of the explosion broke every pane of glass in the building. One can imagine the delight of at least half the spectators. Enterprise and success had at Gainsborough observers more critical than kind. It was a race, and the beaten ones had to get what consolation their hearts could find in the inevit- able shortcomings and drawbacks of victory. Mr. Etherington, the largest merchant in the town, had an immense warehouse, for the reception of all 78 GAINSBOROUGH. UPS AND DOWNS. kinds of foreign produce, extending from the chief street to the river just above Chapel Staith. It was burnt in a night. A tongue of fire and a firma- ment of sparks and flaming fragments hung over the market-place. We were all taken out of our beds, and carried to our old nurse in Mart Yard, the front court of the ' Old Hall,' where we passed the rest of the night. In a few days we went to see the ruins. The destruction had been so complete that the only salvage was a quantity of boys' playing- marbles, sufficient to fill some large hogsheads. I now learnt that these things were made abroad. A good woman could not get her husband to put anything by. He just kept his head above water, but it was evident there would be nothing for her should she be left alone. As he would not save, she must ; so she quietly took something out of the sums she received for housekeeping, and deposited it in a bank. As- she did this for a long time it became something considerable. But the continual leakage only aggravated the evil, and at last the husband became bankrupt. This saved him. The bank could no longer keep the secret, and with the aid of the newly discovered store the creditors were paid in full, with a surplus for a fresh start. The man who forgot the loss of a valuable ship and cargo in his greater annoyance at the spoiling of a new ledger, was accustomed to the one loss but not to the other. A wreck, at the worst, is a thing that cannot be helped. But it is possible to look on the foundering of a ship, cargo, crew, and all, with something more than resignation. I don't feel justi- DA MODO LUCRA MIHL 79 fied in saying that scuttling ships at sea and sending them to the bottom was a recognised trade at Gains- borough, open to respectable Christian men, but I was so early familiar with it that I cannot doubt it was extensively pursued. Outsiders are hardly aware of the facility with which people may slide into the business, or of the circumstances which inevitably create and develop it. There must always be many ships upon the sea- worthiness of which it is not easy to pronounce a decided judgment. Indeed, over and over again, ships have done good work for many years after condemnation. Ships deteriorate in the hands of their owners, who love them nevertheless. There are also many people who have not the means to purchase a thoroughly sound ship, and who are accordingly fain to put up with a faulty or suspected one. All over the world, cleverness and courage are deemed legitimate elements in speculation. Placed in these doubtful circumstances, possessed of these questionable means, and conversant with nice calcu- lations, there is a large class of men whom it may not be fair to describe as robbers and murderers, even though they may be content to let other people take care of themselves. I always understood that the trade was one that called for great tact ; that it required a large discre- tion to be left to the ship's captain, and that it is not always easy to send a ship to the bottom, even with the best intentions. This is intelligible. The captain knows that his cargo is worthless, that his ship is rotten and that both are highly insured. He 8o GAINSBOROUGH. VARIETIES. hardly knows whither to direct his course, but it must be to some point where he can save at least his own life, for the cause is not one for martyrdom. But he is pursued by favourable winds, smooth seas, and bright skies ; and whether by night or by day he cannot run his ship on the point desired, for the case would be too transparent ; the ship, too, might only ground, and refuse to break up. Ships have sailed about the Atlantic a whole year, in the situation of the unfortunate Roman who had lost fortune and character and could not even obtain the opportunity of an honourable death. I am sure that at Gainsborough there was a large class quite above this sort of thing ; but I am equally sure that there was a class not at all above it ; and that they were regarded not so much as swindlers and cut-throats, but rather as people in a low way of business. There was always this to be said for them that the underwriters were at the bottom of the mischief. CHAPTER XV. GAINSBOROUGH. VARIETIES. EVEN in that dull town, as I have heard it described, there was plenty of wild wit and invention ever new. A certain 'Joe Hornby,' a relative, was the Yorick of his day. Hot suppers were the universal rule, and with hot suppers came Noctes Ambrosianae and all THE HUMOURS OF A COUNTRY TOWN. 8r kinds of orgies, according to the rank and style. My nurse's husband, a mason, had his hot supper every night. Wherever she was, she had to be home to cook it for him. Above his rank the hot supper was followed by a carouse, and the nights were often made, if not hideous, rather unquiet. There was little lighting, still less watching, and a jovial company was apt to wind up with practical jokes. The Bawtry carrier had carefully packed and covered his waggon ready for an early start, and had then gone to bed. Rising at four, he looked out of his window, and the waggon was not there. He searched up and down the streets in vain. The ' wags ' of the town had unladen his waggon, taken it to pieces, carried them up a long narrow entry into a garden behind the house, and there reconstructed the whole fabric as they had found it. Stout gentlemen, if they are good-natured, which they mostly are, make easy butts. Such a one there was at Gainsborough. Leaving the town for a few days, he found on his return that every stile in his customary footpath over the fields had been so narrowed as utterly to obstruct his passage. By the time we left Gainsborough the town could boast a stage-coach to Retford, the only regular com- munication with the outer world. Such was this gentleman's bulk, that he was obliged to engage two places when he travelled. On arriving one day at the coach, he found two fellow-passengers already seated vis-a-vis. ' Would one of you gentlemen please to change seats,' he said, ' for I have taken two places.' ' There they are,' they answered. ' But VOL. i. G 82 GAINSBOROUGH. VARIETIES. I want one whole seat to myself.' They averred, the one that he could only travel with his face to the horses, the other only with his back. At the moment of starting they gave way. Of course there was a Scotch doctor. The town had a fair medical staff of the English sort. I re- member Dr. Jephson, and Mr. Parnell, the apothecary, as formal as the other was solemn. Dr. Peacock came from beyond the Tweed, bringing with him a little brogue, a power of talk, an abundance of meta- physics, and a continual fire of Latin quotations. When I saw him in later days I was much interested with him. I wondered he had not made more im- pression on my boyish recollection, as also that I had not been struck with his sister's affectionate looks and manners. He was said to be a very good doctor, but I am no judge of that. My father sometimes mentioned a young co- temporary who was resolved to master the English language thoroughly, and who thought he could not do this better than by reading steadily through the whole of Johnson's Dictionary, with all the quotations. This he achieved, with what result I know not. There could not be a better selection of passages; but I have occasionally read a column of them and found it enough for me. It is not the natural order of study, for there is no real continuity in an alpha- betical arrangement. I should hope the poor youth forgot most of it as fast as he read it, for otherwise nothing would have remained in his head more than a day or two. Some of my readers may think there was nothing FIDUM CAPITI SUBDUXERAT ENS EM. 83 so extraordinary in the feat, and that even if it were ever accomplished it is hardly worth recording. Suffice it to say that the quotations in Johnson's Dictionary, carefully selected from the best writers, and admirably illustrative of the various meanings of each word and of the English language, amount to a mass considerably exceeding the whole Bible, includ- ing the Apocrypha, though falling far short of the vast treasure of Latinity accumulated in Facciolati's Lexicon. I have forgotten which of my father's acquaint- ances it was who in a general panic about burglars went about telling his friends he felt quite easy, for he kept a loaded pistol under his pillow, and had made up his mind to shoot any such visitor at sight. His wife had much more fear of loaded pistols than of burglars, and, without saying a word to him, had withdrawn the charge ; nor did he ever find it out. A stranger called and wished to see my father. He was from home. Could he see my mother ? Yes, he could. So a giant walked in. It was Belzoni, afterwards known for his Egyptian explorations. He called to ask when he could give an exhibition, and with whom he could make the arrangements. I was taken to the performance. It consisted of Herculean feats, and some hydraulic curiosities. One of the first sights I saw in London that is, in 1820 or soon after was Belzoni's reproductions of the gorgeous interiors of Egyptian tombs and temples. This was in the Egyptian Hall, built for the purpose, and then quite pre-eminent among London edifices. I had al- ready learnt, from Mr. Wood's lectures, that Egyptian 84 GAINSBOROUGH. VARIETIES. architecture was the parent of Greek and Roman, and indeed of all the architectures. Except for commercial purposes there was not much communication between Gainsborough and the metropolis in those days. A man would take out his watch with the observation that he had taken the time of the Horse Guards, the great authority then, perhaps a fortnight before. At 6 P.M. the postman galloped into the market-place with the letter-bags and the London news of the day before, blowing his horn, and proclaiming anything unusual. A sister much my junior remembers hearing his announcement of the Battle of Waterloo, and then retiring to the garden, to sing, I suppose, the song of Miriam, with the ac- companiment of a toy-fiddle. For a long period the excise and the assessed taxes were managed in a way satisfactory to all parties, the Treasury excepted. At last there came down, first I think as an inspector, then in a permanent capacity, a very clever and very pushing stranger. This was Mr. John Hyde, who soon had a quarrel with everybody in the town, a quarrel in which he and the Treasury came off the victors. What aggravated the injury, and made it an insult on all, was that he brought with him a wife much too handsome and showy, it was. said, for an exciseman to have come by quite honestly. A bit of romance was discovered, or made, but the brewers and other dealers in excis- able articles weie not unprejudiced authorities. Since those days he has often turned up at this place or that, where he had been sent on a like errand. The only incident that has come to me of his Gainsborough ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 85 career was that he once fell into a tan-pit, tanner refused to help him out, alleging that it was -contrary to the law to take hides out of a tan-pit within so many days. One advantage of a quiet country life is that if the future is slow in coming, the past is never quite gone. In fact you don't always know whether you are in the past or in the future, for in the present you certainly are not. A gentleman was taking leave of his friends on a departure to India. One of them accompanied him back part of the way. They came to a bridge which would be a natural spot for leave-taking. But they happened to be engaged in a friendly discussion, during which they amused them- selves by dropping straws into the stream from one parapet of the bridge and watching their re-appear- ance under the other. At length they parted. After twenty years the Indian returned and called on his old friend. Again the friend escorted him back and halted at the bridge. Again they dropped straws into the stream. Hardly thinking about it, one of them began, ' But I think you must take into account, &c.,' resuming the old discussion ; and with equal uncon- sciousness the other took up the interrupted thread. One of my father's good stories I can understand perhaps better than he did, having the advantage of him in knowing both sides of the question. A Gains- borough humourist had often given a hospitable reception to a London friend on his business tours. At last he went to town himself, and called at once on his friend, in full expectation of a suitable return. The least he expected was to be asked to dinner. 86 GAINSBOROUGH. VARIETIES. Instead of this, the friend, looking at him between the bars of his little chancellerie, asked his hotel, and invited himself to dine there with him. To the provincial sense this is monstrous ingratitude. So the next time the London gentleman came down and presented himself, the Gainsborough man held up his ten fingers in the form of office-rails, and speaking through them, said, ' What's your inn ? I shall be glad to come and dine with you.' An invitation to dinner, that is, to a seat at the family dinner-table, is a very interchangeable com- modity, and need not be a new version of the Town and Country Mouse ; but as regards further hospitali- ties, even a few days' residence, there really is no reciprocity in the matter, and cannot be, except within narrow limits. A visit to a town friend is a very different thing from a visit to a country friend. London houses are not made for visitors not at least for country visitors ; nor can London ways be made to fit in with country ways. The country visitor exhausts the strength of the servants by the multitude of pretences on which he brings them up and down stairs, and the strength of his hosts by the multitude of questions he has to ask and the arrangements in which he has to be assisted. He is so helpless as to the geography of the metropolis, the means of communication, the exhibitions, and the ways of people, that he must either go through several courses of instruction, or be personally conducted ; it is hard to say which is the worst. He is a serious addition to an amount of labour and responsibility already taxing strength to the utmost. If not quite the con- AND COUNTRY HOSPITALITY. 87 trary, at least very different, is the case of a London friend visiting a country-house. He relieves dullness. He brings with him the very thing wanted, informa- tion, and some excitement. He asks for a little repose, not half a dozen exhibitions and entertainments as many miles apart. He is accustomed to spare servants and to measure their strength ; and even were he not so disposed, he can't keep a poor maid going up and down stairs the whole day on trifling errands which he could either despatch himself or manage to comprise in one commission. The great difference of hours between London and country life itself alone prevents Londoners from making their houses hotels. They are bound to nurse their strength during the day for the hard work of the evening, and, in the case of Parliamentary people, of the night too. Country people can never be made to see the difference be- tween a man who has not been able to get to bed till three in the morning, and the man who had been sound asleep for an hour when the clock struck twelve. It is a positive duty to state the case of the Londoners, for they are exposed to much suspicion and obloquy ; the country folks meanwhile arrogating to themselves that hospitality is pre-eminently a provincial virtue. 88 THE TOWN GOURMAND. CHAPTER XVI. THE TOWN GOURMAND. THERE was the town gourmand, an unfortunate attorney cursed with a fastidious taste, and probably a diseased liver, who every morning went the round of the fish-market and the poulterers, to see if they had anything he could eat. He had to seek food in desolate places. The fish I most remember were haddock, hake, halibut, and eels. Trent salmon was very rare ; and, with no railways, no steamboats, and even very few land conveyances, the best sea fish only came by fits and starts. Lobsters, I think, were rare, but crabs were abundant, cheap, and of all sizes. Cooked in various ways, they were the chief treats of my childhood, and in after years I used to get up a good imitation of crab by mixing up cheese, mustard, and vinegar. But our tastes were simple enough. Nothing pleased us so much as ' frumetty,' from frumentum wheat or barley boiled in milk, with a few currants and a little sugar. For a change we used to enjoy ' maslin ' bread, made from wheat, barley, and rye, grown together in one crop, as I remember. The wheat gave strength, the barley sweetness, and the rye the quality of keeping moist and sound for weeks. The word, I suppose, is short for ' miscellaneous.' As to butcher's meat in Lincolnshire at that time at least the sheep were large and woolly, and the THE LARDER. 8$ beef was also large and coarse, often tasting of oil- cake. Indifferent as the beef and mutton were, they were often dear, a leg of mutton sometimes twenty shillings of the currency. For a change upon oily beef and woolly mutton, people had then to be con- tent with ' hollow fowl,' as poultry, ducks, and rabbits were alike called. There were extensive rabbit- warrens at no great distance from Gainsborough, and parts of the Isle of Axholme had been given up to rabbits from time immemorial. It was a question whether they did not pay better than sheep. But, cooked as they might be, a bon vivant would soon weary of them. But I am forgetting the universal refuge and un- failing resource of country households. What would they do without poor piggy and his long-expected effects ? There was nothing we children liked better than a boiled leg of pork, with pease-pudding. If a country gentleman offers it in these days to an old college friend on a week's visit, it is with an apology, for auld acquaintance' sake. Even a spare-rib is hardly now producible. How we did relish ' pig's fry,' ay, the very odour of it long before the appearance. It is scarcely credible now that within this centuiy a sucking-pig could find a place in a Parisian menu'. even De Quincey has not been able to keep it in the front of civilisation. I daresay many of my readers never heard of ' black puddings,' whether in sausage form or en masse ; or of ' beast's heart,' or of well, I must stop, but they were all once familiar and dear ; and they now survive in association with my native town. Yet, before I close the list, another well- 90 THE TOWN GOURMAND. remembered dish demands a place in it. I suppose ' bubble and squeak' is hardly admissible at a banquet We appreciated it intensely, but seemed to feel it required exalted sanction. George IV. was said to have bestowed on it his distinguished approbation. Yet I remember once, when the bearer of an old Scotch name dropped in at an early dinner and found nothing but ' bubble and squeak ' on the table, we felt that we might be somewhat lowered in his estimation. It might be so, but he enjoyed the dish amazingly. My apology for these gross details is the universal fact that nothing survives more than the tastes and aromas familiar to early life. Many meats and drinks intolerable to the novice are delicious to the accus- tomed. The appetite survives, and even becomes a craving, perhaps in the very agonies of declining power. I remember seeing, with positive alarm, jus- tified by the result, an elderly gentleman, who had spent his early life in the country and his later in town, devouring bacon and beans like a labourer. I remember seeing another swallowing shrimps with such zest as to detach them very imperfectly from their indigestible integuments. I have had to protest in vain against an aged labourer chipping cheese into the cup of tea his nurse had prepared for him. ' What matters it ? ' she said. ' He can only live a few days. Let him enjoy his self while he can.' In Devonshire the prospect of a serious and painful illness is much mitigated by the hope of unlimited ' double-bakes.' This is a hard insipid biscuit that I have little doubt is the fywpos, or sop, formerly used for a spoon, CHEESE. 91 and now given to Devonshire children at teething and whenever they want special comfort. So fond are the labourers of it that I have often seen a stock kept in a small drawer under the bar of a public- house. But even if mutton palled, and beef surfeited, and fowls failed, and fish were neither good nor fresh, and ' pig's meat ' had been tried in every form in vain, there was the great succedaneum of cheese. I don't suppose the poor bilious attorney would venture far that way, but, as a fact, the Stilton cheese, though last, was not least in the Gainsborough bill of fare. Some months before a great occasion a hospitable gentleman laid in a remarkably fine large Stilton cheese. Neatly separating the top he made a large hole in the interior, which he filled with old port. Being the best pickle for the living subject, it was presumably the best sauce for all kinds of food. The top of the cheese was then replaced, and the whole put into a closed jar in the pantry. After the dinner, and a suitable announce- ment, the mighty incubation was placed on the table, and the top carefully lifted. The cheese had to be carried instantly out of the room and thrown away, as far from the house as possible. Notwithstanding its lowly and homely character, cheese affords a greater variety of national shape and historical change than any other food. It was the staple of the Roman soldier and working-man, but not in the solid and massy form we are acquainted with. It is but a name and a struggling survival at the English dinner-table. In Sweden, I have been told, all the guests, before taking their places at the table, 92 THE TOWN GVURMAND. gather at a sideboard and take a few mouthfuls of bread and cheese to prepare their palates for the dinner. In England they are invited to take a few mouthfuls to prepare their palates for the wine, prob- ably with no better reason for it than there is in the Scandinavian usage. A lady economist at Gainsborough saw no reason why a good dinner should be supplemented, or the thirst provoked, for she would not allow the intro- duction of cheese after the third course, because she had observed that it ' stood in no stead.' In my former Reminiscences I stated that in the year 1843 I could not find anything to call cheese in the English sense in the populous city of Havre, the only thing answering to the name of fromage being some horrible things looking like crumpets, sold in the streets. But I was still rather surprised to read in Mr. Dolben Paul's life of his ancestor, Archbishop Dolben, tempore Car. II., that he sent a present of an English cheese to our ambassador at Paris, who, in reply, described the astonishment of his Parisian guests, who had never seen anything to call cheese except their angelots, the very article I found the only cheese at Havre. By two independent and very different authori- ties I have heard it positively affirmed that there is nothing a man can eat in the Island of Jamaica, and I can easily understand that the town gourmand might starve at Gainsborough, in the midst of coarse or insipid abundance. He died in a workhouse. In very early days, nothing so much moved my in- dignation as evident greediness and ostentatious nicety TASTE, A POWER AND A VIRTUE. 93 of appetite. I have gradually come to- thmk more kindly and respectfully of the latter. A fastidious palate often indicates a finer character ; going with a finer taste in art and science, in social ethics, and in matters of conduct. The differences with which it deals, and which it detects when they escape duller perceptions, are real. It is well they should be detected and pointed out. The palate has the powers, the materials, and the opportunities for any degree of refinement. All exercise of taste, whatever the material, is arv exercise of conscience, and a tribute to it, especially as a faculty admitting- of education and improvement. The French tell us there is something approaching to immorality in our indiscriminate mixture of jarring flavours, and in the rude cookery done on our plates. In some midland and northern counties they carry this to a barbarous excess, putting all sorts of game into one pie, stuffing one bird into another, and exhibiting medley pies containing beef, bacon, rabbit, apples, onions, and much more than I am likely to think of. I have no doubt my father -had a discriminating palate, just as he had a fine ear and quick eye for colour and proportion, and a keen perception of character. He used to mention that in his boyhood, having the run of two houses, his father's and his grandfather's, he would make inquiries in the kitchens, and invite himself to the best dinner. But I suppose this was one of the many tastes which, as he some- times told me, he had had to renounce one after another as sons and daughters came on. One often hears that hunger is the best of sauces, 94 THE RACE OF LIFE IN TOWNS. a good appetite next to a virtuous habit, and health the greatest of earthly blessings. Without qualifica- tion all these sayings are dangerous. Hunger often seduces into eating too much, which is worse than eating not quite enough. As a fact, people with good appetites are often outlived by their more squeamish neighbours. Good health I have long been disposed to regard as one of the worst diseases. The human frame is seldom so proportionably developed but that it is liable to some kind of hypertrophy. It may easily become too developed or too full, and so de- stroyed by mere repletion. CHAPTER XVII. THE RACE OF LIFE IN TOWNS. THE romance of life does not show to its best in towns. The race there is for wealth, position, connec- tions, and for personal accomplishments as the means to these ends. In the crowd of such competitors, the passions and the weaknesses that are the material of tragedy can only be regarded as impediments. They account for a defeat, or a downfall. So it is seldom the whole tale that is told : it is only the sequel. A life is summed up, and judgment passed merciful, perhaps, and pitiful, but brief and final. Of the father of a family which in all my early years I regarded with the most affectionate interest, my father would observe, ' Ah, poor man, he made one great mistake.' BEATEN IN THE RACE. 95 I did not venture to ask what it was, but from what my father reported of him when he found him out in a suburb of London, I fear he made at least one mis- take more. Of one poor lady, a connection, my father would say, ' She was so pretty, and so witty, and so bright ; but ' Alas ! it was the universal ' but.' Against the wear and tear of a rough life, aggravated by a coarse and ill-tempered husband, she betook herself to the one ever-failing remedy, and so made matters always worse. For both these unfortunates my father had always felt a tender interest ; but even when there was no such tie of feeling, he always sympathised with mis- fortune, if there was anything to like or to respect in the sufferers. When I went with my father to Gainsborough in 1842, he sought out an old couple whom he had known, not in a high class, but in a prosperous business and in comfortable circumstances. I seem to remember having small dealings with them in cutlery at the shop at the south-east corner of the market-place, where it contracts into ' Down Town.' John Anderson and his wife were now in a very small house, over their tea and buttered toast at four o'clock the great consolation of reduced circum- stances. Much had they to say of old times. At another house I heard my father's mention of this visit was received with some amusement, as if such poor folk were hardly worth remembrance. Indeed, some pains were taken to impress on my father that they were nobodies. It was a son, or a friend, who had ruined them. But no matter how they had been ruined. 96 THE RACE OF LIFE IN TOWNS. It is rather in the country than in the town that we are to look for sensational incidents, for revela- tions of clerical society, for tragedies of which every act is more or less a catastrophe. Houses in villages are seen on all sides, back and front. All that passes in them is known the next day. The old servants, with their own friends all around, are privileged tale-bearers. It is an atmosphere of free talk. A country gentleman cannot quarrel with his wife or his eldest son without it being known in a week all over the county. There can be no hypocrisy, or even superfluous decency, in the fierce light that beats on all classes reflecting ever so little the lustre of the throne. The aristocracy are charged with being above public opinion ; but the truth is they cannot help it, they must brave it out. In towns, on the contrary, houses show only their fronts. The inmates are often strangers, and some- times frequently changed. Any one so minded may make his house an impenetrable mystery ; indeed, it requires a certain effort to make a private house in a town an 'open secret' in these days, for its tendency is to be a close one. But often are the long arrears of concealment made up in a day. There arrives a time, when the members of the family themselves ; worn out with disappointment, sickened with mutual grudges and wearied with recrimination, set to work pulling down their own house over their heads. They ask the Almighty to assist, and they are heard. Wherever there is anything to call a neighbour- hood, that is, a number of persons of about the same FUGE MAGNA. 97 class pursuing the same objects, exposed to the same vicissitudes, and engaged, one may say, in the same game there is inevitable jealousy. All wish to be uppermost That is a relative idea : to rise oneself is to depress others ; to fall is to raise them. This leads to the great scandal of human nature rejoicing in evil. The well known libel on humanity, which it has been said none but a Frenchman would have uttered, is founded on the fact that even friends are rivals. The Greeks were beforehand with us in the saying that your shin is further than your knee. Rivalry is exasperated by anything that raises, or promises to raise, those about you : and it is grati- fied by their failure. Nor is it possible for the sentiment, base as it seems, disgraceful as it is, to confine itself within the bosom. It must come out in word and deed. A man's foes will be they of his own household. He has the audacity, the heresy, to strike higher, to assert a higher tone, perhaps to intend the romance which the world thinks folly. That aspiration once detected, he has no help : he has every obstacle left in his way, if not laid in it. There is nothing which such presumption does not richly merit. Destroy the dreamer of dreams ; strip him naked ; cast him into the pit ; sell him to strangers ; bury his very name under a load of lies. But his rivals need not give themselves any trouble about it. In confidence and quietness lies their strength, and they may rely on the truth of the maxim that Pride comes before a fall. They may stand by and look on, and then they will see the fate VOL. I. H 9 8 THE RACE OF LIFE IN TOWNS. of the man cursed with a soul above his class. He is star-gazing ; he falls, he lies wounded in the battle of life, a wreck on the strand. He is quite sure to find all against him, and that he has afforded a happiness to his neighbours which it would never have been in his power to give them by any intended generosity. There are creatures that are said instantly to gather about a wounded individual of the shoal, tear it to pieces, and devour it. The evolutionists might justly claim them as cousins, in some not very remote degree, of what we call humanity. Do I say that such, and so wicked, are the thoughts and hearts of all men ? I do say that the thoughts rise and offer themselves, and that self is very apt to fall, I may say, in that hour of temptation. Town gossips, and I dare say country too, are never so gay as when discussing downfalls, scandals, infamies, the ruin of families, the darkening of homes, the banishment of those that yesterday were in the front of life's stage, the disappearance of stars lately high over the horizon. The moral is plain to a child. It is that the competition for wealth, honour, position, and all the prizes of earth, are antagonistic to the love of souls, and to the spiritual growth in all its aspects and relations. But is it possible not to share these emotions to some extent, even if we succeed in controlling and correcting them ? There was at least one household in my native town that I can credit with as much exemption from worldly rivalry of all kinds as is possible to the heart of man. This is no new theme. I am not volunteering an MR. BELWOOD. 99 attack upon country towns ; I am only reducing to some proportion and accuracy a great fact which I often see and hear put in an odious form. People hate towns. They would not live in one of them for the world. If they happen to have been born in one they often slur over the truth by confessing only to the county. I feel that I am putting it mildly and apologetically. A town is an industrial tournament. All are there careering, hitting, being hit, overthrow- ing, overthrown. All rejoice in your mishaps ; all envy your successes all as a rule, for there are exceptions. The intensity of this disgust at country-town life is indicated by the very great cost at which it is gratified. In some very important respects towns have an im- mense advantage over the country. They have at least the opportunities of quiet social intercourse ; they have promenades and well-frequented pavements ; they have libraries and reading-rooms ; and they always have men of some literary or scientific attain- ments. All this, which is really the making of a higher life, is given up in order to avoid what is called gossip, backbiting, scandal, and the great want of mutual confidence and hearty sympathy. The most dignified figure at Gainsborough, to my memory, was Mr. Belwood, tall, upright, and very deliberate in all he said, or advised, or did. He was of a very old Isle of Axholme stock, taking their name from a spot of Druidical sanctity ; and I think he must have been a relative, or connection, of my father. He was quaint and old-fashioned, naturally and without knowing it. He died in 1820, and by this I see it was before that date I and my brother H 2 ioo THE RACE OF LIFE IN TOWNS. John were entertained by him to a nice little dinner on a visit to Gainsborough. He was alone in the world, and yet a cheerful, and even warm-hearted, man. Surrounded by failures, he had cause to antici- pate more. He had intended to leave my father a thousand pounds, and I think had let out something to that effect. My father was summoned to the funeral, and went to Gainsborough with my mother and two of my sisters. The house, I remember, was within sight of the church. The funeral was largely attended. Mrs. Nettleship, who had taken in my sisters for the occasion, was there, and my father and mother had spent the evening before with her. On the return from the funeral the will was read. It now appeared that the old gentleman had either resented our flight to Derby, or dreaded its speculative cha- racter, for he left 4OO/. to my father, and 6oo/. to be divided amongst the children living at the time of .his death, and to be given to each on coming of age. I should think nobody was ever remembered with so much gratitude, the sentiment being formed and strengthened in each case by years of expectation. I had been two years at college when I received my share. He left us also, I suppose, most of his old plate, including a two-handled silver pint-cup, which stands before me as the chief ornament of my side- board. Of the town itself, my father, writing to my eldest sister, gives a woeful account : ' Gainsborough looks miserably poor. I never saw so wretched a place.' I note, however, that he writes in the first week of A TRUE FORECAST. 101 March, and that, as he observes, it was 'bitterly cold weather.' He proceeds : ' There has been a subscrip- tion for Mrs. Swann.' As I remember the Swanns, the family had come from Hamburg, and they were supposed, by their expenditure, to be rolling in wealth. ' Mrs. Bourne and her daughters,' my father proceeded to tell us, ' are keeping a school.' Mr Bourne had kept the Rope Walk I remember so well, and had thriven for a time on the increasing demands of war. ' Mrs. Bourne,' my father adds, ' is likely to be successful. She is very cheerful and happy.' My father's forecast proved correct. The daughters were keeping a very good school at Brighton thirty-two years after this date, and long after that, I believe. My father and mother were at the Stuarts, and, as my father wrote, my sisters had called, and were now romping with the three littb Miss Stuarts indeed, making so much noise that he could hardly write. That family too went down in the world, and the last I heard of Miss Stuart was that she was a teacher in Miss Bourne's school at Brighton, and that she sang, my brother Harry thought, rather shrill. I have often asked myself, ' Should I have thought so ?' 102 THE BEGINNING OF A TRADE. CHAPTER XVIII. THE BEGINNING OF A TRADE. I HAVE mentioned 'Joe Hornby/ the light-hearted humourist. As I remember, he was not a man either to make a fortune or to spend one, or to entertain strong opinions, or to take anything very much to heart. But I suppose it must have been a brother of his, and a relative of mine, whom I met occasionally at his brother-in-law's house in the city of London, in 1820. He had utterly ruined himself and the too generous brother-in-law, one of the old Mowbray stock of the Isle of Axholme. I had to sit by for two hours in Aldermanbury one afternoon, while my unprincipled relative, a big heavy man, was drinking brandy and water, and cursing the King, the Govern- ment, and all the institutions of the country, respon- sible, every one of them, as he made out, for his own failure. This man, as I remember him, would not have prospered anywhere, or under any circumstances. He would everywhere have spent beyond his means, risked much on the merest chance, and abused his servants, instead of telling them quietly what they had to do. But I must say the tone in which he spoke of the institutions of his country was by no means peculiar to him. It was universal. Nobody had a good word to say for the King, the Ministry, the two Houses of Parliament, the Church, or any other A PATRIOT OF THE GEORGIAN ERA. 103 institution, unless he happened to enjoy some excep- tional position, plainly at the cost of the whole nation and of the public good. Twenty years be- fore this, when George III. was leaving the theatre, after escaping the bullet of the madman Hatfield, his carriage was surrounded and followed by a mob hissing and hooting, and thus expressing its sym- pathy with the supposed assassin. This mob did not consist of roughs, but of the neighbouring shop- keepers. A few months after I had been listening with disgust to my relative's sweeping denunciations, I began to live for several years in the same room with a son of the Cabinet minister whose house and life had just been specially aimed at by the Cato Street conspirators. I expected to hear him speak of them with honest moral indignation, especially as he ap- peared to be in his father's confidence, bringing with nim to school enormous maps made for the Penin- sular war, and the spare copies of his father's library. I used to note that if he ever alluded to Thistlewood and his companions, it was as men who had found their match and had been outwitted. Had they tailed in the best of causes, he could not have treated the matter more dispassionately. He seemed to assume, as a matter of course, that the people were on their side, and that this made their detection and capture the greater triumph. After long complications, my cousin from the Isle of Axholme was at last clear of his brother-in-law, the rabid and self-ruined politician. He then started on his own account in a very humble business. He 104 THE BEGINNING OF A TRADE. could not have been at his then abode more than a week or two when he gave me a very hospitable reception, according to his means, on my arrival m town on my way to Charterhouse. He was fortunate in the possession of two good and energetic sons, the elder of them already a man of science and no ordinary artist. For some months I witnessed a very curious strug- gle between the extreme caution of the parent and the enterprise of the sons, who wished to add what really was the necessary supplement of the new busi- ness. At last they got in the thin point of the wedge, in the shape of a small shallow drawer under the shop counter, containing a very select display of the com- monest surgical instruments. The father stipulated that the sons were always to give their first and chief attention to the matter which had drawn the customer to the shop. When he had satisfied his first wants, then the son might produce the drawer with its well-burnished contents, and ask, ' Anything in this way?' I don't know how this work is done now, but the way in which it was done in 1820 sufficiently accounts for the unwillingness of a middle-aged man, originally a yeoman of ' the Isle,' and the victim of his own generous confidence, to go out of his depth in it. Two or three years after this, the elder son took me on some calls on his workpeople, who were in fact no- body's workpeople in particular, for they worked, in their own miserable homes, for any employer who might have jobs for them. Sometimes they had to go the round of the employers, sometimes the em- MR. JOHN MAW. 105 ployers had to go the round of them. It necessarily depended on their honesty and ability whether the work was done well that is, whether the forceps, the scalpel, the saw, the file, or the finer and more com- plicated instrument would do its work at the crisis, and also stand wear. Every man had his worth, and so had every tool. This is now, I believe, the largest business in its line in the world, carried on in one of the most artistic edifices in the city of London. Some of my readers will feel that the early struggles of trading enterprise are hardly worth reminiscences, even when redeemed by a high moral and a great success. So I may as well add that the elder of the two brothers, and the projector of this shallow drawer lying in ambush for exceptional customers, was then a slender youth, under twenty, with finely formed features, and an expression as bright and keen as the edged tools he was ambitious to deal in. He was well up not only to science but to art. He was versed in all the schools of art, in all our living artists, and he was, or rather became in a few years, a distinguished amateur in water-colours. He was far better read in our poets and in our English authors than I ever came to be. From the pursuits of his leisure hours it might have been supposed that he had nothing else to attend to but recreation and the cultivation of a fine taste. But from the tints of a landscape, or the forms and hues of flowers, fruits, fish, and shells, he would turn with equal zest to the details of a business which many a man without a spark of genius would be foolish enough to look down upon. 106 THE CLERGY. The other relative of mine, and they that belonged to him, went their own way, the way of all cursers. Before long, I heard that the curser's son, my second or third cousin, I know not which, having received his stipulated and ample wages for his very small and worthless weekly service, assembled a crowd before the shop, harangued it on the pittance a born gentleman was expected to live on, and dropped the shillings one by one into the gully-hole. The fact was he had a soul above work, but not above mendicancy, so as he could carry it with a high hand. After he had taxed my Aldermanbury cousin's kindness beyond endurance, the latter one day received a demand for further assistance, beginning ' Man of blood,' and going on in the same strain. I believe he ' enlisted,' and there was the end of him. CHAPTER XIX. THE CLERGY. IT were much to be wished that some account could now be found of the happy successions by which the lamps of learning, love, and piety have been kept up in our provincial towns. Every now and then there emerges a name, showing what was below the surface, but the continuity is not to be traced. Two years before Henry VIII. massacred the monks of Charterhouse, Thomas Sutton, the founder of the school that was to take their place, was LOCAL SUCCESSIONS. 107 born at or near Gainsborough. The town claims him, but he was baptised at the neighbouring village of Knaith. Bishop Patrick was the son of a Gains- borough mercer of good credit. The town has some score charitable trusts, gene- rally of small amounts, and indicating rather a com- pliance with custom than exceptional instances. The inevitable fate of such bequests is either to be made an ill use of, or to be thrown into some common stock and administered on public principles. This seems to warn good people to do their good deeds in their own lifetime, and leave the next generation to do the same. The successions most affecting the town are that of the Squire, to use the title in a general sense ; that of the clergy ; and that of the principal school- master. The occupancy of a great house and the inheritance of a high position are matters subject to every kind of vicissitude, and the only wonder is how frequently a religious and high-principled family has been for centuries the making of a neighbourhood. In the parsonage, one manner of man comes quick after another, and of these some may do much, some little, some nothing at all. The succession is now quicker than it used to be, for no sooner is a good man appreciated than a dozen high patrons are fixing their eyes upon him, without a thought of the dull country parish which they are robbing of the light of its eyes. The man ' who never changed or wished to change his place,' is a matter of faith, no longer of sight. Then comes the schoolmaster, who on our old foundations might either be supreme in io8 THE CLERGY. learning and authority for half a century, or for all that time a log, a shadow, or worse. The good schoolmaster generally moved ; the bad one did not : scholars might leave him, but he held his ground. The Rev. J. Fothergill, who was vicar in my time and long before, was a learned man, much in his study. He held his head rather high, and in the numerous little questions between social caste and spiritual obligations took the former well into account. His lady, perhaps with less hesitation or reserve, gave herself airs ; but, like many ladies of that period, she affected to be rather fast, and talked free even in such places as an auction-room. So the prudes and puritans of the town had their revenge. The vicar and his wife paid us a visit of some days at Derby. I suppose she thought us youngsters too dummy and staid. Our drawing-room was only used on state occasions, and when in it we were on our good behaviour, our extra good behaviour, I might say. We behaved quite too well. ' When I was your age,' she said to one of us, ' I could fly from one end of this room to the other without touching the ground.' The room could not be less than eight yards long, and we all took it literally to mean that she claimed to have once possessed the much-coveted power of flying. So unchangeable are opinions and questions once early entertained, that for two genera- tions I doubted whether the lady was romancing, or whether ' levitation,' as it is called, had taken posses- sion of her brain. Not till quite recently has it flashed on me that the expression was simply afa$on de parler. MR. PRIDHAM. 109 Of one assistant-curate I have so much to say that I reserve him. When, after six or seven years at Gainsborough, he left for a chaplaincy at Madras, his successor, Mr. Pridham, must have been chosen by the rule of contrary. Perhaps the vicar thought the sluggish stream wanted more lashing. The new curate undertook to put the town to rights, and raised a storm. He cannot have shown common discretion, even if he wished to show it, in either his sayings or his doings. Some of our friends suffered, and my father resented what he felt to be great unkindness as well as a breach of the public peace. This was the line my father took in private, and I conclude in the town also. He desired liberty of faith, and liberty of opinion. How far the two liberties are compatible, I cannot say. They are certainly very conflicting. What is more they are neutralising, and apt to end in indifference. Many years afterwards I came across the old Gainsborough curate, whose face I did not remember, and I was startled to be recognised by name, to receive warm greeting, and to hear many affectionate inquiries after my father and his family. But he soon let out what was then uppermost in his mind the wants of his own numerous family. What could he do or get for a son. I forget when, for it was in my absence, he introduced himself to his old parishioners at Derby, and did not sustain the impres- sion which the younger members of the family had acquired, that, whatever his faults, he must be a spiritually minded man. He found his way to my brother James, then a Fellow of Magdalen, and very I io THE CLERGY. unaccountably got into his head that my brother promised him a demyship. All who ever knew my brother James would know this to be impossible, for he was always more than equal to the occasion with ordinary people. The old Gainsborough curate, how- ever, declared himself in due time disappointed and ill-used. Mr. Fothergill's predecessor was a Mr. Urquhart, whom I used to hear mentioned with respect, and who had brought Mr. Fanshaw Middleton to the town. I am unable to say whether he is identical with the Rev. D. H. Urquhart, a clever and amusing contributor to the ' Country Spectator ' ; but as the editor thought it necessary to describe that gentle- man as ' the Translator of " Anacreon," ' I conclude him to be only a relative of the vicar. The first incumbent I can remember to have heard of after the one of my time at Gainsborough, was Mr. Beckett, of the well-known Yorkshire family. He had a good figure, fine abilities, and the best in- tentions ; but I believe the Bishop was glad to give him two years' leave of non-residence upon hearing from his parishioners that he maintained the truth of astrology and of metempsychosis, not only in conversation, but even in the pulpit. He died com- paratively young. On a mournful pilgrimage to my native town in 1852,1 found the singularly handsome and reverend figure of Mr. Bird, who had had a very warm con- troversy with the ' British Critic,' chiefly I think with Oakeley's articles in it. I believe I had had some thing to say about him myself in the Notices. How- EXTRA MURAL PARSONAGES. in ever that might be, when I saw and heard him in the pulpit of my native town, I said to myself that I wished I had seen and heard him long before, even though I could not quite agree with him now. Others may have followed, but the next I heard of was Mr. Clements, so highly and warmly appre- ciated by his parishioners, at least by a good many of them, that they assisted him to build a vicarage in a pleasant site out of the town, which however failed to detain him when Grantham was offered. He is now Canon and Sub-dean of Lincoln. I often wonder why people want to root up the parson, plant him quite away from the souls under his charge, and surround him with pleasure-grounds instead of streets and lanes. It doesn't answer. The incumbent only exchanges one set of troublesome expectants for another. In the town the old women and the younger women, with hungry and ill-clad families, want help in its simple material form. Out of town the incumbent is more at the mercy of those who drive up in carriages, and who are expecting a higher and larger amount of social recognition than it is in the poor parson's power to mete out to so many with the least chance of satisfying them all. Even these few names justify the wish for parochial annals with which I began this chapter. How is it that one never sees an account of the clergy that have successively ministered in a parish, whether as incumbents or as curates? The rector comes, and goes, or dies ; when another takes his place. But an incumbent is king and bishop, and he frequently claims more. Like many other Christians, ri2 THE CLERGY. he is pope, but he sometimes aspires to be also an apostle, a converter, a founder, a restorer, and a good deal more. In his own measure, and within his means and opportunities, he may achieve a success on these ambitious lines. Why are not such careers recorded and compared ? They would exhibit some variety, not to say contrast, and even reaction. It is but natural that a new incumbent should criticise what he finds attempted rather than realised, and in an incomplete and experimental stage. It could hardly be that the incumbencies of the last century were not worth a record, for it is well known that many clergymen of that melancholy period worked hard and long, only to be unknown and forgotten. Good and bad were alike drowned in that flood. The clergy whose unfaithfulness has made that century an enormous scandal would not have behaved so ill, and shown such utter abandon- ment of their sworn duties, if they had known that posterity would have some truer account of them than a mendacious mural epitaph paid for at so much a line by relatives as unscrupulous as them- selves. MR. HEINE KEN. 113 CHAPTER XX. GAINSBOROUGH. FAITH AND POLITICS. MY father was once churchwarden. As the custom was, the senior churchwarden beckoned to him in the service, when they both rose and left the church to perambulate the town, to see that the public-houses were closed and that there was no disorder in the streets. After walking ' down town ' and up again, under a hot sun, the senior said, ' Come, Mozley, the town seems perfectly quiet and can do without us, so just step in and I'll give you a glass of capital sherry.' My father replied, ' I came out of church to see that nobody was drinking,, and I won't drink myself.' I conclude that my father was early and sorely perplexed by religious controversy. His business made him a common refuge, and he was himself many-sided. He had a profound reverence for dig- nitaries and divines ; but he could also appreciate any scholar, and there was then much scholarship outside the pale. Orthodoxy dominated as far as I was concerned. One of our most intimate friends at Gainsborough was Mr. Heineken, the Unitarian minister of the ' Pres- byterian Chapel.' His children, the survivor of whom I lately resumed acquaintance with at Sidmouth, were our early playmates. Mr. Heineken was a man of learning and great information ; and, on that ground, VOL. I. I ii4 GAINSBOROUGH. FAITH AND POLITICS. holding his own. As a theologian he could hardly be described as of the tolerant class. He published, indeed I think my father published for him, a rather scoff- ing pamphlet on Satan and demoniacal possession. Either upon his own calculation, or quoting some theologian, he made out that each animal in the ' herd of many swine ' would have to carry two and a half devils. Certainly it is not wise to be curious upon such a point, but I see no difficulty in any number of devils possessing any number of people ; or even in an odd number of devils possessing an even number of people. If there be evil spirits, and they be allowed to possess such people as do not take proper measures to keep them out, then it is quite in accord with appearances that one devil or seven devils may drive a married couple. The whole matter of evil possession is, how- ever, beyond our comprehension, and it is with regret that I have heard in a thoroughly orthodox pulpit the dangerous admission, as it seems to me, that Satan cannot be a 'person,' for reasons which, if valid, would apply to the Almighty also. Mr. Heineken, it is evident, was not content with a purely defensive position perhaps he had not been allowed to hold it. He was not working or writing for popularity. His expectations on this point were moderate. I remember his relating that he, or a friend, had been pressed to publish a sermon, and had complied. Some time afterwards the writer received a visit from a brother, who asked for a copy. It was handed to him, with ' A shilling, please.' The brother remonstrated. EARLY WESLEYANISM. 115 ' Surely you can spare a copy. You don't want a shilling.' ' Never mind, give me a shilling.' Pocket- ing it, the writer exclaimed, ' Thank Heaven, it can- not now be said I have not sold a single copy of my sermon.' Like the vicar and the curate, the Unitarian minister visited us at Derby, keeping us all well posted to Gainsborough affairs, from different points of view. One anecdote I have on Mr. Heineken's authority, which shows that, however incredulous he might be in matters of faith, he could yet accept the marvellous. A gentleman saw repeatedly the singular spectacle of three rats running abreast over his grounds. Noting their track, and their usual times, he shot them, and then found that the middle rat was blind, and that all three held a straw in their mouths. It is almost too good to be true. From the middle of last century some of the chief shopkeepers had been Congregationalists or Indepen- dents, and vied with the Church in their zeal for saving truths. The Methodists had established themselves very early at Gainsborough, which is only a drive from Epworth ; but up to 1 8 1 5 it was not a genteel community, and a baronet who had taken it up in another part of the county was thought half mad. I am now told that Wesleyans plume themselves on their gentility quite as much as on their orthodoxy and their spirituality. But at the period I am writing of, Methodism was still in its preternatural stage, or confidently believed to be. There were obstinate claims to miraculous powers, or at least miraculous interferences, with the I 2 ii6 GAINSBOROUGH. FAITH AND POLITICS. usual result of provoking incredulity and irreverence. I remember being told, about that date, of a man descanting at a prayer-meeting on the pomps and vanities, and on their hold upon poor souls to the last. He had been invited to a funeral, he said. A poor young votary of fashion lay in her coffin in a back room, still showing her beautiful curls. In a tone of horror, he told the meeting that he had gone to take a last look, and had found the curls already singed. ' What do you say to that ? ' he added. ' That it is a lie,' replied a friend of the poor girl who chanced to be present. In politics I should deem that my father was rather impulsive that is, early in life. He took a lead in the local expression of indignation at the ' Mrs. Clark scandal,' and corresponded with Colonel Wardle. Among his friends was Mr. Drakard, pub- lisher of the ' Stamford News,' a Radical newspaper The publisher was in prison upon a charge of libel or sedition, or both, and was rather anxious about the issue of his approaching trial. The jury would have to be from the northern as well as the southern part of the county ; so Drakard sent for my father, who, upon seeing the panel, directed him what names to challenge, and the result was an acquittal. My father was sometimes on the petty jury at Lincoln. On one occasion he was foreman, and had a very hard battle with an obstinate fellow-juryman, but eventually carried them all along with him. When the next case was called, the juryman leant towards my father, and said, 'You beat me in the last case, but I'll be if you beat me in this.' My A TRUE TORY. 117 father replied, 'Why, you know nothing about the case, or what side you or I will take.' Without much inquiry into the matter, my father believed himself to be a Tory. All his family so regarded him. So, too, did all his friends and neigh- bours. If he had rebuilt half Derby after a fire, or supported half the people through a famine, the Whigs would have refused him the freedom of the borough, and to the end of his days he might have had no more to do with Parliament than a cat or a dog, a felon, or a woman. The fact was, my father was zealous for all the old institutions of the country. Of his zeal for the Church none could doubt, for his best friends and three of his sons were in its orders. His library contained, in handsome bindings, all the great divines of the Church of England, Jeremy Taylor downwards, unless I am to except Tillotson, whom some people regard as typical of the Church of England, but whom I never saw anywhere till the other day. But my father was very strong against all monopo- lies and abuses, not holding them to be covered by the Tory creed. He regarded with indignation and contempt any one who undertook an office, and re- ceived its pay or other consideration, and then shirked the duties. A man who did this he held to be no better than a common rogue. In those days there was just as much corruption, abuse, and neglect of duty on one political side as on the other, for Whig and Tory vied in the race of iniquity. Such a fact pointed to something more than a moral reformation, which, indeed, was impossible. It pointed to ' Reform ' ii8 THE LIBRARY. that is, a radical change in the institutions them- selves. This my father did not see. I did not see it. To such changes I have always submitted as necessities, but my nature shrinks from them, and is still apt to revolt against them. The more the pity, I must now say. CHAPTER XXI. THE LIBRARY. FROM my earliest recollection we had a very good library. I never thought about its formation, taking it for granted that in every good house there must be a good library. The books were many ; they were on all subjects ; they were mostly in good large type, and in well-bound octavos. As a child, I could reach the topmost shelf by standing on a chair. There were the standard historians, poets, discoverers, essay writers, and novelists, besides magazines and reviews. The ' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' must have cost my father thirty shillings a volume, and become at last hardly worth a shilling. But divinity was the strong point of the whole collection that is, in my eyes, and to my humble apprehension. There was Jeremy Taylor, and Barrow, and South, and Beveridge, and Porteus, and Paley, and Blair, besides many others less known, or less used. One divine I should never have missed, or thought of, had I not been since reminded of him frequently. ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON. 119 This was Tillotson, as I have already said above. I cannot remember ever to have seen his works in my life, till in 1883 I saw them in two folios offered for five shillings on an old-book stall at Brighton. I cannot remember ever to have heard anybody mention Tillot- son, exceptas a merely historical personage, filling a political gap, and disappearing in three years. I never associated his name with any opinion. To all practical purposes that is, within my knowledge he is a myth. Strange to say, I find that in the last century, and quite into this, there was a prevailing idea that the Church of England was Tillotsonian ; that he was its recognised teacher and guide ; and that Church people, of the period, read Tillotson and the Bible, the former more than the latter. In the Life of Mr. Wilberforce it is stated that he thus described his own mother's religion putting it, too, as the religion of all ladies in good society, and averse to fanati- cism. Macaulay rather countenances the belief, but his eulogy of Tillotson's style does not warrant the expectation of its retaining its hold on the public ear. He says the court ladies went to hear a preacher using the language they were accustomed to in draw- ing-rooms. That would be the language of high society, and the language of the day. It could hardly be expected to keep its charm for a century in the heart of a nation. A good library, it has often been said, is a good education. Young people can wander over it, brows- ing here and browsing there, sipping honey from this author and from that, and so picking up and assimilating what they fancy, or what suits their own 120 THE LIBRARY. nature. The best planned course of education is sure to leave out a good deal. Dead books may not be so efficacious as living companionships, but the latter may be indifferent of its kind, or wanting altogether. A good library is an immense mitigation of that solitude which is inevitable in a rural neighbourhood, and not uncommon even in a town. Ours was no casual library. It was not the result of legacies and windfalls. My father had collected it with a special view to the wants of a large family, and as the family came on. He frequently warned me to remember that if I lived long enough I should find myself unable to read small print. But there was always a great advantage in using the volume you were accustomed to, and in which you knew where to find the contents. So his advice to me was to buy no book the print of which was not large enough to be quite legible in all stages of my eye- sight. I doubt whether any of us quite corresponded to his expectations in our use of the library. Every now and then there arose a demand for some new book people were talking of, or something new any- how. ' Have you read all the books there are here already ? ' he would say ; adding sometimes that he was sure the old books were better than the new. Periodical literature, daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly, is a necessity of these times, and we have to be up to it. But with all its gains, it has its losses. Much in these days is read, if reading that can be called, once and never again. It has passed out of mind, and gone out of reach, or become so over-laid that we know not where to find it. Indexes are THE LIBRARY OF THE PERIOD. 121 becoming one of the great wants of the age. But even with their aid nothing can supply the place of familiar volumes which we have once read with attention, and once installed in their proper place in our memory. I must pronounce the library one of the weakest points of this age. It matters little whether it be among green fields, or in squares and esplanades ; in the rumble of waggons, or in the roll of carriages. Here is a house full of children of all ages. Where is the library? Perhaps there is no room at all that can be so designated. There are handsomely bound books in elegant cases, with plate-glass fronts prob- ably, in the dining or the drawing-room. There are large illustrated books with showy sides filling the side tables in the drawing-room, and leaving not an inch for the opening and reading of a book, or for writing a short note. The nursery, or a back room, may contain some shelves. They are occupied with school-books, used long ago, perhaps, only at lesson- time ; and birthday presents admired, glanced over, and never opened again. The parsonage ' library ' is often the smallest room, the darkest, the coldest, and the dullest in the house. The drawing-room has the pick of the aspect, and, like the dog in the manger, shuts out sun and view with a triple and sometimes quadruple array of curtains, screens, and blinds. The dining-room some- times sees the sun, but must be wholly devoted to meals. The library is seldom anything but a den. All sorts of things that must not be elsewhere gravi- tate to that lumber-room. For such material odds and ends it is a Cave of Adullam. Thackeray, after 122 THE LIBRARY. making one of his fathers read an enormous bill for military accoutrements supplied to his son, sends him to doze in his library surrounded by shooting- jackets, guns, whips, fishing-tackle, and a row of old boots and shoes. That must have been a particularly airy, dry, and cheerful library, for in most country houses the library is so damp that all these things would spoil by moth, rust, or mould, in a twelve- month. But the clergy in these days are very movable personages. The better they are the more they move, for everybody wants to have them. A good library will count for a couple of ton in a removal, and i6/. is the bill. It seems more the nature of a good library to remain where it is, and take root in the soil. So I would have a good public library in every village in this country a good, large, miscellaneous collection of books, in a good, large, airy, well-lighted and well-warmed room, under the care of some re- spectable pauper with an addition to his or her out- door allowance. I shall be told the books and the room will be wasted, for the poor village folks won't understand them. For the matter of that a man may have io,ooo/. a year, and not be able to under- stand a tenth part of the volumes in an ordinary library ; but wherever I have been situated, I have found several persons, quite villagers, old or young, male or female, as well able to understand and fully enjoy any English work in my own library as I could myself pretend to be. ' But how about the theological library you had the run of in your boyhood? ' I seem to hear BLAIR'S SERMONS. 123 friends asking. Well, I did not make much use of it. I did not like sermons. I looked at South now and then, but it was for his humour, not always in good taste. In our early days we were all expected to form a circle every Sunday evening and hear a sermon read. The room was not too large, for a large family. Gas had been then newly introduced, and people revelled in it as savages do in strong drink. It blazed, and simmered, and smelt. The room became close and hot. Before the fifth turning over of the leaves I was seized with the fidgets. What are fidgets ? I have often asked, and often attempted to answer the question. Are they the first stage of mortal dissolution, the curdling of the blood, and the gradually diminishing vitality ? Are they suppressed epilepsy ? Is it the peculiar suffer- ing grotesquely described as being nibbled to death by ducks, or scraped to death with oyster-shells ? Among all miseries that beset my early years, the Sunday evening sermon and the Sunday evening fidgets stand pre-eminent. The kind reader must bear in mind that we had already heard two sermons. I scarcely know how it is, but Blair is the only name I can identify in the distant haze. I afterwards came to read Blair, a few pages at a time, as I should have read a paper in the ' Spectator/ with positive pleasure, and with the sensation of real improvement. But few sermons none, I fear can stand the test of home delivery. They require more passion, more ecstasy, more au- thority than anybody can give to the sermon as he sits in his chair at the dinner-table, unless he can 124 CATHEDRALS AND CHAPTERS. sufficiently sacrifice himself. On the supposition that the hearers have already done all the justice they can to the serious aspect of religion, I think I should recommend South's humorous tone for Sunday even- ing use. For it has to be borne in mind that a sermon must be listened to, and must please, if it is to do any good at all. CHAPTER XXII. CATHEDRALS AND CHAPTERS. IF I am to judge by my own recollections, cathedrals and chapters occupied a larger and livelier place in the country mind in those days than now. They might not be more respected or more admired, but they were more in the nature of household words. People cared more for them, and knew more about them. This might be from very ordinary reasons. A clerical career might be arduous, precarious, and generally thankless ; but there were then very few careers at all. Of course there was money-making in all its branches ; but my father never cared for simple money-making. He would any time rather see his son a clergyman, living quietly and obscurely on 3OO/. a year, than a merchant getting ten times as much by speculations in hemp, hides, and tallow. He followed very closely Fanshaw Middleton's whole career, and when he died my father and mother read eagerly every word they saw about Heber's move- MINOR CANONS. 125 ments. I remember that my mother was moved to tears at the tidings of his sudden end. Thus early impressed, my father talked with much respect of bishops, deans, and canons, though in a lower key of the minor canons. There were four at Lincoln that I used to hear spoken of, and they all had nicknames derived from some peculiarity or failing. My father's schoolmaster at Kirton was one of them. Whenever he met my father he returned to the same regret, ' What a pity you were taken away just as you promised to be the best scholar in my school ! ' But though my father had a good ear for English prose, a very few scraps of Latinity, or rather of dog-Latin, were all that remained of Canon Grey's work in my time. To the end of his life my father was always for keeping up and reviving old acquaintances. It was after a long interval that he sought out his poor old Kirton master, and found him a sadly dilapidated, hardly respectable, old man. I believe he knew what to expect, but perhaps hoped it might not be so bad. Very straitened, and, I should conclude, very friend- less, the poor old man tried to recall the memoiy of brighter days and the gaiety of youth with the only means, as he supposed, in his power, and it would be always with a deeper plunge into the darkness that comes after the momentary flash. When the castes, classes, cliques, and coteries of England come to be described, minor canons will have a place in the survey, for they really are a very meritorious, very curious, very ill-appreciated and ill-requited race. They do immense work, on the 126 CATHEDRALS AND CHAPTERS. lowest pay, and with slight social recognition. They have special faculties and professional skill, and these are great helps towards sense and goodness. They are generally conversable in lines of their own. But they are asked to parties, not to converse, but to sing, like any other music-master. Every real dignitary feels raised a step higher in the scale of creation at the sight or the mention of a minor canon. Through the entire stratum of minor canonry there runs a vein of humour, cheering many a private circle, and occasionally breaking out in some new and original fashion. It is true that minor canons have and take advantages. They are not obliged to be always on stilts. They may indulge in a variety of topics and a freedom of speech denied to canons residentiary. They seem to have a happy time of it, and, as far as I can judge, to be more content with their condition than any other class. Minor canonry indeed must be its own reward, so little other recom- pense has it. The Sub-dean of Lincoln I used early to regard as a reality, indeed quite an important personage. What he did, and why there should be a sub-dean, it never occurred to me to ask indeed, in those days deans and chapters were altogether out of the reach of enquiry. There they were, and had been for a thousand years and more. In later years I have been made aware that a sub-dean is generally but a nominal, shadowy, indistinct being, with nothing to do, and nothing to receive but the honour of appearing in any complete roll of the chapter, and in its proces- sions. My Oriel friend Daniel Eyre, having been *SIGILLUM SUDDECANI CICESTRI^.' 