THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE CAXTONS 
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE
 
 PKIHTtO BY IVILLAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, KDI.VBVRGH.
 
 THE C AX T ON S 
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE 
 
 SIE E. BULWEK LITTON, BAKT. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " BIENZI," &C. 
 
 Every famUy is a history in itself, and even a poem to those who know how 
 to search its pages. LAMARTI.VK. 
 
 Dl, probos mores docili jnvenUe 
 I)i, senectuti placidie quietem 
 Romukc genti date remque prolemque 
 Et decus omne. 
 
 HORAT. Carmen S<eculare, 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCXLIX
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 PART SEVENTH 
 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MY FATHER'S FIRST LOVE. 
 
 " I LOST my mother early ; my father (a good man, 
 but who was so indolent that he rarely stirred from 
 his chair, and who often passed whole days without 
 speaking, like an Indian dervish) left Roland and 
 myself to educate ourselves much according to our 
 own tastes. Roland shot, and hunted, and fished, 
 read all the poetry and books of chivalry to be found 
 in my father's collection, which was rich in such 
 matters, and made a great many copies of the old 
 pedigree ; the only thing in which my father ever 
 evinced much vital interest. Early in life I conceived 
 a passion for graver studies, and by good luck I found 
 a tutor in Mr Tibbets, who, but for his modesty, 
 Kitty, would have rivalled Porson. He was a second
 
 4 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 Budaeus for industry, and, by the way, he said 
 exactly the same thing that Budaeus did, viz. ' that 
 the only lost day in his life was that in which he was 
 married ; for on that day he had only had six hours 
 for reading ! ' Under such a master I could not fail 
 to be a scholar. I came from the university with 
 such distinction as led me to look sanguinely on my 
 career in the world. 
 
 " I returned to my father's quiet rectory to pause 
 and consider what path I should take to fame. The 
 rectory was just at the foot of the hill, on the brow of 
 which were the ruins of the castle Roland has since 
 purchased. And though I did not feel for the ruins 
 the same romantic veneration as my dear brother, 
 (for my day-dreams were more coloured by classic 
 than feudal recollections,) I yet loved to climb the 
 hill, book in hand, and build my castles in the air 
 amidst the wrecks of that which time had shattered 
 on the earth. 
 
 " One day, entering the old weed-grown court, I 
 saw a lady, seated on my favourite spot, sketching 
 the ruins. The lady was young more beautiful 
 than any woman I had yet seen, at least to my 
 eyes. In a word, I was fascinated, and, as the trite 
 phrase goes, { spell-bound.' I seated myself at a little 
 distance, and contemplated her without desiring to 
 speak. By-and-by, from another part of the ruins,
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 5 
 
 which were then uninhabited, came a tall, imposing, 
 elderly gentleman, with a benignant aspect; and a 
 little dog. The dog ran up to me barking. This 
 drew the attention of both lady and gentleman to me. 
 The gentleman approached, called off the dog, and 
 apologised with much politeness. Surveying me 
 somewhat curiously, he then began to ask ques- 
 tions about the old place and the family it had 
 belonged to, with the name and antecedents of which 
 he was well acquainted. By degrees it came out 
 that I was the descendant of that family, and the 
 younger son of the humble rector who was now its 
 representative. The gentleman then introduced him- 
 self to me as the Earl of Rainsforth, the principal 
 proprietor in the neighbourhood, but who had so 
 rarely visited the county during my childhood and 
 earlier youth, that I had never before seen him. 
 His only son, however, a young man of great promise, 
 had been at the same college with me in my first 
 year at the university. The young lord was a read- 
 ing man and a scholar ; and we had become slightly 
 acquainted when he left for his travels. 
 
 " Now, on hearing my name, Lord Rainsforth 
 took my hand cordially, and, leading me to his 
 daughter, said, ' Think, Ellinor, how fortunate ! this 
 is the Mr Caxton whom your brother so often 
 spoke of.'
 
 6 THE CAXTONS t 
 
 " In short, my dear Pisistratus, the ice was broken, 
 the acquaintance made, and Lord Rainsforth, saying 
 he was come to atone for his long absence from the 
 county, and to reside at Compton the greater part of 
 the year, pressed me to visit him. I did so. Lord 
 Rainsforth's liking to me increased : I went there 
 often." 
 
 My father paused, and seeing my mother had 
 fixed her eyes upon him with a sort of mournful 
 earnestness, and had pressed her hands very tightly 
 together, he bent down and kissed her forehead. 
 
 " There is no cause, my child ! " said he. It is the 
 only time I ever heard him address my mother so 
 parentally. But then I never heard him before so 
 grave and solemn not a quotation, too it was 
 incredible: it was not my father speaking, it was 
 another man. " Yes, I went there often. Lord 
 Rainsforth was a remarkable person. Shyness, that 
 was wholly without pride, (which is rare,) and a love 
 for quiet literary pursuits, had prevented his taking 
 that personal part in public life for which he was 
 richly qualified; but his reputation for sense and 
 honour, and his personal popularity, had given him 
 no inconsiderable influence even, I believe, in the 
 formation of cabinets, and he had once been prevailed 
 upon to fill a high diplomatic situation abroad, in 
 which I have no doubt that he was as miserable as a
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 7 
 
 good man can be under any infliction. He was now 
 pleased to retire from the world, and look at it through 
 the loopholes of retreat. Lord Rainsforth had a 
 great respect for talent, and a warm interest in such 
 of the young as seemed to him to possess it. By 
 talent, indeed, his family had risen, and were strik- 
 ingly characterised. His ancestor, the first peer, had 
 been a distinguished lawyer; his father had been 
 celebrated for scientific attainments; his children, 
 Ellinor and Lord Pendarvis, were highly accom- 
 plished. Thus the family identified themselves with 
 the aristocracy of intellect, and seemed unconscious 
 of their claims to the lower aristocracy of rank. You 
 must bear this in mind throughout my story. 
 
 " Lady Ellinor shared her father's tastes and habits 
 of thought (she was not then an heiress.) Lord 
 Rainsforth talked to me of my career. It was a time 
 when the French Revolution had made statesmen 
 look round with some anxiety to strengthen the 
 existing order of things, by alliance with all in the 
 rising generation who evinced such ability as might 
 influence their contemporaries. 
 
 " University distinction is, or was formerly, among 
 the popular passports to public life. By degrees 
 Lord Rainsforth liked me so well, as to suggest to me 
 a seat in the House of Commons. A member of 
 Parliament might rise to anything, and Lord Rains-
 
 8 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 forth had sufficient influence to effect my return. 
 Dazzling prospect this to a young scholar fresh from 
 Thucydides, and with Demosthenes fresh at his 
 tongue's end. My dear boy, I was not then, you see, 
 quite what I am now; in a word, I loved Ellinor 
 Compton, and therefore I was ambitious. You know 
 how ambitious she is still. But I could not mould 
 my ambition to hers. I could not contemplate enter- 
 ing the senate of my country as a dependant on a 
 party or a patron as a man who must make his 
 fortune there as a man who, in every vote, must 
 consider how much nearer he advanced himself to 
 emolument. I was not even" certain that Lord Rains- 
 forth's views on politics were the same as mine would 
 be. How could the politics of an experienced man of 
 the world be those of an ardent young student ? But 
 had they been identical, I felt that I could not so 
 creep into equality with a patron's daughter. No ! I 
 was ready to abandon my own more scholastic predi- 
 lections to strain every energy at the bar to carve 
 or force my own way to fortune and, if I arrived at 
 independence, then what then? why, the right to 
 speak of love, and aim at power. This was not the 
 view of Ellinor Compton. The law seemed to her a 
 tedious, needless drudgery : there was nothing in it 
 to captivate her imagination. She listened to me 
 with that charm which she yet retains, and by which
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. '9 
 
 she seems to identify herself with those who speak 
 to her. She would turn to me with a pleading look 
 when her father dilated on the brilliant prospects of a 
 parliamentary success ; for he (not having gained it, 
 yet having lived with those who had) overvalued it, 
 and seemed ever to wish to enjoy it through some 
 other. But when I, in turn, spoke of independence, 
 of the bar, Ellinor's face grew overcast. The world 
 the world was with her, and the ambition of the 
 world, which is always for power or effect ! A part 
 of the house lay exposed to the east wind. ' Plant 
 half-way down the hill,' said I one day. 'Plant!' 
 cried Lady Ellinor ' it will be twenty years before the 
 trees grow up. No, my dear father, build a wall, 
 and cover it with creepers ! ' That was an illustration 
 of her whole character. She could not wait till trees 
 had time to grow ; a dead wall would be so much 
 more quickly thrown up, and parasite creepers would 
 give it a prettier effect. Nevertheless, she was a 
 grand and noble creature. And I in love ! Not so 
 discouraged as you may suppose ; for Lord Rains- 
 forth often hinted encouragement, which even I could 
 scarcely misconstrue. Not caring for rank, and not 
 wishing for fortune beyond competence for his daugh- 
 ter, he saw in me all he required, a gentleman of 
 ancient birth, and one in whom his own active mind 
 could prosecute that kind of mental ambition which
 
 10 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 overflowed in him, and yet had never had its vent. 
 And Ellinor ! heaven forbid I should say she loved 
 me, but something made me think she could do so. 
 Under these notions, suppressing all my hopes, I 
 made a bold effort to master the influences round 
 me, and to adopt that career I thought worthiest of 
 us all. I went to London to read for the bar." 
 
 " The bar! is it possible?" cried I. My father 
 smiled sadly. 
 
 " Everything seemed possible to me then. I read 
 some months. I began to see my way even in that 
 short time ; began to comprehend what would be the 
 difficulties before me, and to feel there was that 
 within me which could master thorn. I took a holiday 
 and returned to Cumberland. I found Roland there 
 on my return. Always of a roving, adventurous 
 temper, though he had not then entered the army, he 
 had, for more than two years, been wandering over 
 Great Britain and Ireland on foot. It was a young 
 knight-errant whom I embraced, and who over- 
 whelmed me with reproaches that I should be reading 
 for the law. There had never been a lawyer in the 
 family! It was about that time, I think, that I 
 petrified him with the discovery of the printer ! I 
 knew not exactly wherefore, whether from jealousy, 
 fear, foreboding but it certainly was a pain that 
 seized me when I learned from Roland that he had
 
 A FAMILY PICTUEE. 11 
 
 become intimate at Compton Hall. Roland and Lord 
 Rainsforth had met at the house of a neighbouring 
 gentleman, and Lord Rainsforth had welcomed his 
 acquaintance, at first perhaps for my sake, afterwards 
 for his own. 
 
 " I could not for the life of me," continued my 
 father, "ask Roland if he admired Ellinor; but, 
 when I found that he did not put that question to 
 me, I trembled ! 
 
 " We went to Compton together, speaking little by 
 the way. We stayed there some days." 
 
 My father here thrust his hand into his waistcoat 
 all men have their little ways, which denote much ; 
 and when my father thrust his hand into his waist- 
 coat, it was always a sign of some mental effort he 
 was going to prove, or to argue, to moralise, or to 
 preach. Therefore, though I was listening before 
 with all my ears, I believe I had, speaking magneti- 
 cally and mesmerically, an extra pair of ears, a new 
 sense supplied to me, when my father put his hand 
 into his waistcoat.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHEREIN MY FATHER CONTINUES HIS STORY. 
 
 " THERE is not a mystical creation, type, symbol, 
 or poetical invention for meanings abstruse, recondite, 
 and incomprehensible, which is not represented by 
 the female gender," said my father, having his hand 
 quite buried in his waistcoat. " There is the Sphynx, 
 and the Chimsera, and Isis, whose veil no man had 
 ever lifted : they are all ladies, Kitty, every one of 
 them ! And so was Persephone, who must be always 
 either in heaven or hell and Hecate, who was one 
 thing by night and another by day. The Sibyls 
 were females; and so were the Gorgons, the Harpies, 
 the Furies, the Fates, and the Teutonic Valkyrs, 
 Nornies, and Hela herself: in short, all representa- 
 tions of ideas, obscure, inscrutable, and portentous, are 
 nouns feminine." 
 
 Heaven bless my father ! Augustine Caxton was 
 himself again ! I began to fear that the story had
 
 THE CAXTONS. 13 
 
 slipped away from him, lost in that labyrinth of learn- 
 ing. But, luckily, as he paused for breath, his look 
 fell on those limpid blue eyes of my mother's, and 
 that honest open brow of hers, which had certainly 
 nothing in common with Sphynges, Chimeras, Fates, 
 Furies, or Valkyrs; and, whether his heart smote 
 him, or his reason made him own that he had fallen 
 into a very disingenuous and unsound train of asser- 
 tion, I know not, but his front relaxed, and with a 
 smile he resumed " Ellinor was the last person in 
 the world to deceive any on,e willingly. Did she 
 deceive me and Roland that we both, though not 
 conceited men, fancied that, if we had dared to speak 
 openly of love, we had not so dared in vain ? or do 
 you think, Kitty, that a woman really can love (not / . 
 much, perhaps, but somewhat) two or three, or half a 
 dozen at a time?" 
 
 " Impossible ! " cried my mother. " And as for 
 this Lady Ellinor, I am shocked at her I don't 
 know what to call it !" 
 
 " Nor I either, my dear," said my father, slowly 
 taking his hand from his waistcoat, as if the effort 
 were too much for him, and the problem were 
 insoluble. " But this, begging your pardon, I do 
 think, that before a young woman does really, truly, 
 and cordially centre her affections on one object, 
 she suffers fancy, imagination, the desire of power,
 
 14 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 curiosity, or heaven knows what, to simulate, even to 
 her own mind, pale reflexions of the luminary not yet 
 risen parhelia that precede the sun. Don't judge 
 of Roland as you see him now, Pisistratus grim, 
 and gray, and formal ; imagine a nature soaring high 
 amongst daring thoughts, or exuberant with the 
 nameless poetry of youthful life with a frame match- 
 less for bounding elasticity an eye bright with 
 haughty fire a heart from which noble sentiments 
 sprang like sparks from an anvil. Lady Ellinor had 
 ' an ardent, inquisitive imagination. This bold fiery 
 nature must have moved her interest. On the other 
 hand, she had an instructed, full, and eager mind. 
 Am I vain if I say, now after the lapse of so many 
 years, that in my mind her intellect felt companion- 
 ship ? When a woman loves, and marries, and settles, 
 why then she becomes a one whole, a completed 
 being. But a girl like Ellinor has in her many 
 women. Various herself, all varieties please her. I 
 do believe that, if either of us had spoken the word 
 boldly, Lady Ellinor would have shrunk back to her 
 own heart examined it, tasked it, and given a frank 
 and generous answer. And he who had spoken first 
 might have had the better chance not to receive a 
 ,* No.' But neither of us spoke. And perhaps she 
 was rather curious to know if she had made an 
 impression, than anxious to create it. It was not that
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 15 
 
 she willingly deceived us, but her whole atmosphere 
 was delusion. Mists come before the sunrise. How- 
 ever this be, Koland and 1 were not long in detecting 
 each other. And hence arose, first coldness, then 
 jealousy, then quarrel." 
 
 " Oh, my father, your love must have been indeed 
 powerful, to have made a breach between the hearts 
 of two such brothers ! " 
 
 "Yes," said my father; "it was amidst the old 
 ruins of the castle, there, where I had first seen 
 Ellinor that, winding my arm round Roland's neck, 
 as I found him seated amongst the weeds and stones, 
 his face buried in his hands it was there that I said 
 ' Brother, we both love this woman ! My nature 
 is the calmer of the two, I shall feel the loss less. 
 Brother, shake hands, and God speed you, for I 
 go!'" 
 
 " Austin!" murmured my mother, sinking her head 
 on my father's breast. 
 
 " And therewith we quarrelled. For it was Roland 
 who insisted, while the tears rolled down his eyes, 
 and he stamped his foot on the ground, that he was 
 the intruder, the interloper that he had no hope 
 that he had been a fool and a madman and that it 
 was for him to go ! Now, while we were disputing, 
 and words began to run high, my father's old servant 
 entered the desolate place, with a note from Lady
 
 16 THECAXTONS: 
 
 Ellinor to me, asking for the loan of some book I had 
 praised. Roland saw the handwriting, and while I 
 turned the note over and over irresolutely, before I 
 broke the seal, he vanished. 
 
 " He did not return to my father's house. We did 
 not know what had become of him. But I, thinking 
 over that impulsive volcanic nature, took quick 
 alarm. And I went in search of him ; came on his 
 track at last ; and, after many days, found him in a 
 miserable cottage amongst the most dreary of the 
 dreary wastes which form so large a part of Cumber- 
 land. He was so altered I scarcely knew him. To 
 be brief, we came at last to a compromise. We 
 would go back to Compton. This suspense was 
 intolerable. One of us at least should take courage 
 and learn his fate. But who should speak first? \Ve 
 drew lots, and the lot fell on me. 
 
 " And now that I was really to pass the Rubicon, 
 now that I was to impart that secret hope which had 
 animated me so long been to me a new life what 
 were my sensations? My dear boy, depend on it that 
 that age is the happiest, when such feelings as I felt 
 then can agitate us no more. They are mistakes in 
 the serene order of that majestic life which heaven 
 meant for thoughtful man. Our souls should be as 
 stars on earth, not as meteors and tortured comets. 
 What could I offer to Ellinor to her father? What
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 17 
 
 but a future of patient labour ? And in either answer, 
 what alternative of misery ! my own existence 
 shattered, or Roland's noble heart ! 
 " Well, we went to Compton. In our former 
 visits we had been almost the only guests. Lord 
 Rainsforth did not much affect the intercourse of 
 country squires, less educated then than now. And 
 in excuse for Ellinor and for us, we were almost the 
 only men of her own age she had seen in that large 
 dull house. But now the London season had broken 
 up, the house was filled ; there was no longer that 
 familiar and constant approach to the mistress of the 
 Hall, which had made us like one family. Great 
 ladies, fine people were round her ; a look, a smile, 
 a passing word, were as much as I had a right to 
 expect. And the talk, too, how different ! Before, 
 I could speak on books, I was at home there! 
 Roland could pour forth his dreams, his chivalrous 
 love for the past, his bold defiance of the unknown 
 future. And Ellinor, cultivated and fanciful, could 
 sympathise with both. And her father, scholar and 
 gentleman, could sympathise too. But now " 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WHEREIN MY FATHER BRINGS ABOUT HIS DENOUEMENT. 
 
 " IT is no use in the world," said my father, " to 
 know all the languages expounded in grammars and 
 splintered up into lexicons, if we don't learn the 
 language of the world. It is a talk apart, Kitty," 
 cried my father wanning up. " It is an ANAGLYPH 
 a spoken anaglyph, my dear ! If all the hieroglyphs 
 of the Egyptians had been A B C to you, still if you 
 did not know the anaglyph, you would know nothing 
 of the true mysteries of the priests.* 
 
 " Neither Roland nor I knew one symbol-letter of 
 the anaglyph. Talk, talk talk on persons we never 
 heard of, things we never cared for. All we thought 
 of importance, puerile or pedantic trifles all we 
 thought so trite and childish, the grand momentous 
 
 * The anaglyph was peculiar to the Egyptian priests the hiero- 
 glyph generally known to the well educated.
 
 THE CAXTONS. 19 
 
 business of life ! If you found a little schoolboy, on 
 his half-holiday, fishing for minnows with a crooked 
 pin, and you began to tell him of all the wonders of 
 the deep, the laws of the tides, and the antediluvian 
 relics of iguanodon and ichthyosaurus nay, if you 
 spoke but of pearl fisheries, and coral banks, or water- 
 kelpies and naiads, would not the little boy cry out 
 peevishly, 'Don't tease me with all that nonsense! 
 let me fish in peace for my minnows.' I think the 
 little boy is right after his own way it was to fish 
 for minnows that he came out, poor child, not to hear 
 about iguanodons and water-kelpies ! 
 
 " So the company fished for minnows, and not a 
 word could we say about our pearl fisheries and coral 
 banks! And as for fishing for minnows ourselves, 
 my dear boy, we should have been less bewildered if 
 you had asked us to fish for a mermaid! Do you 
 see, now, one reason why I have let you go thus 
 early into the world? Well, but amongst these 
 minnow-fishers there was one who fished with an air 
 that made the minnows look larger than salmons. 
 
 " Trevanion had been at Cambridge with me. 
 We were even intimate. He was a young man like 
 myself, with his way to make in the world. Poor as 
 I of a family upon a par with mine old enough, 
 but decayed. There was, however, this difference 
 between us. He had connexions in the great world
 
 20 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 I had none. Like me, his chief pecuniary resource was 
 a college fellowship. Now, Trevanion had estab- 
 lished a high reputation at the university ; but less 
 as a scholar, though a pretty fair one, than as a man 
 to rise in life. Every faculty he had was an energy. 
 He aimed at everything lost some things, gained 
 others. He was a great speaker in a debating 
 society, a member of some politico-economical club. 
 He was an eternal talker brilliant, various, para- 
 doxical, florid different from what he is now. For, 
 dreading fancy, his career since has been one effort 
 to curb it. But all his mind attached itself to some- 
 thing that we Englishmen call solid ; it was a large 
 mind not, my dear Kitty, like a fine whale sailing 
 through knowledge from the pleasure of sailing but 
 like a polypus, that puts forth all its feelers for the 
 purpose of catching hold of something. Trevanion 
 had gone at once to London from the university : 
 his reputation and his talk dazzled his connexions, 
 not unjustly. They made an effort they got him 
 into parliament: he had spoken, he had succeeded. 
 He came to Compton in the flush of his virgin fame. 
 I cannot convey to you, who know him now with 
 his care-worn face, and abrupt dry manner, reduced 
 by perpetual gladiatorship to the skin and bone of his 
 former self what that man was when he first stepped 
 into the arena of life.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 21 
 
 " You see, my listeners, that you have to recollect 
 that we middle-aged folks were young then that is 
 to say, we were as different from what we are now, 
 as the green bough of summer is from the dry wood, 
 out of which we make a ship or a gate-post. Neither 
 man nor wood comes to the uses of life till the green 
 leaves are stripped and the sap gone. And then the 
 uses of life transform us into strange things with 
 other names : the tree is a tree no more it is a gate 
 or a ship ; the youth is a youth no more, but a one- 
 legged soldier; a hollow-eyed statesman; a scholar 
 spectacled and slippered! When Micyllus (here 
 the hand slides into the waistcoat again!) when 
 Micyllus," said my father, " asked the cock that had 
 once been Pythagoras,* if the affair of Troy was 
 really as Homer told it, the cock replied scornfully, 
 ' How could Homer know anything about it ? at 
 that time he was a camel in Bactria.' Pisistratus, 
 according to the doctrine of metempsychosis, you 
 might have been a Bactrian camel when that which 
 to my life was the siege of Troy saw Roland and 
 Trevanion before the walls. 
 
 " Handsome you can see that Trevanion has been ; 
 but the beauty of his countenance then was in its per- 
 petual play, its intellectual eagerness ; and his con- 
 versation was so discursive, so various, so animated, 
 * LCCIAK, T/te Dream of Micyllus.
 
 22 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 and, above all, so full of the things of the day ! If he 
 had been a priest of Serapis for fifty years, he could 
 not have known the Anaglyph better ! Therefore he 
 filled up every crevice and pore of that hollow society 
 with his broken, inquisitive, petulant light. Therefore 
 he was admired, talked of, listened to ; and everybody 
 said, ' Trevanion is a rising man. ' 
 
 " Yet 1 did not do him then the justice I have done 
 since for we students and abstract thinkers are apt 
 too much, in our first youth, to look to the depth of a 
 man's mind or knowledge, and not enough to the 
 surface it may cover. There may be more water in a 
 flowing stream, only four feet deep, and certainly more 
 force and more health, than in a sullen pool, thirty 
 yards to the bottom ! I did not do Trevanion justice. 
 I did not see how naturally he realised Lady Ellinor's 
 ideal. I have said that she was like many women in 
 one. Trevanion was a thousand men in one. He 
 had learning to please her mind, eloquence to dazzle her 
 fancy, beauty to please her eye, reputation precisely 
 of the kind to allure her vanity, honour and conscien- 
 tious purpose to satisfy her judgment. And, above 
 all, he was ambitious. Ambitious not as I not as 
 Roland was, but ambitious as Ellinor was : ambitious, 
 not to realise some grand ideal in the silent heart, 
 but to grasp the practical positive substances that lay 
 without.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 23 
 
 " Eflinor was a child of the great world, and so 
 was he. 
 
 " I saw not all this, nor did Koland ; and Trevanion 
 seemed to pay no particular court to Ellinor. 
 
 " But the time approached when I ought to speak. 
 The house began to thin. Lord Rainsforth had 
 leisure to resume his easy conferences with me ; and 
 one day, walking in his garden, he gave me the oppor- 
 tunity. For I need not say, Pisistratus, " said my 
 father, looking at me earnestly, " that before any man 
 of honour, especially if of inferior worldly pretensions, 
 will open his heart seriously to the daughter, it is his 
 duty to speak first to the parent, whose confidence has 
 imposed that trust. " I bowed my head and coloured. 
 
 "I know not how it was," continued my father, 
 " but Lord Rainsforth turned the conversation on 
 Ellinor. After speaking of his expectations in his 
 son, who was returning home, he said, ' But he will of 
 course enter public life, will, I trust, soon marry, 
 have a separate establishment, and I shall see but 
 little of him. My Ellinor ! I cannot bear the thought 
 of parting wholly with her. And that, to say the 
 selfish truth, is one reason why I have never wished 
 her to marry a rich man, and so leave me for ever. 
 I could hope that she will give herself to one who may 
 be contented to reside at least great part of the year 
 with me who may bless me with another son, not
 
 24 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 steal from me a daughter. I do not mean that he 
 should waste his life in the country ; his occupations 
 would probably lead him to London. I care not 
 where my house is all I want is to keep my home. 
 You know' (he added, with a smile that I thought 
 meaning.) l how often I have implied to you that I 
 have no vulgar ambition for Ellinor. Her portion 
 must be very small, for my estate is strictly entailed, 
 and I have lived too much up to my income all my 
 life to hope to save much now. But her tastes do not 
 require expense ; and while I live, at least, there need 
 be no change. She can only prefer a man whose 
 talents, congenial to hers, will win their own career, 
 and ere I die that career may be made. ' Lord Rains- 
 forth paused ; and then how, in what words I know 
 not, but out all burst ! my long-suppressed, timid, 
 anxious, doubtful, fearful love. The strange energy 
 it had given to a nature till then so retiring and calm ! 
 My recent devotion to the law, my confidence that, 
 with such a prize, I could succeed it was but a transfer 
 of labour from one study to another. Labour could 
 conquer all things, and custom sweeten them in the 
 conquest The bar was a less brilliant career than the 
 senate. But the first aim of the poor man should be 
 independence. In short, Pisistratus, wretched egotist 
 that I was, I forgot Roland in that moment ; and I 
 spoke as one who felt his life was in his words.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 25 
 
 " Lord Bainsforth looked at me, when I had done, 
 with a countenance full of affection but it was not 
 cheerful. 
 
 " ' My dear Caxton, ' said he, tremulously, * I own 
 that I once wished this wished it from the hour I 
 knew you ; but why did you so long I never sus- 
 pected that nor I am sure did Ellinor. ' He stopped 
 short, and added quickly ' However, go and speak, 
 as you have spoken to me, to Ellinor. Go, it may not 
 yet be too late. And yet but go. ' 
 
 " Too late ! what meant those words ? Lord 
 Kainsforth had turned hastily down another walk, 
 and left me alone, to ponder over an answer which 
 concealed a riddle. Slowly I took my way towards 
 the house, and sought Lady Ellinor, half hoping, half 
 dreading to find her alone. There was a little room 
 communicating with a conservatory, where she usually 
 sat in the morning. Thither I took my course. 
 
 " That room, I see it still ! the walls covered with 
 pictures from her own hand, many were sketches of 
 the haunts we had visited together the simple orna- 
 ments, womanly but not effeminate the very books 
 on the table that had been made familiar by dear 
 associations. Yes ! there, the Tasso in which we had 
 read together the episode of Clorinda there, the 
 jEschylus in which I translated to her the Prometheus. 
 Pedantries these might seem to some; pedantries,
 
 26 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 perhaps, they were ; but they were proofs of that con- 
 geniality which had knit the man of books to the 
 daughter of the world. That room it was the home 
 of my heart ! Such, in my vanity of spirit, methought 
 would be the air round a home to come. I looked 
 about me, troubled and confused, and, halting timidly, 
 I saw Ellinor before me, leaning her face on her hand, 
 her cheek more flushed than usual, and tears in her 
 eyes. I approached in silence, and as I drew my 
 chair to the table, my eye fell on a glove on the floor. 
 It was a man's glove. Do you know," said my 
 father, " that once, when I was very young, I saw a 
 Dutch picture called The Glove, and the subject was 
 of murder. There was a weed-grown marshy pool, 
 a desolate dismal landscape, that of itself inspired 
 thoughts of ill deeds and terror. And two men, as if 
 walking by chance, came to this pool, the finger of 
 one pointed to a blood-stained glove, and the eyes of 
 both were fixed on each other, as if there were no 
 need of words. That glove told its tale ! The picture 
 had long haunted me in my boyhood, but it never 
 gave me so uneasy and fearful a feeling as did that 
 real glove upon the floor. Why ? My dear Pisis- 
 tratus, the theory of forebodings involves one of those 
 questions on which we may ask l why ' for ever. 
 More chilled than I had been in speaking to her 
 father, I took heart at last and spoke to Ellinor "
 
 A FAMILY PICTUEE. 27 
 
 My father stopped short ; the moon had risen, and 
 was shining full into the room and on his face. And by 
 that light the face was changed ; young emotions had 
 brought back youth my father looked a young man. 
 But what pain was there ! If the memory alone could 
 raise what, after all, was but the ghost of suffering, 
 what had been its living reality ! Involuntarily I 
 seized his hand ; my father pressed it convulsively, 
 and said, with a deep breath " It was too late ; Tre-' 
 vanion was Lady Ellinor's accepted, plighted, happy 
 lover. My dear Katherine, I do not envy him now : 
 look up, sweet wife ! look up ! "
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " ELLINOR (let me do her justice) was shocked at 
 my silent emotion. No human lip could utter more 
 tender sympathy, more noble self-reproach ; but that 
 was no balm to my wound. So I left the house so 
 I never returned to the law so all impetus, all motive 
 for exertion, seemed taken from my being so I went 
 back into books. And so, a moping, despondent, 
 worthless mourner might I have been to the end of 
 my days, but that heaven, in its mercy, sent thy mother^ 
 Pisistratus, across my path ; and day and night I bless 
 God and her, for I have been, and am oh, indeed, I 
 am, a happy man ! " 
 
 My mother threw herself on my father's breast, 
 sobbing violently, and then turned from the room 
 without a word, my father's eye, swimming in tears, 
 followed her | and then, after pacing the room for 
 some moments in silence, he came up to me, and 
 leaning his arm on my shoulder, whispered, " Can
 
 THE CAXTONS. 29 
 
 you guess why I have now told you all this, my 
 son?" 
 
 " Yes, partly : thank you, father," I faltered, and 
 sat down, for I felt faint. 
 
 " Some sons," said my father, seating himself beside 
 me, " would find in their father's follies and errors an 
 excuse for their own ; not so will you, Pisistratus." 
 
 " I see no folly, no error, sir only nature and 
 sorrow." 
 
 " Pause, ere you thus think," said my father. 
 " Great was the folly, and great the error, of indulging 
 imagination that had no basis of linking the whole 
 usefulness of my life to the will of a human creature 
 like myself. Heaven did not design the passion of 
 love to be this tyrant ; nor is it so with the mass and 
 multitude of human life. We dreamers, solitary 
 students like me, or half-poets like poor Roland, make 
 our own disease. How many years, even after I had 
 regained serenity, as your mother gave me a home 
 long not appreciated, have I wasted ! The main- 
 spring of my existence was snapped I took no note 
 of time. And therefore now, you see, late in life the 
 Nemesis wakes. I look back with regret at powers 
 neglected, opportunities gone. Galvanically I brace 
 up energies half palsied by disuse ; and you see me, 
 rather than rest quiet and good for nothing, talked into 
 what, I dare say, are sad follies, by an Uncle Jack !
 
 30 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 And now I behold Ellinor again ; and I say, in wonder, 
 All this all this all this agony, all this torpor, for 
 that haggard face, that worldly spirit ! So is it ever 
 in life. Mortal things fade ; immortal things spring 
 more freshly with every step to the tomb. 
 
 " Ah ! " continued my father, with a sigh, " it would 
 not have been so, if at your age I had found out the 
 secret of the saffron bag ! "
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " AND Roland, sir," said I" how did he take it ?" 
 " With all the indignation of a proud unreasonable 
 man. More indignant, poor fellow, for me than him- 
 self. And so did he wound and gall me by what he 
 said of Elllnor, and so did he rage against me because 
 I would not share his rage, that again we quarrelled. 
 We parted, and did not meet for many years. We 
 came into sudden possession of our little fortunes. His 
 he devoted (as you may know) to the purchase of the 
 old ruins, and the commission in the army, which had 
 always been his dream and so went his way, wrathful. 
 My share gave me an excuse for indolence, it satisfied 
 all my wants ; and when my old tutor died, and his 
 young child became my ward, and, somehow or other, 
 from my ward my wife, it allowed me to resign my 
 fellowship, and live amongst my books still as a book 
 myself. One comfort, somewhat before my marriage, 
 I had conceived ; and that, too, Roland has since said
 
 32 THE CAXTOKS t 
 
 was comfort to him. Ellinor became an heiress. Her 
 poor brother died ; and all of the estate that did not 
 pass in the male line devolved on her. That fortune 
 made a gulf between us almost as wide as her marriage. 
 For Ellinor, poor and portionless, in spite of her rank, 
 I could have Avorked, striven, slaved. But Ellinor 
 BICH ! it would have crushed me. This was a com- 
 fort. But still, still the past that perpetual aching 
 sense of something that had seemed the essential of life 
 withdrawn from life, evermore, evermore ! What was 
 left was not sorrow, it was a void. Had I lived more 
 with men, and less with dreams and books, I should 
 have made my nature large enough to bear the loss of 
 a single passion. But in solitude we shrink up. No 
 plant so much as man needs the sun and the air. I 
 comprehend now why most of our best and wisest men 
 have lived in capitals ; and therefore again I say, that 
 one scholar in a family is enough. Confiding in your 
 sound heart and strong honour, I turn you thus be- 
 times on the world. Have I done wrong ? Prove 
 that I have not, my child. Do you know what a very 
 good man has said ? Listen and follow my precept, 
 not example. 
 
 u * The state of the world is such, and so much 
 depends on action, that everything seems to say aloud 
 to every man, ' Do something do it do it ! ' " * 
 * Remains of the Rev. Ridiard Cecil, p. 349.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 33 
 
 I was profoundly touched, and I rose refreshed and 
 hopeful, when suddenly the door opened, and who or 
 what in the world should come in ; but certainly he, 
 she, it, or they, shall not come into this chapter \- 
 On that point I am resolved. No, my dear young 
 lady, I am extremely flattered ; I feel for your curi- 
 osity ; but really not a peep not one ! And yet 
 well then, if you will have it, and look so coaxingly 
 who or what, I say, should come in abrupt, unexpected 
 taking away one's breath, not giving one time to say, 
 " By your leave, or with your leave," but making 
 one^s mouth stand open with surprise, and one's eyes 
 fix in a big round stupid stare, but 
 
 THE END OF THE CHAPTER. 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 PART EIGHTH.
 
 PART EIGHTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THERE entered, in the front drawing-room of my 
 father's house hi Russell Street an Elf! ! ! clad in 
 white, small, delicate, with curls of jet over her shoul- 
 ders; with eyes so large and so lustrous that they 
 shone through the room, as no eyes merely human 
 could possibly shine. The Elf approached, and stood 
 facing us. The sight was so unexpected, and the 
 apparition so strange, that we remained for some mo- 
 ments in startled silence. At length my father, as the 
 bolder and wiser man of the two, and the more fitted 
 to deal with the eerie things of another world, had the 
 audacity to step close up to the little creature, and, 
 bending down to examine its face, said, " What do 
 you want, my pretty child?"
 
 38 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 Pretty child ! was it only a pretty child after all ? 
 Alas, it would be well if all we mistake for fairies at 
 the first glance could resolve themselves only into 
 pretty children ! 
 
 " Come," answered the child, with a foreign accent, 
 and taking my father by the lappet of his coat, " come, 
 poor papa is so ill ! I am frightened ! come and save 
 him" 
 
 " Certainly," exclaimed my father quickly : " where's 
 my hat, Sisty ? Certainly, my child, we will go and 
 save papa.' 1 
 
 " But who is papa?" asked Pisistratus a question 
 that would never have occurred to my father. He 
 never asked who or what the sick papas of poor 
 children were, when the children pulled him by the 
 lappet of his coat. " Who is papa ? " 
 
 The child looked hard at me, and the big tears 
 rolled from those large luminous eyes, but quite silently. 
 At this moment, a full-grown figure filled up the 
 threshold, and, emerging from the shadow, presented 
 to us the aspect of a stout, well-favoured young 
 woman. She dropped a curtsy, and then said, min- 
 cingly, 
 
 " Oh, miss, you ought to have waited for me, and 
 not alarmed the gentlefolks by running up stairs in 
 that way. If you please, sir, I was settling with the 
 cabman, and he was so imperent : them low fellows
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 39 
 
 always are, when they have only us poor women to 
 deal with, sir, and " 
 
 " But what is the matter?" cried I, for my father 
 had taken the child in his arms, soothingly, and she 
 was now weeping on his breast. 
 
 " Why, you see, sir, (another curtsy,) the gent only 
 arrived last night at our hotel, sir The Lamb, close 
 by Lunnun Bridge and he was taken ill and he's 
 not quite in his right mind like : so we sent for the 
 doctor, and the doctor looked at the brass plate on 
 the gent's carpet-bag, sir, and then he looked into 
 the Court Guide, and he said, l There is a Mr Caxton 
 in Great Russell Street, is he any relation? 1 and 
 this young lady said, ' That's my papa's brother, and 
 we were going there.' And so, sir, as the Boots was 
 out, I got into a cab, and miss would come with me, 
 and " 
 
 " Roland Roland ill ! Quick quick, quick ! " 
 cried my father ; and, with the child still in his arms, 
 he ran down the stairs. I followed with his hat, which, 
 of course, he had forgotten. A cab, by good luck, 
 was passing our very door ; but the chambermaid 
 would not let us enter it till she had satisfied herself 
 that it was not the same she had dismissed. This 
 preliminary investigation completed, we entered, and 
 drove to The Lamb. 
 
 The chambermaid, who sate opposite, passed the
 
 40 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 time in ineffectual overtures to release my father of 
 the little girl, who still clung nestling to his breast, 
 in a long epic, much broken into episodes, of the 
 causes which had led to her dismissal of the late cab- 
 man, who, to swell his fare, had thought proper to 
 take a " circumbendibus!" and with occasional tugs 
 at her cap, and smoothings down of her gown, and 
 apologies for being such a figure, especially when her 
 eyes rested on my satin cravat, or drooped on my 
 shining boots. 
 