127 born in the shadow of Salisbury Cathedral, having lived there all his days, and attended the services more than any other living being, was at last made sub-dean. This must have been late in life, and when he was painfully deaf. When I was Rector of Cholderton I chanced to investigate the contents of a jar on a cottage mantel- piece. Among trifles of no value there was an antique bronze seal of the usual shape. The device was a monk below a firmament praying to St. Peter above it The legend was ' Sigillum Subdecani Cicestriae.' The seal had been turned up by a labourer while scouring a ditch between Cholderton and. Newton Tony. I found there certainly was a person called the Sub-dean of Chichester, but I was persuaded to postpone restitution till at least I could make it in person. I felt that as the ' sub-dean ' no longer said prayers to St. Peter he might have no more right to the seal than myself. Several years afterwards I chanced to meet at dinner some officials of the British Museum, and had the imprudence to let out my find. They were down upon me at once. It was wanted to complete a series. I sent it next day, and had a very handsomely engraved letter of thanks. The seal is there in one of the glazed cases, with my name wrong spelt. In this matter veniam petimusque damusque vicissim. My old friend John Bathurst Deane took an impression of the seal to a meeting of antiquaries at Chichester, and greatly exercised the 'sub-dean,' who wrote to me with tender enquiries. I had to inform him of his now irreparable loss. Being at Oxford not long after Burgon's appoint- 128 CATHEDRALS AND CHAPTERS. ment to the Deanery of Chichester, I called on him to offer my congratulations, and naturally mentioned the seal, and asked rather a futile question whether I ought not to have sent it to the sub-dean. At the mention of ' sub-dean ' he became instantly several inches taller, his eyes glared like black diamonds, and his voice rang through and through me. ' Sub-dean ! There is no sub-dean. There's nobody with a right to take my place when I am away.' ' But,' said I, rather weakly, 'is there not a parish of Chichester called the sub-deanery?' 'Yes,' he answered, 'and the man is called sub-dean, but he has no place in the Chapter.' ' Well,' I continued, descending to a still lower depth of humility, ' what ought I to have done with the seal ? ' ' You ought to have sent it to the Dean, and he would have put it among the other curiosities collected by the Dean and Chapter.' I know not how or when Sub-dean Bayley, afterwards Archdeacon of Stow, became one of my father's friends and correspondents. He was a friend of Mr. Wayland, of whom hereafter, and he promised to find him preferment in the city of Lincoln ; but that promise he thought better of. It was he who advised my father to send James to Grantham School, and one of my sisters to Miss Sheppard, the daughter of the clergyman who died while investigating the originals of our Prayer Book, and whose work, such as it was, she published by subscription. I used to hear of Sub-dean Bayley as a scholar, a man of the world, and a wit ; and, what was more, the friend and associate of a small band of eminent churchmen anxious to raise the Church out of the mire and clay. ARCHDEA CON BA YLE Y. 129 His first archidiaconal Charge, delivered in 1826, lies before me, and I have perused it, as I have often before, with fresh instruction and amusement. It represents one of the oldest and most universal tradi- tions of the Church, particularly of all ecclesiastical establishments, as the refuge of humour and plea- santry, and of the wit that cheers rather than exas- perates. As this might give too light an idea of the Charge, I must add that the smile comes only here and there, and in the notes chiefly. Archdeacons Goddard, Bonney, and Blomfield had just done the hard work of the office. From the present Charge I learn, or at least am reminded, that archdeacons had formerly to inquire into the morals and manners of the ' Religious,' and of the parishioners at large. They had to ascertain whether there were any rec- tors, or vicars, or parish priests, enormiter illiterati. They had to set the clergy, by way of tasks, passages of Scripture to learn by heart, which they were to say at the next visitation. They were to regulate the dress of the clergy, and enforce the tonsure. The clerks that wore long hair were to be clipped by the archdeacon's own hands, even against their will. The archdeacon was to see that the clergy did not appear 'parti-coloured,' or in red, green, or striped hose, or in long-toed shoes, or in embroidered night- caps, or with golden spurs or gilt accoutrements, and that they did riot make up their figures with shoulder- pads, or other supplementary devices. They were to examine the clergy as to the way in which they spent their time, and what or how much, they ate and drank. VOL. I. K 130 A SUN-LIT SPOT. All this, indeed, is now antiquated ; so, too, happily, is a good deal that Archdeacon Bayley, in this Charge, described as still present and widely prevalent : the neglected condition of our churches, the broken or discarded font, and the total absence of Psalmody while every conventicle and all Nature were resounding with the praise of God. CHAPTER XXIII. A SUN-LIT SPOT. ONE sun-lit spot there was in that little world, which has often reappeared out of the gloom when I have met with some like vision, or read of one; or per- haps when people have condoled with me on being the native of a remote market-town, or have skitted at commercial gentility. On the higher ground north- west of the town, in what we used to call Mr. Torr's house, a pretty villa surrounded by shrubs and flowers, lived the Nettleships. Leaving the town in my ninth year, all I ever saw of the family were the mother and five daughters, of whom my memory singles out three. But what a mother, and what daughters ! It was religion in its sweetest form, in combination with kind looks and gentle manners, with a con- tinual flow of wit and humour, with taste and accomplishment, and with as much information as ladies can make use of. On my mother's arrival at Gainsborough, the first THE NETTLESHIPS. 131 year of this century, or, to speak more correctly, in the last year of last century, at the age of seventeen, Mrs. Nettleship at once showed great interest in the girlish bride. Lending her books, and directing her reading, she found my mother a ready pupil, always anxious to learn, and very reverential to those who had the advantage of her in education or in intel- lect. The earliest mention to be found of my brother John is in a letter from Mr. Sampson, then curate of Gainsborough, to my father and mother at Bath, in May, 1809, when my brother was just four years old : ' Master and Miss Mozley and Squire John dined at Mrs. Nettleship's last Monday.' I conclude that my mother had asked Mrs. Nettleship to keep an eye on the children. I cannot remember Gainsborough without the Nettleships, as it were, gleaming upon the town. But what an afternoon it was that we youngers passed at their house, by invitation, not very long before our departure ! Elizabeth Nettleship had already preceded us to the neighbourhood of Derby, having married a brother of the gentleman whom I have designated as ' Gaius of Derbe.' In this way she became to us the longest, and nearest, and most familiar representative of a family which still beamed so numerous and so bright in our memories. By this time she is claimed as the ancestress of squires, merchants, and, I believe, M,P.'s. But to return to that ever bright and warm afternoon. Not to dwell on the cakes, or the dainty slices of bread and butter, or the pretty china, it was the first time that I tasted coffee. No coffee I 132 A SUN-LIT SPOT. have ever tasted since, in this country or in any other, can bear comparison with that ; none so aro- matic and so instantly cheering to heart and to brain. It must have come straight and fresh from Araby the blest. No cup of coffee ever sent out so abiding a perfume, for I taste and smell it now as I think of it But no doubt there was cream -real cream in it. Perhaps I might distinguish the daughters as the wise, the witty, and the sentimental. The witty cannot always control their wit, and the sentimental will sometimes tread upon corns. Which was the offender in what I am about to mention, I forget. The prosperous Dissenting grocer of the town had got into a sad scrape. He had been selling adulterated pepper. His stock had been seized, and there was found a good deal of it. I forget his excuse, but what the retail dealers usually plead in such a dilemma is that the wholesale dealers had palmed the stuff upon them ; and when the wholesale dealer is called to account, he usually says that the price named by his customer necessarily implied an inferior article. In this case the town nicknamed the poor man Mr. Pepper. One of the young ladies above had to go into the town to make purchases, and to call at the grocer's. ' Now, mind, take good care not to call him Mr. Pepper.' The caution was repeated a dozen times, and all the way into the town the young lady was practising the right name and abjuring the sobriquet. She found herself in the shop, with the grocer behind the counter and putting on his best looks. All her heart came out at once, GAINSBOROUGH AT OXFORD. 133 and glancing over her list of orders she began, ' Mr. Pepper, &c.' There were not a few hopeless swains sighing in vain for one or other of this remarkable trio. One poor man, who had not a shadow of a chance, and who paid us periodical visits at Derby, could not help smartening up and assuming an unaccustomed gaiety when he had reason to believe the loved object was with us. It is always a pleasure to me to know that the genius of this family is still transmitted. I believe Professor Nettleship and Professor Rolleston derive from them, and that thus, with my brother James, my native town had at one time three good representa- tives at Oxford. In 1817, two years after our migration from Gainsborough, my father returned there on a visit to the Nettleships. Dr. Sampson, whom I have men- tioned above, and of whom I shall have more to say, was their visitor at the same time, apparently by arrangement. Not long after Dr. Sampson writes : I often think, I assure you, of our late visit together at Gainsborough. We certainly passed our time very agreeably. The Religious Decorum with which our mornings were opened, and the Devotional Services with which our evenings were closed, did not, I trust, appear to you in any other light than the indis- pensable duty of every family professing Christianity. But you know my sentiments pretty well already on this point, and how high a responsibility I think attaches to all heads of families with respect to the Religious training of their households. Tho' I am no Calvinist, I am well persuaded . that we cannot expect the blessing of God, or the grace which is necessary to the profitable knowledge of His will, except we seek after it by the methods which He has appointed. You see I have been so much in the way of sermonising lately that I cannot conclude a letter without a little something 134 A SUN-LIT SPOT. in that way. However, it is not the first specimen which you have had, and perhaps may not be the last. God bless you all! One of the sermons here alluded to may have been one for the S. P. G., which the doctor's then congregation at Leytonstone had requested him to publish. These ladies were not High Church. Nor can it be said there was neither High nor Low Church in those days, for there were both. The Sabbatical observance of the Lord's Day was then, as I suppose it is now, a prominent topic of the Evangelical party. My brother John, I know not why, had early taken decided ground on this point, wishing to see work- people enjoy Sundays, under reasonable limits, as a cheerful holiday. He was with me on a visit to Gainsborough, I think in 1825. On walking to the pretty village of Morton, we saw on the walls every- where in very large letters, ' Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.' The particular occasion of this warning was the approach of the Feast, or Revels, which after the custom of those times were on Sunday, and when the village would, no doubt, receive many undesirable visitors from the neighbour- ing town. Upon our calling on the Nettleships my brother expressed a strong disapproval of these pious placards. He was asked for the reason of his ob- jections, and there ensued a controversy, in which I was content to be a listener. In my ' Reminiscences ' I have mentioned that early in the ' Oxford Movement,' when Newman happened to be with us at Derby, my brother John and I took THE WESTONS. 135 him to a private meeting, convened in order to a declaration of Church principles ; and that my brother justly reproved me for the dishonest facility with which I added my signature to a Petition for enforcing the Better Observance of the Sabbath. I read in Stanley's Life of Arnold, that some years after this Arnold had a correspondence with the framer and propounder of this petition, taking much the same exceptions to it that my brother had done. In those days one of the points at issue between the High and Low Church of the period was whether a rubber of whist was compatible with salvation. It was the belief of the latter that it was attended by the most awful consequences for ever and ever. In the year 1820 this was still a moot question between Mrs. Nettleship and her daughters, who had come more in contact with the Evangelical school. The mother, like a kind old lady, pleaded for cards in cer- tain cases, if played without money. The daughters held them to be indissolubly connected with gambling. The bridge over the Trent was the means of bring- ing an interesting variation upon the too commercial character of the town. It was completed before my father was twenty, but must have taken several years. As indeed it proved, it was expected to be a matter of great difficulty. The banks were low. The soil was alluvial to I know not what depth. The bridge must leave water-way, and height too, for small sailing craft. It would have to stand high tides, and sometimes an exceptional ' eagre ' or ' bore ' from the sea, and immense freshes from the land. I remember my father mentioning that a boat had once been 136 A SUN-LIT SPOT. sailed twenty miles in a straight line across the country, upwards from Gainsborough. So the townsmen employed a man, already of some reputation, and afterwards known for consider- able works on the Continent and in America. This was Mr. Weston. He built the piers in caissons. One of them, I think, had to be partly rebuilt, but the bridge has stood ever since, and, with its three bold elliptical arches, is a grand object. It must have been during the work that Mr. Weston married a sister of Mr. John Nettleship, or of his wife, for his daughters were cousins of the Miss Nettleships, and like them, but with great differences. Miss Weston and her sister Sophia regarded Gainsborough as their home, often returning to it. They also came to us, I think more than once, at Derby, and we were often coming in one another's path elsewhere. On the very day that Perceval was shot my father called on Miss Weston, and engaged to take her to Covent Garden the following Tuesday. In the letter to my mother mentioning this, he adds, ' She is a very, very nice girl.' Accompanying their father, the Miss Westons had to lead a wandering life, and it became their habit too much, perhaps, for the taste of quiet stay-at-home people. I used to regard them as models of accomplish- ment, or blue-stockings, as people might please to describe them. They had seen the world which most people can only read about ; and they could converse in French and Italian. Even the commer- cials had to acknowledge the superiority of the pro- fessionals, though glad of a chance to criticise them. THE TIBER AND THE TRENT. 137 As I remember, the fashion of the place was for ladies to make a good deal of play out of the graces Nature had given them, and a moderate stock of learning in which botany predominated. The Miss Westons had seen the cities and manners of men. But when I heard of them, now and then, many years after, they were Miss Westons still, and very good ladies. But Gainsborough had travellers of its own, whose range was rather circumscribed in those days. One gentleman had been to Rome. He was asked what kind of a river he found the Tiber. ' It was very like the Trent at Morton Carr.' This was thought to imply some want of appreciation, or at least of imagi- nation, for the Gainsborough people had never been able to invest their own very useful water-way with a classical character. I often heard it as a good story. When I went to Rome and first saw the Tiber from the bridge of St. Angelo, I saw at once the truth, indeed the exactness of the resemblance. In both cases a turbid stream winds rapidly between high muddy banks. The comparison did not include the surroundings, as to which the Trent and the Tiber have not much in common. Yet Gainsborough bridge would be an ornament even to the Tiber. 1 38 BRIDL1NGTON QUAY AND FLAM BO RO UGH, CHAPTER XXIV. BRIDLINGTON QUAY AND FLAMBOROUGH. HAVING done, I hope, due honour to a really great and good man, in his way, my paternal great-grand- father, who founded our family on alternate work and school, and a diet of oatcake and oatmeal porridge, I cannot wholly omit my mother's father. He had his capacities and his virtues too. I must have seen him several times in my very early years, but I spent a couple of days with him at a farmhouse at Flam- borough Head in 1823, and a couple of hours with him at Bridlington Quay in 1825. He was one of the amphibious race, sure to be found at a port, or in its neighbourhood. He was a farmer, and bred horses, selling a good many to the Emperor of Russia. He had as good an eye for ships as for horses. He dealt in everything wanted for the building, outfitting, and provisioning of ships. This requires much knowledge, an extensive connection, and the habit of brokerage, for it is impossible for any one man to have always in store the materials for the equipment of a fleet. Such a business is carried on with much quicker despatch than most inland operations. To give an instance. In 1823 all we youngers were at a small farmhouse between Fileyand Scarborough. At breakfast one morning we missed two handsome THOMAS BRAMBLES. 139 Creatures that had been grazing in the field before us the evening before. The wind had suddenly changed in the night ; a man had presented himself at early dawn and driven off the beasts to Scarborough, where they were immediately killed, cut to pieces, salted, tubbed, and consigned to the hold of a ship, which was at sea by this time. Thomas Brambles, my maternal grandfather, was not wholly English. He could trace his descent from a man who had come over in the same ship with William Now for the Conqueror. Why may I not write the Conqueror, for conqueror he certainly was? True; but in fact it was the Prince of Orange, and my ancestor was not on board in a combatant capacity, though in what capacity I know not. Per- haps he stuck to the good ship, which, under the name of ' Betsey/ was employed in the Newcastle trade till a good many years into this present century, and, being at last stranded, refused even then to break up, costing more than it was worth to pull to pieces. His own father, or grandfather, of the same name, had come to Yorkshire from Cornwall, and had lived to a very great age. Though stone-deaf for many years, he never omitted church ; and when asked why he attended services when he could hear nothing, used to answer, ' Where two or three are gathered together.' My own grandfather Brambles, then, was a bit of a Dutchman, and his features and expression, though not his figure, looked it. He was himself a member of the Church of England, bred and born in it ; 140 BRIDLINGTON QUA Y AND FLAMBOROUGH. yet the tone with which he observed to me that he must be a good Churchman, having two large pews, one at Flamborough Church and another at Brid- lington, was hardly serious. At Flamborough, I remember, we breakfasted, sharp, at seven. My step-grandmother told me that once, after a stormy winter night, she had gone out to have a look at the sea, a few hundred yards off. Just as she got to the cliff, about three hundred feet high, she saw a fine ship as it was being driven upon the rocks, the crew quite helpless. She ran back for help, and returned to the cliff with men and ropes, when not a vestige of the ship was to be seen. I used to hear that the coast people, le.d by Brid- lington, had made a strong opposition to the building of the lighthouse at Flamborough Head, and that some of my respected ancestors had taken part in the opposition. They had a plausible case. First, there was the new charge on the passing vessels, already burdened with dues. Secondly, there was the fact that if in thick weather a ship got near enough to see the light, it would by that time not be able to save itself. Thirdly, the best thing generally to be done was to give the Head a very wide berth, and the light would encourage the less safe course. Fourthly, there were always French cruisers in that sea, whose policy it was to keep just within sight of the coast, so as to see without being seen, if possible. A light visible a dozen or twenty miles would just answer their purpose. The case of the objectors might be good but HARVESTS OF THE SEA. 141 unfortunately they were interested parties, for in point of fact, in a certain genteel and lawful way, they were wreckers. Their trade was dealing with wrecks and wreckage, and refitting ships driven into the bay with loss of masts, sails, anchors, and cables, and other damages. I was at Bridlington in 1813 or 1814, and distinctly remember getting out of bed in the night of an awful storm to see what I could see of it from a window looking over the bay. For a day or two the little harbour was full of disabled ships. It was in 1825, and not very long before my grandfather's death, that I had a two hours' prome- nade with him on Bridlington pier. He had gone there to see the sailing of a collier, just launched, and of more than usual capacity and strength. He had offered 3,ooo/. for it the day before, but the owners wanted 4,ooo/., and my grandfather seemed to think half-way would be about the value. He looked at it very critically, yet lovingly, as it passed us and was soon full sail on its first voyage. In these days it would have been called a tub, but for those days it was decidedly a smart-looking craft, and one grieved to think of its grimy designation. As we were walking up and down the pier, an acquaintance came up and gave my grandfather news of a sad wreck. The crew and some poor women and children had been a long time exposed to the fury of the waves, and several had succumbed. It was a long story. There was a chance of saving the ship and the cargo. In a few minutes my grand- father repeated what he had heard to another ac- 1 42 BRIDLINGTON Q UA V AND FLAM BO RO UGH. quaintance. I noticed that he uniformly diminished every figure in the original statement by a consider- able percentage : the tonnage of the ship, the value of the cargo, the number of the crew and of those that had perished, and the hours of exposure. It might be that he had special reasons for believing there to be some exaggeration, but it seemed simple habit. His business might compel under-estimates, to meet over-estimates. More recently I became acquainted with the affairs of a dealer in timber of home growth. A servant complained to him that he found himself placed in difficulties by the fact that every fallen tree or bit of timber was entered in the stock-book at measurements exceeding the truth. The answer was that the purchaser would be sure to knock off something from the estimates, so that a little ex- aggeration on the seller's side was necessary to the truth. The plan, I must add, did not answer in that case. A sister of my grandfather married a Mr. Ward, who in 1800 was in London, and from whose house my mother went to Drury Lane, and saw George III. shot at. I frequently heard it mentioned that my grandfather had given material assistance to Mr. Ward, or, upon his death, to his son. This son, an only child, was my grandfather's godson, and was named after him, as I too was He became a large shipowner. He was too wise ever to build a ship, but he knew how and when to buy one. By pacing up and down the decks, and giving an occasional stamp, he could tell whether a ship was *TOM WARD: i 43 sound or not, and even its age. What he knew, he took care to keep to himself. When he had sounded a ship others in the trade tried to sound him, and complained, rather unreasonably, if they afterwards found that what they got out of him was not worth much. Of course they said more. At one time, ' Tom Ward ' had a large and valu- able fleet. In the manning and management of it and in other matters he had a valuable ally, Captain Holiday, another cousin of my mother's. For a long period Tom Ward was a daily frequenter of the Mer- chants' and Shipowners' room at Lloyd's, and Captain Holiday of the Captains' room. At the end of every day they compared notes, and were thus able to see both sides of many a question in which shipowners and their servants are apt to see severally one side only. Meeting with scarcely any losses, Tom Ward latterly became his own insurer. Fate, however, or the sea, or the salvage interest, had a revenge at last. He left in his will that as his ships returned to port they should be sold, for the daughter, to whom he had left everything. At the last, one was still on its voyage from Calcutta, the ' Lady Kennaway/ a fine new ship, with a very valuable cargo. It had had a very bad voyage. The crew, which happened to be much too small for the ship, were thoroughly ex- hausted and out of heart. In this condition they encountered a terrible storm in the Bay of Biscay, and found themselves unable to manage the ship. They took to their boats, and arrived finally at Ply- mouth, with the statement that they had left the ship 144 COUNTY KERRY. sinking, with I know not how many feet of water in the hold. The very evening of their arrival there came news that the ship had been brought into Falmouth, I think it was, safe and sound. Some small craft had boarded it, but, finding it too much for them, had engaged a tug and so saved it. The result was a very curious trial, for the salvage had to be assessed and re-assessed for division between the salvors. But her ladyship had been knocking about in the bay and taking good care of herself for several days, just as the ' Cleopatra ' with the ' Needle ' did a few years ago. This singular, indeed almost single, casualty was a comparatively small deduction from the very large fortune left by my cousin and namesake to his only child, a daughter. She married Captain Douglas Lane, who had a large stud of horses and was said to be on the turf. By I forget what accident she was sadly burnt, and died. CHAPTER XXV. COUNTY KERRY. MY maternal grandfather imported ' Irish blood ' into the family. I have been often reminded lately that it has been the making of me. It may be a useful com- plement of Saxon, and still more of Dutch blood, but how much real Celtic is involved in the name of ' Waters ' passes me to say. I have been told by a A CELTIC INFUSION. 145 well-informed Irish gentleman that, like some other names of English derivation, it is borne by many native Irish families, having possibly been adopted in times of necessity to obtain English protection. In County Kerry, near Derrynane, Daniel O'Con- nell's home, there lived one Waters, with three sons, who managed his property. That property, I conclude, was leasehold not freehold, certainly. The youngest of the three came to England and settled at Brid- lington. There he died, leaving some young children, who had been given to understand that they were heirs to Irish property. Their grandfather died, and they expected to hear from Ireland. They did not. At last they heard that their two uncles had taken possession, and that they intended to keep everything to themselves. It must have been rather more than a century ago that my grandfather married one of the younger of the daughters, said to have been pretty, clever, refined, and good, and I should think a little above her surroundings. She was, however, always delicate, insomuch that the care of the household devolved much on my mother, who was her eldest daughter. Three years after that daughter's marriage, she died. She was an Independent. Whether she brought this from County Kerry I know not, but the state of things at Bridlington Quay was enough to account for it. Even when I was there in 1825, the Quay, both a busy port and a fashionable watering-place, with a population of several thousands, and a mile from the town of Bridlington, had no church, though it had several meeting-houses. Very likely at that VOL. I. L 146 COUNTY KERRY. time it would have been quite impossible to get a church built, even if the money had been forthcoming. All, however, I know about the matter is that my grandmother was an Independent, and that she so remained. My mother had been baptised at the parish church of Bridlington. There also was she confirmed, upon her own presentation, as appears from her account of the matter. Archbishop Markham, then over eighty, was holding a Confirmation at Bridlington. My mother and a young friend were walking that way, and they saw the candidates going in order to the church. They felt a sudden impulse to join the procession. They stepped into the line ; but my mother was immediately seized with some very natural and proper misgivings. What if they were detected, questioned, and examined ? My mother had not learnt the Catechism, but she knew that the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Command- ments were in it, and she had always repeated the Creed as part of her daily prayers. No tickets, it appears, were then required. My mother was re- ceived and confirmed with the rest. Though she had had no preparation, the impression received that day always lived in her memory, and no doubt left its mark in her character. Had she consulted her parents beforehand, it must have raised a painful question between them. Of this, as of many other irregular acts, it may be said, Factum valet. As I have said above, the mother that is, the Kerry girl, or at least the daughter of the Kerry man died young. Her brother I remember well, having ABSENS H&RES NGN ERIT. 147 had long conversations with him in 1823 and 1825. He was a tall man, of good figure, pleasant address, and with a world of information. His ruddy com- plexion showed a decided contrast to the light Scandinavian hues predominating on the east coast For a very long period, I think till his death at an advanced age, he was in the Customs, and was also Lloyd's agent for the port. I suppose this made him indifferent to any claim he might have to property in Kerry. One or two of his relatives, however, cherished the idea, and committed a bundle of documents to a Yorkshire solicitor. He instituted inquiries, or at least said that he had done so. The matter draggled on. Finally, by his death, or his failure, all his busi- ness went to another firm, and after a time there was a search for the documents, which were never seen again. There were, however, the letters received from the first firm referring to the documents it had received. It was supposed that I could do something, and I unwisely undertook to see what I could make out of the letters. They were sent to me, and their contents certainly implied that the first-mentioned lawyer had received documents relating to a claim to property in County Kerry. I thereupon wrote that I did not see what I could do, but I would wait for the oppor- tunity of better information. Those letters remained on my writing-table for twenty years. At last I returned them, and I hope they were burnt, and as far as possible forgotten. If my own brothers and sisters had the slightest interest in the matter, I might perhaps have done something gone to Ireland pos- 148 COUNTY KERRY. sibly ; but as our line of descent was female, I could have got nothing for my pains. One piece of the Waters property I certainly possess, and it is inalienable, as far as I am con- cerned. My mother, born a hundred years ago, and her Bridlington relatives, used to relate that an an- cestor, in County Kerry, had his house burnt down. The nurse fled with the only child of the house, and holding it high up on her arm, with its head over her shoulder, was too frightened herself to notice that the child's face would be turned towards the flames. On arriving at a place of safety and putting down the child, she perceived that its face was fixed in a paroxysm of terror. The mask did not fade or melt away, and it became evident the impression was deep in the system. Though the child grew to man- hood, he never quite recovered from that night, for he always had the same frightened expression, and always hesitated as if under a strong pre-occupation. This expression, or mask, as I used to hear it called, and this habitual want of presence of mind he trans- mitted to his descendants, all of whom, I was assured, had it more or less even in my time. Thus I hail back to Conisborough on my father's side, to Bridlington on my mother's. The entire street in which she, was born, and in which she passed her early years, has long since been swallowed up by the ever-encroaching sea. A sea-wall, recently built at great cost, has I see already given way. Bridlington Church, as I remember it in 1813 or 1814, was the very dilapidated fragment of a church of cathedral form and dimensions. The dissolution LINCOLNSHIRE AND YORKSHIRE COASTS. 149 of the Priory is the usual story of robbery, murder, and sacrilege. There remains an ancient gateway. From childhood I have imagined vaults under it, peopled with wretched prisoners, languishing, dying, or dead. Something told me at a very early visit must have grown into this, for it was not till many years after that I read in ' Bigland's Yorkshire ' that there were actually some gloomy cells in the lower part of the structure, which then served as places of confinement for petty delinquents. In those days Bridlington Quay was the nearest watering-place to Gainsborough at all worthy of the name. The entire coast of Lincolnshire is fen land, of great breadth southward, but contracted as it approaches the Humber. The land is not always above the reach of high tides. The sea recedes a mile or more, and ebbs and flows with the thinnest lines of breakers or the merest ripples. Drainage becomes a very difficult matter. But by sailing with the ebb down the Trent, and by then coaching or posting thirty miles through tame, yet pretty Holder- ness, the Gainsborough folks found themselves in a new world at Bridlington Quay, at a lively port and a tempestuous sea, and within a walk of magnificent coast scenery. Railways have done wonders in bringing distant places near, but still more in creating watering- places where it cannot be said there is either sea- water, fresh water, or even land, in the common sense of the term. The hotel, the esplanade, the pier, the water-tower, and the well-protected shrubberies, triumph over these natural difficulties, and make a ISO MY PARENTS. Palmyra in what yesterday was a dismal swamp. Even at Bridlington Quay, however, the primeval conflict between sea and land is still undecided, for the house, indeed the street, in which my mother was born has long been an ' airy nothing ' between the pier and the sky. CHAPTER XXVI. MY PARENTS. MY parents were married at Scarborough, on the last Christmas Day of last century, that is, in 1 800. They deferred their wedding trip to the spring, when they took a tour in Wales, and went up Snowdon. My father had then to travel a good deal in the way of business. At short intervals he wrote long letters to his young wife, overflowing with affection, and with occasional bits of humour. He was always thinking of some present or other to bring her, and his wife had to check him. The following letter introduces Edinburgh, the present century, some remarkable incidents, and a name that became afterwards better known : Edinburgh, August 4, 1801. MY BELOVED JANE, I told you in my last that I would not write again for six or eight days, but I find it is impossible for me to live without conversing with you, and at the distance we are from each other writing is the only conversation we can have. I hope to get all done here to-morrow night nay, I am resolved to do so, for I find if I stay a month I shall leave EDINBURGH IN 1801. 151 something or other undone at last. It is very tedious doing with them, for, with the exception of two or three, they are not to be seen till eleven in the morning, and at half-past four or so they go to dinner, so that in that short time they have all their business to attend to, and I am bothered beyond description. They will not suffer themselves to be in the least hurried ; but say, with a smile, ' What, Mr. Mozley, I need not be in a hurry of doing with you. What ! you have only been here three or four days ; it is impossible you can leave us of ten days or a fortnight yet.' ' Yes, indeed,' think I, ' but what would my Jane say if I trifled away so much of my time ? ' Mr. Constable told me yesterday he knew my only motive for hurrying was to get to my wife again, for he understood I was a newly married man. What makes Edinburgh very different from London, and I think all other places, is that the booksellers here are so very friendly with one another, which (being oppositionists) is some- what singular. It is astonishing what particular kindness I meet with from Mr. Fairbairn. He is a very respectable old gentle- man. He insisted on introducing me to some of the trade. I drank tea and supped with him last Sunday at his house, about half a mile from his shop. Mrs. F. is a very pleasant, plain old lady. After the salmon at supper, she insisted upon my drinking a glass of whisky, which I declined but,' Hout away, mon, this is the way we do in Scotland, and I insist upon your conforming.' Mr. F. was vexed at my not dining too with him, when at the same time I was dining by myself at home. When the whisky was introduced I could not help thinking of my Jane, and the half moon. . . . Edinburgh is as oustling as London, and as gay with hackney-coaches. . . . After the business of yesterday was over, I walked to the top of the Castle. It is a very curious place, and worth the attention of a stranger. There are a thousand soldiers in the barracks there, besides French prisoners. Poor fellows, they looked so hard and begged so much that I was obliged to buy some- thing of them, and when I found they had curious hair rings I was pleased at the opportunity I had of bringing home small presents. I therefore bought one marked 'Anne' for Miss Holiday, one marked 'Mary 'for Mary, and one marked 'My dear Geney,' for thee, my love. Among some hundreds there was not a Jane, or a Jenny ; but, poor souls, they spelt as well 152 MY PARENTS. as they could, and we must excuse it. And besides the ring, as my Jane is very good indeed, I have bought her a pair of list shoes. These I thought would do very nicely for my dear girl for about next December or January, when she is getting well of her indisposition, and walks out and gathers her former strength. They will keep the snow from her feet, and prevent her taking cold. Now don't you think I am very considerate ? I was at some pains in choosing them a proper size. When you get them on, I think you will find them to fit miraculously. . . . Before I began writing this letter, I read over your two last ones. When I am with you I set light of them, because I can then look at you and converse with you ; but the moment I leave you they then become valuable to me, and are in fact my only consolation ; but I hope both their noses will be put out of joint to-morrow morning. Edinburgh abounds with I think the finest women I ever saw ; but they don't take my atten- tion from my Jane. No, I think of her ten times more than ever I did, because she is so good indeed she is fifty times too good for H. MOZLEY. In 1802 my father was in London, and, at my mother's desire, called on her aunt, Mrs. Ward, whom she had visited the year of her marriage. ' Mrs. Ward,' he says, 'a fat little body, makes many en- quiries after her niece, and tells me she had a lover in London. Had I known this two years ago I should have felt rather uncomfortable, but there is no wonder at my sweet little Jane having admirers, she is so good and so pretty. Mr. Ward is a friendly man, and Thomas a far nicer young man than I thought of I have given above the story of Tom Ward, his fleet of merchantmen, and his fortune. My mother always wished to keep up the acquaintance, and on the rare occasion of my brother John coming up to town, he called at Lloyd's, and was sure to find Tom Ward and Captain Holiday. I accompanied him MR. WILSON OF YORK. 153 once. Tom Ward was no longer ' a nice young man.' My impression at the time was that he regarded any- body who approached him as having a design on his money. We tried a conversation, but had no topics in common. Perhaps I might have managed better with him alone, but I had to let my elder brother take the lead. He asked my brother to dine at his house in the Commercial Road, where everything was in very good style. The Rector of Stepney was there. He men- tioned that he had that morning married his ten thousandth couple. His fee was a guinea, and he had never been cheated of it but once. A man who knew him well at the Royal Exchange, for he sold dogs in the streets about, pleaded that he had no money with him, but would send him a dog. The rector did not want a dog, which the man probably knew ; but he never got the guinea. In 1802 my mother accompanied my father on one of his visits to Mr. Wilson's country-house at Fulford, near York. Mr. Wilson and my father acted in concert, maintaining a position shared by no other country booksellers in England, and somewhat antagonistic to the London trade, then ensconced in very close lines of circumvallation. A passage in my father's letter of July 10 that year will remind my older readers of many figures haunting memory. Till, I should say, 1835, it was a very ordinary thing to meet with ladies who, to save the trouble and cost of following the fashion, never wore anything but a close- fitting habit. It required a good figure and bearing, that is, beauty unadorned. In the year 1815 I find 154 MY PARENTS. Mrs. Bray, who must then have been a very pretty figure, and who was entering, as she thought, on a theatrical career, going to Bath in a riding-habit, the usual travelling-dress for ladies. The effect, however, was apt to be masculine, and when prolonged to middle age gave the lady a kind of epicene character, in which she could take what part she pleased. At Cheltenham in 1829 there was just such a lady, a favourite, yet with a sobriquet. Two or three years after this, Miss Wilson, one of the ladies of Fulford House, above mentioned, came to me at Oxford with a companion in a riding habit. This was Miss St. Leger, an intimate friend of the Kemble family, exceedingly clever, self-possessed, and, if I may venture to say it, manly. They were making a long round of travels, and I had to lionise them through Oxford. The lady in the habit took her stand on the threshold of All Souls' Library, and said, ' Now, Mr. Mozley, will you please tell me what all these books are about.' I have frequently found it past me to say what one volume was about, but here there were 70,000. I must return to my father's letter : Depend upon it you will be tired of wearing your habit all the time you are out. I would advise you to take a change of clothes. Pray, what sort of a hat will you have with your habit ? But you can get one at York. On another occasion my father went out of his way to see Castle Howard. It is indeed a delightful place, and some of the paintings are wonderful. One of them I shall never forget ' The three Maries weeping over the body of Jesus.' The painting is CASTLE HOWARD AND RICHMOND. 155 about the size of your square card-table, and it is valued at 2o,ooo/. It is in a cabinet by itself, and very few are permitted to see it. My heart was quite melted, and the impression it has left will not soon pass away. It is impossible that anything should give me such exquisite pleasure, except the sight of you again. Writing from Richmond in 1808, my father dwells on the beauty of the scenery. ' Richmond is most charmingly situated. I have been over the Castle and what else there is to see. I wished for you with me to enjoy the fine views. One view was indeed fine. " yes," said the man, " I had the honour to conduct the Prince of Wales here last summer. He stood just there, a full half-hour, quite struck with the beauties of the scene.' Under the date of November 3, 1808, concluding with a very humble and tender apology for the topic, he enlarges to his wife on the merits of a new printing- press he had just seen at North Shields, the ' Stan- hope ' press, which came to be the press of my own early recollections. ' The maker,' he says, ' was a very clever fellow, a great mechanic. I really am so pleased with the principle, I could dwell on it a good hour.' On October 16, 1807, my father writes : My dear Jane, how can you write in such a scolding manner ? Have I not told you fifty times that I am the best husband in the world ? Well, my dear girl, I love you for your attention to me. Indeed, I thank God that I have such a wife, and I hope when she reads further that she will thank God she has a husband bad and inattentive as he is. Last night I called on Mr. Redgram. I thought if he was from home I would go to Sadler's Wells, for Mr. and Mrs. Rudsdell were engaged, and I should be alone if I came home. I thank God Almighty, Red- gram was at home. He had friends with him. I was easily 156 MY PARENTS. prevailed on to stop to supper. I was there from six to one o'clock. This morning the papers announced a dreadful business at Sadler's Wells, almost too shocking to relate. I had an appointment with Lackington's. Mr. Hughes, a partner, told me he was going to Sadler's Wells, of which his father is a proprietor. I went with him there, but would now give any- thing if my curiosity had been less active. I was ready to faint with horror, and if Mr. Hughes' friend had not given me a little brandy I certainly should have fainted. I saw seventeen poor creatures lying side by side who had been trampled to death in the confusion. One young girl was locked up. Numbers were taken last night to Bartholomew's Hospital, of whom six died this morning. Nay, this is not all. People were met in every direction last night carrying home their wives and children, apparently lifeless, or with broken arms and legs. All this was occasioned by a set of pickpockets in all parts of the house. A whistle was heard in the pit and was answered in the gallery. A cry of ' Fire ! Fire ! ' threw all into confusion. Nothing could be more dreadful. Women jumped from the gallery into the pit. My motive for writing now is for fear you should hear of the accident, and fancy I was among the killed and wounded. . . . On comparing this account with the report of the coroner's inquest in the ' Annual Register,' I find a difference as to the cause of the disaster. According to the latter, it was a fight between two drunken men. Had the alarm been a little later a good many would have been drowned, for a part of the entertainment was a naval action in a large pool of water five feet deep. Being in town in 1809, my father had the curiosity to see the ' O. P.' riot. Well, I went to Covent Garden last night, into the boxes, at half price. It is a most beautiful theatre. No one, unless he has seen, can have any conception of the work that is going on. Watchman's rattles, whistles, cat-calls, dustman's bells, hissing, hooting, mewing, barking, ' Off, off, off,' ' Loo, loo,' ' tally-ho,' ' Yoicksto him,' &c., a thousand things else, kept up such an in- THE <C>./V RIOTS. 157 cessant din that I was glad to get out. One fellow, a Bow Street runner, was in the pit. Being recognised, he was turned out. Soon after he appeared again in the pit, and seemed determined to maintain his position. But a dozen or score fellows flew on him like so many tigers. They were all down together Good heavens, such a scene ! I fully expected three or four would have been killed. Nearly all have ' O. P.' in front of their hats. Many had silver letters, which looked very pretty. The various devices the pit have to keep the noise alive are wonderful. When the curtain rises they turn their backs to the stage, making the most dreadful noises. Then two or three pronounce 'O. P.,' stamping their feet violently down during the pronuncia- tion of the letters. This was instantly caught by the whole house. You can have no idea of the effect. Then they cram themselves as close to the sides of the pit as possible, and make a road up the middle. The active fellows then race it up and down, treading of course on the seats. Even leapfrog was attempted. The play was ' Romeo and Juliet,' with ' The Poor Soldier.' All was pantomime. I declare solemnly I did not hear one word of the performance, and although a very large band of music was playing in the farce, and between play and farce, it was only at intervals you could discover it, and then only for a single moment. When any of the Kembles appear on the stage, the scene is at its climax, for then, as my paper formerly observed, it is enough to tear Hell's Concave. The audience look anywhere but on the stage, and if the players speak at all, it is a proof of their folly, for they cannot hear themselves. Nov. 1 6. I understand that in the row at Covent Garden last night, one of the ' O. P.'s ' was knocked down and kicked when down by one of the fighting Jews, and that he is now dying in consequence. I 5 8 NAT ALE SOLUM. CHAPTER XXVII. NATALE SOLUM. FROM an early date Gainsborough was a position of strategic importance. It was the highest point of the river, accessible to small sea-going vessels at all states of the tide, and at high tides to larger vessels. In my time the Smiths built ships of seven or eight hundred tons burden there. Next to the Thames, the Trent was formerly the best station for a fleet on the east coast. It could there be easily defended, and could always drop down with the ebb in a few hours, and, with a favourable wind, be at sea in a long day. Gainsborough was, and indeed still is, the most inland point in the east of England that can be reached by vessels of three hundred tons burden. On the other hand, it was the lowest point of the river that could be reckoned on for a safe crossing under ordinary conditions. Just above the old town the Trent contracts to a width of 1 10 yards. The approaches are on dry ground, only submerged by the most extraordinary floods. Below Gainsborough there were several ancient ferries in particular, one still bearing the name of Ferry Kinnard, being no doubt the spot where Edward the Confessor passed with an army upon rafts it must be supposed. That ferry, however, could only be reached over wide marshy tracks on both sides of the river, and, conse- GENES BURH. 159 quently, after a period of dry weather. The Romans had a bridge of some sort two or three miles above Gainsborough, and there are even traces of an old work. But, as I have stated above, the Roman port was Lincoln, communicating with the Trent by a canal at Torksey, where the junction was fortified to prevent surprise by piratical fleets. Gainsborough first appears in history as built from the ruins of Torksey. Alfred was married here, in the old palace then occupying the site of the still existing ' Old Hall.' It was here that Sweyn, some generations after, effected his first landing on English soil, and soon made his first settlement. His son Canute was born here, and was much more of a Gainsborough man than I can claim to be, for here he passed his youth, and here, upon the death of his father, he was proclaimed King of England by the captains of his navy. It is an old and probable tradition of the place that here he rebuked his courtiers by commanding the onward-rushing ' eagre ' to stand still. It is frequently said that Gainsborough is a cor- ruption of Danesborough ; but the Anglo-Saxon spell- ing was ' Genes burh,' and Alfred's wife was daughter of the Ealdorman of the Gainas, who can hardly be supposed identical with Danes. Gainsborough, I must add, was the most northern town outside the Trent,' while Derby and Nottingham were the most southern towns of the north of England. In the Civil War the ordinances of Parliament would take effect a week earlier at Gainsborough than at the two other towns. 160 NAT ALE SOLUM. The later history of the town is written in its domestic and its ecclesiastical architecture. The body of the church, by Gibbs, is a noble piece of building, however incongruous, and notwithstanding Mr. Britton's fierce denunciations. There was a story about the church bells and about the organ, both of which I believed to be without rivals out of London. The crimson velvet and gold fringe adorning the pulpit and reading-desk, I used to be told, were from the spoil taken after the battle of Dettingen. Gains- borough must have been an important place when Henry VIII. held his court here in the Old Hall on the I3th, I4th, and I5th of August, 1541, on his way to receive the submissions and peace-offerings of the Yorkshire malcontents. Though his progress was slow, and he diverged right and left to hawk or to hunt or to enjoy hospitalities, he left Doncaster alto- gether out of his route. The Old Hall appears in the charges against Katherine Howard, and that may possibly be the foundation of the ghost story one used to hear. It was occupied by gentry till the middle of last century, for the fourth Earl of Abing- ton, so I read, was born there. A substantial mansion near the bridge was said to have been built out of a great rising in wheat About the time I came into the world there was born in that house one who became an M.P., and a rather noisy Protectionist. Much to my amusement, he used to be quoted as an immense authority by several of the newspapers. I cannot recall ever to have seen the future champion of vested rights and sliding scales, for I was not old enough to accompany my brother THE HUNDRED OF BASSETLAW. 161 John to a juvenile party given at his father's house in honour of the son and heir. Lower down the river, that is, higher up the town, were two enormous bow-windows. They came of a successful operation in timber. Whale-oil and tallow were, I think, the most speculative articles, but hemp and flax also had great and sudden rises in our time. Half-way 'down town,' a house projected itself over a small colonnade, assuming that importance which pillars always have to the rude as well as the classic mind. The encroachment must have been in the days when there were no umbrellas, no pave- ments, no parapets nothing, indeed, to save pas- sengers from either eaves-droppings or sludge. No piece of architecture, ancient or modern, holds its ground in my memory more than the 'Pillared House,' as it used to be called. Across the river lay a region which I always regarded with a romantic interest. Man, rather than nature, had made it what it was, for there was not much to be seen in it from Gainsborough, and one could travel many a mile through it without dis- covering what one might call a landscape. But it had comfortable towns and villages, and thriving homesteads ; immense fields of wheat, or turnips, as might be ; mansions great and small, tall church towers, and, above all, the Dukeries. This was to us the first stage into England, and the world. Its wealth, its quietness, its gentility, and its nobility, pre- sented a striking contrast to the north of Lincolnshire, which I think we used to regard as what is called VOL. I. M 1 62 NAT ALE SOLUM. a ' God-forsaken ' region ; and a still stronger contrast to the industrious, speculative, half foreign, Isle of Axholme. This favoured region, this man-made paradise, westward of us, on which we put our foot on crossing the bridge, is the Parliamentary borough of East Retford, or the hundred of Bassetlaw. Few locali- ties in this century have been favoured with so many hard names. It is an anomaly, a monstrosity, a diluted rotten borough, a hybrid between country and town, a mere frog that has swollen itself in rivalry to the ox. In a word, it is a defiance of all principle. This, however, is the truest and exactest description that could be given of our whole electoral system. It was in one of the first years of the century that my father bought the house in which I and my brother James were born. He often mentioned the simple and cheap process of transfer. The house was held by copyhold under the manor of Gains- borough. He went with the vendor to an office, where the purchaser's name was substituted for the vendor's in a book, and a shilling given to the clerk, when they walked away. All my childhood was darkened by stories of the Press-gang. The king's ships hovered about the coasts, off the most frequented ports, boarded mer- chant-ships returning sometimes from long voyages, and carried off young fellows as they were on the point of revisiting their homes, often never to be heard of again. That was the fate of several of my own relatives by my mother's side, and it has often led me to ask what England will do in the event of THE PRESS-GANG. 163 a great naval war, for I cannot suppose the system of pressing will be tolerated. One of the numbers of the ' Country Spectator ' is the touching narrative of a thriving fisherman inter- cepted by a frigate on his return from a cruise, and then, after a service which promised promotion and prize-money, cut in two by a cannon-ball in one of Rodney's actions. His three sons were taken up by the Marine Society, which made two of them sailors. But there was no provision for the widow, and she soon died in a workhouse. Our servants had many stories of the press-gang, some very pitiable. By strange caprices of memory I associate them with particular spots of my native town, and never think of them without a shudder. However, the navy got hold of apprentices as well, though I believe they were legally exempt. Almost everybody about me was a volunteeer, and, I have little doubt, ready for action, and likely to do good service. It was, however, rather as trophies and relics, than for any chance of active service, that several of my father's work-people brought with them to Derby long boarding-pikes, some of which I remember being told had been actually used in the West Indies. Gainsborough was the most foreign-looking town I have known in England. The red fluted tiles, the yellow ochre doorsteps, the green outside shutters, the frequent appearance of the jawbones of whales uti- lised for garden gateposts, and, above all, the masts and spars suddenly appearing high over corn-fields, took one quite out of everyday England. M 2 1 64 NATALE SOLUM. I cannot, however, be blind to the fact that it requires any one to have been born and bred in the town to feel a positive enthusiasm for it I met some years ago on the railway the daughter of a clergyman whose living lay near the town. She had had a troubled time, and was now earning her own bread by making picturesque water-colour drawings of seats, parks, and pleasure-grounds. It chanced to come out that I was a native of Gainsborough, when she exclaimed with unexpected animation, ' I pity you.' I replied that I did not feel I had any claim to her pity. From time to time I have heard of people who had received every possible kindness from the town taking the earliest opportunity to get out of it, though they could give no reason for their apparent ingratitude. Many of the names there in my time were German, or Dutch, or from the Isle of Axholme, so often mentioned in these pages. This was a fertile plain, surrounded and protected by morasses, till an adventurous Dutch engineer obtained Charles I.'s consent to drain and reclaim them, which he did most successfully. Mr. Rudsdell, one of my own godfathers, was of foreign extraction, and one of the four trustees of the Presbyterian (Unitarian) Meeting- House. He and his wife dined with us on Christmas Day, 1814, and I stood by when my father communi- cated to him, first of his townsmen, his intention to move to Derby. The poor gentleman could hardly believe it. We often heard of him and his folks. His pleasant, good-looking daughter paid us a visit at Derby, and married in due time the young minister 'A2THP A' 'Q2 'AEEAAMIIEN. 165 of her Gainsborough congregation. His eldest son was knighted for services rendered to the Foreign Office in the Mediterranean. The father was still living at a great age in 1842, when my father took me a round of the old places. Mr. Rudsdell had moved to the pretty residential village of Morton, a mile down the Trent. We went there. Immediately after passing a bend of the road and coming in sight of the village street, we saw afar off a brilliant object in the sunshine. My father at once recognised it. The Rudsdells had brought from their continental home an immense brass door-knocker, which they attached to their Gainsborough door, and which even there attracted attention. The old gentle- man was in a genteel cottage now, but the knocker was there. It was a wasted visit, and we came away disappointed. He could not be persuaded that my father was not my grandfather, who had been more nearly his own contemporary. CHAPTER XXVIII. TWO MISHAPS. MY eldest brother used frequently to aver that he distinctly remembered the arrival of a large Cheshire cheese in a wheelbarrow the day of his birth. I cannot pretend to vie with him in my recollections, but I used to hear as a fact that after long suffering my mother had a tooth extracted the day before my 1 66 TWO MISHAPS. birth. I was so diminutive, and weakly, that upon our being initiated by Miss Holt in the severities of the Spartan system, I was told it was fortunate I had not been born in those days, as I should have been at once condemned as physically incapable of useful citizenship. Bad as this beginning was, I helped to make it worse. In 1 8 10, within the Jubilee year, the wall sepa- rating our garden from the Garfits' was in the mason's hands. He had left his ladder standing and gone off to his afternoon meal. My brother John, just five, mounted the ladder to save some ripe currants on a tree nailed to the wall. I followed suit on the ground below, stooping as I remember, and being then three and three quarters. My brother chanced to loosen a brick the only wicked thing he did in his life and it fell cornerwise into the crown of my skull, which had happily not quite lost its cartilaginous consist- ency. The result was a deep indentation, which remains to this day. I was not stunned or much hurt. I remember walking to a back kitchen to have my head washed at the pump. My parents, however, were much frightened. I had erysipelas, I believe also ophthalmia, and I was taken to Cleathorpes. Among other incidents of my journey I remember our stopping at Brocklesby to see the new Yarborough mausoleum, when, at my desire, I was lifted up to see whatever was to be seen in the lower windows. I was not apparently the worse for the accident, for next year, and for two years, I went daily ' down town ' to a school for young ladies my brother John going to the male department. The accident made MY FIRST ESCAPADE. 167 me liable to flushes, and less able to bear sunshine than other children. I may, too, possibly owe to it some susceptibilities and mental activities of an ab- normal kind. This is not my oldest recollection. I think I was only two when I escaped out of the house, with a penny in my hand, and made for Winks's fancy- goods shop, it might be a couple of hundred yards off, where I bought a very small wax doll, made, after the fashion of those days, like the Egyptian and old Hellenic deities, with no division of the lower ex- tremities. I brought him home in triumph, I believe with the idea of having him dressed like a sailor. There had already been a hue and cry for me indeed a chase, I believe. I cannot have been much older when my maid took me with a message to Mr. Yule's, I think, a solicitor at the farther end of Castead or Cascott Lane. She left me alone in the office among books and papers. I mounted on a stool and pored over some printed matter, wondering if I should ever be able to know the meaning of those long words, and already having a dreary presentiment of life's long moil and toil. I now venture to appeal to the imagination of my readers, I will not say their credulity, for I frankly tell them they may believe or not as they please. What I am about to relate certainly has much corro- boration in facts. Quite independently, the theory has suggested itself to a kind and sensible sister. In consequence of my former batch of Reminis- cences, I have found myself the object of compari- 1 68 TWO MISHAPS. sons, which I interpret to mean that there is some- thing to be accounted for. I have been given to understand that my brother James was vastly my superior in all important respects. His character, his style, his orthodoxy, his learning, his sociableness, &c., have been described by writers who never de- scribed them before, possibly because, till they saw my book, they had never seen the darker shades that would constitute a proper foil. They will now see that I have every reason to accept their discriminating judgment upon the two brothers, and that it is I, rather than any outside critics, who have most right to extol my brother's bright and felicitous personality. September 15, 1813, was my seventh birthday, and I might be excused for being a little elated, and more than usually off my guard. But my mother was ill, and could not bear a noise. So we were taken out of our usual nursery, and transferred to a front room at the top of the house, with a bird's-eye view of the market-place. The scene was new to me. I perched on a window-sill, and gazed intently on the groups standing or moving below, and the various operations in progress. It was the world, and I was absorbed in it. The market-place, I may say, is a very handsome one, and will bear comparison with many in larger and wealthier towns. It was one of my points in common with Delane. He read for some time with his uncle at a parsonage near Gainsborough, and had pleasant and respectful recollections of the market- place, indeed of the whole town. Towards the evening of this fatal September 1 5 SOLUTION OF A MYSTERY. 169 word came upstairs that another brother had arrived. This was James Jacob in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, why not in English also it is hard to say. If there be any occasion when there are mysterious transactions about us, or when we may be ourselves but not quite ourselves, it is at our entrance and departure from this visible world. Mind, good reader, I am positively challenged to account for some very extraordinary differences of character which demand explanation. I must offer the best solution I can for an otherwise inexplicable enigma. It is that when James came into the world, he, or his good genius, as that may be, had at once to look for the form in which to present himself on the stage of humanity. Now, it is well known that every seven years we finally acquit ourselves of one form and enter into another. I, therefore, was just at this moment creeping out of my old slough, and, in my own careless and slovenly fashion, insinuating myself into the new one provided for me. True to my unlucky name, I might be doubting between the new and the old. In that mystic world James appeared on the scene. He saw the as yet dull and joyless investiture prepared for him, and by its side the brighter and more advanced stage of human existence. With that keen appreciation of the better thing, and that prompt decision which always marked him, he seized my intended promotion, and left me to wriggle back as well as I could into my old faded and worn-out integument. So, instead of being seven years behind me, he was at once seven years in advance. I, on the contrary, was left an unformed, i;o TWO MISHAPS. ambiguous creature, always vacillating between my progressive and my retrogressive tendencies. On July 1 8, 1815, my brother James was one year ten months old, and I, as I have said, exactly seven years older. We went to church on the baptism of a new-born sister. James was ' taken to church ' with her, having been long before ' privately ' baptised. During the ceremony, he paid the closest attention to the clergyman, and I to him. I did not even observe that he was not himself baptised. How can I remem- ber all this ? some will ask. I have not the least recollection of it, but I cannot doubt it, for here it lies before me in my own handwriting of the very day after. My father was preparing for our reception at Derby, and I was writing letters to him by way of exercise. Here are the words : 'On the i8th of this month ' I find on looking over these letters that I always gave the day of the month ' James and Rosa were christened. James imitated almost every motion of the clergyman during the ceremony. Miss Holt is godmother to both of them.' The lady was our governess, and a deep sense of the very great obligation we were all under to her for her thoroughly conscientious teaching compels me to include her name in this record. James early insisted on apprehending whatever he saw and learning what it meant, and I believe I may say that I was myself exceptionally patient in standing the continuous fire of his interrogations. What a time indeed I had with him when I brought him up to Oxford at the age of thirteen, and had him with me several weeks ! A year or two after the above first experience of LINCOLNSHIRE A FRIEND IN NEED. 171 a public ceremony, James was taken to All Saints' Church at Derby, and, by choice, stood on the seat to command the field of action. Mr. Hope suddenly ap- peared, in his surplice, in the reading-desk it was the three-decker of the period. ' What's that ? ' called out James, so audibly that he had to be sternly hushed. My brother James could not of course remember anything of his native town, and he always seemed to think it hard that he was considered to be a Lincoln- shire man. This distaste for his county was a little aggravated by his rough treatment at Grantham school. His county, however, stood him in some stead at Oxford. Out of forty Fellows at Magdalene seven had to be from Lincolnshire, and when there happened to be no demy so qualified, the fellowship became open to the university. Through this open- ing my brother got his university position, and his long and happy home at Old Shoreham. For many years my memory was always harking back to Gainsborough. Whenever my mind was at liberty, or I chose to let it go rambling, it was not to Derby but to Gainsborough. No sensations have I ever felt so deeply and so delightfully as those of that place. The pretty faces and sweet voices of my childhood survive unchanged. The smell of the tar and of the burnt chips that greeted us at the ship- yards is to me the sweetest of odours. How trans- ported I was when I found that the sprig of lilac I had cut off and planted had actually taken root and become a tree. Hundreds of trees have I planted since, but the flood of joy has never risen to the high- water mark of that hour. The large white convol- 172 ANGELS EVER BRIGHT AND FAIR. vulus that festooned the hedges on the way to Morton still surpass all flowers in true grace and freshness. But where and when was it that I first learnt the worship of flame, and gazed for hours, I may say, on the miracle of combustion ? Was it an innate idea derived from an incident in my Irish ancestry which I have already told ? CHAPTER XXIX. ANGELS EVER BRIGHT AND FAIR. THE next thing to an infinite prospect or retrospect is a very old personal recollection. My own faculties of perception were formed by circumstances, whatever they may have been by nature. For two precious years, from five years old to seven, I went ' down town ' to the same school as my next elder brother, John ; but he to the boys' school on the ground-floor, I to the girls' school above. I was the only male in that pretty little herd, /3ovs sv a<ys\rj. There was good reason for that singular arrangement, for I was weak and ailing ; but, perhaps, all the consequences were not fully recognised. I only joined in the work of the school for form's sake, just as I had my needle, thread, and bit of rag at sewing-time. I was sup- posed to be generally preparing for my reading down stairs with an old widow lady. Mr. Sudbury was one of my godfather's fellow-trustees of the Presbyterian MEMINERUNT OMNIA AMANTES. 