 Arrived at The Lamb, the chambermaid, with con- 
 scious dignity, led us up a large staircase, which 
 seemed interminable. As she mounted the region 
 above the third story, she paused to take breath, and 
 inform us, apologetically, that the house was full, but 
 that, if the " gent " stayed over Friday, he would be 
 moved into No. 54, " with a look-out and a chimbly." 
 My little cousin now slipped from my father's arms, 
 and, running up the stairs, beckoned to us to follow. 
 We did so, and were led to a door, at which the child 
 stopped and listened; then, taking off her shoes, she 
 stole in on tiptoe. We entered after her. 
 
 By the light of a single candle, we saw my poor 
 uncle's face : it was flushed with fever, and the eyes 
 had that bright, vacant stare which it is so terrible 
 to meet. Less terrible is it to find the body wasted, 
 the features sharp with the great life-struggle, than
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 41 
 
 to look on the face from which the mind is gone, 
 the eyes in which there is no recognition. Such a 
 sight is a startling shock to that unconscious habitual 
 materialism with which we are apt familiarly to 
 regard those we love : for, in thus missing the mind, 
 the heart, the affection that sprang to ours, we are 
 suddenly made aware that it was the something within 
 the form, and not the form itself, that was so dear to 
 us. The form itself is still, perhaps, little altered ; 
 but that lip which smiles no welcome, that eye which 
 wanders over us as strangers, that ear which distin- 
 guishes no more our voices, the friend we sought is 
 not there! Even our own love is chilled back 
 grows a kind of vague superstitious terror. Yes, it 
 was not the matter, still present to us, which had 
 conciliated all those subtle nameless sentiments which 
 are classed and fused in the word " affection" it was 
 the airy, intangible, electric something, the absence 
 of which now appals us. 
 
 I stood speechless my father crept on, and took 
 the hand that returned no pressure : The child only 
 did not seem to share our emotions, but, clambering 
 on the bed, laid her cheek on the breast and was still. 
 
 " Pisistratus," whispered my father at last, and I 
 stole near, hushing my breath " Pisistratus, if your 
 mother were here !" 
 
 I nodded; the same thought had struck us both.
 
 42 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 His deep wisdom, my active youth, both felt their 
 nothingness then and there. In the sick chamber, 
 both turned helplessly to miss the woman. 
 
 So I stole out, descended the stairs, and stood in 
 the open air in a sort of stunned amaze. Then the 
 tramp of feet, and the roll of wheels, and the. great 
 London roar, revived me. That contagion of prac- 
 tical life which lulls the heart and stimulates the 
 brain, what an intellectual mystery there is in its 
 common atmosphere! In another moment I had 
 singled out, like an inspiration, from a long file of 
 those ministrants of our Trivia, the cab of the lightest 
 shape and with the strongest horse, and was on my 
 
 way, not to my mother's, but to Dr M H , 
 
 Manchester Square, whom I knew as the medical 
 adviser to the Trevanions. Fortunately, that kind 
 and able physician was at home, and he promised to 
 be with the sufferer before I myself could join him. 
 I then drove to Russell Street, and broke to my 
 mother, as cautiously as I could, the intelligence with 
 which I was charged. 
 
 "When we arrived at The Lamb, we found the 
 doctor already writing his prescription and injunc- 
 tions: the activity of the treatment announced the 
 danger. I flew for the surgeon who had been before 
 called in. Happy those who are strange to that in- 
 describable silent bustle which the sick-room at times
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 43 
 
 presents that conflict which seems almost hand to 
 hand between life and death when all the poor, 
 unresisting, unconscious frame is given up to the war 
 against its terrible enemy ; the dark blood flowing 
 flowing ; the hand on the pulse, the hushed suspense, 
 every look on the physician's bended brow ; then the 
 sinaplasms to the feet, and the ice to the head ; and 
 now and then, through the lull or the low whispers, 
 the incoherent voice of the sufferer babbling, per- 
 haps, of green fields and fairyland, while your hearts 
 
 
 
 are breaking! Then, at length, the sleep in that 
 sleep, perhaps, the crisis the breathless watch, the 
 slow waking, the first sane words the old smile 
 again, only fainter your gushing tears, your low 
 "Thank God! thank God!" 
 
 Picture all this ; it is past : Roland has spoken 
 his sense has returned my mother is leaning over 
 him his child's small hands are clasped round his 
 neck the surgeon, who has been there six hours, has 
 taken up his hat, and smiles gaily as he nods farewell 
 and my father is leaning against the wall, his face 
 covered with his hands.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ALL this had been so sudden that, to use the trite 
 phrase for no other is so expressive it was like a 
 dream. I felt an absolute, an imperious want of 
 solitude, of the open air. The swell of gratitude 
 almost stifled me the room did not seem large 
 enough for my big heart. In early youth, if we find 
 it difficult to control our feelings, so we find it difficult 
 to vent them in the presence of others. On the spring 
 side of twenty, if anything affects us, we rush to lock 
 ourselves up in our room, or get away into the streets 
 or the fields; in our earlier years we are still the 
 savages of Nature, and we do as the poor brute does, 
 i the wounded stag leaves the herd, and, if there is 
 anything on a dog's faithful heart, he slinks away 
 into a corner. 
 
 Accordingly, I stole out of the hotel, and wandered 
 through the streets, which were quite deserted. It 
 was about the first hour of dawn, the most comfort-
 
 THE CAXTONS. 45 
 
 less hour there is, especially in London ! But I only 
 felt freshness in the raw air, and soothing in the deso- 
 late stillness. The love my uncle inspired was very 
 remarkable in its nature : it was not like that quiet 
 affection with which those advanced in life must 
 usually content themselves, but connected with the 
 more vivid interest that youth awakens. There was 
 in him still so much of vivacity and fire, in his errors 
 and crotchets so much of the self-delusion of youth, 
 that one could scarce fancy him other than young. 
 Those Quixotic exaggerated notions of honour, that 
 romance of sentiment, which no hardship, care, grief, 
 disappointment, could wear away, (singular in a 
 period when, at two-and-twenty, young men declare 
 themselves blasts /) seemed to leave him all the charm 
 of boyhood. A season in London had made me 
 more a man of the world, older in heart than he was. 
 Then, the sorrow that gnawed him with such silent 
 sternness. No, Captain Roland was one of those 
 men who seize hold of your thoughts, who mix them- ' 
 selves up with your lives. The idea that Roland 
 should die die with the load at his heart unlightened, 
 was one that seemed to take a spring out of the 
 wheels of nature, an object out of the aims of life 
 of my life at least. For I had made it one of the 
 ends of my existence to bring back the son to the 
 father, and restore the smile that must have been gay
 
 46 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 once, to the downward curve of that iron lip. But 
 Roland was now out of danger, and yet, like one 
 who has escaped shipwreck, I trembled to look back 
 on the danger past ; the voice of the devouring deep 
 still boomed in my ears. While rapt in my reveries, 
 I stopped mechanically to hear a clock strike four ; 
 and, looking round, I perceived that I had wandered 
 from the heart of the city, and was in one of the 
 streets that lead out of the Strand. Immediately 
 before me, on the door-steps of a large shop, whose 
 closed shutters wore as obstinate a stillness as if they 
 had guarded the secrets of seventeen centuries in a 
 street in Pompeii, reclined a form fast asleep ; the 
 arm propped on the hard stone supporting the head, 
 and the limbs uneasily strewn over the stairs. The 
 dress of the slumberer was travel-stained, tattered, 
 yet with the remains of a certain pretence : an air of 
 faded, shabby, penniless gentility made poverty more 
 painful, because it seemed to indicate unfitness to 
 grapple with it. The face of this person was hollow 
 and pale, but its expression, even in sleep, was fierce 
 and hard. I drew near and nearer; I recognised 
 the countenance, the regular features, the raven hair, 
 even a peculiar gracefulness of posture : the young 
 man whom I had met at the inn by the way-side, 
 and who had left me alone with the Savoyard and 
 his mice in the churchyard, was before me. I
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 47 
 
 remained behind the shadow of one of the columns of 
 the porch, leaning against the area rails and irreso- 
 lute whether or not so slight an acquaintance justified 
 me in waking the sleeper, when a policeman, suddenly 
 emerging from an angle in the street, terminated my 
 deliberations with the decision of his practical pro- 
 fession ; for he laid hold of the young man's arm and 
 shook it roughly, " You must not lie here, get up 
 and go home ! " The sleeper woke with a quick 
 start, rubbed his eyes, looked round, and fixed them 
 upon the policeman so haughtily that that discri- 
 minating functionary probably thought that it was 
 not from sheer necessity that so improper a couch 
 had been selected, and with an air of greater respect 
 he said, " You have been drinking, young man, can 
 you find your way home ?" 
 
 " Yes," said the youth, resettling himself, " you 
 see I have found it ! " 
 
 " By the Lord Harry !" muttered the policeman, 
 " if he ben't going to sleep again ! Come, come, 
 walk on, or I must walk you off." 
 
 My old acquaintance turned round. " Policeman," 
 said he, with a strange sort of smile, " what do you 
 think this lodging is worth? I don't say for the 
 night, for you see that is over, but for the next two 
 hours '? The lodging is primitive, but it suits me ; I 
 should think a shilling would be a fair price for it, eh ?"
 
 48 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 " You love your joke, sir," said the policeman, 
 with a brow much relaxed, and opening his hand 
 mechanically. 
 
 " Say a shilling, then it is a bargain ! I hire it 
 of you upon credit. Good-night, and call me at six 
 o'clock." 
 
 With that the young man settled himself so reso- 
 lutely, and the policeman's face exhibited such bewil- 
 derment, that I burst out laughing, and came from 
 my hiding-place. 
 
 The policeman looked at me. " Do you know this 
 this"- 
 
 " This gentleman?" said I, gravely. " Yes, you 
 may leave him to me ; " and I slipped the price of the 
 lodging into the policeman's hand. He looked at the 
 shilling he looked at me he looked up the street 
 and down the street shook his head, and walked off. 
 I then approached the youth, touched him, and said 
 " Can you remember me, sir ; and what have you 
 done with Mr Peacock ?" 
 
 STRANGER (after a pause.} I remember you ; 
 your name is Caxton. 
 
 PiSiSTRATUS. And yours ? 
 
 STRANGER. Poor-devil, if you ask my pockets 
 pockets, which are the symbols of man ; Dare-devil, 
 if you ask my heart. (Surveying me from head to 
 foot ;) the world seems to have smiled on you, Mr
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 49 
 
 Caxton ! Are you not ashamed to speak to a wretch 
 lying on the stones? but, to be sure, no one sees 
 you. 
 
 PISISTRATUS (sententi&usly.} Had I lived in the 
 last century, I might have found Samuel Johnson 
 lying on the stones. 
 
 STRANGER (rising.} You have spoilt my sleep ; 
 you had a right, since you paid for the lodging. Let 
 me walk with you a few paces ; you need not fear 
 I do not pick pockets yet ! 
 
 PISISTRATUS. You say the world has smiled on 
 me; I fear it has frowned on you. I don't say 
 " courage," for you seem to have enough of that; 
 but I say "patience" which is the rarer quality of the 
 two. 
 
 STRANGER. Hem ! (again looking at me keenly) 
 Why is it that you stop to speak to me one of 
 whom you know nothing, or worse than nothing ? 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Because I have often thought of 
 you ; because you interest me ; because pardon me 
 I would help you if I can that is, if you want 
 help. 
 
 STRANGER. Want ! I am one want ! I want 
 sleep I want food; I want the patience you 
 recommend patience to starve and rot. I have 
 travelled from Paris to Boulogne on foot, with 
 
 twelve sous in my pocket. Out of those twelve sous 
 VOL. n. D
 
 50 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 in my pocket I saved four ; with the four I went to 
 a billiard-room at Boulogne ; I won just enough to 
 pay my passage and buy three rolls. You see I only 
 require capital in order to make a fortune. If with 
 four sous I can win ten francs in a night, what could 
 I win with a capital of four sovereigns, and in the 
 course of a year ? that is an application of the Rule 
 of Three, which my head aches too much to calculate 
 just at present. Well, those three rolls have lasted 
 me three days ; the last crumb went for supper last 
 night. Therefore, take care how you offer me money, 
 (for that is what men mean by help.) You see I 
 have no option but to take it. But I warn you, 
 don't expect gratitude ! I have none in me ! 
 
 PlSiSTRATUS. You are not so bad as you paint 
 yourself. I would do something more for you, if I 
 can, than lend you the little I have to offer. Will 
 you be frank with me ? 
 
 STRANGER. That depends I have been frank 
 enough hitherto, I think. 
 
 PlSiSTRATUS. True ; so I proceed without scruple. 
 Don't tell me your name or your condition, if you 
 object to such confidence ; but tell me if you have 
 relations to whom you can apply ? You shake your 
 head : well, then, are you willing to work for your- 
 self? or is it only at the billiard-table (pardon me) 
 that you can try to make four sous produce ten francs?
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 51 
 
 STRANGER (musing.} I understand you. I have 
 never worked yet I abhor work. But I have no' x .. 
 objection to try if it is in me. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. It is in you : a man who can walk 
 from Paris to Boulogne with twelve sous in his 
 pocket, and save four for a purpose who can stake 
 those four on the cool confidence in his own skill, 
 even at billiards who can subsist for three days on 
 three rolls and who, on the fourth day, can wake 
 from the stones of a capital with an eye and a spirit 
 as proud as yours, has in him all the requisites to 
 subdue fortune. 
 
 STRANGER. Do you work? you? 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Yes and hard. 
 
 STRANGER. I am ready to work, then. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Good. Now, what can you do ? 
 
 STRANGER (with his odd smile.} Many things 
 useful. I can split a bullet on a penknife : I know 
 the secret tierce of Coulon, the fencing-master : I can 
 speak two languages (besides English) like a native, 
 even to their slang : I know every game in the cards: 
 I can act comedy, tragedy, farce : I can drink down 
 Bacchus himself. I can make any woman I please in 
 love with me that is, any woman good-for-nothing. 
 Can I earn a handsome livelihood out of all this 
 wear kid gloves, and set up a cabriolet ? You see 
 my wishes are modest !
 
 52 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 PISISTRATUS. You speak two languages, you say, 
 like a native French, I suppose, is one of them ? 
 
 STRANGER. Yes. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Will you teach it ? 
 
 STRANGER (haughtily.} No. Je suis gentilhomme, 
 which means more or less than a gentleman. Gentil- 
 Jiomme means well born, because free born teachers 
 are slaves ! 
 
 PISISTRATUS (unconsciously imitating Mr Tre- 
 vanion.} Stuff ! 
 
 STRANGER {looks angry, and then laughs.} Very 
 true ; stilts don't suit shoes like these ! But I cannot 
 teach : heaven help those / should teach ! Anything 
 else? 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Anything else! you leave me a 
 wide margin. You know French thoroughly to 
 write as well as speak ? that is much. Give me 
 some address where I can find you or will you call 
 on me? 
 
 STRANGER. No! Any evening at dusk I will 
 meet you. I have no address to give ; and I cannot 
 show these rags at another man's door. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. At nine in the evening, then, and 
 here in the Strand, on Thursday next. I may then 
 have found something that will suit you. Meanwhile 
 (slides his purse into the Stranger's hand. N.B. 
 Purse not very full.}
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 53 
 
 Stranger, with the air of one conferring a favour, 
 pockets the purse ; and there is something so striking 
 in the very absence of all emotion at so accidental a 
 rescue from starvation, that Pisistratus exclaims 
 
 " I don't know why I should have taken this fancy 
 to you, Mr Dare-devil, if that be the name that pleases v 
 you best. The wood you are made of seems cross- ] 
 grained, and full of knots ; and yet, in the hands of a / 
 skilful carver, I think it would be worth much." ) 
 
 STRANGER (startled.} Do you ? do you ? None, 
 I believe, ever thought that before. But the same 
 wood, I suppose, that makes the gibbet, could make 
 the mast of a man-of-war. I tell you, however, why 
 you have taken this fancy to me the strong sym- 
 pathise with the strong. You, too, could subdue 
 fortune ! 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Stop ; if so if there is congeniality 
 between us, then liking should be reciprocal. Come, 
 say that ; for half my chance of helping you is in my 
 power to touch your heart. 
 
 STRANGER. (evidently softened.} If I were as 
 great a rogue as I ought to be, my answer would be 
 easy enough. As it is, I delay it. Adieu on 
 Thursday. 
 
 STRANGER vanishes in the labyrinth of alleys round 
 Leicester Square.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON my return to The Lamb, I found that my uncle 
 was in a soft sleep ; and after a morning visit from 
 the surgeon, and his assurance that the fever was fast 
 subsiding, and all cause for alarm was gone, I thought 
 it necessary to go back to Trevanion's house, and 
 explain the reason for my night's absence. But the 
 family had not returned from the country. Trevanion 
 himself came up for a few hours in the afternoon, and 
 seemed to feel much for my poor uncle's illness. 
 Though, as usual, very busy, he accompanied me to 
 The Lamb, to see my father, and cheer him up. 
 Roland still continued to mend, as the surgeon phrased 
 it ; and as we went back to St James's Square, Tre- 
 vanion had the consideration to release me from my 
 oar in his galley, for the next few days. My mind, 
 relieved from my anxiety for Roland, now turned to 
 my new friend. It had not been without an object 
 that I had questioned the young man as to his know-
 
 THE CAXTONS. 55 
 
 ledge of French. Trevanion had a large correspon- 
 dence in foreign countries, which was carried on in 
 that language, and here I could be but of little help to 
 him. He himself, though he spoke and wrote French 
 with fluency and grammatical correctness, wanted that 
 intimate knowledge of the most delicate and diplomatic 
 of all languages to satisfy his classical purism. For 
 Trevanion was a terrible word-weigher. His taste 
 was the plague of my life and his own. His pre- 
 pared speeches (or rather perorations) were the most 
 finished pieces of cold diction that could be conceived 
 under the marble portico of the Stoics, so filed and 
 turned, trimmed and tamed, that they never admitted 
 a sentence that could warm the heart, or one that 
 could offend the ear. He had so great a horror of a 
 vulgarism that, like Canning, he would have made a 
 periphrasis of a couple of lines to avoid using the 
 word ' cat. ' It was only in extempore speaking that 
 a ray of his real genius could indiscreetly betray 
 itself. One may judge what labour such a super- 
 refinement of taste would inflict upon a man writing 
 in a language not his own to some distinguished states- 
 man, or some literary institution, knowing that 
 language just well enough to recognise all the native 
 elegances he failed to attain. Trevanion, at that very 
 moment, was employed upon a statistical document, 
 intended as a communication to a Society at Copen-
 
 56 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 hagen, of which he was an honorary member. It had 
 been for three weeks the torment of the whole house, 
 especially of poor Fanny, (whose French was the best 
 at our joint disposal.) But Trevanion had found her 
 phraseology too mincing, too effeminate, too much 
 that of the boudoir. Here, then, was an opportunity 
 to introduce my new friend, and test the capacities 
 that I fancied he possessed. I therefore, though with 
 some hesitation, led the subject to " Remarks on the 
 Mineral Treasures of Great Britain and Ireland," 
 (such was the title of the work intended to enlighten 
 the savans of Denmark ; ) and, by certain ingenious 
 circumlocutions, known to all able applicants, I intro- 
 duced my acquaintance with a young gentleman who 
 possessed the most familiar and intimate knowledge of 
 French, and who might be of use in revising the 
 manuscript. I knew enough of Trevanion, to feel 
 that I could not reveal the circumstances under which 
 I had formed that acquaintance, for he was much too 
 practical a man not to have been frightened out of his 
 wits at the idea of submitting so classical a performance 
 to so disreputable a scapegrace. As it was, however, 
 Trevanion, whose mind at that moment was full of a 
 thousand other things, caught at my suggestion, with 
 very little cross-questioning on the subject, and, before 
 he left London, consigned the manuscript to my 
 charge.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 57 
 
 " My friend is poor, " said I timidly. 
 
 " Oh ! as to that," cried Trevanion hastily, " if it 
 is a matter of charity, I put my purse in your hands ; 
 but don't put my manuscript in his ! If it is a matter 
 of business it is another affair, and I must judge of his 
 work before I can say how much it is worth perhaps 
 nothing !" 
 
 So ungracious was this excellent man in his very 7 
 virtues ! 
 
 " Nay," said I, " it is a matter of business, and so 
 we will consider if. " 
 
 "In that case," said Trevanion, concluding the 
 matter, and buttoning his pockets, " if I dislike his 
 work, nothing ; if I like it, twenty guineas. Where 
 are the evening papers?" and in another moment the 
 member of parliament had forgotten the statist, and 
 was pishing and tutting over the Globe or the Sun. 
 
 On Thursday, my uncle was well enough to be 
 moved into our house ; and on the same evening, I 
 went forth to keep my appointment with the stranger. 
 The clock struck nine as we met. The palm of punc- 
 tuality might be divided between us. He had profited 
 of the interval, since our last meeting, to repair the 
 more obvious deficiencies of his wardrobe; and though 
 there was something still wild, dissolute, outlandish, 
 about his whole appearance, yet in the elastic energy 
 of his step, and the resolute assurance of his bearing,
 
 58 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 there was that which Nature gives to her own aristo- 
 cracy, for, as far as my observation goes, what has been 
 called the " grand air " (and which is wholly distinct 
 from the polish of manner, or the urbane grace of high 
 breeding) is always accompanied, and perhaps pro- 
 duced, by two qualities courage, and the desire of 
 command. It is more common to a half-savage nature 
 than one wholly civilised. The Arab has it, so has 
 the American Indian: and I suspect it was more 
 frequent among the knights and barons of the middle 
 ages than it is among the polished gentlemen of the 
 modern drawing-room. 
 
 We shook hands, and walked on a few moments in 
 silence ; at length thus commenced the STKANGER, 
 
 " You have found it more difficult, I fear, than you 
 imagined, to make the empty sack stand upright. 
 Considering that at least one-third of those born to 
 work cannot find it, why should I?" 
 
 PISISTRATUS. I am hard-hearted enough to 
 believe that work never fails to those who seek it in 
 good earnest. It was said of some man, famous for 
 keeping his word, that " if he had promised you an 
 acorn, and all the oaks in England failed to produce 
 one, he would have sent to Norway for an acorn." 
 If I wanted work, and there was none to be had in 
 the Old World, I would find my way to the New. 
 But, to the point : I have found something for you,
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 59 
 
 which I do not think your taste will oppose, and 
 which may open to you the means of an honourable 
 independence. But I cannot well explain it in the 
 streets : where shall we go ? 
 
 STRANGER (After some hesitation.} I have a 
 lodging near here, which I need not blush to take you 
 to I mean, that it is not among rogues and cast- 
 aways. 
 
 PISISTRATUS (Much pleased, and taking the 
 stranger's arm.} Come, then. 
 
 Pisistratus and the stranger pass over Waterloo 
 Bridge, and pause before a small house of respectable 
 appearance. Stranger admits them both with a latch 
 key leads the way to the third story strikes a light, 
 and does the honours to a small chamber, clean and 
 orderly. Pisistratus explains the task to be done, and 
 opens the manuscript. The stranger draws his chair 
 deliberately towards the light, and runs his eye rapidly 
 over the pages. Pisistratus trembles to see him pause 
 before a long array of figures and calculations. 
 Certainly it does not look inviting ; but, pshaw ! it is 
 scarcely a part of the task, which limits itself to the 
 mere correction of words. 
 
 STRANGER (briefly.} There must be a mistake 
 here stay ! I see, [He turns back a few pages, 
 and corrects with rapid precision an error in a some- 
 what complicated and abstruse calculation.]
 
 GO THE CAXTONS : 
 
 PISISTEATUS (surprised.} You seem a notable 
 arithmetician. 
 
 STRANGER. Did I not tell you that I was skilful 
 in all games of mingled skill and chance ? It requires 
 an arithmetical head for that : a first-rate card-player 
 is a financier spoilt. I am certain that you could 
 never find a man fortunate on the turf, or at the 
 gaming-table, who had not an excellent head for 
 figures. Well, this French is good enough apparently : 
 there are but a few idioms, here and there, that, strictly 
 speaking, are more English than French. But the 
 whole is a work scarce worth paying for ! 
 
 PlSlSTRATUS. The work of the head fetches a price 
 not proportioned to the quantity, but the quality. 
 When shall I call for this? 
 
 STRANGER. To-morrow. [And he puts the manu- 
 script away in a drawer.] 
 
 We then conversed on various matters for nearly 
 an hour ; and my impression of this young man's na- 
 tural ability was confirmed and heightened. But it 
 was an ability as wrong and perverse in its directions 
 or instincts as a French novelist's. He seemed to 
 have, to a high degree, the harder portion of the reason- 
 ing faculty, but to be almost wholly without that arch 
 beautifier of character, that sweet purifier of mere 
 intellect the imagination. For, though we are too 
 much taught to be on our guard against imagination,
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 61 
 
 I hold it, with Captain Roland, to be the divinest 
 kind of reason we possess, and the one that leads us 
 the least astray. In youth, indeed, it occasions errors, 
 but they are not of a sordid or debasing nature. New- 
 ton says that one final effect of the comets is to recruit 
 the seas and the planets by a condensation of the va- 
 pours and exhalations therein ; and so even the erratic 
 flashes of an imagination really healthful and vigorous 
 deepen our knowledge and brighten our lights ; they 
 recruit our seas and our stars. Of such flashes my 
 new friend was as innocent as the sternest matter-of- 
 fact person could desire. Fancies he had in profusion, 
 and very bad ones ; but of imagination not a scintilla ! 
 His mind was one of those which live in a prison of 
 logic, and cannot, or will not, see beyond the bars : 
 such a nature is at once positive and sceptical. This 
 boy had thought proper to decide at once on the num- 
 berless complexities of the social world from his own 
 harsh experience. With him the whole system was 
 a war and a cheat. If the universe were entirely 
 composed of knaves, he would be sure to have made 
 his way. Now this bias of mind, alike shrewd and 
 unamiable, might be safe enough if accompanied by 
 a lethargic temper ; but it threatened to become ter- 
 rible and dangerous in one who, in default of imagina- 
 tion, possessed abundance of passion : and this was 
 the case with the young outcast. Passion, in him,
 
 62 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 comprehended many of the worst emotions which 
 militate against human happiness. You could not 
 contradict him, but you raised quick choler ; you could 
 not speak of wealth, but the cheek paled with gnawing 
 envy. The astonishing natural advantages of this 
 poor boy his beauty, his readiness, the daring spirit 
 that breathed around him like a fiery atmosphere 
 had raised his constitutional self-confidence into an 
 arrogance that turned his very claims to admiration 
 into prejudices against him. Irascible, envious, arro- 
 gant bad enough, but not the worst, for these salient 
 angles were all varnished over with a cold repellant 
 cynicism, his passions vented themselves in sneers. 
 There seemed in him no moral susceptibility; and, 
 what was more remarkable in a proud nature, little or 
 nothing of the true point of honour. He had, to a 
 morbid excess, that desire to rise which is vulgarly 
 called ambition, but no apparent wish for fame, or 
 esteem, or the love of his species ; only the hard wish 
 to succeed, not shine, not serve, succeed, that he 
 might have the right to despise a world which galled 
 his self-conceit, and enjoy the pleasures which the 
 redundant nervous life in him seemed to crave. Such 
 were the more patent attributes of a character that, 
 ominous as it was, yet interested me, and yet appeared 
 to me redeemable, nay, to have in it the rude ele- 
 ments of a certain greatness. Ought we not to make
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 63 
 
 something great out of a youth under twenty who has, 
 in the highest degree, quickness to conceive and cour- 
 age to execute ? On the other hand, all faculties that 
 can make greatness contain those that can attain 
 goodness. In the savage Scandinavian, or the ruth- 
 less Frank, lay the germs of a Sidney or a Bayard. 
 What would the best of us be, if he were suddenly 
 placed at war with the whole world ? And this fierce 
 spirit was at war with the whole world a war self- 
 sought, perhaps, but it was war not the less. You 
 must surround the savage with peace, if you want 
 the virtues of peace. 
 
 I cannot say that it was in a single interview and 
 conference that I came to these convictions ; but I am 
 rather summing up the impressions which I received 
 as I saw more of this person, whose destiny I had 
 presumed to take under my charge. 
 
 In going away, I said, " But, at all events, you 
 have a name in your lodgings : whom am I to ask for 
 when I call to-morrow ?" 
 
 " Oh, you may know my name now,' 1 said he, smil-/ 
 ing : " it is Vivian Francis Vivian."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I REMEMBER one morning, when a boy, loitering 
 by an old wall, to watch the operations of a garden 
 spider, whose web seemed to be in great request. 
 When I first stopped, she was engaged very quietly 
 with a fly of the domestic species, whom she managed 
 with ease and dignity. But just when she was most 
 interested in that absorbing employment, came a 
 couple of May-flies, and then a gnat, and then a blue- 
 bottle, all at different angles of the web. Never 
 was a poor spider so distracted by her good fortune ! 
 She evidently did not know which godsend to take 
 first. The aboriginal victim being released, she slid 
 half-way towards the May-flies ; then one of her eight 
 eyes caught sight of the blue-bottle ! and she shot off 
 in that direction : when the hum of the gnat again 
 diverted her; and in the middle of this perplexity, 
 pounce came a young wasp in a violent passion ! 
 Then the spider evidently lost her presence of mind ;
 
 THE CAXTONS. 65 
 
 she became clean demented j and after standing, stupid 
 and stock-still, in the middle of her meshes, for a 
 minute or two, she ran off to her hole as fast as she 
 could run, and left her guests to shift for themselves. 
 I confess that I am somewhat in the dilemma of the 
 attractive and amiable insect I have just described. I 
 got on well enough while I had only my domestic fly to 
 see after. But now that there is something fluttering 
 at every end of my net, (and especially since the advent 
 of that passionate young wasp, who is fuming and buzz- 
 ing in the nearest corner !) I am fairly at a loss which 
 I should first grapple with and, alas! unlike the 
 spider, I have no hole where I .can hide myself, and 
 let the web do the weaver's work. But I will imi- 
 tate the spider as far as I can ; and while the rest 
 hum and struggle away their impatient, unnoticed 
 hour, I will retreat into the inner labyrinth of my own 
 life. 
 
 The illness of my uncle, and my renewed acquain- 
 tance with Vivian, had naturally sufficed to draw my 
 thoughts from the rash and unpropitious love I had 
 conceived for Fanny Trevanion. During the abscence 
 of the family from London, (and they stayed some 
 time longer than had been expected) I had leisure, 
 however, to recall my father's touching history, and 
 the moral it had so obviously preached to me ; and I 
 formed so many good resolutions, that it was with an 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 66 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 untrembling hand that I welcomed Miss Trevanion at 
 last to London, and with a firm heart that I avoided, 
 as much as possible, the fatal charm of her society. 
 The slow convalescence of my uncle gave me a just 
 excuse to discontinue our rides. What time Treva- 
 nion spared me, it was natural that I should spend 
 with my family. I went to no balls nor parties. I 
 even absented myself from Trevanion's periodical 
 dinners. Miss Trevanion at first rallied me on my 
 seclusion, with her usual lively malice. But I con- 
 tinued worthily to complete my martyrdom. I took 
 care that no reproachful look at the gaiety that wrung 
 my soul should betray my secret. Then Fanny 
 seemed either hurt or disdainful, and avoided alto- 
 gether entering her father's study; all at once, she 
 changed her tactics, and was seized with a strange 
 desire for knowledge, which brought her into the room 
 to look for a book, or ask a question, ten times a-day. 
 I was proof to all. But, to speak truth, I was pro- 
 foundly wretched. Looking back now, I am dismayed 
 at the remembrance of my own sufferings : my health 
 became seriously affected; I dreaded alike the trial 
 of the day and the anguish of the night. My only 
 distractions were in my visits to Vivian, and my 
 escape to the dear circle of home. And that home 
 was my safeguard and preservative in that crisis of 
 my life. Its atmosphere of unpretending honour and
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 67 
 
 serene virtue strengthened all my resolutions ; it 
 braced me for my struggles against the strongest 
 passion which youth admits, and counteracted the 
 evil vapours of that air in which Vivian's envenomed 
 spirit breathed and moved. Without the influence of 
 such a home, if I had succeeded in the conduct that 
 probity enjoined towards those in whose house I was 
 a trusted guest, I do not think I could have resisted 
 the contagion of that malign and morbid bitterness 
 against fate and the world, which love, thwarted by 
 fortune, is too inclined of itself to conceive, and in the 
 expression of which Vivian was not without the elo- 
 quence that belongs to earnestness, whether in truth 
 or falsehood. But, somehow or other, I never left 
 the little room that contained the grand suffering in 
 the face of the veteran soldier, whose lip, often quiver- 
 ing with anguish, was never heard to murmur ; and 
 the tranquil wisdom which had succeeded my father's 
 early trials, (trials like my own,) and the loving smile 
 on my mother's tender face, and the innocent child- 
 hood of Blanche, (by which name the Elf had fami- 
 liarised herself to us,) whom I already loved as a 
 sister, without feeling that those four walls contained 
 enough to sweeten the world, had it been filled to its 
 capacious brim with gall and hyssop. 
 . Trevanion had been more than satisfied with 
 Vivian's performance he had been struck with it.
 
 68 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 For though the corrections in the mere phraseology 
 had been very limited, they went beyond verbal 
 amendments they suggested such words as improved 
 the thoughts ; and, besides that notable correction of 
 an arithmetical error, which Trevanion's mind was 
 formed to over-appreciate, one or two brief annota- 
 tions on the margin were boldly hazarded, prompting 
 some stronger link in a chain of reasoning, or indi- 
 cating the necessity for some further evidence in the 
 assertion of a statement. And all this from the mere 
 natural and naked logic of an acute mind, unaided by 
 the smallest knowledge of the subject treated of! 
 Trevanion threw quite enough work into Vivian's 
 hands, and at a remuneration sufficiently liberal to 
 realise my promise of an independence. And more 
 than once he asked me to introduce to him my friend. 
 But this I continued to elude heaven knows, not 
 from jealousy, but simply because I feared that 
 Vivian's manner and way of talk would singularly 
 displease one who detested presumption, and under- 
 stood no eccentricities but his own. 
 
 Still Vivian, whose industry was of a strong wing, 
 but only for short flights, had not enough to employ 
 more than a few hours of his day, and I dreaded lest 
 he should, from very idleness, fall back into old 
 habits, and reseek old friendships. His cynical can- 
 dour allowed that both were sufficiently disreputable
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 69 
 
 to justify grave apprehensions of such a result; 
 accordingly, I contrived to find leisure in my even- 
 ings to lessen his ennui, by accompanying him in 
 rambles through the gas-lit streets, or occasionally, 
 for an hour or so, to one of the theatres. 
 
 Vivian's first care, on finding himself rich enough, 
 had been bestowed on his person; and those two 
 faculties of observation and imitation which minds so 
 ready always eminently possess, had enabled him to 
 achieve that graceful neatness of costume peculiar to-^ 
 the English gentleman. For the first few days of his 
 metamorphosis, traces indeed of a constitutional love 
 of show, or vulgar companionship, were noticeable ; 
 but one by one they disappeared. First went a 
 gaudy neckcloth, with collars turned down ; then a 
 pair of spurs vanished ; and lastly, a diabolical instru- 
 ment that he called a cane but which, by means of 
 a running bullet, could serve as a bludgeon at one 
 end, and concealed a dagger in the other subsided 
 into the ordinary walking-stick adapted to our peace- 
 able metropolis. A similar change, though in a less 
 degree, gradually took place in his manner and his 
 conversation. He grew less abrupt in the one, and 
 more calm, perhaps more cheerful, hi the other. It 
 was evident that he was not insensible to the elevated 
 pleasure of providing for himself by praiseworthy 
 exertion of feeling for the first time that his intellect
 
 70 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 was of use to him, creditably. A new world, though 
 still dim seen through mist and fog began to dawn 
 upon him. 
 
 Such is the vanity of us poor mortals, that my 
 interest in Vivian was probably increased, and my 
 aversion to much in him materially softened, by 
 observing that I had gained a sort of ascendency 
 over his savage nature. When we had first met by 
 the road-side, and afterwards conversed in the church- 
 yard, the ascendency was certainly not on my side. 
 But I now came from a larger sphere of society than 
 that in which he had yet moved. I had seen and 
 listened to the first men in England. What had then 
 dazzled me only, now moved my pity. On the other 
 hand, his active mind could not but observe the 
 change in me ; and, whether from envy or a better 
 feeling, he was willing to learn from me how to 
 eclipse me, and resume his earlier superiority not to 
 be superior, chafed him. Thus he listened to me with 
 docility when I pointed out the books which connected 
 themselves with the various subjects incidental to the 
 miscellaneous matters on which he was employed. 
 Though he had less of the literary turn of mind than 
 any one equally clever I have ever met, and had read 
 little, considering the quantity of thought he had 
 acquired, and the show he made of the few works 
 with which he had voluntarily made himself familiar,
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 71 
 
 he yet resolutely sate himself down to study; and 
 though it was clearly against the grain, I augured the 
 more favourably from tokens of a determination to do 
 what was at the present irksome for a purpose in the 
 future. Yet, whether I should have approved the 
 purpose had I thoroughly understood it is another 
 question ! There were abysses, both in his past life 
 and in his character, which I could not penetrate. 
 There was in him both a reckless frankness and a 
 vigilant reserve : his frankness was apparent in his 
 talk on all matters immediately before us ; in the 
 utter absence of all effort to make himself seem better 
 than he was. His reserve was equally shown in the 
 ingenious evasion of every species of confidence that 
 could admit me into such secrets of his life as he 
 chose to conceal : where he had been born, reared, 
 and educated ; how he came to be thrown on his own 
 resources; how he had contrived, how he had sub- 
 sisted, were all matters on which he had seemed to 
 take an oath to Harpocrates, the god of silence. And 
 yet he was full of anecdotes of what he had seen, of 
 strange companions, whom he never named, but with 
 whom he had been thrown. And, to do him justice, 
 I remarked that, though his precocious experience 
 seemed to have been gathered from the holes and 
 corners, the sewers and drains of life, and though he 
 seemed wholly without dislike to dishonesty, and to
 
 72 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 regard virtue or vice with as serene an indifference 
 as some grand poet who views them both merely as 
 ministrants to his art, yet he never betrayed any 
 positive breach of honesty in himself. He could 
 laugh over the story of some ingenious fraud that he 
 had witnessed, and seem insensible to its turpitude ; 
 but he spoke of it in the tone of an un reproving 
 witness, not of an actual accomplice. As we grew 
 more intimate, he felt gradually, however, that pudor, 
 or instinctive shame, which the contact with minds 
 habituated to the distinctions between wrong and 
 right unconsciously produces, and such stories ceased. 
 He never but once mentioned his family, and that was 
 in the following odd and abrupt manner, 
 
 " Ah ! " cried he one day, stopping suddenly before 
 a print-shop, " how that reminds me of my dear, dear 
 mother." 
 
 "Which?" said I eagerly, puzzled between an 
 engraving of Raffaelle's " Madonna," and another of 
 " The Brigand's Wife." 
 
 Vivian did not satisfy my curiosity, but drew me 
 on in spite of my reluctance. 
 
 " You loved your mother, then?" said I, after a pause. 
 
 " Yes, as a whelp may a tigress." 
 
 " That's a strange comparison." 
 
 " Or a bull-dog may the prize-fighter, his master ! 
 Do you like that better ? "
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 73 
 
 " Not much ; is it a comparison your mother would 
 like?" 
 
 " Like ? she is dead ! " said he, rather falter- 
 ingly. 
 
 I pressed his arm closer to mine. 
 
 " I understand you," said he, with his cynic repellant 
 smile. " But you do wrong to feel for my loss. I feel 
 for it ; but no one who cares for me should sympathise 
 with my grief." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because my mother was not what the world would 
 call a good woman. I did not love her the less for 
 that. And now let us change the subject." 
 
 " Nay ; since you have said so much, Vivian, let me 
 coax you to say on. Is not your father living ?" 
 
 " Is not the Monument standing ?" 
 
 " I suppose so, what of that?" 
 
 " Why, it matters very little to either of us ; and 
 my question answers yours !" 
 
 I could not get on after this, and I never did get on 
 a step farther. I must own that if Vivian did not 
 impart his confidence liberally, neither did he seek 
 confidence inquisitively from me. He listened with 
 interest if I spoke of Trevanion, (for I told him 
 frankly of my connexion with that personage, though 
 you may be sure that I said nothing of Fanny,) and of 
 the brilliant world that my residence with one so dis-
 
 74 THE CAXTONS: 
 
 tinguished opened to me. But if ever, in the fulness 
 of my heart, I began to speak of my parents, of my 
 home, he evinced either so impertinent an ennui, or 
 assumed so chilling a sneer, that I usually hurried 
 away from him, as well as the subject, in indignant 
 disgust. Once especially, when I asked him to let me 
 introduce him to my father a point on which I was 
 really anxious, for I thought it impossible but that the 
 devil within him would be softened by that contact 
 he said with his low, scornful laugh 
 
 " My dear Caxton, when I was a child, I was so 
 bored with ' Telemachus,' that, in order to endure it, 
 I turned it into travesty." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Are you not afraid that the same wicked disposi- 
 tion might make a caricature of your Ulysses?" 
 
 I did not see Mr Vivian for three days after that 
 speech : and I should not have seen him then, only we 
 met, by accident, under the Colonnade of the Opera- 
 House. Vivian was leaning against one of the columns, 
 and watching the long procession which swept to the 
 only temple in vogue that Art has retained in the 
 English Babel. Coaches and chariots, blazoned with 
 arms and coronets cabriolets (the brougham had not 
 then replaced them) of sober hue, but exquisite appoint- 
 ment, with gigantic horses and pigmy " tigers," dashed 
 on, and rolled off before him. Fair women and gay
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 75 
 
 dresses, stars and ribbons the rank and the beauty 
 of the patrician world passed him by. And I could 
 not resist the compassion with which this lonely, friend- 
 less, eager, discontented spirit inspired me gazing on 
 that gorgeous existence in which it fancied itself formed 
 to shine, with the ardour of desire and the despair of 
 exclusion. By one glimpse of that dark countenance, 
 I read what was passing within the yet darker heart. 
 The emotion might not be amiable, nor the thoughts 
 wise, yet, were they unnatural ? I had experienced 
 something of them not at the sight of gay-dressed 
 people, of wealth and idleness, pleasure and fashion ; 
 but when, at the doors of parliament, men who have 
 won noble names, and whose word had weight on the 
 destinies of glorious England, brushed heedlessly by to 
 their grand arena ; or when, amidst the holiday crowd 
 of ignoble pomp, I had heard the murmur of fame 
 buzz and gather round some lordly labourer in art or 
 letters. That contrast between glory so near, and yet 
 so far, and one's own obscurity, of course I had felt it 
 who has not ? Alas ! many a youth not fated to be 
 a Themistocles, will yet feel that the trophies of a 
 Miltiades will not suffer him to sleep ! So I went up 
 to Vivian, and laid my hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " Ah ! " said he, more gently than usual, " I am 
 glad to see you and to apologise I offended you the 
 other day. But you would not get very gracious
 
 
 76 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 answers from souls in purgatory, if you talked to them 
 of the happiness of heaven. Never speak to me about 
 homes and fathers ! Enough, I see you forgive me. 
 Why are you not going to the opera ? You can ?" 
 
 " And you too, if you so please. A ticket is shame- 
 fully dear, to be sure ; still, if you are fond of music, it 
 is a luxury you can afford." 
 
 " Oh, you flatter me if you fancy the prudence of 
 saving withholds me ! I did go the other night, but I 
 shall not go again. Music ! when you go to the 
 opera, is it for the music ?" 
 
 " Only partially, I own : the lights, the scene, the 
 pageant, attract me quite as much. But I do not 
 think the opera a very profitable pleasure for either of 
 us. For rich idle people, I dare say, it may be as 
 innocent an amusement as any other, but I find it a 
 sad enervator." 
 
 " And I just the reverse a horrible stimulant ! 
 Caxton, do you know that, ungracious as it will sound 
 to you, I am growing impatient of this ' honourable 
 independence ! ' What does it lead to ? board, clothes, 
 and lodging, can it ever bring me anything more?" 
 
 " At first, Vivian, you limited your aspirations to 
 kid gloves and a cabriolet it has brought you 
 the kid gloves already, by-and-by it will bring the 
 cabriolet!" 
 
 " Our wishes grow by what they feed on. You live
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 77 
 
 in the great world you can have excitement if you 
 please it I want excitement, I want the world, I 
 want room for my mind, man ! Do you understand 
 me?" 
 
 " Perfectly and sympathise with you, my poor 
 Vivian ; but it will all come. Patience, as I preached 
 to you while dawn rose so comfortless over the streets 
 of London. You are not losing time fill your mind, 
 read, study, fit yourself for ambition. Why wish to 
 fly till you have got your wings ? Live in books now: 
 after all, they are splendid palaces, and open to us all, 
 rich and poor." 
 
 " Books, books ! ah, you are the son of a bookman ! 
 It is not by books that men get on in the world, and 
 enjoy life in the meanwhile." 
 
 " I don't know that ; but, my good fellow, you want 
 to do both get on in the world as fast as labour can, 
 and enjoy life as pleasantly as indolence may. You 
 want to live like the butterfly, and yet have all the 
 honey of the bee ; and, what is the very deuce of the 
 whole, even as the butterfly, you ask every flower to 
 grow up in a moment ; and as a bee, the whole hive 
 must be stored in a quarter of an hour ! Patience, 
 patience, patience !" 
 
 Vivian sighed a fierce sigh. " I suppose," said he, 
 after an unquiet pause, " that the vagrant and the 
 outlaw are strong in me, for I long to run back to my
 
 78 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 old existence, which was all action, and therefore 
 allowed no thought." 
 
 While he thus said, we had wandered round the 
 Colonnade, and were in that narrow passage in which 
 is situated the more private entrance to the opera ; 
 close by the doors of that entrance, two or three 
 young men were lounging. As Vivian ceased, the 
 voice of one of these loungers came laughingly to our 
 ears. 
 
 " Oh ! " it said, apparently in answer to some 
 question, " I have a much quicker way to fortune than 
 that ; I mean to marry an heiress ! " 
 
 Vivian started, and looked at the speaker. He was 
 a very good-looking fellow. Vivian continued to 
 look at him, and deliberately, from head to foot ; 
 he then turned away with a satisfied and thoughtful 
 smile. 
 
 " Certainly," said I gravely, (construing the smile,) 
 " you are right there ; you are even better-looking 
 than that heiress-hunter ?" 
 
 Vivian coloured ; but before he could answer, one 
 of the loungers, as the group recovered from the gay 
 laugh which their companion's easy coxcombry had 
 excited, said, 
 
 " Then, by the way, if you want an heiress, here 
 comes one of the greatest in England ; but instead of 
 being a younger son, with three good lives between
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 79 
 
 you and an Irish peerage, one ought to be an earl at 
 least to aspire to Fanny Trevanion ! " 
 
 The name thrilled through me I felt myself tremble 
 and, looking up, I saw Lady Ellinor and Miss 
 Trevanion, as they hurried from their carriage towards 
 the entrance of the opera. They both recognised me, 
 and Fanny cried, 
 
 " You here ! How fortunate ! You must see us into 
 the box, even if you run away the moment after." 
 
 "But I am not dressed for the opera," said I, 
 embarrassed. 
 
 "And why not?" asked Miss Trevanion; then, 
 dropping her voice, she added, " Why do you desert 
 us so wilfully ?" and, leaning her hand on my arm, 
 I was drawn irresistibly into the lobby. The young 
 loungers at the door made way for us, and eyed me, 
 no doubt, with envy. 
 
 " Nay !" said I, affecting to laugh, as I saw Miss 
 Trevanion waited for my reply. " You forget how 
 little time I have for such amusements now, and mv 
 
 / / 
 
 uncle " 
 
 " Oh, but mamma and I have been to see your 
 uncle to-day, and he is nearly well is he not, mamma '? 
 I cannot tell you how I like and admire him. He is 
 just what I fancy a Douglas of the old day. But 
 mamma is impatient. Well, you must dine with us 
 to-morrow promise ! not adieu but au revoir^ and
 
 80 THE CAXTONS t 
 
 Fanny glided to her mother's arm. Lady Elliuor, 
 always kind and courteous to me, had good-naturedly 
 lingered till this dialogue, or rather monologue, was 
 over. 
 
 On returning to the passage, I found Vivian walk- 
 ing to and fro ; he had lighted his cigar, and was 
 smoking energetically. 
 
 " So this great heiress, " said he smiling, " who, as 
 / far as I could see under her hood seems no less 
 fair than rich, is the daughter, I presume, of the Mr 
 Trevanion whose effusions you so kindly submit to me. 
 He is very rich, then ? You never said so, yet I 
 ought to have known it : but you see I know nothing 
 of your beau monde not even that Miss Trevanion is 
 one of the greatest heiresses in England. " 
 
 " Yes, Mr Trevanion is rich, " said I, repressing a 
 sigh " very rich. " 
 
 " And you are his secretary ! My dear friend, you 
 may well offer me patience, for a large stock of yours 
 will, I hope, be superfluous to you. " 
 
 " I don't understand you. " 
 
 " Yet you heard that young gentleman, as well as 
 myself ; and you are in the same house as the 
 heiress. " 
 
 "Vivian!" 
 
 " Well, what have I said so monstrous ?" 
 
 " Pooh ! since you refer to that young gentleman,
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 81 
 
 you heard, too, what his companion told him, ' one 
 ought to be an earl, at least, to aspire to Fanny Tre- 
 vanion ! ' ; 
 
 " Tut ! as well say that one ought to be a million- 
 naire to aspire to a million ! yet I believe those who 
 make millions generally begin with pence. " 
 
 " That belief should be a comfort and encourage- 
 ment to you, Vivian. And now,"good-night, I have 
 much to do. " 
 
 " Good-night, then," said Vivian, and we parted. 
 
 I made my way to Mr Trevanion's house, and to 
 the study. There was a formidable arrear of business 
 waiting for me, and I sate down to it at first resolutely; 
 but, by degrees, I found my thoughts wandering from 
 the eternal blue-books, and the pen slipped from my 
 hand, in the midst of an extract from a Report on 
 Sierra Leone. My pulse beat loud and quick ; I was 
 in that state of nervous fever which only emotion can 
 occasion. The sweet voice of Fanny rang in my ears ; 
 her eyes, as I had last met them, unusually gentle 
 almost beseeching gazed upon me wherever I turned: N 
 and then, as in mockery, I heard again those words, / 
 "One ought to be an earl, at least, to aspire to"\ 
 Oh ! did I aspire? Was I vain fool so frantic? C 
 
 household traitor so consummate ? No.no ! Then what \ 
 
 ; 
 did I under the same roof? why stay to imbibe this 
 
 sweet poison, that was corroding the very springs of 
 VOL. ii. r
 
 82 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 my life ? At that self-question, which, had I been but 
 a year or two older, I should have asked long before, 
 a mortal terror seized me ; the blood rushed from my 
 heart, and left me cold icy cold. To leave the house ! 
 leave Fanny ! never again to see those eyes never 
 to hear that voice ! better die of the sweet poison 
 than of the desolate exile! I rose I opened the 
 windows I walked to and fro the room : I could 
 decide nothing think of nothing ; all my mind was 
 in an uproar. With a violent effort at self-mastery, 
 I approached the table again. I resolved to force 
 myself to my task, if it were only to recollect my 
 faculties, and enable them to bear my own torture. 
 1 turned over the books impatiently, when, lo ! buried 
 amongst them, what met my eye archly, yet 
 reproachfully ? the face of Fanny herself ! Her minia- 
 ture was there. It had been, I knew, taken a few days 
 before, by a young artist whom Trevanion patronised. 
 I suppose he had carried it into his study to examine 
 it, and so left it there carelessly. The painter had 
 seized her peculiar expression her ineffable smile 
 so charming, so malicious ; even her favourite posture 
 the small head turned over the rounded Hebe-like 
 shoulder the eye glancing up from under the hair. 
 I know not what change in my madness came over me ; 
 but I sank on my knees, and, kissing the miniature 
 again and again, burst into tears. Such tears ! I
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 83 
 
 did not hear the door open I did not see the shadow 
 steal over the floor; a light hand rested on my shoulder, 
 trembling as it rested I started Fanny herself was 
 bending over me ! 
 
 " What is the matter ?" she asked tenderly. 
 What has happened? your uncle your family all 
 well? Why are you weeping?" 
 
 I could not answer ; but I kept my hands clasped 
 over the miniature, that she might not see what they 
 contained. 
 
 " Will you not answer ? Am I not your friend ? 
 almost your sister? Come, shall I call mamma?" 
 "Yes yes; go go." 
 
 " No, I will not go yet. What have you there ? 
 what are you hiding ?" 
 
 And innocently, and sister-like, those hands took 
 mine ; and so and so the picture became visible ! 
 There was a dead silence. 1 looked up through my 
 tears. Fanny had recoiled some steps, and her cheek 
 was very flushed, her eyes downcast. I felt as if I 
 had committed a crime as if dishonour clung to me ; 
 and yet I repressed yes, thank Heaven ! I repressed 
 the cry that swelled from my heart, that rushed to my 
 lips " Pity me, for I love you ! " I repressed it, and 
 only a groan escaped me the wail of my lost happi- 
 ness ! Then, rising, I laid the miniature on the table, 
 and said, in a voice that I believe was firm
 
 84 TIIE CAXTONS. 
 
 " Miss Trevanion, you have been as kind as a sister 
 to me, and therefore I was bidding a brother's fare- 
 well to your likeness ; it is so like you this ! " 
 
 " Farewell ! " echoed Fanny, still not looking up. 
 
 " Farewell sister ! There, I have boldly said the 
 word ; for for " I hurried to the door, and, there 
 turning, added, with what I meant to be a smile 
 " for they say at home that I I am not well ; too 
 much for me this ; you know mothers will be foolish ; 
 and and I am to speak to your father to-morrow ; 
 and good-night God bless you, Miss Trevanion!"
 
 PART NINTH.
 
 PART NINTH, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AND my father pushed aside his books. 
 
 O young reader, whoever thou art, or reader, at 
 least, who hast been young, canst thou not remember 
 some time when, with thy wild troubles and sorrows 
 as yet borne in secret, thou hast come back from that 
 hard, stern world which opens on thee when thou 
 puttest thy foot out of the threshold of home come 
 back to the four quiet walls, wherein thine elders 
 sit in peace and seen, with a sort of sad amaze, how 
 calm and undisturbed all is there ? That generation 
 which has gone before thee in the path of the passions 
 the generation of thy parents (not so many years, 
 perchance, remote from thine own) how immovably 
 far off, in its still repose, it seems from thy turbulent
 
 88 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 youth ! It has in it a stillness as of a classic age, 
 antique as the statues of the Greeks. That tranquil 
 monotony of routine into which those lives that pre- 
 ceded thee have merged the occupations that they 
 have found sufficing for their happiness, by the fire- 
 side in the arm-chair and corner appropriated to 
 each how strangely they contrast thine own feverish 
 excitement ! And they make room for thee, and hid 
 thee welcome, and then resettle to their hushed pur- 
 suits, as if nothing had happened ! Nothing had 
 happened! while in thy heart, perhaps, the whole 
 world seems to have shot from its axis, all the 
 elements to be at war ! And you sit down, crushed 
 by that quiet happiness which you can share no more, 
 and smile mechanically, and look into the fire ; and, 
 ten to one, you say nothing till the time comes for 
 bed, and you take up your candle, and creep miser- 
 ably to your lonely room. 
 
 Now, if in a stage coach in the depth of winter, 
 when three passengers are warm and snug, a fourth, 
 all besnowed and frozen, descends from the outside 
 and takes place amongst them, straightway all the 
 three passengers shift their places, uneasily pull up 
 their cloak collars, re-arrange their " comforters," 
 feel indignantly a sensible loss of caloric the intruder 
 has at least made a sensation. But if you had all 
 the snows of the Grampians in your heart, you might
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 89 
 
 enter unnoticed : take care not to tread on the toes 
 of your opposite neighbour, and not a soul is dis- 
 turbed, not a " comforter" stirs an inch ! I had not 
 slept a wink, I had not even laid down all that night 
 the night in which I had said farewell to Fanny 
 Trevanion and the next morning, when the sun 
 rose, I wandered out where I know not. I have a 
 dim recollection of long, gray, solitary streets of 
 the river that seemed flowing in dull silence, away, 
 far away, into some invisible eternity trees and 
 turf, and the gay voices of children. I must have 
 gone from one end of the great Babel to the other : 
 but my memory only became clear and distinct when 
 I knocked, somewhere before noon, at the door of my 
 father's house, and, passing heavily up the stairs, 
 came into the drawing-room, which was the rendez- 
 vous of the little family ; for, since we had been in 
 London, my father had ceased to have his study 
 apart, and contented himself with what he called " a 
 corner" a corner wide enough to contain two tables 
 and a dumb waiter, with chairs d, discretion all lit- 
 tered with books. On the opposite side of this capa- 
 cious corner sat my uncle, now nearly convalescent, 
 and he was jotting down, in his stiff military hand, 
 certain figures in a little red account-book for you 
 know already that my uncle Roland was, in his 
 expenses, the most methodical of men.
 
 90 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 My father's face was more benign than usual, for, 
 before him lay a proof the first proof of his first 
 work his one work the Great Book ! Yes ! it had 
 positively found a press. And the first proof of your 
 first work ask any author what that is ! My mother 
 was out, with the faithful Mrs Primmins, shopping or 
 marketing, no doubt; so, while the brothers were 
 thus engaged, it was natural that my entrance should 
 not make as much noise as if it had been a bomb, or 
 a singer, or a clap of thunder, or the last " great 
 novel of the season," or anything else that made a 
 noise in those days. For what makes a noise now ? 
 Now, when the most astonishing thing of all is in our 
 easy familiarity with things astounding when we 
 say, listlessly, " Another revolution at Paris," or 
 " By the bye, there is the deuce to do at Vienna ! " 
 when De Joinville is catching fish in the ponds at 
 Claremont, and you hardly turn back to look at 
 Metternich on the pier at Brighton ! 
 
 My uncle nodded, and growled indistinctly; my 
 father 
 
 " Put aside his books ; you have told us that 
 already." 
 
 Sir, you are very much mistaken, it was not then 
 that he put aside his books, for he was not then en- 
 gaged in them he was reading his proof. And he 
 smiled, and pointed to it (the proof I mean) patheti-
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 91 
 
 cally, and with a kind of humour, as much as to say 
 "what can you expect, Pisistratus? my new 
 baby ! in short clothes or long primer, which is all 
 the same thing ! " 
 
 I took a chair between the two, and looked first at 
 one, then at the other, and heaven forgive me! I felt 
 a rebellious, ungrateful spite against both. The bitter- 
 ness of my soul must have been deep indeed to have 
 overflowed in that direction, but it did. The grief of 
 youth is an abominable egotist, and that is the truth. 
 I got up from the chair, and walked towards the 
 window ; it was open, and outside the window was 
 Mrs Primmins' canary, in its cage. London air had 
 agreed with it, and it was singing lustily. Now, 
 when the canary saw me standing opposite to its 
 cage, and regarding it seriously, and, I have no 
 doubt, with a very sombre aspect, the creature stopped 
 short, and hung its head on one side, looking at me 
 obliquely and suspiciously. Finding that I did it no 
 harm, it began to hazard a few broken notes, timidly 
 and interrogatively, as it were, pausing between each ; 
 and at length, as I made no reply, it evidently thought 
 it had solved the doubt, and ascertained that I was 
 more to be pitied than feared for it stole gradually 
 into so soft and silvery a strain that, I verily believe, 
 it did it on purpose to comfort me! me, its old 
 friend, whom it had unjustly suspected. Never did
 
 92 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 any music touch me so home as did that long, plain- 
 tive cadence. And when the bird ceased, it perched 
 itself close to the bars of the cage, and looked at me 
 steadily with its bright intelligent eyes. I felt mine 
 water, and I turned back and stood in the centre of 
 the room, irresolute what to do, where to go. My 
 father had done with the proof, and was deep in his 
 folios. Roland had clasped his red account-book, 
 restored it to his pocket, wiped his pen carefully, and 
 now watched me from under his great beetle brows. 
 Suddenly he rose, and, stamping on the hearth with 
 his cork leg, exclaimed, " Look up from those cursed 
 books, brother Austin ! What is there in that lad's 
 face ? Construe that, if you can ! "
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 AND my father pushed aside his books, and rose 
 hastily. He took off his spectacles, and rubbed them 
 mechanically, but he said nothing; and my uncle, 
 staring at him for a moment, in surprise at his silence, 
 burst out, 
 
 " Oh ! I see he has been getting into some scrape, 
 and you are angry ! Fie ! young blood will have its 
 way, Austin it will. I don't blame that it is only 
 when come here, Sisty ! Zounds ! man, come 
 here." 
 
 My father gently brushed off the captain's hand, 
 and, advancing towards me, opened his arms. The 
 next moment I was sobbing on his breast. 
 
 " But what is the matter?" cried Captain Roland, 
 " will nobody say what is the matter ? Money, I 
 suppose money, you confounded extravagant young 
 dog ! Luckily you have got an uncle who has more 
 than he knows what to do with. How much? fifty?
 
 94 THE CAXTONS t 
 
 a hundred ? two hundred ? How can I write the 
 cheque, if you'll not speak." 
 
 " Hush, brother ! it is no money you can give 
 that will set this right. My poor boy! have I 
 guessed truly ? Did I guess truly the other evening, 
 when " 
 
 u Yes, sir, yes ! I have been so wretched. But I 
 am better now I can tell you all." 
 
 My uncle moved slowly towards the door: his fine 
 sense of delicacy made him think that even he was 
 out of place in the confidence between son and father. 
 
 u No, uncle, " I said, holding out my hand to him, 
 " stay ; you too can advise me strengthen me. I 
 have kept my honour yet help me to keep it still. " 
 
 At the sound of the word honour, Captain Roland 
 stood mute, and raised his head quickly. 
 
 So I told all incoherently enough at first, but 
 clearly and manfully as I went on. Now I know that 
 it is not the custom of lovers to confide in fathers and 
 uncles. Judging by those mirrors of life, plays and 
 novels, they choose better ; valets and chambermaids, 
 and friends whom they have picked up in the street, 
 as I had picked up poor Francis Vivian to these they 
 make clean breasts of their troubles. But fathers and 
 uncles to them they are close, impregnable, " but- 
 toned to the chin." The Caxtons were an eccentric 
 family, and never did anything like other people.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 95 
 
 When I had ended, I lifted my eyes, and said plead- 
 ingly, " Now, tell me, is there no hope none ?" 
 
 "Why should there be none?" cried Captain 
 Roland hastily " The De Caxtons are as good a 
 family as the Trevanions ; and as for yourself, all I 
 will say is, that the young lady might choose worse 
 for her own happiness. " 
 
 I wrung my uncle's hand, and turned to my father 
 in anxious fear for I knew that, in spite of his 
 secluded habits, few men ever formed a sounder judg- 
 ment on worldly matters, when he was fairly drawn 
 to look at them. A thing wonderful is that plain 
 wisdom which scholars and poets often have for others, 
 though they rarely deign to use it for themselves. 
 And how on earth do they get at it ? I looked at my 
 father, and the vague hope Roland had excited fell as 
 I looked. 
 
 "Brother," said he slowly, and shaking his head, 
 " the world, which gives codes and laws to those who 
 live in it, does not care much for a pedigree, unless it 
 goes with a title-deed to estates. " 
 
 " Trevanion was not richer than Pisistratus when 
 he married Lady Ellinor, " said my uncle. 
 
 " True ; but Lady Ellinor was not then an heiress, 
 and her father viewed these matters as no other peer 
 in England perhaps would. As for Trevanion him- 
 self, I dare say he has no prejudices about station, but
 
 96 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 he is strong in common sense. He values himself on 
 being a practical man. It would be folly to talk to 
 him of love, and the affections of youth. He would 
 see in the son of Austin Caxton, living on the interest 
 of some fifteen or sixteen thousand pounds, such a 
 match for his daughter as no prudent man in his 
 position could approve. And as for Lady Ellinor "- 
 
 " She owes us much, Austin ! " exclaimed Roland, 
 his face darkening. 
 
 " Lady Ellinor is now what, if we had known her 
 better, she promised always to be the ambitious, 
 brilliant, scheming woman of the world. Is it not so, 
 Pisistratus ? " 
 , I said nothing. I felt too much. 
 
 " And does the girl like you ? but I think it is 
 clear she does ! " exclaimed Roland. " Fate fate ; 
 it has been a fatal family to us ! Zounds ! Austin, it 
 was your fault. Why did you let him go there?" 
 
 " My son is now a man at least in heart, if not in 
 years can man be shut from danger and trial ? They 
 found me in the old parsonage, brother !" said my 
 father mildly. 
 
 My uncle walked, or rather stumped, three times 
 up and down the room ; and he then stopped short, 
 folded his arms, and came to a decision 
 
 " If the girl likes you, your duty is doubly clear 
 you can't take advantage of it. You have done right
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 97 
 
 to leave the house, for the temptation might be too 
 strong. " 
 
 " But what excuse shall I make to Mr Trevanion ? " 
 said L feebly " what story can I invent? So care- 
 less as he is while he trusts, so penetrating if he once 
 suspects, he will see through all my subterfuges, and 
 -and" 
 
 " It is as plain as a pike-staff, " said my uncle 
 abruptly " and there need be no subterfuge in the ^/ 
 matter. ' I must leave you, Mr Trevanion. ' ' Why ? ' 
 says he. ' Don't ask me. ' He insists. ' Well then, 
 sir, if you must know, I love your daughter. I have 
 nothing she is a great heiress. You will not approve 
 of that love, and therefore I leave you ! ' That is the 
 course that becomes an English gentleman eh, 
 Austin?" 
 
 " You are never wrong when your instincts speak, 
 Roland," said my father. " Can you say this, Pisis- 
 tratus, or shall I say it for you?" 
 
 " Let him say it himself, " said Roland ; " and let 
 him judge himself of the answer. He is young, he is 
 clever, he may make a figure in the world. Treva- 
 nion may answer, ' Win the lady after you have won 
 the laurel, like the knights of old. ' At all events, 
 you will hear the worst. " 
 
 " I will go," said I, firmly; and I took my hat, 
 and left the room. As I was passing the landing- 
 
 VOL. II. G
 
 98 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 place, a light step stole down the upper flight of stairs, 
 and a little hand seized my own. I turned quickly, 
 and met the full, dark, seriously sweet eyes of my 
 cousin Blanche. 
 
 "Don't go away yet, Sisty," said she coaxingly. 
 " I have been waiting for you, for I heard your voice, 
 and did not like to come in and disturb you. " 
 
 " And why did you wait for me, my little 
 Blanche?" 
 
 " Why ! only to see you. But your eyes are red. 
 Oh, cousin ! " and, before I was aware of her childish 
 impulse, she had sprung to my neck and kissed me. 
 Now Blanche was not like most children, and was 
 very sparing of her caresses. So it was out of the 
 deeps of a kind heart that that kiss came. I returned 
 it without a word ; and, putting her down gently, ran 
 down the stairs, and was in the streets. But I had 
 not got far before I heard my father's voice ; and In- 
 come up, and, hooking his arm into mine, said, " Are 
 there not two of us that suffer ? let us be together ! " 
 I pressed his arm, and we walked on in silence. But 
 when we were near Trevanion's house, I said hesita- 
 tingly, " Would it not be better, sir, that I went in 
 r / olone. If there is to be an explanation between Mr 
 Trevanion and myself, would it not seem as if your 
 presence implied either a request to him that would 
 lower us both, or a doubt of me that "
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 99 
 
 " You will go in alone, of course : I will wait for 
 you" 
 
 " Not in the streets oh, no ! father, " cried I, 
 touched inexpressibly. For all this was so unlike my 
 father's habits, that I felt remorse to have so com- 
 municated my young griefs to the calm dignity of his 
 serene life. 
 
 " My son, you do not know how I love you. I 
 have only known it myself lately. Look you, I am 
 living in you now, my first-born ; not in my other son 
 the Great Book : I must have my way. Go in ; 
 that is the door, is it not ?" 
 
 I pressed my father's hand, and I felt then, that, 
 while that hand could reply to mine, even the loss of 
 Fanny Trevanion could not leave the world a blank. 
 How much we have before us in life, while we retain 
 our parents ! How much to strive and to hope for ! 
 What a motive in the conquest of our sorrow that 
 they may not sorrow with us !
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I ENTERED Trevanion's study. It was an hour in 
 which he was rarely at home, but I had not thought 
 of that ; and I saw without surprise that, contrary to 
 his custom, he was in his arm-chair, reading one of 
 his favourite classic authors, instead of being in some 
 committee-room of the House of Commons. 
 
 " A pretty fellow you are, " said he, looking up, 
 " to leave me all the morning, without rhyme or 
 reason ! And my committee is postponed chairman 
 ill people who get ill should not go into the House 
 of Commons. So here I am, looking into Propertius : 
 Parr is right ; not so elegant a writer as Tibullus. But 
 what the deuce are you about ? why don't you sit 
 down ? Humph ! you look grave you have some- 
 thing to say, say it ! " 
 
 And, putting down Propertius, the acute, sharp face 
 of Trevanion instantly became earnest and attentive. 
 
 " My dear Mr Trevanion, " said I, with as much
 
 THE CAXTONS. 101 
 
 steadiness as I could assume, " you have been most 
 kind to me ; and, out of my own family, there is no 
 man I love and respect more. " 
 
 TREVANION. Humph! What's all this! (In an 
 under tone) Am I going to be taken in ? 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Do not think me ungrateful, then, 
 when I say I come to resign my office to leave the 
 house where I have been so happy. 
 
 TREVANION. Leave the house! Pooh! I have 
 overtasked you. I will be more merciful in future. 
 You must forgive a political economist it is the fault 
 of my sect to look upon men as machines. 
 
 PISISTRATUS (smiling faintly.) No, indeed that 
 is not it ! I have nothing to complain of nothing 
 I could wish altered could I stay. 
 
 TREVANION (examining me thoughtfully.) And 
 does your father approve of your leaving me 
 thus? 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Yes, fully. 
 
 TREVANION (musing a moment.) I see, he would 
 send you to the University, make you a book-worm 
 like himself : pooh ! that will not do you will never 
 become wholly a man of books, it is not in you. 
 Young man, though I may seem careless, I read cha- 
 racters, when I please it, pretty quickly. You do 
 wrong to leave me ; you are made for the great world 
 I can open to you a high career. I wish to do so !
 
 102 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 Ladj Ellinor wishes it nay, insists on it for your 
 father's sake as well as yours. I never ask a favour 
 from ministers, and I never will. But (here Treva- 
 nion rose suddenly, and, with an erect mien and a 
 quick gesture of his arm, he added) but a minister 
 himself can dispose as he pleases of his patronage. 
 Look you, it is a secret yet, and I trust to your 
 honour. But, before the year is out, I must be in the 
 cabinet. Stay with me, I guarantee your fortunes 
 three months ago I would not have said that. By- 
 and-by I will open parliament for you you are not 
 of age yet work till then. And now sit down and 
 write my letters a sad arrear ! " 
 
 " My dear, dear Mr Trevanion ! " said I, so affected 
 that I could scarcely speak, and seizing his hand, 
 which I pressed between both mine " I dare not 
 thank you I cannot ! But you don't know my 
 heart it is not ambition. No ! if I could but stay 
 here on the same terms for ever here" looking rue- 
 fully on that spot where Fanny had stood the night 
 before. " But it is impossible ! If you knew all, you 
 would be the first to bid me go !" 
 
 " You are in debt," said the man of the world, 
 coldly. " Bad, very bad still " 
 
 " No, sir ; no ! worse " 
 
 " Hardly possible to be worse, young man hardly ! 
 But, just as you will ; you leave me, and will not say
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 103 
 
 why. Good-by. Why do you linger ? shake hands, 
 and go!" 
 
 " I cannot leave you thus : I I sir, the truth 
 shall out. I am rash and mad enough not to see 
 Miss Trevanion without forgetting that I am poor, 
 and" 
 
 " Ha! " interrupted Trevanion softly, and growing 
 pale, " this is a misfortune indeed ! And I, who 
 talked of reading characters ! Truly, truly, we would- 
 be practical men are fools fools ! And you haveN 
 made love to my daughter ! " / 
 
 " Sir ! Mr Trevanion ! no never, never so base K, 
 In your house, trusted by you, how could you think 
 it ? I dared, it may be, to love at all events, to feel 
 that I could not be insensible to a temptation too strong 
 for me. But to say it to your daughter to ask love 
 in return I would as soon have broken open your 
 desk ! Frankly I tell you my folly : it is a folly, not 
 a disgrace." 
 
 Trevanion came up to me abruptly, as I leant against 
 the book-case, and, grasping my hand with a cordial 
 kindness, said, " Pardon me ! You have behaved as 
 your father's son should I envy him such a son ! 
 Now, listen to me I cannot give you my daughter " 
 
 " Believe me, sir, I never " 
 
 " Tut, listen ! I cannot give you my daughter. 
 I say nothing of inequality all gentlemen are equal ;
 
 104 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 and if not, all impertinent affectation of superiority, in 
 such a case, would come ill from one who owes his 
 own fortune to his wife ! But, as it is, I have a stake 
 in the world, won not by fortune only, but the labour 
 of a life, the suppression of half my nature the 
 drudging, squaring, taming down all that made the 
 glory and joy of my youth to be that hard matter-of- 
 fact 'thing which the English world expect in a 
 statesman ! This station has gradually opened into its 
 natural result power ! I tell you I shall soon have 
 high office in the administration : I hope to render 
 great services to England for we English politicians, 
 whatever the mob and the press say of us, are not 
 selfish place-hunters. I refused office, as high as I 
 look for now, ten years ago. We believe in our 
 opinions, and we hail the power that may carry them 
 into effect. In this cabinet I shall have enemies. 
 Oh, don't think we leave jealousy behind us, at the 
 doors of Downing Street ! I shall be one of a minority. 
 I know well what must happen : like all men in power, 
 I must strengthen myself by other heads and hands 
 ( than my own. My daughter should bring to me the 
 j alliance of that house in England which is most 
 I necessary to me. My life falls to the ground, like a 
 child's pyramid of cards, if I waste I do not say on 
 you, but on men of ten times your fortune (whatever 
 that be,) the means of strength which are at my dis-
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 105 
 
 posal in the hand of Fanny Trevanion. To this end 
 I have looked ; but to this end her mother has schemed 
 for these household matters are witbin a man's hopes, 
 but belong to a woman's policy. So much for us. 
 But to you; my dear, and frank, and high-souled 
 young friend to you, if I were not Fanny's father 
 if I were your nearest relation, and Fanny could 
 be had for the asking, with all her princely dower, 
 (for it is princely,) to you I should say, fly from a 
 load upon the heart, on the genius, the energy, the pride, 
 and the spirit, which not one man in ten thousand 
 can bear; fly from the curse of owing everything 
 to a wife ! ids a reversal of all natural position, it is 
 a blow to all the manhood within us. You know not 
 what it is : I do ! My wife's fortune came not till after 
 marriage so far, so well; it saved my reputation 
 from the charge of fortune-hunting. But, I tell you 
 fairly, that if it had never come at all, I should be a 
 prouder, and a greater, and a happier man than I 
 have ever been, or ever can be, with all its advan- 
 tages ; it has been a millstone round my neck. And 
 yet Ellinor has never breathed a word that could 
 wound my pride. Would her daughter be as forbear^ 
 ing ? Much as I love Fanny, I doubt if she has theS 
 great heart of her mother. You look incredulous ; \ 
 naturally. Oh, you think I shall sacrifice my child's 
 happiness to a politician's ambition. Folly of youth !
 
 106 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 Fanny would be wretched with you. She might not 
 think so now ; she would five years hence ! Fanny 
 will make an admirable duchess, countess, great lady ; 
 but wife to a man who owes all to her ! no, no, don't 
 dream it ! I shall not sacrifice her happiness, depend 
 on it. I speak plainly, as man to man man of the 
 world to a man just entering it but still man to man ! 
 What say you?" 
 
 " I will think over all you tell me. I know that 
 you are speaking to me most generously as a father 
 would. Now let me go, and may God keep you and 
 yours ! " 
 
 " Go I return your blessing go ! I don't insult 
 
 you now with offers of service ; but, remember, you 
 
 have a right to command them in all ways, in all 
 
 times. Stop! take this comfort away with you 
 
 a sorry comfort now, a great one hereafter. In a 
 
 position that might have moved anger, scorn, pity, 
 
 you have made a barren-hearted man honour and 
 
 / admire you. You, a boy, have made me, with my 
 
 I gray hairs, think better of the whole world : tell your 
 
 ( father that" 
 
 I closed the door, and stole out softly softly. 
 But when I got into the hall, Fanny suddenly opened 
 the door of the breakfast parlour, and seemed, by her 
 look, her gesture, to invite me in. Her face was very 
 pale, and there were traces of tears on the heavy lids.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 107 
 
 I stood still a moment, and my heart beat violently. 
 I then muttered something inarticulately, and, bowing 
 low, hastened to the door. 
 
 I thought, but my ears might deceive me, that I 
 heard my name pronounced ; but fortunately the tall 
 porter started from his newspaper and his leather 
 chair, and the entrance stood open. I joined my 
 father. 
 
 " It is all over," said I, with a resolute smile. 
 " And now, my dear father, I feel how grateful I 
 should be for all that your lessons your life have 
 taught me ; for, believe me, I am not unhappy."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WE came back to my father's house, and on the 
 stairs we met my mother, whom Roland's grave 
 looks, and her Austin's strange absence, had alarmed. 
 My father quietly led the way to a little room, which 
 my mother had appropriated to Blanche and herself; 
 and then, placing my hand in that which had helped 
 his own steps from the stony path, down the quiet 
 vales of life, he said to me, " Nature gives you here 
 the soother ;" and, so saying, he left the room. 
 
 And it was true, O my mother ! that in thy simple 
 loving breast nature did place the deep wells of com- 
 fort ! We come to men for philosophy to women 
 for consolation. And the thousand weaknesses and 
 regrets the sharp sands of the minutiae that make 
 up sorrow all these, which I could have betrayed to 
 no man not even to him, the dearest and tenderest 
 of all men I showed without shame to thee ! And 
 thy tears, that fell on my cheek, had the balm of
 
 THE CAXTONS. 109 
 
 Araby; and my heart, at length, lay lulled and 
 soothed under thy moist gentle eyes. 
 