173 Chapel. My schoolmistress was his sister. The old lady was the widow of an Independent minister. But I must confine myself to my own position in this complex establishment. I had seldom anything to do but to sit on my little stool, looking up at the pretty little faces gathered round me, and no doubt doing my best to distract and monopolise their atten- tion. Except when I got into some little trouble of my own, I have not one painful remembrance of these two years. So these were cherubs to me, neither less nor more. But their memories are still distinct. I could not describe them, or say wherein their dis- tinctness consisted. Yet I feel sure that in a new form, in any form, so as they retain their respective identities, which I cannot doubt, I shall know them one from another. There was a Flower and an Oglesby, a Garfit, and, I think, a Duckle, daughter of the steward of the manor. There must have been a Fretwell or two, but I doubt whether Messrs. Barnard & Codd, the bankers, contributed. Two were my playmates at home as well, Mary and Charlotte Stuart. The elder died, I think, when I was still at the school, and the younger took her place, but never quite filled it, in my affections. I will add to these other recollections less likely to be formed or retained, the barest representatives of persons since hardly seen, and with slight threads of association. I cannot recall having seen the Smiths, the shipbuilders, or Mrs. Broadley, of Hull connections ; I may have seen them once or so. I cannot remember to have seen Mr. Massingberd, or the Rev. R. W. Vivers, of Marton, or the Rev. H. J. 174 ANGELS EVER BRIGHT AND FAIR. Wollaston, of Scotter, though I became well ac- quainted in after years with his two sons. The father was a very old acquaintance of my father's. I see that the copy of the ' Country Spectator ' quite recently acquired by the British Museum has his name and coat-of-arms. Of all these I have distinct ideas, separable from circumstances, indeed from whatever constitutes matter. Now, I ask, are these ideas material or spiritual ? Do they belong to the seen or to the unseen world ? There are theologians who profess to know to a certainty where matter ends and where spirit begins. I cannot tell that even with regard to these infantine, unformed, nay, some of them unseen, unheard, in- dividualities. As I scan that now far off firmament, I may be conscious of a smile here, a different smile there : a brightness, a darkness, a warmth, a state- liness, a bustle, a rigidity : the dulness of a nebula, the flash of a meteor, a dawn, or a setting ; but there is nothing the sense can lay hold of. On what shelf of this material fabric of mine are these records stored ? They are not portraits, annals, or figures of any sort. They come within no known dimensions. Yet they are part of me, and I cannot say how much of myself I should lose were they to vanish away. They are not dependent on words written or uttered, for the name does, in fact, often depart from memory, leaving the idea behind. In- deed, I most cherish and strengthen the idea when in quest of the forgotten name. THE < EAGRE! 175 CHAPTER XXX. OUR WALKS AND WANDERINGS. As for our walks and wanderings, they were not many, nor were they far, but to me they surpass in interest all that I have since known. We could walk down the river, seeing on our way much shipping at anchor, and ships building in the yards in a more or less advanced stage, and we could get strong whiffs of pitch boiling in huge caldrons. Under frequently recurring circumstances we could be sure to see the ' eagre ' rush up the river, a wall of waters seven or eight feet high, and capable of carrying a ship from its moorings, or floating one that had just before been reposing in the mud. My father once saw a ship caught by the ' eagre ' and carried away with such force that the mooring-chain broke and a portion of it flew as high as the masthead. As this formidable power came up the river with the speed of an ordinary railway train, it was the duty of everybody who caught sight of its approach to give the alarm by crying out ' 'War' eagre ! ' Since my writing the above, there has come into my hands the long missed series of letters, written, by way of exercise, to my father and others. Writing on June 14, 1815, the eve of the four days' fighting ending in Waterloo, after relating that I had seen the launch of the ' Rambler,' and that it was a very fine aunch, I proceed : ' On Friday, for the first time, 176 OUR WALKS AND WANDERINGS. Miss Holt saw a Trent tide. She had never before seen any tides but such as came gradually. She was, therefore, much gratified, and has styled it in one of her letters " one of the wonders of nature." ' The only rival to the Trent ' eagre ' that I know in these isles, or indeed anywhere, is the Severn ' bore.' But that is only seen rarely, and under favourable circumstances, and you have to make a journey to an out-of-the-way spot, when after all it may not show itself. On the other hand, at all high tides, the ' eagre ' rushes up to the town of Gainsborough, passes its shipyards, ' staithes,' and warehouses, and does not exhaust itself till several miles above the bridge. I have alluded to the tradition that this was the tide which Canute made the occasion of a rebuke to his courtiers. He was long at Gainsborough, in the palace then on the site of the later ' Old Hall,' the grounds of which stretched down to the river. There would be some point in challenging the ' eagre/ for it has a strong personality, and the name itself is said to imply a sort of deification, being that of a Scandi- navian divinity. This derivation, however, I must give with a doubt. ' Eagre ' has a suspicious resemblance to the numerous family of words signifying water, and mostly denoting some exceptional form of it. We could walk up Pingle Hill, or Beaumont, as the Normans appear to have called it, which the railway has now disguised beyond recognition ; and from the top we could see, afar off, a glorious vision standing in the sky, quite clear of the horizon, Lincoln Minster, eighteen miles off. I had not a nearer view of that beautiful pile till CAPITOLIA CELSA. 177 many years afterwards. My father used to lament the disappearance of the leaden spires crowning the western towers. His thoughts in after years often reverted to Lincoln, and I cannot but think that the cathedral ' in the air ' which I used to see, and which he had seen as frequently in his early days, told on my own career. Clerical and academic failures were numerous enough and sad enough to discourage any sensible parents ; but the Church always held its ground in the field of hope, and was something to fall back upon. My elder brother John never ceased to regret that he had not been sent to a university, and he believed that he would have been sent, but for the sudden change in the eldest brother's destination. As it was, my father sent half his sons into the Church. Southward we could take a longer walk through plantations to Lea, the pretty village and pleasant seat of Sir Charles Anderson, whose son was at Oriel in my time, somewhat older in standing, and a great friend of Samuel Wilberforce. Both with him and with Sir G. Prevost young Charles Anderson came to be connected by the intermarriage of their children. As we walked on the higher ground to the village of Lea we saw between us and the Trent the swampy ground in which the much-loved and much-admired Colonel Cavendish, while fighting for Charles I., was bogged and thereupon slain by the Parliamentarians, leaving his remains to rest thirty years at Newark, two centuries under All Saints, at Derby, and now to rest longer, it is to be hoped, with his ancestors and successors near Chatsworth. VOL. I. N 1 78 ANTE OCULOS ERRANT The genteelest promenade at Gainsborough was the mile's length of broad footpath to Morton, on the Trent. Passing along a hedge, often festooned with the large white convolvulus, and occasionally seeing, across paddocks and gardens, a tall ship in full sail, we came to ' Morton Terrace/ and encountered there little groups of children of our own standing. Farther on, but turning northward, we could ascend Castle Hills, a British camp of very irregular form, and of unknown antiquity. Thonock House, almost in the camp, was then inhabited by Miss Hickman, an elderly maiden lady, of much benevo- lence, but to me a myth, who left her property and the use of her name to the Bacons, premier baronets of England, who, I see, prefer their own venerable patronymic. When my father took me to Gainsborough in 1842, he would have me go with him to see his old contemporary at Lea, with whom he remembered many a pleasant conversation. I could not claim a speaking acquaintance with even my own Oriel con- temporary, his son, but he had published a little book on Church architecture, and I had given him a good word. As to the present occasion, the old gentleman I wholly forget. But the son was ' in his pride,' as the heralds say. They were entertaining a troop of yeomanry, and the son, now near twenty years older than I had seen him at Oriel, was in a handsome uniform. It chimed in with my earliest recollections, for the frequent demonstrations of the volunteers in the Market Place had imparted a military character to my native town. The future baronet was now DOMUS, URBS, ET FORMA LOCORUM. 179 exceedingly kind and courteous to both of us, and my father came away much pleased that he had not been forgotten. At a subsequent visit to Gainsborough I found a new church building, in what we used to call the Back Lane, under the auspices of Sir Charles Anderson. It was, and is, characteristic of the era ; the dedication to the Holy Trinity, the plan cruci- form ; half the population of the town attached to it, and an endowment of ioo/., against the 6oo/. of the old church. There is a third church there now, built, or rather building, by the Lord of the Manor, near the bridge, and characteristic of the period ; the eastern half of a spacious and lofty brick church. All that is now done or immediately contemplated is full of promise to those who come after us. The Church of St. John the Divine, Gainsborough, with clergy-house, parsonage, sexton's house, teachers' room, boys' school, girls' school, and infants' school, form the subject of some beautiful wood engravings in the ' Builder ' of June 28, 1884. South of Lea, on the same side of the river, were some gentle eminences, commanding the windings of the Trent, and looking a good way into Notting- hamshire. The Gainsborough folks went there for picnics. I remember one at a pretty sort of chateau, which might be a ' folly,' but which has left a very bright impression on my memory. ' Nature,' I read, ' has been rather niggard of her gifts to Lincolnshire ; ' but it was not a Lincolnshire man who wrote that. I have noticed with pain a general change which N 2 i8o OUR WALKS AND WANDERINGS. I commend to the consideration of the good people who think it possible to educate children by the agency of departments and codes. In my earlier days much mechanical and other industrial work was done in open places, in thoroughfares, and with nothing to prevent either old or young from satisfying a simple and healthy curiosity. I used to delight in watching the shipbuilding at my native town, and from one of my own letters of the date, lying before me, I gather that I was sometimes allowed to ascend the zigzag ways and see the in- sides of the ship while building. At my last visit not only were the shipbuilding yards shut in, but a considerable length of shore was occupied by enclosed timber-yards, so that it was impossible to get to the river without a long walk first. The children of these days see beautiful objects in the shop-windows and elsewhere, but they do not see how they are made. In a town they do not even see the interior of a carpenter's shop, or of a wheelwright's, or of a blacksmith's, or of any other trade. They can, therefore, acquire no ideas, let alone manual dexterity, except through the lifeless and hazy medium of books, the teaching of which they have often to un- learn before they can learn what to them is real truth. We could not go about the town without learning much of England and of the world, for it was the point where several extensive lines of inland navi- gation communicated with the tidal water. It was the port for some large ironworks at Rotherham and that neighbourhood. I watched for a long time he rolling of shot along a funnel, dropping one by BRIDGES AND CANNON-BALLS. 181 one with a thud into a ship's hold, to be used fool- ishly at Washington, or in vain at New Orleans. During the later years of the Great War as much as 300 tons of cannon-shot and shell passed weekly through Gainsborough, chiefly from the Butterley Works. Going down town one day we met a large crowd, in the midst of which walked slowly two men covered with blood, a sad spectacle. They had been transferring from canal boats to a sea-going ship the pieces of a cast-iron bridge going out to India. This was a present to the Newab of Oude from the East India Company. A piece had fallen from the crane, and one of the poor fellows that I saw died a few days after. In 1815 and 1 8 16, Vauxhall Bridge, cast at Butterley, was shipped for London at Gainsborough in twenty-seven vessels. The town was not so large but that everybody was known. Everybody knew me there, and when we came to Derby I was painfully impressed with the fact that nobody did. On St. Thomas's Day a table was set at the kitchen door, and on it a plate of silver and a dish of copper. The poor and many who were not quite poor came up in endless procession, and received 2d. or 6d. as might be. I think I remem- ber that it cost us four or five pounds, and it must have cost some houses of more pretension a good deal more. 1 82 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS. CHAPTER XXXI. THE MILL ON THE FLOSS. I HAD never read ' The Mill on the Floss ' till in the last stage of this work I felt it a positive duty to com- pare my impressions of the place and people with the author's. It is really unpardonable in any English- man of the period not to have read George Eliot's tales, and nothing remains but to explain how one could be guilty of so great an omission and so gratuitous a loss. I cannot conceal that I had a constitutional weakness on the point. A very clever novel has always been to me vultus nimium lubricus aspiti. I have dreaded its fascinating and absorbing power. What if it should carry me off my legs altogether, so that I could never recover footing and be my own master again ? It was like my old fear of laughing-gas. In 1828 I was set upon by some clever literary ladies, who were shocked at my not having read ' Pelham.' I hope I was not prevailed upon to promise that I would, for I have not read it. In the course of my long life I cannot have read more than a dozen novels. Newman devoured them ; so did Whately ; so did Christie ; so, I think, did all who would be worth mention in my time ; but I did not. This was especially the case during the whole period in which George Eliot's tales were coming out ; I was then more than ever engaged, dis- ' THE RIPPLE. ' 183 tracted, and under continual obligation to husband my strength and my time. However, I have now read every page of the book before me, in the very pretty cabinet edition published for the express benefit of poor monocular and pur- blind creatures like myself. I am sorry to find that there is a great gulf, I know not what or how, between the new creation and my old memories. Of course, I have to bear in mind that I left Gainsborough in 1815, when not yet nine, and have only paid short passing visits, at long intervals, since the last of them thirty-three years ago. I have to confess, too, that I never put my foot on the side of the river opposite the town, and am, therefore, not in a condition to deny the existence of picturesque scenery, hills, ' deeps,' fir trees, stone quarries, and lovers' walks. But I have all my life been under the impression there was just nothing there, nothing that a high tide might not leave several feet under water. In my recollection there was no tributary of the Trent near Gainsborough, for the river there was much more apt to give than to receive. The Idle and the Don, both of them long ago canalised, fall into the Trent miles below Gainsborough. So the ' Ripple ' with its water mill, its water rights, and its own system of irrigation is utterly incompatible with my recollections. Unless I am very much at fault, there could not be any pretence of such litigation. There was, indeed, a controversy, not so much practical as curious and scientific, on the possible effect of the great warping operations between Gainsborough and Trent Falls upon the volume of tidal water. This was 1 84 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS. a question between the shipowners and the land- owners. In my time there was no mill for grinding corn at all within sight of the bridge ; the only mills for this purpose being windmills, upon higher ground. Then I must add that, if my ears tell rne right, the dialect of the secondary personages in the story is not that of Lincolnshire, as I know to my cost. For many years after quitting Gainsborough for Derby, I suffered much tribulation by retaining the Lincolnshire accent and pronunciation, and by exchanging it for Derbyshire just in time to carry both, mixed up with some peculiarities of my own, to Charterhouse, where they were not appreciated. Moreover, I can remember no such people, no such ways, and no such talk. I must conclude that the author had but a slight and casual knowledge of Gainsborough, and that she has made a very peculiar Lincolnshire town the scene of characters, manners, and customs more likely to be found in the midland counties. It is no unusual thing for a writer, compelled, as he must be, to draw his knowledge of human nature from the people about him, and his incidents and circumstances from his own experience, to select some locality a long way off in order to baffle attempts at identification, or for some even slighter reason. Washington Irving had reasons of his own for not placing his 'rainy day' and his ' stout gentleman ' at Lichfield, where he actually found them, and he accordingly planted them at Derby just to get out of a little difficulty, and not being much concerned for the reputation of the Derby climate or manners. FROM GAINSBOROUGH TO DERBY, 185 CHAPTER XXXII. A MIGRATION. THE ' christening ' at Gainsborough was the last appearance of our family there after a sojourn of seventy or eighty years. On the previous Christmas Day, my godfather, Mr. Rudsdall, and his wife had dined with us, as I believe they had done for some years on that day. When we were all in the drawing- room youngers as well as elders my father said : ' I've something to tell you that I know will grieve you.' It was his intention to move to Derby. Our guests could hardly believe my father serious. We children had been told the news at nine that morn- ing, as I bore in mind at the same day and hour the following year. I remember my surprise, and how impalpable and unformed the idea of a removal was to me. It was going into space ; the loss and nega- tion of everything I knew and loved of a material and local character. Gradually did we become familiarised with the idea. Our new governess had never taken to Gains- borough very warmly. I remember being disap- pointed at the silence with which she received my praises of the church one of Gibbs's and the organ, and the river. She looked forward to Derby. We were all anxious to learn what we could of our adopted home. Gainsborough was becoming more 1 86 A MIGRATION. and more outside everything ; Derby was the very centre. There had already been social currents between the two places, lying on the same natural water-course. Whenever there was a sudden flood at Derby, the people there wrote to warn their Gainsborough friends, who had time for cautionary measures. We had seven months of preparation. Long before the time came, my father's chief em- ployes had gone to Derby before us, and had sent back reports, like those returned by the spies. The people were very big ; they could lift and carry enormous loads ; and they ate and drank in propor- tion. They even devoured their meat raw. That they ate bacon raw I can answer for, for I have seen it done in the shops frequently. Their speech and manners were very rough, and they had to be gently treated. At Gainsborough there was a great number of old people going about, doing such work as they could. A population in the high tide of youth and strength loomed before us at Derby. As much as three months before our migration I find myself writing to a brother at school on the marvels and curiosities of Derby. These had been reported to us by my father after one of his flying visits. Among them was the once famous Kedleston water, that used to be brought into the town every morning fresh from the spring. I suspect it has now gone the way of most English mineral waters. Then there was the ' Infirmary, planned and built by Mr. Strutt' He certainly had the credit of its plan and arrangements. When I became a subscriber and occasional visitor many years after, I arrived at the DERBY INFIRMARY. 187 conclusion that I had never seen so much ingenuity, and so little common sense. Upon a second glance at what I have just written, I feel that, without illustration, it will be thought too strong. Well, here is an instance. Upon my brother and myself walking into a spacious ' Con- valescent Ward ' that is, a sitting-room for conval- escents we found it quite empty. ' Where are the convalescents ? Are there none ? ' we asked. The answer was that they were in the kitchen, which they found more comfortable. We went to the kitchen, first noticing over the door : ' Patients strictly forbid- den to enter the kitchen.' There were a good many of them sitting about here and there ; some roasting themselves at the fire, some assisting. ' Why are you not in the Convalescent room ? ' we asked. Several of them offered to explain why, and returned with us to the room. There was no fireplace, and no appearance of a warming-apparatus. But all round the room there ran a footboard, with an easy slope, covered with baize. It was explained to us that this was made of tin, and was hollow for the reception of steam. The convalescents were expected to sit round the room, facing the wall, and, of course, all with their backs to one another. They did not like the plan ; it was unsociable. But this was not their only objection. The tin footboard leaked in many places, and could not be prevented from leaking. The steam phizzed up their petticoats, they said, so much, as to compel a frequent and immediate change of clothing. There was no answer to this ; and we had to leave them all in the kitchen, where they 1 88 A MIGRATION. seemed to be enjoying themselves, without being in the way. But I must go back, and return to Gainsborough. The house had now to be dismantled for the removal, and all we children were sent to the Bowlings at Gunthorpe, a hamlet on the western bank of the Trent, just within the southern boundary of the Isle of Axholme, and a short walk from Epworth, John Wesley's birth-place. The ancient Isle of Axholme, like the Isle of Thanet, the Isle of Athelney, the Isle of Ely, and the Isle of Osney on the Isis, was originally more insulated than an ordinary isle could be. Surrounded by extensive marshes, frequently flooded and daily overflowed by the tide, it could not be easily reached by either land or water. When the water was at last kept within bounds, and the dry land appeared, there followed an extensive but dreary cultivation, with homesteads few and far between. One result was that if a good day's work had to be done, the working parties had to be on the move at early dawn. It must have been an Isle of Axholme farmer, I dare- say a relative, whose men were under orders to begin work at four in summer-time, and for this -purpose to be on their road to it at early dawn. He heard them starting for their work at four. Opening his window, he called out to them: 'You may take the horses back into the stable, my lads ; you've lost the day, and may as well make a holiday of it.' Occupying such a natural fastness, the ancient inhabitants of the isle were slow to follow social or political change, and they gave much trouble to THE BOWLINGS. 189 successive sovereigns of England. It is now repre- sented by a thriving, though not picturesque, cluster of villages standing at a gentle elevation out of a vast and rather gloomy region, and in the middle of it. It has always been divided and subdivided among many small freeholders, making their way with difficulty. They were always ready to revolt, and they finally combined in a great agitation and costly litigation, for all that appears, in order to enjoy as much as possible the direct and indirect benefits of Vermuy- den's draining operations, and contribute as little as possible to the cost. Timothy and Megget Bowling were my father's relatives, very primitive people, and rather suggestive of Tennyson's Lincolnshire farmer. They had a London brother, James, who was in a large way of business in the Borough then, whether now I know not, a sort of trading Alsatia. Some years after this my city friends took me to pay an afternoon visit there, and we rambled over a large area, on which numerous manufactures were in progress. A few weeks before our migration James Bowling had come down to the christening I have mentioned, for he was to be my brother James's godfather. On this occasion he brought down a large box of comfits and ' sweeties,' of all flavours, forms, and colours. He brought down, too, a curricle, the most dangerous vehicle that ever folly could devise. A gig is not the safest of vehicles, but it has two shafts, and only one horse. The curricle, running on two wheels, had only one pole, and two horses, and they were supposed to be kept in subjection by a cross-bar over thei*- shoulders 190 A MIGRATION, attached to the pole, and doing the duty of a double yoke. It was commonly said that the vehicle re- quired two servants. One of the two brothers I forget which had a fit on the day of the christening, and had to be bled. It must be this incident, which is still distinct before my eyes, that threw the ceremony into the shade. At Gunthorpe we found ourselves in a paradise of hot buttered cakes, cheese-cakes, new milk, and honey. Miss Holt, however, had a disappointment. She had been told our relatives were large growers of potatoes for the London market, and she hoped to get that very precious thing, a good potato. But though the Bowlings loaded from a stage whole shiploads of potatoes for London, as I saw myself some years afterwards, they made a point of con- suming the faulty ones at home. I, too, had my paradise a little marred, for I went headlong down some stone steps into a cellar, and got a bump on my skull^not quite gone to this day. It must have been the night after this accident that, upon my going to bed, my kind host came in to press 'a night cap' upon me. This was a tumbler of hot rum and water. The night was very hot, and the attic very stuffy. Small as I was I could scarcely sit up in bed without knocking my head against the slope of the low ceiling. Whether it was the proper remedy for a cracked skull I leave to those better informed. But the human race has survived many infallible specifics, and I live to tell the tale of that hot rum and water. LINI SEGES. 191 The flax harvest was being pressed on in all its stages. There were fields still green, and with the pretty blue flower here and there. Strong men were pulling up the plant by the roots. As I remember, there was a machine at work. It must have been separating the seed pods while still green. Within a few yards of the house was one of Vermuyden's broad dykes. The surface of the sluggish stream was covered with flax, upon which were laid sods of earth to keep the flax under water. As the pulp of the stalk rotted, the water was poisoned, and the eels had just sense and strength to get out of the water and lie on the sods. My oldest brother brought home several large specimens in great triumph. The poor people about said they were not the worse for eating, and took them accordingly. They were only intoxicated. A donkey became the centre of attraction. He had to be mounted quickly, for he would not wait. We had all of us a few slides over his hind-quarters. We performed gymnastic feats in a large barn full of straw. We roamed over the yard and outhouses in quest of new-laid eggs. All this time Napoleon was on board the ' Bellero- phon ' in Torbay, and people were already saying that St. Helena was the only place for him. A few years after this my oldest brother called at Gunthorpe, and was kindly welcomed. ' Thee's waxen ith carcass, but thee's the same ith feace.' The ' bairns,' as the old lady described her sons about fifty years of age, were ' in the field.' At Gainsborough 192 A MIGRATION. we were often called 'the bairns,' but oftener 'the childer.' Is this an ancient plural, or only a cor- ruption of ' children ' ? Of these ' bairns ' I remember two little incidents, dating, I suppose, not earlier than my own lifetime. Timothy, not my brother James's godfather, having to send a letter to Gainsborough, could not find a sheet of letter paper either at home or anywhere in his neighbourhood. So he wrote on the back of one of Mr. Bish's lottery announcements which then found their way into every house in the kingdom. At another time, having to walk home from Gains- borough in the rain, he purchased an umbrella, the first time in his life. Upon approaching his own hamlet he felt so ashamed of the feminine contrivance that he folded it up, and so walked home with it in an increasing downfall. Long before this, as I now find from one of my father's letters, he had not himself been so readily recognised for one of the family. In 1804 he wrote from town : The other night I went to Bowling's. He was out. I asked for Miss Bowling, was desired to walk in, and very soon she came down stairs. ' How do you do, Rebecca? I hope you are well.' ' Pretty well, thank you, sir. I have not the pleasure of knowing you.' ' Pooh ! look again.' ' You are a perfect stranger to me, sir.' ' My name is Mozley, of Gainsborough.' ' No such thing, sir. I know all the Mozleys of Gainsborough, and you are not one of them.' She walked to the door, and was going to leave me, thinking me some impostor. ' Now, Rebecca, I really am Henry Mozley? I looked very serious. She then burst into tears. ' Now you look serious, sir, I perceive a faint resemblance to what you used to be.' She seemed much affected. I drank tea with her, stopped near two hours, and promised to call again before I left London. A SIMPLE REMEDY. 193 At that time my father had only just completed his thirty-first year, and appears to have changed beyond the poor lady's recognition. A long and serious illness in early youth may have altered his complexion. It was something amiss with the blood, which would not flow even at the call of the lancet. My father went to town to consult Dr. Bailey. Upon hearing the case, the doctor said, ' Well, sir, you've come all this way to see me, and no doubt you expect to have to undergo a good deal of medical treatment. But you might have saved yourself this trouble and cost by going to a blacksmith's shop, and drinking a little daily from the small cistern at his side in which he cools his irons. You wouldn't like to drink out of that, for the fellows spit into it ; but what I shall give you will be the same thing.' My father followed the prescription, and soon recovered. My father finally returned from Derby to conduct our migration. His stock and furniture, and his workpeople with their families more than a hundred head he had sent on by the canals. The next letter in my exercise-book is addressed to a sup- posed friend less than a fortnight after our journey. The most noticeable incident in it is thus told : From Retford we went to Mansfield, where papa saw a barouche, which he ordered to take us to Alfreton. Henry was quite delighted, and he said we should have plenty of room. I thought so too, but I was mistaken, for we were very much crammed in it. The attraction of course -was the four horses. A week after, still in that memorable month of August, I describe our new house and All Saints' VOL. I. O 194 A MIGRATION, Church, with the Cavendish monuments, adding an invidious comparison with the four other churches then the only four others. In this same letter I mention that all the elders of the family had gone to the races, six days after our arrival in the town. I lament in the letter that not having gone myself I cannot describe them. It must have been the next year, 1816, that my father took me to the races. He secured with both hands a good place at the rope, and I peeped through the first rank as well as I could. A fellow ran from the opposite side and asked my father to take one hand off the rope that he might make his way through. My father complied. The fellow immediately sprang up between my father and the rope, thrusting him thereby into the hinder rank. My father exclaimed, ' Do you call that honourable ? ' The fellow replied, ' All's fair on a racecourse.' I was then in my tenth year, and I have never gone to a race since. In the next month after our arrival at Derby, having just completed my ninth year, I might con- sider that I had had experiences, and that I could measure decline and foresee fall. Under date September 27, 1815, I find : Your friends at Gainsborough will, I hope, escape the fate that seems to attend many of its inhabitants, for surely never place went so rapidly to decay. You did well in leaving it, and if you like London as well as I do Derby you will have no reason to complain of the choice you have made. While quite ready to appreciate the energy, the prosperity, and the ' go ' of Derby in the comparison with the decaying river port we had left I was not so LOSSES AND GAINS. 195 ready to bear with the inevitable cost. The common people we met in the streets did not make way for us, or give us the wall. They stood in groups, filling up the pavement, and compelling us to take to the gutter. This appeared to me to mark low breed- ing, indeed inferior civilisation. I did not remember that everybody knew our faces at Gainsborough, and nobody at Derby. Nor did I consider that there were no manufactures at Gainsborough, and conse- quently no reason why at certain hours the population should lounge about the pavements, and there discuss the news of the day with their friends. For some years I remained under a fixed impression that the people of Derby, if not intentionally insolent, were exceedingly rude. The losses and gains of the removal were both great, but I find by these letters as well as by my re- collections that the gains rapidly preponderated. We had no longer the solemn loneliness of the dull and remote town, with its Trent, its 'eagre,' its Old Hall- John of Gaunt's, as we always called it its Saxon and Danish traditions. But Derby introduced us to a tributary river, mutre pulckra filia pulckrior, to moun- tain scenery, to Matlock and Dovedale, either of them the rival of Tempe, to Roman antiquities, and to the very street where within living memory the monarchy of the Normans, Plantagenets, Tudors, and Stuarts had made its last show, and, at the roll of the drum, had retreated northward, never to return again. The period of seventy years is generally imagined as likely to tax the memory, and to destroy anything like a personal link between one age and another. o 2 196 SOME EMPLOYES. The Captivity of Judah was for seventy years. All the New Testament, except the writings ascribed to the Beloved Apostle, is contained within that period. The Norman and Lancaster dynasties each lasted about seventy years. It was not so much from the accession of Charles I. to the Great Revolution. When we came to Derby in 1815 it was just seventy years after the rebellion of 1745, and there were old people who talked about it. Our family had sojourned at Gainsborough for rather more than seventy years ; and it is now exactly that period since our migration, which I remember well, and of which I have now before me a record in my own hand, in a series of letters written before and after the journey. CHAPTER XXXIII. SOME EMPLOYES. IN the migration I have described, which indeed I described in an imaginary letter a few days after the event, were not a few who had been in the service of my father from their boyhood, and who lived and died in it. Several had been apprenticed to my father, and in that capacity they now came to Derby, though I seem to remember that it was distinctly offered to them that, if they did not like the move, they might have their indentures cancelled. This would be just at the time their services were becoming valuable ; but they preferred to remain with my father. All of JOHN AUCKLAND. 197 these, that I remember, rose to eminence in the trade in lines of their own. The central and abiding figure at my father's office was the foreman of the printers within my knowledge a unique character. This was John Auckland, a strong politician, and, I believe, in due time member of ' the House of Lords ' that is, the organised five hundred who nominated and returned the members for the borough of Derby. I never failed to pay him a visit the day after a return home, and he was always pre- pared with some curiosity to present to me. My father happened to be in town at the time of Perceval's assassination, 1812, and from a letter written probably the day after, it would appear that he feared the news might get too great a hold on my mother's imagination, for she was always very nervous. ' I need not say anything about Perceval. The papers will tell you all.' From his next letter it is evident that John Auck- land had been improving the occasion in his own way, and that something he had said had reached my mother. Writing on May 19, my father says : I will venture to say this bloody act has made more noise in the country than in London. In the former the adage says a wonder lasts nine days. In the latter I really think it lasts only as many hours. People are too much engaged to think of anything but business. I will give Auckland a lecture when I come home. I assure you it is no uncommon thing here to hear a person say, ' If a dozen or two more of them were shot, it would be pro bono publico? John Auckland was at once methodical and eccen- tric, social and very singular. How many an hour have I stood by and listened, with kindness rather than 198 SOME EMPLOYES. assent, to his strenuous, if not quite vigorous, denun- ciation of persons and things. Among other oddities, he was never known to sit either at work or at meals. He was Par ens deorum cut tor et infrequens, and when religion was touched upon, generally replied that he had heard Mr. Hope preach an excellent sermon on the death of the Princess Charlotte. He had been all his life with the family, and on his last appearance at the annual supper of the employes,. when my eldest nephew was present, he said he had now served under five generations of Mozleys, and he had found them all good masters. He had had to fill many vacancies, and he had early made a hard and fast rule in dealing with applications. He would never let into the office either a Methodist or a man with a squint. One Methodist at least he had to tolerate, for it was the man who had taken my father to Kirton school in 1782. My brother John saw John Auckland the day of his death. What had passed I know not, but he said very solemnly, ' I die in the faith of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost' The foreman's brother, Bilbury Auckland (whence the name I know not), was a very simple child of nature. One of his sayings my memory cften reverts to with pleasure. It was that ' Mr. Tom do most favour his worthy father.' Two of my father's workpeople and fellow-towns- men presented a remarkable contrast. The old hand- press required little skill, and therefore yielded poor wages. It was the lowest-paid man's work in a pub- lishing office. One of the pressmen was never quite TWO WORKMEN. 199 satisfied with his weekly receipts. He had always calculated them, but was apt to make a little mistake in his own favour. It was excusable, for he was an honest, hard-working man, and never got so much as a pound in the week, sometimes much less. Battling about farthings, he resolved to save farthings. He saved and saved. His wife took in washing and chared. The whole family became familiar names in our household, though not so interesting as the old Methodist's wife. The pressman asked my father to take charge of his savings, paying interest, which accumulated. Going on for many years, this ended in my father holding many hundred pounds. He then told the man that he did not require the loan himself, and did not wish to hold the money at the convenience of the lender. He must find another investment. This he did, and in the end left i,5oo/. for his widow, son, and daughter, making my brother John his executor. The very opposite of the poor hard-working press- man was a binder, who could easily and regularly earn two, and even three guineas a week. The families, I think, were about the same in number. He had never a shilling he could call his own. He was always in small difficulties. For the marriage of a daughter, for a doctor's bill, or at the slightest pinch, he would ask the loan of a few pounds. We used to hear that he was extravagant, that his daughters were fine ladies, and that they dressed above their station. He had a piano and a carpet in his parlour. This went on to the last. He never got his head above water, and died penniless. What excellent stock for a wholesome 200 SOME EMPLOYES. moral tale upon the advantages of thrift and the folly of extravagance ! But truth does not allow me to stop here. The pressman's savings did no good to his family. One of his children took a public-house, became a drunkard, went out of his mind, and died in an asylum. The other went out of sight. On the other hand, the daughters of the binder married well, gained some- thing upon their father's rank, and never missed his earnings. He had invested not for them, but upon them, and in his case it answered. My father had several travellers, who remained in his service so long as to become household words, though the very nature of their employment allowed us youngers only a very occasional sight of them. A letter came one day from Lancaster I think it was to say that Mr. Mackenzie had been taken with cholera there, and that he wished to see my father or my brother John immediately. A day had already been lost through some mischance. My brother went to Lancaster, only to find the poor man dead, after expressing much disappointment that no one had come from Derby. He had no relations that he or any one knew of, and he had now died without a will, leaving 4,000!., part in my father's hands. In due time there came a note from the ' Bell Inn ' at Derby from an official of the Consistory Court at Lichfield, requesting my father to call upon him on the subject. My father went to the inn. The waiter anticipated him : ' There's a gentleman here who has been enquiring after you,' and took him to the stranger's room. Upon my father entering the TWO TRAVELLERS. 201 room, he was received not by the official, but by Captain MacArthur, who, after travelling some years for him, had left him near forty years before this, and, getting a commission, had served in the Peninsular War. He was now, of course, an old man, and had come to Derby simply to see my father and exchange memories. He had nothing to ask, though, as he said, he was in straitened circumstances, and alone in the world. He was much pleased to talk over old times with my father, and he made himself very agreeable ; but he left a melancholy impression, and cannot have been happy. Not very long after, he was found dead, as if he had lost himself at night-fall, in the muddy and rocky beach of a southern watering-place. His few effects came to my father, including a number of old books (odd volumes), purchased at book-stalls, with the Cap- tain's comments here and there in the margin. The other traveller's estate, of course, lapsed to the Crown. My father was one day accosted by an insinuating Irishman, who represented that he had come with wife and children to look for work ; that he could not find it, and that he was ready to try his hand at anything. 'Well,' said my father, Til see what I can find for you to do.' He came, and was set to look after the stove and do porter's work. He became handy at his work, and throve upon it. His wages, his figure, his dress improved ; his family increased, and his wife was a changed creature. She, too, had been regularly employed for what she could do. After several years an acquaintance warned my father that some one, probably an impostor, was 202 SOME EMPLOYES. going about the town representing herself as one of Mr. Mozley's workpeople, working at very low wages inadequate to the support of her family. It was then found that the woman, hearing how much was got by her countrywomen in that way, had been tempted to share that harvest. Disguising herself in rags and dirt, she had crept out in the dusk of the evening, and, going at once to distant parts of the town, had pursued the trade of a beggar, with a plausible story. There could be no doubt that the husband knew what she did, and there was no alternative but to discharge them both an act which, even under these circumstances, would, I am sure, give my father very great pain. In one respect Gainsborough was like the rest of England, and like what England will probably remain for many a year to come. One of my father's workpeople became a member of a friendly society there before he was twenty, for aid in sickness, and for good permanent pay after sixty whether for burial I do not remember. It was his boast through life that he paid regularly, and had never drawn a six- pence from the club. He had occasional ailments, and was off work, but he made efforts, and could still boast. Expecting his annuity, he made no other provision. In his sixtieth year, when he was looking forward to a partial remission of work, the club broke. He came to my father to ask if there was any remedy ; but there were no assets, all had been squandered or muddled away. The poor man had to stick to his work as much as he had ever done and perhaps it was the best for him. SEEING AN OLD YEAR OUT. 203 A daughter of our old Gainsborough nurse came with us to Derby. The new world must have turned her head. She put us all to bed in broad daylight, that she might be off on her own rounds ; and she nearly killed herself by attempting to live on burnt outsides of bread and vinegar, in order to fine down a somewhat too ruddy complexion. CHAPTER XXXIV. OUR BEGINNING AT DERBY. I FIND myself informing an imaginary friend, on St. Thomas's Day, 1815, that New Year's Day was but little regarded in Derby. I was evidently minded that times and seasons should not pass without note. So on the last day of this remarkable year I made a snow mountain, and stood on the top of it for near an hour in the dusk, meditating on the vicissitudes of human life, and the rising and falling of nations. I cannot remember anything very prophetic in my conclusions. Certainly I did not foresee the very long peace we had then entered on. There is some excuse for this blank in my recollections. I remember nothing, probably because I foresaw no- thing, and I foresaw nothing because for thirty-three years nothing came to pass. Excepting the estab- lishment of a new dynasty in France, and the dis- solution of the union between its two incompatible 204 OUR BEGINNING AT DERBY. neighbours, there was hardly a single event out of England to excite much interest in this country. It is not too much to say that during that long period there were no foreign affairs, no colonial affairs, no American affairs, that people cared to talk or to write about. To be sure, the South Americans were struggling for independence, and the Neapolitans for constitutional government ; but we could only look on, for we could do nothing. Any man who had the credit of knowing anything of foreign affairs was pointed as an exceptional, if not absolutely eccentric, personage. It required considerable force to get any foreign topic noticed in the papers, which for months together confined themselves to the three corners of the Isle, with an occasional lamentation on the chronic maladies of Ireland. Since writing the above, it has occurred to me to ask where I got my inspirations, shadowy and form- less as they must have been. I cannot doubt. Miss Holt, who had now been our governess nearly a twelvemonth, was devoted to Rollin. Together, we all read through his 'Ancient History,' and she made with her own hand a compendium of the whole, which I retained for many years indeed, till quite lately. The book itself I possess, and in referring to it I find in the second paragraph of the Preface the keynote of these meditations : But it highly concerns us to know by what method these empires were founded ; the steps by which they rose to the exalted pitch of grandeur we so much admire ; what it was that constituted their true glory and felicity, and the causes of their declension and fall. Miss Holt was with us about four years, from MISS HOLT. 205 early in 1815 to late in 1818. Would that she had stayed longer. Most of us were in her hands at one time or other. I was for nearly the whole time she was with us. Besides Rollin, we read aloud ' Plutarch's Lives,' and we did a good deal with the ' Travels of Anacharsis.' We read Clark's ' Travels.' I suppose, to compare ancient with modern accounts of the same regions. Somehow I became well ac- quainted with Tooke's ' Diversions of Purley.' We got through an immense quantity of work. All through the year, winter and summer alike, we were up and at work at six. To ensure it, we had to knock at my mother's bedroom door to report our- selves, before All Saints' chimes stopped, under a penalty. We read and did lessons for an hour, and then walked for an hour, returning to breakfast at eight. With a daily routine of alternate study and exer- cise, beginning punctually at 6 A.M., and continued to 6 P.M., there was a well grounded apprehension that the weaker members of the family might be caught napping, or lounging. A danger so insidious and so fatal to character had to be anticipated. There was only one stuffed armchair in the house, and that was far from luxurious. At our lessons we all sat on cane- bottomed chairs, the size of a small plate, with per- pendicular backs. They were supposed to make the sitters as upright and vigilant as themselves. A year or two after his marriage, my father had bought at Siddons two sofas and a dozen drawing-room chairs, in the semi-classic style that went quite out of fashion half a century ago and has since come back. He 206 OUR BEGINNING AT DERBY. gave a hundred guineas for the suite. I defy even the most lethargic subject to steal a five minutes' doze on either the sofas or the chairs. I am told I must correct this statement as far as the sofas are concerned, for that, as a matter of fact, they were a good deal slept upon. That is true ; but it was by ladies, who arrange cushions and go to bed on a sofa, as indeed they could do on the floor. Gentle- men never do this. What they do is worse, because more ensnaring, and not in the proper form. They bury themselves in an easy-chair, drop their chins into their chests, and seek a five minutes' repose, end- ing perhaps in an hour. The result is they spoil their figures and their night's rest. So much, how- ever, for the very artistic and uncomfortable sofas. Now for the chairs. The construction of their backs must have been on the principle that made the Romans warn the judge on his seat, the guest at the banquet, and the victor in his triumphal car, not to be carried away by the sensations of the hour. Such a regime, inflicted alike on the teacher and the taught indeed, more inevitably on the former was too much for the poor governess, who was always complaining of headache, but who ne'/er rested, unless it were to write gushing letters to some one of her schoolfellows of Scarsdale House, Kensington, or to let out to her eldest pupil the deeper impressions already left by her own brief experience. She bore the most affectionate regards for all the family she had left upon coming to us, including one rather too old to be a pupil, the future contractor for the Admiralty Pier at Dover. It was PUNGENTEM RUSTICUS UNGIT. 207 his first wife, by the bye, who taught me backgam- mon, a game I strongly recommend to all who are at all likely to pass many evenings tete-d-tete. My eldest sister went from Miss Holt's hands to Mrs. Parish, a very able and sensible woman, with a dozen or a score pupils at Kensington. She told my father she had never had a pupil better grounded. I had always the warmest affection and the deepest respect for Miss Holt. The last sentiment will not be doubted when I mention that she once flogged me three times round the table till I had swallowed a piece of beef gristle I was making mouths at. The orders were that nothing was to be left on the plate. We were repeatedly reminded of the two prisoners shut up in a dungeon, and supplied daily with a two- pound loaf. One ate the crust, the other the crumb. In a few months the latter had wasted to death, the former was well and strong. On another occasion Miss Holt made me repro- duce the whip I had hidden under a bed, and imme- diately used it upon me. What rankled in me much longer, upon my keeping her some time in the door- way while I was scraping my shoes, she said, ' Come in, you puppy.' I have not yet satisfied myself whether the sting of the rebuke consisted in my deserving it, or not. I venture to offer a piece of advice to the people who very properly wish to be remembered long, gratefully, affectionately, and respectfully. It is that for this purpose they must not confine their friendship to services of a simply and immediately agreeable 208 OUR BEGINNING AT DERBY. character. They must make themselves sometimes unpleasant, very unpleasant. They must hit hard, cut deep, leave aches and sores, dark shades in the bright retrospect, some bitters in the fount of sweets. Mere kindness, pure sympathy, melt away like the morning mist in a common memory. A man may give all his strength, all his time, all his money, all his influence, to any that ask or want, till he is left as bare as a Maypole on a winter's day. The persons benefited, if really benefited, by the sacrifice, even if they understand what has been done, which is not always the case, cease to be grateful for it, if ever grateful, the moment they have exhausted what they have received. They then invariably hate with bitter, yet not wholly unreason- able, hatred the man who has given so much, and can now give no more. They hate him as they do the field of which they have worked out the strength, or the well they have pumped dry. The momentary satisfaction is now replaced and obliterated by con- tinual and increasing disappointment. It is quite impossible for a hungry man to re- member with pleasure the dinners he ate long ago, or the kind words which could now be only repeated in vain. On the other hand it is impossible to forget blows, whether mental or bodily, hard words of censure or reproach, or temporary coldnesses or estrangements. So the sour ought to be mixed with the sweet if the sweet itself is to be remembered. A time will come when it will be as pleasant to dwell on the one as on the other, and when the sum of a happy remembrance will be immeasurably GOVERNESSES. 209 enhanced by the sense that the summing-up is an act of condonation as well as of gratitude, that it implies virtue in the rememberer as well as in the remembered, and that its true account is to be found in a higher state of things than in that which is fraught with so many apparent inconsistencies. I hope I have not wandered too far to be pre- cluded from returning to Miss Holt. In spite of her continual headaches she would have been glad to remain with us. But the fact was my father did not like her. He had not liked her predecessor, the industrious, conscientious, and able Miss Balaam how she came by such a name I cannot imagine. She was dull when off her direct duties. This her successor was not. But the circumstances of Miss Holt's life had been against her. Her father was a large miller and contractor for the army, at Lexden, near Colchester. He had failed. In the days of her prosperity she had gone to military balls, and she had now a great deal to say about her partners, and what she had supposed her little flirtations. She had much to say about faces and figures, and manners and com- plexions. She had evidently been anxious to make a good impression. She must have tried to ascertain from one of her former pupils what the said pupil's brother, Mr. Henry Lee, of the Admiralty Pier, thought of her, and had had to be content with the common put-off that he thought her ' interesting.' Now my good father had a horror of all this, and when he found that poor Miss Holt, having no one else to confide her cherished recollections to, had made my sister Jane her confidante, he resolved to VOL. I. P 5io OUR BEGINNING AT DERBY. put an end to the mischief. Perhaps a few words to the poor governess might have done the work as well, and without the cost of losing her. But she went, and from that time it was mutual instruction, masters, and schools. I find my father calling upon Miss Holt in town soon after her departure, and my mother directing him to tell her that ' her pet James reads in the Bible every Sunday night.' James would then be four years and a half, the governess's godchild and pet, and able to take his turn as the Bible was read verse by verse round the family circle. Two years after this he had made a further advance in the direction of his future studies. Being 'told that my eldest sister, at Ken- sington, had been confirmed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, he exclaimed, ' I should like to see Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.' Between these two dates, when James was nearly five years and a half, occurs his first signature, and it seems to show that his penmanship had not kept pace with his quick development of mind and character. On February 27 all the brothers and sisters affix their names to a letter of best wishes on my eldest sister's birthday, she being now at Mrs. Parish's. It is 'James X Mozley, his mark.' But my brother James, though very well grown generally, was neither handy nor Tro&as U>KVS. We had not a unanimous welcome to Derby, and one little incident had a lasting and disagree- able effect. Mr. Torr, an old Gainsborough friend of my father, had long before this left that town for Liverpool. Some time before our migration he MR. TORRES WILL. 211 died, leaving a will, and my father executor. I con- clude the will was then an old one. He had no family, and he had left his property to be divided amongst his relations. These were found to be con- siderably over a hundred ; and a quarter of them had gone to America, and elsewhere, and could not be followed. It was necessary to advertise, to inquire, and to wait for the result. Acting by the advice of his lawyer, my father divided as much as it was safe to divide, and reserved a portion for the costs of inquiry, and for the chance of claimants turning up. The recipients, some very distantly related, and consequently not entitled to large shares, had soon spent the money, and now heard there was more to be divided. ' More, more,' is the cry of all such people. When they were told the reason, they replied that there was no chance of such and such relatives being ever heard of again. Nobody had heard of them for many years. When my father left Gainsborough, the little crowd of expectants went to the testator's other old friends ; and one or two of them, to save themselves trouble, referred them to a gentleman at Derby, who would look well after their interest. Accordingly they laid siege to the gentleman whom I have denominated Gaius of Derby, and whose social posi- tion I am told I have intentionally depreciated by styling him a tradesman. The truth is my ideas are apt to be maritime and international, and this was an inland merchant. Gaius must have known who my father was for years. One of his brothers had now married, and brought to the neighbourhood of Derby, r 2 2i2 RED IT AGRICOLIS one of the Miss Nettleships, our kind and dear friends. With this brother, but with none of the others, we had a warm and lasting friendship. Gaius ought to have done nothing, said nothing, without first consulting my father. On the contrary, he disseminated these complaints about the town. My father called him to account, and upon an expla- nation he had to submit ; but there never was any love lost between the two, even though, as I have been reminded, they had sometimes to act together in official duties. CHAPTER XXXV. CHANGE IN THE TOWN AND IN THE COUNTRY. THE good people who fifty years ago talked so sneeringly of progress, march of mind, diffusion of knowledge, and the elevation of the classes, had taken little heed of the new circumstances under which an increasing part of the people were born and bred. The population of the towns was everywhere increas- ing, that of the country standing still or decreasing. In a village, and even more in those numerous and extensive districts where the habitations are too scattered to form a village, there is change indeed, but it is far from revolutionary, very seldom even progres- sive. One year is like another. Every year Nature wakes out of a long sleep, and repeats the most magnificent of all performances meeting human eye. The actors, who are also the spectators, rehearse their LABOR ACTUS IN ORBEM. 213 respective parts on this stage, generally observing immemorial traditions. After a climax a triumph, or a catastrophe the curtain drops, and Nature slum- bers again. Life and death, health and sickness, joy and sorrow, vary the tenor of life ; but such human accidents are soon buried in the grave, and almost as soon drop from memory. Nature remains. In most parts of the country the enclosures, the lanes, the banks, or the hedgerows are believed to have been the same for perhaps thousands of years, bearing still the names given them by races no longer there, or perhaps anywhere. No wonder that people bred under such constancy of condition should be suspicious of them that are given to change. All animal life is so unchangeable in its manners and ways, as to suggest the rather painful doubt whether it is automatous, and whether it is not altogether subject to material laws. They whose whole life is spent among such creatures, cannot help looking for some such reliable consistency in the ways of the human race. They don't wish to see society suddenly the victim of new and uncontrollable instincts. They have no hope or craving for innova- tions that shall make the present as if it had never been. Nature with them is its own master, its own teacher, its own history, and its own monument. They are no more wearied of its perpetual reiteration than a child is of the old, old story, or the bigger child of his holiday game. Why change, when all we have to do is to learn by practice, and do the same thing better ? Against all this towns have their steady and un- 214 CHANGE IN THE TOWN AND COUNTRY. interrupted material progress. They advance, and, unless by some calamity, have no retrograde march. They never cease to grow. They acquire numbers, add to their buildings, extend their streets, and develop new industries. All that they see about them points to a future. In the famous year 1815 I was just beginning to feel this national instinct of a mighty growth. The two first stages of my own part in it were the two towns I had now pretty well mastered. Already in Derby there was the pro- mise of that development ; for there were some new public buildings, there was at least one institution of an ambitious character, and there were the great families of the Strutts and the Arkwrights ever racking their brains for some new addition to our physical comforts. But at that period it was more the world at large that I was thinking of than the town, which, as a child, I was likely to regard as very unchangeable, or at least very slow of growth. Of one thing I am certain. During that long hour in the still air, in the twilight of the last day of 1815, and under the kindling stars, I never had the least forethought of any of the things that have actually happened to me and to mine, to the town and to the country and to the world. What I fore- saw I know not, for it never came to pass. The spot I stood on was, for the time, my earth's centre. It had then many characteristic features. It and its surroundings have now been transformed beyond all recognition. MARY AND ELIZA. 21 c CHAPTER XXXVI. A DUKE'S TENANT. NOT a few of our Gainsborough friendships followed us to Derby, and we all felt an unfailing interest in those who reminded us of our old home. Near Ret- ford lived a brother an.d two sisters. They were first cousins of the Nettleships, to whom I have given the chapter headed ( A Sun-lit Spot ' ; but how there came to be such a difference of quality between the cousins I know not. The brother, and his father before him, had held large farms under the Duke of Newcastle, and, at a time when prices were high, and sheep- farming, light soils, and rotation crops were begin- ning to be understood, he had made a large fortune, and become a landowner. His two sisters were our friends, Mary and Eliza. Mary was handsome, and had been pretty. She was lively, talkative, and agreeable, though without much of the wit that comes by culture and society. She was serious in her religious views, but sadly hindered in her path. She had had many offers in her youth, that is, her very youth, and now she was said to keep a drawer full of them, and to consider occasionally what she had better have done in regard to them. One suitor, certainly, she could never quite dismiss from her heart. He had made her an offer, and she had refused him, fully believing that he would renew his offer, when she intended to accept it. He thought 216 A DUKE'S TENANT. she was in earnest, and I think she never saw him afterwards but once, a long way off, on Waterloo Bridge. The sisters found themselves with ample means, with no calls upon them, and entirely free to live where they pleased and form what friendships they pleased. Most people will think they could hardly fail to be happy, and that they had only to thank Heaven that they were spared common trials. But they were not literary ; they had nothing to do but what work they could manage to find for themselves ; and they had to kill time one way or other. So they fussed about dress, they fussed about investments for their money, and they fussed a little, occasionally, about the care of their souls. Poor Mary, the elder, handsomer, and brighter, thought much of what best became her. She wore stylish bonnets, kept her figure within bounds, and for the sake of pretty shoes endured sore feet and chil- blains. Eliza was more sensible, and as good, but she had no figure, no looks, and not much conversation. She was not likely to have admirers. The sisters followed us to Derby, took a good house in Friar- gate, and lived there some years. Eliza was a great chess-player, and could always be sure of one of us to play with. My brother John was her most frequent antagonist. They were well matched, for they were both patient and both slow. At Derby the sisters did as other people did. They went excursions, took summer lodgings at Mat- lock or at Quarndon, and contributed much to the pleasantness of our little circle. I know no better AN ILL-SORTED PAIR. 217 place than Derby for the variety of interesting excur- sions within easy reach, to be done in a week, or in a day, as one may choose ; and I find myself associating these sisters with most of them. The brother was a churl. He had been so unwise as to marry a handsome and lively woman, with whom he could never assimilate, who proved faithless to him, and who finally left him. Either the husband was a very great brute indeed, or the tone of the neighbour- hood was very bad indeed possibly both for when the young farmer who had taken the erring lady under his protection next appeared at the Market table, they all rose and cheered him. However, there was a divorce, which in those days did not carry with it a dissolution of the marriage. Long before this catastrophe I had heard a sad account of the poor man's state of mind when the breaking of a single cog in a threshing-machine cost him 5O/. and a month's delay. The sisters, for whom the brother had never cared a straw, were now invited to take the management of his household. They felt it their duty to consent, so they said ; and it certainly was their interest from one point of view. The new arrangement was far from happy, for there was a constant collision of tastes. Their means were very large ; there was nobody to make money and save for ; and there was not much at home to satisfy the longings of two ladies who had seen a little of the world. At length they persuaded the brother to order a carriage from Holmes, the Derby coach-builder. My eldest brother, Henry, a frequent visitor at that estab- 2i8 A DUKE'S TENANT. Hshment, would see that the ideas of brother and sisters were carried out. Those ideas were incompatible. The brother wanted strength and compactness, for roads which were often rough, and, as I remember, sometimes deep sand. Above all, the vehicle was net to be heavy, for the work would have to be done with saddle-horses, and the brother was himself a light weight. The sisters, especially the elder, had the common infirmity of carrying about with them an immense quantity and weight of luggage superfluous dresses, small hampers of provisions, and parcels taken to oblige friends. There must be a boot, and also an imperial, that is, an enormous flat box covering the whole top of the carriage. Stripped of all these incumbrances, the vehicle was just within the power of a pair of light horses on a good road, when it happened to be in good condition. I should say that carriages were exceedingly apt to grow in my brother's head, almost as much as churches did in mine, and I have often wondered how he came to be Mr. Holmes's adviser. The brother and sisters were sitting at table one very dull day, when something rolled heavily past the window, darkening the room. It was neither a waggon nor a hearse. It was the unhappy carriage. The brother rose from his chair, rang the bell, and sternly ordered that the carriage should be taken into the coach-house, locked up, and never taken out again. It never had an hour's use. The brother hunted regularly, but made no friends in the field. Friends have to be caught young and tamed. So one there was whom he would catch if THE EARL OF LINCOLN 219 he could. This was the young Lord Lincoln, whom he would ride up to when he could and have a talk with. His lordship betrayed some indication of thinking the man a bore. One or two of his friends noticed it, and advised him accordingly. ' It's quite proper,' they said, ' that he should feel a kindness to you, for all his money has been made on the New- castle property ; and it would be as well that you should bear with him, for you may bring it all back again.' So Lord Lincoln responded, and the ac- quaintance became recognised and understood. The brother made a will, leaving everything about a hundred thousand pounds, as I remember to Lord Lincoln, after the death of his sisters. This is my general recollection ; there might be modifi- cations. The sisters were aware of the will. Shrewd and reserved as he was, he had not been able to protect the scent from the continual intrusion of feminine curiosity. They were likely enough to think the will alterable, for already it was within my own knowledge that the man had seriously entertained the thought of leaving his money for the building of a lunatic asylum, then much wanted for the county. Neither the present nor the future of such a situation can have been cheerful. It told on the elder and livelier of the sisters. She fell into low spirits ; lower and lower still. In half a year a fever carried her off rapidly. I cannot remember whether she died before the Corn Law controversy, when, for a time, Nottinghamshire was a 'hell upon earth '- father against son, brother against brother. Eliza had spent her life under the shadow of a 270 A DVKE*S TENANT. brighter nature and a stronger will, and she was now left alone with her moody, morose, melancholy brother. It could not have been for long. Not yet even an elderly man, of I know not what disease, the brother was found to be dying. She had little originality herself, and there were none about her to give her better counsel than what might happen to suit their own interest. But she was in frequent communication with a family well known and long highly respected in the agricultural world. The head of it had been a great experimental farmer, improver, breeder, and exhibitor. He had failed, and the family had to seek their fortunes. One of them was now invited to assist and to ad- vise. Being informed of the brother's will, he easily persuaded the sister to work upon her brother's re- sentment at the part Lord Lincoln had taken in the Free Trade controversy, and to induce him to make his will more simply in her favour. At the last moment indeed, the very day before death he made a will, leaving io,ooo/. I am told it was to Lord Lincoln, and the bulk of his property absolutely to his sister. Upon the brother's death the young friend, for he was very young in comparison, took the entire man- agement of the lady's affairs, and travelled with her, paying us a visit at Derby. There it was observed that he always had his eye on the lady, and was very jealous of letting her go out of sight. He was possibly aware that my mother had already written her a letter of friendly warning. He took up his abode in the same house, and it THE END OF ALL THESE THINGS. 221 was soon announced that they were married. ' I don't give her two years,' I said when I heard of this. She died in a year and a half, after being out of sight, out of hearing, out of mind, the whole eighteen months. Of course, everything went to her husband. After a few months my brother John had a letter from the widower, who had heard, he said, that his late wife had investments in Derby, and desired in- formation about them. She had, I believe, shares in gas and other companies. The very proper answer he received was that his late wife's investments were his affair, and that, if he had reason to believe there were any at Derby, he had better come to Derby and look after them himself. I believe that with a little inquiry I could continue the story, but this is enough, and my own recollections do not further go, except that the bereaved husband followed his wife somewhat earlier than he had counted on. CHAPTER XXXVII. MY UNCLE ROBERT. UNCLE ROBERT was, I believe, my father's half- brother, and some years younger. As I remember him, he was a big fellow, with a complexion that would have been sallow had it not been sunburnt and deeply pitted with the smallpox. With a tender expression, and soft but rather muffled tone of voice, he was singularly decided both in speaking 222 MY UNCLE ROBERT. and in action. He had often been told by French- men that he might have been mistaken for Soult. As I have mentioned in my ' Reminiscences,' he had the choice of a cadetship or a midshipman's berth from an East India director, and he chose the latter. After a voyage or two to Calcutta, he wished to be his own master, and entered into the service of a firm of West India merchants and shipowners. Either in that service, or in some interval before it, he had been captured by a French cruiser, and had been some time in a French prison. He had made his escape, and then had to travel to a frontier through the lines of a French army. As he could talk the language perhaps better than the population he was passing through, and did not look like an Englishman, he felt easy enough. But his companion was a Black Brunswicker, whose black cap and crossbones would have consigned him to instant execution, had he not turned the cap inside out. My uncle made many voyages, if my memory fail not, immediately to the free port of St. Thomas, but from that point calling at St. Domingo, Cuba, and other islands. Again I must speak from memory, and as I am charging my good uncle with wholesale perjury, I must add that I should be glad if anybody could convince me that I must be in error. My uncle certainly several times spoke of the enormous number of false oaths he had to take at the London Custom House before and after every voyage, including, I suppose, an engagement that he was not to call at any other port than the one first mentioned. ENGAGING A CREW. 223 He several times invited me out from Charter- house ; taking me to a theatre, and once to an annual dinner for a seamen's charity, of which he was a steward, What I chiefly remember was the gaily striped waistcoats and trousers of the company, and their blue or salmon-colour neckties, for that was the style then, and it was summer. Were any one of that company now to appear in the streets of London, he would be followed by a crowd of boys expecting a performance. On one occasion my uncle took me to his ship in the West India docks. The vessel was of the usual class, considerably less than two hundred tons. He was engaging a crew. Seating himself in his small cabin, with the articles of agreement on a board over his head, he desired his mate to call in the applicants. He asked his questions quickly, and they were as quickly answered. What was your last ship ? Who was the captain ? Where did you go ? How long have you been ashore ? You see the articles of agreement over my head ? You know them ? You promise to observe them ? Immedi- ately upon the men being accepted they made a request for money, having spent all their wages, and being in debt besides. As I remember, my uncle advanced the money in some form or other not in cash, I suppose. In this way it did not take long to engage a dozen men. He then ordered in some pea-soup and biscuit, and as we were beginning our lunch he said, ' Now I am about to cross the Atlantic with these fellows, and there is not one of them who would not 224 MY UNCLE ROBERT. cut my throat for twenty dollars.' I will hope he said more than he meant. Repeating as he did with unfailing regularity and despatch the great feat of Columbus, I could not but ask him some questions about navigation. He made very light of it. He had only one watch on board, a so-called chronometer, long and still in my posses- sion. It is a good big silver watch, and it still goes pretty well. But he explained that it did not matter for a watch in that voyage. You could not be a day at fault in your reckoning, and a day's sail off the West Indies you were sure to meet ships that would give you the time and the longitude without any trouble. It seemed attractively simple, and, barring the company of cut-throats, a charming mode of existence. My uncle did a good deal for Christophe, the black king of Hayti, and saw much of him. He took out for him a fine carriage, and a pair of spotted carriage- dogs that I should think the climate would make short work of. He took out for him two pier-glasses, as large as could then be made. Christophe came to the harbour to see them carefully landed. As they were being lowered to the quay the chain broke and the immense case fell to the ground. The negroes doing the work were in the utmost terror. Christophe ordered the case to be opened to see the result on the glasses. If they were found to be broken a dozen or two negroes would have paid the penalty with their lives on the spot. As it was, the glasses had been so carefully packed that they had received no injury. At length my uncle arrived at Hayti, a fortnight CHRISTOPHE, KING OF HAYTL 225 too late, for everything. The king had been confined to his palace by illness. The army had taken the opportunity to mutiny. They marched to the palace, and Christophe heard them approaching his room. He sat up in bed and blew out his brains. The mutineers rushed in and made a wreck of the furni- ture. They found a good deal in the treasury, and looted it. My uncle had brought over many things ordered by the king, including some thousand sacks, which he now found on his hands. More fortunate ships had done some business with the looters, but the money was now gone. My uncle went into the palace, where his face was well known, and, finding himself alone in the chamber of death, took up some of the parquetting thickly encrusted with royal blood, and some fragments of a handsome chandelier which had hung from the ceiling. These he brought home, and I believe my brother John finally deposited them in the Museum at Derby. Christophe's widow and two daughters came to England, and were living for some time very quietly at Bayswater, then an out-of-the-way place. My uncle called on them on his return from a voyage. I accompanied him to the door, and waited an hour for him. All the account I can give of the interview is that, upon rejoining me, my uncle seemed very much touched and very much gratified. He had seen the manufacture of cigars at Ha- vannah. Entering a long shed, he saw, through the noisome reek, five hundred black women rolling the leaves into cigars on their bare laps. The work was VOL. i. Q 226 OMNES SIBI MELIUS ESSE hard, but necessary. The resulting perspiration was required for the softening of the leaves and for making them adhere. My uncle thought there were some smokers who would never touch a cigar again if they had seen what he saw and smelt the odours he smelt ; but he was still a smoker himself. Like a good uncle he never returned empty-handed. What has become of the magnificent hammock of some curious fibre he once brought home for us, and in trying which I brought down upon myself a tall wardrobe, with just time to roll aside ? In those days nobody could travel either ten miles, or five thousand, without being charged with any number of letters to deliver or to post at the journey's end. My uncle had received the usual budget, but forgot all about it. On returning home and resuming his best coat he found all the letters safe in the pocket, where they had been sleeping half a year. I had some talk with him about slavery and the slave trade, and I remember his observing that such was the hatred of the name of Wilberforce in British and Spanish West Indies, that he would not live one hour after landing. He had once a narrow escape. At a West Indian port, on returning to his vessel after a hard morning's work, he filled a tumbler with claret and drank it off. Not till he had swallowed it did he find that it was ink. His medicine-chest was at hand, and he swal- lowed the proper corrective, but was very ill after. Sleeping on board his ship in West India Docks, he was waked by his mate, who asked him to come MALUNT QUAM ALTERI. 227 on deck as quietly as he could. A fruit ship from the Mediterranean had arrived the day before, and, for a temporary mooring, had passed a hawser to my uncle's ship. ' Look at that hawser,' the mate whispered. It seemed to move. After a while my uncle made out, through the darkness, a continuous line of rats passing from his own ship to his neighbour. He and the mate watched till the long procession came to an end. They had been much troubled with rats on the voyage home, but had none going out. It has occurred to me to ask how the rules of Christian charity apply to the case. But I suppose it comes under the head of ' ruling ideas.' CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE WARDWICK HOUSE. MY father had prepared us for the house at Derby being dull. Nothing could be more lively and cheer- ful than our house in Gainsborough Market Place ; but we were now to be rather gloomy and grand. I suppose Miss Holt felt herself rising in the world, for she at once took my second sister by the hand and danced her round the dining-room. My sister would probably be too tired to share her elation, but a minute after she found her level. A window was open, and she looked out, as was natural to a child not yet six. ' Look at that wench ! ' she heard a boy calling out to another. She had ne\er heard the word before. A Lincolnshire lass is a maid in Q 2 228 THE WARD WICK HOUSE. Devonshire, and is, or at least then was, a wench in Derbyshire. The house was on the direct highway from London to Manchester and Liverpool ; but as all the coaches had to go into the town the street had long been comparatively deserted by traffic. On that account it had become genteel. On the other side of that narrow street, just vis-a-vis, was a large roomy mansion, convertible into offices. This has saved it, for it still survives better and more modern houses in its immediate neighbourhood. Our house was capacious ; it had an architectural front, a spacious entrance hall, a very handsome staircase, and a room fitted up with Tudor wainscoting from an older house on the site. The kitchen of the old house had been retained, with an immense open chimney, up which one could see the sky. The fire never went out. Coals were cheap. When the servants went to bed they brought in a big coal, three or four feet long, and set it on end against the fire back. The first who came down in the morning took an enormous poker, and with one well-directed blow broke the lump to pieces, when there was at once a blazing fire. There was a good garden, large stables, a roomy hayloft, and a straw chamber. Upon the whole our own little world was satisfactory. We gardened, and had our pet flowers, still brighter in my memory than any flowers I have seen since. My own special hobby was building houses, or simply ornamental edifices, with such bits of stone, marble, or alabaster as came into my hands. Once or twice my vanity SILKWORMS. 229 was a little touched when I found these structures regarded as eyesores, and indicative of a certain feebleness of character and conception. Something put silkworms into our heads. In 1817 our kind uncle brought from the West Indies as many as a score large sheets of paper encrusted with the eggs. He told us how to manage them. A spacious greenhouse, with a broad marble shelf all round, seemed the very place for them. We spread out these sheets, and were delighted to see the little bits of life showing themselves. But in the first place we had no mulberry leaves. Endive we were told would do, but we had to eke that out with lettuce. The worms grew, certainly. But the difficulty was to change the leaves. We had not the apparatus, which is simply a framed net, upon which the new leaves should be daily laid over the old, when the worms at their leisure leave the old for the new. Soon we had to leave them in the hands of ser- vants, for the whole family went on a villeggiatura to Quarndon. We had been told the silkworms required close watching. In the factories are sus- pended coloured figures of the normal condition of a silkworm for the forty stages of its forty days' life, to show what the creature ought to be ; and the slightest change of temperature, or of humidity, is sure to tell upon it. I walked into Derby several times to see how things were going on, and it was an awful sight. All sorts of creatures were waging war against the poor helpless strangers. There appeared an army of ants. First stinging a worm till it was yellow and dead, or 230 THE WARD WICK HOUSE. nearly so, one ant would go to the head and another to the tail, and so they would carry it off to their hiding- place. Beetles and huge centipedes came. I think it sickened me of pets I could not quite manage. The elders also had their mitigation of a town life. They tried a dairy, pigs, and poultry. For the first they rented a large field, which it would now be hard to trace in any map of Derby, so cut up by roads and so buried under houses. They came in for a taste of agricultural distress. A cow produced two calves, which were kept for some weeks in hopes of a better market, but had at last to be sold with- out reserve. The servant took them to a period- ical cattle fair, and stood with them a whole day in what proved a falling market, finally disposing of the pair for three shillings. We had no run for the poultry, and they must have had a dull time of it. Pigs are such a risk that I rather wonder at the famous dictum that they pay better than pupils. We had two serious losses. While a couple of huge flitches were soaking in brine, the filthy brook behind overflowed into our back offices, and the bacon was drowned in dirt, I think in the night, before it could be rescued. Two other flitches remained for months on a rack suspended from the kitchen ceiling. When they were taken down they were found saturated with gas, then a new invention, and not so well understood as now. What to do with kitchen refuse is one of the most difficult problems of town life. In no matter does Providence show more of what we may venture to call its generosity and its ingenuity, than in the supply RUS IN URBE. 231 of inferior creatures, in infinite succession, to consume the remains of better tables, at last the banquet and the banqueters both alike. An opposite neighbour in the Wardwick had one advantage over us, for he had a country-house. In the Wardwick he occupied one of the most ancient mansions in the town, and exercised the trade of money-lending, in which he accumulated more than half a million. ' Munjey ' he was always called, but whether that be a usual corruption or familiar form of Edmund is more than I can say. I suppose it must have been in the interval be- tween the Ides and the Calends that he regularly paid a visit to his rural home. He drove down in a well- appointed close carriage and pair. But it was a varnished sepulchre. The money-lender's usual com- panion on these journeys was a cask of swill from his kitchen to his expectant family of pigs in the country. One hot day the cask exploded violently, saturating his clothes and the carriage linings with its contents in high fermentation. I ascertained by measurement how many times round the garden would make a mile, and one afternoon ran three miles without stopping. As I was once chasing my brother James, he retreated behind some lilacs. I threw a stone amongst them, and heard a scream. The stone had cut one of my brother's eyebrows right in two. An inch lower and it must have destroyed the eye, and possibly deprived the world of many volumes the interest of which grows by time. I was met by a family friend run- ning through the town, pale as death, for the doctor. 232 OUR SURROUNDINGS. CHAPTER XXXIX. OUR SURROUNDINGS. THE house, as I have described it, was so far so good. Now for the other side of the picture. We had large blocks of tenement-houses on both sides, and one nearly in front of us. That on our right was very ancient. A low passage led through it to a deep court behind. The whole had been occupied time out of mind by a numerous Irish colony. It was a nuisance, and worse. It separated us from the handsome residence of Mr. W. J. Lockett, Copley's friend, of whom I shall have a word to say. Of the tenements on our left my chief recollection is that of a melancholy woman, always at her window looking into our garden, shaking dirty rags of some form or other. The tenements on the other side of the street, belonging to a college Brasenose, I think were not so ill occupied, but they were an eyesore. At the foot of our garden ran a brook, little better than a sewer in dry weather, and something more than a flood in wet. It separated us from a little world of dirty courts, alleys, and outhouses, and always suggested malaria. We were a few yards from its confluence with another stream equally liable to inundation, and were between the two streams. A predecessor, it was said, had invited a large party to dinner, and at the appointed hour the dining-room was two feet under water. ST. JAMES'S LANE. 233 We had two ways into the town one was along the side of the above open brook, in which the black and diffused stream seldom sufficed wholly to cover the stones, the broken pots and pans making the bed. This was ' Brook side.' The other was more direct, by a very narrow, winding, dirty lane, between the stables of an hotel and the Saracen's Head Inn. The sign probably came down from the days when a religious house in the name of St. James possessed the locality, receiving annually two pounds of wax from the cor- poration, nominally towards the maintenance of St. James's bridge, as it was still called in my time. St. James was the saint of soldiers and the Patron of Spain, for he was a son of thunder and had invoked lightning on his foes. For centuries his work was to drive the Moors out of Spain, and there was not a town in Western Europe that did not annually con- tribute volunteers to the cause. The Derby ' Saracen's Head ' had the same relation to St. James as the London Inn of the name to the adjoining church of St. Sepulchre. The inhabitants of the lane now represented a decadence from that chivalrous period. But I used to like walking through it, for if one was not taken quite back to those times, one was taken a little out of these. My father once found there a crowd, in the midst of which a woman was giving her husband no doubt what he deserved. The few words my father caught in passing were full of meaning : ' The de'il owed me a ke-ake, and he guv me a lo-af.' I have always remembered this as a model of free speech upon an imperfect basis. 234 OUR SURROUNDINGS. The people at the ' Saracen's Head ' had friends at Bassingham, where our own friends, the Waylands, had charge of the parish, and we used to regard them as country folks. I forget when all this began to change. 'Tis more than sixty years since, and it is now all, not only changed, but in truth passed away. Progress, destruction, or reform, call it which you please, began upon the Irish colony to our right. Our landlord was their ground landlord also, and he had already encroached on their quarters by taking out of them a store-room for our house. He, my father, and Mr. Lockett, all three strong men in their respective ways, put their heads together and resolved to exter- minate the colony and divide the ground. The population resolved to stick to it. Due notice was given, and no notice taken of it. So labourers came, warned the occupants of their danger, planted their ladders, and began the work of de- struction from the top. Taking what vantage-ground they could, the garrison pelted them from below. I and my brother watched the struggle from our own roof. The labourers by-and-by were throwing down, not handfuls, but rafters, chimneys, and walls. This work itself was war. But the fight was not ended even when nothing remained between the floor and the sky. A cart was being loaded with the debris, when the ground was seen to subside under it. The lash was applied to the horse just in time to save it from descending into a yawning abyss. This was a disused and unknown well. The water was found to be quite A SHOWER OF HAY. 235 drinkable, but chalybeate, probably the reason of its disuse. The ground cleared, we put out a bow- window ; Mr. Lockett a spacious wing. A like clear- ance was effected on our left. Our garden was now much enlarged, and more tastefully laid out. About this time, one summer's morning, as we stepped into the garden on coming downstairs, a sudden thought possessed us. The air was so soft and so still, we would breakfast al fresco. So the table was brought out and the cloth was laid. Tea had just been poured out, when some one saw a spot on the cloth. ' What's this ? ' he said, looking closer. It was rain. We still hesitated. In a minute we had to run for shelter, all carrying what we could. It soon became black as night. For three hours I thought it would never end it thundered and light- ened incessantly. In the midst of it we saw a fall of hay, and looking up saw the sky covered with wreck. A whirlwind had carried off not only a whole field of hay near the ' Depot,' a mile and a half from us, but even the hedgerows in its path, and was spreading them over the town. My brother John, who was fond of relics, collected some that had fallen in our garden, and preserved them for many years. The ruinous old wall between our garden and the 'brook' had to be rebuilt. The bricklayers found the bed of the watercourse so much disturbed that they could not make a real foundation. So they just excavated enough for the purpose, and laid down broad heavy planks a little under the water, and upon these built the wall. Several times, upon my mentioning this, I have been told that it is impos- 236 OUR SURROUNDINGS. sible. That, however, is my recollection. Often have I asked myself how long the wall would stand, little thinking I should be able to answer the question. On a visit to the site some years ago I found a new wall just completed. ' The old wall ' had begun to ' lean.' On comparing dates, I found it had done its work fifty-two years. Some years after our family left the house, it became the Mechanics' Institute, and over our moiety of the Irish clearance rose a spacious hall, long the best in Derby indeed, the only one for lectures, concerts, and such entertainments. But the house itself is now of the past ; so, too, Mr. Lockett's, a much better house. On and around the spot whence I surveyed this changeful world in 1815, there now stands a large group of stately public buildings Mechanics' Institute, Free Library, Museum, and Picture Gallery. The rooms in which I sat, and ate, and read, and wrote, and talked, after serving as the office of the Church Congress, are thrown into the street. The Stygian stream behind us, never to me unlovely, has wholly disappeared from sunshine, for it is now the Cloaca Maxima of Derby : through the whole length of its passage through the town it has been arched over. The portion nearest to us is now one of the finest streets in the town, calling itself the Strand. Where we had to cross it, on our way into the town, is now the Derby post-office. The narrow, winding, dirty lane is now a street worthy of the best parts of London. The change is not only in dignity and scale ; it is indicative of a new era, a new world taking the OMNI A MUTANTUR, NIHIL 1NTERIT. 237 place of the old. Dreamer as I always was, I cannot say I dreamt of this. I think I rather dreamt that the ground where I stood, and all about me there, would remain as it was for ages, and that a reverential posterity might one day point out where I and we had once been when we anticipated the coming times and had our part in hastening them. When I walked into the Mechanics' Institute some seven or eight years ago, an old inhabitant took me for either a ghost, or a madman," or an impostor, when I told him I had once lived there. CHAPTER XL. WILLIAM JEFFERY LOCKETT. IN my notice of an execution for high treason at Derby, the day after the death of the Princess Charlotte, I mentioned William Jeffery Lockett, and after describing him as a man not to be loved at first sight, and at that time in rather a false position with his old political friends, I added, ' He was known to be at heart a kind and generous man.' This I did for a reason I could not then explain without interrupting the narrative, which had to be despatched. Even now I must write from very distant recollections, and without the means of verifying them. After the ex- tirpation of the Irish colony between us, Mr. Lockett was our next-door neighbour in the Wardwick. My father had a professional and talking acquaintance 238 WILLIAM JEFFERY LOCKE TT. with him. On several occasions my father asked, and received, his friendly advice. He complimented my father on the regularity of his sons' movements to and from school in 1817-20 ; and in 1831 for his statement of the Law of Pews in a letter to Bishop Ryder, which I had written, but with which he had credited my eldest brother, a solicitor. Mr. Lockett had been the leading lawyer in the town, and was still the chief link between the town and the county. Though he was singularly grave, deliberate, and self-possessed, I should conclude that he had a certain reserve and despotism in his nature which disqualified him for public life. I once saw him lose his temper at a numerous meeting of the governors of the infirmary, and make himself pain- fully ridiculous. In his conversations with my father, he frequently alluded to an incident the full import of which I never knew till lately. One afternoon a stranger called and wished to see him. He had come to ask assistance for an improvement of the lace-machine. Mr. Lockett was busy then, but he saw enough of the stranger to distinguish him from the run of in- ventors, who then, and in my time, were besetting everybody at all likely to help them. He came the next morning ; and, after a long examination into the proposed improvement, Mr. Lockett advanced five hundred pounds on a proper understanding, indeed a bond, for a share of the profits. Before very long it might be a couple of months the stranger reported progress, but now wanted two thousand pounds. He must have a regular plant, more than one machine, TENUI PENDENTIA FILO. 239 and so forth. What he was doing had hitherto been experimental. If I remember right, Mr. Lockett had advanced twenty thousand pounds by the time the patent was secured and in full operation. This was in 1808. The patent was a great success, and Mr. Lockett was completely recom- pensed. The inventor, however, had had great troubles. His patent had been invaded, and had had to be defended at great cost, and the patentee him- self had now been driven by the machine breakers into the south of England. I can have no doubt the stranger was John Heathcoat, the well-known inventor of the bobbin-net machine, who was driven from Nottingham to Tiverton, in Devonshire, by the men employed on the superseded machines. Mr. Lockett must have been a sleeping partner in the concern seven or eight years when we came to Derby, reaping what may be called the first harvest of the patent. The stocking-frame had been invented in the middle of last century. It made loops through which threads could be run, and was easily adapted to the making of a form of lace. But it was clumsy, slow, and difficult It was frequently out of order, always calling for the use of the fingers, and in- capable of varied effects. The work got out of it obtained prices not much below those of real pillow lace. As the prices did not immediately fall very much, the new patent came in for them. This was the first harvest. For the second har- vest I suppose I must refer my readers to the notices of a famous trial at Nottingham in Lord Campbell's 240 WILLIAM JEFFERY LOCKETT. ' Life of Lord Lyndhurst,' in Sir Theodore Martin's, and in some other recent publications. It appears that a new patentee brought an action against another lace-maker for infringement of patent. The latter defended himself on the ground that the alleged new patent which he was charged with infringing upon was itself invalid, inasmuch as it appropriated Heath- coat's patent. Lyndhurst went to Nottingham to acquaint himself with the machine he had to defend, and to ascertain that it only added some minor im- provements to Heathcoat's patent, to which it must substantially be referred. He is reported to have astonished the lace-maker by the rapidity and com- pleteness with which he mastered the machine in- deed, so as to be able to work it himself though he had looked on apparently listless and indifferent. Still more is he related to have astonished the court by his perfect familiarity with the working model introduced at the trial. The machine, it is needless to say, is one of extreme intricacy, doing on a large scale, with unfailing accuracy and great rapidity, what it takes supple fingers and a fine touch a life to learn. Copley demolished the plaintiffs patent, thereby establishing Heathcoat's, and the latter immediately proceeded to levy royalties on as many as six hun- dred machines. The defendant, who represented Heathcoat's interest, happened to be presented with twins at that juncture, and named them after Copley and Balguy, his two counsel. Lord Lyndhurst's latest biographer notices that Balguy makes no appearance in the report of the trial. This inconspicuous counsel HEATHCOAT^S PATENT. 241 was Balguy junior. Balguy senior was a Derby soli- citor in high repute, till my time partner in the firm Lockett, Balguy & Barber. I think the solicitor must have been coupled with his son, the barrister, in the name of the second twin. This trial was in 1816. The year after that Lockett was Crown solicitor in the trial for high treason. In the next year that is, 1818 he with- drew from the exercise of his profession, and, at the same time, enlarged and improved his residence adjoining ours. He was now evidently in receipt of a large income, I have no doubt from Heathcoat's business. He was just fifty, an age when few men can afford to give up a lucrative and honourable profession. There were other men in Derby who had the same kind of professional practice, viz. the management of estates and the piloting of embar- rassed gentlemen through their difficulties ; but un- less they were simply usurers, which some indeed were, they did not make fortunes. At the time of the famous trial when Copley showed a wonderful familiarity with Heathcoat's patent, and with the illegal appropriation of it in another patent pretending to be original, Copley had been twelve years on the Midland Circuit. He must have been well acquainted with Lockett all that time, and intimate with him latterly. Lockett had thoroughly mastered the patent, and had invested everything in it, possibly also the money of clients. If he was communicative to my father, he could not but be so to a man like Copley, always eager for information, ambitious to understand everything and VOL. I. R 242 WILLIAM JEFFERY LOCKETT. full of generous sympathy. I cannot but think that Copley had now for years been thoroughly acquainted with Heathcoat's machine. As this may seem to detract something from Copley's preternatural intuition, and to reduce it to a commoner level, I will throw in an item to restore the equipoise. Lord Lyndhurst had been four days hearing a water-right case at Derby. The question was simply the head of water one mill might keep up to the prejudice of another ; but there were two armies of witnesses, two piles of deeds and records, and various judgments in successive reigns. The jury were worn out, and the public patience exhausted. As we were about to part for bed on Saturday night my eldest brother came in. ' I've just heard the most splendid summing-up that ever was given.' Between seven and eight the jury had made up their minds that there must be an adjournment to Monday, as the judge would have to look at his notes, and themselves would have to recover their power of attention. But the moment the hearing was over Lord Lyndhurst turned to the jury : Gentlemen, we must be all pretty well tired of this case, and it would be a pity your Sunday should be spoilt by the prospect of having to return to it on Monday. There has been much repetition and much contradiction, but the gist of the case really lies within a narrow compass. I think I can give you briefly all you have to consider, and shall do this better without notes than with them. So saying, with a wave of the arm, which I remember my brother imitating, he turned over and aside a vast mass of notes, and never looked at them again. Such MY FIRST SCHOOLMASTER. 243 was his fluency, clearness, and vigour of expression, that, instead of taxing the attention of his hearers, he chained it to a most interesting narrative and most lucid exposition of the law. It did not take the jury five minutes to return a verdict accordingly. CHAPTER XLI. REV. EDWARD HIGGINSON. FROM infancy to eleven and a half I was entirely under female instruction. I believe I was thought too delicate to be sent to school. The plan answered in many ways, but I remained totally ignorant of Latin ; I learnt French, but not to much purpose. I was then sent to the Rev. Edward Higginson, minister of the still so-called Presbyterian Chapel, a very clever, witty, and well-informed man ; but I must add that, if his school work was to be the test, he was idle, heartless, and unscrupulous. The school was a necessity of existence, not a pleasure, and he scamped it. With an invalid wife tied to the sofa, he was as little at home as could be, and very fond of good houses where there were either politics to be dis- cussed or pretty women to be agreeable to. His hand was often to be recognised in the ' Derby Mercury,' then the only newspaper in the county, and, if I remember right, not decidedly partisan either way. In my memory his prevailing character was cynicism. My father and he were censors upon one another, and R 2 244 REV. EDWARD HIGGINSON. as far as regards the wisdom of the world I daresay he was sometimes in the right With all my long yearnings for a simpler and more Scriptural expression of our Christian faith, I have never thought of that man without the sensation of being driven back into the Trinitarian dogma. Yet I liked him, as I had the good fortune to like every one of my teachers. I never met him without being very glad to see him and exchange a few words. His children all loved him, and they were all good. The eldest became Mrs. James Martineau. His eldest son, frequently taking his father's place, and more of a martinet, came once with his brothers and sisters to spend an evening with us, and he still stands in my recollection as an example of gentle, playful wit, making capital out of trifles. He attained a high position in the Unitarian community in the north. A thousand times have I longed to come across him. But he is gone, and shall I ever meet him again ? His brother Henry was minister of a Unitarian congregation for some years at Melbourne, Victoria. Philip Martineau Higginson, son of another brother, is now a much-appreciated minister in the north of England. I have read, and read again and again, what I have written about Edward Higginson, and I have asked- myself, ' Is it true that I liked him ; and, if it be true, how could I like him ? ' Well, likes and dislikes don't go by rule. There are good people that nobody likes, and there are people who can hardly be called good that everybody likes. My master was much liked by the Strutts, by his congregation, by Tommy Moore, DERBY GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 245 by all women, by his children, and, what was more than all, by his wife. The truth is Edward Higginson was always amusing. If he did not teach much pro- fessionally, his scholars had the benefit of many a humorous turn and many a racy expression. He had the whip-hand of us all, as indeed he had of the whole town. No man could be and do all this without having a good deal of heart, though it might be a heart that took its own ways. I remember hearing that at the meeting of the Club on the ' Bowling Green ' he was said to have exasperated the proprietor of the 'Mercury' to such a degree that the latter flung a chair at him and nearly finished him. As likely as not he would dine with the forgiving proprietor the next day, and contribute half a column to the week's paper. To all practical purposes this school kept by a Unitarian minister was the only school for gentlemen in Derby. The Grammar School was in the hands of an old clergyman, who had allowed it to fall so low that it was said he paid himself for one or two in order to keep up to the total of four boys. Mr. James Bligh represented many more offices and foundations than he did boys or any other work. He was a great pluralist and sinecurist, but yet would have been a very ill-paid man if his services had been worth any- thing at all. He was both master and usher in the school, and in that joint capacity was a double lecturer on some foundation at All Saints'. To give the old man his due, I am bound to add that it was he who first directed my attention to the description of old age in Ecclesiastes, which I listened to all the more 246 REV. EDWARD HIGGINSON. attentively as I happened to know the preacher's in- creasing infirmities. About 1834 the Corporation appointed Mr. Fletcher, an Oxford man of some dis- tinction, and he soon recovered the school to the position it was still remembered to have occupied. My brother Arthur had then the benefit of it for a year and a half. There was also a ' Commercial School ' in the town, kept by a man who combined with it surveying, &c. Seven miles off was Repton School, then under Dr. Sleith, brother of the Dr. Sleith of St. Paul's, a scholar, an antiquary, and a very pleasant man, but content to let his school fall below the standard of efficiency and success even of those days. Rugby then had, I believe, an undeserved character for roughness and disorder. At Mr. Higginson's there were, as boarders, not quite a dozen county boys, including Everys, Hoi- dens, and Barkers. Of these, the Everys were the chief figures. I remember them saying, on their return to school after Christmas, that they had trapped thirty-five wild cats in the holidays. This animal, said to be the progenitor of the domestic cat, though without its great variety of colour, has been till very recent times a formidable pest in Derby- shire. From the town and immediate neighbour- hood there were lads down to the sons of some well known shopkeepers. Some of these held their own by good manners, by strength, or by impudence, as might be. There was no hard and fast line in the school, and they all mated on fairly equal terms, 'EPKO2 'OAONTQN. 247 though I think I should say that gentle blood did show itself. Mr. Higginson, having no competition, and justly confident of his power with the tongue and the pen, conducted the school on the plan of giving himself as little trouble as he could with common decency. He seldom came in till the morning work was nearly half over. Much of his time in school he was writing, and at least half an hour every day he was making and mending pens for himself and the whole school. This he did with a large ivory-hafted knife, with a fixed blade at one end and a quill-splitter at the other. He made a good pen, with the rapidity and certainty of a machine, and I often envied him the faculty. My own work was chiefly on paper. As far as I was concerned he immediately put me and my younger brother Charles side by side. For this, at first, there was good reason, for we neither of us had begun Latin. I had to stand up with grammar or ' Delectus ' every day, and I cannot recall that Mr. Higginson ever did more with me than keep up one incessant objurgation for my not opening my mouth or bringing out my words fully. He per- petually threatened to force open my mouth with the ruler he was ever flourishing. It had long been my trouble, and long did it remain my trouble. To such a point of distress and despair did I come while at the Derby school, that it frequently occurred to me to get a file, and quietly file off enough of my front teeth to allow of a larger 248 REV. EDWARD HIGGINSON. passage for vocal utterance. For other purposes than for school work it mattered not at least not to me. I spoke plain enough to be understood at home. I went out little. I had been early imbued with a prejudice against ladies' men, against the men who can talk much about nothing at all to a partner as silly as themselves ; against the ' gift of the gab/ against political spouters and popular preachers. So far as concerned the more ambitious use of the tongue, I could have been happy in a silent world, always excepting the pulpit eloquence which pre- paration, monopoly, and Providence were one day to confer on me. Under this continual persecution I was driven to take extra pains with my written exercises. Once a week an essay was read by some successful writer, and I hoped to do that some day myself. One of our weekly exercises was a letter to the master. These letters I still possess. Mr. Higginson was generally satisfied with passing his eye down them. J chanced to mention in one some new streets of houses for the ' lower orders.' He was much put out, and asked what right I had to give that name to any class. As far as I remember, no Greek was taught in the school. If that be so there was no Greek taught in the town of Derby. Like most boys of that period, I tried my hand at a new ' Robinson Crusoe.' I filled a good many pages of cheap paper with my story. I broke down at the pons asinorum of the enterprise. The ship- wreck it was that wrecked me. I easily swam ashore, for I was a good swimmer, with a carefully ROBINSON CRUSOE. 249 selected bundle of salvage. I swam to the wreck again, and returned with an ampler cornucopia. I was always remembering what I had forgotten, and always supplying my wants from an inexhaustible store, which, under the particular stimulus of the tale, I felt it no harm to monopolise. At last it dawned on me that I was reversing the order of things, and supplying my desert island more liberally than my own town was supplied under any actual circum- stances. There could be nothing wonderful in doing everything, with all the means found to hand. Yet I could not bring myself to sacrifice my dearly won list of requisites, as I now found them to be. So there my tale ended. I never recall this abortive attempt at invention without being reminded of an ingenious criticism by Whately, illustrating the difficulty of palming off a fable for a revelation. Crusoe, he observes, had no other expedient for bringing down his big boat to the water than the very clumsy and laborious one of digging a channel through the sand. Had he really been a sailor, as De Foe makes him, then he would have known the much easier and more effec- tual plan of a windlass, to be seen at any port or sea-shore watering-place. The argument seems to me to go too far, for it goes to prove that De Foe had never seen a wind- lass, or, at least, had never seen it perform this every-day operation. It seems to me more likely that De Foe had always seen several men taking their parts in the operation, when the boat was of any size, as this boat was : laying down the planks, 250 REV. EDWARD HIGGINSON. applying rollers, and steadying the boat, besides several hands at the windlass itself. I forget whether Whately noticed the obvious objection to the channel, i.e. that an exceptionally high tide or storm would fill up in an hour the work of half a year. Upon the whole, the tone of Mr. Higginson's school was good, and certainly genial, though there might be an exception or two. Mr. Hancock, a kind surgeon, lent his field for a playground. The county gaol has now stood on that field for near sixty years. Our master and some of his friends took us picnics to Donnington Park and other favourite spots. He was then full of fun and frolic. We most of us went to a dancing-school in the ' Old Assembly Room,' where I remember finding myself on the floor in a contest for a pretty partner, who when I last saw her, many years ago, was a grandmother. The ' Presbyterian Chapel ' is to me an instance of the possible length and continuity of tradition, without many links. It was built, upon a lease of three hundred years from the Friary Estate, in 1698. Any one placed in the middle of three centuries seems a long way from both the beginning and the end. Let us see, however. In the year 1815, and for some time after, one of the most noticeable figures in the Friargate was a Mrs. Simpson, said to be eighty and the daughter of one of the founders of the Presbyterian Chapel. The oddity about her was that she refused to believe thg.t the doctrine of the Chapel had changed in her time, or that she was not THE PRESBYTERIAN CHAPEL. 251 a Trinitarian. It certainly had changed. If she were eighty in 1820, she would have been born in 1740, and might be the daughter of a founder. Assuming the above date for her birth, when she was thirty-eight years of age that is, in 1778 a part of the congregation went off, and had their services, first in the Market Place, then in a room behind the Town Hall, when a zealous member of the dis- sentient body built the Independent meeting-house, now replaced by a magnificent edifice. My father became possessed of the freehold of the Presbyterian Chapel. It had been offered to Lord Belper, whose immediate ancestor lay there, but he did not like small investments. It came event- ually into my hands. I made up my mind never to part with it ; but necessity at last supplied the place of wisdom, and I sold it to the congregation. Had I adhered to my original resolution I might have bequeathed it to some one whose life would run a long way into next century. I might also easily have handed down, together with the possession, the notices of certain changes of form even in my time. In the ministers there has been a considerable variety. The ' Independent ' offshoot, too, has its history, with some interesting and even curious points. It happens to be built on the site of St. Thomas of Canterbury's Chapel. The position of Unitarians with regard to what are called the orthodox Dissenters is one of the mysteries I cannot pretend to explain. The said Dissenters certainly follow their lead. They cer- tainly look to see what the Unitarians are doing, and 252 REV. EDWARD HIGGINSON. promptly follow them. Yet they will not for a moment admit that they are in the same boat in spiritual matters. On such occasions as a contested election they agree, but they also agree to disagree. The following I had from Mr. Beale, M.P. for Derby. While on his canvass in 1857, several of the ortho- dox Dissenters came to him on Saturday to ask what chapel he intended to go to next day. ' To my own,' he said at once. 'You know I am a Unitarian, and there I must go.' ' If you do,' they replied, ' you'll lose your election ; we shall not be able to vote for you.' ' Very well,' he answered, ' I must go home for Sunday, and do as I always do there.' Accordingly he went to his Yorkshire home on Saturday evening, and returned early on Monday, when no inquiry was made as to his Sunday's devotions. CHAPTER XLII. SOME SCHOOLFELLOWS. MR. HlGGlNSON's school has left few living recol- lections. To me it is a thing of the past, dead and gone. Higginson was not a man to set souls afire. He had just a chance with Edward Strutt, who in early days, a little before my time there, was much in his hands, though not actually at his school. He was still dropping in and out. He was always too wise and self-content to be of much good to anybody, or to his country. NATHANIEL FORESTER EDWARDS. 253 I have introduced already in my former volume the lad from whose hand an old servant of John Wesley, then in my father's employment, charmed some dozen warts. A brother of his, at the same school, without his figure and looks, but with much more power, made his mark in Derby, and has left a name and a family. One rather weak and puny fellow I suppose I sympathised with. This was the only child of a retired army-surgeon father and mother alike on the smallest and feeblest scale. I kept up my ac- quaintance with the three for some years. But it involved a certain amount of compassion, which is a sentiment not easy to maintain very long. The father used to amuse me with the arts of malin- gerers, and the devices employed to outmanoeuvre them. A soldier had a very bad ulcer in the leg, which long baffled medical treatment. At length they had reason to suspect that after every applica- tion of the bandages the fellow contrived to insinuate a rusty penny into the wound. So, after seeing that the wound was all right so far, they enclosed that part of the leg in a box, when the wound speedily healed. One name has emerged out of the school like a tongue of flame out of a heap of smoulder. Who remembers Forester Edwards ? He had also the name of ' the Israelite without guile,' but Forester was his usual prefix. He was a tall and bony fellow, sallow, with black bushy hair, and a rather loutish bearing, always behindhand in his lessons, and a rebel in position. Whenever Higginson left the 254 SOME SCHOOLFELLOWS. room, as he did frequently, Forester Edwards slowly reared his giant form, and solemnly delivered him- self of something very droll, a propos to nothing. I had that interest in him that for many years I used to wonder what bread-earning occupation he could possibly have found, and how he was righting the battle of life. In due time I learnt that he lived in town, that he found there people like himself, and that he wrote many letters to the newspapers, more or less admissible, in behalf of all kinds of distressed and beleaguered persons and peoples. I used to see the letters, and I could not help admiring them. They were well written, in a fine bold hand, and bolder style. But it was always the old story : the design of hoisting the impracticable upon the top of the practicable, and so bringing back old chaos, and in that way putting a new creation a little nearer in sight than it is now. It was pleasant to know that hope immortal was still springing in that rugged breast. At last I read, under the head of Police Intelli- gence, that my old schoolfellow stood charged with obtaining a five-pound note from somebody on false pretences. The pretence, as I remember, was a useful and benevolent scheme, alleged to be duly formu- lated, supported, and actually started, but which had no other foundation yet than in the poor man's own ever-hopeful imagination. He could show no deeds, not even a prospectus with a list of directors, bankers, and trustees. The police magistrate roughly con- cluded him to be a knave, and sent him to prison for two months. I said to myself: c He'll never leave IDLE AND WORTHLESS MEN. 255 it.' Indeed, I was very near writing to the magis- trate to state my experience of the poor man, and my sad expectation of the issue. I did not. In a month's time he did die, and it was then found, too late, that he ought not to have been shut up within stone walls, and utterly disgraced. Let me be allowed to put in a gentle plea in behalf of idle and worthless men I mean those who are so, not comparatively and in some degree, but absolutely. A Berkshire farmer, himself strong energetic, and hard-working, described to me a fellow- parishioner : ' He won't work ; he cannot work ; and he doesn't work.' This is the sort I mean. There are many of them in all classes and everywhere. Whether or not they are likely to increase under an educational system that develops the head and neglects the physical frame, is a question for the Legislature, which, so far, appears to have no mis- givings. The head and the heart stimulate, govern, and invigorate the body ; at least, they ought to do so. But they often produce the contrary effect when there happens to be a certain disproportion or excess of mental and emotional force bearing upon a frame unequal to the pressure. It may be from some acci- dent of training or circumstance, but I believe it to be as often hereditary. Everywhere in this country, in town and in village, there are degenerate families, the descendants of those formerly in a better position of life and unaccustomed to hard labour. It is a matter continually overlooked in agricul- tural, statistical, and what are called social, questions. Our rural populations are only partly of an indigen- 256 SOME SCHOOLFELLOWS. ous character. The very names show gentle ancestry. But these people are already in a course of de- generacy, which has set in for generations, and which is not to be checked in a day. I know a district where there has been in my time a violent and pro- tracted agitation for the British labourer the man of the plough where there is hardly to be found a man whose grandfather was a ploughman or a labourer. Truth and justice compel me to protest against the doctrine that these ought to be employed on work they cannot do, and at wages nobody can afford to give them. Yet what is to be done with the poor unfortunates? In the ranks above are to be found everywhere indeed, in most families those who can do almost everything but maintain themselves and their families. A man may be a capital talker, and may consequently have a large acquaintance. He may be up to county families and public affairs. He may be a herald, a genealogist, an antiquary, and an historian. He may have Shakespeare and Byron on the tip of his tongue. He may be a photographer, a botanist, a respectable amateur in water-colours, or an astronomer. He may have at least all the gossip of the fine arts and of the scientific world. He may have a perpetual flow of wit and humour. He may be a good singer, an accomplished musician, or a capital actor. He may be the life of a dinner-party or of a picnic. But all the time, and indeed from very boyhood, he may be utterly incapable of settling down to any regular bread-winning work. When he attempts that, his wit itself sends him astray, and he A DESERVING CLASS. 257 calculates and speculates wildly, because he is quite out of his element. Society bears hardly on such men. It has a cause, indeed ; that cannot be denied. It does not like being charged with the maintenance of deserted families. It does not like lending money and never seeing it again. It does not like paying other people's debts. It does not like what it is pleased to call ingratitude, when a man, overwhelmed with present troubles, wholly forgets how, or by whom, he was relieved from the past. But what is to be done for a class which is as much a fact as any normal class of a thoroughly busi- ness-like character? What provision can be made for them ? It must not be too ample and too hos- pitable, or all the world will press for a share, and gaiety will be the rule, work the exception. The world is not constituted for a perpetual picnic, an endless conversazione, an uninterrupted succession of brilliant dinner-parties, or a constant alternation of balls and private theatricals. It cannot take all its bodily exercise at lawn-tennis or on the cricket- ground. It cannot be always talking, however cleverly and agreeably. When the world is asked for its 'works,' like Charles Lamb, it has to point sadly to long rows of ledgers. These are its works ; the other things are its play. Yet they that amuse and cheer the world, that fill up its gaping voids and brighten its overcast hours, are surely doing as good work in their way as the more business-like men who give it meat, drink, clothes, houses, locomotion, physic, laws, and other supposed necessaries of life. But while we are main- VOL. I. S 258 SOME SCHOOLFELLOWS. taining hospitals and asylums for every infirmity, cannot there be some suitable relief to those whose very weaknesses are, after all, so great an addition to our social happiness ? Another name I must mention, though none would wonder more than the owner, were he living. It was he who gave the decisive impulse to my envy, jealousy, ambition, or what not This was Madeley, son of a tape manufacturer, who came towards the end of my time at Higginson's. It was impossible I should like him ; impossible I should not admire him. He was a Swedenborgian, which I then thought a very low thing and a very wrong thing in com- parison with the Church of England, though I now think that Church has not quite so much reason to accuse Dissenters of will worship, or of ' preaching another gospel,' as I then thought. Madeley beat me at every point, that is, in my own self-estimation, for I never came near actual competi- tion with him. I thought I knew a good deal. He seemed to know everything. I thought I had good ideas and high imaginings. He soared above me, in what direction I know not. He read essays in school which to me were marvellous, as far as language could make them. One day he brought a bull's eye to school, and with his penknife dissected it, and explained the optical theory to an admiring circle. I did not envy him the task, but I was not the less astonished. This prodigy, as he seemed to me, became a very considerable personage in Derby alderman, mayor, and so forth. It has always been a puzzle to me how people resting much on science LECTURES IN ART AND SCIENCE. 259 should attach value to a dreamy and very specula- tive religious faith. The Swedenborgians had at one time two chapels in Derby. One is now a warehouse, I believe ; the other occupied by some description of Methodists. It is frequently asked what instruction there was in the arts and sciences in those days. The advisable- ness of such instruction was energetically maintained by a school of politicians and writers ; but as they laboured under a certain suspicion both as to their loyalty and as to their faith, they had not the weight they certainly deserved. My own evidence as to facts is as follows. I attended three courses of lectures, if not more. Mr. Wood lectured on Egyptian, Greek, and Roman architecture, with striking illustrations, in a large room at the back of the Royal Hotel, to, it might be, a hundred young people and their friends. I was very much taken with them, and made some rather gushing remarks on the subject in my weekly letter to Mr. Higginson. Dr. Sampson read the letter, which I still possess, and was sufficiently amused by my enthusiasm to urge my parents to send me to Charterhouse. I also attended with much interest a course of lectures, I think by a Mr. Longstaff, on astronomy, with the usual illustrations. The readers of ' The Vicar of Wakefield ' will remember that astronomy went with the musical glasses in the last century, possibly with an occult reference to the music of the spheres, which I confess never to have heard myself, but which the Dean of Leighlin, Lady Doneraile's brother, stoutly maintained he had heard frequently. I used 260 SOME SCHOOLFELLOWS. to hear that Mr. Adam's orrery and lectures were rather a joke at Eton. He or another gave lectures and good illustrations at the Adelphi in Lent, relieved not with musical glasses, but with sacred and solemn music. I attended a course of lectures on chemistry, and saw some pretty experiments, but, beyond learning a few names, I doubt if I acquired any addition to my very scanty knowledge of the subject. There were plenty of exhibitions and performances of a less ambi- tious character in those days paper work, fantoccini, magic lanterns, feats of strength and dexterity. I remember seeing a man walk across the ceiling of the theatre at Derby, with his head downwards, and seeming quite at home in his very awkward and dangerous position. I believe it had on me the effect Johnson claimed for such performances ; it enlarged my ideas of human capability. One exhibition I remember seeing with very great interest. It was Bonaparte's carriage captured at Waterloo, and a good many other trophies of Napo- leon. The carriage was not very heavy, for those days, but it had arrangements for reading, including a miniature library, for writing, for cooking, and for sleeping. One other carriage I remember almost as full of contrivances, and more cumbrous. This was Mr. W. Strutt's, sold at an auction after his death. There was no bid. At last somebody offered five pounds. ' Why, the glass is worth more than that,' somebody else said. My father took up the bidding, and it was knocked down to him at ten pounds. For a long time it stood in our ample coach-house at the Friary, CURRUS FUIT. 261 the subject of as much amusement as Moses Prim- rose's gross of green spectacles. Some one of us chancing to go into the coach-house found the carriage gone, and reported it to the family circle. My father observed a profound silence. No one ever heard what became of that carriage. I suspect my father paid some one to take it a long way off and say nothing about it. CHAPTER XLIII. AN ACCIDENT. THE year 1819 was no slight epoch in our family circle. In January my eldest sister went to Mrs. Parish, at Kensington. At Midsummer, my brother Arthur had recently come into the world, and my mother required change. The Wardwick house wanted a good deal doing to it. So a large part}' was made for Brighton, including my eldest sister, and the two sisters of the ' Duke's tenant ' I have described above. The younger members of the family were to pass the summer holidays in a pretty Gothic cottage at Quarndon, three miles from Derby, at the foot of the range of hills beginning at that town and reaching to Scotland. We were all in ecstasies at the prospect before us. I was amusing myself with leaping across a little pit to the top of the brick stove that heated our greenhouse. My old Gainsborough nurse stood by 262 AN ACCIDENT. with my baby brother in her arms, and repeatedly urged me to desist. My foot caught in some matting, and I came down with my right shin against the sharp edge of the opposite brickwork. The inden- tation was deeper than I should have thought pos- sible, and the bone itself was injured. It was just short of a fracture. Instead of running about a new and pretty country, I was all the holidays on a sofa, going once or twice a week to Derby in the carrier's cart, to have my wound dressed by the gentleman who lost his life in the Reform riots of 1831. He enquired several times whether my parents, at Brighton, knew what had happened, and said that they ought to be told. I had made a great point of their not being told, not only because it would spoil their holiday, but because I wished to defer the day of rebuke. On their return the surgeon told them that he had been in some fear of mortification. One thing I learnt then which I might not have known otherwise, and that was the meaning of ' proud flesh.' My two brothers, next older and next younger, ran about the country, birds'-nesting, bathing, and making many discoveries. Among those who re- mained about me, in the cottage, was a dark little baby, my present successor in the Rectory of Plym- tree. I crept far enough from home to see a boy catch a trout by tickling, in the gully of a stream which has long since been drained off the face of creation. My wound was not quite healed for several years, the skin continually peeling off, and the slightest touch giving me great pain. The result was that I CRICKET AND FOOTBALL. 263 could not venture to play at football at least, I did not. I was already a poor hand at cricket, indeed quite ineligible, except for a friendly pair, one bowling to the other's bat. I could neither bowl nor throw without it being almost an even chance that the ball would come to the ground behind me ; and as for catching a ball, that depended on the good nature and intelligence of the missile. The fact was I had been entirely under petticoat government till past eleven ; then a 'day boy' till past thirteen. In the latter stage my parents were jealous of town asso- ciations ; so we were very much out of the way of sports, except such as could be got up in small paved or gravelled yards. Instead of games we rambled about town and country, investigating the suburbs, penetrating into the recesses of manufactures as far as we could, exploring the roads and lanes for many miles around, and, in the warm weather, bathing. I remember swimming a mile easily in the Derwent. But I never got the proper use of my arms. My life was often sedentary for long spells. What did me most harm was that I used to spend many hours in a cold room, manufacturing foolish bits of handiwork. Whether from this, or other cause, I remember my right arm becoming so cramped with rheumatism that I could not lift it to my head for half a year, and I never had the courage to tell rny parents. Thus I was cut off from the chief summer and winter games of an English school-boy. I have the greatest respect for physical development, where it is possible, whether it be in combination with a better ACCIDENT. growth, or be the only growth possible under the circumstances. Let a boy do everything, or at least something. But nature and accident often disable boys from taking their part in school games, and it must be for a good purpose. It is not everybody who wishes to be a soldier who can be admitted into the army. In these days no excuse is admitted for back- wardness' of any kind. He who excuses himself condemns himself. He says he is a poor creature, and his apology is that he cannot help it. He already suffers the curses pronounced in all ages on those who are last in the race. Certainly one ought to feel it a misfortune to be beaten in a generous competition, and not to feel it a matter of congratulation that one can account for it. Nevertheless, there are accidents, for some of which we are more or less responsible, for some not at all. These accidents have an impor- tant place in human affairs it is not too much to say a ruling place. We should none of us be where we are but for some accident or other, perhaps a very slight matter in itself. Indeed, the slightest accident may be as potent as the most astounding, for the selection of a person or the decision of an event. To regard such acci- dents as nothing but the inevitable collision of inde- pendent forces and sequences, is to abandon ourselves to the worship of the blindest, worst, and wickedest deity ever invented by man to Chance. It is to fall back into chaos, and seek endless repose in its dark bosom. The uniform experience and unanimous feeling of the religious in all ages is that these are the CHANCE OR PROVIDENCE? 265 handiwork of a Wise, Almighty, and Beneficent God, ever present, and ever governing this world for the good of His servants and for the advancement of His kingdom. I am not ashamed myself to attach the highest interest to them, and to demand a place for them in any narrative pretending to describe things as they are. My life having been thus endangered, first by a brick falling upon me, then by myself falling upon a brick, it would not have been very superstitious if I had drawn from both these serious incidents a warning to beware of brickwork, and building generally. CHAPTER XLIV. ACCIDENTS. LET me not for a moment be supposed to dream that in any moral respect we are made what we are by accident. The history of all religion and goodness is the acceptance of accidents for their good conse- quences, and the triumph over their adverse influence. Walter Scott and Byron both had the same very un- usual defect, the malformation of a foot. Both tri- umphed over the physical difficulty, the one becoming a keen sportsman, the other an athlete. But the one,, condemned as he was to periods of inactivity, made his native land bright and glorious ; the other fled his country, and lived and died a misanthrope. This is a matter of everyday observation. The very same 265 ACCIDENTS. contingency will make one a disappointed and helpless wretch, another an instance of unexpected virtues and powers. Laws of all kinds can be investigated with pleasure and self-confidence. The historian and the biographer easily bring out the virtues and the abilities of their respective favourites. There is nothing that cannot be treated fully, whether philosophically or religi- ously. One subject, all with a character to keep or to lose seem to shrink from and to throw into the background when it happens to come in their way. This is the operation of ' accidents ' in human affairs. To some they are simply the collision of independent forces. To others they are the handiwork and the footsteps of an Almighty Power moving in a mys- terious way. Both classes are apt to be disloyal to their theories or convictions. The philosopher and the saint alike resent the casualty that desolates their home, that wrecks their fortune, that deprives them of even a day's pleasure. Of course accidents admit of calculation, and it is our duty to calculate them. To put them out of the question, or to expect the turn to be always in our favour, is the gambler's folly and sin. They who are called unfortunate are generally persons who, for no good reason whatever, expected to be fortunate and did not believe in misfortune. Games of chance have, or at least ought to have, the merit of teaching us how to regard chance, as being ordinarily the operation of laws, and only ceasing to be that for reasons which it behoves us to take into serious con- sideration. But when persons persist that they have EXISTENCE AN ACCIDENT. 267 always bad luck at cards, or in any other matter, and don't follow up so suggestive a fact, if fact it be, then they are plainly neither philosophical, nor religious, in either the Jewish, or the Christian, or the Mahomme- dan sense, but rather the believers in sprites, goblins, fiends, or genii, under no divine unity or law. I am induced to dwell on the subject because I see plainly that I am thought foolish, if not hypocritical, in expecting or recognising miracle, in seeing great issues from small circumstances, and in assigning to accident any more than a disturbing, interrupting, and disabling power in human affairs. I will take leave to add something on this very grave question, for others to improve upon. Whatever happens, as we often thoughtlessly ex- press by the use of that word, is accidental. The whole of our being and life is accidental. It is an accident that we exist, and that we are what we are, apart from the moral question. The smallest accident has great, innumerable, and endless issues. A letter misdirected or forgotten to be posted, or arriving just too late by an hour or two, makes the difference be- tween one man and another, in the care of a parish, or other important charge. But any one in care of a parish for a few years can readily count up a number of beings, and careers, and even considerable events, attributable to the simple fact of his being there. It is a matter in which egotism is allowable, indeed necessary. I have myself made a rule throughout life never to ask for church preferment for either myself or anybody else. If I have ever mentioned names, it has been as candidates, with pros and cons. I suppose 268 ACCIDENTS. I shall be thought to have broken my rule in the two following cases, which I adduce to show the power of accident. In the very act of signing my resignation of Cholderton, I said to myself that if, after the com- pletion of my church and extrication from my diffi- culties, another living of equal value were offered to me, I would accept it. The wish thus expressed be- came a longing, even more with my wife than with me. Twerton fell vacant, and was likely to be passed by all the Fellows. I wrote to Church, asking him to tell the College that in that case I should be ready to accept the living. This he kindly promised to do. The living was passed by all the Fellows, but, as I have related, the Provost persuaded his brother-in-law to reconsider his refusal and accept the living. The result has been very important to Twerton, and now to Weston-super-Mare. The living led to a marriage, and the eldest son is now in a position which the world credits with an important bearing on human affairs. Well, where is the accident here? I have always thought it hung on a thread, as people say, whether I should go to Twerton, which, I feel very sure, would not have been a happy thing for either Twerton or myself. Seventeen years ago Plymtree became vacant, and would most likely be passed by all the Fellows and fall to the absolute disposal of the College. Shortly after, I had a letter from Charles Neate, I forget on what matter. In the course of my reply, I wrote, ' So poor Dornford is gone. I suc- ceeded him at Moreton Pinckney.' The hint was enough for' Neate, and, as he told me afterwards, prompted him to mention my name. Some of the VERBUM SAP. 269 Fellows thought I was not likely to accept the living. Neate was sure that I was. Whatever my ministry there, it was full of consequences more or less im- portant, indeed all potentially important. My only surviving brother is now there, and, as I write this, I am going down in a few days to the marriage of his wife's niece to his chief parishioner. The ancients recognised the preponderant influence of accident, especially in war, and they delighted to believe themselves, and even to call themselves, fortu- nate. But this was to ascribe to accident the divine qualities of intelligence, kindness, and a method working by means to a good end. Accident in all ages and places intruded into the great drama of humanity with such appalling frequency and force that it was impossible not to be daily reminded of the great question, Is it a god that rules us, or is it a dark, dismal, overwhelming Anarchy ? Is this a creation, or a chaos? We are not indeed out of chaos if it still, quite at random, reverses, overthrows, and closes for ever the good results slowly and labori- ously attained by the temporary and partial operation of design, order, and law. When a momentary acci- dent concludes a glorious career, extinguishing in darkness a name, a nation, or a cause, a sacred princi- ple, or a divine idea, humanity revolts against the ac- ceptance of a defeat the only moral of which is that we had better never have been. Humanity frames out of its very wrecks a more substantial and beautiful fabric than it could have arrived at by the most invariable successes. Philosophers are forced to denounce hu- man nature, to stigmatise universal instincts as mere 270 ACCIDENTS. idiocies, and all beliefs as common delusion, when they insist that accidents are the fortuitous concurrence of brute elements, or atoms, and no more. If they at all recognise a moral rule and order, and try to weave it into their system, they are forced to stultify them- selves when they teach that a falling stone or mis- directed missile may utterly defeat the wisest policy, overthrow the most beneficent power, transpose the order of rewards and punishments, and blight the promise of a glorious inauguration. Now it is the very nature of accidents to defy calculation except for averages, as in the formation of rules for an accident society. Religious people, however, will still insist on believing accidents to be more than accidents. Then arises the question whether they have better reason for this than the theory of a Providence and a moral government. I have always had a strong belief that they have, and that accidents themselves frequently suggest just such a clue as is sufficient to set people thinking. Everybody is aware of remarkable coincidences, sometimes only between two accidents or accidental circumstances ; sometimes between more, extending to a series, and constituting a fatality, a run of luck, the happiness or the misfortune of some personal or some family career. Take the following combination, which I give in the words of a friend, premising that the parent- -that is, the original informant would be no unwojthy subject of a providential interference directing his attention to that which is beyond the search of physical science : I have a curious anecdote to tell you. Last year [No- STRANGE COINCIDENCES. 