 I made an effort, and joined the little circle at 
 dinner; and I felt grateful that no violent attempt 
 was made to raise my spirits nothing but affection, 
 more subdued, and soft, and tranquil. Even little 
 Blanche, as if by the intuition of sympathy, ceased 
 her babble, and seemed to hush her footstep as she 
 crept to my side. But after dinner, when we had 
 reassembled in the drawing-room, and the lights 
 shone bright, and the curtains were let down and 
 only the quick roll of some passing wheels reminded 
 us that there was a world without my father began 
 to talk. He had laid aside all his work ; the younger 
 but less perishable child was forgotten, and my 
 father began to talk. 
 
 " It is," said he musingly, " a well-known tiling, 
 that particular drugs or herbs suit the body according 
 to its particular diseases. When we are ill, we don't 
 open our medicine-chest at random, and take out any 
 powder or phial that comes to hand. The skilful 
 doctor is he who adjusts the dose to the malady." 
 
 " Of that there can be no doubt," quoth Captain 
 Roland. " I remember a notable instance of the 
 justice of what you say. When I was in Spain, both 
 my horse and I fell ill at the same time ; a dose was 
 sent for each ; and, by some infernal mistake, I swal-
 
 110 THE G'AXTONS t 
 
 lowed the horse's physic, and the horse, poor thing, 
 swallowed mine !" 
 
 " And what was the result?" asked my father. 
 
 " The horse died!" answered Roland mournfully 
 ) " a valuable beast bright bay, with a star!" 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " Why, the doctor said it ought to have killed me : 
 but it took a great deal more than a paltry bottle of 
 physic to kill a man in my regiment." 
 
 " Nevertheless, we arrive at the same conclusion," 
 pursued my father, " I with my theory, you with 
 your experience, that the physic we take must not 
 be chosen hap-hazard; and that a mistake in the 
 bottle may kill a horse. But when we come to the 
 medicine for the mind, how little do we think of the 
 golden rule which common-sense applies to the body ! " 
 
 " Anan," said the Captain, " what medicine is 
 there for the mind ? Shakspeare has said something 
 on that subject, which, if I recollect right, implies 
 that there is no ministering to a mind diseased." 
 
 " I think not, brother ; he only said physic (mean- 
 ing boluses and black draughts) would not do it. And 
 Shakspeare was the last man to find fault with his 
 own art ; for, verily, he has been a great physician to 
 the mind." 
 
 " Ah ! I take you now, brother, books again ! 
 So you think that, when a man breaks his heart, or
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. Ill 
 
 loses his fortune, or his daughter (Blanche, child, 
 come here) that you have only to clap a plaster of 
 print on the sore place, and all is well. I wish you 
 would find me such a cure." 
 
 "Will you try it?" 
 
 " If it is not Greek," said my uncle.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MY FATHER'S CROTCHET ON THE HYGEIEMC CHEMISTRY 
 OF BOOKS. 
 
 " IF," said my father and here his hand was deep 
 in his waistcoat " if we accept the authority of 
 Diodorus, as to the inscription on the great Egyptian 
 library and I don't see why Diodorus should not be 
 as near the mark as any one else?" added my father 
 interrogatively, turning round. 
 
 My mother thought herself the person addressed, 
 and nodded her gracious assent to the authority of 
 Diodorus. His opinion thus fortified, my father con- 
 tinued, " If, I say, we accept the authority of 
 Diodorus, the inscription on the Egyptian library 
 was ' The Medicine of the Mind.' Now, that phrase 
 has become notoriously trite and hackneyed, and 
 people repeat vaguely that books are the medicine of 
 the mind. Yes ; but to apply the medicine is the 
 thing!"
 
 THE CAXTONS. 113 
 
 " So you have told us at least twice before, 
 brother," quoth the Captain, bluffly. " And what 
 Diodorus has to do with it, I know no more than the 
 man of the moon." 
 
 " I shall never get on at this rate," said my father, 
 in a tone between reproach and entreaty. 
 
 " Be good children, Roland and Blanche both," 
 said my mother, stopping from her work, and holding 
 up her needle threateningly and indeed inflicting a 
 slight puncture upon the Captain's shoulder. 
 
 " Rem acu tetigisti, my dear," said my father, 
 borrowing Cicero's pun on the occasion.* " And 
 now we shall go upon velvet. I say, then, that s^- 
 books, taken indiscriminately, are no cure to the 
 diseases and afflictions of the mind. There is a world 
 of science necessary in the taking them. I have 
 known some people in great sorrow fly to a novel, or 
 the last light book in fashion. One might as well 
 take a rose-draught for the plague ! Light reading 
 does not do when the heart is really heavy. I am 
 told that Goethe, when he lost his son, took to study 
 a science that was new to him. Ah ! Goethe was a 
 physician who knew what he was about. In a great 
 grief like that, you cannot tickle and divert the mind; 
 you must wrench it away, abstract, absorb bury it 
 
 * Cicero's joke on a senator who was the son of a tailor "Thou 
 hast touched the thing sharply," (or with a needle acu.) 
 VOL. II. H
 
 114 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 in an abyss, hurry it into a labyrinth. Therefore, for 
 the irremediable sorrows of middle life and old age, I 
 recommend a strict chronic course of science and hard 
 reasoning Counter-irritation. Bring the brain to 
 act upon the heart ! If science is too much against 
 the grain, (for we have not all got mathematical 
 heads,) something in the reach of the humblest 
 understanding, but sufficiently searching to the high- 
 est a new language Greek, Arabic, Scandinavian, 
 Chinese, or Welch! For the loss of fortune, the 
 dose should be applied less directly to the under- 
 standing. I would administer something elegant and 
 cordial. For as the heart is crushed and lacerated by 
 a loss in the affections, so it is rather the head that 
 aches and suffers by the loss of money. Here we find 
 the higher class of poets a very valuable remedy. 
 For observe that poets of the grander and more 
 comprehensive kind of genius have in them two 
 separate men, quite distinct from each other the 
 imaginative man, and the practical, circumstantial 
 man ; and it is the happy mixture of these that suits 
 diseases of the mind, half imaginative and half prac- 
 tical. There is Homer, now lost with the gods, now 
 at home with the homeliest, the very ' poet of circum- 
 stance,' as Gray has finely called him ; and yet with 
 imagination enough to seduce and coax the dullest 
 into forgetting, for a while, that little spot on his
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 115 
 
 desk which his banker's book can cover. There is 
 Virgil, far below him, indeed 
 
 * Virgil the wise, 
 "Whose verse walks highest, but not flies,' 
 
 as Cowley expresses it. But Virgil still has genius 
 enough to be two men to lead you into the fields, 
 not only to listen to the pastoral reed, and to hear 
 the bees hum, but to note how you can make the 
 most of the glebe and the vineyard. There is 
 Horace, charming man of the world, who will condole / 
 with you feelingly on the loss of your fortune, and V 
 by no means undervalue the good things of this life ; I 
 but who will yet show you that a man may be happy ) 
 with a vile modicum, or parva rura. There is Shak- 
 speare, who, above all poets, is the mysterious dual of 
 hard sense and empyreal fancy and a great many 
 more, whom I need not name ; but who, if you take 
 to them gently and quietly, will not, like your mere 
 philosopher, your unreasonable stoic, tell you that 
 you have lost nothing ; but who will insensibly steal 
 you out of this world, with its losses and crosses, and 
 slip you into another world, before you know where 
 you are ! a world where you are just as welcome, 
 though you carry no more earth of your lost acres 
 with you than covers the sole of your shoe. Then, 
 for hypochondria and satiety, what is better than a 
 brisk alterative course of travels especially early,
 
 116 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 out of the way, marvellous, legendary travels ! How 
 they freshen up the spirits ! How they take you out 
 of the humdrum yawning state you are in, See, 
 with Herodotus, young Greece spring up into life ; 
 or note with him how already the wondrous old Orient 
 world is crumbling into giant decay; or go with 
 Carpini and Rubruquis to Tartary, meet ' the carts of 
 Zagathai laden with houses, and think that a great 
 city is travelling towards you.' * Gaze on that vast 
 wild empire of the Tartar, where the descendants of 
 Jenghis ' multiply and disperse over the immense 
 waste desert, which is as boundless as the ocean.' 
 Sail with the early northern discoverers, and pene- 
 trate to the heart of winter, among sea-serpents and 
 bears, and tusked morses, with the faces of men. 
 Then, what think you of Columbus, and the stern 
 soul of Cortes, and the kingdom of Mexico, and the 
 strange gold city of the Peruvians, with that auda- 
 cious brute Pizarro ? and the Polynesians, just for all 
 the world like the ancient Britons ? and the Ameri- 
 can Indians, and the South -Sea Islanders? how 
 petulant, and young, and adventurous, and frisky 
 your hypochondriac must get upon a regimen like 
 that ! Then, for that vice of the mind which I call 
 sectarianism not in the religious sense of the word, 
 but little, narrow prejudices, that make you hate your 
 * RUBRIQUIS, sect. xii.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 117 
 
 next-door neighbour, becausejhe.has . Jns_ . 
 when you have yours boile<i ; and gossiping and pry- 
 ing into people's affairs, and backbiting, and thinking 
 heaven and earth are coming together, if some broom 
 touch a cobweb that you have let grow over the 
 window-sill of your brains what like a large and 
 generous, mildly aperient (I beg your pardon, my 
 dear) course of history ! How it clears away all the 
 fumes of the head ! better than the hellebore with 
 which the old leeches of the middle ages purged the 
 cerebellum. There, amidst all that great whirl and 
 sturmbadj (storm-bath,) as the Germans say, of king- 
 doms and empires, and races and ages, how your 
 mind enlarges beyond that little, feverish animosity 
 to John Styles; or that unfortunate prepossession 
 of yours, that all the world is interested in your 
 grievances against Tom Stokes and his wife ! 
 
 " I can only touch, you see, on a few ingredients 
 in this magnificent pharmacy its resources are 
 boundless, but require the nicest discretion. I 
 remember to have cured a disconsolate widower, who 
 obstinately refused every other medicament, by a 
 strict course of geology. I dipped him deep into 
 gneiss and mica schist. Amidst the first strata, I 
 suffered the watery action to expend itself upon cool- 
 ing crystallised masses ; and, by the tune I had got 
 him into the tertiary period, amongst the transition
 
 118 THECAXTONS: 
 
 chalks of Maestricht, and the conchiferous marls of 
 Gosau, he was ready for a new wife. Kitty, my 
 dear! it is no laughing matter. I made no less 
 notable a cure of a young scholar at Cambridge, who 
 was meant for the church, when he suddenly caught 
 a cold fit of freethinking, with great shiverings, from 
 wading over his depth in Spinosa. None of the 
 divines, whom I first tried, did him the least good in 
 that state ; so I turned over a new leaf, and doctored 
 him gently upon the chapters of faith in Abraham 
 Tucker's book, (you should read it, Sisty;) then I 
 threw in strong doses of Fichte" ; after that I put him 
 on the Scotch metaphysicians, with plunge-baths into 
 certain German transcendentalists ; and having con- 
 vinced him that faith is not an unphilosophical state 
 of mind, and that he might believe without compro- 
 mising his understanding for he was mightily con- 
 ceited on that score I threw in my divines, which 
 he was now fit to digest ; and his theological constitu- 
 tion, since then, has become so robust, that he has 
 eaten up two livings and a deanery ! In fact, I have 
 a plan for a library that, instead of heading its com- 
 partments, ' Philology, Natural Science, Poetry,' &c., 
 one shall head them according to the diseases for 
 which they are severally good, bodily and mental up 
 from a dire calamity, or the pangs of the gout, down 
 to a fit of the spleen, or a slight catarrh ; for which
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 119 
 
 last your light reading comes in with a whey-posset 
 and barley-water. But," continued my father more 
 gravely, " when some one sorrow, that is yet repar- 
 able, gets hold of your mind like a monomania when 
 you think, because heaven has denied you this or that, 
 on which you had set your heart, that all your life 
 must be a blank oh ! then diet yourself well on 
 biography the biography of good and great men. 
 See how little a space one sorrow really makes in life. N 
 See scarce a page, perhaps, given to some grief 
 similar to your own ; and how triumphantly the life \ 
 sails on beyond it! You thought the wing was j 
 broken! Tut tut it was but a bruised feather! 
 See what life leaves behind it when all is done ! a 
 summary of positive facts far out of the region of 
 sorrow and suffering, linking themselves with the 
 being of the world. Yes, biography is the medicine 
 here ! Roland, you said you would try my prescrip- 
 tion here it is," and my father took up a book, 
 and reached it to the Captain. 
 
 My uncle looked over it Life of the Reverend 
 Robert Hall. " Brother, he was a Dissenter, and, 
 thank heaven ! I am a church-and-state man, back 
 and bone!" 
 
 " Robert Hall was a brave man, and a true soldier 
 under the great commander," said my father art- 
 fully."
 
 120 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 The Captain mechanically carried his forefinger to 
 his forehead in military fashion, and saluted the book 
 respectfully. 
 
 " I have another copy for you, Pisistratus that is 
 mine which I have lent Koland. This, which I bought 
 for you to-day, you will keep." 
 
 " Thank you, sir," said I listlessly, not seeing what 
 great good the Life of Robert Hall could do me, or 
 why the same medicine should suit the old weather- 
 beaten uncle, and the nephew yet in his teens. 
 
 " I have said nothing," resumed my father, slightly 
 bowing his broad temples, " of the Book of Books, for 
 that is the lignum vitce, the cardinal medicine for all. 
 These are but the subsidiaries: for, as you may 
 remember, my dear Kitty, that I have said before 
 we can never keep the system quite right unless we 
 place just in the centre of the great ganglionic system, 
 whence the nerves carry its influence gently and 
 smoothly through the whole frame THE SAFFKOX 
 BAG!"
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 AFTER breakfast the next morning, I took my hat 
 to go out, when my father, looking at me, and see- 
 ing by my countenance that I had not slept, said 
 gently 
 
 " My dear Pisistratus, you have not tried my medi- 
 cine yet." 
 
 " What medicine, sir?" 
 
 " Robert Hall." 
 
 " No, indeed, not yet," said I, smiling. 
 
 " Do so, my son, before you go out ; depend on it, 
 you will enjoy your walk more." 
 
 I confess that it was with some reluctance I obeyed. 
 I went back to my own room, and sate resolutely down 
 to my task. Are there any of you, my readers, who 
 have not read the Life of Robert Hall? If so, in the 
 words of the great Captain Cuttle, " When found, 
 make a note of it." Never mind what your theolo- 
 gical opinion is Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist,
 
 122 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 Paedobaptist, Independent, Quaker, Unitarian, Philo- 
 sopher, Freethinker, send for Robert Hall! Yea, 
 if there exist yet on earth, descendants of the arch- 
 heresies, which made such a noise in their day men 
 who believe with Saturninus that the world was made 
 by seven angels ; or with Basilides, that there are as 
 many heavens as there are days in the year ; or with 
 the Nicolaitanes, that men ought to have their wives 
 in common, (plenty of that sect still, especially in the 
 Red Republic ;) or with their successors, the Gnostics, 
 who believed in Jaldaboath; or with the Carpacra- 
 tians, that the world was made by the devil ; or with 
 the Cerinthians, and Ebionites, and Nazarites, (which 
 last discovered that the name of Noah's wife was 
 Ouria, and that she set the ark on fire ;) or with the 
 Valentinians, who taught that there were thirty 
 jEones, ages, or worlds, born out of Profundity, 
 (Bathos,) male, and Silence, female ; or with the 
 Marches, Colarbasii, and Heracleonites, (who still 
 kept up that bother about ^Eones, Mr Profundity, 
 and Mrs Silence ;) or with the Ophites, who are said 
 to have worshipped the serpent ; or the Cainites, who 
 ingeniously found out a reason for honouring Judas, 
 because he foresaw what good would come to men 
 by betraying our Saviour ; or with the Sethites, who 
 made Seth a part of the Divine substance ; or with 
 the Archonticks, Ascothyptae, Cerdonians, Marcionites,
 
 A FAMILY PICTUEE. 123 
 
 the disciples of Apelles, and Severus, (the last was a 
 teetotaller, and said wine was begot by Satan !) or of 
 Tatian, who thought all the descendants of Adam 
 were irretrievably damned except themselves, (some 
 of those Tatiani are certainly extant !) or the Cata- 
 phrygians, who were also called Tascodragitse, be- 
 cause they thrust their forefingers up their nostrils 
 to show their devotion ; or the Pepuzians, Quintilians, 
 and Artotyrites ; or but no matter. If I go through 
 all the follies of men in search of the truth, I shall 
 never get to the end of my chapter, or back to Eobert 
 Hall : whatever, then, thou art, orthodox or hetero- 
 dox, send for the Life of Robert Hall. It is the life 
 of a man that it does good to manhood itself to con- 
 template. 
 
 I had finished the biography, which is not long, and 
 was musing over it, when I heard the Captain's cork- 
 leg upon the stairs. I opened the* door for him, and 
 he entered, book in hand, as I, also book in hand, stood 
 ready to receive him. 
 
 " Well, sir," said Roland, seating himself, " has the 
 prescription done you any good ?" 
 
 " Yes, uncle great." 
 
 " And me too. By Jupiter, Sisty, that same Hall 
 was a fine fellow ! I wonder if the medicine has gone 
 through the same channels in both ? Tell me, first, 
 how it has aifected you."
 
 124 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 "Imprimis, then, my dear uncle, I fancy that a 
 book like this must do good to all who live in the 
 world in the ordinary manner, by admitting us into a 
 circle of life of which I suspect we think but little. 
 Here is a man connecting himself directly with a 
 \ heavenly purpose, and cultivating considerable faculties 
 s to that one end ; seeking to accomplish his soul as far 
 las he can, that he may do most good on earth, and 
 take a higher existence up to heaven ; a man intent 
 upon a sublime and spiritual duty : in short, living as 
 it were in it, and so filled with the consciousness of 
 immortality, and so strong in the link between God 
 and man, that, without any affected stoicism, without 
 being insensible to pain rather, perhaps, from a 
 nervous temperament, acutely feeling it he yet has a 
 happiness wholly independent of it. It is impossible 
 not to be thrilled with an admiration that elevates 
 while it awes you, in reading that solemn l Dedication 
 of himself to God.' This offering of ' soul and body, 
 time, health, reputation, talents,' to the divine and 
 invisible Principle of Good, calls us suddenly to con- 
 template the selfishness of our own views and hopes, 
 and awakens us from the egotism that exacts all and 
 resigns nothing. 
 
 " But this book has mostly struck upon the chord in 
 my own heart, in that characteristic which my father 
 indicated as belonging to all biography. Here is a life
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 125 
 
 of remarkable fulness, great study, great thought, and 
 great action ; and yet," said I, colouring, " how small 
 a place those feelings, which have tyrannised over me, 
 and made all else seem blank and void, hold in that 
 life. It is not as if the man were a cold and hard 
 ascetic ; it is easy to see in him not only remarkable 
 tenderness and warm affections, but strong self-will, 
 and the passion of all vigorous natures. Yes! I 
 understand better now what existence in a true man 
 should be." 
 
 " All that is very well said," quoth the Captain, 
 u but it did not strike me. What I have seen in this 
 book is courage. Here is a poor creature rolling on 
 the carpet with agony ; from childhood to death tor- 
 tured by a mysterious incurable malady a malady 
 that is described as ' an internal apparatus of torture ;' 
 and who does, by his heroism, more than bear it he 
 puts it out of power to affect him ; and though (here 
 is the passage) ' his appointment by day and by night 
 was incessant pain, yet high enjoyment was, notwith- 
 standing, the law of his existence.' Robert Hall reads 
 me a lesson me, an old -soldier, who thought myself 
 above taking lessons in courage, at least. And, as 
 I came to that passage when, in the sharp paroxysms 
 before death, he says, ' I have not -complained, have I, 
 sir ? and I won't complain ! ' when I came to that 
 passage I started up, and cried, ' Roland de Caxton,
 
 126 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 thou hast been a coward ! and, an thou hadst had th y 
 deserts, thou hadst been cashiered, broken, and 
 drummed out of the regiment long ago I 1 " 
 
 " After all, then, my father was not so wrong he 
 placed his guns right, and fired a good shot/' 
 
 " He must have been from 6 to 9 above the crest 
 of the parapet," said my uncle, thoughtfully "which, 
 I take it, is the best elevation, both for shot and shells, 
 in enfilading a work." 
 
 "What say you, then, Captain? up with our 
 knapsacks, and on with the march ! " 
 
 u Right about face ! " cried my uncle, as erect as 
 a column. 
 
 " No looking back, if we can help it." 
 
 " Full in the front of the enemy. * Up, guards, and 
 at 'em!'" 
 
 "' England expects every man to do his duty !"' 
 
 " Cypress or laurel 1" Cried my uncle, waving the 
 book over his head.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I WENT out and to see Francis Vivian ; for, on 
 leaving Mr Trevanion, I was not without anxiety for 
 my new friend's future provision. But Vivian was 
 from home, and I strolled from his lodgings, into the 
 suburbs on the other side of the river, and began to 
 meditate seriously on the best course now to pursue. 
 In quitting my present occupations, I resigned prospects 
 far more brilliant, and fortunes far more rapid than I 
 could ever hope to realise in any other entrance into life. 
 But I felt the necessity, if I desired to keep steadfast 
 to that more healthful frame of mind I had obtained, 
 of some manly and continuous labour some earnest 
 employment. My thoughts flew back to the univer- 
 sity ; and the quiet of its cloisters which, until I had 
 been blinded by the glare of the London world, and 
 grief had somewhat dulled the edge of my quick 
 desires and hopes, had seemed to me cheerless and 
 unaltering took an inviting aspect. They presented
 
 128 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 wljat I needed most a new scene, a new arena, a 
 partial return into boyhood ; repose for passions pre- 
 maturely raised ; activity for the reasoning powers in 
 fresh directions. I had not lost my time in London : 
 I had kept up, if not studies purely classical, at least 
 the habits of application ; I had sharpened my general 
 comprehension, and augmented my resources. Accord- 
 ingly, when I returned home, I resolved to speak to 
 my father. But I found he had forestalled me ; and, 
 on entering, my mother drew me up stairs into her 
 room, with a smile kindled by my smile, and told me 
 that she and her Austin had been thinking that it was 
 best that I should leave London as soon as possible ; 
 that my father found he could now dispense with the 
 library of the Museum for some months ; that the 
 time for which they had taken their lodgings would 
 be up in a few days ; that the summer was far 
 advanced, town odious, the country beautiful in a 
 word, we were to go home. There I could prepare 
 myself for Cambridge, till the long vacation was over; 
 and, my mother added hesitatingly, and with a pre- 
 fatory caution to spare my health, that my father, 
 whose income could ill afford the requisite allowance 
 to me, counted on my soon lightening his burden, by 
 getting a scholarship. I felt how much provident 
 kindness there was in all this even in that hint of a 
 scholarship, which was meant to rouse my faculties,
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 129 
 
 and spur me, by affectionate incentives, to a new am- 
 bition. I was not less delighted than grateful. 
 
 " But poor Koland," said I, " and little Blanche 
 will they come with us ?" 
 
 " I fear not," said my mother, " for Roland is 
 anxious to get back to his tower ; and, in a day or 
 two, he will be well enough to move." 
 
 " Do you not think, my dear mother, that, some- 
 how or other, this lost son of his had something to do 
 with Roland's illness that the illness was as much 
 mental as physical?" 
 
 " I have no doubt of it, Sisty. What a sad, bad 
 heart that young man must have ! " 
 
 " My uncle seems to have abandoned all hope of 
 finding him in London ; otherwise, ill as he has been, 
 I am sure we could not have kept him at home. So 
 he goes back to the old tower. Poor man, he must 
 be dull enough there ! we must contrive to pay him 
 a visit. Does Blanche ever speak of her brother?" 
 
 " No, for it seems they were not brought up much 
 together at all events, she does not remember him. 
 How lovely she is ! Her mother must surely have 
 been very handsome." 
 
 " She is a pretty child, certainly, though in a 
 strange style of beauty such immense eyes ! and 
 affectionate, and loves Roland as she ought." 
 
 And here the conversation dropped. 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 130 THECAXTONS: 
 
 Our plans being thus decided, it was necessary that 
 I should lose no time in seeing Vivian, and making 
 some arrangement for the future. His manner had 
 lost so much of its abruptness, that I thought I could 
 venture to recommend him personally to Trcvanion ; 
 and I knew, after what had passed, that Trevanion 
 would make a point to oblige me. I resolved to 
 consult my father about it. As yet I had either 
 never found, or never made the opportunity to talk 
 to my father on the subject, he had been so occupied ; 
 and, if he had proposed to see my new friend, what 
 answer could I have made, in the teeth of Vivian's 
 cynic objections? However, as we were now going 
 away, that last consideration ceased to be of impor- 
 tance ; and, for the first, the student had not yet 
 entirely settled back to his books. I therefore watched 
 the time when my father walked down to the Museum, 
 and, slipping my arm in his, I told him, briefly and 
 rapidly, as we went along, how I had formed this 
 strange acquaintance, and how I was now situated. 
 The story did not interest my father quite as much as 
 I expected, and he did not understand all the com- 
 plexities of Vivian's character how could he ? for 
 he answered briefly, " I should think that, for a young 
 man, apparently without a sixpence, and whose edu- 
 cation seems so imperfect, any resource in Trevanion 
 must be most temporary and uncertain. Speak to
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 131 
 
 your uncle Jack he can find him some place, I have 
 no doubt perhaps a readership in a printer's office, 
 or a reporter's place on some journal, if he is fit for 
 it. But if you want to steady him, let it be some- 
 thing regular." 
 
 Therewith my father dismissed the matter, and 
 vanished through the gates of the Museum. Reader- 
 ship to a printer, reportership on a journal, for a 
 young gentleman with the high notions and arrogant 
 vanity of Francis Vivian his ambition already soar- 
 ing far beyond kid gloves and a cabriolet ! The idea 
 was hopeless ; and, perplexed and doubtful, I took 
 my way to Vivian's lodgings. I found him at home, 
 and unemployed, standing by his window, with folded 
 arms, and in a state of such reverie that he was not 
 aware of my entrance till I had touched him on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Ha ! " said he then, with one of his short, quick, 
 impatient sighs, " I thought you had given me up, 
 and forgotten me but you look pale and harassed. 
 I could almost think you had grown thinner within 
 the last few days." 
 
 " Oh ! never mind me, Vivian : I have come to 
 speak of yourself. I have left Trevanion; it is 
 settled that I should go to the university and we 
 all quit town in a few days." 
 
 " In a few days ! all ! who are all?"
 
 132 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 " My family father, mother, uncle, cousin, and 
 myself. But, my dear fellow, now let us think 
 seriously what is best to be done for you. I can 
 present you to Trevanion." 
 
 "Ha!" 
 
 " But Trevanion is a hard, though an excellent 
 man ; and, moreover, as he is always changing the 
 subjects that engross him, in a month or so, he may 
 have nothing to give you. You said you would 
 work will you consent not to complain if the work 
 cannot be done in kid gloves ? Young men who have 
 risen high in the world have begun, it is well known, 
 as reporters to the press. It is a situation of respec- 
 tability, and in request, and not easy to obtain, I 
 fancy ; but still " 
 
 Vivian interrupted me hastily 
 
 " Thank you a thousand times ! but what you say 
 confirms a resolution I had taken before you came. 
 I shall make it up with my family, and return home." 
 
 " Oh ! I am so really glad. How wise in you ! " 
 
 Vivian turned away his head abruptly 
 
 " Your pictures of family life and domestic peace, 
 you see," he said, " seduced me more than you 
 thought. When do you leave town?" 
 
 " Why, I believe, early next week." 
 
 " So soon," said Vivian, thoughtfully. " Wi-11, 
 perhaps I may ask you yet to introduce me to Mr
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 133 
 
 Trevanion ; for who knows ? my family and I 
 may fall out again. But I will consider. I think I 
 have heard you say that this Trevanion is a very old 
 friend of your father's, or uncle's?" 
 
 " He, or rather Lady Ellinor, is an old friend of 
 both." 
 
 " And therefore would listen to your recommenda- 
 tions of me. But perhaps I may not need them. So 
 you have left left of your own accord a situation 
 that seemed more enjoyable, I should think, than 
 rooms in a college ; left why did you leave ? " 
 
 And Vivian fixed his bright eyes, full and piercing- 
 ly, on mine. 
 
 " It was only for a time, for a trial, that I was 
 there," said I, evasively : " out at nurse, as it were, 
 till the Alma Mater opened her arms alma indeed 
 she ought to be to my father's son." 
 
 Vivian looked unsatisfied with my explanation, 
 but did not question me farther. He himself was the 
 first to turn the conversation, and he did this with 
 more affectionate cordiality than was common to him. 
 He inquired into our general plans, into the proba- 
 bilities of our return to town, and drew from me a 
 description of our rural Tusculum. He was quiet and 
 subdued ; and once or twice I thought there was a 
 moisture in those luminous eyes. We parted with 
 more of the unreserve and fondness of youthful
 
 134 THECAXTONS: 
 
 friendship at least on my part, and seemingly on 
 his than had yet endeared our singular intimacy ; 
 for the cement of cordial attachment had been want- 
 ing to an intercourse in which one party refused' all 
 confidence, and the other mingled distrust and fear 
 with keen interest and compassionate admiration. 
 
 That evening, before lights were brought in, my 
 father, turning to me, abruptly asked if I had seen my 
 friend, and what he was about to do. 
 
 " He thinks of returning to his family," said I. 
 
 Roland, who had seemed dozing, winced un- 
 easily. 
 
 " Who returns to his family?" asked the Cap- 
 tain. 
 
 " Why, you must know," said my father, " that 
 Sisty has fished up a friend of whom he can give no 
 account that would satisfy a policeman, and whose 
 fortunes he thinks himself under the necessity of pro- 
 tecting. You are very lucky that he has not picked 
 your pockets, Sisty ; but I daresay he has ? What's 
 his name ? " 
 
 " Vivian," said I " Francis Vivian." 
 
 " A good name, and a Cornish," said my father. 
 " Some derive it from the Romans Vivianus; 
 others from a Celtic word, which means " 
 
 " Vivian ! " interrupted Roland " Vivian ! I 
 wonder if it be the son of Colonel Vivian V"
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 135 
 
 " He is certainly a gentleman's son," said I ; " but 
 he never told me what his family and connexions 
 were." 
 
 " Vivian," repeated my uncle " poor Colonel 
 Vivian ! So the young man is going to his father. 
 I have no doubt it is the same. Ah P 
 
 " What do you know of Colonel Vivian, or his son ? " 
 said I. " Pray, tell me, I am so interested in this 
 young man. " 
 
 " I know nothing of either, except by gossip," said 
 my uncle, moodily. " I did hear that Colonel Vivian, 
 an excellent officer and honourable man, had been 
 in in (Eoland's voice faltered) in great grief about 
 his son, whom, a mere boy, he had prevented from 
 some improper marriage, and who had run away and 
 left him it was supposed for America. The story 
 affected me at the time," added my uncle, trying to 
 speak calmly. 
 
 We were all silent, for we felt why Roland was so 
 disturbed, and why Colonel Vivian's grief should have 
 touched him home. Similarity in affliction makes us 
 brothers even to the unknown. 
 
 " You say he is going home to his family I am 
 heartily glad of it! 1 ' said the envying old soldier, 
 gallantly. 
 
 The lights came in then, and, two minutes after, 
 uncle Roland and I were nestled close to each other,
 
 136 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 side by side ; and I was reading over his shoulder, and 
 his finger was silently resting on that passage that had 
 so struck him " I have not complained have I, sir? 
 and I won't complain ! "
 
 PART TENTH.
 
 PART TENTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MY uncle's conjecture as to the parentage of Francis 
 Vivian seemed to me a positive discovery. Nothing 
 more likely than that this wilful boy had formed some 
 headstrong attachment which no father would sanction, 
 and so, thwarted and irritated, thrown himself on the 
 world. Such an explanation was the more agreeable 
 to me, as it cleared up all that had appeared more 
 discreditable in the mystery that surrounded Vivian. 
 I could never bear to think that he had done anything 
 mean and criminal, however I might believe he had 
 been rash and faulty. It was natural that the un- 
 friended wanderer should have been thrown into a 
 society, the equivocal character of which had failed to 
 revolt the audacity of an inquisitive mind and adven-
 
 140 THECAXTONS: 
 
 turous temper; but it was natural, also, that the 
 habits of gentle birth, and that silent education which 
 English gentlemen commonly receive from their very- 
 cradle, should have preserved his honour, at least, 
 intact through all. Certainly the pride, the notions, 
 the very faults of the wellborn had remained in full force 
 why not the better qualities, however smothered for 
 the time ? I felt thankful for the thought that Vivian 
 was returning to an element in which he might 
 repurify his mind, refit himself for that sphere to 
 which he belonged ; thankful that we might yet 
 meet, and our present half intimacy mature, perhaps, 
 into healthful friendship. 
 
 It was with such thoughts that I took up my hat 
 the next morning to seek Vivian, and judge if we had 
 gained the right clue, when we were startled by what 
 was a rare sound at our door the postman's knock. 
 My father was at the Museum ; my mother in high 
 conference, or close preparation for our approaching 
 departure, with Mrs Primmins; Roland, I, and Blanche 
 had the room to ourselves. 
 
 " The letter is not for me," said Pisistratus. 
 
 "Nor for me, I am sure," said the Captain, when 
 the servant entered and confuted him for the letter 
 was for him. He took it up wonderingly and sus- 
 piciously, as Glumdalclitch took up Gulliver, or as (if 
 naturalists) we take up an unknown creature, that we
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 141 
 
 are not quite sure will not bite and sting us. Ah ! it 
 has stung or bit you, Captain Roland ! for you start 
 and change colour you suppress a cry as you break 
 the seal you breathe hard as you read and the 
 letter seems short but it takes time in the reading, 
 for you go over it again and again. Then you fold it 
 up crumple it thrust it into your breast pocket 
 and look round like a man waking from a dream. Is 
 it a dream of pain, or of pleasure ? Verily, I cannot 
 guess, for nothing is on that eagle face either of pain 
 or pleasure, but rather of fear, agitation, bewilderment. 
 Yet the eyes are bright, too, and there is a smile on 
 that iron lip. 
 
 My uncle looked round, I say, and called hastily 
 for his cane and his hat, and then began buttoning 
 his coat across his broad breast, though the day was 
 hot enough to have unbuttoned every breast in the 
 tropics. 
 
 " You are not going out, uncle ? " 
 "Yes, yes." 
 
 " But are you strong enough yet ? Let me go 
 with you? 1 ' 
 
 " No, sir ; no. Blanche, come here. " He took 
 
 the child in his arms, surveyed her wistfully, and 
 
 kissed her. " You have never given me pain, 
 
 Blanche : say, ' God bless and prosper you, father ! ' ' 
 
 "God bless and prosper my dear, dear papa!"
 
 142 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 said Blanche, putting her little hands together, as if in 
 prayer. 
 
 " There that should bring me luck, Blanche," 
 said the Captain, gaily, and setting her down. Then 
 seizing his cane from the servant, and putting on his 
 hat with a determined air, he walked stoutly forth ; 
 and I saw him, from the window, march along the 
 streets as cheerfully as if he had been besieging 
 Badajoz. 
 
 " God prosper thee, too !" said I, involuntarily. 
 
 And Blanche took hold of my hand, and said in her 
 prettiest way, (and her pretty ways were many,) " I 
 wish you would come with us, cousin Sisty, and help 
 me to love papa. Poor papa ! he wants us both he 
 wants' all the love we can give him !" 
 
 " That he does, my dear Blanche ; and I think it a 
 great mistake that we don't all live together. Your 
 papa ought not to go to that tower of his, at the 
 world's end, but come to our snug, pretty house, with 
 a garden full of flowers, for you to be Queen of the 
 May from May to November ; to say nothing of a 
 duck that is more sagacious than any creature in the 
 Fables I gave you the other day." 
 
 Blanche laughed and clapped her hands " Oh, 
 that would be so nice! But," and she stopped 
 gravely, and added, " but then, you see, there would 
 not be the tower to love papa; and I am sure
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 143 
 
 that the tower must love him very much, for he loves it 
 dearly. " 
 
 It was my turn to laugh now. " I see how it is, 
 you little witch ! " said I ; " you would coax us to 
 come and live with you and the owls ! With all my 
 heart, so far as I am concerned. " 
 
 " Sisty," said Blanche, with an appalling solemnity 
 on her face, " do you know what IVe been thinking?" 
 
 " Not I, miss what ? something very deep, I can 
 see very horrible, indeed, I fear, you look so 
 serious. " 
 
 "Why, I've been thinking," continued Blanche, 
 not relaxing a muscle, and without the least bit of a 
 blush " I've been thinking that I'll be your little 
 wife ; and then, of course, we shall all live together. " 
 
 Blanche did not blush, but I did. " Ask me that 
 ten years hence, if you dare, you impudent little 
 thing ; and now, run away to Mrs Primmins, and tell 
 her to keep you out of mischief, for I must say good- 
 morning. " 
 
 But Blanche did not run away, and her dignity 
 seemed exceedingly hurt at my mode of taking her 
 alarming proposition, for she retired into a corner 
 pouting, and sat down with great majesty. So there 
 I left her, and went my way to Vivian. He was out ; 
 but, seeing books on his table, and having nothing to 
 do, I resolved to wait for his return. I had enough
 
 144 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 of my father in me to turn at once to the books for 
 company ; and, by the side of some graver works 
 which I had recommended, I found certain novels in 
 French, that Vivian had got from a circulating library. 
 I had a curiosity to read these for, except the old 
 classic novels of France, this mighty branch of its 
 popular literature was then new to me. I soon got 
 interested, but what an interest ! the interest that a 
 nightmare might excite, if one caught it out of one's 
 sleep, and set to work to examine it. By the side of 
 what dazzling shrewdness, what deep knowledge of 
 those holes and corners in the human system, of which 
 Goethe must have spoken when he said somewhere 
 (if I recollect right, and don't misquote him, which I'll 
 
 ( not answer for) " There is something in every man's 
 heart which, if we could know, would make us hate 
 
 > him," by the side of all this, and of much more 
 that showed prodigious boldness and energy of intel- 
 lect, what strange exaggeration what mock nobility 
 of sentiment what inconceivable perversion of reason- 
 ing what damnable demoralisation ! The true artist, 
 whether in Romance or the Drama, will often neces- 
 sarily interest us in a vicious or criminal character 
 but he does not the less leave clear to our reprobation 
 the vice or the crime. But here I found myself called 
 upon not only to feel interest in the villain (which 
 would be perfectly allowable, I am very much
 
 A FAMILY PICTUKE. 145 
 
 interested in Macbeth and Lovelace,) but to admire 
 and sympathise with the villany itself. Nor was it 
 the confusion of all wrong and right in individual 
 character that shocked me the most but rather the 
 view of society altogether, painted in colours so hideous 
 that, if true, instead of a revolution, it would draw 
 down a deluge ; it was the hatred, carefully instilled, 
 of the poor against the rich it was the war breathed 
 between class and class it was that envy of all 
 superiorities, which loves to show itself by allowing 
 virtue only to a blouse,. and asserting that a man must 
 be a rogue if he belong to that rank of society in 
 which, from the very gifts of education, from the 
 necessary associations of circumstances, roguery is the 
 last thing probable or natural. It was all this, and 
 things a thousand times worse, that set my head in a 
 whirl, as hour after hour slipped on, and I still gazed, 
 spell-bound, on these Chimasras and Typhons these 
 symbols of the Destroying Principle. " Poor Vivian ! " 
 said I, as I rose at last, " if thou readest these books 
 with pleasure, or from habit, no wonder that thou 
 seemest to me so obtuse about right and wrong, and 
 to have a great cavity where thy brain should have 
 the bump of ' conscientiousness ' in full salience !" 
 