271 vember i, 1882] one of 's sons, who was studying at a London hospital, met with an accident which nearly cost him his leg ; it having been pricked with a poisoned lancet by a fellow-student. In the very same week of the same month this year [1883] another son was rowing in a boat-race in the Cam. His boat was bumped and capsized by the other boat ; and while he was in the water, a third boat came up and struck him in the head, knocking out one of his eyes and nearly killing him. The steersman of the boat which capsized his boat was brother to the student at the hospital who nearly caused his brother the loss of his leg ! How many cases could be cited of two brothers causing such serious accidents to two other brothers under such totally different circumstances ? What would be the odds against it ? Every parish clergyman must have found cases very hard indeed to be dealt with, inasmuch as what- ever he does is pretty sure to make matters worse. The offenders are aware they are under a cloud, and that they are rather avoided. They make up their minds to bear it. They have their own excuse to man, should it ever be demanded. Without presumption, then, it might be said that this is a case for Heaven to intervene. At an outlying hamlet of one of my parishes there was a quiet industrious couple, with several children, one eleven or twelve. They had a lodger, and it was notorious, indeed evident, that he was the real father of all the children. He went after employment elsewhere, but still returned. Late one winter evening I found a boy was near me, but could not see who it was. ' What's your name ? ' I asked. He gave his Christian name. ' But who's your father ? ' I asked. The boy gave the lodger's name, and I could have no doubt that his school- 272 ACCIDENTS. fellows had initiated him into the mystery. I had talked with the lodger several times, with a view to persuade him to settle elsewhere, for he had no diffi- culty in getting employment with horses, being active, slight, dapper, and groom-like. He had made up his mind, he said, on the last occasion, to have nothing more to do with horses, he had such bad luck with them the last accident a kick on the leg. I asked the particulars of the accidents. They had been from various causes, and there was no reason to ascribe them to his carelessness or brutality, the most common cause of horse accidents. Here was a single coincidence, amounting in the mind of the sufferer to a species of law, and taking it out of the class of chances. In the mind of this man these were no longer mere casualties. They constituted a whole, and a de- sign, malignant to his apprehension. Common sense might have reminded him that if there was a design and a certain uniform expression in these incidents, they might be interpreted, and indeed would have to be interpreted, and that no interpretation would be allowable that was not compatible with a belief in an Almighty Providence working ever for our good. Most people must be aware of having had the same word, the same person, or the same thing, occurring to their notice for the first time twice or even thrice within a few days. Reiteration always makes emphasis, and this reiteration is often suffi- ciently varied to be also explanatory. At Brighton, in 1883, we saw every day a very extraordinary and interesting figure. It was a male A SINGHALESE NURSE. 273 native nurse, in care of several young children that seemed very fond of him. He was not less than six feet high, very slim, very upright, with bronze com- plexion, marked features, a very prominent aquiline nose, and very mild, yet quite dignified expression. He had bare feet, a petticoat that reached to the ground, and a slight jacket over it, and no head- covering, but an abundance of glossy black hair gathered into a full knot behind and surmounted with a large upright tortoise-shell comb. What struck us most was that he seemed so completely at home and unabashed, when he must have been aware of his occasioning frequent surprise. I tried in vain to make out the country and race of the man, utterly different from any Hindoo, Parsee, Affghan, or native of Northern India I had seen. Within a month of my seeing him I became possessed of Sir Emerson Tennant's account of Ceylon, and in turning over the leaves came to a picture which brought the Brighton nurse before me. He was of a race which from time immemorial has occupied a small territory in the south-west of Ceylon; noticed by very early geographers, and still retaining the same figures, features, dresses, and characters. ' Well,' it will be asked, ' what is there in this ? ' Thus much at least. Each of these dis- coveries would have been worth little to me without the other. But I confess to attaching to the conjunc- tion a more important significance. It is that there is a providential power working all about me for my guidance, my instruction, and for my good, indeed for greater good than I now know of. I may add VOL. I. T 274 ACCIDENTS. that, finding this in Sir Emerson Tennant's book, I consulted Bishop Heber's journals, and there found a similar but slighter notice of the same singular people. Then how often a name is found unexpectedly, perhaps sadly significant of the career, or its termi- nation. A poor woman took much to heart that her good and handsome son had enlisted in the Guards. ' Why then did you call him Cornelius ? ' I said. Not very long ago two ships built on the same lines were named ' Orpheus ' and ' Eurydice.' The combination represents a glorious enterprise on the point of success, and then defeated by a momentary failure of duty. The ' Orpheus,' full of emigrants, was lost on the bar of the destined Australian port ; the ' Eurydice ' capsized as some hundred poor lads, with opened ports, were writing letters to announce their safe return home. A few years ago the ' Avalanche ' went to the bottom off the Bill of Portland with seventy souls. These, it must be considered, were not ordinary disasters. From my windows in Berkshire I saw for many years the river Blackwater, which separated us from Hampshire, and consequently from the diocese of Winchester. It is not a lovely stream, for it is much coloured with the boggy and ferruginous soils it passes through on its course from Aldershot to Twyford. In a very pretty episode in Pope's ' Windsor Forest,' the Blackwater is a satyr, and the Lodden a fair nymph flying from his embraces to the arms of Father Thames. The late Bishop of Oxford had often to see it, and sometimes to cross it. He THE BLACK WATER. 275 used to call it the Styx, in humorous allusion to the realms of darkness and of light which it divided. The ideas chiefly associated with the Styx are that it is the bourn of doubtful anticipations, that many wait long on its banks before they are finally helped over. To myself, at least, the Blackwater has a sad association, for Bishop Wilberforce did indeed cross it for the See of Winchester ; but never, except as a guest, went to Farnham. CHAPTER XLV.. THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS AND THE MECHANICAL. IT is not easy for any one whose measures and esti- mates have been formed late in this century to understand how much they differ from those preva- lent in the early part of it. These estimates have been formed by circumstances, but they followed the change of circumstances tardily. My eldest sister took much interest in my youngest brother, and, having to teach him in his very early years, was anxious to obtain some deeper insight than her own into his special abilities. Spurzheim was lecturing at Derby, so my sister took my brother with a guinea in her hand to the great craniologist. He examined my brother's head very closely, and pronounced his turn to be for facts, mechanism, and material science, not for abstractions. She accordingly wished him to be educated for some employment that would develop T 2 276 ENGINEERING. these powers. My parents, however, I believe, like all other parents at Derby, decidedly objected to anything in his case that would not be a ' liberal profession.' So in due time he was sent to Ox- ford. A few doors from us in the Wardwick was young Charles Fox, who had much of his early instruction from our teacher, Mr. George Spencer. He was intended from childhood to follow his father and three brothers into the medical profession. At a *rery early age he fell in love with the prettiest of three young Quakeresses, and married her. This made his position unpleasant at home. So he bade adieu to the surgery, and obtained employment with an engineering firm at Birmingham. I had long before heard of his great mechanical ingenuity. But that mattered little ; it was an ingredient of edu- cation and nothing more. What he now did was regarded as utter ruin of prospects indeed character too, for caste was gone. I can't remember two opinions on the matter. My brother Charles, upon finding himself twenty, and not liking his destined succession to my father's business, fixed his thoughts on emigration. The Swan River settlement was then the favourite idea. With much industry he collected all the books about it, studied them, and made his plans. He took me into his confidence, and I entered heartily into the scheme. At length it became necessary to be open with his parents. There ensued a very sad state of things, that lasted long, and told with still more lasting effects on my brother's career. I came in for THE COLONIES. 277 some of the trouble, as an aider and abettor. The Swan River scheme failed, as nearly all schemes of colonisation fail in the first instance ; but the colonists went elsewhere, and got on very well. It was not the particular scheme my parents objected to ; it was colonisation altogether, as being little better than penal transportation. I can recall the great sensation made when a rather small harness and trunk maker in the ' Rotten Row,' at Derby, emigrated to the United States. The poor man's soul had been going along with the portmanteaus and packing-cases he was making, as I suspect mine would have done. But he had now thrown himself away altogether, it was thought. The only future then imagined for an emigrant was his presenting himself after some years at his old home, or to some acquaintance, worn out, in rags, and demoralised. My brother Charles had an utter and incurable distaste for my father's business. It involved con- finement, desk work, accounts, and some knowledge of books he was not likely to care for. He submitted first from duty, at length from necessity, but was always glad to take a subordinate place in the management. As far as I could see, he seldom did more than a foreman or a plain working-man might have done as well. So now he wanted consolation something to do more in the bent of his own incli- nation. He had to be humoured, for there was no knowing what he might not do next. He imme- diately fixed upon two distractions, which he made a thorough study and practice of to his dying day, 278 THE VIOLONCELLO. fifty-five years after. These were the violoncello, and a good long annual outing abroad. As to the former, I am told that the violoncello is remarkable for the strong personal attachment it creates. But how my brother came to choose it, I still wonder. Possibly he found that at twenty his fingers were no longer supple enough or sufficiently delicate of touch to master a violin. If that was his calculation, it was a mistake, for the violoncello requires as much delicacy of handling as any other stringed instrument. Its living representative at Derby was not one to invite imitation, not at least at first sight. It takes an old man now to remember ' Fou' Anthony.' He was a tall, thin figure, with a gentle and even benign expression ; but by some accident he had entirely lost what should have been the prominent feature. For many years he was a member of the Derby orchestra, doing duty at the theatre and the concerts. Whenever the gallery got impatient, they used to summon him by his sobriquet ; or still more ma- liciously as ' Nosey,' by the rule of lucus a non lucendo. My brother struck up a friendship with him, and had lessons. I have not much ear myself, and have the consequent advantage of enjoying very indifferent execution, as I am often told it has been. But I never could attain to even that rough and ignorant pleasure in my poor brother's performances. For half a century he took part in our little evening concerts, and must have played scores of times with the Cardinal, who will be able to correct both the charity and the science of my comments. THE ORGAN. 279 In this matter I felt very much for my father and my mother. The former had a very good ear, and a decided preference for the softer and sweeter kinds of music over the noisy and brilliant. At five every morning my brother was up, half a dozen yards from their bedroom in the Friary, making continual and long-protracted efforts to surmount little difficulties, which I honestly believe he never quite surmounted. The rough, rumbling, grating tones of the instrument pervaded the whole house. The younger ones slept through it ; I doubt if the elders did. A German professor, with an ear, on the opposite side of the Friargate, gave up his lodgings. To the violoncello my brother added an organ, on which he practised with equal perseverance, and I cannot say with more success. The organ grew, as all organs grow in these days ; and it travelled, as most organs travel. It is now in Plymtree Church. The difficulty was physical. Beginning at twenty, or even later, my brother never could acquire the touch. He had a fine ear and a thoroughly good taste. He collected and left the best musical library in the county. Coming home from a tour which had severely taxed his failing powers, and with the feeling of death upon him, he retraced his steps to the metro- polis to see the ' Fisheries ' and hear the bands. Re- turning home he visited some old dependents, sat a few minutes at his organ, laid a music-book open on his lap till it was dark, crept upstairs, and died. The prejudice against mechanical employments was all the stranger in that the Strutts arid Ark- wrights had now made their fortunes by mechanical a8o EMIGRATION. talent, and had been received into the county aris- tocracy. But that was a case of fait accompli. The town was full of unfortunate inventors that is, poor creatures who had lost themselves in the scent of some discovery which they could never make, or which others had made before them. Yet no warning would stop the madness. Everywhere one used to hear the story of the lad who, having to watch the working of his machine, and perform some easy but regular function in it, was noticed to be reading a book or sleeping. Being sharply called to account, he replied that, by passing a string from one part of the machine to another, he had superseded the neces- sity of his own intervention. It may seem scarcely credible, certainly unac- countable, that at the time I am speaking of the engineer or the colonist should be thought so utterly inferior to a clergyman, a lawyer, a doctor, a soldier, or a sailor. Well, I suppose that, even now, it is thought a finer thing to kill people wholesale at the orders of Her Majesty's Government, than to super- intend a tea plantation in Assam or a coffee planta- tion in Ceylon. But at the beginning of this century, and before it, there was already a zealous and ener- getic movement in favour of the mechanical arts and of colonisation. The utilitarian writers were many and bold, and they were read and admired. Dr. Birkbeck, with his schemes of emigration to Illinois, was a popular character in 1820. Why had these writers so little influence with even the middle classes ? With the higher classes of course they had none. Perhaps it was their Liberalism. They were sup- PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 281 posed to be adverse to all the institutions in Church and in State. It was what you were renouncing, or flying from, that seemed their motive, not what you were taking to, or making your home. It is true that the repellent forces were then great at home : every place filled, every class jealous of intrusion, every profession crowded, everybody ill paid, everything worth having hard to be got and much fought over. But prosperous families and large families are very apt to think themselves prosperous are oftener found to join scrambles than to run away from them. Throughout my own education there was a general absence of physics, and the exceptions were very rare. At Charterhouse we had to study the ' Georgics ' thoroughly, as well as commit them to memory, and this could not be done without learning much of nature and of Italian husbandry. At Oxford we had a college lecture in mechanics, and had I read for mathematical honours I should have had to get up Newton's 'Principia.' There were also university lectures on chemistry, mechanics, and geology, open to undergraduates. There was the opportunity of botanical instruction. But as a matter of fact neither I nor those immediately about me had more instruc- tion in physics than what Virgil had taught near two thousand years ago. My own education had run in another direction. I had wandered in the realms of fancy, or walked on the stilts of ethical philosophy and in the mazes of political history. From very early years I can recall thinking very slightly of ladies who studied and col- lected ferns, fungi, mosses, lichens, flowers, or shells. 282 USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. Even long after this I could not help thinking it rather infra dig. for a bishop to be a good ento- mologist, or for a dean to be a good Egyptologist. Of course I wished to believe myself not much to be pitied for my own ignorance in these matters, but that does not wholly account for a prejudice dating as far back as I can remember. In those days there was much the same unaccount- able and irrational prejudice against foreign languages. It must be considered that boys came home from school to spend their holidays with their sisters, both knowing much of which the others were utterly igno- rant. The boys were stronger in their self-esteem, and they would take care to make out, at least to them- selves, that what they knew was infinitely the better worth knowing. I must now tell my younger readers that igno- rance upon matters generally or widely known is sure to entail upon them painful inconveniences and lamentable losses. It will frequently make them solitary in a social circle, tyros in a crowd of pro- ficients, and savages in the thick of civilisation. We need not estimate exactly the advantages of these studies when a man is likely to find himself nowhere without them. Of trifles of human invention it may be too often said that we had best know nothing of them ; but the very least of Nature's trifles bears the stamp of divinity, and is worth knowing. GAINSBOROUGH GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 283 CHAPTER XLVI. THE PRIVATE SCHOOLS OF THE PERIOD. I HAVE described the day school at Gainsborough to which I walked ' down town ' from the completion of my fifth year to the completion of my seventh. My chief recollection of it is sitting on a stool under the mistress's little three-legged work-stand upstairs, and going down every morning to the front parlour to read ^Esop's Fables with the old widow of an Inde- pendent minister. Upstairs I spent most of my time in looking up at the pretty faces gathered round me, and some of them I now remember well. One little face passed away when I was still at the school, and often have I bethought myself that in me is now the only vestige of that sweet little life left in created things. My brother John had a rougher time of it in the boys' schoolroom below. But was there no other school there ? There was the Grammar School, of which Dr. Cox was master. 1 find it won't do to call a schoolmaster a brute, for somebody is sure to spring up and aver that he was the mildest and kindest of men. My eldest brother went there till thirteen, and he always ascribed the prolongation of the lobe of one ear to Dr. Cox's habit of seizing a boy by the ear to arrest his atten- tion, and pulling it to emphasise his own expressions. His discipline was sufficiently harsh to provoke several outbreaks of feeling in the town, and some discussion among the trustees. 284 THE PRIVATE SCHOOLS OF THE PERIOD. That he was allowed to hold on speaks well for his diligence and his competency. My brother Henry, who was always rather critical in matters of speech, must have had high respect for his authority, in spite of his rough ways. My father having once chastised him for some peccadillo, ordered him up to his chamber, pronouncing the first vowel in the word as the French do in ami. My brother, upon going out of the room, hung on the threshold, and turning round, said, ' Dr. Cox calls it " chamber",' giving the usual pronunciation. The doctor had a delicate wife, to whom he was said not to be particularly kind. She died, and then he affected to be heartbroken, and in this mood he inscribed on her tomb some very tender elegiacs, which prove him a good scholar, and which, happily, few of his fellow-townsmen could compare with what else they might happen to know of him. He also published what he called ' The Wanderings of Woe,' consisting chiefly, as far as I can remember, of un- pleasant comments on the people of Gainsborough. He contrasted his thin, sickly wife with ' the broad- shouldered ' dames among whom a perverse fate had planted her. The comment made at the time was that if he had been as kind to the poor lady when alive, as he was when kindness availed not, she might have been still living to enjoy it. The survivors of that period, now, alas ! rari nantes in gurgite vasto, would contribute much to the history of education if they would put on record some notice of the small classical schools it was their fortune or misfortune to pass through. Most of our INVITA MINERVA. 285 new arrivals at Charterhouse were from private schools, with which both the boys and the parents were thoroughly disgusted. I am disposed to think they did some injustice to the instruction itself. As I remember, after being at Charterhouse a couple of years, boys used to affirm that they knew more when they came to Charter- house than they did now. That I do not quite believe. I never yet met with anybody who did common justice to his early teachers, or was aware of his debt to them. These boys had learnt something at Charterhouse, and they had thereby learnt to appreciate better their former schools. One thing, however, presents itself as the almost universal fault or misfortune of all these schools. The masters hated the work, and of course they especially hated the boys who presented unusual difficulties. The work was a necessity of existence. The masters had a quarrel with the whole order of things, and with Fate. One well-known master, with a name that promised better things, used his cane freely even on tender lads whose delicacy of constitution aggravated the consequences of every blow they received ; and he had no better way of strengthening a boy's weak memory than ordering him to stay in a whole summer afternoon and write a forgotten word a thousand times. The only thing these poor lads learnt was the art of handling five pens at once. In my own time, at Charterhouse, two sons of schoolmasters, who evidently did what they had seen their fathers doing', were sent away for bullying. 286 THE PRIVATE SCHOOLS OF THE PERIOD. A very good scholar, or a man with a decided literary taste, might easily be fond of teaching that is, of teaching those who could be taught. When his personal qualities and his circumstances enabled him to pick and choose his pupils and scholars, he did good work, he enjoyed it, and he left a good name behind him in a large circle of scholars bound to him by a sort of filial obligation. But few of the private tutors, or private schoolmasters, or masters of small grammar schools, eking out their pay with boarders, could pick and choose. They had to take boys as they came, and get on with them as well as they could. These boys had generally been unmanageable at home, and they were unmanageable at school. They had less correction at school because they shared it with many ; and they had more power at school because they had associates like themselves. What then were the poor masters to do, loath, or not even able, to expel, and finding gentle means, even if that were their own nature, utterly useless ? Their work was often one protracted struggle with boys who could not or would not learn. Over these boys they broke their tempers, their strength, and often their characters. On these boys they wasted the precious time and the precious breath that might have been well spent upon better natures. What was worse, the habit once formed, the master behaved to all alike, and became as rough with the lambs as with the wolves of his mixed flock. But, looking back at the strange elements flowing from all quarters into Charterhouse, as we read that Rome became the sentina gentium, I cannot but CONTRIBUTORIES OF CHARTERHOUSE. 287 think the schoolmasters, and the parents too, little knew what was going on daily and continually in those rude masses of unformed humanity. What folly ! what wickedness ! If I can judge by what drained from all parts of England into Charterhouse, the private schools of England were as bad as could be, and the time had come for a great change of some sort or other. Of course there was everywhere the fond idea of a nice little school in a quiet town, with at least a fair proportion of gentlemanly lads, enough to give a tone to the school, sons of clergymen and country gentlemen. Boys were charged by their parents to choose good friends and avoid the bad fellows they were sure to find. At Higginson's I and my brother were under orders to associate as little with the other day boys as we could help, that is, with certain exceptions. But we were also made fully aware that boys of a lower caste were more likely to be black sheep than professionals or country lads. Looking back, I am pretty sure that the sons of grocers, tailors, and small manufacturers were not worse than the rest, and that the danger lay in un- suspected quarters. The private schoolmaster of the ordinary type is known by his cane. The punishment by the rod at a public school is a solemnity, an execution. The cane is personal. It becomes part of the man ; it is his sting, his tusk, his horn. It becomes habitual. He cannot help using it in and out of season, on undeserving as well as deserving objects. Some time since I had the acquaintance of a very good 288 THE PRIVATE SCHOOLS OF THE PERIOD. scholar, and a very kind gentleman, who had been master of one of the many schools destroyed, or temporarily blighted, by the operation of the En- dowed Schools Act. The future of the school was now to be commercial ; so parents not intending that line for their sons did not send them to the school, and some were even already taking their sons away. My friend felt much aggrieved, and showed it. He had always carried a cane, and now he used it with a vengeance, his time being short. The way in which people put it was that he had made up his mind to whip the school away before the Commis- sioners could have the handling of it. Before that came to pass he accepted a small living in my neighbourhood, where I had to visit him officially. As I walked with him round his house, his garden, and his parish one day, and even as he showed an immense quantity of plate presented to him by the parents of his scholars, he kept continually switching his cane. He called my attention to the fact. ' You see I can't do without my rod of office. A schoolmaster is lost without his ferule.' It oc- curred to me that had any little boy fallen in our way he might easily have come in for a capricious dispensation. REV. JAMES DEAN. 289 CHAPTER XLVII. A PRIVATE TUTOR. IN my ' Reminiscences ' I have several times mentioned James Dean. My brother James read with him for some time in the long interval between school and college. He was my chief coadjutor in our little agitation against the Reform Bill of 1831. He had the honour to engage the last thoughts of the Un- reformed House of Commons. But he was by no means a man just for one occasion, to appear and disappear ; on the contrary, he was for half a century perhaps the most constant and invariable quantity in the statics of Derby society. He must have been about thirty-three when I first became familiar with his tall, spare, upright figure, his keen self- possessed expression, and his guarded address. A humourist used to liken him to a pike, but I don't think the said humourist liked him so well as I did. He was of Brasenose, and a Hulme Exhibitioner. He became tutor to the young Curzons of Kedleston Hall, at home, abroad, and at Eton. The last was an exceptional arrangement. I believe he was a successful tutor. It was one of his pupils, so I sup- pose, who wrote the Prize Poem, Alpes ab Annibale Superatce, in 1822. With the Curzons he got on very well. They had their faults, but they were genial and well-mannered. With another pupil Dean was not so successful. They travelled. Dean had the usual English enthu- VOL. i. U 2QO A PRIVATE TUTOR. siasm for churches, and wished to have the pupil at his elbow to receive his outpourings. The pupil came to hate churches. He was so sated with them that he could no longer tell one church from another, and accordingly refused to enter them. When Dean mentioned the next step of their tour, the pupil asked, ' Is there a church there ? Because if there is I won't go there.' This was rather too much for the tutor, and I suppose he made some attempt to force the pupil, or to get round him, for they parted com- pany at last, somewhere in the north of Italy. Dean remained always on friendly and even affectionate terms with the Curzon family, and this gave him an almost unique position in Derby, not so much to be envied as admired. He was equally of the country circle, which was one ; and of the town circles, which were several. He was welcome every- where, for he brought news from what, to a certain extent, was an outer, or an inner world. He was both a county and a town guide. I should think he generally did his best to secure mutual respect. The townspeople were a little disposed to resent the un- avoidable line he had to draw between county and town. But after all there is nothing townspeople like to talk about so much as the people they are doomed never to meet on at all equal, or social, terms. In this case the townspeople might easily persuade themselves of a moral superiority. The position of a bachelor at large, a gar^on to the end of his days, and a link between circles, while residing in a town, was exceptional in the case of a clergyman. I could not claim for my friend those TOWN AND COUNTY 291 pastoral qualities which I have elsewhere awarded to the old ' High Church,' in the comparison with the ' Low Church.' He held small livings, with very small populations, one of them in the neighbourhood of Lord Ferrers, a connection of the Curzons ; but he would have been out of place in a rural parsonage, and he was in his place in the town. Whenever the weather allowed he would be found on the pavement of Derby, making calls of politeness or kindness ; or, at a later hour, dropping in for tea and a quiet evening's talk. He paid regular visits to the five clergymen's widows in Large's Hospital, on Nun's Green. But though he could do his duty and hold his own with equals and superiors, he lacked the quasi parental qualities necessary for dealing with inferiors, and even servants. He had once to reconstruct and contract his establishment so at least he felt. My friends under- took to find for him a servant-of-all-work not spoilt by town ways. They installed in his kitchen a dairy- maid from my Northamptonshire parish, Moreton Pinckney, who was to be helped by charwomen. The poor girl burst into tears after her first encounter with my friend, and, after crying and sobbing for a fortnight incessantly, had to leave. Dean everywhere, and always, stood up for faith and truth with vigour and promptitude. He never lost his temper, and never said disagreeable things, to his equals at least. But I think the attitude of a man always standing on his defence, without a definite line of action, and without an absolute devotion to any one circle, told injuriously on him, chilling his 292 A PRIVATE TUTOR. sympathies, fettering his action, and depriving him of his liberty. He had to perform a part, and that always in one character. When on a visit to Derby, early in 1842, I re- ceived through Dean an invitation to dine at Rad- bourne Rectory. Reginald Pole, brother of the Squire there, was a well-known and popular man. He was one of that singular sporadic persuasion that believes the British people to be the Lost Ten Tribes, that is proud of the identity, and that thinks it a matter of vital importance. He was a very pleasant and sensible gentleman for all that There came to dinner from the Hall, a few yards off, Lord Byron who had married a daughter of Chandos Pole and his own remaining unmarried daughter, Miss Byron. He was the immediate suc- cessor of the poet ; he had been a lord-in-waiting, and had a good deal to say about the Court, all in a loyal spirit. Young Morewood, of Alfreton, made up the party. I had been told the young people were engaged, and this, of course, made me observe them more than I should have done otherwise. Both were names of much local and special interest in that part of the world. On this occasion the young people were shy, and only spoke when spoken to. She was handsome, but decidedly a Byron, more so than her father. She might have helped a sculptor for the poet's features, and even expression. Her intended looked happy enough, good enough, and a gentleman. I am no prophet. I can prophesy pretty well after the event, but very seldom before. A few CCELEBS. 293 times in my life I have had presentiments just to remind me that events do cast their shadows before them. I had no such presentiments on this occasion. Had I been desired to put into words all I thought and felt it would have been an Epithalamium or a Pollio. There were sufficient elements of romance to justify a high strain indeed, the promise of a new creation. Fortunately I kept my thoughts to myself, and may now reveal them without incurring the disgrace of a presumptuous failure. Such a bachelor as my friend James Dean could not help raising questions. A very pleasant talker, an agreeable companion, a sensible man, and with some independence, there was no reason why he should not choose a suitable helpmate among the many unappropriated blessings of all ages then in his acquaintance. He talked of the ladies, and they talked of him. Perhaps he talked of them even more than he need have done, and as if he was still in the agonies, or delights, of indecision. On a comparison of the fair faces that had attracted his notice at successive periods, I came to the conclusion that my friend would not marry one over seventeen, and not till he was past seventy. He might find the limitation a difficulty. Ah me ! I little knew what I was talking about. He was nearer eighty than seventy when he died, and there was then found under his clothing, and hung by a ribbon from his neck, the miniature of a Miss Curzon, a beautiful girl, sister of his pupils, whom it was well known he had been devotedly attached to, and who had died at seventeen. 294 A PRIVATE TUTOR. The family with which Dean had thus linked his fortune had several livings, of no great value, but very desirable for their situation and social advan- tages. On some ground or other Dean reckoned confidently on one of these, but found himself passed over when the occasion occurred. He took it a little to heart. It is a very old story. If patrons ever hold out hopes of this sort, it must be remembered that by the end of ten or twenty years they know more about the tutor ; that he may have changed, or at least disclosed himself more ; that they, too, may have changed ; while the responsibilities of patronage have not changed, and may be more felt. The Curzon family, however, were never rich. It was commonly said they had not recovered the building of Kedleston House, so handsome, yet so justly criticised by Dr. Johnson. They were, however, a spending, unthrifty race, and much too easy-going. One Sunday the congregation on leaving St. Wer- burgh's noticed the blinds down and the shutters closed, where a couple of hours before there had been nothing to prepare for this. An old steward of the Curzon family had destroyed himself. During his long tenure the family had been more and more impoverished, and he now left 7o,ooo/. KIND CHRISTIAN LADIES.' 295 CHAPTER XLVIII. PEOPLE I HAVE SEEN, AND STILL SEE. THE old evermore survive the young, and as I people the pavements of our adopted town, it is with those who walked them sixty years ago. There is some- thing more than a barren pleasure in the retrospect. It reveals how impressions are made and left, how influence is acquired, and frequently how good is done. Of course there is a mixture ; for a throng made up of successive generations and various con- ditions must be motley. Still foremost in my early recollections are the two inseparable ladies occupying an old-fashioned house in Tennant Street, with the Derwent flowing at the foot of the garden behind. For generations, it may be said, one of them main- tained perpetual youth, at seventy what she had been at seventeen. It was her sweet nature so to do. She made her house the centre of a circle supplied with an unfailing succession of juveniles, who danced and talked themselves into one another's hearts to stay there perhaps a very long time. Then she had a field on the Osmaston Road, long since overlaid with bricks and mortar. Here she had grand haymakings, with a tent and the rest of it, and pretty haymakers, in fancy hats and skirts a la Watteau, No one at Derby could ever forget the pretty little old Irish lady in the Friargate, who had married once to please her friends, and once to please her- 296 PEOPLE I HA VE SEEN, AND STILL SEE. self, and had then been left early a widow. Her portrait was there at twenty or thereabouts, and at seventy you could not say she looked much older. Dr. Sleith, of St. Paul's, paid her an annual visit, and thereby hangs a tale, for he had an unaccountable penchant for some one else he saw there. A door or two from this lady was one who had been so unfortunate as to be made the heroine of a poem. This was Mrs. Twigg, the ' Serena,' I think it is, of Hayley's ' Triumph of Temper.' Youngsters, of course, expect a poet's beauty to be a joy for ever, but the only effect of the apotheosis in this case was the most disparaging comparisons. I believe, how- ever, that she was a very good lady, and that she still carried the palm for good temper. Among those that I saw, and saw only, was an old gentleman from a good neighbouring family, of the Georgian type. At eighty, or near it, he every day made an elaborate toilet, and promenaded in blue coat, brass buttons, yellow waistcoat, Russia duck trousers, a huge silk necktie, the coiffure perpetuated in George IV.'s coins, and cheeks in which the rose and the lily were never allowed to change their hues. To me he was and is always young. But I am easily deceived. Never once, till the old ostler of the ' Angel,' passing me in Merton Lane, said, ' The poor old King 's gone at last,' had it occurred to me that George IV. might be considered well in years. But I must proceed with the figures that show themselves through the darkness of past time. I think the bonniest, the kindest, and the brightest, as well as the ruddiest, of our elder contemporaries was SEA US AND BEAUTIES. 297 old Mr. Haden, who with a very large medical prac- tice combined a scientific knowledge of music and a most sensitive ear, and who had the management of the Derby oratorios. Then there was a stately column of a man a Scotch physician, a philosopher and all that whose tall, strong daughters were said to win the prizes at archery so constantly that the ladies insisted these children of Anak should contend with the gentlemen, or at least compete at a longer range. Another physician wore, long after date, a pow- dered wig and pigtail. Nobody, it was said, had ever seen his ears, and there were ill-natured surmises accounting for the fact with the old maxim de non apparentibus . Of course there were very big fellows, who loom large even now, and very little fellows, and pretty groups, and other groups that might fairly appeal to charity, or at least politeness, and not get either. Then come the great beauties, who emerged one after another out of the nursery and were the fa- vourites for a time. It seems only the other day that my eldest brother dropped, ' I tell you what, Emma will be as great a beauty as her sister ' ' greater ' I think he said. The child could then be hardly yet in her teens. The announcement was re- ceived with a chorus of incredulity. It proved, how- ever, true ; for the child became a very great beauty. She married first a wealthy brewer, and then a country clergyman, whom she helped much in good parish work, and now she is gone, and her place has been supplied. 298 PEOPLE I HA VE SEEN, AND STILL SEE. Now more than sixty years ago, my father had made the acquaintance of Mr. R. Wallace, a London architect, on whom fortune had rather frowned. He had made a good design for the opening at Carlton Place into St. James's Park. It had been admired, and passed over. The Committee of the Scotch Presbyterian Church in Regent Square declared his design the best, and accepted it. Irving overruled their choice in favour of a very pretentious imitation of York Minster. Mr. R. Wallace made a magnificent design for an edifice worthy of my father's business, but I suspect the acquisition of the Friary stopped that. Through my father he had at last a success, for he designed the rather imposing mass of buildings, comprising a post office, a bank, and an hotel, all on a scale then new to the town, meeting strangers immediately on entering into the heart of the town. Up to that time the post office had been wherever the postmaster chose to reside, and it had accordingly changed, I cannot say from one street to another, or from one house to another, or even from one window to another, but, strictly speaking, from one pane of glass to another. I should say that for near twenty years of my recollection all the communications be- tween the postal officials and the public were done through an aperture fifteen inches by twelve, less perhaps, likely to be opened after some knuckle- work. In the new hotel, being rather cramped in space for stables, our friend introduced what was then, even to Londoners, the very great novelty of an upper floor of stabling approached by an inclined A DESCENDANT OF DEFOE. 299 plane. Derby people could not go to London with- out seeing the cellars of the large inns so utilised, nor could they have gone to any continental country without seeing underground stables. But they seemed to think that bedroom floors were meant for Christians, not for horses. However, not many years after, there came a sudden flood that would certainly have drowned all the horses at the Royal Hotel, had they not at once been led upstairs to safe quarters. Through the architect, and commended by him to my father, there came a not very welcome addi- tion to the small class of physicians exercising their profession on the straight old lines. This was Dr. Henry Defoe Baker, then newly married, and crowded out of the metropolis. He was descended from Henry Baker, one of the founders of the Royal Society and a son-in-law of Daniel Defoe. He had the cleverness and ingenuity of his ancestors, but hardly did justice to his own very decided merits. He was, however, always instructive and always oblig- ing, and I possess still some statistics of household expenditure he collected for me, showing the condi- tion of the town artisan contrasted with my North- amptonshire labourers. I stood for his daughter at her baptism. She lived to woman's estate ; she has gone long ago, leaving a pleasant memory. Others there were who came and went, a hungry race, society-hunters. They were people who never yet had had the luck to find those whom they could like or who could like them. They had nowhere found people exclusive enough, or hospitable enough, for their tastes. Nowhere had they found the ele- 300 PEOPLE 1 HAVE SEEN, AND STILL SEE. ments of repulsion and attraction combined with the required nicety. So they came, and took their positions, and observed. They scanned, and they peeped, and they pryed, and they sniffed, and they listened, till they could flatter themselves they knew all about everybody. By that time everybody knew all about them, and before long they added Derby to a long list of similar disappointments. This earth was not made for them. Lord Chesterfield's saying that an agreeable address is the best of all introductions often receives an ill exemplification. I remember having at Derby a sight or two of a good-looking gentleman, still young, in a darkish green suit, but with a ' Rev.' on his cards. He explained that in Ireland, from which he hailed, the clergy did not adhere to black, and in fact wished to mark as strongly as possible that they were not priests. He was received everywhere. He was asked to assist in church ; he read and preached well. An incumbent of the town, availing himself possibly of the opportunity, took a two months' holiday, leaving the stranger in charge. I forget when the latter's wife appeared on the scene. There happened to be a small and prettily fur- nished house in Friargate, just then shut up in the absence of the pretty little Irish widow I have men- tioned. Her affairs were in the hands of her medical adviser, and she had left strict orders that the house was not to be let, as he had dropped a hint to that effect. He thought such a tenant was so exception- ally good as to dispense with the observance of the prohibition, and accordingly put into it the Irish WINTERING IN COUNTY TOWNS. 301 clergyman, wife, and I know not who besides. The clergyman did his duties admirably. In those days there was no ' Clergy List/ or ' Crockford,' and no one seems to have thought of making an inquiry. At last there was a rumour that after putting off his tradesmen several times he still disappointed them ; and the next day the bird was flown, first emptying the wine-cellar which he had broken open, and then carrying off the most movable and most precious contents of the house. He had performed several marriages ; and now there arose a curious question whether, in the case of his not being really in orders, the marriages were valid. It is not, however, the custom to put in a certificate of orders at a marriage, and as the stranger was never heard of again, the question of his orders could never be settled, and therefore could never legally arise. County towns generally claim to have had their winter seasons, like London, and to have been the resort of the county gentry, sometimes occupying their own houses in the town. No doubt there sur- vive many houses built by the gentry as a refuge from the severity of winter, when it was often im- possible to go about. The custom was, however, extinct at Derby seventy years ago. Not a few of the residents were of county families, but they were in Derby under special circumstances. They were alone in the world ; or they belonged to families that wished them near, but not too near; or they had come to the town for the benefit of masters ; or they were poor ; or they were persons with some singu- 302 PEOPLE I HAVE SEEN, AND STILL SEE. larity, not to say eccentricity, of character. People even then talked of the old gentry that had disap- peared. It had disappeared of course in due time ; but the least inquiry would have found that the old gentry was quite as mixed as the new gentry, and quite as much rooted in trade as in land. In one class or another the town had its full share of oddities and of hobbies. One elderly man, John Hallam, in an invariable brown holland suit, had the entree of every good house and every library in the town. After his presenting himself he always walked into the library, took a book from the shelves, sat down and read for hours. He was never known to accept any hospitality beyond this. I have heard it complained that he was simply an absorbent, and that he would never talk about what he had been reading. It is not quite my own recollection, though I have no distinct impressions of what he ever said. Most people are rather indisposed for talking imme- diately after a long spell of reading. They want time to invert the process and change position. John Hallam was a well, and a pretty deep one. It required a long rope and a strong arm to get any- thing out of him, and perhaps the result was not always evidently remunerative. But the town would hardly have borne him so long had he been simply ingrata arena. This was a comparatively cheerful case. I pass over cases not so cheerful. Every old inhabitant must remember with pleasure the annual display of the choicest tulips in a small garden, up a narrow entry, opposite our house in the Wardwick, and the FOOT-BALL DAY. 303 old gentleman walking round his beautiful family and pointing out his favourites. He must remember too the complete miniature of a garden in the Nor- manton Road, in which all the choicest and brightest gifts of nature were gathered in a picturesque setting of shrubberies, rocks, streams, and lakes, in half a quarter of an acre, or little more. Often has this bijou paradise presented itself to me in the midst of parks, pleasure-grounds, lawns, and parterres. CHAPTER XLIX. RECREATIONS AND AMUSEMENTS. THE great event of the Derby year was the football match on Shrove Tuesday. It was played between St. Peter's parish, which contained the largest propor- tion of roughs, and the rest of the town. The two goals were on opposite sides of the town. One was a water-wheel, which had to be reached through a hundred yards of water of some depth ; and the other a stake at the bottom of a deep gravel-pit. The ball was a hard solid mass of the thickest leather, about a foot in diameter. As the clock struck twelve it was thrown from a window, or from the balcony when there came to be one, of the Town Hall into the crowd below, which instantly closed upon it. In a quarter of an hour there rose a column of steam as from a funnel up to the sky on a still day, indicating the exact spot of the ball. 304 RECREATIONS AND AMUSEMENTS. The ball was never allowed either to touch the ground or to rise into the air. It was simply tugged and pulled and wrestled for. None but the strongest men would venture into that metie. The ball was usually a long time in the Market Place. Once in a street it got over the ground quicker. Wherever it came walls were thrown down, shutters were burst in, and light buildings demolished. All the rest of the day there came in bulletins of the movements of the ball, as of a flood, or a stream of lava. Sometimes the combatants got into the Derwent, and unfortunate men once under the water could not raise their heads again. Sometimes the human mass rolled over a steep bank, with bad and even fatal results. About nine or ten in the evening a loud cheering announced that the winning champion was at your door, on the shoulders of his paladins, claiming his guerdon. Sometimes there were two such visits, the ball having been torn in pieces, and so goaled by both sides. It was frequently canvassed with much earnestness whether the Corporation ought to encourage so rough a game, followed, as it generally was, with an inquest or two and much destruction of property. The chief supporter was Joseph Strutt, the most popular member of the family, who had a picture-gallery for the benefit of the town, and who presented it with the Arboretum. People used to say the custom would last as long as he did. I forget whether it did, but the increase both of the population and of the area covered by buildings made the game every year more intolerable ; and it is now only a tradition. A SERMON TO LADIES. 305 Two centuries ago a good man, among other charities, left a sum to the Vicar of St. Werburgh's for two annual sermons against bull-baiting and like rough and cruel sports. My sister-in-law Jemima came in for one of the sermons unexpectedly at a week-day service. The curate preached, not against bull-baiting, which was now extinct, but against curs- ing and swearing. The congregation consisted of my sister-in-law and three quite respectable elderly ladies. I don't know whom the curate expected. Nor do I remember whether he gave such a turn to his discourse as might make it edifying even to the congregation I have described. Ladies swear, after their own sweet fashion, in such terms as ' awful,' ' awfully,' and the like. They can also denounce vigorously. ' Prisoner's Base ' was then a great favourite with boys and men. I delighted in it, for it was all running. Who remembers ' Sasher Wright,' the fleetest lad at Higginson's ? The game is mentioned by Shakes- peare, Spenser, and Drayton. Early last century twelve Derbyshire gentlemen played against twelve gentlemen of Middlesex in a field behind Burlington House. The Derwent is a very unruly stream, and it was formerly kept within bounds by banks or levees, still indicated by a slight rise. The meadows enclosed by these banks are called the ' Siddals,' which I think .must be from sedilia. The Champ de Mars at Paris has, or had, just that formation. But seventy years ago, while much had been done to suppress public games and amusements of all kinds, little had been done to supply their place, or VOL. I. X 3 o6 RECREATIONS AND AMUSEMENTS. to direct and help the public in such recreations as they found for themselves. The theatre was at a low ebb, not so much for the want of merit in Mr. Manley's company I think that was the name as in consequence of its continual de- nunciation by some of the clergy. The performances were generally some thoroughly respectable ' play,' fol- lowed by a showy and noisy melodram'a. Mrs. Manley was a neat little figure, and she used to play boys' parts till quite out of form. It was in Derby theatre that I saw Edmund Kean in Richard III., or Sir Giles Over- reach, one or both, I can't remember, and it was there that I acquired a basis for criticising his son Charles. I suppose what I am about to relate will be con- sidered to justify the comment of the late Primate on one of my heroes. A well-known beautiful actress was starring the provinces, and she took Derby in her route. I had seen her on the London stage, where I remember being more struck by her beauty and grace than by her dramatic power. The truth was, I had not yet got over my natural recoil from stage con- ventionalism. In very early life the lady had been placed by her mother under the protection of a well- known sporting gentleman, one of the most prominent characters of the day ; but this had now ceased for years, and was spoken of as a thing of the past. The lady was earning her bread and supporting relations by the legitimate exercise of her natural abilities. Immediately upon the announcement of her per- formance at Derby, Mr. Robert Simpson, then Curate of St. Peter's, posted all over the town a most offen- sive and essentially untruthful description of the lady, DIV1NI GLORIA RURIS. 307 and denunciation of all who might go to the theatre on this occasion, as countenancing whatever faults the poor lady might have been guilty of. She, or her friends, posted a very proper and temperate reply. Mr. Hope took her part, no doubt considering that the honour of the town was affected by the inhospi- tality and cruelty of this treatment. He called upon her, and, it was said, escorted her from the green-room to the stage. This was certainly more than was necessary for the purpose. Some years after, the lady was married to a nobleman, and Mr. Hope per- formed the ceremony. It was said at the time that he much regretted the marriage, and also that he should be called on to give it his countenance ; but that after the part he had taken on the lady's visit to Derby he felt he could not loyally decline. Everybody who has passed his early years in towns, laments, perhaps with acrimonious language, the continual encroachment of private rights upon the public, amounting often to complete usurpation and monopoly. Premising that there is generally much to be said on both sides, I will put the grievance first, and historically as it regards Derby. The first mile of the route which I have described as an uninterrupted succession of fine scenery from that town to the far north, was first a very pretty lane, with cottages, one of them introduced by Miss Edge- worth into a tale. You had the country in view all the way. You then passed through a beautiful grove, with a high broken bank or cliff on one side, and the Der- went on the other. As you ascended a steep hill, a grand amphitheatre disclosed itself. Looking across x 2 308 RECREATIONS AND AMUSEMENTS. the site of old Derventio, and Derby, down the valley of the Derwent and the Trent, you saw Charnwood Forest, near thirty miles off. Soon Dar- ley Abbey lay below you. Then you reached the singularly pretty and comfortable village of Darley. You might return through it to the town on the other side of the river. If you wished a longer round, you might go on to the still rural village of Allestree, pass through the park, and, from a bench at a well-chosen point of view, command enough of the country north of you to give you a very good idea of Derbyshire scenery. You might thence extend your ramble to Quarndon, then a regular summer retreat for families bound to economy, and come straight home by the Duffield road, all the way with pretty foregrounds. This description could now be hardly identified, perhaps not even believed. Nearly all the way, in- deed, wherever there is anything to be seen, you are shut in by high walls. You cannot approach the river, or ramble in the grove, or see the amphi- theatre of the best Midland scenery. The point of view at Allestree is unapproachable. A railway on a high embankment now violates the almost sacred seclusion of Little Chester. Well, I have to admit that all this could hardly be helped. I suppose the trespassers were so many and so unscrupulous that it became a question who was to have the use of the land, the proprietors or the Derby roughs. If that be the question, I must decide for law and order. But to return to the grievance. There were in my time a dozen spots within an easy walk of Derby where any one could SUBSTITUTES. 309 bathe in something like seclusion. I doubt if there be one now. The Derby public were liberally allowed to walk through Markeaton Park, and to skate on the pond. That, I believe, is of the past. All these changes are, I fear, inevitable, but they point to other changes of a remedial and supplementary character. It certainly is in the public interest that all classes should have opportunity, indeed encouragement, for pure enjoyment and healthy recreation. Further and further from the country, and every year more jealously excluded from river, park, pond, or point of view, towns have to find amusement at home. This they do. In my younger days there were only two public rooms for this purpose that I can remember at Derby : the Old Assembly Room, now long used as a warehouse, and the New Assembly Room. There are now a dozen or a score rooms, some very handsome and some very large, available for concerts, for lec- tures, for dances, for theatricals, for travelling-circuses, for conjurers, and for political or religious demonstra- tions. I have passed by eight or nine of them in one evening in full roar, and had time allowed should have been quite happy to spend an hour in any one of them. CHAPTER L. DR. SAMPSON. FROM my earliest recollections till I had been a year at Charterhouse Dr. Sampson was the good genius of our family, its affectionate friend, its honest monitor, 3 io DR. SAMPSON. and its wise adviser. He became assistant-curate at Gainsborough about the time of my birth, so I can only remember him as an institution of some stand- ing. He was a short, slight, but upright figure, in powder and Hessians. He had not much stamina of either strength or health, as his pale complexion sufficiently indicated. He was a rather unusual com- bination of warm-heartedness and susceptibility, with good sense, caustic humour, and knowledge of the world. These conflicting elements, combined in a fragile frame, and straitened by slender means, strug- gled for the mastery, and the single success I can confidently credit Dr. Sampson with was the spiritual work he did in our family. An account of his career might suggest that I have left out ambition from his characteristics ; but it was not high-mindedness that urged him to flights above his power to rise ; it was the heart that led the way. The first mention of him in my father's letters is in October 1807. ' Tell Mr. Sampson they asked me JS. 6d. to ids. 6d. for bone chessmen; 14^. to 2is. for ivory. What shall I do ? ' Two years after, my father had another commission on Dr. Sampson's account. He was leaving Gainsborough for a naval chaplaincy, and Mrs. Nettleship sends him a parting gift in the form of a most elegantly bound Bible. But thereby hangs a tale. The poor man's heart was too much for him. There is a naive admission of this weakness in his own language, and it was too evident to his friends. It seems admitted as a fact known to all the world, certainly to myself from very tender years, that he was deeply in love with Anne NAVAL CHAPLAIN. 311 Nettleship, who became eventually Mrs. Rollestone. Being only a curate he could not propose to her, or he found that his advances met with no encourage- ment. Gainsborough was no place for promotion, and without that he could not marry. So he tore himself away from a circle of friends very dear to him, and made a desperate attempt to win prefer- ment on the open sea. In November 1809 my father describes a call he made on Mr. Sampson at his friend Captain Searle's, in town. The servant asked me into a most splendid room, and in a few minutes Mr. Sampson came in. His appearance was that of a man who had been racketing about for a week without having once lain down. He was completely knocked up (by a journey outside the coach). Captain Searle seems greatly attached to him. In short, Mr. Sampson is afraid the Captain has given a too highly coloured representation of him ; for, in consequence of that, two young gentlemen intended for the navy, of the very first family connections, and who have great interest in the Church, are going with him. They are placed under his immediate care. In short, if Mr. Sampson can but remain on board (which God in His infinite mercy grant), his fortune is made. I told Mr. Sampson that as his fortune was locked up in houses, and therefore could not be made imme- diately serviceable, and as he must be at some expense in fitting himself out, perhaps a so/, bank-note might be useful to him. He might return it when convenient to him. He was exceedingly delighted, but declined it, as, if he wanted, he could get money by application to his navy agent. Four o'clock. I met Mr. S. in the Strand. He made me promise to call upon him again at Captain Searle's. The good folks of Gains- borough do not know their loss. He is certainly a good man. I told him how sorry you were to take leave of him. ' God bless her ! ' was his reply. Again, November 13: ' Mr. Sampson acknowledges he never was so affected in his 312 DR. SAMPSON. life as when he left Gainsborough. He did not preach in the afternoon ; he found himself unequal to the task. While administering the Sacrament it was with difficulty he got on. . . . He wished me much to breakfast with them on Monday, but I said my business here required all my mornings. . . . In short, I have such an affection for him that being in his company only unmans me. He is a very delicate man, and the idea (by no means improbable) that he is going to leave Eng- land never to behold it again, is almost too much for me. To such a man one farewell is enough. It required some exertion that he might not observe me. By the end of 1809 Mr. Sampson had been obliged to give up his naval chaplaincy. He suffered so much from sea-sickness. He writes to my father from Twerton : I am pretty well convinced of the correctness of the judg- ment which our surgeon formed of my constitution, which he seriously told me was too irritable to bear the sea. The ' Repulse ' was a most comfortable and respectable ship, and I should have been extremely happy on board of her during my passage to join the ' Centaur,' if my health would have permitted. . . . Let Mrs. Nettleship know you have heard from me, and that I flatter myself I am getting better. I wish your parlour was not quite so far off. In my boyhood I was not much in the way of hearing Dr. Sampson's conversation, though he paid us many visits. At Derby he would drop in to the little back parlour with the Tudor wainscoting, to see us at our meals, and would stand aghast at the zest with which we swallowed our dumplings and cold mutton. I remember his putting a fork into one of the former, and raising it, with the exclama- tion : ' Call you this a light dumpling ! ' In fact, it was as heavy as lead, for it was hard to get good flour in those days. With a high respect for Dr. EAST INDIA CHAPLAIN. 313 Sampson's Oxford scholarship, my father used to amuse himself with his incapacity for mechanics, and even common arithmetic. Though he was obliged to give up the naval chaplaincy, he went out next year, 1810, to Madras, as chaplain to the East India Company, which, however, suited his health little better. In preparation for this he writes from Oxford, where he was probably taking his D.D. degree, in the April of that year : I am now reading Persian at the rate of twelve knots an hour. Our principal is an Arabic professor, and has been of inestimable assistance to me. You would be surprised, per- haps, if I were to tell you that I am up at my studies by seven in the morning ; but as I am now a rising man it is not to be wondered at. I heard from Dr. Cox (Master of the Gains- borough Grammar School), who acquaints me that at last you are to have a Curate. I marvel that your Vicar should prefer to select his assistant from the north. I hear that he has a wife and family. You must invite them all on every Sunday to dine with you, else the man may complain that he has not the privi- leges of his predecessor. He must breakfast and sup, of course, with Mrs. Mozley two or three times a week, whilst you are at Newcastle, according to established custom. You may tell that lady that I often think of the quiet evenings that I have passed by her fireside with the 'Ancient Atlas ' and ' Lempriere's Dic- tionary ' upon our table, and that I shall be far from being so much fascinated with Oriental splendour as not frequently to regret the distance of the said Domestic Retreat. I suppose I must not expect the good fortune to meet you in Town previous to my second embarkation. Tell me what is going on amongst you. I hope you attend church twice on Sundays remember you are no friend of mine if you do not. God bless you. Remember me to your boys and girls. On December 25, 1810, Dr. Sampson writes from Madras: This, then, is Christmas Day. Is there occasion for me to 314 DR. SAMPSON. assure you, my very good friend, that my mind incessantly reverts to the hospitable mansion in which this day was spent for three successive years at Gainsborough? . . . Whether the climate will so far agree with my health as to allow me to continue here long enough to derive much benefit from the great advan- tages attached to my situation is uncertain. I have already submitted to a salivation for a liver obstruction. This is not a splendid exile after all for a man who has left England with the feelings that I left it with. I read over the other day the letter which you wrote to me in London, in November 1809, congratulating me on my appointment to the ' Centaur,' and I flattered myself with the hope that it was possible you might yet retain the same friendly sentiments for me which you then expressed ; ay, and that it was not quite impossible you might retain them till I return to my dear native England. But I hardly know with what confidence to look forward to that event. Whether I shall ever again take a Sunday's dinner with you, or (what is of much greater consequence) take you to church on a Sunday's afternoon, Heaven knows. I would again enforce it upon you with every possible argument not to neglect the im- portant, the indispensable, duties of Public Worship. You may be disposed to say perhaps, ' Somewhat too much of this,' but recollect that I am at too great a distance from you to be sus- pected of exercising any ecclesiastical authority over you. I merely write my sentiments as a zealous friend, and perhaps the hand which writes, together with the heart which dictates them, may both be buried beneath the dust of this far country before this letter will meet your eye. The letter is resumed on New Year's Day, 1 8 1 1 : The public rides of Madras exhibit great variety : English carriages and Indian conveyances ; natives in phaetons, and English in palanquins. Half a dozen camels march along with their burdens, and perhaps an elephant^ passes by with his long strides. I was a little alarmed the other day when my palan- quin boys crossed the road within a foot of one of these animals, though there was no danger, for 'the half reasoning elephant' would have stopped, had it been necessary, and would not have walked over me. Now a man might pass half his life in Gainsborough without encountering such a circumstance ! THE PEACE OF 1814. 315 January 10, 1811, Dr. Sampson writes : This is the season of the Pungall Feast, a great Hindoo holiday. It differs somewhat from the Morton Feast, as eating and drinking form no constituent parts of the ceremony, which consists in fireworks and Religious processions. Indeed, most of the Hindoo castes are not very sociable in their meals, inas- much as everybody eats alone. The Hindoo eats in a corner of his room or hut, sitting on the ground upon his haunches, with his chin resting on his knees, his face to the wall ; his wife, when she has brought him his dinner, sits with her back towards him, but near enough to receive a slap on the face should the rice be ill-cooked. When the husband has dined she takes what is left. The Hindoos, however, always consult, not only their wives, but also all the women of the family, old and young, before they adopt any new plan or proceeding, and it is deemed unlucky to act contrary to their advice. Now per- haps the good ladies of the Hundred of Lindsey, in the county of Lincoln to wit, might approve of the Hindoo mode of taking counsel in preference to the Hindoo mode of taking dinner ! Dr. Sampson could not stand the climate of India long. He was home again in 1814, without, however, giving up the hope of a return to his post. Writing to my father from town on May 4 of that year, he says : I never was so little interested in London in my whole life. Whether Paris would interest me more, I know not ; but France is quite out of the question for the present. Passports can hardly be procured at home, nor accommodation abroad, for any but those engaged with the diplomatic parties. A few weeks will make a considerable alteration after the present Uproar of Peace has subsided a little. The hurry of the Me- tropolis is really, for the first time in my life, too much for my spirits ; though, as you well know, I go neither to balls, nor to plays, nor to routs. I am daily abused for my grave looks and my deficiency of spirits. I have wished myself quiet at Gains- borough a hundred times. The procession to Guildhall was a fine thing, but I have seen so much of processions and page- 316 DR. SAMPSON. antry, and glitter and show, during my residence in India, that I was less struck than some others. I called on a party of West Country folks on Saturday evening, and found them all aghast at the wonders they had seen. Dr. Sampson's return had been so little expected that a letter from my father, after travelling a thou- sand miles out of the way, finally reached him in town more than a year after date. Far or near, it was all the same, for he always bore with him the trouble that was at once his mental weakness and the aggravation of his physical maladies. His only chance of winning the lady upon whom he had staked his happiness was to hold oh in India ; but heart and health failed. Before long he was once more at Gainsborough, as appears from a letter of Mr. Wayland : Conceive my vexation at hearing that you and Dr. Sampson are together without my being able to join you. I am positively laid up with the rheumatics, and so unwell that I cannot walk across the room without excruciating pain. ... Is it true you are going to leave Gainsborough ? On July 15, 1815, Dr. Sampson writes to my father : What changes in the political world since we met ? In what will all these great events terminate? I was really tempted to take a short trip over to Brussels to inspect the field of Waterloo. You have heard, perhaps, the remarkable circumstance of the greater part of the officers having fought in their ball dresses, pumps, and silk stockings. ... I have not seen Wayland's sermons advertised. I hear he edified the clergy at the Gains- borough visitation. So we shall no more assemble together under your hospitable roof, where I have been much pleased with my party, however much or little my party may have been pleased with me. CHURCHMANSHIP. 317 Before I change the scene from Gainsborough I must ask what was Dr. Sampson's contribution to the character of the family with which he so identi- fied himself. I used always to hear him spoken of as an authority, and an influence, and as saying things that must sink deep by the force of truth. Perhaps his contempt of vulgarity in all its shapes and dis- guises was the most telling and abiding feature of his long companionship. Of course he was a Tory, in the sense of that period. In those days the City of Lon- don monopolised that lead of the Liberal party, which it has since had to divide with Birmingham and Man- chester, if not wholly surrender to them. The Com- mon Council was the chief exponent of the popular cause, and one used to hear more of them than one does now. I seem now to hear Dr. Sampson ejacula- ting, ( Common Councilmen ! Common blackguards ! ' Both as a gentleman and as a Churchman Dr. Sampson carried his head very high, though in my father's house he would have to meet with some who were not Churchmen. Moderate as the requirements of Churchmanship were in those days, Dr. Sampson had to lift up his voice occasionally, with or without effect A sermon in Passion Week, on the words, ' Could ye not watch with me one hour,' made a deep impression on the scanty congregation chiefly of ladies. I conclude, too, that they conveyed the impression to others who ought to have been there, and were not. I think it must have been he who recommended my father to reprint the little book in which I was learning my catechism in 1814 and 1815. I have 31 8 DR. SAMPSOA. long been puzzled to know who and what manner of man the author could be. It was severely ' ortho- dox,' and evidently done with great pains : ' The Church Catechism explained by way of Question and Answer, and confirmed by Scripture proofs, &c. Col- lected by John Lewis, Minister of Margate in Kent.' So ill-informed am I on these matters that it was only the other day I found that this simple ' John Lewis, Minister,' was an intimate friend of Water- land, whose correspondence with him fills near half a volume of his Works. I always understood that it was Dr. Sampson who introduced into our family the then prevailing Spartan ideas of discipline. He used to maintain that character is formed the first eighteen months, if not earlier. At that age a child either submits or gets its way ; either course for good and for aye. My brother John came in for the first application of this theory, and I next. Whether it answered in his case I cannot say. I think that from the first my brother John required stimulus, encouragement, and that affectionate confidence which he was always ready to reciprocate. As a fact he lived a life of dutiful submission. It did not answer in my case, and it had but a partial success in the brother next younger. Many years after, my old nurse, in answer to my inquiries, had to confess, with a smile, that I was a very fractious child. But Spartanism was all the rage last century, as appears from the protest Dr. Johnson had to make against the use of cold water in washing babies, and from such books as ' Sandford and Merton.' My H&RET LATERI LETHALIS ARUNDO. 319 father, when a boy, was larking about the craft in the river, when he went overboard, and was only just rescued on his third appearance at the surface. He got his face also badly cut, and had to be put to bed. Two or three days after, his father said, ' Well, Harry, how do you feel ? ' ' Quite well.' ' Nothing amiss ? ' ' Nothing.' ' Then now you must take your flogging for giving us all this trouble ;' and he flogged him accordingly. One of my father's schoolfellows at Kirton ran away from school, and presented himself with a list of complaints at his father's house many miles off. His father listened to the end, ' Well, my lad, you must be tired after your walk ; you had better go to bed, for you must be up early to start for school again.' ' But mayn't I have some supper ? ' ' No, my lad. I pay for your board at school, and you cannot have it here.' The point of the story requires that the boy should be started to school without his breakfast, but I will not believe that even on the eve of the French Revolution fathers could be so hard as that. CHAPTER LI. DR. SAMPSON. A FEW weeks after, Dr. Sampson has to direct to my father at our new home, in great uncertainty as to his own : ... I am in a strait between two courses with respect to 320 DR. SAMPSON. my return to the Eastern Hemisphere. Some of my medical acquaintance and others are of opinion that I should run great risk by so doing. I trust that I have zeal enough to hazard either my health or my life, if it were my duty, in the discharge of my ministry. The only point of deliberation is what is my duty in the present instance ? May Heaven direct my choice ! ... I hope you are all pleased with Derby, and I hope also that the price of provisions has not been very injuriously increased in your part of the country in consequence of the arrival of your colony from Lincolnshire. In October, 1815, Dr. Sampson writes from Dublin : I dread the passage back to Holyhead, and the stage-coach journey through water, at this season of the year. But I keep your parlour fire, and the comfortable sofa, and the family party in the background of the picture, and skip over the intermediate spaces. You may depend upon one thing that after I have parted with my friends here, I shall travel with all possible speed to my friends in the great brick house. I conclude that Dr. Sampson had not yet given up thoughts of returning to India, for before the end of this year Mr. Wayland writes : ' I have too great an affection and esteem for him to think of his going back to India with composure.' The next passage, under date July 22, 1817, I will put first, and the explanation, such as I can give, afterwards : MY DEAR FRIEND, I am glad to find that a peace has been established between the Lord High Chancellor of England, the Chancellors of the two Universities, and yourself. It is not every man, let me tell you, who can have the honour of being opposed in a contest of consequence against Royal Highnesses and Right Honourables. You complain a little of the expense, but I need not tell you who have paid so many hundreds to the income tax that war is not to be carried on for nothing. BIBLES AND PRAYER-BOOKS. 321 Those who are the active instruments in it, whether men of steel, or men of parchment, will not serve without pay. I was myself at the time only ten years old, and only remember long conferences and grave looks. At fourteen I might have been old enough to enter into the question, but the sore was then healed. The sale of Bibles was at that time in a most anoma- lous state. The Universities and the King's Printer had the monopoly of them south of the Tweed. But they were printed and sold in Scotland, and they found their way into the northern part of England. The Universities gave good printing and good paper, but at a high price. In fact they made a large profit out of Bibles and Prayer Books, and a large part of this profit they devoted to the publication of works of a classical, not Christian, character. I saw little in my early days of the Bibles and Prayer Books published by the King's Printer, or the paten- tees of the King's Printer's Office. As far as my recollection goes they were generally in exceptional forms and in handsome bindings, as if only for those who could afford to pay well for them. It was evident, however, that the King's Printer acted in concert with the Universities, which was indeed almost a necessity of their respective positions. The result was that anybody wanting a Bible or Prayer Book, or wishing to present one to a friend, had to pay perhaps twice or thrice as much as it had really cost. Meanwhile the Christian Knowledge Society and the Bible Society were selling an immense quantity of the University Bibles the former the Prayer VOL. I. Y 322 DR. SAMPSON. Book too with good paper and print, but carefully lowered to an eleemosynary character by repulsive bindings and coarse outside lettering. In this way a pauper got for is. 6d. what a lady had to pay IDS. for. My father's customers were of the middle classes, and they were shut out of this bargain. He did what many others were doing. He sold Bibles printed in Scotland, indeed by the King's Printer in Scotland, if there was such a personage. He had the existing custom on his side, and he felt he had substantial justice. The granters of the monopoly to the Universities could not have contemplated that a large profit was to be made out of the sale for any purpose the Universities might choose ; still less that this artificial dearness was to be mitigated by cha- ritable subscriptions for the benefit of such as might declare themselves paupers, or indifferent to hand- some exteriors. The Universities could do nothing with the swarm of lesser offenders, each selling, maybe, a dozen or two Bibles in a year. They were on the look out for an offender worth trying conclusions with, and this they found in my father, who kept stocks for the supply of retail dealers. It appears that he consulted Dr. Sampson, who would probably advise submission. My father did submit, but it cost him 5oo/. or more. Within five years his name began to appear in the title-page of the Oxford Bibles and Prayer Books. In the same letter Dr. Sampson alludes with cheerful resignation to the termination of another suit which had cost him much more than money RESIGNED. $2 could tell. My father had told him the news of Anne Nettleship's approaching marriage to Mr. Rollestone. You have acquainted me also with another piece of intelli- gence which really gave me pleasure. It is a great point gained when things are well timed. If you had communicated the same piece of news to me only about three years and a quarter sooner, it would not have afforded me half so much satisfaction. I should have been mortified, too, if she had sacrificed herself. As far as I can judge of the matter, I approve of it highly. What children we men are ! But Tempora mutantur, nos et viutamiir in illis. You see I am still going on eating my bread and cheese in Old England, and perhaps may so proceed to the end of the chapter. I would not have you imagine that I am inhibited from tasting your mutton and Madeira for ever and for aye because I shall not take Derby on my way from Gains- borough. It would occupy two days and nights. Remember me to Miss Holt, and Mr. and Miss Hadens. Dr. Sampson at last gave up India, and accepted the curacy of Leytonstone, where, as long as his health allowed, he did his work apparently to the satisfaction of the parish. But he could not help reverting to what, in a double sense, was his first love Gainsborough and its people. He and my father had been visiting the Nettleships together there, and he gives the history of his journey home : It would be needless to repeat how often I looked back to the white house on the Hill. It would avail nothing to observe that I was put into the very same abominable deep-blue room at Retford, in which I feasted you and Mrs. Mozley on beef steaks in April 1814; the very same room which has in- variably frowned a darker gloom upon every parting from Gainsborough, from November 8, 1809, to the 26th ult. inclu- sive. ... I arrived half dead in London on Saturday morning. On Sunday I was more than half light-headed with fatigue and illness. How I got through the duty I can hardly tell. . . . v 2 324 DR. SAMPSON. The stimulus of a fever gave me some false strength. ... I must go to bed. . . . Kind regards to Mrs. Mozley and your family. There are none whom I meet more gladly than your- selves, though there may be some whom I leave with rather more poignant sensations of the pain of parting. But you are a wise man and know how to account for these things ; and if you be unable to account for any characteristics attaching to me, I know not any other man who is likely to succeed. Retford was then the first stage from Gainsborough to almost anywhere else in England, and that 'abomin- able deep-blue room ' must have frowned on many a sad parting, and left a life-long gloom on many a memory. Every time Dr. Sampson entered it, it was to find his gloom darker. I cannot remember on what occasion it was the poor man had had to make a little discovery, for the bitterness of which he had to thank himself only. Cross-country travelling in those days was always a matter of social arrangement, and the Doctor was only too happy to share a post-chaise to Retford with Anne Nettleship, and Mary, her witty but most agreeable sister. He had evidently planned to sit bodkin. This, however, must not be. The witty one made the two others get in first, and then inserted herself between them. She had, however, to sit a little forwards. The Doctor passed a hand behind her, and, meeting another hand, gave it a warm pressure, and retained his hold for the rest of the journey. Upon their alighting, he found that the witty one had anticipated his intentions by placing her off hand behind, and so intercepting the Doctor's. A few days after the date of the above letter the Doctor writes : hope to spend next week in rather more agreeable society. ONCE MORE AT GAINSBOROUGH. 325 I am sick of the individual who has been my sole companion for four days past, and of everything about him : his gruel, his draughts, and his pills, to say nothing of his ill-humour. What a contrast to the four weeks preceding ! Again, early in 1818, Dr. Sampson and my father were visitors together at the Nettleships', where they and their hostess were alike delighted with my eldest sister's reports on the progress of the family studies at Derby. ' There's a lass for you ! ' my father exclaims with his pen. Later in the year the poor gentleman is found still harping on the romance of his Gainsborough life. He had not written his congratulations upon Anne Nettleship's marriage to Mr. Rollestone, but now writes to my father : Tell your favourite (as you are a favourite of Miss Mary Nettleship) to give my cordial regards and good wishes to her sister Rollestone and her husband, and explain why I did not write being in India on the union. Constant as he was to the end, he could yet be interested in any lady who felt an interest in him : If the young lady who ' looked about for me,' when I was in London (where she and I might have been during a revolution of Saturn, without meeting) if this young lady, I say, instead of fatiguing her pretty eyes, had but employed her hand to write one line for the twopenny post, it is most probable I should have had the pleasure of seeing her. My father asked his two clerical friends to meet at Christmas this year. Dr. Sampson's answer was laconic: 'Arrive, Monday, Mail.' In April, 1819, after the birth of my brother Arthur, my mother was for some weeks seriously ill, 326 DR. SAMPSON. and believed to be in danger. My father wrote to Dr. Sampson, with an account of his alarm, and his very great joy when it was happily over, and he received back some expressions of very warm sympathy. The next month Dr. Sampson returns to the subject : As some time has elapsed since you had the benefit of a Sunday evening lecture, I am writing to afford you that advan- tage once more, not by saying anything myself, but by referring to that which you have said. You mentioned in your last letter how well Mrs. Mozley had recovered from the effects of her confinement, and, alluding to her apparent danger, you stated that ' the recollection of that terrible afternoon would never be effaced from your mind.' Now this was proper, as was also the idea which presented itself to you (though you did not mention it), that it would be an improving as well as acceptable exer- cise of the memory to take some notice of it on every anni- versary by some short appropriate thanksgiving in the course of the private devotions of the family. My father did, in fact, make a religious commemo- ration of this deliverance, as he felt it, but whether soon after or shortly before Dr. Sampson's suggestion I cannot say. In May of this year 1819 he visited the Waylands, still at Grayingham, near my father's old school at Kirton. Writing to my mother, he says : I went to church at Kirton and heard a most excellent sermon. After which I received the Sacrament. I really felt that the hand of the Almighty had been stretched out to save you, and consequently myself, and I determined to give full scope to my gratitude, which, believe me, was genuine and sincere. My mother, as soon as sufficiently recovered for the journey, with my father, my eldest sister, and the two sisters of the gentleman- farmer I have described COUNTRY FOLKS IN TOWN. 327 as the Duke's Tenant, went to Brighton, stopping in town by the way. This was for the sake of Dr. Sampson's company and guidance, for he was now in charge of a chapel at Leytonstone, where, on the previous Trinity Sunday, he had preached a very interesting sermon, afterwards published for the Propagation Society. He had told his Derby friends how to make the best of the time, what they were to see, and who they were to hear on Sunday : At St. John's Chapel (Mr. Daniel Wilson's) you would be in luck if you found standing-room. I just mention this, as Mrs. Mozley was inquiring. Then the Magdalen and the Foundling are popular services. Mr. Gurney, of St. Clement's, is reckoned a clever man, though of the Calvinistic school. I conclude the Doctor had gone to the Norfolk Street lodgings to receive the party, for I remember being told of his scrutinising it very closely, face by face, before any one could alight, and it being suspected that he clung to the hope of one of the Nettleships being there, as had been talked of. He does not seem to have been quite at his ease in charge of a mixed party of country folks, as they might not have much regard for appearances. Punch and Judy presented themselves before their lodgings, and they boldly opened the window for the full en- joyment of the performance. Dr. Sampson remon- strated, and retreated to the farther end of the room. One of the country people chanced to look round, and saw that the Doctor had mounted a chair and was enjoying a good view over their heads. He hovered about them as they were starting for Brighton, possibly still hoping against hope to see an 328 DR. SAMPSON. addition to the party. But he had to bid good-bye at last. He did not, however, go far, as the following shows : You say you have been told that I saw you go, or rather your equipage and attendants before you went. Spectators can sometimes give a better account of things than the performers. Well, then, I was passing St. Clement's, towards Somerset House, at twenty minutes past three by the clock, when I ob- served a great concourse of people assembled at the head of Norfolk Street, from the opposite side of the Strand ; but whether it was a fire, or a fight, or a Punch's show, I could not discover. However, the mystery was cleared up as soon .as I saw the Brighton coach standing at No. 3, where another crowd had collected about the door, among whom I was amused to see son Henry looking on as an indifferent person, nowise con- cerned in the matter, and I could not help thinking how fortunate he was to have seen two grand public processions in one day. He had scarcely come from seeing the State carriage of England, attended by the great officers of the Household [the Prorogation of Parliament], when he saw a second solemnity attended by the Majesty of the people in honour of his family's departure from the metropolis. It really was, joking apart, one of the most striking spectacles of the kind which I had seen for a long while. I need not tell you, I presume, that half the windows in the neighbourhood were open, with two or three heads peering out from each. The shoemaker at the corner was standing with a couple of his journeymen with folded arms. Another lean, unwashed artificer, yclept a chimney-sweeper, had rested his bag upon some steps, and was staring open-mouthed. The tallow-chandler's boy was sitting upon his box of candles in an ecstasy of expectation. The razor-grinder's wheel was stopped in the midst of its revolution, and the dustman's bell was unrung. The only man who appeared to me to be minding his business was a fellow with his basket before him, who was vending his light spiced gingerbread smoking hot, with much vociferation and perseverance. ... A person sometimes asks questions, not so much for the sake of information, as to hear what folks have to say, ' Pray, what is the matter here ? ' 1 Oh, sir, it's only one of the Brighton coaches taking up a A START FOR BRIGHTON. 329 family that has been bit by a mad dog, and is going to the salt water to be dipped.' I thought some of the ladies might not be altogether pleased at this testimony of public attention. The baggage was being put on board whilst I was in sight, but I didn't wait for the embarkation of the passengers. I thought there were enough without me. I saw the vehicle in the Strand just after I had heard a shout, which I imagined had been given when you started. Really, though, I did feel some tender pity for my fair friends, who might be a little annoyed at these civic honours. You are an unassuming man, or you would have mentioned the above civic honours in your letter, but you find they were not lost upon me. Yours, C. H. S. Dr. Sampson came to see them at Derby in the course of the autumn, and his visit was succeeded by one from Mrs. Nettleship and a daughter. He took the opportunity of renewing his old endeavours to induce my father to attend afternoon service. With a mixture of humour, he dates a sentence of his letter : ' Sunday noon (by anticipation). I wish you would ask Mrs. Nettleship to desire her daughter to request your wife to persuade you to go to church this afternoon.' At this date we were attending All Saints' Church. I cannot myself remember my father not making a custom of attending afternoon service. Whether he was present in mind as well as in body is much more than I am able to say. It was not always so in my own case. 330 DR. SAMPSON. CHAPTER LII. DR. SAMPSON. EARLY in the spring of next year, 1820, Dr. Sampson was consulted as to my future disposal. I had been now two years at Higginson's, doing nothing but Latin ' Delectus,' accounts, and weekly letters ; not a bit of Greek. What school would Dr. Sampson re- commend ? He seems to have answered promptly, Charterhouse, and Mr. Watkinson, whom he knew. So there I went after Whitsuntide. Meanwhile Dr. Sampson had called on my sister Jane at Kensing- ton, and prepared her for a call from me. But his letter, of April 18, 1820, when this point had been settled, throws some light on the unique position then occupied by Charterhouse in public opinion, and lets out a little secret, withheld from me, I might say, till this very day. I have said, and I say still, that I cannot re- member the time when I was not to be a parson. It appears, however, that my parents were now for making me an attorney Possibly they were affected by the failure of Dr. Sampson's expectations, and Mr. Wayland's, and by the numerous other cases of clerical poverty and obscurity within their know- ledge. Possibly they had learnt how little confidence was to be placed in the kind words of patrons, whether lay or clerical. But there was a more serious reason why a lay destination should be still in reserve. My mother, upon very good grounds, had 1 THE CRACK SCHOOL: 331 come to the conclusion that I was a trifler, and could not therefore be depended on for a vocation requiring earnestness. But an attorney ! To think of my be- ing an attorney ! Alas for my clients ! Alas for poor me ! I think it quite an even chance that I should have been hanged long ago. Dr. Sampson writes : I must now say what I have done. Mr. Watkinson will have two vacancies in his house at Whitsuntide, and I desired that Mozley might be immediately entered on the books of the school for the opening after Whitsuntide. Dr. Russell, the head master, was not at home, but Mr. W. has promised to arrange everything. ... I thought of writing to you to know whether you would have your son entered now, or run the chance of a vacancy after the Bartholomew Vacation, but I know you would be mortified in the event of a vacancy being lost. I was within a day of missing a vacancy when I applied for my last friend. ... I have pledged myself for a boy, and you must send one, and find the needful. But I want to reason the case for my friend Charles. After discussing Merchant Taylors', college exhi- bitions, and other matters, he proceeds : Setting aside the chance of an exhibition, beyond a doubt a young man would enter at a University with more eclat from Charterhouse than from Merchant Taylors'. Charterhouse is at present the crack school for scholars. It is a good deal patronised by the Universities. . . . But I have an observation or two to make with respect to Tom. It should not be known at Charterhouse that he is not intended for College, for I believe at all great schools they are most attentive to pushing forward those who are likely to do them credit at the University. And, quere, whether it would be well for him to know to a certainty that he is to bean attorney? Whether it might not slacken his efforts ? However, if he is already apprized that such is to be his destination, it would then be proper, perhaps, for you and his mother to take opportunities of pointing out to him the very public stand which he will in future take in society in conse- quence of his being at one of the first schools in the kingdom, 332 DR. SAMPSON. where he will be known by boys from all parts of Great Britain, and where he will have to establish a character for his future life, which will never be forgotten in the world. What high reputation as well as advantage it would afford him in his destined profession to be recognised as having been an ad- mirable scholar at the Charterhouse. ... I thought I might as well give a hint, as it is really of consequence. I am right glad that you have determined to send Tom to the Charterhouse, for, in addition to any advantageous connections that he may pos- sibly form there, the having been a Charterhouse boy will be an honour to him as long as he lives, and will secure to him a decided preponderance in society as a man of the law. ... I have not made a clear statement, but my brains at present are not calculated for accurate arrangement. But there really are a good many things to be considered in this business, and I am of course interested in my friends Tom and Charles. . . . God bless you all ! Yours faithfully, C. H. SAMPSON. The writer's conscious failure to express his own thoughts and feelings, which might possibly lead some readers to skip the last few sentences, has to me a serious significance. He came to Gainsborough, as I have said above, about the date of my birth. After being the good genius of the family for thirteen or fourteen years, he gets me into Charterhouse at that time a matter of great difficulty and breaks down finally in the very act, so as never to be him- self again. While taking all this trouble for me, Dr. Sampson was more seriously ill than he even thought. From this time his health rapidly declined. In his next letter with details, April 27, he says : I intended to have gone to Court yesterday with the Oxford Address [on George IV.'s Accession], but Dr. Johnson advised me not. I, however, saw the procession. It would have been too much for me. It was a most oppressive crowd. I saw my friend Captain Searle ten days ago, who received me with a FUNCTUS OFFICIO. 333 most expressive exclamation at my looks. . . . Dr. J. says my lungs are not as yet materially injured. ... I shall, of course, hear again before this Charterhouse boy comes to town. I should like to go with him to Mr. Watkinson. Contrive that he may arrive in the morning, as about noon will be the most leisure time at the school. I have no doubt of his being pleased with the School, the Masters, and the Boarding-House. Two or three days after the receipt of my first letter from school, my father writes to my eldest sister : Poor Dr. Sampson was too ill to take Tom to school. He is quite off the hooks ; ankles, hands, and knees swollen. He has to be carried from bedroom to parlour. Were you not sur- prised to see Tom ? He is a little creature [I was then quite diminutive for my age] to send so far from home by himself ; but, being a boy, we thought there was no risk. In a few weeks, July 24, Dr. Sampson wrote in- quiringly about me. He had expected me to write to him. From this letter it appears my father had again offered to lend whatever his illness might require : Your friend [the Doctor says, speaking of himself] is very much obliged to you for your kind offer of a loan, if necessary, but he seems to think that he shall be able to make both ends meet, somehow or other, by the end of the year. ... I will promise you one thing, that if ever I shall have occasion to borrow, you will be the first man I will apply to. I am, thank God, very well that is, very hungry, and very thirsty but I do not get very strong. Some weeks after this, September 1820, my father told Dr. Sampson of our unwilling change from All Saints' to St. Werburgh's. The Doctor replies : Your being driven away from All Saints', and being obliged to take shelter in St. Werburgh's, is a little mortifying ; but as to edifying, I hope you will not be a loser. You have been hearing 334 DR. SAMPSON. a most able man for some years, but I have thought sometimes that there was a deficiency of exhortation, the argumentum ad hominem, and also of doctrine. I like a good deal of Scripturism and spiritual investigation in a sermon ; and it is, moreover, necessary that people should be now and then ' stirred up with a long pole,' as an acquaintance of ours used to say [it was a favourite phrase of my father's]. Dr. Sampson's above estimate of Mr. Hope's ser- mons, which we had now been hearing for five years, will be held to bear out the late Primate's comment on my portrait of that remarkable character: The model clergyman of Derby, of whom Mr. Mozley gives so attractive and well drawn a picture, must have been one of the best specimens of this class. Bold as a lion in the discharge of his duty ; the friend of the whole town ; respected by its civic authorities, and on good terms with the country gentlemen round about, he would have been perfect had he been only a magistrate and not a minister of the gospel. Early next year, 1821, Dr. Sampson, with great heart, and little strength, gave his advice in a great family trouble. What was to be done with my eldest brother ? He could not settle down to his place in my father's business or, as seemed too likely, in any other business. His own thoughts ran wild on writer- ships, and cadetships, a commission in the army anything rather than desk-work. I must say here that every year adds to my sym- pathy for him. With natural gifts vastly greater than what I could ever boast, he had even less power of sticking regularly to work. Could a man have earned a livelihood by reciting any amount of Shakespeare, Pope, or Byron ; or by giving a brief and effective biography of every man ever honoured with a portrait, painted or engraved ; or by describing at length every MEN THE WORLD WAS NOT MADE FOR. 335 coat-of-arms, every carnage, every livery, or every horse he had ever seen ; or by talking the most amus- ing nonsense for hours together, then he might have held his own, and held it to the end. But there was no bread-winning occupation that I know of then within his compass. If I say the world ought to have found, or made, a place for him, that may seem absurd ; but it is not so absurd as to say that he ought to have squeezed his spacious and irregular dimensions into any triangular, quadrangular, or hexagonal cell the world might choose to offer him, for that was plainly impossible. Had his lot been cast half a century later, he had been at least more fortunate, for there has been an immense multiplication of literary and social opportunities in these days. However, at that time the problem was pressing and impossible. A compromise was come to, which could never be called successful, or anything more than a modus vivendi. My brother went into the office of a Man- chester attorney, settling afterwards first in town, then at Derby. Of his legal acquirements the best I know is that for twenty years he discharged, with credit, the office of Coroner for about half Derbyshire a desultory and idling employment, as it seemed to me, but more to his taste than sedentary work. Dr. Sampson helped towards this compromise by showing the utter impossibility of the other directions in which my brother's fancy had gone. Nothing could be done without favour, and Henry was now near twenty, too old for preparation. The military idea was not simply a dream of uniforms, mess- 336 DR. SAMPSON. rooms, and parades ; for about this time, on an alarm given by Betsey to the household, my brother was just stopped as he was slipping off with his portmanteau to join the Neapolitan revolutionists. While discussing the ins and outs of poor Henry's case, Dr. Sampson describes his own prostration, ter- rible cough, and ' rheumatism.' He had evidently worn out the patience of the people at his lodgings in Leytonstone, if they ever had any, for he was now in new lodgings : I have every comfort, attention, and solicitude from the family I am with. I am not where you have hitherto seen me. No, No, No, No, God be praised, for Mrs. C. is a brutal creature to sick people. She hates them. This is a sad story. You will be sorry, and so will my kind friend Mrs. M. Write immediately. Do, Do, Do. This is the first regular letter I have written for many weeks. God bless you all ! Amen, with all my heart. I have often thought of your library and parlour in my illness. Yours ever, C. H. S. On a comparison of dates it appears that such was his condition while giving all his mind to the embarrassing question now before his Derby friends. As a last chance, he was now moved to Bath. The widow of the Principal of his College had found good lodgings for him. Dr. Sampson was of Magdalen Hall, and the widow must have been Mrs. Ford. The journey had been terrible, as most journeys were to invalids in those days. I was not prepared for the cold. Shivering, ill for twenty miles before I got any clothing. Asked for a blanket. Got a new, thick cloak. Yet in this letter he returns to the question FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 337 whether a military acquaintance of the family could, or would, do anything for Henry. The said colonel always professed to be a friend of the Duke of York as well he might be, for he was of good family wealthy, and a handsome figure. But Dr. Sampson observes he is a proud, vain, weak, selfish man, who would only use his influence just as it suited his vanity. Then a word about his own expenses. He had at last accepted a loan from my father. A good Providence surely has provided for me bountifully. I took my estimate of expenses too high, but I considered myself acting under your eye. I spared nothing. Weak, but not uncomfortable. Speak low, but tranquil. Quite happy. God bless you, and your wife and children, in every undertaking, and n every possible way ! Ever, ever yours, C. H. SAMPSON. Next month a letter from his lodgings told the end. My father and mother immediately went to Bath, and saw him buried in the Abbey Yard. I always believed they also ordered a tablet in the Abbey, but I have looked for it in vain. They had 1 left at home our last-born sister, Edith, in her usual health, but not a strong baby. On their return they planned to make a stay at Lichfield, where I, my eldest sister, and her friend Margaretta Heineken, were to meet them in the ' sociable ' and bring them home. We were all a long time in Lichfield Cathe dral. My motHfer went into tears over Chantrey's Sleeping Children. A strange gloom possessed me. Under one of the seats of the sociable was a black provision-box, for all the world like something else. It was produced as soon as we were well out of the VOL. I. Z 338 DR. SAMPSON. town on our return, and laid on this lap or on that. I became certain something had happened. A hundred yards from our house at Derby an employe met us, and whispered something to my father. Edith was dead. She had been taken with congestion of the lungs. The eldest of the family left at home was a sister, nine years old. The Hadens, our medical attendants, could not be found, either father or son. At last one came, too late to do any good. Thus a long and tender friendship, which had always in- cluded every member of the family, was closed at last in a double sorrow. It may be asked why I have given so much space to a man who did so little and who left no mark. Few indeed of my readers can have heard the name. The question only raises another. How came it that Dr. Sampson left no mark? He published nothing but the sermon I have mentioned. I have perused it once more. The Doctor gives some of his Indian experiences, and dwells on the singular claims of India, and the special facilities it seems to offer to missionary enterprise. The people are naturally gentle, and are willing attendants in our houses, on our journeys, in our amusements, and even in our churches, for they stand by and look on while we worship. Their own superstition has much in com- mon with our faith, possibly in the way of leakage from our older truth. They have their Incarnation, their Mother and Child, their mystic Triad, and much more. The preacher does not add that an- cient Paganism had all these also. His argument is stronger when he speaks of our positive duty, that is, TALKERS AND WRITERS. 339 if we care for our faith, and of the hold that such men as Schwartz acquired on the Hindoo mind. I suppose that our much-loved friend had not even the physical strength to write much, or even a little with much power. His weekly sermons took what strength he had. But I also remember that in those days it was usual to speak of authors as second- rate people. The talkers were the men of real talent, and it was they who found their way to the tables of the great, or to the best positions in the Church. Writers were believed to be men with personal or social disqualifications, eavesdroppers, or vultures, who picked up what better men had said, and made books out of droppings. Mrs. Parish, with whom I have said my eldest sister was for some time, had a horror of authoresses. She divided people into three classes men, women, and women who write. In the year 1822 we, at Derby, performed Pyramus and Thisbe, and my eldest sister wrote a very pretty account of the whole matter, the preparation, the difficulties, and the mis- haps. I had proposed to her to contribute it to a school magazine. I took it in my pocket and expected to gratify Mrs. Parish with this proof of her pupil's powers. She gave me to understand, by words and looks, that she much disapproved of young ladies writing for any eyes but those of their intimate friends indeed, generally of female authorship. Dr. Sampson was much too high-minded to write for the purpose of recommending himself. As for writing to make money, he wanted it certainly, but he could never have married upon authorship. He Z 2 340 FROM DERBY TO LONDON often said he could have saved to put by 2OO/. a year, but he could not bring himself to save 2O/ CHAPTER LIII. FROM DERBY TO LONDON. IT was found I was making no progress at Mr. Higginson's. I and my younger brother Charles en- tered the school together, and it was natural we should be mated at first, for we had both to begin Latin. He was much taller than I was, and he could deliver his words much more easily and distinctly. I had felt it an indignity, for we had never been so paired in our home studies. But I had to submit to it, and that for two years, for we were always regarded as twins'. This betrayed something wrong in the school. In 1819 my parents began to think of moving me. It must have been in that year that they spent a week or two at one of the Matlock boarding-houses, and met Dr, Bathurst, Bishop of Norwich. They were always glad of the opportunity of meeting clergy of learning and position. My mother dropped that she had a son at Repton, my brother John. The Bishop inquired his age and what he was doing. My brother would then be fourteen, and my father named the books he was in The Bishop's reply was far from satisfactory. The boy must be rather backward, or the school very indifferent I was not brought on the scene, but my mother let out the number of her INSIDE THE MANCHESTER MAIL. 341 family, which, as she was then only thirty-six, was something to be proud of so at least the Bible tells us. The Bishop replied, ' Ma'am, I'm one of thirty- six. My father had twenty-two by his first wife and fourteen by his second. We've not been too many to get on pretty well in the world.' I daresay I had the -benefit of this conversation eventually. Dr. Sampson, as I have said above, was consulted. He strongly recommended Charterhouse, and obtained from his friend Mr. Watkinson the promise of an admission into his house the best house, Dr. Sampson believed it. I travelled inside the mail, and my father had to book my place from Manchester, paying three guineas and a half for it. If the value of a journey is to be measured by the pleasure it gives, by the new information it brings, and by the enlargement of the mind, never was there a cheaper fare. I had already studied the ' County Atlas,' and for many years after this I could give in order all the towns and villages, all the change-houses, churches, and rivers, in this voyage of discovery. Succeeding journeys could not add to the distinct- ness of my first impressions, I am not sure they did not confuse them. Derby, I must tell my readers who do not know the town, or who have only seen its dingiest and least picturesque suburb from the Railway Station, has good claims to be considered the centre of this island. It divides picturesque from unpicturesque England. From St. Alkmund's Church you may walk on hills and mountains to Scotland, or on a bowling-green to London. There were indeed some elevations on 342 FROM DERBY TO LONDON. the road I travelled, but Highgate was the highest. There was the miniature granite range at Mount Sorrel, older, I am told, than Switzerland. Then there was the Trent, and some smaller rivers. There were historic towns and battlefields, the Abbey where Wolsey died, and an Eleanor's Cross near Northampton ; there were churches, towers, and spires Market Harborough chief of them St. Alban's, and the remains of old Verulam. The sun had risen when I first saw the dome of St. Paul's from under Highgate Archway. It must have been late in May, and there was not much night. I arrived at a cousin's house at Aldermanbury, in the city, a few steps from the ' Swan with two Necks,' about half-past five in the morning, expected and kindly received. As I shall have to mention my kind host and his two sons frequently, I may as well explain that he was only my father's cousin by marriage. His wife was our relative. Elderly, in- firm, and now down in the world, she was soothing, cheering, and helping all about her with unfailing gentleness. After breakfast my host went with me on foot to Phillimore Place, Kensington, where my eldest sister was at school. I much amused him by pointing out all the public buildings on the road, and telling him more than he knew about them. I had a long talk with my sister and Mrs. Parish, who very kindly exhibited to me her dozen pretty pupils, as they marched in file to the room where they were to have a dancing-lesson. She was in considerable excitement. Every Monday morning there passed before her windows MRS. PARISH. 343 an endless cavalcade of open carriages, containing all sorts of people going to pay their respects to Queen Caroline at Brandenburgh House. Mrs. Parish closed all her front shutters, and kept herself and her pupils to the back rooms, till the tide had flowed and ebbed again. A sad blow was in store for Mrs. Parish, who shall tell it in her own words, written in 1821 : I have myself met with a sore vexation, no less than having had one of my late pupils disgrace herself by going to Bran- denburgh House, when some address was presented to the poor Queen. Little did I expect that a young person of whose heart and understanding I had so good an opinion as those of Miss Price, would so soon forget the sentiments inculcated upon her whilst under my roof, as, within a few months after quitting it, to join the tagrag and bobtail rabble, consisting, in spite of satin gowns and ostrich plumes, of every variety of vulgarity and disreputability. Having identified herself with such, she has rejected and forfeited my esteem, and therefore I can never see her again with pleasure. Had it been from compulsion I should acquit her, but her parents, whatever may be their politics, are too indulgent not to have excused her going had she felt a repugnance to it. All England and most houses were divided on this miserable affair. As a rule the men were very strong, not to say worse, against George, and the women against Caroline. This, I suppose, is the case generally in such matters. Leaving Phillimore Place, and striking across to Bayswater, we returned to the city by Oxford Street and Holborn. After a short rest, I and the younger son, about my own age, started for the Tower, of which we saw as much as we could see late in the day. The chief attractions at that period were the 344 FROM DERBY TO LONDON. lions, the ' beef-eaters,' the Traitors' Gate, the blocks and axes, the regalia, and a very long room along which you had to pass a line of wooden horses and wooden men in complete armour. I never could dispel the terrible idea of the whole line moving on and trampling me underfoot. I may as well take this opportunity of anticipating a friend who will be re- minded that he once asked me if I had seen the lions washed in the Tower, when I fully accepted the idea, forgetting that it was the First of April. Upon returning from the Tower I saw most of the important buildings in the city a pretty good sequel to a hard day's work, following a night on the road. I must have been nearly a week with my city cousins, so much did we manage to see before I was finally shut up in Charterhouse. I saw the judges going somewhere in state, and the Lord Mayor. I did St. Paul's thoroughly. There was one great disappointment : we could not get into Westminster Abbey or Hall, as the preparations for the Coronation were already in hand, and not even for Divine Service could strangers be admitted. The King wanted to have this as early as possible, in July that year, I think ; but Queen Caroline was at Brandenburgh House, announcing her intention to share the honours of the day. It was apprehended that the metropolis might rise on behalf of one against whom there was nothing but the allegations of interested parties. So in July the Coronation was postponed by proclamation to the next year. In this week of wonders I saw George IV. go in state to open his first Parliament. It was, to me, a QUEEN CAROLINE. 345 very grand affair. We took our places in the crowd that almost filled the street opposite the Horse Guards. There were neither cheers aor groans that I can remember ; it was simple curiosity. There was, however, some confusion. The spectators could not be induced to allow sweep enough for the eight horses that would have almost to stretch across the street before their heads could be turned to Palace Yard. So at the last moment the crowd had to be pushed back by main force. I very much amused my Derby friends by the exuberant loyalty with which my next letter described ' His Majesty and his four royal brothers.' All five had had a good deal of the shine taken out of them in popular estimation. I may as well mention here that next year, on the morning of the Coronation, I saw the poor lady herself. We had all leave to be out for the day, with proper invitations. My city cousin took me off early to reconnoitre. Towards the south end of Parliament Street, a few doors from Palace Yard, we heard loud hurrahing, and met a large and excited crowd. We had just time to get on a doorstep, and there passed, at a walking pace, an open carriage, in which was a lady whom we could not fail to recognise. She seemed very excited ; her colour was high ; and she had several large ostrich feathers in her bonnet. The carriage and surrounding crowd passed up the street out of sight. The future Cardinal's eldest sister was then within a few yards of me, and we always agreed as to what we had witnessed. In a slight volume of reminiscences Lord Broug- ham says that the zeal of the mob was instantly 346 FROM DERBY TO LONDON. damped by the repulse at the entrance of the Hall. No doubt Lord Brougham knew what he meant when he said this ; but I can only say I never saw a more noisy crowd. Its noise and its gestures, how- ever, would not signify much. What indeed did they mean ? They meant that the mob were delighted to see so much spirit, even under desperate circum- stances, and were satisfied that the poor Queen had done her best to assert her rights, even if it only amounted to one more fruitless annoyance. As it was, her attempt concentrated the mob, and drew it away from Palace Yard, leaving the assemblage there smaller and less noisy. This might be what Lord Brougham meant. Mr. Stapleton, of Eversley, once described to me the intense anxiety of the authorities as to the point of the expected collision. No orders, no programme, would be sufficient of themselves, for all would depend on the man that had to carry them out. So a very handsome and graceful young officer was selected, who combined the requisite gentleness and stern- ness. I forget his name. He did his work well. No lady was to be admitted without showing her own ticket. The Queen demanded admission as of right, being the Queen of England. The young officer stated his orders. She then presented Lady Hood's ticket, but in vain. Country people often complain of the overwhelm- ing fatigue of the first visit to town, if they have to be much in the thoroughfares, and generally on foot. How came I to be able to do and see so much in three or four days, beginning with a night's travelling, ABNORMIS SAPIENS. 347 and after that never once upon wheels ? Perhaps it was easier then than now. The pavements were much freer for pedestrians ; the wheel traffic was little and slow ; the noise was not so distracting and wearing ; the crossings suggested little danger, and compelled no delays. Yet I do remember that my father, soon after that date, persuaded Mr. Ordish, of Ingleby, a farmer and self-taught philosopher, to go up for a week's visit to my kind cousins, and see London for the first time. The poor man was so dazed, stunned, and stupefied by the endless variety of sights and sounds, that at the end of the second day he found himself in the case of Queen Sheba, for there was no more spirit left in him. He could only entreat to be allowed to return home immediately, and his condition was so alarming that it was deemed best to comply. His preparation, however, had been very different from mine. I had always lived in towns. His home and the home of his ancestors was a quiet little nook near the southern bank of the Trent, and close to the rock-hewn habitation of an anchorite, well known as Anchorchurch. Mr. Ordish, like the old anchorite, required time and perfect quiet for his lucubrations. An old woman of his parish relates that when he heard of the first intended railway the Manchester and Liverpool, I suppose he took to his bed, and after a week got up, saying, ' England will be a net- work of railways.' 348 MY SUBSEQUENT JOURNEYS. CHAPTER LIV. MY SUBSEQUENT JOURNEYS. MY subsequent journeys between Derby and London, near thirty of them in five years, were not so costly or so comfortable. I had to be content with the stage-coaches, and, though I think there was always an appeal to my choice, I travelled mostly outside in all weathers. The journey took seventeen or eighteen hours, and there was always a night in it. What cold, what wet, what snow, did I not suffer ! What wakefulness, what sleepiness ! Towards the close of a wakeful night, there was no life in me, not even enough for sleep. I felt as one of Milton's convict souls, wedged in deep- ribbed ice. When the sun had risen an hour or two sleep came, not to refresh, but to torture me. As I sat, one long summer's day, in the back seat of the basket, or boot, and kept continually nodding, with my legs dangling over the hind wheel, an old lady on the opposite seat conceived the very natural apprehension that I might fall forwards and be probably killed. So besides continually scolding, she watched my eyes, and whenever they closed gave me a sharp poke in the ribs with her umbrella. It is quite possible that she saved my life, for which I still thank her. I once travelled vis-d-vis with a thin, pale, elderly woman, ill-clad in black, who never once got down, or even moved to shake off the snow that settled on her lap and shoulders. I spoke to the guard about OUTSIDE THE STAGE-COACH. 349 her. He said she had come from Edinburgh, and had not moved since changing coaches, which she would have to do once. She feared that if she once got down she would not be able to get up again. She had taken no food of any kind. I have frequently heard similar instances of endurance in the longsuffering sex, some incredible but for the authority they came with. In May 1800, my mother, in her seventeenth year, came to London with her younger sister from Bridlington. They came in a collier, at the invitation of its owner, a relative. The winds proved adverse, and they were tossed about a whole fortnight. My mother scarcely touched a morsel of solid food ; her sister not a morsel, only a few cups of coffee. On their arrival at a relative's house my mother went to bed. In a few hours she was waked up. ' You must go to Drury Lane, for the King is to be there, and you may not have another chance of seeing him.' She went. Her friend secured her a good place in the pit, just before the royal box. In a few minutes the King appeared in his box. Almost immediately a man stood up, within a yard of her, and discharged a pistol at him. This was Hatfield. Happening to return home a few days later than usual one Christmas, I found myself the only pas- senger. Outside and inside the coach was piled and crammed with fish and oysters. I was inside, and had hardly room to squeeze in. The guard was full of apologies, but appealed to his own hard case. There were a hundred and thirty packages to be dropped all along the road, and he had no little diffi- 350 QUI DIVITIIS culty in finding them. I had to help him. My situation improved gradually, but upon my arrival at Derby a certain ' ancient-fish-like smell ' betrayed my company on the road. The outside had the advantage over the inside in the variety and interest of the passengers. All families that could afford it travelled post in those days. It was not the thing for a young lady to travel alone in a public conveyance. How young ladies travelled I know not, but they did not travel so much as now. More than half the inside passengers on my route were ' Manchester warehousemen ' and others, whose business lay both in London and in Manchester, and who were bound to visit one or the other place once a fortnight or so. They were hard-working, hard-worked men, and they made the journey as much a rest as possible, saying little indeed, having little to say. The smell of the inside of a coach after a long night of closed windows is a thing never to be forgotten. I use the present tense, for here it is now. Outside we had characters and incidents. One journey I sat behind young Lockett, only child of our next-door neighbour, a very handsome and agreeable fellow, but who cared for little but cigars, so they said. He thought I did little credit to Charterhouse when I declined his kind offer of brandy-and-water and a cigar. I have to thank a Scotchman for teaching me good manners. One hot day, three-quarters on our way to town, I took out a bunch of grapes, and was consuming them one by one. ' I like grapes,' he SOLI INCUBUERE REPERTIS. 351 observed, looking at my treasure. So I had to divide them, and did not bless him at the time, though I do now. I sat once beside a young gentleman who had arrived from Brazil the day before. On some rooks rising from a field he looked astonished, and said he had not been aware there were eagles in England. It has ever since added to the respect I feel for these birds, in whose company I have lived more than half my life, and am still living. In one respect the road had a great advantage over the rail. It afforded many opportunities for stretching your legs, working your lungs, and quicken- ing your circulation. At a steep hill, or a bit of bad road, the coachman would come to the door and invite gentlemen to relieve the horses by getting out and walking. I was always only too glad to accept the invitation. I remember walking four miles, with all the other passengers, in what were then the deep sands between Retford and Worksop. It often oc- curred to me that as it had been within Lord Lincoln's experience and under his observation that this road had been at last macadamised, he might have given the public the benefit of that example when our army was suffering horrors for want of a hard road to Balaclava. The coaches stopped twenty minutes for break- fasts, dinners, and teas. Half-frozen and cramped as I was I usually gave up the meal, and, after duly warn- ing the coachman, set off walking and running. I frequently made three miles, sometimes nearly four, before the coach overtook me, and occasionally re- 352 MY SUBSEQ UENT JO URNE VS. ceived a full vial of the coachman's wrath for frighten- ing him, as he had given me up altogether. I always felt a peculiar delight in running wild, as it were, in a new country Returning to town one beautiful frosty moonlight night in January 1821, not far from Queen Eleanor's cross, near Northampton, we met another coach. Our coachman did not detect in time that the other coachman was asleep, and trusted to his taking his proper side of the road. The result was a collision, the wheels becoming locked, the harness giving way, and the horses scampering off over the fields. Both coachmen were thrown to the ground, and one much hurt. In Leicestershire we had picked up a school- fellow, of a good county family. With him I walked up and down the road for two hours, while a fresh team, indeed another coach too, were being got from Northampton. To me it is a very pleasant recollec- tion, saving the case of the poor coachman. My schoolfellow, who was no more hurt than I was, immediately upon his arrival in town went to an hotel, and wrote to his friends that he had been thrown from the coach, that his arm was badly hurt, and that the doctor called in had recommended that he should not move for a week. His friends were to write to Russell accordingly, which they did. At the end of a week he presented himself at school with the same story, and I never heard that it was doubted. I don't suppose it was the first, and it certainly was not the last, trick of the kind that he played. With a good figure, pleasant address, and fair abilities, he had neither a long, nor a happy, nor an honourable EXPECTED GIFTS. 353 career. I often wish that clever rogues could be made to understand that the very worst thing that can happen to them is complete success so complete that they are not even suspected. Miserable as the outside of the coach was in cold weather, I am not sure that the inside has not left a deeper sense of disgust. The inside of the mail was not an inch larger than was barely sufficient for the four human carcasses jammed in it. In 1820 the mail was rapidly increasing its speed, and the stage- coaches were obliged to do the same. This they could only do by imitating the light build and narrow dimensions of the mail. Indeed, the old six-insiders had now disappeared from England, and I only heard of them as still lingering in Wales. The dinners and breakfasts were a very great re- lief, and my recollection is that the good people at the inns did their best for us, though occasionally the tea, buttered toast, and eggs did not come in as early as they might, considering the short allowance of time. On the other hand, there was one great aggra- vation of the pains of travelling, unknown in these days. Both coachman and guard changed frequently, and as each gave place to a successor he presented himself to ask for a douceur. This alone cost me seven or eight shillings between Derby and London. It was not an irregularity, like feeing porters at a railway station ; it really constituted the pay of the men asking for it, and any one refusing to give the usual fee was a defaulter. VOL. I A A 354 LONDON IN 1820. CHAPTER LV. LONDON IN l82O. EXCEPTING in the public buildings, which, after all, are but a small part of a great city, I cannot re- member to have been very much struck with the superiority of London over the country towns I was acquainted with. The great thoroughfares were often squalid, and generally narrow, only expanding now and then in an unmeaning and formless manner. The city and all the other business portions of the metropolis were, and are, sadly deficient in the open spaces which are the making of most continental cities. I saw none to compare with the Market Place of Derby, or that of Nottingham, or even that of Gainsborough. But there was a wonderful mix- ture of the picturesque, the mean, the quaint, the vulgar, and the busy ; a certain provincial element making itself everywhere heard and seen. Wherever one went, even in the most central part and in the busiest thoroughfares, one had only to look up a passage, perhaps the merest foot-way, and one saw what looked like a carrier's yard or the curtilage of a country inn. It is not as I now compare London with the country, but as London of the past contrasts itself with London of the present, that the difference most strikes me. It is frequently said in these days that it is the shops that make London. It is the richest and most splendid bazaar in the world. At the time of the Exhibition in Hyde Park there were critics THE LEITH PACKET. 355 who said they thought the show in the Strand better. But there was a vast interval between 1820 and 1851 ; still more between the latter date and 1884. In 1820 there were not many panes of glass in London larger than a sheet of foolscap. The shops were nothing like so showy as now. The art of shop-fronts had hardly been discovered. One of the dullest-looking shops was Rundell & Bridges, on the north side of Ludgate Hill, which was pointed at as containing inexhaustible wealth in gold and silver. There was gas, but only in a narrow area. You were soon out of it. The contractor for the West- minster Gas Works himself took me over them long before they were ready for use. But England made a great start in the decade after the Battle of Waterloo. The sword was then turned into the ploughshare, and the spear into the pruning-hook ; though husbandry was not the first to benefit by the change. In 1813 or 1814 I had seen the first wretched attempt at a steamer on the Trent. Immediately upon hearing of the strange arrival, we children hastened to see it, and scruti- nised the uncanny craft from the Lordes Staith, the very spot where Canute is said to have sat and waited for the 'eagre.' In 1820 there were still over many offices in the ch.ef London thoroughfares large handsome paint- ings representing a yacht, or a smack, as I think it was called, carrying an immense quantity of canvas in a lively sea. This was the Leith packet. The picture no doubt represented the desired speed, rather than the capacity or the stability of the vessel. But A A 2 356 LONDON IN 1820. in 1823 I went to Scarborough in the 'James Watt/ a very fine steamship that was doing good work many years after, and was only superseded at last on account of its speed not meeting the increased im- patience of the age. We lay as near Scarborough as we could safely, and a dozen or so of the passen- gers, including myself and one of the members for the borough, put off ashore in a boat. The member's constituents gave him a salute with Captain Manby's life-saving apparatus, a very pretty exhibition, and the only time I have seen it. At these offices you were booked a berth in the yacht, for between London and Leith you would be at least two nights at sea. But there were also numerous announcements of the Margate Hoy, the Yarmouth Hoy, and other hoys, for which this was not necessary. The hoy did not draw so much water or carry so much canvas as the yacht ; but the classifi- cation of vessels is now so altered that I should be at a loss to fix upon its present representative. ' Hoy,' I take to be some word as ' home,' and to mean a ship employed in the home trade. I have said above that I knew all the great edifices at sight. Five years before this, in 1815, I iind myself, in letters to an imaginary London friend, expressing curiosity about them and desiring infor- mation. So I was now quite at home. The General Post Office was hard to be found in a narrow wind- ing passage between the old Royal Exchange and Lombard Street. The whole region of St. Martin's- le-Grand was much as it had been rebuilt after the Great Fire. THE PALACES. 357 There had now been for some time in full opera- tion, and of great utility, that strange precursor of nineteenth century progress the London Twopenny Post as if London alone possessed common sense, and could help itself. There was about an acre of water-works with machinery in motion at the foot of London Bridge on the London side. To 'shoot' the bridge itself was a feat which I several times accomplished with an agreeable suspicion of danger. Wooden water-pipes were universal, and when a plug was opened there often came out eels, as I have witnessed. There was a large floating-bath moored west of Blackfriars Bridge, in which I often bathed. To my recollec- tion the water was greenish, but nothing worse. I did not think about it. There was a Chinese bridge over the canal in St. James's Park, but the pagoda had just been re- moved to Kew. Carlton House had not been taken down. The screen was very handsome, but what one saw of the house behind it was not imposing. Over a large area of low and irregular buildings in crumbling brick and dull cement, without a sign of royal antiquity, rose the roof of Westminster Hall. Buckingham House was a red brick mansion, south of which an occasional cart or waggon might be seen on its way to the market-gardens behind. The hours were struck by figures at St. Dunstan's before a gaping crowd. Norfolk Street was quite genteel. The Strand was so narrow that carriages could only just pass one another all the way from Exeter Change to Charing Cross. From Pall Mall 358 LONDON IN 1820. northwards an immense clearance was in progress. As far as one could see, it was a wide vista of ruins, as of a city bombarded, or overthrown by an earthquake. At the lower end Waterloo Place and Regent Street were slowly rising, under a storm of maledic- tion from all the architects and the whole Whig party. If curses could hurt brick walls, not one brick would now be left standing on another from Pall Mall to Regent's Park. My impressible imagination took it all in, and I could think of no other future for Regent Street than a Tadmor of lath-and-plaster. It was not only poor Nash and his stucco that was in fault. It was even a more fatal error, not to say national sin, to suppose that the world of fashion would ever leave its dear old Bond Street to wander through slums just disguised by architectural screens, like those which travellers reported to meet the eyes of the Czars on their long journeys. For a whole generation the very name of Nash would set a Whig going ; indeed, I think, till a peace-offering was found in the demolition of the cast-iron colonnades lining the Quadrant. East and West, North and South, wherever a blank wall gave the opportunity, immense posters invited small speculators to purchase lottery-tickets from Bish, or some other agent, who could give incontestable proofs of the luck his office had always enjoyed, and the immense prizes his customers had lately won. Moorfields and Spafields could still show some acres of green, the latter utilised for open-air preach- ITS NARROW LIMITS. 359 ing. Newington, north of the former, had to be reached over a mile of green. The site of Woburn Square, Tavistock Street, and Gordon Square, was then in market-gardens. Russell Square and Meck- lenburgh Square, with Guilford Street between them, had not been built more than twenty years. There was not a Club to catch the eye by its architecture. Hyde Park was hidden behind a high brick wall, with here and there a closed door, all the way from Piccadilly to Kensington. Half way was an inn upon the north side of the road, usually beset by carriers' carts and stage-waggons. In the city most of the inns had large square courts, surrounded by open galleries. I believe it was so in the Borough too. But even so late as 1830 the metropolis could scarcely be said to extend beyond the Regent's Canal, finished ten years before. Continuous build- ing makes a town, and that generally ceased at the Canal. From most parts of London you could reach it in twenty minutes, and find yourself in green fields or nursery-gardens. This involved a great want of habitation for the working classes. About that time I was lamenting the condition of the agricultural poor to a ' Manchester warehouse- man ' in the city, when he exclaimed, ' Send me a boy who is active, honest, and civil, and I will find him work.' The requirements were not without knotty points, but the fatal difficulty was where to lodge the poor boy. Not long after, I represented to a large employer in the city the great advantage it would be to his men if they could lodge in the 360 LONDON IN 1820. suburbs, and walk to and fro. As it was, they were paying exorbitant rents for single rooms, or for two rooms if they had anything of a family. The answer was that there were no houses to be got for them, except a long way off and at high rents. Since that time the greater part of the inhabitants of the city, and like portions of the metropolis, have yielded to the centrifugal forces driving them out of Old London. To a description of the metropolis which may appear to carry one back to the last century, it seems strange to add that in 1820 Vauxhall Bridge, Water- loo Bridge, and Southwark Bridge had all been completed and opened. It could hardly now be imagined how little use was made of them, so little traffic was there, and so much did people think of pence in those days. I must frequently have seen the two latter bridges in the middle of the day with- out a passenger on them, either on foot or on wheels. Enterprise and engineering were actually in advance of the public requirements. India and what people used to regard as its de- pendencies, including China, are no doubt now more largely represented in the Empire than they were in 1820. But they are not so distinctly presented in the metropolis, or on the Thames. There was the India House, credited with wonderful treasures and archives. The East and the West India Docks were then the emporia of colossal monopolies. Here and there, down the river, were anchored what I sup- posed to be, of course, line-of-battle ships : so lofty their rigging, so high did the hulls stand out of the 1 'OCEAN LINERS OF THE PERIOD. 361 water, and so many were the frowning port-holes. These were only Indiamen. They were not half the length or a third the tonnage of a common ocean liner of our days, and they would usually take half a year in sailing to Bombay or Calcutta. But they were comfortable, safe, and dry, and they would stand a great deal of knocking about. They carried a respectable armament, and were a match for ordinary privateers. But there were other enterprises and other parts of the world better represented at the port of London than they now are. Whalers used to sail from docks at or near Deptford. I well remember making my way through acres half flooded with train- oil, to get a look at the ships, and enjoy a reminder of my native town. CHAPTER LVI. LONDON IN 1820. IN these days it is accounted one of the greatest achievements of administration to keep order among millions of people pursuing their respective courses within one continuous mass of houses and other buildings. In 1820 this problem was dealt with in an easier and more summary fashion. It might be that not so much was attempted, but it certainly was done with much less trouble and cost, as well as much less show. The only guardians of peace and property 362 LONDON IN 1820. in the night were the watchmen old men, past other work, who, in great-coats, and with lanterns and rattles, went the rounds, and sang out the hour of the night, and the weather. ' Charleys ' they were called, the lawful butts of schoolboys and the like. There were no policemen. This may seem in- credible. There were plenty of pockets to be picked, and plenty of fellows on the look-out to pick them. So somebody there must have been to come between the pocket and the thief. The only institution I remember for this purpose was the beadle, with a large cocked hat and a heavy coat ; generally an elderly man, and each one tied to his own beat. There were not many beadles out of the city. There is still a specimen at Ely Place, Holborn. The guar- dians of Burlington Arcade are survivors of the old species, but more able-bodied and lively than the city beadles I remember. There were few mobs, though when there did happen to be one it had its own way. One used to hear of Bow Street, and Bow Street officers, or ' runners,' but I never saw in my school days either one or the other. At Charter- house, Russell, on coming in for the afternoon school, I suppose at half past two, said quietly, ' I've had my pocket picked of a handkerchief, and got a man sen- tenced to seven years' transportation for it.' In Fleet Street he had felt a man's hand at his pocket, and turning round he saw the fellow and gave chase, in which he was assisted. The man was soon caught. The captors took him at once to the Old Bailey, where the Recorder was engaged in a trial. On hearing the NE MAJOR PCENA QUAM GULP A SIT. 363 news, and seeing Russell, one of the best known figures in London, he suspended the trial he was engaged on, heard the new case, which was of course undefended, and passed sentence on the offender twenty minutes from first to last we were told. The Recorder explained to the satisfaction of all parties that Dr. Russell had to be back again to Charter- house immediately, and could not wait. It must, have been in 1820 that one Monday my city cousin asked me before breakfast if I would like a turn. He took me by streets I did not know, and all at once we found ourselves in a quiet and not very compact body of spectators before a scaffold at Newgate. St. Sepulchre's bell was tolling. A small door opened. Six men walked out, and in five minutes or less were all dangling from ropes, visible from head to foot as I remember, and throwing themselves into hideous contortions. I don't remem- ber that there was any person or any arrangement to keep order. Curiosity was soon satisfied, and the people walked away. I doubt if any of the six would have had more than a year's imprisonment in these days. I am bound to add that years before this there was a conscience against such severity, and against public executions. At Derby, I think in 1818, two men were hanged for rick-burning. It was to be at noon, for the convenience of the market people who might wish to see it. There had been an ancient twelve o'clock -service at All Saints' for the market people, and this was the modern substitute. Hig- ginson, whose house was a few doors from the county 364 LONDON IN 1820. gaol, sent us home by a back door, with a charge to keep indoors. But he could not have been duly in- formed of the whole programme. The men were to be left hanging for three hours. So when we went to the afternoon school, there they were. I was horror- struck, and in a sense sickened. There came to my nostrils a sensation I cannot describe, which for many years returned to me at the remembrance. As a matter of fact, strange as it may seem, I had no such reminder of my Newgate experience. My father used to tell a story of a servant-girl at Gains- borough, who got leave to walk to Lincoln to see an execution. She returned in the evening in tears. There was a reprieve. In 1820, and for many years after, the only in- habitants of the Isle of Dogs that I ever saw were three murderers hanging from a gibbet. But all that part was quite out of London. In 1823, after being devoured by vermin at a wretched inn, the only one at Blackwall, I had to pick my way over planks, rough stones, and dirt, down a long shelving shore, to a boat in waiting to take passengers to the Edinburgh steamer. One spectacle I must notice, for few living people can have seen it, and few can form any idea of it. This is the pillory. On approaching St. Sepulchre's from the west one day, I saw a crowd before New- gate, and in the midst of it something that one had to make out A large door, on a low platform, revolved round a perpendicular central axis. On one face of the door you could discern with difficulty a head and a pair of hands. When the other face of THE GIBBET AND THE PILLORY. 