 Nevertheless, to do those demoniacs justice, I had 
 got through time imperceptibly by their pestilent help ; 
 and I was startled to see, by my watch, how late it 
 
 VOL. n.
 
 146 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 was. I had just resolved to leave a line, fixing an 
 appointment for the morrow, and so depart, when I 
 heard Vivian's knock a knock that had great char- 
 acter in it haughty, impatient, irregular ; not a 
 neat, symmetrical, harmonious, unpretending knock, 
 but a knock that seemed to set the whole house and 
 street at defiance : it was a knock bullying a knock 
 ostentatious a knock irritating and offensive u im- 
 piger " and " iracundus." 
 
 But the step that came up the stairs did not suit 
 the knock : it was a step ligtyt, yet firm slow, yet 
 elastic. 
 
 The maid-servant who had opened the door had, no 
 doubt, informed Vivian of my visit, for he did not seem 
 surprised to see me ; but he cast that hurried, sus- 
 picious look round the room which a man is apt to cast 
 when he has left his papers about, and finds some idler, 
 on whose trustworthiness he by no means depends, 
 seated in the midst of the unguarded secrets. The 
 look was not flattering ; but my conscience was so 
 unreproachful that I laid all the blame upon the 
 general suspiciousness of Vivian's character. 
 
 " Three hours, at least, have I been here ! " said I, 
 maliciously. 
 
 " Three hours ! " again the look. 
 
 " And this is the worst secret I have discovered,"- 
 and I pointed to those literary Hanicheans.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 147 
 
 " Oh ! " said he carelessly, " French novels ! I 
 don't wonder you stayed so long. I can't read your 
 English novels flat and insipid : there are truth and 
 life here." 
 
 " Truth and life !" cried I, every hair on my head / 
 erect with astonishment " then hurrah for falsehood 
 and death!" 
 
 " They don't please you ; no accounting for tastes." 
 
 " I beg your pardon I account for yours, if you 
 really take for truth and life monsters so nefast and 
 flagitious. For heaven's sake, my dear fellow, don't 
 suppose that any man could get on in England get 
 anywhere but to the Old Bailey or Norfolk Island, if 
 he squared his conduct to such topsy-turvy notions of 
 the world as I find here." 
 
 " How many years are you my senior," asked 
 Vivian sneeringly, " that you should play the mentor, 
 and correct my ignorance of the world?" 
 
 " Vivian, it is not age and experience that speak here, 
 it is something far wiser than they the instinct of a 
 man's heart, and a gentleman's honour." 
 
 " Well, well," said Vivian, rather discomposed, "let 
 the poor books alone ; you know my creed that 
 books influence us little one way or the other." 
 
 " By the great Egyptian library, and the soul of 
 Diodorus ! I wish you could hear my father upon that 
 point. Come," added I, with sublime compassion
 
 148 THE CAXTONS t 
 
 " come, it is not too late do let me introduce you to my 
 father. I will consent to read French novels all my 
 life, if a single chat with Austin Caxton does not send 
 you home with a happier face and a lighter heart. 
 Come, let me take you back to dine with us to-day." 
 
 " I cannot," said Vivian with some confusion " I 
 cannot, for this day I leave London. Some other time 
 perhaps for," he added, but not heartily, " we may 
 meet again." 
 
 " I hope so," said I, wringing his hand, " and that 
 is likely, since, in spite of yourself, I have guessed 
 your secret your birth and parentage." 
 
 " How ! " cried Vivian, turning pale, and gnawing 
 his lip " what do you mean ? speak." 
 
 " Well, then, are you not the lost, runaway sou 
 of Colonel Vivian ? Come, say the truth ; let us be 
 confidants." 
 
 Vivian threw off a succession of his abrupt sighs ; 
 and then, seating himself, leant his face on the table, 
 confused, no doubt, to find himself discovered. 
 
 " You are near the mark," said he at last, " but do 
 not ask me farther yet. Some day," he cried impetu- 
 ously, and springing suddenly to his feet " some day 
 you shall know all : yes ; some day, if I live, when 
 that name shall be high in the world ; yes, when the 
 world is at my feet ! " He stretched his right hand as 
 if to grasp the space, and his whole face was lighted
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 149 
 
 with a fierce enthusiasm. The glow died away, and 
 with a slight return of his scornful smile, he said 
 " Dreams yet ; dreams! And now, look at this 
 paper." And he drew out a memorandum, scrawled 
 over with figures. 
 
 " This, I think, is my pecuniary debt to you ; in 
 a few days, I shall discharge it. Give me your 
 address." 
 
 " Oh ! " said I, pained, " can you speak to me of 
 money, Vivian?" 
 
 " It is one of those instincts of honour you cite so 
 often," answered he, colouring. " Pardon me." 
 
 " That is my address," said I, stooping to write, to 
 conceal my wounded feelings. " You will avail your- 
 self of it, I hope, often, and tell me that you are well 
 and happy." 
 
 " When I am happy, you shall know." 
 
 " You do not require any introduction to Treva- 
 nion?" 
 
 Vivian hesitated : " No, I think not. If ever I do, 
 I will write for it." 
 
 I took up my hat, and was about to go for 1 was 
 still chilled and mortified when, as if by an irresis- 
 tible impulse, Vivian came to me hastily, flung his 
 arms round my neck, and kissed me as a boy kisses 
 his brother. 
 
 " Bear with me !" he cried in a faltering voice : "I
 
 150 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 did not think to love any one as you have made me 
 love you, though sadly against the grain. If you are 
 not my good angel, it is that nature and habit are too 
 strong for you. Certainly, some day we shall meet 
 again. I shall have time, in the meanwhile, to see if 
 the world can be indeed ' mine oyster, which I with 
 sword can open.' I would be aut Ccesar aut nullus f 
 Very little other Latin know I to quote from ! If 
 Caesar, men will forgive me all the means to the end ; 
 if nuttus, London has a river, and in every street one 
 may buy a cord !" 
 
 " Vivian ! Vivian ! " 
 
 " Now go, my dear friend, while my heart is 
 softened go, before I shock you with some return of 
 the native Adam. Go go 1" 
 
 And taking me gently by the arm, Francis Vivian 
 drew me from the room, and, re-entering, locked his 
 door. 
 
 Ah ! if I could have left him Robert Hall, instead 
 of those execrable Typhons ! But would that medicine 
 have suited his case, or must grim Experience write 
 sterner recipes with her iron hand ?
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHEN I got back, just in time for dinner, Roland 
 had not returned, nor did he return till late in the 
 evening. All our eyes were directed towards him, as 
 we rose with one accord to give him welcome ; but his 
 face was like a mask it was locked, and rigid, and 
 unreadable. 
 
 Shutting the door carefully after him, he came to 
 the hearth, stood on it, upright and calm, for a few 
 moments, and then asked 
 
 " Has Blanche gone to bed?" 
 
 " Yes, 1 ' said my mother, " but not to sleep, I am 
 sure ; she made me promise to tell her when you came 
 back." 
 
 Roland's brow relaxed. 
 
 " To-morrow, sister,"" said he slowly, " will you see 
 that she has the proper mourning made for her ? My 
 son is dead."
 
 152 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 " Dead ! " we cried with one voice, and surrounding 
 him with one impulse. 
 
 " Dead ! impossible you could not say it so calmly. 
 Dead ! how do you know ? You may be deceived. 
 Who told you ? why do you think so ?" 
 
 " I have seen his remains," said my uncle, with the 
 same gloomy calm. " We will all mourn for him. 
 Pisistratus, you are heir to my name now, as to your 
 father's. Good-night ; excuse me, all all you dear 
 and kind ones ; I am worn out." 
 
 Roland lighted his candle and went away, leaving 
 us thunderstruck ; but he came back again looked 
 round took up his book, open in the favourite passage 
 nodded again, and again vanished. We looked at 
 each other, as if we had seen a ghost. Then my 
 father rose and went out of the room, and remained in 
 Roland's till the night was wellnigh gone. We sat up 
 my mother and I till he returned. His benign face 
 looked profoundly sad. 
 
 " How is it, sir? Can you tell us more ?" 
 
 My father shook his head. 
 
 " Roland prays that you may preserve the same 
 forbearance you have shown hitherto, and never 
 mention his son's name to him. Peace be to the living, 
 as to the dead. Kitty, this changes our plans; we 
 mast all go to Cumberland we cannot leave Roland 
 thus!"
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 153 
 
 "Poor, poor Roland!" said my mother, through her 
 tears. " And to think that father and son were not 
 reconciled. But Roland forgives him now oh, yes I 
 now /" 
 
 " It is not Roland we can censure," said my father, 
 
 almost fiercely ; " it is but enough. We must 
 
 hurry out of town as soon as we can : Roland will 
 recover in the native air of his old ruins." 
 
 We went up to bed mournfully. " And so," thought 
 I, u ends one grand object of my life ! I had hoped 
 to have brought those two together. But, alas ! what 
 peacemaker like the grave ! "
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MY uncle did not leave his room for three days, but 
 he was much closeted with a lawyer ; and my father 
 dropped some words which seemed to imply that the 
 deceased had incurred debts, and that the poor Captain 
 was making some charge on his small property. As 
 Roland had said that he had seen the remains of his 
 son, I took it at first for granted that we should attend 
 a funeral, but no word of this was said. On the fourth 
 day, Roland, in deep mourning, entered a hackney 
 coach with the lawyer, and was absent about two 
 hours. I did not doubt that he had thus quietly 
 fulfilled the last mournful offices. On his return, he 
 shut himself up again for the rest of the day, and 
 would not see even my father. But the next morning 
 he made his appearance as usual, and I even thought 
 that he seemed more cheerful than I had yet known 
 him whether he played a part, or whether the worst 
 was now over, and the grave was less cruel than
 
 THE CAXTONS. 155 
 
 uncertainty. On the following day, we all set out for 
 Cumberland. 
 
 In the interval, Uncle Jack had been almost con- 
 stantly at the house, and, to do him justice, he had 
 seemed unaffectedly shocked at the calamity that had 
 befallen Roland. There was, indeed, no want of heart 
 in Uncle Jack, whenever you went straight at it ; but 
 it was hard to find if you took a circuitous route towards 
 it through the pockets. The worthy speculator had 
 indeed much business to transact with my father before 
 we left town. The Anti-Publisher Society had been" 
 set up, and it was through the obstetric aid of that 
 fraternity that the Great Book was to be ushered into 
 the world. The new journal, the Literary Times^ was 
 also far advanced not yet out, but my father was 
 fairly in for it. There were preparations for its debut 
 on a vast scale, and two or three gentlemen in black 
 one of whom looked like a lawyer, and another like a 
 printer, and a third uncommonly like a Jew called 
 twice, with papers of a very formidable aspect. All 
 these preliminaries settled, the last thing I heard Uncle 
 Jack say, with a slap on my father's back, was, " Fame 
 and fortune both made now ! you may go to sleep in 
 safety, for you leave me wide awake. Jack Tibbets 
 never sleeps 1" 
 
 I had thought it strange that, since my abrupt 
 exodus from Trevanion's house, no notice had been
 
 156 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 taken of any of us by himself or Lady Ellinor. But 
 on the very eve of our departure, came a kind note 
 from Trevanion to me, dated from his favourite country 
 seat, (accompanied by a present of some rare books to 
 my father,) in which he said briefly that there had 
 been illness in his family, which had obliged him to 
 leave town for a change of air, but that Lady Ellinor 
 expected to call on my mother the next week. He 
 had found amongst his books some curious works of 
 the Middle Ages, amongst others a complete set of 
 Cardan, which he knew my father would like to have, 
 and so sent them. There was no allusion to what had 
 passed between us. 
 
 In reply to this note, after due thanks on my father's 
 part, who seized upon the Cardan (Lyons edition, 1663, 
 ten volumes folio) as a silk-worm does upon a mulberry 
 leaf, I expressed our joint regrets that there was no 
 hope of our seeing Lady Ellinor, as we were just 
 leaving town. I should have added something on the 
 loss my uncle had sustained, but my father thought 
 that, since Roland shrank from any mention of his son, 
 even by his nearest kindred, it would be his obvious 
 wish not to parade his affliction beyond that circle. 
 
 And there had been illness in Trevanion's family ! 
 On whom had it fallen ? I could not rest satisfied 
 with that general expression, and I took my answer 
 myself to Trevanion's house, instead of sending it by
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 157 
 
 the post. In reply to my inquiries, the porter said 
 that all ^the family were expected at the end of the 
 week ; that he had heard both Lady Ellinor and Miss 
 Trevanion had been rather poorly, but that they were 
 now better. I left my note, with orders to forward 
 it ; and my wounds bled afresh as I came away. 
 
 We had the whole coach to ourselves in our jour- 
 ney, and a silent journey it was, till we arrived at a 
 little town about eight miles from my uncle's resi- 
 dence, to which we could only get through a cross- 
 road. My uncle insisted on preceding us that night, 
 and, though he had written, before we started, to 
 announce our coming, he was fidgety lest the poor 
 tower should not make the best figure it could ; so 
 he went alone, and we took our ease at our inn. 
 
 Betimes the next day we hired a fly-coach for a 
 chaise could never have held us and my father's books 
 and jogged through a labyrintn of villanous lanes, 
 which no Marshal Wade had ever reformed from 
 their primal chaos. But poor Mrs Primmins and the 
 canary-bird alone seemed sensible of the jolts ; the 
 former, who sat opposite to us, wedged amidst a 
 medley of packages, all marked " Care, to be kept 
 top uppermost," (why I know not, for they were but 
 books, and whether they lay top or bottom it could 
 not materially affect their value,) the former, I say, 
 contrived to extend her arms over those disjecta
 
 158 THECAXTONS: 
 
 membra, and, griping a window-sill with the right 
 hand, and a window-sill with the left, kept her seat 
 rampant, like the split eagle of the Austrian Empire 
 in fact, it would be well, now-a-days, if the split 
 eagle were as firm as Mrs Primmins ! As for the 
 canary, it never failed to respond, by an astonished 
 chirp, to every " Gracious me ! " and " Lord save 
 us ! " which the delve into a rut, or the bump out of 
 it, sent forth from Mrs Primmins's lips, with all the 
 emphatic dolor of the "At, at!" in a Greek chorus. 
 
 But my father, with his broad hat over his brows, 
 was in deep thought. The scenes of his youth were 
 rising before him, and his memory went, smooth as a 
 spirit's wing, over delve and bump. And my mother, 
 who sat next him, had her arm on his shoulder, and 
 was watching his face jealously. Did she think that, 
 in that thoughtful face, there was regret for the old 
 love ? Blanche, who had been very sad, and had 
 wept much and quietly since they put on her the 
 mourning, and told her that she had no brother, 
 (though she had no remembrance of the lost,) began 
 now to evince infantine curiosity and eagerness to 
 catch the first peep of her father's beloved tower. 
 And Blanche sat on my knee, and I shared her impa- 
 tience. At last there came in view a church spire a 
 church a plain square building near it, the parsonage, 
 (my father's old home) a long straggling street of
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 159 
 
 cottages and rude shops, with a better kind of house 
 here and there and in the hinder ground, a gray 
 deformed mass of wall and ruin, placed on one of 
 those eminences on which the Danes loved to pitch 
 camp or build fort, with one high, rude, Anglo- 
 Norman tower rising from the midst. Few trees were 
 round it, and those either poplars or firs, save, as we 
 approached, one mighty oak integral and unscathed. 
 The road now wound behind the parsonage, and up a 
 steep ascent. Such a road ! the whole parish ought 
 to have been flogged for it ! If I had sent up a road 
 like that, even on a map, to Dr Herman, I should not 
 have sat down in comfort for a week to come ! 
 
 The fly-coach came to a full stop. 
 
 " Let us get out," cried I, opening the door, and 
 springing to the ground to set the example. 
 
 Blanche followed, and my respected parents came 
 next. But when Mrs Primmins was about to heave 
 herself into movement, 
 
 " Papcef" said my father. " I think, Mrs Prim- 
 mins, you must remain in, to keep the books steady." 
 
 " Lord love you ! " cried Mrs Primmins, aghast. 
 
 " The subtraction of such a mass, or moles supple 
 and elastic as all flesh is, and fitting into the hard 
 corners of the inert matter such a subtraction, Mrs 
 Primmins, would leave a vacuum which no natural 
 system, certainly no artificial organisation, could sus-
 
 160 THECAXTONS: 
 
 tain. There would be a regular dance of atoms, Mrs 
 Priramins; my books would fly here, there, on the 
 floor, out of the window ! 
 
 " Corporis oficium est guoniam omnia dcorum.'' 
 
 The business of a body like yours, Mrs Primmins, is 
 to press all things down to keep them tight, as you 
 will know one of these days that is, if you will do 
 me the favour to read Lucretius, and master that 
 material philosophy, of which I may say, without flat- 
 tery, my dear Mrs Primmins, that you are a living 
 illustration." 
 
 These, the first words my father had spoken since 
 we set out from the inn, seemed to assure my mother 
 that she need have no apprehension as to the charac- 
 ter of his thoughts, for her brow cleared, and she said, 
 laughing, 
 
 " Only look at poor Primmins, and then at that 
 hill!" 
 
 " You may subtract Primmins, if you will be 
 answerable for the remnant, Kitty. Only, I warn 
 you that it is against all the laws of physics." 
 
 So saying, he sprang lightly forward, and, taking 
 hold of my arm, paused and looked round, and drew 
 the loud free breath with which we draw native air. 
 
 " And yet," said my father, after that grateful and 
 affectionate inspiration " and yet, it must be owned,
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 161 
 
 that a more ugly country one cannot see out of Cam- 
 bridgeshire. "* 
 
 " Nay," said I, " it is bold and large, it has a beauty 
 of its own. Those immense, undulating, uncultivated, 
 treeless tracks have surely their charm of wildness and 
 solitude ! And how they suit the character of the ruin ! 
 All is feudal there : I understand Roland better 
 now." 
 
 " I hope in heaven Cardan will come to no harm ! " 
 cried my father ; " he is very handsomely bound ; 
 and he fitted beautifully just into the fleshiest part of 
 that fidgety Primmins." 
 
 Blanche, meanwhile, had run far before us, and I 
 followed fast. There were still the remains of that 
 deep trench (surrounding the ruins on three sides, 
 leaving a ragged hill-top at the fourth) which made 
 the favourite fortification of all the Teutonic tribes. 
 A causeway, raised on brick arches, now, however, 
 supplied the place of the drawbridge, and the outer 
 gate was but a mass of picturesque ruin. Entering 
 into the courtyard or bailey, the old castle mound, 
 from which justice had been dispensed, was in full 
 view, rising higher than the broken walls around it, 
 
 * This certainly cannot be said of Cumberland generally, one of 
 the most beautiful counties in Great Britain. But the immediate 
 district to which Mr Caxton's exclamation refers, if not ugly, is at 
 least savage, bare, and rude. 
 
 VOL. II. L
 
 162 THECAXTONS: 
 
 and partially overgrown with brambles. And there 
 stood, comparatively whole, the tower or keep, and 
 from its portals emerged the veteran owner. 
 
 His ancestors might have received us in more state, 
 but certainly they could not have given us a wanner 
 greeting. In fact, in his own domain, Roland appeared 
 another man. His stiffness, which was a little repul- 
 sive to those who did not understand it, was all gone. 
 He seemed less proud, precisely because he and his 
 pride, on that ground, were on good terms with each 
 other. How gallantly he extended not his arm, in 
 our modern Jack-and,-Jill sort of fashion but his 
 right hand to my. mother ; how carefully he led her 
 over " brake, bush, and scaur," through the low 
 vaulted door, where a tall servant, who, it was easy 
 to see, had been a soldier in the precise livery, no 
 doubt, warranted by the heraldic colours, (his stock- 
 ings were red!) stood upright as a sentry. And, 
 coming into the hall, it looked absolutely cheerful 
 it took us by surprise. There was a great fireplace, 
 aud, though it was still summer, a great fire ! It did 
 not seem a bit too much, for the walls were stone, 
 the lofty roof open to the rafters, while the windows 
 were small and narrow, and so high and so deep sunk 
 that one seemed in a vault. Nevertheless, I say the 
 room looked sociable and cheerful thanks principally 
 to the fire, and partly to a very ingenious medley of
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 163 
 
 old tapestry at one end, and matting at the other, 
 fastened to the lower part of the walls, seconded 
 by an arrangement of furniture which did credit to 
 my uncle's taste for the Picturesque. After we had 
 looked about and admired to our hearts' content, 
 Roland took us not up one of those noble staircases 
 you see in the later manorial residences but a little 
 winding stone stair, into the rooms he had appro- 
 priated to his guests. There was first a small cham- 
 ber, which he called my father's study in truth, it 
 would have done for any philosopher or saint who 
 wished to shut out the world and might have passed 
 for the interior of such a column as the Stylites 
 inhabited ; for you must have climbed a ladder to have 
 looked out of the window, and then the vision of no 
 short-sighted man could have got over the interval in 
 the wall made by the narrow casement, which, after 
 all, gave no other prospect than a Cumberland sky, v 
 with an occasional rook in it. But my father, I think / 
 I have said before, did not much care for scenery, :s 
 and he looked round with great satisfaction upon the / 
 retreat assigned him. 
 
 " We can knock up shelves for your books in no 
 time," said my uncle, rubbing his hands. 
 
 " It would be a charity," quoth my father, " for 
 they have been very long in a recumbent position, 
 and would like to stretch themselves, poor things.
 
 164 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 My dear Roland, this room is made for books so 
 round and so deep. I shall sit here like Truth in a 
 well." 
 
 " And there is a room for you, sister, just out of it," 
 said my uncle, opening a little low prison-like door into 
 a charming room, for its window was low, and it had 
 an iron balcony ; " and out of that is the bed-room. 
 For you, Pisistratus, my boy, I am afraid that it is 
 soldier's quarters, indeed, with which you will have 
 to put up. But never mind; in a day or two we 
 shall make all worthy a general of your illustrious 
 name for he was a great general, Pisistratus the 
 First was he not, brother?" 
 
 " All tyrants are," said my father : " the knack of 
 soldiering is indispensable to them." 
 
 " Oh, you may say what you please here ! " said 
 Roland, in high good humour, as he drew me down 
 stairs, still apologising for my quarters, and so ear- 
 nellly, that I made up my mind that I was to be put 
 into an oubliette. Nor were my suspicions much 
 dispelled on seeing that we had, to leave the keep, 
 and pick our way into what seemed to me a mere 
 heap of rubbish, on the dexter side of the court. 
 But I was agreeably surprised to find, amidst these 
 wrecks, a room with a noble casement, commanding 
 the whole country, and placed immediately over a 
 plot of ground cultivated as a garden. The furniture
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 1G5 
 
 was ample, though homely ; the floors and walls well 
 matted ; and, altogether, despite the inconvenience 
 of having to cross the courtyard to get to the rest of 
 the house, and being wholly without the modern 
 luxury of a bell, I thought that I could not be better 
 lodged. 
 
 " But this is a perfect bower, my dear uncle ! 
 Depend on it, it was the bower-chamber of the Dames 
 de Caxton heaven rest them ! " 
 
 " No," said my uncle, gravely ; " I suspect it must 
 have been the chaplain's room, for the chapel was to 
 the right of you. An earlier chapel, indeed, formerly 
 existed in the keep tower for, indeed, it is scarcely 
 a true keep without chapel, well, and hall. I can 
 show you part of the roof of the first, and the two last 
 are entire ; the well is very curious, formed in the 
 substance of the wall at one angle of the hall. In 
 Charles the First's time, our ancestor lowered his 
 only son down in a bucket, and kept him there six 
 hours, while a Malignant mob was storming the 
 tower. I need not say that our ancestor himself 
 scorned to hide from such a rabble, for he was a 
 grown man. The boy lived to be a sad spendthrift, 
 and used the well for cooling his wine. He drank up 
 a great many good acres." 
 
 " I should scratch him out of the pedigree, if I 
 were you. But, pray, have you not discovered the
 
 166 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 proper chamber of that great Sir William, about 
 whom my father is so shamefully sceptical?" 
 
 " To tell you a secret," answered the Captain, 
 giving me a sly poke in the ribs, " I have put your 
 father into it ! There are the initial letters W. C. let 
 into the cusp of the York rose, and the date, three 
 years before the battle of Bosworth, over the chiin- 
 neypiece." 
 
 I could not help joining my uncle's grim low laugh 
 at this characteristic pleasantry ; and after I had 
 complimented him on so judicious a mode of proving 
 his point, I asked him how he could possibly have 
 contrived to fit up the ruin so well, especially as he 
 had scarcely visited it since his purchase." 
 
 " Why," said he, " some years ago, that poor 
 fellow you now see as my servant, and who is gar- 
 dener, bailiff, seneschal, butler, and anything else 
 you can put him to, was sent out of the army on the 
 invalid list. So I placed him here : and as he is a 
 capital carpenter, and has had a very fair education, 
 I told him what I wanted, and put by a small sum 
 every year for repairs and furnishing. It is astonish- 
 ing how little it cost me ; for Bolt, poor fellow, (that 
 is his name,) caught the right spirit of the thing, and 
 most of the furniture, (which you see is ancient and 
 suitable,) he picked up at different cottages and farm- 
 houses in the neighbourhood. As it is, however, we
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 167 
 
 have plenty more rooms here and there only, of 
 late," continued my uncle, slightly changing colour, 
 " I had no money to spare. But come," he resumed, 
 with an evident effort " come and see my barrack : 
 it is on the other side of the hall, and made out of 
 what no doubt were the butteries." 
 
 We reached the yard, and found the fly-coach had 
 just crawled to the door. My father's head was 
 buried deep in the vehicle, he was gathering up his 
 packages, and sending out, oracle-like, various mut- 
 tered objurgations and anathemas upon Mrs Priinmins 
 and her vacuum which Mrs Primmins, standing by 
 and making a lap with her apron to receive the pack- 
 ages and anathemas simultaneously, bore with the 
 mildness of an angel, lifting up her eyes to heaven 
 and murmuring something about " poor old bones." 
 Though, as for Mrs Primmins's bones, they had been 
 myths these twenty years, and you might as soon 
 have found a Plesiosaurus in the fat lands of Romney 
 Marsh as a bone amidst those layers of flesh in which 
 my poor father thought he had so carefully cottoned 
 up his Cardan. 
 
 Leaving these parties to adjust matters between 
 them, we stepped under the low doorway, and entered 
 Rowland's room. Oh, certainly Bolt had caught the 
 spirit of the thing ! certainly he had penetrated down 
 even to the very pathos that lay within the deeps of
 
 168 THECAXTONS: 
 
 Roland's character. Buffon says " the style is the 
 man ;" there, tlie room was the man. That nameless, 
 inexpressible, soldier-like, methodical neatness which 
 belonged to Roland that was the first thing that 
 struck one that was the general character of the 
 whole. Then, in details, there, in stout oak shelves, 
 were the books on which my father loved to jest his 
 more imaginative brother, there they were, Froissart, 
 Barante, Joinville, the Mort <P Arthur, Amadis of 
 Gaul, Spenser's Fairy Queen, a noble copy of Strutt's 
 Horda, Mallet's Northern Antiquities, Percy 'sReliques, 
 Pope's Homer, books on gunnery, archery, hawking, 
 fortification old chivalry and modern war together 
 cheek by jowl. 
 
 Old chivalry and modern war ! look to that tilting 
 helmet with the tall Caxton crest, and look to that 
 trophy near it, a French cuirass and that old banner 
 (a knight's pennon) surmounting those crossed bay- 
 onets. And over the chimneypiece there bright, 
 clean, and, I warrant you, dusted daily are Roland's 
 own sword, his holsters and pistols, yea, the saddle, 
 pierced and lacerated, from which he had reeled when 
 
 that leg 1 gasped I felt it all at a glance, and I 
 
 stole softly to the spot, and, had Roland not been 
 there, I could have kissed that sword as reverently as 
 if it had been a Bayard's or a Sidney's. 
 
 My uncle was too modest to guess my emotion ; he
 
 169 
 
 rather thought I had turned my face to conceal a 
 smile at his vanity, and said, in a deprecating 
 tone of apology "It was all Bolt's doing, foolish 
 fellow."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OUR host regaled us with a hospitality that notably 
 contrasted his economical thrifty habits in London. 
 To be sure, Bolt had caught the great pike which 
 headed the feast ; and Bolt, no doubt, had helped to 
 rear those fine chickens ab ovo ; Bolt, I have no 
 doubt, made that excellent Spanish omelette ; and, 
 for the rest, the products of the sheepwalk and the 
 garden came in as volunteer auxiliaries very different 
 from the mercenary recruits by which those metro- 
 politan Condottieri, the butcher and green - grocer, 
 hasten the ruin of that melancholy commonwealth 
 called " genteel poverty." 
 
 Our evening passed cheerfully ; and Roland, con- 
 trary to his custom, was talker in chief. It was eleven 
 o'clock before Bolt appeared with a lantern to conduct 
 me through the court-yard to my dormitory, among 
 the ruins a ceremony which, every night, shine or 
 dark, he insisted upon punctiliously performing.
 
 THE CAXTONS. 171 
 
 It was long before I could sleep before I could 
 believe that but so few days had elapsed since Roland 
 heard of his son's death that son whose fate had so 
 long tortured him ; and yet, never had Eoland 
 appeared so free from sorrow ! Was it natural was it 
 effort? Several days passed before I could answer 
 that question, and then not wholly to my satisfaction. 
 Effort there was, or rather resolute systematic deter- 
 mination. At moments Roland's head drooped, his 
 brows met, and the whole man seemed to sink. Yet 
 these were only moments ; he would rouse himself up, 
 like a dozing charger at the sound of a trumpet, and 
 shake off the creeping weight. But, whether from the 
 vigour of his determination, or from some aid in other 
 trains of reflection, I could not but perceive that 
 Roland's sadness really was less grave and bitter than 
 it had been, or than it was natural to suppose. He 
 seemed to transfer, daily more and more, his affections 
 from the dead to those around him, especially to 
 Blanche and myself. He let it be seen that he looked 
 on me now as his lawful successor as the future 
 supporter of his name ; he was fond of confiding to 
 me all his little plans, and consulting me on them. 
 He would walk with me around his domains, (of 
 which I shall say more hereafter,) point out, from 
 every eminence we climbed, where the broad lands 
 which his forefathers owned stretched away to the
 
 172 THE CAXTONS: 
 
 horizon ; unfold with tender hand the mouldering 
 pedigree, and rest lingeringly on those of his ancestors 
 who had held martial post, or had died on the field. 
 There was a crusader who had followed Richard to 
 Ascalon ; there was a knight who had fought at 
 Agincourt ; there was a cavalier (whose picture was 
 still extant,) with fair lovelocks, who had fallen at 
 Worcester no doubt the same who had cooled his son 
 in that well which the son devoted to more agreeable 
 associations. But of all these worthies there was none 
 whom my uncle, perhaps from the spirit of contra- 
 diction, valued like that apocryphal Sir William : and 
 why ? because, when the apostate Stanley turned the 
 fortunes of the field at Bosworth, and when that cry of 
 despair "Treason! treason!" burst from the lips of the 
 last Plantagenet, " amongst the faithless," this true 
 soldier, " faithful found !" had fallen in that lion-rush 
 which Richard made at his foe. " Your father tells me 
 that Richard was a murderer and usurper," quoth my 
 uncle. " Sir, that might be true or not ; but it was not on 
 the field of battle that his followers were to reason on 
 the character of the master who trusted them, especially 
 when a legion of foreign hirelings stood opposed to them. 
 I would not have descended from that turncoat Stanley 
 to be lord of all the lands the Earls of Derby can boast 
 of. Sir, in loyalty, men fight and die for a grand prin- 
 ciple, and a lofty passion ; and this brave Sir William
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 173 
 
 was paying back to the last Plantagenet the benefits 
 he had received from the first ! " 
 
 " And yet it may be doubted," said I maliciously, 
 " whether William Caxton the printer did not " 
 
 " Plague, pestilence, and fire seize William Caxton 
 the printer, and his invention too!" cried my uncle 
 barbarously. " When there were only a few books, 
 at least they were good ones ; and now they are so 
 plentiful, all they do is to confound the judgment/ 
 unsettle the reason, drive the good books out of cul- 
 tivation, and draw a ploughshare of innovation over 
 every ancient landmark ; seduce the women, womanise 
 the men, upset states, thrones, and churches ; rear a 
 race of chattering, conceited coxcombs, who can 
 always find books in plenty to excuse them from doing 
 their duty ; make the poor discontented, the rich 
 crotchety and whimsical, refine away the stout old 
 virtues into quibbles and sentiments ! All imagina- 
 tion formerly was expended in noble action, adven- 
 ture, enterprise, high deeds and aspirations; now a 
 man can but be imaginative by feeding on the false 
 excitement of passions he never felt, dangers he never 
 shared; and he fritters away all there is of life to 
 spare in him upon the fictitious love-sorrows of Bond 
 Street and St James's. Sir, chivalry ceased when the 
 press rose ! And to fasten upon me, as a forefather, 
 out of all men who ever lived and sinned, the very
 
 174 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 man who has most destroyed what I most valued 
 who, by the Lord ! with his cursed invention has well- 
 nigh got rid of respect for forefathers altogether is a 
 cruelty of which my brother had never been capable, 
 if that printer's devil had not got hold of him ! " 
 
 That a man in this blessed nineteenth century 
 should be such a Vandal ! and that my Uncle Roland 
 should talk in a strain that Totila would have been 
 ashamed of, within so short a time after my father's 
 scientific and erudite oration on the Hygeiana of 
 Books, was enough to make one despair of the pro- 
 gress of intellect and the perfectibility of our species. 
 And I have no manner of doubt that, all the while, 
 my uncle had a brace of books in his pockets, Robert 
 Hall one of them ! In truth, he had talked himself 
 into a passion, and did not know what nonsense he 
 was saying. But this explosion of Captain Roland's 
 has shattered the thread of my matter. Pouff! I 
 must take breath and begin again ! 
 
 Yes, in spite of my sauciness,the old soldier evidently 
 took to me more and more. And, besides our critical 
 examination of the property and the pedigree, he 
 carried me with him on long excursions to distant 
 villages, where some memorial of a defunct Caxton, 
 a coat of arms, or an epitaph on a tombstone, might 
 be still seen. And he made me pore over topogra- 
 phical works and county histories, (forgetful, Goth
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 175 
 
 that he was, that for those very authorities he was 
 indebted to the repudiated printer!) to find some 
 anecdote of his beloved dead ! In truth, the county 
 for miles round bore the vestigia of those old Caxtons ; 
 their handwriting was on many a broken wall. And, 
 obscure as they all were, compared to that great 
 operative of the Sanctuary at Westminster, whom my 
 father clung to still, that the yesterdays that had 
 lighted them the way to dusty death had cast no glare 
 on dishonoured scutcheons seemed clear, from the 
 popular respect and traditional affection in which I 
 found that the name was still held in hamlet and 
 homestead. It was pleasant to see the veneration 
 with which this small hidalgo of some three hundred 
 a-year was held, and the patriarchal affection with 
 which he returned it. Roland was a man who would 
 walk into a cottage, rest his cork leg on the hearth, 
 and talk for the hour together upon all that lay nearest 
 to the hearts of the owners. There is a peculiar 
 spirit of aristocracy amongst agricultural peasants: 
 they like old names and families ; they identify them- 
 selves with the honours of a house, as if of its clan. 
 They do not care so much for wealth as townsfolk 
 and the middle class do; they have a pity, but a 
 respectful one, for well-born poverty. And then this 
 Eoland, too who would go and dine in a cook-shop, 
 and receive change for a shilling, and shun the ruin-
 
 176 THECAXTONS: 
 
 ous luxury of a hack cabriolet could be positively 
 extravagant in his liberalities to those around him. 
 He was altogether another being in his paternal 
 acres. The shabby-genteel, half-pay captain, lost in 
 the whirl of London, here luxuriated into a dignified 
 ease of manner that Chesterfield might have admired. 
 And, if to please is the true sign of politeness, I wish 
 you could have seen the faces that smiled upon Cap- 
 tain Roland, as he walked down the village, nodding 
 from side to side. 
 
 One day a frank, hearty, old woman, who had 
 known Roland as a boy, seeing him lean on my arm, 
 stopped us, as she said bluffly, to take a " geud luik" 
 at me. 
 
 Fortunately I was stalwart enough to pass muster, 
 even in the eyes of a Cumberland matron ; and, after 
 a compliment at which Roland seemed much pleased, 
 she said to me, but pointing to the Captain 
 
 " Hegh, sir, now you ha the bra time before you ; 
 you maun een try and be as geud as he. And if life 
 last, ye wull too for there never waur a bad ane of 
 that stock. Wi' heads kindly stup'd to the least, and 
 lifted manfu' oop to the heighest that ye all war' 
 sin ye came from the Ark. Bless'ms on the ould 
 name though little pelf goes with it it sounds on 
 the peur man's ear like a bit of gould ! " 
 
 " Do you not see now," said Roland, as we turned
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 177 
 
 away, " what we owe to a name, and what to our 
 forefathers ? do you not see why the remotest ances- 
 tor has a right to our respect and consideration for 
 he was a parent ? ' Honour your parents' the law 
 does not say, ' Honour your children ! ' If a child 
 disgrace us, and the dead, and the sanctity of this 
 great heritage of their virtues the name; if he 
 does " Roland stopped short, and added fervently, 
 " But you are my heir now I have no fear ! What 
 matters one foolish old man's sorrows? the name, 
 that property of generations, is saved, thank Heaven 
 the name!" 
 
 Now the riddle was solved, and I understood why, 
 amidst all his natural grief for a son's loss, that 
 proud father was consoled. For he was less himself 
 a father than a son son to the long dead. From 
 every grave where a progenitor slept, he had heard a 
 parent's voice. He could bear to be bereaved, if the 
 forefathers were not dishonoured. Roland was more 
 than half a Roman the son might still cling to his 
 household affections, but the lares were a part of his 
 religion. 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BUT I ought to be hard at work, preparing myself 
 for Cambridge. The deuce! how can I? The 
 point in academical education on which I require 
 most preparation is Greek composition. I come to 
 my father, who, one might think, was at home enough 
 in this. But rare indeed is it to find a great scholar 
 who is a good teacher. 
 
 My dear father ! if one is content to take you in 
 your own way, there never was a more admirable 
 instructor for the heart, the head, the principles or the 
 tastes when you have discovered that there is some 
 one sore to be healed one defect to be repaired ; and 
 you have rubbed your spectacles, and got your hand 
 fairly into that recess between your frill and your 
 waistcoat. But to go to you, cut and dry, mono- 
 tonously, regularly book and exercise in hand to 
 see the mournful patience with which you tear your- 
 self from that great volume of Cardan in the very
 
 THE CAXTONS. 179 
 
 honeymoon of possession and then to note those 
 miid eyebrows gradually distend themselves into per- 
 plexed diagonals, over some false quantity or some 
 barbarous collocation till there steal forth that 
 horrible "Papae!" which means more on your lips 
 than I am sure it ever did when Latin was a live 
 language, and "Papae!" a natural and unpedantic 
 ejaculation ! no, I would sooner blunder through the 
 dark by myself a thousand times, than light my rush- 
 light at the lamp of that Phlegethonian " Papa? ! " 
 
 And then my father would wisely and kindly, but 
 wondrous slowly, erase three-fourths of one's pet 
 verses, and intercalate others that one saw were 
 exquisite, but could not exactly see why. And then 
 one asked why ; and my father shook his head in 
 despair, and said " But you ought to feel why !" 
 