365 the door came round, there was a body without head or hands. Neither exhibition was at all effective. The crowd looked on quite silent and indifferent. I asked several bystanders who it was. None could answer. I found afterwards that it was a fellow- townsman, who had committed perjury in the Bank- ruptcy Court. I have heard it said that nobody ever got over the discredit of being in the pillory. Of that I am not sure. Prynne certainly is an excep- tion. On the other hand I am quite sure nobody ever got over the discredit of putting a man into the pillory Laud, for example. It was an utterly bar- baric idea, worthy of Chinese or Ashantees. What I saw was, I believe, the very last instance. These words remind me that I was, I believe, the last Junior Soph at Oxford. There's a problem for undergraduates. What can this mean ? It is hardly worth explanation. The comic weeklies of the present day may have their faults, but they are an immense improvement on their predecessors of 1820, which was long before ' H. B.' had come to the rescue of taste and propriety. The caricatures in the shop windows, especially in' certain spots on the north side of the Strand, were worse than anything to be seen now, revolting to decency as well as to loyalty and religion. Vauxhall Gardens were still an attraction, with their glow-worm illuminations, their cold ham and fowl, and the performances on a tight-rope fifty feet overhead, in a blaze of rockets. The suburban tea-gardens were humble enough, but they were generally frequented by daylight, and 3 66 LONDON IN 1820. were no encroachment on a night's rest. But it is when one tries to recall the places of refreshment that one sees the greatest change. You were in- vited everywhere to eat alamode beef in low, dark, stuffy rooms, or stewed kidneys in gaping cellars. In the city and along the river, there were ' shades,' in which wearied men retired to dark cavernous holes for half an hour, and drank wine from the wood. I remember Mayo, of Oriel, men- tiDning that a city friend had gone to the same ' shades/ and the same stall, at the same hour, for, I think, twenty-seven years. The whole of the time another man had come to the adjoining stall at the same time. At last, one hot summer's day, Mayo's friend resolved not to quit this world without know- ing who his neighbour had been. Lifting his voice, he said, ' Sir, you and I have sat here with a board between us now for twenty-seven years. May I venture to ask your name ? ' The only reply was, ' Sir, you're a very impertinent fellow.' There were no cabs, or omnibuses, or river steamers, but only ' hackney-coaches,' very slow, very dirty, very expensive, and very dismal altogether. Like all the four-wheeled carriages of that period, they were slung, with a combination of C-springs and leather straps, over solid perches connecting fore and hind wheels. Genteel people avoided them, and, for making calls, would engage a ' glass coach,' not very much better, but cleaner and more neatly appointed. I must mention, however, that it was always neces- sary to let down the glass before you opened the door, the glass being framed into the carriage as well HACKNEY-COACHES AND CABRIOLETS. 367 as the door. Country ladies and gentlemen had to break a glass or two, and pay for it, before they understood the arrangement. When my eldest sister was first taken to her school, Dr. Sampson insisted that she must go in a ' glass coach.' As she was starting, a kind lady drove up with the offer of her own carriage. But the glass coach already stood at the door, so they made a pro- cession to Kensington. In 1829 I had to convey self and portmanteau not quite a mile west from the 'White Horse,' Piccadilly. The hackney-coachman demanded and obtained five shillings. There were many porters carrying luggage on their shoulders, with frequent benches to rest on, and bulks, or broad shelves, to receive their loads. At these seats or bulks were always to be found several porters waiting for jobs. But anywhere, and at any time, you were as sure to find a porter as you now are to find a cab. This, however, applies more to the business part of London, and to the great thoroughfares, than to the quieter parts, or to the West End. The first improvement on the hackney-coach and pair was the cabriolet, an open, hooded, one-horse vehicle, with an outside wing, if I remember, for the driver. The first time I used, or indeed saw one, was at Easter 1830. It was the end of my probationary year, and I had to appear at Oriel for my full election. The Oxford mail was announced to start at a certain hour, and I imagined this to be from the General Post Office, St. Martin's-le-Grand. On arriving there, just in time, I found the start was from the 'White Horse,' 3 68 LONDON IN 1820. Piccadilly. I stated my case to a cabriolet-man, and he did the distance, I think, in seven minutes, happily saving the mail. At high-water, and on a fine day, the Thames was a pretty sight, and a lively one, but only to be seen well from the bridges, or from Adelphi Terrace, or from the Temple Gardens. The river was covered with row-boats, among which the barge of a city company would be seen now and then. This scene was sadly changed at low-water, but it is certainly quite within my time that the many acres of mud then exposed to the sun became so foul as they were when the Em- bankment became a necessity. The river could not be so readily and easily ap- proached as now, but wherever there was a landing- place you were beset by watermen tendering their services to take you across the river or for a row. Few young people came to town, even for a week or two, without going on the water. The London cries were many, and everywhere, and incessant. They had a music of their own. I was much reminded of them when, many years after, I first heard Roman Catholic services in Normandy as I was, too, of my old nursery lullabies. Between the Exchange and Temple Bar you were sure to see a Turkey merchant, in turban and robes, exhibiting on a tray genuine rhubarb, senna, or what not. In every street of the fashionable quarters you came on negro coachmen and footmen. A gentlemanly old negro held then, and for many years after, the crossing from Fleet Street to Ludgate Hill. He was reputed to be wealthy, but the city gentlemen liked ITS PROVINCIAL CHARACTER. 369 him the better for it. From that point to Holborn there was an avenue of low, slovenly market-sheds running in the middle of the wide street. Behind a high wall was Fleet Prison. I am pretty sure that at Newgate Prison there was still the stoutly-barred window, level with the pavement, within which were prisoners, both by word and by gesture soliciting the charity of passers-by for the supply of comforts, and I think, too, for the release of small debtors. I cannot have dreamt that. I was early impressed with the provincial character of London. The cockney might have been born with- in sound of Bow bells, but that was the whole of his natural connection with the city. His fathers came from meadows, mountains, moors, and fens. My good cousin in Aldermanbury had several old acquaint- ances, forced by stress of circumstances out of the Isle of Axholme. One of them had been wont to hear the complaints of the potato-farmers that the middlemen that is, the shipowners, the merchants, and the greengrocers got all the profits. Of course, when they went to town themselves, they had to buy by the peck what they had sold by the shipload, and had to pay accordingly. So our friend wisely resolved to try the line of a middleman. He came to town, and opened a very small shop in the Borough for the sale of potatoes only. He knew a good potato, and he knew where to get one. Soon he knew how to charge, and whom to trust. Adding to his business, and increasing it, he became a merchant, and accumulated I am afraid to say how many thousand pounds. His sole ambition VOL. I. B B 370 DAPES 1NEMPT&. had been to create an Isle of Axholme of his own, within reach of his business. Immediately after church on a Sunday, my cousin started with me fora visit to his fellow Islesman. Leav- ing High Street, in the Borough, and passing between tan-yards, we threaded out way through bits of lanes, and along dykes green with duckweed. At last, in an oasis of osiers and pollard willows, we found our- selves in such a settlement as one might then have expected in Illinois, or further west. A very homely couple were very glad to see us. We were regaled with home-fed pork, home-grown vegetables, home- baked bread, home-made butter, and home-brewed beer, and if there was any wine, no doubt it too was home-manufactured. After dinner we went the round of cows, pigs, poultry, and ducks, all close at hand, indeed almost under the same roof. There really was nothing to remind one of the metropolis. Our friend stood on his own ground, and he had made the place what it was. The whole domain, which was in Ber- mondsey, must be now quite covered with houses and railways. I look in vain for the whereabouts as I travel over a region now doomed to perpetual ugliness. I know not how my cousins had already become acquainted with the family of a gold assayer, pur- suing his quiet occupation in a narrow lane near Goldsmiths' Hall, behind where now stands the Post Office. The alchemist, for such he might have been taken for, did his work in a very small dark room, with what looked like an oven at his right hand, a broad ledge before him, and a window in front. On the window-sill were many bottles of chemicals. He THE MODERN ALCHEMIST. 37 r was himself a rather grim, very taciturn, elderly man. His large hands seemed hardly suited for delicate manipulation, and they were stained all over with the corrosive stuffs about him. Opening the oven-door, he disclosed a little furnace, from over which he took out very small earthenware cups, or crucibles as they are called. In what looked like ash, or other debris, there were very minute beads of shining metal. These were the gold or silver from which the alloy had been extracted by an acid or some other sub- stance under fusion. It must have been a tolerably thriving business in those days, for the assayer occupied a nice little house in a row at Kennington, to which I several times accompanied my cousins over the fields. As many as a dozen or a score samples would come in one morning, and as even the Goldsmiths' Company had then a small apparatus and a small staff, they sometimes employed the assayer when they had more than they could manage in a day. The wife of this taciturn gentleman, who must once have been pretty, was a good writer and listener till middle age, when she was run over by a cart and deprived of hearing. She then became a very good and continual talker. With abundance of tongue exercise, she lived healthy and happy to near a hundred. Her two daughters married my two cousins, and their grandchildren, indeed I think their great-grandchildren, are now well established here and there over the land. Her eldest son sought em- ployment under mining companies in America, and finally settled in Hatton Garden, where he devoted B B 2 372 LONDON IN 1820. himself to the then newly-discovered metal, platinum. I think I remember his receiving three thousand guineas from the Emperor of Russia for a caldron of platinum. All this was long before the gold dis- coveries. The old assayer's business is now in the hands of a firm containing one of his family, testing ordinarily five hundred samples a day, and frequently with more than it can manage. Only the other day my recollection of the as- sayer's crucibles, and the pretty little bright beads in them, suddenly occurred to me as the solution of a mediaeval legend. I think it was at the consecration of Cholderton Church that I was rather startled to see in the east window what I imagined to be a baptism by immersion, represented by three nude figures in a small bath. It was explained to me that St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the church, on visiting the poor in a famine, and smelling cookery, went into a house, and found that three mothers, who could no longer feed their children, had made up their minds to eat them, only saving the maternal instinct by each eating her neighbour's child, not her own. The children had been cut to pieces and were boiling. The saint reunited the scattered parts, and restored the babes whole and well to the mothers. Now St. Nicholas has ever been the saint of metallurgists, smiths, and jewellers, and I have come to the conclu- sion that the legendary caldron is the crucible, and the resuscitated children the precious metal after the alloy or other impurity had been, in a manner, boiled out of it. AN HOUR ON THE BALANCE. 373 CHAPTER LVII. MY DEBUT AT CHARTERHOUSE. I HAD been in my element lionising London. It was a new world, and, what was more, a new world long possessed and explored in anticipation. It was a new world in a most unusual state of excitement, with a new reign and under very novel circumstances, but not more than I had been hearing much of lately. In a few days I entered a world which I had not been able to anticipate. My city cousin deposited me and my portmanteau at Mr. Watkinson's, to whom I de- livered letters from my father and from Dr. Sampson. After five minutes, which left in me an indelible impression of his good-nature, Mr. Watkinson went out of the room, saying he would see what he could do for me. I remained more than an hour lost in admiration of a large new Turkey carpet, and some very good furniture. He returned with what was now the unwelcome intelligence that he must hand me over to Mr. Lloyd, to whom I went at once. Had Dr. Sampson been with me, as he had wished and intended, I daresay it would have been managed. Thus for more than an hour my fate was on the balance, for it must make a very great difference to any schoolboy whose house he is in. It was loss and gain in my case, and I think the gain preponderated. I should have been brought into close quarters, as far as regards living in the same room, with Bridge 'his iron bridge,' as the Bishop of Newfoundland 374 MY DEBUT AT CHARTERHOUSE. used to call him with Edgeworth and David Reid, with Kenyon, with John Murray, with Murdoch (of the Colonial office), with the present Dean of Christ- church, and with Bernal Osborne ; but I might also have been one of the more numerous crowd that have left no mark or record. Then it required a certain degree of independence, not to say isolation, for me to make up my heavy arrears, and this I might not have had in a closely-packed crowd of a hundred and fifty boys. At Lloyd's I was one of the first to arrive for the formation of a new house. It was simply a house in the Square, two doors from the well-known gateway. Mr. Lloyd was prepared for me, and received me with a kindness and gentleness that quite took me out of myself. There was nothing of the schoolmaster about him, as I quickly informed my Derby friends, and nothing of a school in the house itself, which was simply a well-furnished private residence. Two very young honourables, and a poor lost child, as he seemed to me, had arrived, and in a few days there came three more. But I had better go to the Green, and I was shown the way. I w r as to pass the grand old residence of the ' Master of Charterhouse,' then to me as mysterious a personage as the Lama of Thibet. I was to go under a lofty arch, then out between a high brick wall, thick-encrusted with centuries of smoke and dust, on my left hand, and the antique and moulder- ing habitations of the pensioners on my right ; then through 'gown-boys.' I was about to make my ctibut in the great world, A SALUTARY LESSON. 375 and to find myself in the midst of five hundred strangers, generally, I was well aware, a cut above me. I suppose I was bracing myself up for the trial. It came earlier than I had expected, and in a form which I was not prepared for. Half way to the Green I met a big gown-boy. He was out of bounds him- self, and was surprised to meet a very young stranger coming that way. He stopped, and said rather brusquely, ' What's your name ? ' To which I replied, I cannot conceive why, ' What's that to you ? ' He instantly administered a very severe thrashing, which was quite a novelty to me, indeed something beyond my comprehension. I crept back to my house in a very sad plight, sobbing and shedding floods of tears. I confided my sorrows to Mrs. Ryan, the Irish housekeeper, who had been a pretty woman in her day, and who now did her best to comfort me, asking me if my mother was not a pretty lady, and could I sing : As I was going to Derby, Sir, All on a market day, I met the finest Ram, Sir, That ever was fed on hay. By-and-by I recovered my spirits enough to make a second attempt, and I now entered my new world on a juster level of self-appreciation. If it was the present Dean of St. David's who performed the above salutary act of discipline, I hope he will excuse my mentioning what really he had a right to do, and what did me much good. Emerging from the Cloisters into the Green I was immediately surrounded by an inquisitive crowd. 376 MY DEBUT AT CHARTERHOUSE. My name, my abode, my father, what he was, &c. The only people of my name they had ever heard of were the family of the Staffordshire baronet. I stated that my name was not spelt as they spelt it, and that I knew nothing about them. They were pacified. But when, in a term or two, there arose a cry that Russell was sending all the nobility and gentry to his brother-in-law's house, I found myself still a count in that indictment. Consanguinity is one of those things that become fine by degrees and beautifully less very rapidly. I may have had, for aught I know, a thousand ancestors living at the time of the Reformation, each contribut- ing a thousandth part to my composition. Neverthe- less it is observable that the same form and character does reappear frequently with the same name, even when there is no known relationship, and when the names have long been spelt differently. Most of the bearers of my name, however spelt, that I have seen have a perceptible resemblance, affording a certain presumption of a common origin, at least since the Saxon occupation of this country, whatever that common origin may be worth. My first stage in my new state of existence is a very obscure passage in my memory. It excited some surprise, and must now seem incredible, that at the age of thirteen and a half I did not even know the Greek alphabet. At that age my brother James was translating Homer into very good English verse, and was very nearly elected to a scholarship at Corpus. Indeed I am sure he would have been elected but for the unhappy fate of a precocious child the College A RAW RECRUIT. 377 had elected a year or two before. Happily I did not look nearly my age. I was put in a class of about a dozen in the ante-room of the Upper School. It consisted chiefly of those who, like me, had just entered Lloyd's house, and I think it was he who heard us now and then. But there were several new gown-boys amongst them. One of them, I might almost say, now stands before me, so distinct is my recollection of figure, features, colour, and expression. This was Theodosius Anson. I have lately described him to his younger brother, who only knew that he had had such a brother, for he had no recollection of him. I did not make my appearance in the Under School till after the long vacation, or St. Bartholomew's holidays, as they were called. ' Now don't come back without knowing the Greek alphabet,' Lloyd had said to me ; and this I accomplished. I suppose I should have felt very much ashamed of myself but for the fact of my knowing much more about geo- graphy, history, politics, and things in general than even my elders in my house. I must have been slow and awkward, more so, indeed, than any of my brothers. I was decidedly provincial. Fortunately for me there were Yorkshire- men and Nottinghamshiremen in my house. Charles Childers at once pronounced me a north-country-man when I called the coal-scuttle a 'coal-pan.' Russell, whose ears had been early accustomed to the sweet but rather whiny sing-song of Northamptonshire, at once recognised a more northern utterance, and endea- voured in vain to rectify it. 378 MY DEBUT AT CHARTERHOUSE. For the first year or two I had a bad time of it at Charterhouse, all the worse on account of my getting on in the school and rising rapidly. In my own house I was surrounded by fellows who, even if they were not much older, were a head and shoulders taller. I was uppish, conceited, and not always agreeable. This marked me out as the proper victim of an amusement then fashionable in all ranks of society, and leading to sad consequences. Some of the fellows in my house made it their business to get up fights, to persuade boys they had been insulted, and that they were bound to save their honour by a pitched battle. There came two brothers straight from India, the Frenches, overgrown lads of neglected education. The youngest must have been three years my junior, but half as big again. He was set upon me by my persecutors. His way of fighting, which I was afterwards told was regular Indian, was to rush at me with both his fists in my face, turn round, re- ceive my blows on his brawny shoulders, and touch the ground with his knee when he had enough of that. This he did for a dozen rounds. I forget how the point of honour was settled. I got my face well bruised, but did not give in. We were good friends, unless what I have to say be a disparagement of both his goodness and mine. Finding himself behindhand with a school exercise, he asked me to do it for him, offering the bribe of a pretty Latin cross in red cornelian, the work of some Indian lapidary. I took the bribe, and presented it to a sister, who I believe has and values it still. But it lies on my conscience. Often when I have admired A DUEL. 379 some curiosity in a cottage or a farmhouse, have I been pressed to accept it, or to give what I thought its worth, and have declined to rob the family of its heirloom. The only result of my abstinence some- times has been to see the object destroyed, or passing into strange hands. I and R. J. A. R. R. Thompson, who added two more names to his long original list, and who became an important personage at the War Office, but who was much my junior, and a very good fellow, were cajoled, or compelled, to believe that we were bound to have it out with our fists. The encounter was in the bedroom. Four beds were rolled together for the platform. Combatants always feel their throats dry after the first round. There was no water in the bedrooms, for we did our ablutions in a washhouse on the ground-floor. But some of the boys were on the sick list, and had gruel. So with this we mois- tened our throats and breathed. After a dozen rounds, fought without a particle of animosity on either side, it was agreed that the battle should be finished at Middle Briars next day, the usual try sting-ground for the bitterest antagonists. Before the hour arrived we managed to come to an understanding, and cheat the common enemy, who were then ready to demolish both of us. The deficiency of the water-supply in some of our recent wars may possibly have reminded Thompson, or Gwyn, as he came to be named, of our extempore and insufficient substitute. 380 CHARTERHOUSE ON THE BELL SYSTEM. CHAPTER LVIII. CHARTERHOUSE ON THE BELL SYSTEM. I HAVE frequently been made sensible of a certain reluctance to allow to Charterhouse, as it was in my time, the title of a public school that is, of the right to be classed with Eton, Harrow, Westminster, and Win- chester. It is like the question whether Tacitus can be reckoned among the writers of the Augustan era, when his own writings are a continual protest against it. Charterhouse was a protest against the existing public schools. But, however it may be with Nature, which runs into types, human creations are seldom easy to classify, except with some sacrifice of exact truth. Charterhouse, as I found it early in 1820, was not in a state to resent disparaging comparisons with the schools I have named, for both in aim and in effect it was as unlike them as possible. Their whole idea, their composition, their formation and management, was traditional, prescriptive, almost hereditary, and very select. A boy went to the school which his parents and relatives had gone to. The school in this way was a society continually replenished with like materials, and strong in social unity for good or for ill. The school was in many respects more power- ful than the masters, and many a biography of the period records with pride some victory gained over the masters. This social unity was generally aristo- cratic, and disposed to deal hardly with intruders, as they were deemed, from the mercantile or professional classes. Indeed, there was little law for them, or THE OLD PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 381 grace either. They were often cruelly persecuted, and the certainty that they would suffer, perhaps be- yond their power to bear, kept many parents from sending their sons to a public school. Dreadful stories were current, exaggerations no doubt, though possibly founded on fact. The story of the boy left suspended before a hot fire while his tormentors were away on a sudden call, and found on their return roasted to death, is told of so many schools and with such variety of circumstances that I trust it is a fiction as much a fiction as the legendary origin of Dulce Domum. Schools invent, or propagate, stories one of another. In my time it was confidently stated at Charterhouse that the Westminster boys rented a row of ruinous houses, the partition walls of which they had broken through, for the purpose ot rat-hunting. However it might be, it was notorious that a boy could go for many years to one of these schools without bringing home much scholarship, the only thing he was expected to bring. When a boy was asked what he had done at school, and perhaps put to the proof, he would explain that he had never been called on, and that though he had been flogged fre- quently, he had never said his repetition yet. This the parents thought to prove the system utterly at fault, even though aware that they had never had more success with the young hopeful at home. They forgot, too, if they had ever known it, that the human mind, with the experience of some thousand years, has never yet discovered how to make a boy learn if he is resolved not to learn. 382 CHARTERHOUSE ON THE BELL SYSTEM. The public schools were expensive, and they in- stilled extravagant tastes. Parents did not bear in mind that they had sent poor lads to associate on equal terms with rich and titled lads. Charterhouse was to be an improvement on all this. It was to open its arms wide. It was to be cheap. It was to compel attention by means of a new system believed to work wonders. It was to discourage indulgence, and to allow no differences. It was to abolish fagging and all cruelty. It was to harmonise antagonist classes, different ages, and diverse natures. The wolf was to dwell with the lamb, and the leopard to lie down with the kid ; the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together ; and a little child, in the form of a monitor, or of a prae- positus, was to lead them. In my notice of William Dobson, ' Reminiscences,' chap, xxvii., I gave a necessarily brief account of that most extraordinary episode in the history of our public schools, the application of the ' Bell System.' Russell began the experiment shortly before I went to the school, which was early in 1820. It was thought a great and promising discovery, especially as regards cheapness. The numbers rapidly increased from about three hundred to near five hundred. New houses had to be opened, and they could not be opened fast enough. A cry of too close quarters was raised, and the governors, it was said, stepped in to limit the number admissible into each house. An application which my parents made in behalf of my brother Charles un- happily came at a time when Mr. Lloyd was under orders to reduce his number, which I think was A FIVE YEARS^ WONDER. 383 originally thirty-five, to thirty. Even with ' mutual instruction ' Russell had had to raise the number of masters from five to eight. I left early in 1825, and immediately after that the bubble burst. It was a sad failure, which nothing ' o but Russell's immense energy could have sustained for so long a period. The numbers then rapidly declined, and in only four or five years the increased staff of masters found they had not half the number of scholars, and some of the new houses had to be closed in consequence. In 1830 there were seven masters for 226 boys ; in 1832 four masters for 137. In round numbers, I may say that for nearly all the time I was there the numbers were nearly five hundred, and the masters not more than eight, some of them fresh from the university. I must state again the grand specific that was to work wonders with such odds against success. I quote from my ' Reminiscences,' vol. i., p. 170 : A boy had to teach a form satisfactorily for at least six weeks if he would rise from the fourth form to the third, and the same condition was required for a rise from the third to the second, and again from the second to the first. If, as some- times happened, as it did happen in my case, he did not teach very efficiently, he had to teach a form another six weeks. 1 spent a whole year in teaching and nothing else ; except paper work. Russell did not seem to think it a matter of serious consideration that when an indifferent teacher was remitted for a second trial, the unfortunate and guiltless form put under him had the largest share of the punishment. Considering the very prominent place which the history of public education has had in this century, one might expect the most extraordinary episode 384 CHARTERHOUSE ON THE BELL SYSTEM. in that history to be accurately recorded and well understood. That appears not to be the case. The truth is, the traditions of schools are apt to be short- lived, and Charterhouse, as I have noticed, received few traditions, and handed down still fewer. I think it important to correct a very considerable error, for if I let it pass I shall seem to be in error myself. Only the other day I came on the following passage in a very interesting and valuable account of ' Charterhouse, Past and Present,' by Dr. Haig Brown, the present head master : A few years after his [Dr. Russell's] election, he intro- duced into the school the plan of teaching devised by Dr. Bell, and known as the Madras system, which was in great vogue in England during the early part of this century. For some time the popular acceptation of the system, and still more the personal vigour and ability of Dr. Russell, and his ' indefatigable and excellent teaching,' gave such a measure of success to the change introduced by him, that the school rapidly increased in numbers. In 1825 it had reached the unprecedented total of 480. According to the plan of Dr. Bell the work of the Master consisted mainly in supervision, and a great portion of the teaching devolved on the boys themselves. These childish pedagogues were called ' praspositi,' and it may be supposed they were not always equal to the task imposed on them. ' There was,' says Dr. Saunders, ' a praspositus of one form, who, being a little mite but a very clever scholar, was put by Dr. Russell at the head of his class ; but he said it was torture to him above everything. Dr. Russell would call out, " Fifth Form, where is your praepositus ? " " Please, sir, here he is," and they would hold him up by the neck.' The popularity of this system was necessarily shortlived ; not even the power of Dr. Russell could avail to make it efficient or durable (p. 149). The statement here ascribed to Dr. Saunders is quoted from the Public Schools Commissioners' Report, Minutes of Evidence, 546. The reader will THE SHERIDANS. 385 see at once that there is a most important difference between my account of the Madras system, as applied at Charterhouse, and that which here has the autho- rity of Dr. Saunders, Dr. Haig Brown, both very dis- tinguished head masters of the school, and of the Public Schools Commissioners. What I say is that for each of the three moves necessary for a boy to get into the first form (the highest) he had to teach a class in the Under School. The quotation I have made from Dr. Haig Brown's book leaves it to be understood that each class was taught by the head boy in it. I can easily understand the ' little mite ' of a praepositus being held up by the cuff of his neck, like a kitten, by a good-natured young Titan ; but the mite would himself be from three or four forms above, not of the same form. I do not think we were made teachers, or praepositi, till upon our rising from the first form in the Under School to the lowest form in the Upper. That must have been my place in the school when I was put to teach an awkward squad of little fellows, including two of Sheridan's grandsons. They were handsome, good-natured little fellows, but grossly and saucily inattentive. The portrait of the grandfather brings them both before me. On a very remarkable occasion I had the oppor- tunity of comparing my recollections of them with their sister, Mrs. Norton ; and, I may say, they almost seemed to stand before me. Early in 1846 a friend took me to the House of Lords to see the Queen open Parliament. It was, I think, the year of her potato speech. After the ceremony my friend VOL. I. C C 386 SUME SUPERBIAM QU^ESITAM MERIT1S. took me round to the Peers' entrance, where a mixed but privileged company were in full conversation. The centre of an admiring circle was the almost Grecian outline, and almost Spanish complexion, of that well-known lady whose rich tones and ex- pressive features were more than form and hue. I could not help looking and listening, as well as I could in a small hubbub. On leaving, I asked my friend : ' How old is she ? ' ' She says she's quite tired of being forty,' he replied. But few women have such looks at thirty. While I was looking and listening, there brushed by me a grand figure that would have impressed me even if I had not known him. It was the new Bishop of Oxford. He had been, like me, as a stranger, at the ceremony, and now, having robed, was about to take his seat on the episcopal bench. He advanced as one taking possession of his right. With his head erect, his eyes upward turned, and his hand stretched out, he was no humble suppliant at that gate. It has sometimes occurred to me that he might be look- ing heavenward for the guidance, the strengthening, and the chastening he now more than ever required. It will be seen that, for crowding and for insuffi- ciency of teaching power, the school was at its very worst during the five years I was there. There must have been about 350 in the Under School. During the summer term that is, from Whitsuntide to the 3rd of August the heat, the closeness, the din, were insufferable and overwhelming. It was impossible to keep the boys on the qui vive. My recollection of all the praepositi, or teachers, was that they looked fagged, depressed, and at their wits' end. One of A PLAGUE OF FLIES. 387 Russell's rules was that the boys sat and stood by turns, and the change was expected to keep them more alive ; but they were not more orderly on foot than on the benches. On a summer's afternoon they had it all their own way. During one whole summer term there was a plague of flies. The boys caught these flies, tied several of them together by the legs with fine cotton thread, and let them go. Irvine, a rough and ener- getic Scotchman with a rich brogue, had just been added to the staff, and was hearing one of the higher forms with much noise and gesticulation. He found himself suddenly gagged, and after a struggle with his difficulties held up a harnessed team of four flies that had flown right across his open mouth fiercely denouncing the miscreants who had done the deed. Dr. Bell's system of mutual instruction could only be applied to the Under School. The Upper School, made as comprehensive as possible, and including three classes, amounting to about 120 boys, was in Russell's own hands. Here another principle, bor- rowed, I suspect, from the Lancaster system, pre- vailed. To explain this, I must premise that when I went into one of the parish schools managed by the clergy on the Bell system, I found a number of little male or female pedagogues teaching children a little younger than themselves. On the other hand, when I went into one of the schools managed by Dissenters and Liberals on the Lancastrian system, I was likely to find one man or one woman commanding, by various devices, the attention of a great number of children. This required vigorous action, distinct c c 2 388 INDE DAT^ LEGES, enunciation, and a perfect freedom from that hesi- tation which is allowable in the private circle, but fatal to public effect. I remember once seeing some fifty children write with their ringer on sand smoothly distributed on the desk before them, while the teacher chalked the word on a blackboard. The eye was used as much as the ear in this system. Russell's idea was to terrorise the crowd before him for crowd it was into constant and lively attention by his tre- mendous energy of voice, look, and manner, and by the lightning rapidity with which he descended here and there on the heads of those least expecting it. In my description of the Bell system as applied in the Under School, and quoted from my former volume, I now find I have done myself some injus- tice. In March 1823, upon being promoted to the first form, I had passed through my last spell of teaching, during which the form under my instruc- tion would be the highest in the Under School. By an extract from a letter written home at the time, and announcing my promotion, I find that Russell, then for the first time, had commended my work as praepositus. CHAPTER LIX. THE DISCIPLINE OF CHARTERHOUSE. IN one other point there is some difference between my own account and Dr. Haig Brown's. He says : The changes introduced by Dr. Russell were not confined to the system of teaching. . . . The old domestic arrangements of the school were abolished. Uppers and Fags were names NE FORT I OR OMNI A POSSET. 389 belonging to the past. No other system of maintaining order and discipline in the houses was substituted for that which had been destroyed, and the results of this change were not favourable to the comfort or morals of the boys. I must take the liberty to modify those state- ments. ' Uppers and Unders ' and fagging were declared unlawful, and the offenders were flogged when they chanced to be found out ; but both the name and the thing remained all my time, with cer- tain exceptions. Fagging being illegal, the uppers availed themselves of its illegality to abandon the old duties of the system, and to let the big and strong fellows have their way. There ensued a frightful amount of bullying, for the school in my time was a very miscellaneous mob of boys, high and low, from all quarters, and from all sorts of schools. But, as a matter of fact, there was a system for the maintenance of order and discipline in the houses, and it was effectual for the hours during which the boys were shut in their ' Long Rooms ' to prepare their work for the next day. In every house, as I have explained in my notice of T. B. Hobhouse, there was a praepositus with two monitors under him. Of course they might, or might not be, efficient Their names were published in the annual blue-book, and they received rewards in the form of handsomely- bound volumes. There lies before me a much-cher- ished, but wholly unread Isocrates, showing outside Sutton's arms, and inscribed in a hand very dear to me, 'THOMAS MOZLEY, Mon. May 6, 1824. J.R.' 390 THE DISCIPLINE OF CHARTERHOUSE. Besides the monitors and monitor praepositus, there were also sub-monitors. The whole staff had to send in returns of the behaviour, and even the progress of the boys, who were divided among them for this purpose. If my memory serves me right I had to countersign a dozen exercises every night, to secure that I had my eye on the work a dozen boys were doing. I remember getting into a fantastic way of signing my name in capitals run off as quick as my common signature. I had also every week to send in such a report of my little flock as would imply a careful comparison of one week with another. This was hard work, for the terms were to be varied, or they would come to signify nothing. ' Room for improvement' soon worked itself out. One of our sub-monitors, a tall Welshman, and a good scholar, but no linguist, had an inkling of a French phrase that might be applied to a boy not quite what he should be. He explained his want to the son of a Cabinet minister I have several times mentioned, who was of course a good French scholar. He helped the sub-monitor at once to the desired phrase, and it went to Russell in the report. It must have been the Monday after, when Russell, glancing over the reports, called up the sub-monitor before the whole school. 'Will you please explain what you may mean by saying that - is not quite Auto I see it observed that no wonder the discipline of the school was not what it should have been, when Russell himself lived at Blackheath, and only came in for the school hours. He had a house at Black- RUSSELL'S DAILY WORK. 391 heath most, if not all my time. I do not know whether he always slept there. The school met at seven, and he was never so much as a minute behind time. I often saw him ride in, for he always rode a safe strong roadster. It was said that he rose very early, and fortified himself with a bowl of bread-and-milk before starting. With indoor disci- pline he had nothing to do except to receive reports from the masters of the houses and the monitors, and to act upon them. Some of his windows com- manded the Green, and his first floor opened on the terrace, which commanded the Green more thoroughly, and where he was occasionally seen. On that terrace I once saw him with the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria, then four years old, and Sir John Conroy, whose son Edward I had under my hands for some short time. The gown-boys, whose house adjoined Russell's, had a master occupying an apart- ment in the same building, and charged with keeping order among them. It was said there were two ' monitors of the Green,' though I have no recollec- tion of what they did, or who they were. It never occurred to me that Russell might have done more than he did in regard to discipline, or that anything would have been gained by his being al- ways at his official residence. The work of teaching a hundred and twenty boys single-handed an hour and a half before breakfast, three hours after, and two hours in the afternoon, and then looking over the fre- quent translations, verses, and themes, was such as to make rest and recreation for some part of the day an absolute necessity. In truth, he attempted too much 392 THE DISCIPLINE OF CHARTERHOUSE. for human nature constituted as it is, and soon after my time he almost sank under the long-continued strain. One sad incident proves nothing, unless it be the manners and customs of a bygone time. There were two Howards, brothers and honourables. The younger, I suppose, would not have come but for the protection of the elder. As I remember him, he could hardly be more than ten a pretty little fellow, with black curly hair, and the blue veins showing through a fair complexion. We had no Easter holidays, and were at school on Good Friday. All over the world there has long been the custom of some rough game on Good Friday afternoon, under a strange idea of Creation, robbed of its Lord, returning to unredeemed savagery. Our game, I believe one from time imme- morial, like some other things there from the days be- fore the Reformation, was a very savage one. A line was marked across the corner of the Green between the Chapel and the Cloisters. Within it took their stand the first and second forms, at least all of them who liked it. Outside, facing them, were all the rest of the school, including many fellows as big and strong as any of those within the line. The unders pounced on any one of the uppers they fancied, and set to work dragging him across to a goal on the other side of the Green, to the right hand of the Chapel. The m$tie was often fearful. A dozen might be on the ground together, with a crowd round them dragging them this way or that. The little boys hung about as close as they could venture, in order to enjoy the sport, and give a hand if they could do it safely. A VERY SAD CASUALTY. 393 There were frequent rushes, and the little boys did not always get out of the way in time. Poor little Howard, the younger of the two, and always hanging upon his elder brother, got entangled in a rush, and was dragged several yards under a mass of bigger boys. A knee-cap was fearfully crushed, and he died in a couple of days. I never saw a strong man more moved than Russell was the next time he appeared in school. As for the game, I think it was not repeated, but I am not sure. The poor child was on the ground which had belonged to two generations of his ancestors. Here it was that the Duke of Norfolk, in the palace he had built, had plotted to rescue Mary Queen of Scots, marry her, and establish her on the English throne. Forgiven once, he persisted, was betrayed, and executed. With his other estates, Charterhouse then reverted to the Crown. Queen Elizabeth granted it to the Duke's second son, who after a time sold it to Thomas Sutton, the founder of the school. CHAPTER LX. CARTHUSIAN INCIDENTS. BY the time I had been three years at Charterhouse we found on our return to school unexpected with- drawals. These were not confined to the boys that were doing no good there. Some had still their mark to make, and might be expected to make it. The 394 CARTHUSIAN INCIDENTS. truth was that upon any examination by a scholar of the old type these boys would have been found wanting. The range was necessarily circumscribed. Every line of the Greek play was studied over and over again with microscopic eye, though I cannot re- member that the comment ever rose higher than the meaning of each line or the scanning of each chorus. We had to commit to memory, or read with critical attention, the Odes of Horace, the ' Georgics,' and the fourth and sixth books of the 'yneid,' a few of Cicero's Orations, half a dozen Greek plays, one book of the ' Iliad,' the first book of Livy, Sallust, and several books of Thucydides. Russell himself felt that more variety was wanted. In one term, as if to satisfy complaints, he took us rapidly through the ' Odyssey,' without any criticism to detain us. He invited some of the first form to a private class in Theocritus. In the school there was no medium between the plan of mutual instruction in the Lower School that is, the boys teaching one another and the plan of Russell himself teaching a hundred and twenty at the same time. This left little room for variety of books. The instruction was generally too verbal, too minute, too much confined to the word, the deri- vation, the inflection, the syntax, and the quantity. Memory was challenged not for similar passages, or illustrations of the meaning, but for ' quantities.' Some attention indeed was given to dates, and to geography, so far as to elicit the country of a city, a mountain, or a river. But there certainly was left out the background, the story, the atmosphere, the MINUTE CRITICISM. 395 sentiment, and the strain that is, the connection of ideas. If these presented themselves spontaneously to the minds of boys so disposed, they acted as diver- sions, dividing the attention, and creating a disgust for minutia. Horace, and even Virgil, are very illus- trative of a most important period of Roman history, but I cannot remember that they were so utilised. Some Carthusians will appeal to the very useful notes in the edition of Horace in usum Scholce Car- thusiancs. But I cannot remember any attempt to form in the mind any consecutive idea of the history of Rome indeed, of the known world from the death of Julius Caesar to near the Christian era. There were, however, as I have hinted, other reasons for dissatisfaction, and I cannot now be surprised at the frequent withdrawals. As the boys removed would be now too old for other schools, they went, or were said to go, to private tutors. This, Russell regarded as adding insult to injury. There were, in fact, few tutors in the kingdom who could even supplement, much less improve upon Russell's instruction. When he found that a boy of whom better might have been expected had not got up his lesson, Russell said, in the bitterest of tones, 'Yes, I suppose you'll go to a private tutor,' with an emphasis on the last words, as if the class were the most con- temptible in creation, the pupil only a shade or two less contemptible. But I must return to the question of Fagging, upon which I have ventured to modify Dr. Haig Brown's account of the practice in my time. I fear 396 CARTHUSIAN INCIDENTS. that every word I have now to add to what I said in the last chapter will be held to show the substantial truth of that account. Yet, on consideration, I do not see that Russell could have done otherwise than he did under the special circumstances. The school, as I found it, was utterly devoid of a traditional character. I cannot remember a single boy in my house who was there because his father, or uncle, had been at the school before him, except in the case of Sir John Harding. It was a motley and incoherent as- semblage, for all social purposes. Now, where there is a regular tradition and a social compact, and where the school is in fact almost exclusively the common ground of a large circle of aristocratic families, fag- ging becomes little else than the natural dominion of the elders in a family and the natural subordi- nation of the youngers. These are much facilitated when the right of fagging is gradually acquired by a slow and regular passage up the school, when they that fag have been much longer fagged in their time. But at Charterhouse boys were arriving at all ages ; they were ' taking places ' over one another's heads, and rising in a year to the top of the school. It then mattered not much whether they were very big fellows or very little, for they might be equally unfit to make a good use of personal authority. Con- sidering the boys to be actually dealt with, I am sure that ' Fagging,' in the old public-school sense, was quite inapplicable. Nor did the domestic economy of the school afford it any opening. But some principle of order and mutual deference there must be in a great mass of humanity collected BULLIES. 397 in a narrow space, and often in animated, not to say violent action. As I have stated above, the substitute for fagging was the system of monitors. Having been a monitor in my house most of my time, I can answer for the failure of the system. It was quite powerless to prevent an immense amount of cruelty and worse wickedness. The elder boys did fag. So far the system failed, and so far good was done. But the louts, the brutes, the strong ruffians, fagged too, and that with a wanton cruelty far beyond what would have been possible under legitimate fagging. It really was as if sheep and wolves had been forced into the same fold, under the idea that the sheep would acquire the art of self-defence, and the wolves learn to pity and to spare. I have admitted that the spontaneous fermentation of this mass was working towards a cure. But it was by sending away the lambs sorely wounded, and the wolves no tamer than they had come. The masters must have found the selection of ' monitors ' no easy task. These officers were really irresponsible. Whether they exceeded or fell short, there was no eye to observe it. Russell would not choose bullies for the part, but he had to beware of the passive sort, as being really the worse of the two. I give an instance of what a bully would do, blessed with a little brief authority. He had to see that all the boys at his table had washed their hands before dinner. They had taken their places, and as he passed down behind them they had to turn and show their hands. The son of a Cabinet minister 398 CARTHUSIAN INCIDENTS. had arrived only a few days before a handsome, well- grown fellow, not wanting in courage or presence of mind. But he was evidently suffering a temporary prostration of spirit, upon finding himself sitting on a deal bench, at a narrow table, among little boys, to simple fare. Upon the approach of the monitor sub-monitor I should say he showed the palms of his hands. ' Show the backs,' the fellow said, and immediately hit him a severe blow on his knuckles with a hard ruler. I shall never forget the new-comer's scream of astonishment and indignation. It must have been his first experience of the kind. It was a gross abuse of authority, and as he had been nursed on authority, he would not know how to deal with it. But, apropos of the said washing. There was no such thing as total ablution in the school. This was left to the Saturday outings. Many of the boys frequented for this purpose the Bagnio, in a narrow lane lead- ing northward out of Newgate Street, believed to have been built, after Wren's plans, in the reign of Charles II. I also frequented a floating-bath off Black- friars Bridge, ' Peerless Pool,' and other baths. But even good sort of fellows would sometimes draw up their coat-sleeves and show with much merriment what was called ' high-water mark ' that is, the sharply defined line of dirt left on the wrist by a mere manual ablution. Very soon after my time baths were intro- duced at Charterhouse, the first of several improve- ments one hardly ventured to wish for in my time. One thing I must say, leaving others to explain it if they can. Though we were right in the heart of the metropolis ; though we lived in the midst of cess- A HEALTH RESORT. 399 pools ; though we were packed the long winter days thirty in a room which was only a good-sized dining- room, and almost as closely in the night ; though when the elders went to bed, only an hour and a half after the youngers, already they found the air of the bedroom that of a 'pest-house ; though ventilation was unheard of ; though our school hours were lengthened beyond any measure of physical endurance ; though we heard and smelt Smithfield, then one mass of filth ; though our diet was rather for hardy rustics than for tender sprigs of gentility ; though during the long winter evenings the big boys roasted themselves at a blazing fire, and the little boys sat shivering near an ever-gaping doorway ; and though the one specific for all complaints was the ' black draught ' yet we were healthy. I do not remember a single fever or epidemic to take away a single boy for a day from the school. For myself, I may say that I certainly gained in health and strength there. I had been weak, puny, and ailing till I went to Charterhouse, insomuch that from a very early age my next younger brother had been taller and stronger. He retained that advantage over me, but I did not now lose more ground. We all knew and felt the place to be healthy, and many of us accepted implicitly the current belief that the atmosphere of that region was sweetened by the breath of the cattle coming to Smithfield. On the other hand I must say that a survey of the many careers that have come under my notice leaves no doubt in my mind that the whole regime there tended to impair vitality and to shorten life. There was mischief in it to the nervous system, to 400 HOW WE AMUSED OURSELVES. the heart, and to the brain, and this mischief was most suffered by those who most loyally submitted to Russell's peculiar method of instruction. CHAPTER LXI. HOW WE AMUSED OURSELVES. How did we amuse ourselves ? That is, how did we pass the long outdoor hours in summer, and longer indoor hours in winter? With the Green and the Wilderness added to it, we had eight or nine acres ; but, in spite of annual attempts to produce turf, the ground was hard and gravelly. We were surrounded by walls in which were still some old doorways and other traces of the Carthusian Monastery. When it was possible, cricket was played on every variety of scale, from the full number of bigger fellows to the two little fellows in some corner alternately batter and bowler. Football was not so elaborately regu- lated a game it is now, or quite so savage a game it is now. It was not thought necessary to the sport that there should be a serious casualty every day. But there were a good many broken skins, for most of the fellows had iron tips to their very strong shoes, and some freely boasted of giving more than they took. On two sides of the old Green there were lofty rough walls, but no regular fives or tennis-court. Our walks were round and round the Green. Hare- and-hounds could be played by little boys, so as they <TRENTE ET (7N y WITH DOMINOES. 401 kept off the ground occupied by more serious sports. Hoops came and went. First came single hoops ; then no one could show himself unless he were driving a pair. Then they all disappeared in a day. They who chose to use the empty Long Room for the purpose played at battledore and shuttle- cock, which they kept up to a tedious length. I remember the Cabinet minister's son telling us that his father and Canning had kept up twelve hundred in a gallery at Windsor Castle. Skipping came in After a little practice many of us achieved two revo- lutions of the rope in one skip. Hobhouse, flinging his arms and legs about as if he had been caught by a whirlwind, declared that he had passed the rope three times under his heels at one ascent from the ground, and charged us all with being in conspiracy because we could count no more than two. Of course there was betting on the races. Cards we were not allowed ; but we had dominoes, and the young diplomatist taught us how to play trente et un with them. We could win and lose a good deal at it. I've not the least idea now how it was done. I won near two pounds from a fellow, and forgave him the debt. The next term he won up to a pound from me, and made me pay to the uttermost farthing This sickened me of gambling in any form. I have never made a bet, or speculated in any kind or degree, since. This I say not as thinking it a sin in those who can make it their business, and give adequate attention to it, and keep within prudent bounds. I could not ever have observed these con- VOL. I. D D 402 HOW WE AMUSED OURSELVES. ditions, so in my case it would have been folly, and probably ruin also. Then came a fashion for pets chiefly white mice ; and then, as if the demand followed the supply, for owls and hawks. The mice became a burden and a nuisance. So the boys made them run races, which, not being natural to a mouse, involved some cruelty. Russell heard of the state of things, and issued, as I understood, two successive ukases, first against the mice, then against the birds of prey. So first the mice disappeared, then the birds, who, how- ever, had a good time of it for several days. We played at chess, and at draughts. Backgam- mon was too noisy, and dice were forbidden. We had both showman and actors in our house. The former expatiated on the habits of wild beasts in the proper tone of the itinerant menagerie ; the latter were great either in comic dialogue or in fiery decla- mation. A small dramatic circle constructed a toy theatre, with scenery, slides, and paper figures. I volunteered a front, with a couple of Corinthian columns on each side of the stage. Within each couple of pillars I found room for a classic niche, in view of deities, muses, or other personifications. Pipon, who came to be Assistant Adjutant-General at the Horse Guards, instantly, and to my infinite disgust, filled the niches with knights in armour, of the true Norman sort, with towering plumes and tilting spears. I must not forget the ' cob-nuts,' or ' hob-nuts.' They might be a bloodless tradition of cock-fighting, and even of gladiators. The boys perforated hazel- JOHN'S CALVES. 403 nuts, ran strings through them, and then battered them against one another, continually renewing the combat with the survivors. A nut that had survived many collisions, and destroyed many survivors, was a hero, and became a fetish. He had a history. Every little boy, for one term, had his champion nut in his pocket, ready to meet all comers. Of course there was plenty of mischief going on, more indeed than I can remember, or could describe. John, the footman, who waited on us in plush breeches, showed a pair of good calves. It was an article of faith to believe that these could not be his own, and that they belonged to the stockings and not to the limb. So some of the little boys armed themselves with big pins, and while John was busy handing the plates at dinner, passed their hands behind his calves, sparing them no more than they would their own mamma's pin-cushion. John exclaimed ; but little boys can keep their countenance like men, and the only result was a general admoni- tion not to be foolish. In my former Reminiscences I gave some in- stances in which the Cabinet minister's son indulged his humour at another's cost and risk. It is only fair to give an instance in which the risk was his own. Lying on his back upon the floor of the bed- room, and inflating his lungs, he induced some half dozen of us, in succession, to stand on his chest. I was then fourteen or over, and, though small, must have been five or six stone. Others were heavier. The idea was horrible to me, and I was as glad to step on the boards again as I should have been to be D D 2 404 HOW WE AMUSED OURSELVES. released from an incubus myself. Where do boys get all these strange ideas ? I have often asked the question with regard to even queerer things than this. There is no accounting for tradition ; it comes from such a depth, and it has passed through such extraordinary strata. I have suspected some of our school slang to have come down from monkish times. Every boy at a ' public school ' in these days has a room to himself, to retire to when he wishes to be alone. He has a library in which to look out books to his taste, and read if he likes. He has spacious playgrounds carefully turfed ; he has gymnasia, fives- courts and tennis-courts ; he has swimming-baths, and, above all, country walks that is, walks between hedges and fields. We at Charterhouse at that time had none of these things. We were shut up, big and little, in rooms where we could not help elbowing one another at the tables, where no one could whisper, change his posture, or even write, without being heard by the whole room. It was the greatest cruelty to the elder boys and the greatest cruelty to the little boys, for the former could not do their work without compelling the latter to hold their tongues and their limbs too in unnatural stillness. These boys had not acquired a power which I have frequently found in village-school children. I have taxed a couple of girls with inattention, whether in class or at the desk, and with doing nothing. To all appearance they have been perfectly mute and motion- less. Their lips have not moved. Not a whisper has been heard. It has then come out that all the time A THEORY OF THE EARTH. 405 one has been telling the other a long story, or that they have had a dispute, without being at all hindered by having to be neither seen nor heard. But I have almost forgotten what was really the chief amusement of our little house on rainy days, when we had to be much indoors, with nothing to do. There was controversy about everything or nothing. All conversations soon came to this. A subject once started, there were sure to be some who knew more about it than others, and sure to be some who knew much less. The latter could at least criticise, imagine, and invent. But all boys love paradox. Truth has to be defended gravely, so boys invest truth with a surrounding of nonsense to bring it down to the level of sport. A paradox may be knocked to pieces with- out much harm being done, and finally surrendered without loss or shame. I well remember a very good fellow, who, of course, knew better, upon being forced into a discussion about the shape of the earth, maintained with much gravity that it was like a three-cornered tart. A simply round tart, with a wall of pastry to prevent the con- tents from tumbling out, would have been too de- fensible an idea, and it is indeed very much the ancient idea of poets and of inexact philosophers. The ' three corners,' however, added outworks to this position. They could be fought for, and then abandoned. As long as the battle was upon them, it mattered not what nonsense was uttered on their defence. There remained the citadel, which by this time nobody cared to attack or to defend the central idea without its angular appendages. 406 HOW WE AMUSED OURSELVES. But memory once on the wing, I find I have not done justice to the combined ingenuity and originality of thirty lads, many of them condemned to spend five summers and five winters in the same rooms. Capping verses was all the rage at one time, and it revealed powers I did not suspect. A fellow repeated a Latin verse ; and his competitor had to repeat another verse, beginning with the letter the former verse ended with. There were some who could do this to the extent of a couple of hundred verses. Of course they were not allowed to produce the same verse twice over. The game, for it was no better than a game, involved charging the memory with a dozen or a score verses beginning with the same letter, and ready to be shot off one after the other. I had forgotten another occupation, requiring neither language nor company, beyond an occasional comparison of results. This was the fabrication of artificial flies, and the preparation of angling gear for the coming holidays. Andrew Fountaine, who has played and played out the part of an East Anglian Squire with some dis- tinction, was a great adept at this manufacture, and acquired thereby the sobriquet of ' Trout ' from some elder fellows who found it convenient to consult him. SHREWSBURY SCHOOL. 407 CHAPTER LXII. THE CARTHUSIAN REGIME. THE Charterhouse movement was complex, and was not wholly original. Shrewsbury was taking the lead. Its men were distinguishing themselves at the universities, chiefly in Latin and Greek composition and in minute scholarship. If Charterhouse was to compete, it had to run in the same lines. It was a fair race, and an intelligible object, just what takes with the British public. So fish of all kinds were caught by that net. 1 was but one of a great rush to Charterhouse ; I went in with the flow, and left with the ebb, for the tide was then on the turn. The rush was almost that ugly one which Conservatives used to dread. The new arrivals rapidly coming in were of many grades, from all parts of England, and literally from hundreds of schools, for all had been at one private school, many at two, three, or four. They brought with them every conceivable folly. The process of purging began very soon, for some of these boys had already been expelled once or twice before. It was done quietly. Boy after boy disap- peared, and few knew the reason why. In my own house of about thirty, there were the sons of noblemen, of baronets, of county gentlemen of high standing, of merchants, of India directors, of clergymen, of well-known tradesmen. The aristo- cratic element so much prevailed that there arose a cry that Russell was favouring his brother-in-law, to the 408 THE CARTHUSIAN REGIME. disadvantage of the other houses. Of course he had to fill his sister's house. As I have related above, I was myself an overflow out of ' Watkie's ' full house into Lloyd's empty one. We were only seven the first that is, the summer term. No Long Room had yet been built, and Mr. Lloyd was not yet married. We lived with him as with a private tutor. He got up conversations amongst us, and gave us such dinners as he might have given to a small party of friends. The novelty of our position excited the curiosity of the school, particularly as it was rumoured that Lloyd's house was to be very select. The first question put to me on the Green was what we had for dinner, and we had to confess to surloins, roast veal, asparagus, pease, cauliflowers, tarts, and other dainties. Indeed, it was like living at home, and to some of us much better. The boys of the other houses immediately reported the state of things to their own housekeepers, and demanded like fare. They might not succeed in this, but they might succeed in bringing us down to their own level. Lloyd had to go on the rest of the term as he had begun. So the rest of the school, par- ticularly the gown-boys, took the law in their own hands. We had to pass through their house, as through a dark and narrow defile, into the cloister. Here the bigger gown- boys arranged themselves with whips, and cut at us as we ran through, to pay us off for our good dinners. When we returned after ' St. Bartholomew's holidays,' we found that in six weeks a Long Room had been built in the yard behind, and that the house DIET. 409 was already nearly full in a few days overflowing. Our regimen and diet were now that of the whole school. I believe that diet went on some old tradi- tion. A year or two ago I saw in the papers an indig- nant letter by some parent, who complained of the pauper dietary inflicted on his son at the Blue-Coat School. It was exactly that which I and my aristo- cratic schoolfellows had at Charterhouse. The plan was good, but, like all plans, liable to failures and defeats. As a rule, and with certain exceptions, we had milk and water for breakfast. All London milk was then open to suspicion. We had ' rolls,' hot or cold, as we pleased, with butter. The latter was generally insipid, but not worse. The rolls I much suspect of alum, and credit with an injurious effect on the digestive powers. Most of the flour of these days was heavy, if not quite un- sound, and alum covers many sins. I remember a lady at Easter time examining some schoolchildren. ' What do they put in the dough to make it rise ? ' The question happened to be addressed to the child of the village baker, and the answer was, ' Alum.' The dinner consisted of beef or mutton, potatoes and cabbage ; puddings twice a week. No doubt it was assumed that the boys would get pastry and fruit enough at the tuck-shop. Most of them did, and I daresay it was a wholesome change. The little boys got tarts as long as their money held out. The bigger boys and the cricketers consumed quantities of thin biscuits and capillaire. What was this ? Indeed, I am not perfectly sure I have the right word. The thing I mean was a thick 4io THE CARTHUSIAN REGIME. syrup combining acid and sweet like an acidulated drop. Poured into a glass of water it made lemonade, and by the addition of powders became effervescent ; on a hot summer afternoon the demand was im- mense. The five years I was at Charterhouse I never once went near the tuck-shop. I did not like spend- ing my money that way ; but perhaps it told still more that I was shy of the saucy crowd lounging and chaffing before the old lady's counter. At six we had our choice of bread and butter with tea, or bread and cheese with beer. We had nothing after, though the elder boys did not go to bed till half past ten. Throughout the day those who had money had various opportunities of supplementing this diet. They could not at dinner, for the master presided. They could at breakfast, till a day which I remember with horror. Many of us were qualifying the hot milk and water with extract of coffee or cocoa, well sugared, and had potted meats and marmalade. Suddenly the door opened, and poor Lloyd, whose heart I have no doubt bled all the time, appeared, ordered the servant to bring a tray, and swept the tables of these luxuries. No doubt some of the little boys had complained to their parents, and it had come round. The son of a Cabinet minister whom I have men- tioned in my ' Reminiscences ' was always full of diplomacy, but he was once foiled. He received a large present of game. How to cook it was the ques- tion. He had made acquaintances among the old pensioners, one of whom, I suppose, with the help DIPLOMATIC FAILURES. 