 In short, scholarship to him was like poetry : he 
 could no more teach it you than Pindar could have 
 taught you how to make an ode. You breathed the 
 aroma, but you could no more seize and analyse it, 
 than, with the opening of your naked hand, you could 
 cany off the scent of a rose. I soon left my father in 
 peace to Cardan, and to the Great Book, which last, 
 by the way, advanced but slowly. For Uncle Jack 
 had now insisted on its being published in quarto, 
 with illustrative plates ; and those plates took an 
 immense time, and were to cost an immense sum
 
 180 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 but that cost was the affair of the Anti-Publisher 
 Society. But how can I settle to work by myself? 
 No sooner have I got into my room penitus ab orbe 
 divisus, as I rashly think than there is a tap at the 
 door. Now it is my mother, who is benevolently 
 engaged upon making curtains to all the windows, 
 (a trifling superfluity that Bolt had forgotten or dis- 
 dained,) and who wants to know how the draperies 
 are fashioned at Mr Trevanion's : a pretence to have 
 me near her, and see with her own eyes that I am 
 not fretting ; the moment she hears I have shut my- 
 self up in my room, she is sure that it is for sorrow. 
 Now it is Bolt, who is making book-shelves for my 
 father, and desires to consult me at every turn, espe- 
 cially as I have given him a Gothic design, which 
 pleases him hugely. Now it is Blanche, whom, in an 
 evil hour, I undertook to teach to draw, and who 
 comes in on tiptoe, vowing she'll not disturb me, and 
 sits so quiet that she fidgets me out of all patience. 
 Now, and much more often, it is the Captain, who 
 wants me to walk, to ride, to fish. And, by St 
 Hubert ! (saint of the chase,) bright August comes 
 and there is moor-game on those barren wolds and 
 my uncle has given me the gun he shot with at my 
 age single-barrelled, flint lock but you would not 
 have laughed at it if you had seen the strange feats 
 it did in Roland's hands while in mine, I could
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 181 
 
 always lay the blame on the flint lock ! Time, in 
 short, passed rapidly ; and if Roland and I had our 
 dark hours, we chased them away before they could 
 settle shot them on the wing as they got up. 
 
 Then, too, though the immediate scenery around 
 my uncle's was so bleak and desolate, the country 
 within a few miles was so full of objects of interest 
 of landscapes so poetically grand or lovely ; and 
 occasionally we coaxed my father from the Cardan, 
 and spent whole days by the margin of some glo- 
 rious lake. 
 
 Amongst these excursions, I made one by myself^ 
 to that house in which my father had known the bliss , 
 and the pangs of that stern first-love which still left 
 its scars fresh on my own memory. The house, large 
 and imposing, was shut up the Trevanions had not 
 been there for years the pleasure-grounds had been 
 contracted into the smallest possible space. There 
 was no positive decay or rum that Trevanion would 
 never have allowed ; but there was the dreary look of 
 absenteeship everywhere. I penetrated into the house 
 with the help of my card and half-a-crown. I saw 
 that memorable boudoir I could fancy the very spot 
 in which my father had heard the sentence that had 
 changed the current of his life. And when I returned 
 home, I looked with new tenderness on my father's 
 placid brow and blessed anew that tender helpmate,
 
 182 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 who, in her patient lovCj had chased from it every 
 shadow. 
 
 I had received one letter from Vivian a few days 
 after our arrival. It had been redirected from my 
 father's house, at which I had given him my address. 
 It was short, but seemed cheerful. He said, that he 
 believed he had at last hit on the right way, and 
 should keep to it that he and the world were better 
 friends than they had been and that the only way 
 to keep friends with the world was to treat it as a 
 tamed tiger, and have one hand on a crowbar while 
 one fondled the beast with the other. He enclosed 
 me a bank-note which somewhat more than covered 
 his debt to me, and bade me pay him the surplus when 
 he should claim it as a millionnaire. He gave me no 
 address in his letter, but it bore the post-mark of 
 Godalming. I had the impertinent curiosity to look 
 into an old topographical work upon Surrey, and in 
 a supplemental itinerary I found this passage, " To 
 the left of the beechwood, three miles from Godalming, 
 you catch a glimpse of the elegant seat of Francis 
 Vivian, Esq." To judge by the date of the work, 
 the said Francis Vivian might be the grandfather of 
 my friend, his namesake. There could no longer be 
 any doubt as to the parentage of this prodigal son. 
 
 The long vacation was now nearly over, and all his 
 guests were to leave the poor Captain. In fact, we
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 183 
 
 had made a long trespass on his hospitality. It was 
 settled that I was to accompany my father and mother 
 to their long-neglected penates, and start thence for 
 Cambridge. 
 
 Our parting was sorrowful even Mrs Primmins 
 wept as she shook hands with Bolt. But Bolt, an old 
 soldier, was of course a lady's man. The brothers did 
 not shake hands only they fondly embraced, as 
 brothers of that time of life rarely do now-a-days, 
 except on the stage. And Blanche, with one arm 
 round my mother's neck and one round mine, sobbed 
 in my ear, " But I will be your little wife, I will." 
 Finally, the fly-coach once more received us all all 
 but poor Blanche, and we looked round and missed 
 her.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ALMA MATER ! Alma Mater ! New-fashioned folks, 
 with their large theories of education, may find fault 
 with thee. But a true Spartan mother thou art 
 hard and stern as the old matron who bricked up her 
 son Pausanias, bringing the first stone to immure 
 him ; hard and stern, I say, to the worthless, but full 
 of majestic tenderness to the worthy. 
 
 For a young man to go up to Cambridge (I say 
 nothing of Oxford, knowing nothing thereof) merely 
 as routine work, to lounge through three years to a 
 degree among the 61 TroXXot for such an one, Oxford 
 Street herself, whom the immortal Opium-eater hath 
 so direly apostrophised, is not a more careless and 
 stony-hearted mother. But for him who will read, 
 who will work, who will seize the rare advantages 
 proffered, who will select his friends judiciously yea,
 
 THE CAXTONS. 185 
 
 out of that vast ferment of young idea in its lusty 
 vigour, choose the good and reject the bad there is 
 plenty to make those three years rich with fruit 
 imperishable three years nobly spent, even though 
 one must pass over the Ass's Bridge to get into the 
 Temple of Honour. 
 
 Important changes in the Academical system have 
 been recently announced, and honours are henceforth 
 to be accorded to the successful disciples in moral and 
 natural sciences. By the side of the old throne of 
 Mathesis, they have placed two very useful fauteuils 
 ct la Voltaire. I have no objection ; but, in those 
 three years of life, it is not so much the thing learned, 
 as the steady perseverance in learning something that 
 is excellent. 
 
 It was fortunate, in one respect, for me that I had 
 seen a little of the real world the metropolitan, 
 before I came to that mimic one the cloistral. For 
 what were called pleasures in the last, and which 
 might have allured me, had I come fresh from school, 
 had no charm for me now. Hard drinking and high 
 play, a certain mixture of coarseness and extravagance, 
 made the fashion among the idle when I was at the 
 university, consule Planco when Wordsworth was 
 master of Trinity : it may be altered now. 
 
 But I had already outlived such temptations, and
 
 186 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 so, naturally, I was thrown out of the society of the 
 idle, and somewhat into that of the laborious. 
 
 Still, to speak frankly, I had no longer the old 
 pleasure in books. If my acquaintance with the great 
 world had destroyed the temptation to puerile excesses, 
 it had also increased my constitutional tendency to 
 practical action. And, alas ! in spite of all the benefit 
 I had derived from Robert Hall, there were times 
 when memory was so poignant that I had no choice 
 but to rush from the lonely room haunted by tempting 
 phantoms too dangerously fair, and sober down the 
 fever of the heart by some violent bodily fatigue. 
 The ardour which belongs to early youth, and which 
 it best dedicates to knowledge, had been charmed 
 prematurely to shrines less severely sacred. Therefore 
 though I laboured, it was with that full sense of labour 
 which (as I found at a much later period of life) the 
 truly triumphant student never knows. Learning 
 that marble image warms into life, not at the toil of 
 the chisel, but the worship of the sculptor. The 
 mechanical workman finds but the voiceless stone. 
 
 At my uncle's, such a thing as a newspaper rarely 
 \ made its appearance. At Cambridge, even among 
 h reading men, the newspapers had their due importance. 
 I Politics ran high ; and I had not been three days at 
 [ Cambridge before I heard Trevanion's name. News-
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 187 
 
 papers, therefore, had their charms for me. Tre- 
 vanions prophecy about himself seemed about to be 
 fulfilled. There were rumours of changes in the 
 cabinet. Trevanion's name was bandied to and fro, 
 struck from praise to blame, high and low, as a shuttle- 
 cock. Still the changes were not made, and the 
 cabinet held firm. Not a word in the Morning Post, 
 under the head of fashionable intelligence, as to rumours 
 that would have agitated me more than the rise and 
 fall of governments no hint of " the speedy nuptials 
 of the daughter and sole heiress of a distinguished and 
 wealthy commoner : " only now and then, in enume- 
 rating the circle of brilliant guests at the house of 
 some party chief, I gulped back the heart that rushed 
 to my lips, when I saw the names of Lady Ellinor and 
 Miss Trevanion. 
 
 But amongst all that prolific progeny of the 
 periodical press remote offspring of my great name- 
 sake and ancestor, (for I hold the faith of my father,) 
 where was the Literary Times f what had so long 
 retarded its promised blossoms? Not a leaf in the 
 shape of advertisements had yet emerged from its 
 mother earth. I hoped from my heart that the whole 
 thing was abandoned, and would not mention it in my 
 letters home, lest I should revive the mere idea of it. 
 But, in default of the Literary Times, there did appear
 
 188 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 a new journal, a daily journal too ; a tall, slender, 
 and meagre stripling, with a vast head, by way of 
 prospectus, which protruded itself for three weeks 
 successively at the top of the leading article ; with a 
 fine and subtle body of paragraphs ; and the smallest 
 legs, in the way of advertisements, that any poor 
 newspaper ever stood upon ! And yet this attenuated 
 journal had a plump and plethoric title, a title that 
 smacked of turtle and venison ; an aldermanic, portly, 
 grandiose, Falstaffian title it was called THE CAPI- 
 TALIST. And all those fine subtle paragraphs were 
 larded out with receipts how to make money. There 
 was an El Dorado in every sentence. To believe that 
 paper, you would think no man had ever yet found 
 a proper return for his pounds, shillings, and pence. 
 You would have turned up your nose at twenty per 
 cent. There was a great deal about Ireland not 
 X/her wrongs, thank Heaven ! but her fisheries : a long 
 inquiry what had become of the pearls for which 
 Britain was once so famous: a learned disquisition 
 upon certain lost gold mines now happily rediscovered ; 
 a very ingenious proposition to turn London smoke 
 into manure, by a new chemical process : recommen- 
 dations to the poor to hatch chickens in ovens like the 
 ancient Egyptians : agricultural schemes for sowing 
 the waste lands in England with onions, upon the
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 189 
 
 system adopted near Bedford, net produce one hun- 
 dred pounds an acre. In short, according to that 
 paper, every rood of ground might well maintain its 
 man, and every shilling be like Hobson's money-bag, 
 " the fruitful parent of a hundred more. " For three 
 days, at the newspaper room^of the Union Club, men 
 talked of this journal, some pished, some sneered, some 
 wondered ; till an ill-natured mathematician, who had 
 just taken his degree, and had spare time on his hands, 
 sent a long letter to the Morning Chronicle, showing 
 up more blunders, in some article to which the editor 
 of The Capitalist had specially invited attention, (un- 
 lucky dog !) than would have paved the whole island 
 of Laputa. After that time, not a soul read The Capi- 
 talist. How long it dragged on its existence I know 
 not ; but it certainly did not die of a maladie de langueur. 
 
 Little thought I, when I joined hi the laugh against 
 The Capitalist, that I ought rather to have followed 
 it to its grave, in black crape and weepers, unfeeling 
 wretch that I was ! But, like a poet, O Capitalist ! 
 thou were not discovered, and appreciated, and prized, 
 and mourned, till thou wert dead and buried, and the 
 bill came in for thy monument ! 
 
 The first term of my college life was just expiring, \ 
 when I received a letter from my mother, so agitated, 
 so alarming, at first reading so unintelligible, that I
 
 190 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 could only see that some great misfortune had befallen 
 us ; and I stopped short and dropped on my knees, to 
 pray for the life and health of those whom that mis- 
 fortune more specially seemed to menace ; and then 
 and then, towards the end of the last blurred sentence, 
 read twice, thrice, over J could cry, " Thank Heaven, 
 thank Heaven ! it is only, then, money after all !"
 
 PART ELEVENTH.
 
 PART ELEVENTH 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE next day, on the outside of the Cambridge 
 Telegraph, there was one passenger who ought to 
 have impressed his fellow - travellers with a very 
 respectful idea of his lore hi the dead languages ; for 
 not a single syllable, in a live one, did he vouchsafe 
 to utter from the moment he ascended that " bad 
 eminence," to the moment in which he regained his 
 mother earth. " Sleep," says honest Sancho, " covers 
 a man better than a cloak." I am ashamed of thee, 
 honest Sancho ! thou art a sad plagiarist ; for Tibullus 
 said pretty nearly the same thing before thee, 
 " Te somnus fusco velavit amictu." * 
 
 But is not silence as good a cloak as sleep ? does 
 it not wrap a man round with as offusc and impervious 
 
 * Tibullus, iii. 4, 55. 
 VOL. II. N
 
 194 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 a fold? Silence what a world it covers! what 
 busy schemes what bright hopes and dark fears 
 what ambition, or what despair ! Do you ever see a 
 man in any society sitting mute for hours, and not 
 feel an uneasy curiosity to penetrate the wall he thus 
 builds up between others and himself ? Does he not 
 interest you far more than the brilliant talker at your 
 left the airy wit at your right, whose shafts fall in 
 vain on the sullen barrier of the silent man ! Silence, 
 dark sister of Nox and Erebus, how, layer upon layer, 
 shadow upon shadow, blackness upon blackness, thou 
 stretchest thyself from hell to heaven, over thy two 
 chosen haunts man's heart and the grave ! 
 
 So, then, wrapped in my greatcoat and my silence, 
 I performed my journey ; and on the evening of the 
 second day I reached the old-fashioned brick house. 
 How shrill on my ears sounded the bell! How 
 strange and ominous to my impatience seemed the 
 light gleaming across the windows of the hall ! How 
 my heart beat as I watched the face of the servant 
 who opened the gate to my summons ! 
 
 "All well? "cried I. 
 
 " All well, sir, 1 ' answered the servant, cheerfully. 
 " Mr Squills, indeed, is with master, but I don't 
 think there is anything the matter." 
 
 But now my mother appeared at the threshold, 
 and I was in her arms.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 195 
 
 " Sisty, Sisty ! mj dear, dear son ! beggared, 
 perhaps and my fault mine." 
 
 " Yours ! come into this room, out of hearing 
 your fault?" 
 
 " Yes yes ! for if I had had no brother, or if I 
 had not been led away, if I had, as I ought, 
 entreated poor Austin not to" 
 
 " My dear, dearest mother, you accuse yourself 
 for what, it seems, was my uncle's misfortune I am 
 sure not even his fault ! (I made a gulp there.} No, 
 lay the fault on the right shoulders the defunct 
 shoulders of that horrible progenitor, William Caxton 
 the printer ; for, though I don't yet know the parti- 
 culars of what has happened, I will lay a wager it is 
 connected with that fatal invention of printing. Come, 
 come my father is well, is he not?" 
 
 " Yes, thank Heaven." 
 
 " And you too, and I, and Roland, and little 
 Blanche ! Why, then, you are right to thank 
 Heaven, for your true treasures are untouched. But 
 sit down and explain, pray." 
 
 " I cannot explain. I do not understand anything 
 
 jf 
 
 more than that he, my brother, mine ! has involved 
 Austin in in" (a fresh burst of tears.) 
 
 I comforted, scolded, laughed, preached, and ad- 
 jured in a breath ; and then, drawing my mother 
 gently on, entered my father's study.
 
 196 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 At the table was seated Mr Squills, pen in hand, 
 and a glass of his favourite punch by his side. My 
 father was standing on the hearth, a shade more pale, 
 but with a resolute expression on his countenance, 
 which was new to its indolent thoughtful mildness. 
 He lifted his eyes as the door opened, and then, put- 
 ting his finger to his lips, as he glanced towards my 
 mother, he said gaily, " No great harm done. Don't 
 believe her ! Women always exaggerate, and make 
 realities of their own bugbears : it is the vice of their 
 lively imaginations, as Wierus has clearly shown in 
 accounting for the marks, moles, and hare-lips which 
 they inflict upon their innocent infants before they 
 are even born. My dear boy," added my father, as I 
 here kissed him and smiled in his face, " I thank you 
 for that smile ! God bless you ! " He wrung my 
 hand, and turned a little aside. 
 
 " It is a great comfort," renewed my father, after 
 a short pause, " to know, when a misfortune happens, 
 that it could not be helped. Squills has just disco- 
 vered that I have no bump of cautiveness; so that, 
 craniologically speaking, if I had escaped one impru- 
 dence, I should certainly have run my head against 
 another." 
 
 " A man with your development is made to be 
 taken in," said Mr Squills, consolingly. 
 
 " Do you hear that, my own Kitty? and have you
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 197 
 
 the heart to blame Jack any longer a poor creature 
 cursed with a bump that would take in the Stock 
 Exchange? And can any one resist his bump, 
 Squills?" 
 
 " Impossible !" said the surgeon authoritatively. 
 
 " Sooner or later it must involve him in its airy 
 meshes eh, Squills ? entrap him into its fatal cere- 
 bral cell. There his fate waits him, like the ant-lion 
 in its pit." 
 
 " Too true," quoth Squills. " What a phreno- 
 logical lecturer you would have made !" 
 
 " Go, then, my love," said my father, " and lay no 
 blame but on this melancholy cavity of mine, where 
 cautiveness is not ! Go, and let Sisty have some 
 supper ; for Squills says that he has a fine develop- 
 ment of the mathematical organs, and we want his 
 help. We are hard at work on figures, Pisis- 
 tratus." 
 
 My mother looked broken-hearted, and, obeying 
 submissively, stole to the door without a word. But 
 as she reached the threshold she turned round, and 
 beckoned to me to follow her. 
 
 I whispered my father, and went out. My mother 
 was standing in the hall, and I saw by the lamp that 
 she had dried her tears, and that her face, though 
 very sad, was more composed. 
 
 " Sisty," she said, in a low voice which struggled to
 
 198 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 be firm, " promise me that you will tell me all the 
 worst, Sistj. They keep it from me, and that is my 
 hardest punishment ; for when I don't know all that 
 he that Austin suffers, it seems to me as if I had lost 
 his heart. Oh, Sisty ! my child, my child, don't fear 
 me ! I shall be happy whatever befalls us, if I once 
 get back my privilege my privilege, Sisty, to com- 
 fort, to share ! do you understand me ?" 
 
 " Yes, indeed, my mother ! And with your good 
 sense, and clear woman's wit, if you will but feel how 
 much we want them, you will be the best counsellor 
 we could have. So never fear ; you and I will have 
 no secrets." 
 
 My mother kissed me, and went away with a less 
 heavy step. 
 
 As I re-entered, my father came across the room 
 and embraced me. 
 
 " My son," he said in a faltering voice, " if your 
 modest prospects in life are ruined " 
 
 " Father, father, can you think of me at such a 
 moment ! Me ! Is it possible to ruin the young, 
 and strong, and healthy ! Ruin me, with these thews 
 and sinews ! ruin me, with the education you have 
 given me thews and sinews of the mind ! Oh no ! 
 there, Fortune is harmless ! And you forget, sir, 
 the saffron bag ! " 
 
 Squills leapt up, and, wiping his eyes with one
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 199 
 
 hand, gave me a sounding slap on the shoulder with 
 the other. 
 
 " I am proud of the care I took of your infancy^ 
 Master Caxton. That comes of strengthening the 1 
 digestive organs in early childhood. Such sentiments 
 are a proof of magnificent ganglions in a perfect state 
 of order. When a man's tongue is as smooth as I 
 am sure yours is, he slips through misfortune like an 
 eel." 
 
 I laughed outright, my father smiled faintly ; and, 
 seating myself, I drew towards me a paper filled with 
 Squills' memoranda, and said, "Now to find the 
 unknown quantity. What on earth is this ? ' Sup- ) 
 posed value of books, 750.' Oh, father ! this is 
 impossible. I was prepared for anything but that. 
 Your books they are your life ! " 
 
 " Nay," said my father ; " after all, they are the 
 offending party in this case, and so ought to be the 
 principal victims. Besides, I believe I know most of 
 them by heart. But, in truth, we are only entering 
 all our effects, to be sure (added my father proudly) 
 that, come what may, we are not dishonoured." 
 
 " Humour him," whispered Squills ; " we will save 
 the books." Then he added aloud, as he laid finger 
 and thumb on my pulse, "One, two, three, about 
 seventy capital pulse soft and full he can bear the 
 whole : let us administer it."
 
 200 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 M j father nodded " Certainly. But, Pisistratus, 
 we must manage your dear mother. Why she should 
 think of blaming herself, because poor Jack took 
 wrong ways to enrich us, I cannot understand. 
 But, as I have had occasion before to remark, Sphinx 
 and Enigma are nouns feminine." 
 
 My poor father ! that was a vain struggle for thy 
 wonted innocent humour. The lips quivered. 
 
 Then the story came out. It seems that, when it 
 was resolved to undertake the publication of the Lite- 
 rary Times, a certain number of shareholders had been 
 got together by the indefatigable energies of Uncle 
 Jack ; and, in the deed of association and partnership, 
 my father's name figured conspicuously as the holder 
 of a fourth of this joint property. If in this my father 
 had committed some imprudence, he had at least done 
 nothing that, according to the ordinary calculations of 
 a secluded student, could become ruinous. But, just 
 at the time when we were in the hurry of leaving 
 town, Jack had represented to my father that it might 
 be necessary to alter a little the plan of the paper ; 
 and, in order to allure a larger circle of readers, touch 
 somewhat on the more vulgar news and interests of 
 the day. A change of plan might involve a change 
 of title | and he suggested to my father the expediency 
 of leaving the smooth hands of Mr Tibbets altogether 
 unfettered, as to the technical name and precise form
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 201 
 
 of the publication. To this my father had unwittingly 
 assented, on hearing that the other shareholders would 
 do the same. Mr Peck, a printer of considerable 
 opulence, and highly respectable name, had been 
 found to advance the sum necessary for the publication 
 of the earlier numbers, upon the guarantee of the said 
 act of partnership and the additional security of my 
 father's signature to a document, authorising Mr 
 Tibbets to make any change in the form or title of the 
 periodical that might be judged advisable, concurrent 
 with the consent of the other shareholders. 
 
 Now it seems that Mr Peck had, in his previous 
 conferences with Mr Tibbets, thrown much cold water 
 on the idea of the Literary Times, and had suggested 
 something that should " catch the moneyed public," 
 the fact being, as was afterwards discovered, that 
 the printer, whose spirit of enterprise was congenial 
 to Uncle Jack's, had shares in three or four specula- 
 tions, to which he was naturally glad of an oportunity 
 to invite the attention of the public. In a word, no 
 -sooner was my poor father's back turned than the 
 Literary Times was dropped incontinently, and Mr 
 Peck and Mr Tibbets began to concentrate their 
 luminous notions into that brilliant and comet- like 
 apparition which ultimately blazed forth under the 
 title of The Capitalist. 
 
 From this change of enterprise the more prudent
 
 202 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 and responsible of the original shareholders had 
 altogether, withdrawn. A majority, indeed, were 
 left ; but the greater part of those were shareholders 
 of that kind most amenable to the influences of 
 Uncle Jack, and willing to be shareholders in 
 anything, since as yet they were possessors of 
 nothing. 
 
 Assured of my father's responsibility, the adven- 
 turous Peck put plenty of spirit into the first launch of 
 The Capitalist. All the walls were placarded with its 
 announcements ; circular advertisements ran from one 
 end of the kingdom to the other. Agents were 
 engaged, correspondents levied en masse. The 
 invasion of Xerxes on the Greeks was not more 
 munificently provided for than that of The Capitalist 
 upon the credulity and avarice of mankind. 
 
 But as Providence bestows upon fishes the instru- 
 ment of fins, whereby they balance and direct their 
 movements, however rapid and erratic, through the 
 pathless deeps, so to the cold-blooded creatures of our 
 own species that may be classed under the genus 
 MONEY-MAKERS the same protective power accords 
 the fin-like properties of prudence and caution, where- 
 with your true money-getter buoys and guides him- 
 self majestically through the great seas of speculation. 
 In short, the fishes the net was cast for were all scared 
 from the surface at the first splash. They came round
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 203 
 
 and smelt at the mesh with their sharp bottle-noses, 
 and then, plying those invaluable fins, made off as fast 
 as they could plunging into the mud hiding them- 
 selves under rocks and coral banks. Metaphor apart, 
 the capitalists buttoned up their pockets, and would < J 
 have nothing to say to their namesake. 
 
 Not a word of this change, so abhorrent to all the 
 notions of poor Augustine Caxton, had been breathed 
 to him by Peck or Tibbets. He ate, and slept, and 
 worked at the Great Book, occasionally wondering 
 why he had not heard of the advent of the Literary 
 Times, unconscious of all the awful responsibilities 
 which The Capitalist was entailing on him ; knowing 
 no more of The Capitalist than he did of the last loan 
 of the Rothschilds. 
 
 Difficult was it for all other human nature, save my 
 father's, not to breathe an indignant anathema on the 
 scheming head of the brother-in-law who had thus 
 violated the most sacred obligations of trust and 
 kindred, and so entangled an unsuspecting recluse; 
 But, to give even Jack Tibbets his due, he had firmly 
 convinced himself that The Capitalist would make 
 my father's fortune ; and if he did not announce to 
 him the strange and anomalous development into 
 which the original sleeping chrysalis of the Literary 
 Times had taken portentous wing, it was purely and 
 wholly in the knowledge that my father's " prejudices,"
 
 204 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 as he termed them, would stand in the way of his 
 becoming a Crresus. And, in fact, Uncle Jack had 
 believed so heartily in his own project, that he had 
 put himself thoroughly into Mr Peck's power, signed 
 bills in his own name to some fabulous amount, and 
 was actually now in the Fleet, whence his penitential 
 and despairing confession was dated, arriving simulta- 
 neously with a short letter from Mr Peck, wherein 
 that respectable printer apprised my father that he 
 had continued, at his own risk, the publication of The 
 Capitalist, as far as a prudent care for his family 
 would permit ; that he need not say that a new daily 
 journal was a very vast experiment ; that the expense 
 of such a paper as The Capitalist was immeasurably 
 greater than that of a mere literary periodical, as 
 /originally suggested ; and that now, being constrained 
 /to come upon the shareholders for the sums he had 
 advanced, amounting to several thousands, he 
 requested my father to settle with him immediately 
 delicately implying that he himself might settle as he 
 could with the other shareholders, most of whom, he 
 grieved to add, he had been misled by Mr Tibbets 
 into believing to be men of substance, when in reality 
 they were men of straw ! 
 
 Nor was this all the evil. The " Great Anti- 
 Bookseller Publishing Society," which had main- 
 tained a struggling existence evinced by advertise-
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 205 
 
 ments of sundry forthcoming works of solid interest and 
 enduring nature, wherein, out of a long list, amidst a 
 pompous array of " Poems ; " " Dramas not intended 
 for the Stage;" "Essays by Phileutheros, Philan- 
 thropes, Philopolis, Philodeinus, and Philalethes," 
 stood prominently forth " The History of Human 
 Error, Vols I. and II., quarto, with illustrations," 
 the " Anti-Bookseller Society," I say, that had 
 hitherto evinced nascent and budding life by these 
 exfoliations from its slender stem, died of a suddeii 
 blight, the moment its sun, in the shape of Uncle 
 Jack, set in the Cimmerian regions of the Fleet ; and 
 a polite letter from another printer (O William 
 Caxton, William Caxton ! fatal progenitor ! ) 
 informing my father of this event, stated complimen- 
 tarily that it was to him, " as the most respectable 
 member of the Association," that the said printer 
 would be compelled to look for expenses incurred, 
 not only in the very costly edition of the History of 
 Human Error, but for those incurred in the print and 
 paper devoted to " Poems," " Dramas not intended 
 for the stage," " Essays by Phileutheros, Philan- 
 thropes, Philopolis, Philodemus, and Philalethes," with 
 sundry other works, no doubt of a very valuable 
 nature, but in which a considerable loss, in a 
 pecuniary point of view, must be necessarily ex- 
 pected.
 
 206 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 I own that, as soon as I had mastered the above 
 agreeable facts, and ascertained from Mr Squills that 
 my father really did seem to have rendered himself 
 legally liable to these demands, I leant back in my 
 chair, stunned and bewildered. 
 
 " So you see," said my father, " that as yet we are 
 contending with monsters in the dark in the dark all 
 monsters look larger and uglier. Even Augustus 
 Caesar, though certainly he had never scrupled to 
 make as many ghosts as suited his convenience, did 
 not like the chance of a visit from them, and never 
 sat alone in tenebris. What the amount of the sums 
 claimed from me may be, we know not ; what may be 
 gained from the other shareholders is equally obscure 
 and undefined. But the first thing to do is to get 
 poor Jack out of prison. " 
 
 " Uncle Jack out of prison ! " exclaimed I : " surely, 
 sir, that is carrying forgiveness too far." 
 
 " Why, he would not have been in prison if I had 
 not been so blindly forgetful of his weakness, poor 
 man ! I ought to have known better. But my vanity 
 misled me ; I must needs publish a great book, as if 
 (said Mr Caxton, looking round the shelves) there 
 were not great books enough in the world ! I must 
 needs, too, think of advancing and circulating know- 
 ledge in the form of a journal I, who had not know- 
 ledge enough of the character of my own brother-in-law
 
 A FAMILY PICTUEE. 207 
 
 to keep myself from ruin ! Come what will, I should 
 think myself the meanest of men to let that poor crea- 
 ture, whom I ought to have considered as a mono- 
 maniac, rot in prison, because I, Austin Caxton, 
 wanted common sense. And (concluded my father 
 resolutely) he is your mother's brother, Pisistratus. 
 I should have gone to town at once ; but, hearing that 
 my wife had written to you, I waited till I could leave 
 her to the companionship of hope and comfort two 
 blessings that smile upon every mother in the face of 
 a son like you. To-morrow I go." 
 
 " Not a bit of it, " said Mr Squills firmly ; " as your 
 medical adviser, I forbid you to leave the house for the 
 next six days."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " SIR," continued Mr Squills, biting off the end of a 
 cigar which he pulled from his pocket, " you concede 
 to me that it is a very important business on which 
 you propose to go to London. " 
 
 " Of that there is no doubt, " replied my father. 
 
 " And the doing of business well or ill entirely 
 depends upon the habit of body ! " cried Mr Squills 
 triumphantly. " Do you know, Mr Caxton, that 
 while you are looking so calm, and talking so quietly 
 just on purpose to sustain your son and delude your 
 wife do you know that your pulse, which is naturally 
 little more than sixty, is nearly a hundred ? Do you 
 know, sir, that your mucous membranes are in a state 
 of high irritation, apparent by the papillce at the tip 
 of your tongue ? And if, with a pulse like this, and a 
 tongue like that, you think of settling money matters 
 with a set of sharp-witted tradesmen, all I can say is, 
 that you are a ruined man."
 
 THE CAXTONS. 209 
 
 " But " began my father. 
 
 "Did not Squire Rollick," pursued Mr Squills 
 " Squire Rollick, the hardest head at a bargain I know 
 of did not Squire Rollick sell that pretty little farm 
 of his, Scranny Holt, for thirty per cent below its value ? 
 And what was the cause, sir ? the whole county was 
 in amaze ! what was the cause, but an incipient sim- 
 mering attack of the yellow jaundice, which made him 
 take a gloomy view of human life, and the agricultural 
 interest ? On the other hand, did not Lawyer Cool, 
 the most prudent man in the three kingdoms Lawyer 
 Cool, who was so methodical, that all the clocks in the 
 country were set by his watch plunge one morning 
 head over heels into a frantic speculation for cultivating 
 the bogs in Ireland, (his watch did not go right for the 
 next three months, which made our whole shire an hour 
 in advance of the rest of England !) And what was the 
 cause of that nobody knew, till I was called in, and 
 found the cerebral membranes in a state of acute irri- 
 tation, probably just in the region of his acquisitive- 
 ness and ideality. No, Mr Caxton, you will stay at 
 home, and take a soothing preparation I shall send 
 you, of lettuce leaves and marsh-mallows. But I," 
 continued Squills, lighting his cigar and taking two 
 determined whiffs " but / will go up to town and 
 settle the business for you, and take with me this 
 young gentleman, whose digestive functions are just in 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 210 THECAXTONS: 
 
 a state to deal safely with those horrible elements of 
 dyspepsia the L. S. D. " 
 
 As he spoke, Mr Squills set his foot significantly 
 upon mine. 
 
 " But, " resumed my father mildly, " though I 
 thank you very much, Squills, for your kind offer, I 
 do not recognise the necessity of accepting it. I am 
 not so bad a philosopher as you seem to imagine ; and 
 the blow I have received has not so deranged my 
 physical organisation as to render me unfit to transact 
 my affairs." 
 
 " Hum ! " grunted Squills, starting up and seizing 
 my father's pulse ; " ninety-six ninety-six if a beat ! 
 And the tongue, sir ! " 
 
 " Pshaw!" quoth my father, " you have not even 
 seen my tongue ! " 
 
 " No need of that, I know what it is by the state of 
 the eyelids tip scarlet, sides rough as a nutmeg- 
 grater!" 
 
 " Pshaw ! " again said my father, this time impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 " Well," said Squills solemnly, " it is my duty to 
 say, (here my mother entered, to tell me that supper 
 was ready,) and I say it to you, Mrs Caxton, and you, 
 Mr Pisistratus Caxton, as the parties most nearly 
 interested, that if you, sir, go to London upon this 
 matter, I'll not answer for the consequences. "
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 211 
 
 " Oh ! Austin, Austin ! " cried my mother, running 
 up and throwing her arms round my father's neck ; 
 while I, little less alarmed by Squill's serious tone and 
 aspect, represented strongly the inutility of Mr Cax- 
 ton's personal interference at the first moment. All 
 he could do on arriving in town would be to put the 
 matter into the hands of a good lawyer, and that we 
 could do for him ; it would be time enough to send for 
 him when the extent of the mischief done was more 
 clearly ascertained. Meanwhile Squills griped my 
 father's pulse, and my mother hung on his neck. 
 
 " Ninety-six ninety-seven ! " groaned Squills in a 
 hollow voice. 
 
 " I don't believe it!" cried my father, almost in a 
 passion " never better nor cooler in my life." 
 
 " And the tongue look at his tongue, Mrs Caxton 
 a tongue, rna'am, so bright that you could see to 
 read by it!" 
 
 "Oh! Austin, Austin!" 
 
 " My dear, it is not my tongue that is in fault, I 
 assure you," said my father, speaking through his 
 teeth ; " and the man knows no more of my tongue 
 than he does of the Mysteries of Eleusis. " 
 
 " Put it out then," exclaimed Squills, " and if it be 
 not as I say, you have my leave to go to London, and 
 throw your whole fortune into the two great pits you 
 have dug for it. Put it out ! "
 
 212 THE CAXTOXS. 
 
 " Mr Squills ! " said my father, colouring " Mr 
 Squills, for shame ! " 
 
 " Dear, dear Austin ! your hand is so hot you are 
 feverish, I am sure. " 
 
 "Not a bit of it, 1 ' 
 
 "But, sir, only just gratify Mr Squills," said I 
 coaxingly. 
 
 " There, there!" said my father, fairly baited into 
 submission, and shyly exhibiting for a moment the 
 extremest end of the vanquished organ of eloquence. 
 
 Squills darted forward his lynx-like eyes. " Red as 
 a lobster, and rough as a gooseberry-bush ! " cried 
 Squills, in a tone of savage joy.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 How was it possible for one poor tongue, so reviled ) 
 and persecuted, so humbled, insulted, and triumphed > 
 
 f 
 
 v~ .._ v~.~~ & ~~~ ^ . & & 
 
 Finally, my father yielded ; and Squills, in high 
 spirits, declared that he would go to supper with me, 
 to see that I ate nothing that could tend to discredit 
 his reliance on my system. Leaving my mother still 
 with her Austin, the good surgeon then took my arm, 
 and, as soon as we were in the next room, shut the 
 door carefully, wiped his forehead, and said " I think 
 we have saved him ! " 
 
 " Would it really, then, have injured my father so 
 much?' 1 
 
 " So much ! why, you foolish young man, don't 
 you see that, with his ignorance of business, where he 
 himself is concerned though, for any other one's 
 business, neither Rollick nor Cool has a better judg- 
 ment and with his d d Quixotic spirit of honour
 
 214 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 worked up into a state of excitement, he would have 
 rushed to Mr Tibbets, and exclaimed ' How much do 
 you owe ? there it is ! ' settled in the same way with 
 these printers, and come back without a sixpence; 
 whereas you and I can look coolly about us, and 
 reduce the inflammation to the minimum ! " 
 " I see, and thank you heartily, Squills.' 1 
 " Besides,' 1 said the surgeon, with more feeling, 
 " your father has really been making a noble effort 
 over himself. He suffers more than you would think 
 not for himself, (for I do believe that, if he were alone 
 in the world, he would be quite contented if he could 
 save fifty pounds a-year and his books,) but for your 
 mother and yourself; and a fresh access of emotional 
 excitement, all the nervous anxiety of a journey to 
 s London on such a business, might have ended in a 
 paralytic or epileptic affection. Now, we have him 
 here snug ; and the worst news we can give him will 
 be better than what he will make up his mind for. 
 But you don't eat" 
 
 " Eat ! How can I ? My poor father ! " 
 " The effect of grief upon the gastric juices, through 
 the nervous system, is very remarkable, 1 ' said Mr 
 Squills, philosophically, and helping himself to a 
 broiled bone ; " it increases the thirst, while it takes 
 away hunger. No don't touch Port ! heating ! 
 Sherry and water."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE hous^-door had closed upon Mr Squills that 
 gentleman having promised to breakfast with me the 
 next morning, so that we might take the coach from 
 our gate and I remained alone, seated by the supper- 
 table, and revolving all I had heard, when my father 
 walked in. 
 
 " Pisistratus," said he, gravely, and looking round 
 him, " your mother ! suppose the worst your first 
 care, then, must be to try and secure something for 
 her. You and I are men we can never want, while 
 we have health of mind and body ; but a woman 
 and if anything happens to me " 
 
 My father's lip writhed as it uttered these brief 
 sentences. 
 
 " My dear, dear father ! " said I, suppressing my 
 tears with difficulty, " all evils, as you yourself said, 
 look worse by anticipation. It is impossible that your 
 whole fortune can be involved. The newspaper did
 
 216 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 not run many weeks ; and only the first volume of 
 your work is printed. Besides, there must be other 
 shareholders who will pay their quota. Believe me, 
 I feel sanguine as to the result of my embassy. As 
 for my poor mother, it is not the loss of fortune that 
 will wound her depend on it, she thinks very little 
 of that ; it is the loss of your confidence." 
 
 " My confidence !"" 
 
 " Ah yes ! tell her all your fears, as your hopes. 
 f Do not let your affectionate pity exclude her from one 
 V corner of your heart." 
 
 " It is that it is that, Austin, my husband my 
 joy my pride my soul my all!" cried a soft, 
 broken voice. 
 
 My mother had crept in, unobserved by us. 
 
 My father looked at us both, and the tears which 
 had before stood in his eyes forced their way. Then 
 opening his arms into which his Kitty threw herself 
 joyfully he lifted those moist eyes upward, and, 
 by the movement of his lips, I saw that he thanked 
 God. 
 
 I stole out of the room. I felt that those two hearts 
 should be left to beat and to blend alone. And from 
 that hour, I am convinced that Augustine Caxton 
 acquired a stouter philosophy than that of the stoics. 
 The fortitude that concealed pain was no longer needed, 
 for the pain was no longer felt.
 
 CHAPTEK V. 
 
 MR SQUILLS and I performed our journey without 
 adventure, and, as we were not alone on the coach, 
 with little conversation. We put up at a small inn at 
 the city, and the next morning I sallied forth to see 
 Trevanion for we agreed that he would be the best 
 person to advise us. But, on arriving at St James's 
 Square, I had the disappointment of hearing that the 
 whole family had gone to Paris three days before, and 
 were not expected to return till the meeting of Par- 
 liament. 
 
 This was a sad discouragement, for I had counted 
 much on Trevanion's clear head, and that extraordi- 
 nary range of accomplishment in all matters of business 
 all that related to practical life which my old 
 patron pre-eminently possessed. The next thing 
 would be to find Trevanion's lawyer, (for Trevanion 
 was one of those men whose solicitors are sure to be 
 able and active.) But the fact was, that he left so
 
 218 THECAXTONS: 
 
 little to lawyers, that he had never had occasion to 
 communicate with one since I had known him ; and 
 I was therefore in ignorance of the very name of his 
 solicitor ; nor could the porter, who was left in charge 
 of the house, enlighten me. Luckily, I bethought 
 myself of Sir Sedley Beaudesert, who could scarcely 
 fail to give me the information required, and who, at 
 all events, might recommend me some other lawyer. 
 So to him I went. 
 
 I found Sir Sedley at breakfast with a young gen- 
 tleman who seemed about twenty. The good baronet 
 was delighted to see me ; but I thought it was with a 
 little confusion, rare to his cordial ease, that he pre- 
 sented me to his cousin, Lord Castleton. It was a 
 name familiar to me, though I had never before met 
 its patrician owner. 
 
 The Marquis of Castleton was indeed a subject of 
 envy to young idlers, and afforded a theme of interest 
 to gray-beard politicians. Often had I heard of " that 
 lucky fellow Castleton," who, when of age, would step 
 into one of those colossal fortunes which would realise 
 the dreams of Aladdin a fortune that had been out 
 to nurse since his minority. Often had I heard graver 
 gossips wonder whether Castleton would take any 
 active part in public life whether he would keep up 
 the family influence. His mother (still alive) was a 
 superior woman, and had devoted herself, from hi a
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 219 
 
 childhood, to supply a father's loss, and fit him for his 
 great position. It was said that he was clever had 
 been educated by a tutor of great academic distinction, 
 and was reading for a double first class at Oxford. 
 This young marquis was indeed the head of one of 
 those few houses still left in England that retain 
 feudal importance. He was important, not only from 
 his rank and his vast fortune, but from an immense 
 circle of powerful connexions ; from the ability of his 
 two predecessors, who had been keen politicians and 
 cabinet-ministers ; from the prestige they had be- 
 queathed to his name; from the peculiar nature of 
 his property, which gave him the returning interest in 
 no less than six parliamentary seats in Great Britain 
 and Ireland besides that indirect ascendency which 
 the head of the Castletons had always exercised over 
 many powerful and noble allies of that princely 
 house. I was not aware that he was related to Sir 
 Sedley, whose world of action was so remote from 
 politics; and it was with some surprise that I now 
 heard that announcement, and certainly with some 
 interest that I, perhaps from the verge of poverty, 
 gazed on this young heir of fabulous El-Dorados. 
 
 It was easy to see that Lord Castleton had been 
 brought up with a careful knowledge of his future 
 greatness, and its serious responsibilities. He stood 
 immeasurably aloof from all the affectations common
 
 220 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 to the youth of minor patricians. He had not been 
 taught to value himself on the cut of a coat, or the 
 shape of a hat. His world was far ahove St James's 
 Street and the clubs. He was dressed plainly, though 
 in a style peculiar to himself a white neckcloth, 
 (which was not at that day quite so uncommon for 
 morning use as it is now,) trousers without straps, 
 thin shoes and gaiters. There was nothing in his 
 manner of the supercilious apathy which characterises 
 the dandy introduced to some one whom he doubts if 
 he can nod to from the bow- window at White's 
 none of such vulgar coxcombries had Lord Castleton ; 
 and yet a young gentleman more emphatically cox- 
 comb it was impossible to see. He had been told, no 
 doubt, that, as the head of a house which was almost 
 in itself a party in the state, he should be bland and 
 civil to all men ; and this duty being grafted upon a 
 nature singularly cold and unsocial, gave to his polite- 
 ness something so stiff, yet so condescending, that 
 it brought the blood to one's cheek though the 
 momentary anger was counterbalanced by something 
 almost ludicrous in the contrast between this gracious 
 majesty of deportment, and the insignificant figure, 
 with the boyish beardless face, by which it was 
 assumed. Lord Castleton did not content himself 
 with a mere bow at our introduction. Much to my 
 wonder how he came by the information he displayed,
 
 A FAMILY PICTUKE. 221 
 
 lie made me a little speech after the manner of Louis 
 XIV. to a provincial noble studiously modelled upon 
 that royal- maxim of urbane policy which instructs 
 a king that he should know something of the birth, 
 parentage, and family, of his meanest gentleman. It 
 was a little speech, in which my father's learning, and 
 my uncle's services, and the amiable qualities of your 
 humble servant, were neatly interwoven delivered 
 in a falsetto tone, as if learned by heart, though it 
 must have been necessarily impromptu ; and then, 
 reseating himself, he made a gracious motion of the 
 head and hand, as if to authorise me to do the same. 
 
 Conversation succeeded, by galvanic jerks and spas- 
 modic starts a conversation that Lord Castleton, 
 contrived to tug so completely out of poor Sir Sedley's 
 ordinary course of small and polished small-talk, that / 
 that charming personage, accustomed, as he well; 
 deserved, to be Coryphaeus at his own table, was com- 
 pletely silenced. With his light reading, his rich 
 stores of anecdote, his good-humoured knowledge of 
 the drawing-room world, he had scarce a word that 
 would fit into the great, rough, serious matters which 
 Lord Castleton threw upon the table, as he nibbled 
 his toast. Nothing but the most grave and practical 
 subjects of human interest seemed to attract this future 
 leader of mankind. The fact is that Lord Castleton 
 had been taught everything that relates to property
 
 222 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 (a knowledge which embraces a very wide circum- 
 ference.) It had been said to him, " You will be an 
 immense proprietor knowledge is essential to your 
 self-preservation. You will be puzzled, bubbled, 
 ridiculed, duped every day of your life, if you do not 
 make yourself acquainted with all by which property 
 is assailed or defended, impoverished or increased. 
 You have a vast stake in the country you must learn 
 all the interests of Europe nay, of the civilised world 
 'for those interests react on the country, and the 
 interests of the country are of the greatest possible 
 consequence to the interests of the Marquis of Castle- 
 ton. " Thus the state of the Continent the policy of 
 Metternich the condition of the Papacy the growth 
 of Dissent the proper mode of dealing with the 
 general spirit of Democracy, which was the epidemic 
 of European monarchies the relative proportions of 
 the agricultural and manufacturing population corn- 
 laws, currency, and the laws that regulate wages a 
 criticism on the leading speakers of the House of 
 Commons, with some discursive observations on the 
 importance of fattening cattle the introduction of 
 flax into Ireland emigration the condition of the 
 poor the doctrines of Mr Owen the pathology of 
 potatoes ; the connexion between potatoes, pauperism, 
 and patriotism ; these, and suchlike stupendous sub- 
 jects for reflection all branching, more or less intri-
 
 A FAMILY PICTUKE. 223 
 
 cately, from the single idea of the Castleton property 
 the young lord discussed and disposed of in half-a- 
 dozen prim, poised sentences evincing, I must say in 
 justice, no inconsiderable information, and a mighty 
 solemn turn of mind. The oddity was, that the 
 subjects so selected and treated should not come 
 rather from some young barrister, or mature political 
 economist, than from so gorgeous a lily of the field. 
 Of a man less elevated in rank one would certainly 
 have said " Cleverish, but a prig ;" but there really 
 was something so respectable in a personage born to 
 such fortunes, and having nothing to do but to bask in 
 the sunshine, voluntarily taking such pains with him- 
 self, and condescending to identify his own interests 
 the interests of the Castleton property with the con- 
 cerns of his lesser fellow-mortals, that one felt the 
 young marquis had in him the stuff to become a very 
 considerable man. 
 
 Poor Sir Sedley, to whom all these matters were 
 as unfamiliar as the theology of the Talmud, after 
 some vain efforts to slip the conversation into easier 
 grooves, fairly gave in, and, with a compassionate 
 smile on his handsome countenance, took refuge in 
 his easy-chair and the contemplation of his snuff-box. 
 
 At last, to our great relief, the servant announced 
 Lord Castleton's carriage ; and with another speech 
 of overpowering affability to me, and a cold shake of
 
 224 THE CAXTOKS : 
 
 the hand to Sir Sedley, Lord Castleton went his 
 way. 
 
 The breakfast parlour looked on the street, and I 
 turned mechanically to the window as Sir Sedley 
 followed his guest out of the room. A travelling 
 carriage, with four post-horses, was at the door ; and 
 a servant, who looked like a foreigner, was in waiting 
 with his master's cloak. As I saw Lord Castleton 
 step into the street, and wrap himself in his costly 
 mantle lined with sables, I observed, more than I had 
 while he was in the room, the enervate slightness of 
 his frail form, and the more than paleness of his thin 
 joyless face ; and then, instead of envy, I felt compas- 
 sion for the owner of all this pomp and grandeur 
 felt that I would not have exchanged my hardy health, 
 and easy humour, and vivid capacities of enjoyment in 
 things the slightest and most within the reach of all 
 men, for the wealth and greatness which that poor 
 youth perhaps deserved the more for putting them so 
 little to the service of pleasure. 
 
 " Well," said Sir Sedley, " and what do you think 
 of him?" 
 
 " He is just the sort of man Trevanion would like," 
 said I evasively. 
 
 " That is true," answered Sir Sedley, in a serious 
 tone of voice, and looking at me somewhat earnestly. 
 "Have you heard? but no, you cannot have heard yet."
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 225 
 
 "Heard what?" 
 
 " My dear young friend," said the kindest and 
 most delicate of all fine gentlemen, sauntering away 
 that he might not observe the emotion he caused, 
 " Lord Castleton is going to Paris to join the Tre- i 
 vanions. The object Lady Ellinor has had at heart \ 
 for many a long year is won, and our pretty Fanny 
 will be Marchioness of Castleton when her betrothed 
 is of age that is, in six months. The two mothers 
 have settled it all between them ! " 
 
 I made no answer, but continued to look out of the 
 window. 
 
 " This alliance," resumed Sir Sedley, " was all that 
 was wanting to assure Trevanions position. When 
 parliament meets, he will have some great office. 
 Poor man ! how I shall pity him ! It is extraordinary 
 to me," continued Sir Sedley, benevolently going on, 
 that I might have full time to recover myself, " how 
 contagious that disease called business is hi our foggy 
 England ! Not only Trevanion, you see, has the 
 complaint in its very worst and most complicated 
 form, but that poor dear cousin of mine, who is so 
 young, (here Sir Sedley sighed,) and might enjoy 
 himself so much, is worse than you were when Tre- 
 vanion was fagging you to death. But, to be sure, 
 a great name and position, like Castleton's, must be a / 
 
 very heavy affliction to a conscientious mind. You 
 VOL. ii. r
 
 226 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 see how the sense of its responsibilities has aged him 
 already positively, two great wrinkles under his 
 eyes. Well, after all, I admire him, and respect his 
 tutor : a soil naturally very thin, I suspect, has been 
 most carefully cultivated; and Castleton, with Tre- 
 vanion's help, will be the first man in the peerage 
 prime minister some day, I dare say. And when I 
 think of it, how grateful I ought to feel to his father 
 and mother, who produced him quite in their old age ; 
 for, if he had not been born, I should have been the 
 most miserable of men yes, positively, that horrible 
 marquisate would have come to me ! I never think 
 over Horace Walpole's regrets, when he got the 
 earldom of Orford, without the deepest sympathy, 
 and without a shudder at the thought of what my 
 dear Lady Castleton was kind enough to save me 
 from all owing to the Ems waters, after twenty 
 years' marriage ! Well, my young friend, and how 
 are all at home?" 
 
 As when, some notable performer not having yet 
 arrived behind the scenes, or having to change his 
 dress, or not having yet quite recovered an unlucky 
 extra tumbler of exciting fluids and the green cur- 
 tain has therefore unduly delayed its ascent you 
 perceive that the thorough-bass in the orchestra 
 charitably devotes himself to a prelude of astonishing 
 prolixity, calling in Lodoiska or Der Freischutz to
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 227 
 
 beguile the time, and allow the procrastinating histrio 
 leisure sufficient to draw on his flesh-coloured panta- 
 loons, and give himself the proper complexion for a 
 Coriolanus or Macbeth even so had Sir Sedley made 
 that long speech, requiring no rejoinder, till he saw 
 the time had arrived when he could artfully close with 
 the flourish of a final interrogative, in order to give 
 poor Pisistratus Caxton all preparation to compose / 
 himself, and step forward. There is certainly some- 
 thing of exquisite kindness, and thoughtful bene-[ 
 volence, in that rarest of gifts, -fine breeding ; and 
 when now, remauned and resolute, I turned round 
 and saw Sir Sedley's soft blue eye shyly, but benig- 
 nantly, turned to me while, with a grace no other 
 snuff-taker ever had since the days of Pope, he gently 
 proceeded to refresh himself by a pinch of the cele- 
 brated Beaudesert mixture I felt my heart as grate- 
 fully moved towards him as if he had conferred on 
 me some colossal obligation. And this crowning 
 question "And how are all at home?" restored me 
 entirely to my self-possession, and for the moment 
 distracted the bitter current of my thoughts. 
 
 I replied by a brief statement of my father's 
 involvement, disguising our apprehensions as to its 
 extent, speaking of it rather as an annoyance than a 
 possible cause of ruin, and ended by asking Sir Sedley 
 to give me the address of Trevanion's lawyer.
 
 228 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 The good baronet listened with great attention; 
 and that quick penetration which belongs to a man of 
 the world enabled him to detect, that I had smoothed 
 over matters more than became a faithful narrator. 
 
 He shook his head, and, seating himself on the 
 sofa, motioned me to come to his side ; then, leaning 
 his arm over my shoulder, he said in his seductive, 
 winning way 
 
 " We two young fellows should understand each 
 
 other, when we talk of money matters. I can say to 
 
 you what I could not say to my respectable senior 
 
 by three years; your excellent father. Frankly, then, 
 
 I suspect this is a bad business. I know little about 
 
 newspapers, except that I have to subscribe to one in 
 
 my county, which costs me a small income; but I 
 
 know that a London daily paper might ruin a man in 
 
 a few weeks. And as for shareholders, my dear 
 
 Caxton, I was once teased into being a shareholder in 
 
 a canal that ran through my property, and ultimately 
 
 ran off with 30,000 of it ! The other shareholders 
 
 were all drowned in the canal, like Pharaoh and his 
 
 host in the Red Sea. But your father is a great 
 
 scholar, and must not be plagued with such matters. 
 
 1 owe him a great deal. He was very kind to me at 
 
 Cambridge, and gave me the taste for reading, to 
 
 which I owe the pleasantest hours of my life. So, 
 
 when you and the lawyers have found out what the
 
 i A FAMILY PICTURE. 229 
 
 extent of the mischief is, you and I must see how we/ 
 can best settle it. 
 
 " What the deuce ! my young friend I have no 
 1 encumbrances,' as the servants, with great want of 
 politeness, call wives and children. And I am not a 
 miserable great landed millionnaire, like that poor 
 dear Castleton, who owes so many duties to society 
 that he can't spend a shilling, except in a grand way 
 and purely to benefit the public. So go, my boy, to 
 Trevanion's lawyer : he is mine too. Clever fellow 
 sharp as a needle. Mr Pike, in Great Ormond 
 Street name on a brass plate ; and when he has 
 settled the amount, we young scapegraces will help 
 each other, without a word to the old folks." 
 
 What good it does to a man, throughout life, to 
 meet kindness and generosity like this in his youth ! 
 
 I need not say that I was too faithful a represen- 
 tative of my father's scholarly pride, and susceptible 
 independence of spirit, to accept this proposal; and 
 probably Sir Sedley, rich and liberal as he was, did 
 not dream of the exten-t to which his proposal might 
 involve him. But I expressed my gratitude, so as to 
 please and move this last relict of the De Coverleys, 
 and went from his house straight to Mr Pike's office, 
 with a little note of introduction from Sir Sedley. I 
 found Mr Pike exactly the man I had anticipated 
 from Trevanion's character short, quick, intelligent,
 
 230 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 in question and answer; imposing, and somewhat 
 domineering, in manner not overcrowded with busi- 
 ness, but with enough for experience and respect- 
 ability; neither young nor old; neither a pedantic 
 machine of parchment, nor a jaunty off-hand coxcomb 
 of West End manners. 
 
 " It is an ugly affair," said he, " but one that 
 requires management. Leave it all in my hands for 
 three days. Don't go near Mr Tibbets, nor Mr Peck ; 
 and on Saturday next, at two o'clock, if you will call 
 here, you shall know my opinion of the whole matter." 
 With that Mr Pike glanced at the clock, and I took 
 up my hat and went. 
 
 There is no place more delightful than a great 
 capital, if you are comfortably settled in it have 
 arranged the methodical disposal of your time, and 
 know how to take business and pleasure in due pro- 
 portions. But a flying visit to a great capital, in an 
 unsettled, unsatisfactory way at an inn an inn in 
 the City, too with a great worrying load of business 
 on your mind, of which you are to hear no more for 
 three days ; and an aching, jealous, miserable sorrow 
 at the heart, such as I had leaving you no labour to 
 pursue, and no pleasure that you have the heart to 
 share in oh, a great capital then is indeed forlorn, 
 wearisome, and oppressive ! It is the Castle of Indo- 
 lence, not as Thomson built it, but as Bcckford drew
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 231 
 
 in bis Hall of Eblis a wandering up and down, to 
 and fro a great awful space, with your hand pressed 
 to your heart; and oh for a rush on some half- 
 tamed horse, through the measureless green wastes of 
 Australia ! That is the place for a man who has no 
 home in the Babel, and whose hand is ever pressing 
 to his heart, with its dull, burning pain. 
 
 Mr Squills decoyed me the second evening into one 
 of the small theatres ; and very heartily did Mr Squills 
 enjoy all he saw, and all he heard. And while, with 
 a convulsive effort of the jaws, I was trying to laugh 
 too, suddenly in one of the actors, who was perform- , 
 ing the worshipful part of a parish beadle, I recognised > 
 a face that I had seen before. Five minutes after- \ 
 wards, I had disappeared from the side of Squills, and ( 
 was amidst that strange world BEHIND THE SCENES. 
 
 My. beadle was much too busy and important to 
 allow me a good opportunity to accost him, till the 
 piece was over. I then seized hold of him, as he was 
 amicably sharing a pot of porter with a gentleman in 
 black shorts and a laced waistcoat, who was to play 
 the part of a broken-hearted father in the Domestic 
 Drama in Three Acts, that would conclude the 
 amusements of the evening. 
 
 " Excuse me, 1 ' said I apologetically ; " but as the 
 Swan pertinently observes, ( Should auld acquaint- 
 ance be forgot ? ' '
 
 232 THE-CAXTONS: 
 
 " The Swan, sir!" cried the beadle aghast " the 
 Swan never demeaned himself by such d d broad 
 Scotch as that ! " 
 
 " The Tweed has its swans as well as the Avon, 
 Mr Peacock." 
 
 " St st hush hush h u sh ! " whispered the 
 beadle in great alarm, and eyeing me, with savage 
 observation, under his corked eyebrows. Then, 
 taking me by the arm, he jerked me away. When 
 he had got as far as the narrow limits of that little 
 stage would allow, Mr Peacock said 
 
 " Sir, you have the advantage of me ; I don't 
 remember you. Ah ! you need not look ! by gad, 
 sir, I am not to be bullied, it was all fair play. If 
 you will play with gentlemen, sir, you must run the 
 consequences." 
 
 I hastened to appease the worthy man. 
 
 " Indeed, Mr Peacock, if you remember, I refused 
 to play with you | and, so far from wishing to offend 
 you, I now come on purpose to compliment you on 
 your excellent acting, and to inquire if you have 
 heard anything lately of your young friend, Mr 
 Vivian." 
 
 " Vivian ? never heard the name, sir. Vivian ! 
 Pooh, you are trying to hoax me ; very good ! " 
 
 " I assure you, Mr Peac" 
 
 " St st How the deuce did you know that I was
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 233 
 
 once called Peac that is, people called me Peac A 
 friendly nickname, no more drop it, sir, or you 
 ' touch me with noble anger ! ' r 
 
 " Well, well ; ' the rose, by any name, will smell 
 as sweet,' as the Swan, this time at least, judiciously 
 observes. But Mr Vivian, too, seems to have other 
 names at his disposal. I mean a young, dark, hand- 
 some man or rather boy with whom I met you in 
 company by the roadside, one morning." 
 
 " O h !" said Mr Peacock, looking much relieved, 
 " I know whom you mean, though I don't remember 
 to have had the pleasure of seeing you before. No ; 
 I have not heard anything of the young man lately. 
 I wish I did know something of him. He was a 
 ' gentleman in my own way.' Sweet Will has hit 
 him off to a hair ! 
 
 ' The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword.' 
 Such a hand with a cue ! you should have seen him 
 seek 'the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth I 1 
 I may say," continued Mr Peacock, emphatically, 
 "that he was a regular trump trump ! " he reiterated 
 with a start, as if the word had stung him " trump ! 
 he was a BRICK ! " 
 
 Then fixing his eyes on me, dropping his arms, 
 interlacing his fingers, in the manner recorded of 
 Talma in the celebrated " Qu'en dis-tu ? " he resumed 
 in a hollow voice, slow and distinct
 
 234 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 " When saw you him, young m m a n 
 nnn?" 
 
 Finding the tables thus turned on myself, and not 
 willing to give Mr Peac any clue to poor Vivian, 
 (who thus appeared, to my great satisfaction, to have 
 finally dropped an acquaintance more versatile than 
 reputable,) I contrived, by a few evasive sentences, to 
 keep Mr Peac 's curiosity at a distance, till he was 
 summoned in haste to change his attire for the 
 domestic drama. And so we parted.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 I HATE law details as cordially as my readers can^ 
 and therefore I shall content myself with stating j 
 that Mr Pike's management, at the end, not of three \ 
 days, but of two weeks, was so admirable, that Uncle 
 Jack was drawn out of prison, and my father ex- 
 tracted from all his liabilities, by a sum twarlhirda less 
 than was first startlingly submitted to our indignant 
 horror and that, too, in a manner that would have 
 satisfied the conscience of the most punctilious forma- 
 list, whose contribution to the national fund, for an 
 omitted payment to the Income Tax, the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer ever had the honour to acknowledge. 
 Still the sum was very large in proportion to my poor 
 father's income; and what with Jack's debts, the 
 claims of the Anti-Publisher Society's printer in- 
 cluding the very expensive plates that had been so 
 lavishly bespoken, and in great part completed, for 
 the History of Human Error and, above all, the
 
 236 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 liabilities incurred on The Capitalist ; what with the 
 plant, as Mr Peck technically phrased a great upas- 
 tree of a total, branching out into types, cases, print- 
 ing-presses, engines, &c., all now to be resold at a 
 third of their value ; what with advertisements and 
 bills, that had covered all the dead walls by which 
 rubbish might be shot, throughout the three king- 
 doms ; what with the dues of reporters, and salaries 
 of writers, who had been engaged for a year at least 
 to The Capitalist, and whose claims survived the 
 wretch they had killed and buried ; what, in short, 
 with all that the combined ingenuity of Uncle Jack 
 and printer Peck could supply for the utter ruin of 
 the Caxton family even after all deductions, curtail- 
 ments, and after all that one could extract in the way 
 of just contribution from the least unsubstantial of 
 those shadows called the shareholders my father's 
 fortune was reduced to little more than 8000, which 
 being placed at mortgage, at 4 per cent, yielded just 
 372, 10s. a-year enough for my father to live upon, 
 but not enough to afford also his son Pisistratus the 
 advantages of education at Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge. The blow fell rather upon me than my 
 father, and my young shoulders bore it without much 
 wincing. 
 
 This settled, to our universal satisfaction, I went to 
 pay my farewell visit to Sir Sedley Beaudcscrt. lie
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 237 
 
 had made much of me, during my stay in London. I 
 had breakfasted and dined with him pretty often ; I 
 had presented Squills to him, who no sooner set eyes 
 upon that splendid conformation, than he described his 
 character with the nicest accuracy as the necessary 
 consequence of such a development for the rosy plea- 
 sures of life, and whose philosophy delighted and 
 consoled Sir Sedley. We had never once retouched 
 on the subject of Fanny's marriage, and both of us 
 tacitly avoided even mentioning the Trevauions. But 
 in this last visit, though he maintained the same 
 reserve as to Fanny, he referred without scruple to 
 her father. 
 
 " Well, my young Athenian," said he, after con- 
 gratulating me on the result of the negotiations, and 
 endeavouring again in vain to bear at least some 
 share in my father's losses " well, I see I cannot 
 press this farther; but at least I can press on you 
 any little interest I may have, in obtaining some 
 appointment for yourself in one of the public offices. 
 Trevanion could of course be more useful, but I can 
 understand that he is not the kind of man you would 
 like to apply to." 
 
 " Shall I own to you, my dear Sir Sedley, that I 
 have no taste for official employment ? I am too fond 
 of my liberty. Since I have been at my uncle's 
 old tower, I account for half my character by the
 
 238 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 Borderer's blood that is in me. I doubt if I am 
 meant for the life of cities, and I have odd floating 
 notions in my head, that will serve to amuse me when 
 I get home, and may settle into schemes. And now, 
 to change the subject, may I ask what kind of person 
 has succeeded me as Mr Trevanion's secretary ?" 
 
 " Why, he has got a broad-shouldered, stooping 
 fellow, in spectacles and cotton stockings, who has 
 written upon ' Rent, ' I believe an imaginative 
 treatise in his case, I fear, for rent is a thing he could 
 never have received, and not often been trusted to 
 pay. However, he is one of your political economists, 
 and wants Trevanion to sell his pictures, as ' unpro- 
 ductive capital.' Less mild than Pope's Narcissa, 
 1 to make a wash,' he would certainly ' stew a child.' 
 Besides this official secretary, Trevanion trusts, how- 
 ever, a good deal to a clever, good-looking young 
 gentleman, who is a great favourite with him. " 
 
 " What is his name?" 
 
 ^s 
 
 " His name ? oh, Gower^-a natural son, I believe, 
 of one of the Gower family." 
 
 Here two of Sir Sedley's fellow fine gentlemen 
 lounged in, and my visit ended.
 
 CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 " I SWEAR," cried my uncle, " that it shall be so." 
 And with a big frown, and a truculent air, he seized 
 the fatal instrument. 
 
 " Indeed, brother, it must not," said my father, 
 laying one pale, scholarlike hand mildly on Captain 
 Roland's brown, bellicose, and bony fist; and with 
 the other, outstretched, protecting the menaced, pal- 
 pitating victim. 
 
 Not a word had my uncle heard of our losses, until 
 they had been adjusted, and the sum paid ; for we all 
 knew that the old tower would have been gone sold 
 to some neighbouring squire or jobbing attorney , 
 at the first impetuous impulse of Uncle Roland's 
 affectionate generosity. Austin endangered ! Austin 
 ruined ! he would never have rested till he came, 
 cash in hand, to his deliverance. Therefore, I say, 
 not till all was settled did I write to the Captain, and 
 tell him gaily what had chanced. And, however
 
 240 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 light I made of our misfortunes, the letter brought 
 the Captain to the red brick house the same evening 
 on which I myself reached it, and about an hour later. 
 My uncle had not sold the tower, but he came pre- 
 pared to carry us off to it vi et armis. We must live 
 with him, and on him let or sell the brick house, and 
 put out the remnant of my father's income to nurse 
 and accumulate. And it was on finding my father's 
 resistance stubborn, and that hitherto he had made 
 no way, that my uncle, stepping back into the hall, in 
 which he had left his carpet-bag, &c., returned with 
 an old oak case, and, touching a spring roller, out 
 flew the Caxton pedigree. 
 
 Out it flew covering all the table, and undulating, 
 Nile-like, till it had spread over books, papers, my 
 mother's work-box, and the tea-service, (for the 
 table was large and compendious, emblematic of its 
 owner's mind) and then, flowing on the carpet, 
 dragged its slow length along, till it was stopped by 
 the fender. 
 
 " Now," said my uncle solemnly, " there never 
 have been but two causes of difference between you 
 and me, Austin. One is over ; why should the other 
 last ? Aha ! I know why you hang back ; you think 
 that we may quarrel about it !" 
 
 "About what, Roland?" 
 
 " About it, I say and I'll be d d if we do ! "
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 241 
 
 cried my uncle, reddening. " And I have been 
 thinking a great deal upon the matter, and I have no 
 doubt you are right. So I brought the old parchment 
 with me, and you shall see me fill up the blank, just 
 as you would have it. Now, then, you will come 
 and live with me, and we can never quarrel any 
 more. 1 ' 
 
 Thus saying, Uncle Roland looked round for pen 
 and ink ; and, having found them not without 
 difficulty, for they had been submerged under the 
 overflow of the pedigree he was about to fill up 
 the lacuna, or hiatus, which had given rise to such 
 memorable controversy, with the name of " William 
 Caxton, printer in the Sanctuary," when my father, 
 slowly recovering his breath, and aware of his brother's 
 purpose, intervened. It would have done your heart 
 good to hear them so completely, in the inconsis- 
 tency of human nature, had they changed sides upon 
 the question my father now all for Sir William de 
 Caxton, the hero of Bosworth ; my uncle all for the 
 immortal printer. And in this discussion they grew 
 animated : their eyes sparkled, their voices rose 
 Roland's voice deep and thunderous, Austin's sharp 
 and piercing. Mr Squills stopped his ears. Thus it 
 arrived at that point, when my uncle doggedly came 
 to the end of all argumentation " I swear that it 
 shall be so ;" and my father, trying the last resource 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 242 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 of pathos, looked pleadingly into Roland's eyes, and 
 said, with a tone soft as mercy, " Indeed, brother, it 
 must not." Meanwhile the dry parchment crisped, 
 creaked, and trembled in every pore of its yellow 
 skin. 
 
 " But," said I, coming in, opportunely, like the 
 Horatian deity, " I don't see that either of you gen- 
 tlemen has a right so to dispose of my ancestry. It 
 is quiet clear that a man has no possession in posterity. 
 Posterity may possess him ; but deuce a bit will he 
 ever be the better for his great great-grandchildren ! " 
 
 SQUILLS. Hear, hear ! 
 
 PlSiSTRATUS (warming.} But a man's ancestry 
 is a positive property to him. How much, not only 
 of acres, but of his constitution, his temper, his conduct, 
 character, and nature, he may inherit from some 
 progenitor ten times removed ! Nay, without that 
 progenitor would he ever have been born would a 
 Squills ever have introduced him into the world, or a 
 nurse ever have carried him upo Jcolpo f 
 
 SQUILLS. Hear, hear ! 
 
 PISISTRATUS (with dignified emotion.} No man, 
 therefore, has a right to rob another of a forefather, 
 with a stroke of his pen, from any motives, howsoever 
 amiable. In the present instance, you will say, per- 
 haps, that the ancestor in question is apocryphal it 
 may be the printer, it may be the knight. Granted ;
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 243 
 
 but here, where history is in fault, shall a mere 
 sentiment decide ? While both are doubtful, my 
 imagination appropriates both. At one time I can 
 reverence industry and learning in the printer ; at 
 another, valour and devotion in the knight. This 
 kindly doubt gives me two great forefathers ; and, 
 through them, two trains of idea that influence my 
 conduct under different circumstances. I will not 
 permit you, Captain Roland, to rob me of either fore- 
 father either train of idea. Leave, then, this sacred 
 void unfilled, unprofaned ; and accept this compromise 
 of chivalrous courtesy while my father lives with the 
 Captain, we will believe in the printer ; when away 
 from the Captain, we will stand firm to the knight." 
 
 " Good ! " cried Uncle Roland, as I paused, a little 
 out of breath. 
 
 " And," said my mother softly, " I do think, Austin, 
 there is a way of settling the matter which will please 
 all parties. It is quite sad to think that poor Roland, /^ 
 and dear little Blanche, should be all alone in the 
 tower ; and I am sure that we should be much hap- 
 pier altogether." 
 
 " There ! " cried Roland, triumphantly. " If you are 
 not the most obstinate, hardhearted, unfeeling brute 
 in the world which I don't take you to be brother 
 Austin, after that really beautiful speech of your 
 wife's, there is not a word to be said farther."
 
 
 244 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 " But we have not yet heard Kitty to the end, 
 Koland." 
 
 " I beg your pardon a thousand times, ma'am 
 sister," said the Captain, bowing. 
 
 " Well, I was going to add," said my mother, 
 " that we will go and live with you, Roland, and club 
 our little fortunes together. Blanche and I will take 
 care of the house, and we shall be just twice as rich 
 together as we are separately." 
 
 "Pretty sort of hospitality that!" grunted the 
 Captain. " I did not expect you to throw me over in 
 that way. No, no ; you must lay by for the boy there, 
 what's to become of him?" 
 
 " But we shall all lay by for him," said my mother 
 simply ; " you as well as Austin. We shall have 
 more to save, if we have both more to spend." 
 
 " Ah, save ! that is easily said : there would be 
 a pleasure in saving, then !" said the Captain 
 mournfully. 
 
 " And what's to become of me ?"" cried Squills, 
 very petulantly. " Am I to be left here, in my old 
 age not a rational soul to speak to, and no other 
 place in the village where there's a drop of decent 
 punch to be had ! ' A plague on both your houses ! ' 
 as the chap said at the theatre the other night." 
 
 " There's room for a doctor in our neighbourhood, 
 Mr Squills," said the Captain. " The gentleman in
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 245 
 
 your profession who does for us, wants, I know, to sell 
 the business." 
 
 "Humph," said Squills "a horribly healthy 
 neighbourhood, I suspect ! " 
 
 " Why, it has that misfortune, Mr Squills ; but 
 with your help," said my uncle slily, " a great 
 alteration for the better may be effected in that 
 respect." 
 
 Mr Squills was about to reply, when ring a-ting 
 ring ting ! there came such a brisk, impatient, 
 make-one's-self-at-home kind of tintinnabular alarum 
 at the great gate, that we all started up and looked at 
 each other in surprise. Who could it possibly be? 
 We were not kept long in- suspense ; for in another 
 moment, Uncle Jack's voice, which was always very 
 clear and distinct, pealed through the hall ; and we 
 were still staring at each other when Mr Tibbets, with 
 a bran-new muffler round his neck, and a peculiarly 
 comfortable great-coat best double Saxony, equally 
 new dashed into the room, bringing with him a very 
 considerable quantity of cold air, which he hastened 
 to thaw, first in my father's arms, next in my mother's. 
 He then made a rush at the Captain, who ensconced 
 himself behind the dumb waiter with a " Hem ! Mr 
 sir Jack sir hem, hem ! " Failing there, Mr 
 Tibbets rubbed off the remaining frost upon his double 
 Saxony against your humble servant ; patted Squills
 
 246 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 affectionately on the back, and then proceeded to 
 occupy his favourite position before the fire. 
 
 "Took you by surprise, eh?" said Uncle Jack, 
 unpealing himself by the hearth-rug. " But no not 
 by surprise ; you must have known Jack's heart : 
 you at least, Austin Caxton, who know everything 
 you must have seen that it overflowed with the 
 tenderest and most brotherly emotions ; that once 
 delivered from that cursed Fleet, (you have no idea 
 what a place it is, sir,) I could not rest, night or ilav, 
 till I had flown here here, to the dear family nest 
 poor wounded dove that I am ! " added Uncle Jack 
 pathetically, and taking out his pocket-handkerchief 
 from the double Saxony, which he had now flung over 
 my father's arm-chair. 
 
 Not a word replied to this eloquent address, with its 
 touching peroration. My mother hung down her pretty 
 head, and looked ashamed. My uncle retreated quite 
 into the corner, and drew the dumb waiter after him, 
 so as to establish a complete fortification. Mr Squills 
 seized the pen that Roland had thrown down, and 
 began mending it furiously that is, cutting it into 
 slivers thereby denoting, symbolically, how he would 
 like to do with Uncle Jack, could he once get him safe 
 and snug under his manipular operations. I bent 
 over the pedigree, and my father rubbed his spec- 
 tacles.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 247 
 
 The silence would have been appalling to another 
 man : nothing appalled Uncle Jack. 
 
 Uncle Jack turned to the fire, and wanned first 
 one foot, then the other. This comfortable ceremony 
 performed, he again faced the company and resumed 
 musingly, and as if answering some imaginary obser- 
 vations 
 
 " Yes, yes you are right there and a deuced un- 
 lucky speculation it proved too. But I was overruled 
 by that fellow Peck. Says I to him says I ' Capi- 
 talist! pshaw no popular interest there it don't 
 address the great public! Very confined class the 
 capitalists ; better throw ourselves boldly on the 
 people. Yes,' said I, 'call it the awfo-Capitalist.' 
 By Jove ! sir, we should have carried all before us ! 
 but I was overruled. The Anti- Capitalist ! what 
 an idea! Address the whole reading world there, sir: 
 everybody hates the capitalist everybody would have 
 his neighbour's money. The Anti- Capitalist! sir, 
 we should have gone off, in the manufacturing towns, 
 like wildfire. But what could I do?" 
 
 u John Tibbets," said my father solemnly, " capi- 
 talist or anti-capitalist, thou hadst a right to follow / X^ 
 thine own bent in either but always provided it had 
 been with thine own money. Thou seest not the 
 thing, John Tibbets, in the right point of view ; and 
 a little repentance in the face of those thou hast
 
 248 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 wronged, would not have misbecome thy father's son, 
 and thy sister's brother ! " 
 
 Never had so severe a rebuke issued from the mild 
 lips of Austin Caxton ; and I raised my eyes with a 
 compassionate thrill, expecting to see John Tibbets 
 gradually sink and disappear through the carpet. 
 