411 of the bed makers or laundresses, could manage it. A game pie was the easiest and safest form. It was arranged that the young diplomatist should bring a couple of friends to the pensioner, who should ask a friend on his part, and the five were to feast to- gether. At the appointed time the diplomatist sent word to the pensioner that he and his own friends were watched, and they could not leave their house. So the pie was to be smuggled into it, and he gave directions accordingly. The pie appeared, and with it a note to the effect that the pensioners were sorry to have to divide the pie, but under the circum- stances the best division was for them to take the inside, leaving the gentlemen the outside which, indeed, they found to be their share. Of the diplomatist's failure on this occasion I was reminded some years after by a little item in the police reports. With a young and congenial friend he had gone to a dinner-party some miles out of town, and had had the use of a private carriage. The pair had armed themselves with pea-shooters, which were very formidable weapons. On their return they kept up a continuous fire at the shop-windows right and left, smashing pane after pane. One shop- keeper instantly called to his shopboy to run after that carriage and seat himself on the footboard behind. This he did, and thenceforth the two gentlemen inside were ' dancing in a net.' The boy had a double gratification. He saw all the fun, and had the revenge. When they alighted at my lord's door he recognised them, took their names and the number of the house to his master, who had them 4 i2 THE CARTHUSIAN REGIME. up before the magistrate, well rebuked, and ordered to repair all the broken glass of several miles of road. Warming up red-herrings was all the cookery possible in our Long Room, and this had to be done under cover of a fumigation by the burning of brown paper. One bit of cookery I remember with shame and grief, not for the breach of discipline, but for the fatal habit of procrastination associated with it. At times, particularly towards the end of term, we were in arrears, with analyses, or what not. So we re- served, or otherwise procured, the materials for coffee, with bread and butter. When we could be sure that the household was asleep, master and all, we rose, hung up several thicknesses of blanket before the windows, which happened to look upon the servants' room, lighted candles, set to work writing, and by- and-by heated our coffee by holding it in mugs over tallow candles. The process was much quicker than my readers would expect. It was the mental pro- cess that was at fault, for we were not likely to do well, or to remember long what we did, as it were, in our dreams, and under pressure. It must, too, have been a very joint-stock affair. Girls complain much more frequently than boys of their deficient school dietary. Dining in the middle of the day, and having nothing but tea and a slice of bread and butter afterwards, they go to bed hungry. They have not the resource of a tuck-shop. I have heard of schoolgirls unable to sleep for hunger. A lady whom I knew long and well told me that at her school they managed to obtain a ham and a pot of treacle a north-country combination. As they were PULMENTARIA QUAERE SUDANDO. 413 discussing these dainties, they heard the step of the schoolmistress on the stairs. The candle was instantly extinguished, and my informant had to bury herself in her bedclothes with the treacle and ham. Every alternate Wednesday the monotony of the diet was broken with a treat- ham and pease, lamb or roast veal. This was usually looked forward to by the little fellows who missed their home delicacies. A dozen of them would spend the hour between school and dinner in getting up wind and appetite. This they did, or thought they did, by running several times round the Green, and then washing head, chest, and shoulders at the sink. None below the first form wore any cover to the head, whether in heat or in cold, in wind or in rain. This was custom, and nothing more. Any kind of head-covering was a weakness, or an impu- dence. The country lads coming back to school in January sometimes brought ugly little rabbit-skin caps, sold then in the shops for 3^. 6d. But they did not last more than a fortnight or so. The rough usage of a gravelled playground, and frequent per- sonal encounters, in sport or otherwise, played sad work with our clothes, and many were ostentatiously slovenly, out at elbows and knees. There were sudden and violent changes of fashion in those days. Not less than a hundred of the boys probably were wearing coats with very long swallow-tails. All at once fashion veered round, and they all conformed to it by simply taking a pair of scissors and cutting six inches or more off the tails, with more or less neat- ness and propriety of outline. 4 I4 THE CARTHUSIAN REGIME. From Saturday noon to Sunday evening we could go out, upon proper invitation, to visit our friends. Most of the boys were then splendidly apparelled, and there was a pardonable curiosity as to the figure a boy would make. Some had good reason to be proud of their get-up. They turned out in the pink of the fashion, with new hats, kid gloves, and neckties large enough to cut into stoles for a dozen officiating priests. Poor Kitchener, whose handsome wife and pretty daughters I used to meet occasionally now many years ago, son of the well known physician and gastronomist, was usually in rags and tatters. On Saturday he ap- peared fastidiously attired in garments showing off the delicacy of his complexion and the symmetry of his figure. Is Barnardiston Wrightson still living? If so, he will be amused to be reminded of being met half way to the West End with the silver paper still on the brass buttons of his bright blue coat. They who were not in fashion had to undergo a long and bitter ordeal. Boys I daresay girls too despise poverty and economy in the form of shabbiness. Nor was there then discovered the kindly neutral costume which assimilates the duke and the labourer. I am sure that if any gentleman were now to appear in the streets in the fashion of those days trousers and waistcoat broadly striped with the brightest contrasts of colour he would find himself followed by a crowd desirous to see the performance which his dress betokened. One poor fellow, a boy of some promise, but I HOC OPUS, HIC LABOR EST. 415 think no favourite, had to go through the long sum- mer term in a uniform suit of coarse blue cloth, in a crowd of butterflies. On going to bed one night he saw a bright new pair of striped trousers laid out for the occupant of the next bed. He appropriated them, hid them, and kept his secret during the inquiry for them, but actually appeared in them only three weeks after. Of course he was found to be the thief, and he disappeared from the school. We were, in fact, a mob of boys, suddenly gathered, and as quickly dispersed. There was no cohesion or common vitality in the whole affair. It was a rope of sand. Long before the end of my own five years boys were leaving in quick succession after only three, or even two years of it. In no respect could their progress satisfy their parents. That Russell could do what he did with such a mob is wonderful, but the task proposed was above even his herculean powers and heroic devotion. With scanty superintendence, five hundred lads, hastily collected from all the bad schools in the kingdom, had to be made to educate one another that is, to make one another scholars and gentlemen. The task was to be accomplished in an utter absence of the very favour- able conditions under which the old public school^ attained an even tenor of respectable success. The old public schools, it used to be said, retained their identity. They were always the same. It was the masters that changed, and that did not make much difference. It is of no use to criticise what was really a very great battle, in a noble cause, fought under im- 416 THE CARTHUSIAN REGIME. possible conditions. It was then universally agreed that public education had to be reformed. The old traditions had to be broken. Extravagance and wickedness had to be controlled at all events, not to be taught. Masters had to be made masters, and scholars scholars. Education was to be made at once cheap and good. The cry for cheapness will be the better understood if it be borne in mind that when Russell began his famous experiment, which was not till some years after his becoming head master, the country was in the lowest state of depression. Land- owners, farmers, and manufacturers, all with one voice were declaring themselves ruined. They were indeed ruined, and the first page of every provincial news- paper was filled with advertisements of farms to be let, and stock to be sold. The new experiment must be made without in- creasing the staff or raising the pay. There must be enlarged accommodation ; but it was doled out care- fully. There could be no new buildings. There , could be no appeal to the public, to old Carthusians, or to the governors, who somehow looked coldly on the whole business. The increased accommodation was got by renting houses in the Square and in Wilderness Row, the latter approached by a tunnel. When the average of adult masters was only one to sixty boys, the boys themselves had to do most of the work. The more I think of it the more satisfied I am that, as things then were, and as opinion then was, the battle had to be fought under these hard conditions ; just as the great battles of history, de- cisive of empire, have been fought by men almost BERNAL OS BORNE. 417 worn out with wakings and marchings, with hunger and thirst, and with all that can crush courage and weaken endurance. It may be replied that Russell ought to have raised the terms, and doubled the staff of masters ; and that he ought to have done this before the public made the discovery that the experiment was a failure. But it would hardly have been safe to raise the terms for a declining school. When, too, Russell was him- self commanding the attention of more than a hun- dred boys to the highest work in the school, he could not think sixty too large a proportion for even lesser men engaged in elementary instruction. It was an illusion even in the Upper School, and still more in the Under. CHAPTER LXIII. SOME CONTEMPORARIES IN THE SCHOOL. BERNAL OSBORNE was not prouder of Charterhouse than he was of his patriarchal descent ; but if he had any gratitude in his nature, he was bound to give some of it to the school where no one ever enjoyed such licence of tongue. He could not be more than eleven when I went there in 1820, and already he was the most loquacious, impudent, and amusing fellow on the Green. He had a saucy word for every one that came in his way, and, as the American expresses it, could ' sauce back ' without end. I never came in his way, and had I ever done so VOL. I. E E 418 SOME CONTEMPORARIES IN THE SCHOOL. I should have been careful to give as little opening as possible. He was so exceedingly amusing that he had all the liberty of a court jester, though I don't remember that he went out of his way to inflict pain. After all, his talk was such froth that I should doubt whether anybody could recall a single witticism, or the subjects, or the occasions. But the figure, the manner, and the voice must be indelible in many a Carthusian memory. And now for another contemporary, whom in- voluntarily, and by accident, I find myself putting in comparison with Bernal. I will not give the name, for it is unnecessary, and I feel I can more easily hint at a defect than do justice to a very high excellence. The name is one with many honoured representatives in the Carthusian roll. The man of whom I speak was, for all the time I was at Charterhouse, and for long after, my idea of a bright, youthful hero, an Achilles in the crowd, the morning star of that little firmament. He was all that I have heard Selwyn described, for I never saw the latter till he had been for a quarter of a century Bishop of New Zealand. My Charterhouse hero seemed as brilliant, as hand- some, as single-minded, and as good. I do not remember whether he was captain ; but it was not always the best scholar that was. He won the gold medal for the best Latin verses ever written at Charterhouse, as I have heard them described. With his tall, bounding figure, light tread, and elastic form he led in all the games. Admiring and yet trembling, I used to watch him taking repeatedly a leap which I think he was the FORTUNA SsEVO L.-ETA NEGOTIO. 419 only one there that ever attempted. The Under School stood on a sort of ridge dividing the Green from the Wilderness, and was said to have received its form by the immense number of interments in the great plague of Edward III.'s reign. Towards the north-east this ridge sloped at an angle of forty-five, and with a drop that, to my memory, is ten feet, but it can hardly have been so much as that. Repeat- edly did I see my contemporary take a run, bound into space, clearing the long slope, and lighting safely at the lower level. Nor was that lower level soft yielding turf, or a bed of sand. It was hard, gravelly, and trodden like the rest of the playground. Any one can perform feats, if sure to be caught in a blanket. The clumsiest man or woman can descend the almost precipitous slope of volcanic dust on one side of Vesuvius in a few score bounds, with no other dam- age than the entire loss of blacking from the boots and a powdering of sulphur about the clothes. My brilliant contemporary went to Cambridge, and took high honours. One of the first things I remember, or seem to remember, to have heard about him illustrates the very mixed character of human destinies. He was of a family of bankers. Soon after coming of age, under the direction of his seniors, he put the whole of his fortune into the bank, and in a few weeks the same newspaper that published his honours published also the bankruptcy of the firm, with his name as one of the partners. I daresay this statement 'admits of some correction, but I believe it to be substantially true. It is, however, no un- K E 2 420 'THE VERY HAIRS OF YOUR HEAD common thing for a man of twenty-two to be abso- lutely penniless, but yet to have a golden future. My contemporary became mathematical master at a public school, and eventually its bursar. There was nothing strange or unworthy of the promise in such a beginning. But he settled into it, lived in it, and I believe died in it. Well, why should not a good Christian have done his duty in the station which Heaven had planted him in ? During his life, and since his death, I have heard frequently the same account of him that he was loved and honoured, and that he was believed to have contributed much to the intellectual and moral improvement of the school. I have even heard him described as a rather extraordinary case of an individual character im- pressing itself on a school, which, through its frequent changes, wants some elements of continuity. I cannot help contrasting the man with Bernal Osborne, and the one career with the other. In any reasonable scale Bernal was immeasurably below com- parison with the man I speak of ; yet I suppose the world would call the career of the former a brilliant success, that of the latter a failure. Looking, as I did, for much, and wishing to see my schoolfellow emerge, I could not help a certain sense of blight, of dimness, and of disappointment when I heard of a born genius spending his days in teaching algebra, and a born hero keeping college accounts and man- aging college property. Surely there are plenty of men who can do these things very well, though they have not been dipped in the Styx, or educated by centaurs. ARE ALL NUMBERED: 421 The feeling of a disappointment that is, of a lame and impotent conclusion was so deep in me, that I could not but often ask the reason, and revert to what I had once thought but a trifle, but had cause to think more of. I have mentioned in my ' Remin- iscences ' that, as Charterhouse Chapel was before the addition of a new aisle, we were all massed in a dark corner behind a large pier, and left to our own de- vices. My handsome contemporary, I think invari- ably, lay back with his very beautiful head on the lap of a young friend, I think a cousin, whose office it was to brush, and I think also oil, the glossy locks of golden hair. Perhaps there is not much to choose between this folly and my wrangling with Hobhouse about the changes in the Criminal Code. It may even be said that a man can attend to a sermon while in the barber's hands, though it is not possible in the other case. I think the exhibition was more scandalous and irreverent than mine. I may add that I could not help myself. However that may be, many years before I could have had a thought of putting this upon paper, and when I had no idea but that my words would rest awhile in a few village memories, I have related these facts to schoolchildren, and added that when puzzled to account for a man of great promise not fulfilling it, and making no great mark, the only account I could give of it was this bit of folly and effeminacy in the House of God. It seemed to me like one of the small indications -of internal danger that rouse first the curiosity, then the serious apprehension, of friends, nurses, and physicians. There is a saying that no man 422 SOME CONTEMPORARIES IN THE SCHOOL. is a hero to his valet ; but I suppose it must have its limits, and this was not an affair of the toilet-table. I have done my best to record old impressions, and am quite content now to leave them in other hands. After all, I am not aware what good Bernal Osborne did to mankind or his country ; and he cer- tainly did not add much to the wisdom or the tone of the House of Commons. On the other side we only see an illustration of the general law that, however gorgeous the blossom may be, all that we look for in the fruit is that it be useful, sufficient, and good. Though Bernal was known to be of Hebrew ex- traction, he never had any occasion to stand on his defence in that matter. By invariably and continu- ally assuming the aggressive, he always carried the war into the enemy's quarters. Nor can I recall that he had any Jewish traits about him, unless impudence be one of them. Nathaniel Goldsmid was not so fortunate. His name, his figure, his aquiline nose and other features, all betrayed him. The first thing I heard on coming to the school was the incessant persecution to which he had been exposed. He could only have been eleven when he came, and could not be a match for the whole school. He left early, possibly upon his complaining of the treatment he had received, and I am not sure I even saw him there. I saw a good deal of him at Oxford, in town, and at Rome, where he frequently reverted to Charterhouse more plea- santly than I expect Bernal ever did, for he was singularly without malice or guile. As for about nine-tenths of his conscious existence NATHANIEL GOLDSMID. 423 for half a century he was incessantly asking ques- tions, he must have made more inquiries, generally of a personal and circumstantial character, than any- body of whom there is record, and may possibly have beaten Parliament itself. All his plans and movements were directed to this end. A natural instinct took him to points and pass- ages where intelligent humanity most congregated or flowed. At Oxford he was to be seen in High Street, and even more in the open spaces north and south of the School Quad, instantly recognising an acquaintance entering from the opposite ends. In. town he was to be seen perched like an eagle on the steps of the portico of St. Martin's. Here he was at his perihelion, but he made orbits in this or that direction. At Rome he had apartments looking into the Via Condotti, where he could watch the stream of British life flowing daily into the Corso. It might be with some allusion to his Charterhouse troubles that he told me the Roman gentry called the Piazza di Spagna the English Ghetto. The greater part of the day he was to be seen in Piali's shop in the Piazza, or enter- ing it, or leaving it. In the shop he was talking with a customer that is, cross-questioning him or pre- tending to read a newspaper, always with an eye to the window commanding several large hotels and pensions, not to speak of the Spanish embassy and the Propaganda. During the five weeks I was at Rome, Christmas 1855, Goldsmid was coughing in- cessantly, in a way to distress all who heard, though it seemed a matter of no concern to himself, except 424 SOME CONTEMPORARIES IN THE SCHOOL. as it somewhat interrupted his flow of questions. Piali and his customers complained of it one to an- other, but felt without redress. They saw, perhaps, that it could not last long. He was little better than a skeleton ; but to himself that mattered not. An old friend of mine, whose employment took him often in Goldsmid's way indeed, everybody with known regular haunts was sure to find himself much in Goldsmid's way used to say that, after a long conversation with him, he never could make out that he had learnt anything new from him. Goldsmid certainly had not realised that even in conversation it is more blessed to give than to receive. The charge was too true. Persons and things can never have had much gloss in Goldsmid's mind, and such con- tinual trituration could not but make them more threadbare. But I was not myself so conscious of having been cheated in the interchange as my friend, who expected to receive as much as he gave. My answers, from mere weariness and indolence, were seldom good measure and weight, perhaps not even honest. I preferred to let the storm of interrogatories glance off my shield, instead of standing the shock of direct impact. I certainly left Goldsmid time and breath for an occasional remark, and even for humorous portrai- ture. I remember his describing to life the ordinary English family passing for the first time through the Via Condotti : the paterfamilias walking sternly, without abatement of pace, or an eye turned to the right or the left ; the mother lagging behind, the daughters tailing far in the rear. VIA CONDOTTI. 425 I may explain that I have never seen anything so tempting as the Roman jewellery, mosaics, cameos, bronze and marble models, and photographs. In both my own protracted visits I steadily resisted the daily temptation. The day before my last de- parture, I went to close accounts with my banker, and, to my great surprise, found that I had a thou- sand francs more than I had expected. I and mine immediately sallied forth and spent it in objects that now every day remind me of that delightful hour. About a quarter of a year after our return home, I received a letter from the banker informing me that he had made a mistake in adding up a column, and had credited me a thousand francs too much, which he would now be much obliged to me to refund. Nathaniel Goldsmid had early joined the Oxford Movement, and he quickly followed his leaders to Rome. He took over with him his wife, to whose parents of the strictest Presbyterian type I had paid a week's visit many years before, and who then could little have thought a child of theirs would ever be doing homage to the Pope, and, I believe, serving him with much sacrifice, at Rome. I am not sure that Milton was not right, philologically as well as ethically, in saying that ' Presbyter ' is but 'Priest 'writ large; but the common belief, and cer- tainly the moral fact, is that 'Priest' is 'Presbyter' writ small. One of the most conspicuous figures in school or playground was William Laurence Young, of a fine powerful make, but with light hair and a mottled complexion. I was a mite in comparison with him. 426 CONTEMPORARIES IN LLOYD'S HOUSE. He must have been a man of war from his birth, for he would walk about the Green with a cricket-stump, practising first one cut, then another, on the little boys in his way. This he did without malice, though not always without provoking it. In the first form with him for two years, I came to regard him as a very harmless character, but with due respect for his talents. He showed a strong military bias, making careful plans of all the battles in our school work. Russell saw and approved some, but I cannot recall that he ever asked a question on strategy or tactics, and Young was the only one who showed any interest in them. Young succeeded his father in the baronetcy, and died young, leaving sons, the eldest of whom was killed in the battle of the Alma, leaving his title to the next brother, who died in the Crimea very shortly after. CHAPTER LXIV. SOME CONTEMPORARIES IN LLOYD'S HOUSE. FOR a short time our house, of only thirty boys, had the honour of having in it the captain of the school. He was the son of an archdeacon, and his brother had been before him at Charterhouse, and was now distinguishing himself at Cambridge. He was a good scholar, and could write iambics and hexameters quickly and well. But here was the wonder. So far from showing any genius, or wit, or common sense in THE CAPTAIN OF THE SCHOOL. 427 conversation, he could scarcely open his mouth with- out offending the taste of the merest youngster. I remember his raising roars of laughter by the extreme gaucherie of his expressions. He seemed obstinately to refuse to recognise the double meanings which schoolboys are only too familiar with. I used then to conclude that he must have a taste, but that it lay in the dead languages. My present inference is that if he shocked the living, much more would he have shocked the dead. One or two of my critics have dropped a hint of my being disposed to self glorification, and confining my few confessions to trifles I need not be much ashamed of. They will hardly say this of what I now relate. The captain of the school we were proud to have in our house went, with flying colours, to Cambridge. At once there was broached the idea that he ought to have a testimonial from the house. It gained immediate acceptance. I did not like the man ; the Cabinet minister's son liked him less : but he was the chief, indeed the prime mover of the project. What was it to be ? All sorts of things were thought of. The ' captain ' was a man of simple tastes : he would not care for plate, indeed he would not want it. He had a good watch. But he was a scholar, a critic, and, in one language at least, at home in the drama. Would not Shakespeare latest edition, variorum notes well bound, be a suitable and wel- come offering? This was agreed to by some seven or eight subscribers, the subscription being limited to the elders. A bookseller's estimate was got a dozen volumes, or more, bound in russia extra. I was 428 CONTEMPORARIES IN LLOYD'S HOUSE. told my quota. Not having it, I wrote home, stating the occasion ; and soon there arrived, through my city friend, a little brown paper parcel, containing the exact sum, and eliciting some smiles from my fellow- subscribers. In due time the book arrived. The subscribers gathered round, and, after admiring the outsides, opened the volumes, applied their noses to the deli- cious aroma of russia leather, and felt rich in even the temporary possession of such a book. We re- turned again and again to it in the course of a long half-hour. Some one suggested another copy for our own library. About a year before this the house, after the example of the older and larger houses, had established a library, which, with few and small subscriptions, had not been able to buy many books, hardly any of a standard class. ' I do really think this is too good to send away,' said another voice. ' I almost think it's too good for ,' added another. ' Did you really care for very much ? ' asked another. ' Well, I can't say I really cared for him, was the reply. In a very few minutes it was put to the vote whether we should send the book to , or add it to our own small library. I was the only one who voted for the original destination, and I doubt whether I expressed my negative in a very telling form. I was very indignant, and very much ashamed of myself, but I did not care for , and had already thought the present too good for him, and altogether superfluous. From that day to this I have never been able to satisfy myself whether the whole affair was a plot of A TESTIMONIAL. 429 our diplomatic schoolfellow, or whether the change of destination had really first arisen on sight and smell of the beautiful and fragrant volumes. The affair lay heavy on my conscience a long, long time. Ought I to have told all to my parents ? They would prob- ably have written to Russell, and he certainly would not have thanked them for doing so. I suppose most public-school boys would say that I was bound by that higher law of school fellowship, which modifies truth itself, to hold my tongue. Our diplomatic friend was no scholar, nor had he much literary tincture ; but he valued books, and knew the best editions. He had been recently commissioned by his own father to weed the family library, which had grown beyond the shelves and the rooms themselves. The rejected editions he had for his pains From him I learnt that the then regular price for second-rate editions in good condition was a shilling an inch as they stood on the shelves. The diplomatist went to Trinity College, Cam- bridge, before going to the Foreign Office. He must frequently have encountered in the streets the chief victim of this plot, and would find no difficulty in keeping his countenance while exchanging civilities, for he had a complete mastery of mute expression. The only thing I heard from Cambridge about him was that he had two cats, whom he called Huz, his first-born, and Buz, his brother, and that they usually reposed on splendid cushions of crimson velvet with gold fringe. For a year or two we had in the house a very singular being, the son of an Essex schoolmaster 430 CONTEMPORARIES IN LLOYD'S HOUSE. sent to Charterhouse, I suppose, to learn the new system. This was William Prouting Roberts. He had the lowest form of cleverness that can be imagined, and fluency of talk, without feeling, point, or form. The diplomatist took to him, as a man might take to a bear, and the bear was always hang- ing about him in the house, but not on the Green. Any time the diplomatist called him in an imitative, guttural tone, Roberts came. What follows I have always regarded as a case of evil and unaccountable possession. Roberts had no special friendship for Wakefield. The latter might have learnt humanity from his own sufferings, for he had one leg in an iron frame. But, for many weeks, every night, these two dragged out of his bed a very harmless little fellow named Fagan, and cruelly flogged him, for no reason whatever. The poor child, through his parents, asked to change his bedroom ; this was contrary to rule, and was not allowed. He repeated the request in person to the master of the house, and showed such painful earnestness that the master got the truth out of him, and both the fellows were sent away. Not long after Roberts called at my lord's house in town, ana got an interview with his old Charterhouse friend. The latter gave us an account of it on his return from the holidays. He had steadily refused to recognise Roberts, or to acknowledge the slightest recollection of him. It must be some extra- ordinary misapprehension ; Roberts must have mis- taken him for somebody else, for he had never seen the man, or heard his name. This certainly was ill-usage, and it may even have THE MINERS' ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 431 determined Roberts's future career. After some years I heard of him as a Chartist leader. He and some others came into collision with the law, and he was sentenced to a considerable term of imprisonment. Before long I heard that he did not find prison agreeing with him. My very kind-hearted Wiltshire neighbour, a magistrate, Mr. Duke, took a special interest in him, reported the state of his health to the Home Office, and procured his release. The prisoner's ailments were minutely described in the papers, and I recognised in them the successful operation of various tricks practised by shammers wanting a few days' idleness, even at the cost of some physic-taking. Everybody in our house knew how to get up a furred tongue, or an irregular pulse. Roberts was now a martyr. He became soon, and I believe till his death, the Miners' Attorney-General, and, I have been assured, was really of service to his clients, who gave him work enough. I have already mentioned Andrew Fountaine, descendant of Addison's friend, and famous for the collection of works of art inherited, augmented, and finally dispersed last year. I only remember him as always employed in making artificial flies, adapted, as George Eliot expresses it, to the subjectivity of fishes. He had generally a little circle of learners or admirers about him. A first form boy of promise, and some genius, often consulted the oracle. I en- tirely failed to see in Fountaine the man who would give five hundred or a thousand for a dish or a piece of carved ivory, to fetch after his death twice or thrice the sum. 432 CONTEMPORARIES IN LLOYD'S HOUSE. Gordon (F. Arthur), son of the Earl of Aboyne, was a very handsome, very good-natured, and alto- gether a very fine fellow, with any number of racy Scotch sayings. I remember his once keeping the wickets a whole afternoon. He could not be bowled or caught out. It seemed a miracle in those days, a freak of providence, though such scores seem not to be so uncommon now. Every Sunday night Gordon brought home some scandal or some grievance from the high world generally little to me. I remember, however, his"- indignation at what he and his friends held to be the unfair appropriation of a great title that had fallen to the disposal of the Crown. It brought home to me that great people have their troubles as well as little people, and that their cup of blessings is seldom quite full. In Lloyd's house, or Dicken's as it came to be, my own two chief friends might be described as Poetry and Prose. The former, born at Canton, was a graceful, ornamental figure, well read in modern poetry, and able to compose his poem for the prize which, however, he never got outside the coach on his journey up to school. He went into the India Civil Service, after distinguishing himself at Addiscombe's. Compelled to return home early, he was much em- ployed by the India Company in literary work. He wrote a good deal of poetry, and prose of a poetical character, on , speculative, indeed fanciful, subjects. In his case the child has been the father of the man. ' Prose ' was the son of a Welsh clergyman who had stepped by marriage into a good property, and had AN EATING OUT. 433 adopted a name in much local estimation. My friend is gone, and I think I may say I used to feel his wisdom rather oppressive. It wanted life and soul. On one occasion I felt utterly ashamed of his weakness and folly. There was nothing like ' barring out ' at Charterhouse in my time, but there was the horrible idea of eating out. The provision, in our house at least, was always so ample and good, and the interval between the school times always so precious, that an opportunity had to be found. One Saturday an unusual number of boys had gone out to their friends, and there remained only a dozen or so. But that dozen happened to include some regular miscreants. They conspired to eat poor Mr. Lloyd out, and my prosy friend fell into the idea, and gave his word accordingly. These wretches sent up their plates a dozen times or more, eating up first their own dinner, which, as usual on Saturdays, was made of rechauffes, then the servants' dinner, and then the loin of roast veal, intended for our master himself, his wife, and a friend. When the last dish appeared, I was curious to see what he would do with the brown sauce and the slices of lemon. I don't know what he ought to have done, but he gave them none of it. Of course he reported it all to Russell, privately, not officially. Fortune, or Nature, came to Russell's aid. In three or four days my prosy friend's face was breaking out very unpleasantly. Russell made some dead sets at him for he was now in the Upper School and found him unprepared. After delivering himself fully on my friend's dulness, or idleness, he VOL. I. F F 434 CONTEMPORARIES IN LLOYD'S HOUSE. added, ' You cannot learn, but you can eat I see the juice of the mutton oozing out of your face.' My friend became an attorney, a magistrate, and a captain of yeomanry. He published works on prophecy, upon which I am unable to offer an opinion. He speculated ; he ran through his means, and then lived and died, so I was told, on an allow- ance from kind friends. It was mentioned above that under certain regu- lations we could go out to friends from Saturday afternoon to Sunday evening indeed to Monday morning sometimes, for otherwise I could never have seen Russell in Aldersgate Street, on his way from Blackheath. We had to produce our notes of invita- tion. It is plain this would not be sufficient without another note from the inviter to be also exhibited on the return to school. I cannot remember that there ever was such a requirement. Among the boys it was well known, indeed sometimes boasted, that the invitation had been first declined, and then used simply to escape from the walls. I had always felt an extreme longing to see more of England than I had yet done, or had the chance of doing. My highest enjoyment was rushing into space. It mad- dened me ; it demoralised me. Receiving an invita- tion from my kind city friends, I declined it ; but gave in the note to the master of my house, with a request to go out for the Sunday. I started instantly after breakfast, went ahead, explored Blackheath, ascended Shooter's Hill, and pushed on to the tenth milestone on the Kent Road. The occasional glimpse of the Thames and the AN ESCAPADE. 435 shipping on it produced an ecstasy of delight. The sky looked threatening, so at last I turned my face homewards, making a detour by Woolwich. By the time I got there, it rained heavily. I had neither umbrella nor overcoat, so I hugged the walls of the arsenal, and got shelter in nooks and corners. The rain did not cease till I was in London again. I had had a bun or two, and I now eagerly devoured some light confectionery. I returned over Waterloo Bridge, and looked about me at St. Clement Dane's. On the north side was a cellar eating-shop, where I had often seen people at supper, and a blazing fire. I went down, my clothes all soaked to the skin, and stood by the fire while something was got for me. When it came I could not swallow a mouthful. The church bells were ringing for evening service that is, for the ' Lecture.' St. Clement's bells were always dear to me, for they were like those of our All Saints' at Derby, and gave the same chimes. I went into the church, was shown into a comfortable pew, fell fast asleep, was waked only by the breaking up of the congregation, and returned to Charterhouse just in time. The housekeeper expressed some surprise and alarm at the state of my clothes, my best suit ; but I was never the worse for it, and I heard no more about it. My older readers may think what they please about this escapade. But I have a word for my younger readers. They may depend upon it that if they practise any deception, and have not the cour- age to confess it, the very best thing that can happen to them is that they shall be detected and punished F F 2 436 CONTEMPORARIES IN LLOYD'S HOUSE. They will feel the less remorse on the one hand, and the less encouragement to go on deceiving on the other. These are the alternatives before them. They may be haunted throughout life by the remembrance of what their souls are ashamed of; or, what is in- finitely worse, they may not be haunted at all, but grow into practised and successful impostors of one sort or another. The young little know what they are early committing themselves to, the deep foun- dations they are laying, and the laws they are establishing for their own future guidance, and per- haps, too, for the dispensations, the casualties, the unfortunate, or seemingly fortunate, destiny they are bringing on themselves. A career may be long and varied, but it is the first start that gives the direction. CHAPTER LXV. DAY-BOYS AND GOWN-BOYS. I WAS early so sensible of a certain mischief in the site of Charterhouse, the surroundings, and the air, that I long ago took every opportunity of advocating a re- moval into the country. Hale, even while Preacher, resisted the change, and, as I understood, induced the Governors to refuse a very advantageous offer from the Great Eastern Railway Company. I be- lieve he conceived that the original idea and proper destination of Charterhouse was a day-school. To carry out this idea would have involved changes I JOSEPH SUMNER BROCKHURST. 437 could form no conception of. I took the school as it had been in my time, with about three hundred and seventy boarders, forty-four gown-boys, and between sixty and seventy day-boys. The last were of vari- ous classes of city folks, but were none of what would be called the commercial class. There were a few of the professional. Being 'day-boys,' and in such a minority, they were not allowed to linger in the Green, but had to leave the walls as soon as school was over. As a rule, there was no opportunity for the formation of any degree of acquaintance with the day-boys, who simply appeared in school and disap- peared after. I knew nothing of their parentage or position, or even their manners. Only one day-boy that I remember came under any terms of companionship, and he is one to whom I am glad to discharge a certain debt of regard. This was Joseph Sumner Brockhurst. He was lame and misshapen, with no flesh on his bones, with a swarthy complexion, harsh features, and a hollow, but rather melodious voice. In the year ending May 6, 1824, in which I came in third for 'Carthage,' and Edgworth second, Brockhurst carried off all three prizes: Greek iambics, 'Tempest,' act i. scene 2; Latin hexameters, ' Crcesus ' ; and the English verse. All show great facility, and are as easy to understand as they were easy to write. Brockhurst used to keep an eye on Russell, and write on fly-leaves, currents calamo, poems in the Byronic style. He was per- fectly unassuming, and he became an object of friendly interest to the upper forms and to Russell. He went to Cambridge, got a Chancellor's medal for 438 DAY-SOYS AND GOWN-BOYS. English verse, and but I cannot follow him farther. He was one of those whom had I the making of laws I should place under special guardianship, for their own good and for the good of mankind, as being utterly unable to take care of themselves. But for its almost crushing sadness, there is no subject more interesting than the disasters and aberrations of genius. I often wish that competent writers would put together the cases within their own knowledge, that bright stars might not so utterly disappear as many do. W. H. Mackinnon, just my contemporary, was a genius. He was drowned at Boulogne in 1825. Bourdieu was a genius. He went into the Indian Artillery. Salmon Turner, captain at Easter 1824, I used to regard as a genius ; so graceful and bright. What became of him ? As far as Charterhouse can show, it is not genius that wins the highest honours, or does the best work. It is rather what some one has called the five-o'clock genius that is, habitual industry and constant pre- paredness. Another day-boy was a gentleman, the son of a gentleman, and perhaps the best scholar in the school. He was a little over-stiff and staid, but he had to be reserved. Russell had had no difficulty in carrying out in all the lower forms the plan of passing ques- tions, and sending the successful answerers over the heads of the unsuccessful. But the first half of the First Form steadily resisted this violation of old public-school etiquette-: at every new school-time the boys reappeared in their old order. Russell had to fight it out. One morning school this boy, by PEDE POENA CLAUDO. 439 answering questions, passed by the others, rose to the head of the form that is, to the top of the school. In the afternoon he appeared in his old place. Russell waved him to the top again, and he obeyed. On leaving school he had to pass the gown-boys' ' long room.' The enemy waited for him, dragged him into their den for a dark den it was laid him across a table, and administered a very severe castigation in scholastic fashion. He stated the case to his father, and his father stated it to Russell, but conveying at the same time the son's request that no notice should be taken of it. Russell did take no notice of it. Not long after this several of the younger gown- boys complained to their parents that they were done out of their small allowances by being compelled to put into lotteries. The big gown-boys announced lotteries, in which half a dozen were to take sixpenny tickets for a half-crown prize. By a brisk repetition of the process, the poor little fellows were soon cleaned out. Russell made an inquiry, ascertained the names, and laid the matter before the governors, who gave him full liberty in the matter. As I under- stood at the time, he had expulsion in his hands. The oldest and biggest offender was the ' cock of the school,' and as such regarded with no little awe by all the small fry. Russell had a hold upon him the force of which is hardly intelligible in these days. He was hanging on at school for the sake of some paltry exhibition at Oxford, which he would forfeit by leaving before the vacancy. So he had now to stay and bear the brunt of accumulated wrath. Russell assembled both Upper and Lower Schools, 440 DAY-BOYS AND GOWN-BOYS. in fact every one of near five hundred, in the lower school. A clear space was left in the midst, and in the middle of it the block was laid. The principal delinquent and his chief accomplice were called up in succession, and, with the usual preparation, received each twenty swinging cuts with the rod, indeed several rods one after another, from Russell's own powerful arm. I seem to hear the cuts still. I have said there was accumulated wrath. Some time before this the said ' cock of the school ' had challenged the captain of the school, a gown-boy like himself, but no fighting man. The captain was ready to take a thrashing that would leave his courage un- impeached ; but, in his position, he did not like to offend against the discipline of the school. I do not know whether it was after consultation with his father, but the matter was privately placed before Russell. The captain said his life would be miserable if he did not fight ; and I always understood that Russell, with whom he was a great favourite, let him know that he might do as he pleased, but he was to take care that he, Russell, was not to hear of it. Accordingly, he accepted the challenge on one con- dition. The fight was not to be in Middle Briars, the centre of the Cloisters, but in what was then called the Wilderness, separated at that time by a wall from the Green, and before a select number of spectators. So they got over the wall and had their one-sided duel. The captain received, as he had expected, a very severe thrashing, and had to absent himself from school for some time, but even the conqueror had now to respect him. A GOWN-BOY'S EVENINGS AT HOME. 441 There was much greater variety of age and standing in the gown-boys than in the rest of the school. The fortunate parents, as they deemed them- selves, got their boys in as early as eight or nine, and kept them to near twenty. A Northamptonshire neighbour of mine who had gone to Charterhouse, on the foundation, in 1808, described to me the case of the little boys in his time. The long winter evenings are everywhere the trial of forced companionship. As soon as the little boys had despatched their scanty supper, and done in some hasty fashion their lessons for the next day, the word was given, ' Off to the closet.' That I think was the name, but it was the place where things were stowed out of the way. As many as a dozen or twenty would have to go and pack themselves as close as they could, one upon another, in a dark hole, the door of which was closed upon them. They managed to entertain themselves in whispers. If the whispers were too loud, the door was opened, and the living mass indiscriminately lashed or pounded. My informant declared that these were the happiest hours of his life ; that here he made his warmest friendships ; and here he ac- quired more information than he did in any other way at the school. I have named ' Middle Briars ' as the ordinary trysting-place. Being in the Cloisters, and under the terrace commanding the Green, no master could see what was going on there, unless he went there on purpose. The floor was a stone pavement. There were terrible and very protracted fights there. I am sure the late Sir W. Bagge must have carried to 442 DAY-SOYS AND GOWN-BOYS. the grave the marks of a conflict with a boy a head taller, lasting two hours or more, and concluding, if I remember, in both combatants being utterly ex- hausted. Now I remember it must have been the roll-call that stopped them. The fable of the Hare and the Tortoise could not be better illustrated than by the characters and careers of Joseph Sumner Brockhurst and William Tyrrell. Any comparison between the two schoolboys would have been utterly ridiculous. Tyrrell, however, was a good and true man ; always up to his work, though neither quick nor bright, and making a good im- pression even on boyish minds. ' Goodness ' is apt to be another name for ' dulness,' and if I thought Tyrrell especially good I might have thrown in some of the other quality. He died four years ago, after being Bishop of Newcastle, New South Wales, thirty- four years. Unmarried, and making judicious in- vestments, he saved a large sum for the endowment of his See, and the institutions connected with it. His ' Life and Labours,' by one of his colonial fellow-labourers, lies before me, and is a very im- portant record, full of tacit rebuke to the aimless, idle, and desultory. The biographer laments that he has found himself very short of materials for any account of Tyrrell's school or college days. This is not to be wondered at. Tyrrell was quiet, impassive, and without much companionship at school. At Cambridge, as early as 1827, he was almost secretly turning his attention to the study of the Christian Fathers, and collecting a library. In one point I must make a correction, for it WILLIAM TYRRELL, 443 shows how quickly and entirely an important stage in even a noble career may pass out of remem- brance. At first sight there would seem no reason why Tyrrell's whole life should not be known down to any requisite details. His two sisters good women as ever were I was intimately acquainted with for many years. Mrs. Tyrrell, the mother, used to delight in being rowed on the Thames at Kew by her eight fine sons. They were all too busy, I sup- pose, to keep much account of early days. However that may be, the biographer gives two very pretty paragraphs, describing Tyrrell as a day-boy, going to school with his bundle of books along Cheapside and Aldersgate Street, not quite such a seething current of busy life then as now. Now, if Tyrrell had been a day-boy, he would have found Cheapside a very circuitous route to Charterhouse. My own city friends were only about a hundred yards from the house of the City Remem- brancer, Tyrrell's father, at Guildhall. Both points were about five minutes' walk from Aldersgate Street. But, to the best of my recollection, all the time I was at Charterhouse, from Easter 1820 to Easter 1825 Tyrrell was not a day-boy, but in Chapman's house. His biographer says that, coming home daily, when he had done his work for the next day, he spent the rest of the evening in playing chess with his mother, and thereby acquired his skill in the game. But in Chapman's house there was much chess- playing. Bannatyne, Middleton, and Croft were chess-players. I was playing a game with the first as we passed Yarmouth in the ' James Watt ' steamef 444 FILEY. in August 1823. Middleton and Croft once lent me a chess-board, and wanted it back. So, contrary to strict rule, they crossed the Square one evening to reclaim it. Ringing at our house-door, they asked for me. Dicken heard of it, and asked the names of the callers. Had I given the names, they must have been flogged. So I declined. He reported me to Russell, who, upon my repeated refusal, made me stand in the middle of the upper school for three days till I should give up the names. At the end of the third day he took hold of me by the arm, and whisked me into my seat. I remember Russell, in a moment of irritation, laying hold of a Idutish day-boy by the collar of his shirt. It came off in his ringers, and he had to make restitution, much to the amusement of the school. This was the first time I had seen a false collar, and I am not sure that I had even heard of such things before. ' Dickies ' they came to be called, possibly, like ' etiquette ' and ' ticket,' derived from the verb ' to stick.' CHAPTER LXVI. FILEY. I SPENT at Filey a six weeks' holiday in 1823, and the middle of a Long Vacation in 1825. At the former date there was just one short row of small cottages, like a coastguard station, built for visitors, who did riot come. At the latter date there was a single A VILLAGE OF FISHERMEN. 445 larger house, which we occupied with the Waylands. At these dates a shy elderly incumbent was righting the battle of life with slender means. Whenever he heard of a haul of fish he descended to the shore, bought a huge cod for a shilling, carried it off, and had it boiled. Placing it on a shelf, he lived on it as long as it lasted a whole week sometimes. Such a mode of life was criticised even then. I have often asked what favour it would have found with the preachers of fasting, abstinence, and self-denial, that have since taken charge of us. It was only just living according to the poor man's means, accepting thankfully God's gifts, and making the best use of them. But somehow or other it does not harmonise with the idea of a Movement. The daily meal on cold cod would have to be formalised to make it meritorious. Speaking for myself, I find it possible to get tired of fish. Once I thought it impossible. It is a not uncommon experience. People who have been long in remote country-places, where the supply of fish is intermittent, bad, and dear, acquire a craving for it. I have known the time when I could have swallowed with gusto not only eel, which is hardly fish, but anything from sea or river, down to whelks and mussels. So I have not been surprised at country ladies, on the look-out for a new place of residence, preferring a town with a good fish-market, and a house within easy distance of it. Salt, smoked, or pickled fish are the most endurable forms, and I suppose the only forms in which the Romans were acquainted with salmon, and highly appreciated it. 446 F1LEY. A friend near me is surprised at the admission that one may have tired of fish, but the said friend confesses that cod does require some sauce or other. My mother, born and bred on the seashore, used to hold that soles, for example, required no sauce but butter. When the Waylands were forming with us a joint household at Filey, there ensued a little differ- ence on the subject, for Mrs. Wayland was as spicy in her tastes as in her conversation. She was allowed her anchovy sauce to herself. A little experience of my own throws some light on the poor parson's meagre fare. On a hot day I walked to Filey from the heart of Yorkshire, twenty good miles. It was past our early dinner hour when I reached home. On inquiry, I found nothing re- mained but a cold haddock and the fat of a cold shoulder of mutton. I finished them both to the bone, and never enjoyed a meal more. Yet even with that delightful memory I find myself able to appreciate the dispensation of Providence, which makes fish the most precarious of all foods. Early in that day I had found a hedgehog, which I captured and carried home in a handkerchief. As the day advanced, I thought more and more of a grand culinary experiment. I had read that gipsies think a hedgehog dainty fare. They envelop it in a ball of clay, which they put into the fire, and so convert into brick. Upon breaking the mass open, the spines are found imbedded in it, leaving a greasy lump inside. This is the poor little porker. My hedgehog was begged of me at once by some woman, who said that its fat was good for deafness. A FISHERMAN'S CHURCH. 447 The fish-fed parson was not very efficient, and his church, separated from the village by the deep ravine forming the boundary between the North and East Ridings, was then dreary, and not quite weather- proof. Both in 1823 and 1825 some of us walked to Hunmanby church, three miles off, and in the latter year we found some difficulty in getting seats. Our friends, finding themselves far from home, and as it were in a strange country, felt themselves relieved of the canonical rule forbidding the clergy to frequent conventicles. There was a ' fishermen's church ' at Filey, not a picturesque edifice overhanging a cliff and hung all over with ex-votos, but a Primitive Methodist chapel, or ' Ranters,' where we had been told there were sometimes exciting scenes. All over the world fishermen are expected to have a religion of their own. At Naples I used to hear what I supposed to be a very early service of song at some religious house behind our hotel in the Reale, and was told these were songs of a very pagan character, sung by the fisher- men as soon as they found themselves in the open air. While casting their nets I observed some unaccount- able gestures, and these I was told were a tradition of the offerings formerly made to the sea-gods. We were not, however, now in search of the picturesque, for we were all too serious for that. However that might be, one afternoon, our friends from Bassingham and some of our party, myself included, went to the chapel, a little too late, and opened the door. We were immediately invited in, but requested to keep together where we were at the 448 FILEY. foot of the gallery stairs. The preacher stopped. Heavy steps were heard overhead. Half a dozen men descended and found room on the floor. We were then politely ushered up to the front row of the gallery, just vacated for our use. As soon as we were seated the preacher began again. We were now up, up, on high, above the com- mon rank, enjoying our fancied pre-eminence and our palmy state. Let us not deceive ourselves. A time would come when we must go down, down, down, lower down than we could think of, or than the preacher dare say. The congregation all turned their eyes towards us to see how we took these warnings. Though the man's tones were loud enough, we came away disappointed, for his topics were commonplace. On a Sunday evening we walked to an Independent chapel at Muston, and heard a tall dark young man declaim on the attributes of the Almighty and the infirmities of man, employing the longest words he could ever have found in a dictionary. We were in- vited to a good house close to the chapel, and told that a great preacher, one Mr. Hamilton, of Leeds, was soon to preach there. Would we come and take tea with him ? The invitation was accepted. Mr. Hamil- ton was a fine-looking man, and more of a scholar and of an orator than the local minister. We were introduced to him, and went with him to ' tea.' It was a Yorkshire tea, beating a Lord Mayor's banquet in profusion and variety. A large table was covered with every species and form of eatable that can be made of wheat, barley, oats, butter, sugar, fruit, and spice, not without fresh and salt meat delicately in- SUB PEDE LUCET ONYX. 449 sinuated. Southerners can scarcely conceive the relish with which meals of this sort were then de- voured north of the Humber. The conversation soon turned on the coast, the bays, the sands, and the company. Sir Charles Anderson was reported to be busily collecting cornelians, agates, jaspers, blood- stones, and other pebbles, and himself assisting the lapidaries to grind and polish them. I unguardedly expressed my surprise at a country gentleman spend- ing his time on what so many a lesser man would do better for him. Mr. Hamilton took Sir Charles's part, and expressed a strong opinion upon the terms of my censure. I replied, as well as I could. In the midst of it all my father came in, and was duly introduced. ' Here's your son,' said the great preacher, ' launching the thunders of his eloquence against a good gentle- man guilty of picking up pretty pebbles on the sea- shore.' Of course the Leeds preacher was only amus- ing himself, but I was soon glad to be out of it. Twenty-five years after this I read the virtues of our hospitable friends described on two handsome mural tablets in Muston church, without any men- tion of their spiritual independence. Yorkshire has the credit of bracing air and genial sunshine. But the climate required greater care than people chose to give to their health. In a large well- built farmhouse, a few hundred yards from the cliff, was a young woman whose brother had gone on a voyage as his last chance in life. These were the only survivors of a large family that had all gone off in rapid decline. Walking one day towards the shore, but still near VOL. I. o G 450 FILEY. a mile from it, on a clear and sunshiny day, I saw a flock of sheep approaching me. I had not seen any- thing to call a flock of sheep thereabouts. How came these here ? They looked very large as they came nearer. They must have advanced within fifty yards of me when I found it was a sea fog, which, after scaling the cliff, was occupying the higher ground. I was immediately up to my knees in it, then to my shoulders, and then in a thick fog, which lasted the whole day. The fishermen were adventurous and hardy. They had to be often out many nights and days on the open sea. On their return, their wives immediately descended with large pitchers of some hot stuff, which, by its smell, might be anything one chose to imagine. They also brought large baskets, which they immediately filled with fish and placed on their heads. Carrying thus the best part of a hundred- weight, they toiled up the rough zigzag to the village. The result was that they had good figures and an upright bearing, but were rather too drudged and weather-beaten for what townspeople would call good looks. Word came that a whale had been captured and was on the beach. We were sorry to have missed the last struggle for life, but we hoped to see, at least, some indications of the recent fray the marks of the harpoon, perhaps the very weapon. The truth was, the poor thing had been found dead at sea. Its captors had tried to bring it to shore at Whitby, Scarborough, and Bridlington, and had been forbid- den to beach it by the authorities. At Filey there HARVESTS OF THE SEA. 451 were no authorities, and no courtiers to resent the intrusion of the stinking carcass between the wind and their nobility. I smelt it a mile off. I found a crowd of men, women, and children round it, cutting and slashing away, and filling caldrons and kettles with the blubber. Under a hot sun, rivulets of oil, white, blue, yellow, and red, meandered through the sands. This went on several days, when the fleshy interior and the bones were finally carried away by the farmers and laid on the land. The creature was a ' bottle-nose,' near thirty feet long. At another time I met a woman armed for a like capture. She had found a dead porpoise on the beach. Dragging it to a spot a little out of view, she paid it several visits, and finally secured several gallons of oil, which she thought a great prize. My father and I were on the shore end of Filey Brigg, watching the sea alternately advancing and retiring from a shallow rocky basin about thirty yards long and ten wide. All at once the water was alive with small fish sprats, as we were told. The mystery was soon solved. They were pursued by vast numbers of big fish, looking two feet long, probably less, which boldly pressed forward to the head of the basin. The sprats threw themselves in heaps out of the water, and landed on the rocky margin so thick as to make a bank all round. There was a sort of bar at the entrance of the basin. Taking off shoes and stockings, I stood in the middle of this bar, and tried to intercept the pursuers on their re- turn. It was ebb, and they exactly hit the last wave that would give them water enough to cross the bar. G G 2 452 FILEY. Though some of them escaped between my legs, and I believe I touched one or two, they were too active or too slippery for me. The basin was one mass of sprats, a foot or so deep. The next morning there came down carts, which were busy all day spreading them over the land. A minuter and less picturesque experience on the same spot many years after was even newer to me. I observed a small pebble moving about on the rocky floor. Taking it up, I found it had legs. It was like a woodlouse, except that the back, instead of being jointed, was one rugged mass of stone. As I knew everything was to be found in the British Museum, I took it there, and soon found that it was a Chiton, and a member of a very numerous family. Under a glass case there were two hundred chitons of all sorts and sizes from all parts of the world. Some were as large as my hand. Generally they were rugged, unsightly creatures ; some had an approach to orna- ment. In the whole two hundred there was not one that was not distinctly different from mine. Surely the name must have reference to the phrase, \dlvov sa-ao %iT(ova, in Hector's objurgation of Paris. In 1823, as I have elsewhere told, I went from London to Scarborough in the ' James Watt,' a fine steamer for those days, and that held its ground for many years after. For my return voyage my father took me to Hull and put me on board the ' Wilber- force ' steam-packet, a much smaller vessel. There was a high wind and a considerable swell in the tide- way of the H umber. I thought, at parting, that my father looked needlessly anxious. He told me MY LAST STAGE AT CHARTERHOUSE. 453 afterwards that he had the greatest misgivings as to my safety, and that he had watched the steamer out of sight, making inquiries of the sailors on the quay, and not getting much in corroboration of either his hopes or his fears. As a rule, the sailors of those days were always hoping the worst for a steamer, which they thought a very profane intrusion on the realms of old Neptune. CHAPTER LXVIL CHARTERHOUSE TO ORIEL. FROM the time I entered the Upper School, and still more when I found myself in the First Form, my position was most uncomfortable. Had I been ever so well prepared with the work indeed, sometimes I was prepared my natural hesitation, difficulty of utterance, and faults of pronunciation, made me a stumbling-block and a nuisance. All this could only be cured by practice, and of practice I had none. Had Russell divided his attention ever so equally, he could not have given more than two minutes to each one in the Upper School. The Second and a por- tion of the Third, or the two divisions of the Second Form, were in the Upper School on the express understanding that they were to be generally only listeners. Once a day Russell might pounce on a victim, just to show that, so far, it was not quite safe 454 CHARTERHOUSE TO ORIEL. for them to give no attention at all. In the First I had to take my turn, and questions were passed down to me. My wits were wandering, or I could not bring out what I wanted to say. This became so habitual with me and with others, that, not long before Whitsuntide 1824, Russell put seven of us into a distinct category at the bottom of the First, only calling on us at long intervals. Croft, son of the Princess Charlotte's unhappy physician, was the first of these ' seven wise men ' ; I came next ; the sixth and seventh were my intimate friend Patrick Scott, and Barnardiston Wrightson, well known in the London world. In the blue-book for 1824 these are divided from the rest by a blank space, to explain to the examiners that they were not to be called on. Russell looked kindly and in- dulgently on this intractable lump. He seemed to feel that we had a right to be in the First Form, or at least that we might as well be there as anywhere else. He gave me another chance. The last year I was there, between schools, he had for a time a small Theocritus class in his own library, and invited me to join it. Truth compels me to say that I made as poor a figure there as in the schoolroom, though his mode of conducting the class was that I found in the Oxford lecture-room. I really think there must have been a spell upon me. I utterly despaired of mend- ing matters so long as I remained at Charterhouse. I required personal instruction, and assistance in the preparation of lessons, and I had none. Russell used to boast that he had himself scarcely ever used a WHAT WAS MY REAL POSITION? 455 Lexicon, and never a Gradus. Of course I believe, and wonder. In my hopelessness I sent home, through my eldest brother, earnest entreaties to be taken away and sent to a private tutor. It did not occur to me at the time that I was under a tacit engagement to stay out my time, Russell having obtained for me admission into Oriel. Of course, if I had been taken away, it would have become quite out of Russell's power to answer for my fitness when summoned to Oxford. My parents would not hear of my removal, and I am now most grateful to them for it, hard as I thought it at the time. I had to bear it as well as I could. My position, indeed, was rather ludicrous than simply disgraceful. It was understood, but not the less a frequent topic of humorous allusion. Meanwhile, what really was the position I then felt so intolerable ? My case was even an improvement on that of the Dauphin, whose fellow-student had to receive all the punishments and none of the rewards. I was in a crowd of fellow-students who could not open their mouths without giving me instruction. Under Russell's plan, they went over the ground re- peatedly, improving each time. I could listen, and generally did, with pleasure and use. As time went on I ceased to have any of that distracting anxiety which prevents attention by com- pelling it, and which leads away from the meaning to the words. I could perform all that scholars do at their ease in their studies, with this advantage over them, that whereas they have often to desire the aid 456 CHARTERHOUSE TO ORIEL. of fairy hands to find volumes, take them down, con- sult the indices, and turn over the leaves, I had all this done for me. I am certain there existed no private tutor in the kingdom who would, or could, have been of as much service to me as my Charter- house schoolfellows, worked as Russell worked them. All my poor fragmentary knowledge of the classics I owe to them. Often do I grieve to reflect on the little reward most of them had for their services. I am not unconscious of the difference between active and passive education, between seeking know- ledge and having it thrust down one's throat, be- tween working for one's intellectual food and eating the bread of idleness. But I learnt what I learnt in the only way in which I could learn it, and for that I have to thank Russell and his body-guard of thirty- three able, loyal, and hardworking students. Alas, that I should have now to say to so many of them, Sic vos non vobis finish the verse who can. My obligations to that school are greater than I was then aware of, greater, perhaps, than I can even now apprehend. Quintilian has by no means ex- hausted the advantages of a good school over home- education. He says, Domi puer ea sola discere potest qua ipsi prcecipiuntur ; in schold etiam qua aliis, But what was my delight when, on February 8, 1825, Russell handed me a letter from Copleston, now lying before me, upon which he had himself written directions for my going to Oxford by the one o'clock coach on the i6th, and calling on the Provost next day in order to my matriculation and MATRICULATION. 457 admission. The Provost's letter does not read as if he expected to see me himself, for he says that on hearing from Russell he will apprize my tutor of the day when I may be expected. My father met me at Oxford. We presented ourselves at Oriel, and were taken to a very good-looking, fresh-coloured, black-haired young Fellow, who made us both feel quite at home. He examined me in Thucydides, Virgil, and, I think, Euclid, asking me also to translate a sentence into Latin. ' That will do ; now we must go to the Vice- Chancellor. But you will have to make some pay- ments.' My father expressed his surprise at the College being represented by so young a man. ' I expected to see some older officer of the College.' ' Perhaps I'm older than you think,' said Hawkins. ' How old do you take me to be ? ' My father answered, ' Twenty-five, or perhaps twenty -seven.' ' I am thirty-eight,' was the reply, much to our sur- prise. My father went home quite fascinated with my future tutor, as he concluded he was to be. Before the close of the Charterhouse term, and therefore before going to Derby, I left school one day and was in college the next. At school most of us were rather rough-shod, to stand the wear of the hard, gritty playground. My shoes were strong and iron-heeled, and I well remember the dismay I felt as I clanged up the marble pavement of Oriel Chapel the morning after my arrival. I had immediately to see my tutor, and this I found not to be Hawkins, but Jelf. The reason for 458 CHARTERHOUSE TO ORIEL. the new arrangement, as it seemed to me, I never knew, but it greatly affected my destiny, and I feel very thankful for it. By my matriculation I just escaped the chance of being drawn for the Middlesex Militia. Only a fort- night before my name had been entered on a list for the ballot. The worst, however, that could have happened would have been the cost of a substitute. The transition from Charterhouse Upper School to the Oriel 'Lectures,' which, it is needless to say, were rather daily examinations than lectures in the common sense, was the most delightful I have ever experienced, or that I can even conceive. I have flown, as a bird out of a cage, into Devonshire ; I have found myself for the first time in the sights and sounds of a gay foreign city ; I have walked for the first time in the Champs Elysees ; I have entered St. Peter's, and have alighted at Cannes and Mentone. But none of these changes, delightful as they were, suggested anything beyond this world. They did not help me one step to the awful idea of endless consequence and progression. There was no change of state in them. The class-rooms of the Oriel tutors were heaven to me. Their soft voices and gentle manners ; their patient waiting ; their unobtruded, but careful and effectual guidance, all contributed to the impression that you were now higher in the scale of creation. I did not take more than my proper allowance of time. Indeed, I think the most delibe- rate of us all was Huntley, who, though educated by private tutors, was the best scholar amongst us. I A NEW WORLD. 459 hope not to be accused of either profaneness or of gross conceptions, when I say that I never contem- plate the great change every day nearer without being reminded of that first week at Oriel, and the calm and peaceful atmosphere of the University. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 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