 ^UBfipentance ! " cried Uncle Jack, bounding up, 
 as if he had been shot. " And do you think I have 
 a heart of stone, of pummy-stone ! do you think I 
 don't repent? I have done nothing but repent I 
 shall repent to my dying day." 
 
 " Then there is no more to be said, Jack," cried 
 my father, softening, and holding out his hand. 
 
 " Yes ! " cried Mr Tibbets seizing the hand, and 
 pressing it to the heart he had thus defended from 
 the suspicion of being pummy " yes, that I should 
 have trusted that dunderheaded, rascally curmud- 
 geon Peck: that I should have let him call it TJie 
 Capitalist, despite all my convictions, when the 
 Anti " 
 
 " Pshaw ! " interrupted my father, drawing away 
 his hand. 
 
 " John," said my mother gravely, and with tears 
 in her voice, " you forget who delivered you from 
 prison, you forget whom you have nearly consigned 
 to prison yourself, you forg " 
 
 "Hush, hush!" said my father, "this will never
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 249 
 
 do ; and it is you who forget, my dear, the obligations 
 I owe to Jack. He has reduced iny fortune one 
 half, it is true ; but I verily think he has made the 
 three hearts, in which lie my real treasures, twice as 
 large as they were before. Pisistratus, my boy, ring 
 the bell." 
 
 " My dear Kitty," cried Jack, whimperingly, and 
 stealing up to my mother, " don't be so hard on me ; 
 I thought to make all your fortunes I did, indeed." 
 
 Here the servant entered. 
 
 " See that Mr Tibbets' things are taken up to his 
 room, and that there is a good fire," said my father. 
 
 " And," continued Jack, loftily, " I will make all 
 your fortunes yet. I have it here ! " and he struck 
 his head. 
 
 " Stay a moment ! " said my father to the servant, 
 who had got back to the door. " Stay a moment," 
 said my father, looking extremely frightened ; " per- 
 haps Mr Tibbets may prefer the inn ! " 
 
 " Austin," said Uncle Jack with emotion, " if I 
 were a dog, with no home but a dog-kennel, and you 
 came to me for shelter, I would turn out to give you 
 the best of the straw ! " 
 
 My father was thoroughly melted this time. 
 
 " Priinmins will be sure to see everything is made 
 comfortable for Mr Tibbets," said he, waving his 
 hand to the servant. " Something nice for supper,
 
 250 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 Kitty, my dear and the largest punch-bowl. You 
 like punch, Jack?" 
 
 " Punch, Austin ! " said Uncle Jack, putting his 
 handkerchief to his eyes. 
 
 The Captain pushed aside the dumb waiter, strode 
 across the room, and shook hands with Uncle Jack ; 
 my mother buried her face in her apron, and fairly 
 ran off; and Squills said in my ear, " It all comes of 
 the biliary secretions. Nobody could account for 
 this, who did not know the peculiarly fine organisa- 
 tion of your father's liver ! "
 
 PAKT TWELFTH.
 
 PART TWELFTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE Hegira is completed we have all taken roost 
 in the old tower. My father's books have arrived by 
 the waggon, and have settled themselves quietly in 
 their new abode filling up the apartment dedicated 
 to their owner, including the bed-chamber and two 
 lobbies. The duck also has arrived, under wing of 
 Mrs Primmins, and has reconciled herself to the old 
 stewpond ; by the side of which my father has found 
 a walk that compensates for the peach wall espe- 
 cially as he has made acquaintance with sundry re- 
 spectable carps, who permit him to feed them after he 
 has fed the duck a privilege of which (since, if any 
 one else approaches, the carps are off in an instant) 
 my father is naturally vain. All privileges are
 
 254 THE CAXTON8 : 
 
 valuable in proportion to the exclusiveness of their 
 enjoyment. 
 
 Now, from the moment the first carp had eaten the 
 bread my father threw to it, Mr Caxton had mentally 
 resolved, that a race so confiding should never be 
 sacrificed to Ceres and Primmins. But all the fishes 
 on my uncle's property were under the special care 
 of that Proteus Bolt and Bolt was not a man likely 
 to suffer the carps to earn their bread without con- 
 tributing their full share to the wants of the commu- 
 nity. But, like master, like man! Bolt was an 
 aristocrat fit to be hung ct la lanteme. He out- 
 Rolanded Roland in the respect he entertained for 
 sounding names and old families; and by that bait 
 my father caught him with such skill, that you might 
 see that, if Austin Caxton had been an angler of 
 fishes, he could have filled his basket full any day, 
 shine or rain. 
 
 " You observe, Bolt," said my father, beginning 
 artfully, "that those fishes, dull as you may think 
 them, are creatures capable of a syllogism; and if 
 they saw that, in proportion to their civility to me, 
 they were depopulated by you, they would put two 
 and two together, and renounce my acquaintance." 
 
 " Is that what you call being silly Jems, sir?" said 
 Bolt ; " faith there is many a good Christian not 
 half so wise ! "
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 255 
 
 " Man," answered my father thoughtfully, " is an 
 animal less syllogistical, or more silly-Jemmical, than 
 many creatures popularly esteemed his inferiors. 
 Yes, let but one of those Cyprinidae, with his fine 
 sense of logic, see that, if his fellow-fishes eat bread, 
 they are suddenly jerked out of their element, and 
 vanish for ever; and though you broke a quar- 
 tern loaf into crumbs, he would snap his tail at you 
 with enlightened contempt. If," said my father, 
 soliloquising, " I had been as syllogistic as those scaly 
 logicians, I should never have swallowed that hook, 
 which hum ! there least said soonest mended. But, 
 Mr Bolt, to return to the Cyprinidae." 
 
 " What's the hard name you call them 'ere carp, 
 your honour?" asked Bolt. 
 
 " Cyprinidae, a family of the section Malacoptergii 
 Abdominales," replied Mr Caxton;' "their teeth are 
 generally confined to the Pharyngeans, and their 
 branchiostegous rays are but few marks of distinc- 
 tion from fishes vulgar and voracious." 
 
 " Sir," said Bolt, glancing to the stewpond, " if I 
 had known they had been a family of such importance, 
 I am sure I should have treated them with more 
 respect." 
 
 " They are a very old family, Bolt, and have been 
 settled in England since the fourteenth century. A 
 younger branch of the family has established itself in
 
 256 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 a pond in the gardens of Peterhoff, (the celebrated 
 palace of Peter the Great, Bolt an emperor highly 
 respected by my brother, for he killed a great many 
 people very gloriously in battle, beside those whom 
 he sabred for his own private amusement.) And 
 there is an officer or servant of the imperial house- 
 hold, whose task it is to summon those Russian 
 Cyprinidae to dinner, by ringing a bell, shortly after 
 which, you may see the emperor and empress, with 
 all their waiting ladies and gentlemen, coming down 
 in their carriages to see the Cyprinidse eat in state. 
 So you perceive, Bolt, that it would be a republican, 
 Jacobinical proceeding to stew members of a family 
 so intimately associated with royalty." 
 
 " Dear me, sir ! " said Bolt, " I am very glad you 
 told me. I ought to have known they were genteel 
 fish, they are so mighty shy as all your real quality 
 are." 
 
 My father smiled, and rubbed his hands gently ; he 
 had carried his point, and henceforth the Cyprinidse 
 of the section Malacoptergii Abdorninales were as 
 sacred in Bolt's eyes as cats and ichneumons were in 
 those of a priest in Thebes. 
 
 My poor father ! with what true and unostentatious 
 philosophy thou didst accommodate thyself to the 
 greatest change thy quiet, harmless life had known, 
 since it had passed out of the brief burning cycle of the
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 257 
 
 passions. Lost was the home, endeared to thee by so 
 many noiseless victories of the mind so many mute 
 histories of the heart for only the scholar knoweth 
 how deep a charm lies in monotony, in the old associa- 
 tions, the old ways, and habitual clockwork of peaceful 
 time. Yet, the home may be replaced thy heart 
 built its home round it everywhere and the old tower 
 might supply the loss of the brick house, and the walk 
 by the duck -pond become as dear as the haunts by the 
 sunny peach wall. But what shall replace to thee the 
 bright dream of thine innocent ambition, that angel- 
 wing which had glittered across thy manhood, in the 
 hour between its noon and its setting ? What replace 
 to thee the Magnum Opus the Great Book ? fair 
 and broadspreading tree lone amidst the sameness 
 of the landscape now plucked up by the roots ! The 
 oxygen was subtracted from the air of thy life. For 
 be it known to you, my compassionate readers, that 
 with the death of the Anti-Publisher Society the blood- 
 streams of the Great Book stood still its pulse was 
 arrested its full heart beat no more. Three thousand 
 copies of the first seven sheets in quarto, with sundry 
 unfinished plates, anatomical, architectural, and gra- 
 phic, depicting various developments of the human 
 skull, (that temple of Human Error,) from the Hot- 
 tentot to the Greek; sketches of ancient buildings, 
 Cyclopean and Pelasgic; Pyramids, and Pur-tors, 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 258 THE CAXTONS t 
 
 all signs of races whose handwriting was on their 
 walls ; landscapes to display the influence of Nature 
 upon the customs, creeds, and philosophy of men 
 here showing how the broad Chaldean wastes led to 
 the contemplation of the stars ; and illustrations of the 
 Zodiac, in elucidation of the mysteries of symbol- 
 worship ; fantastic vagaries of earth fresh from the 
 Deluge, tending to impress on early superstition the 
 awful sense of the rude powers of nature ; views of the 
 rocky defiles of Laconia ; Sparta, neighboured by the 
 " silent Amyclse," explaining, as it were, geographi- 
 cally, the iron customs of the warrior colony, (arch 
 Tories, amidst the shift and roar of Hellenic democra- 
 cies,) contrasted by the seas, anil coasts, and creeks of 
 Athens and Ionia, tempting to adventure, commerce, 
 and change. Yea, my father, in his suggestions to 
 the artist of those few imperfect plates, had thrown as 
 much light on the infancy of earth and its tribes 
 as by the " shining words 1 ' that flowed from his calm 
 starry knowledge ! Plates and copies, all rested now 
 in peace and dust " housed with darkness and with 
 death," on the sepulchral shelves of the lobby to which 
 they were consigned rays intercepted worlds in- 
 completed. The Prometheus was bound, and the fire 
 he had stolen from heaven lay imbedded in the flints 
 of his rock. For so costly was the mould in which 
 Uncle Jack and the Anti-Publisher Society had con-
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 259 
 
 trived to cast this Exposition of Human Error, that 
 every bookseller shyed at its very sight, as an owl 
 blinks at daylight, or human error at truth. In vain 
 Squills and I, before we left London, had carried a 
 gigantic specimen of the Magnum Opus into the back A 
 parlours of firms the most opulent and adventurous. 
 Publisher after publisher started, as if we had held a > 
 blunderbuss to his ear. All Paternoster Row uttered \ 
 a " Lord deliver us!" Human Error found no man 
 so egregiously its victim as to complete those two 
 quartos, with the prospect of two others, at his own 
 expense. Now, I had earnestly hoped that my father, 
 for the sake of mankind, would be persuaded to risk 
 some portion, and that, I own, not a small one of / 
 his remaining capital on the conclusion of an under- 
 taking so elaborately begun. But there my father was 
 obdurate. No big words about mankind, and the ad- 
 vantage to unborn generations, could stir him an inch. 
 " Stuff! " said Air Caxton peevishly. " A man's duties 
 to mankind and posterity begin with his own son ; and 
 having wasted half your patrimony, I will not take 
 another huge slice out of the poor remainder to gratify 
 my vanity, for that is the plain truth of it. Man must 
 atone for sin by expiation. By the book I have /" 
 sinned, and the book must expiate it. Pile the sheets 
 up in the lobby, so that at least one man may be 
 wiser and humbler by the sight of Human Error,
 
 260 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 every time he walks by so stupendous a monument 
 of it." 
 
 Verily, I know not how my father could bear to 
 look at those dumb fragments of himself strata of the 
 Caxtonian conformation lying layer upon layer, as if 
 packed up and disposed for the inquisitive genius of 
 some moral Murchison or Mantell. But, for my part, 
 I never glanced at their repose in the dark lobby, 
 without thinking, " Courage, Pisistratus ! courage ! 
 there's something worth living for ; work hard, grow 
 rich, and the Great Book shall come out at last." 
 
 Meanwhile, I wandered over the country, and made 
 acquaintance with the farmers, and with Trevanion's 
 steward an able man, and a great agriculturist and 
 I learned from them a better notion of the nature of 
 my uncle's domains. Those domains covered an 
 immense acreage, which, save a small farm, was of no 
 value at present. But land of the same sort had been 
 lately redeemed by a simple kind of draining, now 
 well known in Cumberland; and, with capital, Roland's 
 barren moors might become a noble property. But 
 capital, where was that to come from ? Nature gives 
 us all except the means to turn her into marketable 
 account. As old Plautus saith so wittily, " Day, night, 
 water, sun, and moon, are to be had gratis ; for every- 
 thing else down with your dust ! "
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 NOTHING has been heard of Uncle Jack. Before we 
 left the brick house, the Captain gave him an invita- 
 tion to the tower more, I suspect, out of compliment 
 to my mother than from the unbidden impulse of his 
 own inclinations. But Mr Tibbets politely declined 
 it. During his stay at the brick house, he had received 
 and written a vast number of letters some of those 
 he received, indeed, were left at the village post-office, 
 under the alphabetical addresses of A B or X Y. 
 For no misfortune ever paralysed the energies of 
 Uncle Jack. In the winter of adversity he vanished, 
 it is true, but even in vanishing he vegetated still. 
 He resembled those algce, termed the Prolococcus 
 nivales, which give a rose-colour to the Polar snows 
 that conceal them, and flourish unsuspected amidst 
 the general dissolution of Nature. Uncle Jack, then, 
 was as lively and sanguine as ever though he began 
 to let fall vague hints of intentions to abandon the
 
 262 THE CAXTONS: 
 
 general cause of his fellow creatures, and to set up 
 business henceforth purely on his own account ; where- 
 with my father to the great shock of ray belief in his 
 philanthropy expressed himself much pleased. And 
 I strongly suspect that, when Uncle Jack wrapped 
 himself up in his new double Saxony, and went off at 
 last, he carried with him something more than my 
 father's good wishes in aid of his conversion to egotis- 
 tical philosophy. 
 
 " That man will do yet," said my father, as the 
 last glimpse was caught of Uncle Jack standing up on 
 the stage-coach box, beside the driver partly to wave 
 his hand to us as we stood at the gate, and partly to 
 array himself more commodiously in a box coat, with 
 six capes, which the coachman had lent him. 
 
 " Do you think so, sir ! " said I, doubtfully. " May 
 I ask why?" 
 
 MR CAXTON. On the cat principle that he tum- 
 bles so lightly. You may throw him down from St 
 Paul's, and the next time you see him he will be 
 scrambling a-top of the Monument. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. But a cat the most viparious is 
 limited to nine lives and Uncle Jack must be now 
 far gone in his eighth. 
 
 MR CAXTON (not heeding that answer, for he has 
 got his hand in his waistcoat.) The earth, according 
 to Apuleius, in his Treatise on the Philosophy of Plato,
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 263 
 
 was produced from right-angled triangles; but fire 
 and air from the scalene triangle the angles of which, 
 I need not say, are very different from those of a 
 right-angled triangle. Now I think there are people 
 in the world of whom one can only judge rightly ac- 
 cording to those mathematical principles applied to 
 their original construction ; for, if air or fire predomi- 
 nates in our natures, we are scalene triangles ; if 
 earth, right-angled. Now, as air is so notably mani- 
 fested in Jack's conformation, he is, nolens volens, 
 produced in conformity with his preponderating ele- 
 ment. He is a scalene triangle, and must be judged, 
 accordingly, upon irregular, lop-sided principles ; 
 whereas you and I, commonplace mortals, are pro- 
 duced, like the earth, which is our preponderating 
 element, with our triangles all right-angled, comfort- 
 able, and complete for which blessing let us thank 
 Providence, and be charitable to those who are neces- 
 sarily windy and gaseous, from that unlucky scalene 
 triangle upon which they have had the misfortune to 
 be constructed, and which, you perceive, is quite at va- 
 riance with the mathematical constitution of the earth ! 
 PISISTRATUS. Sir, I am very happy to hear so 
 simple, easy, and intelligible an explanation of Uncle 
 Jack's peculiarities; and I only hope that, for the 
 future, the sides of his scalene triangle may never be 
 produced to our rectangular conformations.
 
 264 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 MR CAXTON (descending from his stilts, with an 
 air as mildly reproachful as if I had been cavilling at 
 the virtues of Socrates.} You don't do your uncle 
 justice, Pisistratus : he is a very clever man ; and I 
 am sure that, in spite of his scalene misfortune, be 
 would be an honest one that is, (added Mr Caxton, 
 correcting himself,) not romantically or heroically 
 honest but honest as men go if he could but keep 
 his head long enough above water : but, you see, 
 when the best man in the world is engaged in the 
 process of sinking, he catches hold of whatever comes 
 in his way, and drowns the very friend who is swim- 
 ming to save him. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Perfectly true, sir ; but Uncle Jack 
 makes it his business to be always sinking ! 
 
 MR CAXTON (with ndivetf.} And how could it 
 be otherwise, when he has been carrying all his fellow 
 creatures in his breeches' pockets ! Now he has got 
 rid of that deadweight, I should not be surprised if 
 he swam like a cork. 
 
 PISISTRATUS (who, since the Anti- Capitalist, has 
 become a strong Anti-Jackian.} But if, sir, you really 
 think Uncle Jack's love for his fellow creatures is 
 genuine, that is surely not the worst part of him ! 
 
 MR CAXTON. O literal ratiocinator, and dull to 
 the true logic of Attic irony ! can't you comprehend 
 that an affection may be genuine as felt by the man,
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 265 
 
 yet its nature be spurious in relation to others ? A 
 man may genuinely believe he loves his fellow crea- 
 tures, when he roasts them like Torquemada, or guil- 
 lotines them like St Just ! Happily Jack's scalene 
 triangle, being more produced from air than from 
 fire, does not give to his philanthropy the inflamma- 
 tory character which distinguishes the benevolence of 
 inquisitors and revolutionists. The philanthropy, 
 therefore, takes a more flatulent and innocent form, 
 and expends its strength in mounting paper balloons, 
 out of which Jack pitches himself, with all the fellow 
 creatures he can coax into sailing with him. No 
 doubt Uncle Jack's philanthropy is sincere, when he 
 cuts the string and soars up out of sight; but the 
 sincerity will not much mend their bruises when him- 
 self and fellow creatures come tumbling down, neck 
 and heels. It must be a very wide heart that can 
 take in all mankind and of a very strong fibre, to 
 bear so much stretching. Such hearts there are, 
 Heaven be thanked ! and all praise to them ! Jack's 
 is not of that quality. He is a scalene triangle. He 
 is not a circle ! And yet, if he would but let it rest, 
 it is a good heart a very good heart," continued my 
 father, warming into a tenderness quite infantine, all 
 things considered. " Poor Jack ! that was prettily 
 said of him ' That if he were a dog, and he had 
 no home but a dog-kennel, he would turn out to
 
 266 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 give me the best of the straw!' Poor brother 
 Jack!" 
 
 So the discussion was dropped ; and, in the mean- 
 while, Uncle Jack, like the short-faced gentleman 
 in the SPECTATOR, " distinguished himself by a pro- 
 found silence."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 BLANCHE has contrived to associate herself, if not 
 with my more active diversions in running over the 
 country, and making friends with the farmers still 
 in all my more leisurely and domestic pursuits. There 
 is about her a silent charm that it is very hard to 
 define but it seems to arise from a kind of innate 
 sympathy with the moods and humours of those she 
 loves. If one is gay, there is a cheerful ring in her 
 silver laugh that seems gladness itself; if one is sad, 
 and creeps away into a corner to bury one's head in 
 one's hands, and muse by-and-by and just at the 
 right moment when one has mused one's fill, and 
 the heart wants something to refresh and restore it, 
 one feels two innocent arms round one's neck looks 
 up and lo ! Blanche's soft eyes, full of wistful com- 
 passionate kindness ; though she has the tact not to 
 question it is enough for her to sorrow with your 
 sorrow she cares not to know more. A strange
 
 268 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 child ! fearless, and yet seemingly fond of things that 
 inspire children with fear fond of tales of fay, sprite, 
 and ghost which Mrs Primmins draws fresh and 
 new from her memory, as a conjuror draws pancakes 
 hot and hot from a hat. And yet so sure is Blanche 
 of her own innocence, that they never trouble her 
 dreams in her lone little room, full of caliginous cor- 
 ners and nooks, with the winds moaning round the 
 desolate ruins, and the casements rattling hoarse in 
 the dungeon-like wall. She would have no dread to 
 walk through the ghostly keep in the dark, or cross 
 the churchyard, what time, 
 
 " By the moon's doubtful and malignant light," 
 
 the grave-stones look so spectral, and the shade from 
 the yew-trees lies so still on the sward. When the 
 brows of Roland are gloomiest, and the compression 
 of his lips makes sorrow look sternest, be sure that 
 Blanche is couched at his feet, waiting the moment 
 when, with some heavy sigh, the muscles relax, and 
 she is sure of the smile if she climbs to his knee. 
 It is pretty to chance on her gliding up broken turret 
 stairs, or standing hushed in the recess of shattered 
 windowless casements, and you wonder what thoughts 
 of vague awe and solemn pleasure can be at work 
 under that still little brow. 
 
 She has a quick comprehension of all that is taught
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 269 
 
 to her; she already tasks to the full my mother's 
 educational arts. My father has had to rummage his 
 library for books, to feed (or extinguish) her desire 
 for " farther information ;" and has promised lessons 
 in French and Italian at some golden time in the 
 shadowy " By-and-By, " which are received so 
 gratefully that one might think Blanche mistook Tele- 
 maque and Novelle Morali for baby-houses and dolls. 
 Heaven send her through French and Italian with 
 better success than attended Mr Caxton's lessons in 
 Greek to Pisistratus ! She has an ear for music, 
 which my mother, who is no bad judge, declares to 
 be exquisite. Luckily there is an old Italian settled 
 in a town ten miles off, who is said to be an excellent 
 music-master, and who conies the round of the neigh- 
 bouring squirearchy twice a-week. I have taught 
 her to draw an accomplishment in which I am not 
 without skill and she has already taken a sketch 
 from nature, which, barring the perspective, is not so 
 amiss ; indeed, she has caught the notion of " ideal- 
 ising' 1 (which promises future originality) from her 
 own natural instincts, and given to the old witch-elm, 
 that hangs over the stream, just the bough that it 
 wanted to dip into the water, and soften off the hard 
 lines. My only fear is, that Blanche should become 
 too dreamy and thoughtful. Poor child, she has no 
 one to play with ! So I look out, and get her a dog
 
 270 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 frisky and young, who abhors sedentary occupa- 
 tions a spaniel, small and coal-black, with ears sweep- 
 ing the ground. I baptise him " Juba," in honour of 
 Addison's Cato, and in consideration of his sable curls 
 and Mauritanian complexion. Blanche does not seem 
 so eerie and elf-like, while gliding through the ruins, 
 when Juba barks by her side, and scares the birds 
 from the ivy. 
 
 One day I had been pacing to and fro the hall, 
 which was deserted ; and the sight of the armour and 
 portraits dumb evidences of the active and adven- 
 turous lives of the old inhabitants, which seemed to 
 reprove my own inactive obscurity had set me off 
 on one of those Pegase"an hobbies on which youth 
 mounts to the skies delivering maidens on rocks, 
 and killing Gorgons and monsters when Juba 
 bounded in, and Blanche came after him, her straw 
 hat in her hand. 
 
 BLANCHE. I thought you were here, Sisty : may 
 I stay? 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Why, my dear child, the day is so 
 fine, that instead of losing it in-doors, you ought to be 
 running in the fields with Juba. 
 
 JUBA. Bow wow. 
 
 BLANCHE. Will you come too ? If Sisty stays in, 
 Blanche does not care for the butterflies 1 
 
 Pisistratus, seeing that the thread of hia day-dreams
 
 A FAMILY PICTUEE. 271 
 
 is broken, consents with an air of resignation. Just 
 as they gain the door, Blanche pauses, and looks as 
 if there were something on her mind. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. What now, Blanche? Why are 
 you making knots in that ribbon, and writing invi- 
 sible characters on the floor with the point of that 
 busy little foot ? 
 
 BLANCHE (mysteriously.} I have found a new 
 room, Sisty. Do you think we may look into 
 it? 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Certainly, unless any Bluebeard of 
 your acquaintance told you not. Where is it ? 
 
 BLANCHE. Up stairs to the left. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. That little old door, going down 
 two stone steps, which is always kept locked ? 
 
 BLANCHE. Yes! it is not locked to-day. The 
 door was ajar, and I peeped in ; but I would not do 
 more till I came and asked you if you thought it 
 would not be wrong. 
 
 PISISTRATUS. Very good in you, my discreet 
 little cousin. I have no doubt it is a ghost-trap ; 
 however, with Juba's protection, I think we might 
 venture together. 
 
 Pisistratus, Blanche, and Juba ascend the stairs, 
 and turn off down a dark passage to the left, away 
 from the rooms in use. We reach the arch-pointed 
 door of oak planks nailed roughly together we push
 
 272 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 it open, and perceive that a small stair winds down 
 from the room : it id just over Roland's chamber. 
 
 The room has a damp smell, and has probably been 
 left open to be aired, for the wind comes through the 
 unbarred casement, and a billet burns on the hearth. 
 The place has that attractive, fascinating air which 
 belongs to a lumber room, than which I know nothing 
 that so captivates the interest and fancy of young 
 people. What treasures, to them, often lie hid in 
 those quaint odds and ends which the elder genera- 
 tions have discarded as rubbish ! All children are by 
 nature antiquarians and relic-hunters. Still there is 
 an order and precision with which the articles in that 
 room are stowed away that belies the true notion of 
 lumber none of the mildew and dust which give 
 such mournful interest to things abandoned to 
 decay. 
 
 In one corner are piled up cases, and military- 
 looking trunks of outlandish aspect, with R. D. C. 
 in brass nails on their sides. From these we turn 
 with involuntary respect, and call off Juba, who has 
 wedged himself behind in pursuit of some imaginary 
 mouse. But in the other corner is what seems to me 
 /"^-n child's cradle not an English one evidently : it is 
 of wood, seemingly Spanish rosewood, with a rail- 
 work at the back, of twisted columns ; and I should 
 scarcely have known it to be a cradle but for the
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 273 
 
 fairy-like quilt and the tiny pillows, which proclaimed 
 its uses. 
 
 On the wall above the cradle were arranged sundry 
 little articles, that had, perhaps, once made the joy of 
 a child's heart broken toys with the paint rubbed off, 
 a tin sword and trumpet, and a few tattered books, 
 mostly in Spanish by their shape and look, doubt- 
 less, children's books. Near these stood, on the floor, 
 a picture with its face to the wall. Juba had chased 
 the mouse that his fancy still insisted on creating, 
 behind this picture, and, as he abruptly drew back, it 
 fell into the hands I stretched forth to receive it. I 
 turned the face to the light, and was surprised to see 
 merely an old family portrait; it was that of a gentle- 
 man in the flowered vest and stiff ruff which referred 
 the date of his existence to the reign of Elizabeth a 
 man with a bold and noble countenance. On the 
 corner was placed a faded coat of arms, beneath 
 which was inscribed, " HERBERT DE CAXTON, EQ : 
 AUR : 7ETAT : 35." 
 
 On the back of the canvass I observed, as I now 
 replaced the picture against the wall, a label in 
 Roland's handwriting, though in a younger and more 
 running hand than he now wrote. The words were 
 these : " The best and bravest of our line. He 
 charged by Sidney's side on the field of Zutphen ; he 
 fought in Drake's ship against the armament of 
 
 VOL. II. S
 
 274 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 If ever I have a " The rest of the label seemed 
 
 to have been torn off. 
 
 I turned away, and felt a remorseful shame that T 
 had so far gratified my curiosity, if by so harsh a 
 name the powerful interest that had absorbed me 
 must be called. I looked round for Blanche ; she had 
 retreated from my side to the door, and, with her 
 hands before her eyes, was weeping. As I stole 
 towards her, my glance fell on a book that lay on a 
 chair near the casement, and beside those relics of an 
 infancy once pure and serene. By the old-fashioned 
 silver clasps, I recognised Roland's Bible. I felt 
 almost as if I had been guilty of profanation in my 
 thoughtless intrusion. I drew away Blanche, and we 
 descended the stairs noiselessly ; and not till we were 
 on our favourite spot, amidst a heap of ruins on the 
 feudal justice-hill, did I seek to kiss away her tears 
 and ask the cause. 
 
 " My poor brother !" sobbed Blanche ; " they must 
 have been his and we shall never, never see him 
 again ! and poor papa's Bible, which he reads when 
 he is very, very sad ! I did not weep enough when 
 my brother died. I know better what death is now ! 
 Poor papa ! poor papa ! Don't die, too, Sisty ! " 
 
 There was no running after butterflies that morn- 
 ing ; and it was long before I could soothe Blanche. 
 Indeed, she bore the traces of dejection in her soft
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 275 
 
 looks for many, many days ; and she often asked me, 
 sighingly, " Don't you think it was very wrong in 
 me to take you there?" Poor little Blanche, true 
 daughter of Eve, she would not let me bear my due 
 share of the blame ; she would have it all in Adam's 
 primitive way of justice " The woman tempted me,v^ 
 and I did eat." And since then Blanche has seemed 
 more fond than ever of Roland, and comparatively 
 deserts me, to nestle close to him, and closer, till he 
 looks up and says, " My child, you are pale ; go and 
 run after the butterflies;" and she says now to him, 
 not to me " Come too ! " drawing him out into the 
 sunshine with a hand that will not loose its hold. 
 
 Of all Roland's line this Herbert de Caxton was 
 " the best and bravest!" yet he had never named 
 that ancestor to me never put any forefather in 
 comparison with the dubious and mythical Sir Wil- 
 liam. I now remembered once, that, in going over--v 
 the pedigree, I had been struck by the name of / 
 Herbert the only Herbert in the scroll and had 
 asked, "What of him, uncle?" and Roland had 
 muttered something inaudible and turned away. And 
 
 I remembered also, that in Roland's room there was 
 
 
 the mark in the wall where a picture of that size had 
 
 once hung. It had been removed thence before we 
 first came, but must have hung there for years to 
 have left that mark on the wall ; perhaps suspended
 
 276 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 by Bolt, during Roland's long Continental absence. 
 
 " If ever I have a What were the missing 
 
 words ? Alas ! did they not relate to the son missed 
 for ever, evidently not forgotten still ?
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MY uncle sat on one side the fireplace, my mother 
 on the other ; and I, at a small table between them, 
 prepared to note down the results of their conference ; 
 for they had met in high council, to assess their joint 
 fortunes determine what should be brought into the 
 common stock, and set apart for the civil list, and 
 what should be laid aside as a sinking-fund. Now 
 my mother, true woman as she was, had a womanly 
 love of show in her own quiet way of making " a 
 genteel figure" in the eyes of the neighbourhood of 
 seeing that sixpence not only went as far as sixpence 
 ought to go, but that, in the going, it should emit a mild 
 but imposing splendour not, indeed, a gaudy flash 
 a startling Borealian coruscation, which is scarcely 
 within the modest and placid idiosyncracies of six- 
 pence but a gleam of gentle and benign light, just 
 to show where a sixpence had been, and allow you 
 time to say " Behold ! " before 
 
 " The jaws of darkness did devour it up."
 
 278 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 Thus, as I once before took occasion to apprise the 
 reader, we had always held a very respectable posi- 
 tion in the neighbourhood round our square brick 
 house ; been as sociable as my father's habits would 
 permit ; given our little tea-parties, and our occasional 
 dinners, and, without attempting to vie with our 
 richer associates, there had always been so exquisite 
 a neatness, so notable a housekeeping, so thoughtful a 
 disposition, in short, of all the properties indigenous 
 to a well-spent sixpence, in my mother's management, 
 that there was not an old maid within seven miles of 
 us who did not pronounce our tea-parties to be per- 
 fect; and the great Mrs Rollick, who gave forty 
 guineas a-year to a professed cook and housekeeper, 
 used regularly, whenever we dined at Rollick Hall, 
 to call across the table to my mother, (who therewith 
 blushed up to her ears,) to apologise for the straw- 
 berry jelly. It is true that when, on returning home, 
 my mother adverted to that flattering and delicate 
 compliment, in a tone that revealed the self-conceit 
 of the human heart, my father whether to sober his 
 Kitty's vanity into a proper and Christian morti- 
 fication of spirit, or from that strange shrewdness 
 which belonged to him would remark that Mrs 
 Rollick was of a querulous nature; that the com- 
 pliment was meant not to please my mother, but to 
 spite the professed cook and housekeeper, to whom
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 279 
 
 the butler would be sure to repeat the invidious 
 apology. 
 
 In settling at the tower, and assuming the head of 
 its establishment, my mother was naturally anxious 
 that, poor battered invalid though the tower was, it , 
 should still put its best leg foremost. Sundry cards, 
 despite the thinness of the neighbourhood, had been 
 left at the door ; various invitations, which my uncle 
 had hitherto declined, had greeted his occupation of 
 the ancestral ruin, and had become more numerous 
 since the news of our arrival had gone abroad; so 
 that my mother saw before her a very suitable field 
 for her hospitable accomplishments a reasonable 
 ground for her ambition that the tower should hold 
 up its head, as became a tower that held the head of 
 the family. 
 
 But not to wrong thee, dear mother ! as thou 
 sit test there, opposite the grim Captain, so fair and 
 so neat, with thine apron as white, and thy hair as 
 trim and as sheen, and thy morning cap, with its 
 ribbons of blue, as coquettishly arranged as if thou 
 hadst a fear that the least negligence on thy part 
 might lose thee the heart of thine Austin not to 
 wrong thee by setting down to frivolous motives alone 
 thy feminine visions of the social amenities of life; I 
 know that thine heart, in its provident tenderness, 
 was quite as much interested as ever thy vanities
 
 280 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 could be, in the hospitable thoughts on which thou 
 wert intent. For, first and foremost, it was the wish 
 of thy soul that thine Austin might, as little as 
 
 ^"possible, be reminded of the change in his fortunes, 
 might miss as little as possible those interruptions to 
 his abstracted scholarly moods, at which, it is true, he 
 used to fret and to pshaw and to cry Papse! but 
 which nevertheless always did him good, and fresh- 
 ened up the stream of his thoughts. And, next, it 
 was the conviction of thine understanding that a little 
 society, and boon companionship, and the proud 
 pleasure of showing his ruins, and presiding at the 
 hall of his forefathers, would take Roland out of those 
 
 jS gloomy reveries into which he still fell at times. 
 And, thirdly, for us young people, ought not Blanche 
 X'to find companions in children of her own sex and 
 age? Already in those large black eyes there \viis 
 something melancholy and brooding, as there is in 
 the eyes of all children who live only with their 
 elders ; and for Pisistratus, with his altered prospects, 
 and the one great gnawing memory at his heart 
 which he tried to conceal from himself,' but which a 
 mother (and a mother who had loved) saw at a 
 glance what could be better than such union 
 and interchange with the world around us, small 
 though that world might be, as woman, sweet binder 
 and blender of all social links, might artfully effect ?
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 281 
 
 So that thou didst not go, like the awful Flo- 
 rentine, 
 
 " Sopra lor vanita che par persona," 
 
 ' over thin shadows that mocked the substance of real 
 forms,' but rather it was the real forms that appeared 
 as shadows or vanita. 
 
 What a digression ! can I never tell my story in ") 
 a plain straightforward way ? Certainly I was born 
 under the Cancer, and all my movements are circum- 
 locutory, sideways, and crab-like.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " I THINK, Eoland," said ray mother, " that the 
 establishment is settled. Bolt, who is equal to three 
 men at least ; Primmins, cook and housekeeper ; 
 Molly, a good stirring girl and willing, (though I've 
 had some difficulty in persuading her, poor tiling, to 
 submit not to be called Anna Maria !) Their wages 
 are but a small item, my dear Roland." 
 
 "Hem!" said Roland, " since we can't do with 
 fewer servants at less wages, I suppose we must call 
 it small." 
 
 " It is so," said my mother with mild positiveness. 
 " And, indeed, what with the game and fish, and the 
 garden and poultry-yard, and your own mutton, our 
 housekeeping will be next to nothing." 
 
 " Hem ! " again said the thrifty Roland, with a 
 
 * slight inflection of the beetle brows. " It may be 
 
 next to nothing, ma'am sister just as a butcher's 
 
 shop may be next to Northumberland House, but
 
 THE CAXTONS. 283 
 
 there is a vast deal between nothing and that next 
 neighbour you have given it." 
 
 This speech was so like one of my father's so 
 naive an imitation of that subtle reasoner's use of the 
 rhetorical figure called ANTANACLASIS, (or repetition 
 of the same words in a different sense,) that I laughed 
 and my mother smiled. But she smiled reverently, 
 not thinking of the ANTANACLASIS, as, laying her 
 hand on Roland's arm, she replied in the yet more 
 formidable figure of speech called EPIPHONEMA, (or 
 exclamation,) " Yet, with all your economy, you would 
 have had us " 
 
 " Tut ! " cried my uncle, parrying the EPIPHONEMA 
 with a masterly APOSIOPESIS (or breaking off ;) " tut ! 
 if you had done what I wished, I should have had 
 more pleasure for my money ! " 
 
 My poor mother's rhetorical armoury supplied no 
 weapon to meet that artful APOSIOPESIS ; so she 
 dropped the rhetoric altogether, and went on with 
 that " unadorned eloquence" natural to her, as to 
 other great financial reformers : " Well, Roland, 
 but I am a good housewife, I assure you, arid don't 
 scold ; but that you never do, I mean, don't look as 
 if you would like to scold ; the fact is, that, even after 
 setting aside 100 a-year for our little parties " 
 
 "Little parties! a hundred a-year!" cried the 
 Captain aghast.
 
 284 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 Mj mother pursued her way remorselessly, 
 /" Which we can well afford; and without counting 
 -S your half-pay, which you must keep for pocket- 
 money and your wardrobe and Blanche's, I calculate 
 that we can allow Pisistratus 150 a-year, which, 
 with the scholarship he is to get, will keep him at 
 Cambridge," (at that, seeing the scholarship was as 
 yet amidst the Pleasures of Hope, I shook my head 
 doubtfully ;) " and," continued my mother, not heed- 
 ing that sign of dissent, " we shall still have some- 
 thing to lay by." 
 
 The Captain's face assumed a ludicrous expression 
 of compassion and horror ; he evidently thought my 
 mother's misfortunes had turned her head. 
 
 His tormentor continued. 
 
 " For," said my mother, with a pretty calculating 
 shake of her head, and a movement of the right 
 forefinger towards the five fingers of the left hand, 
 " three hundred and seventy pounds the interest of 
 Austin's fortune and fifty pounds that we may reckon 
 for the rent of our house, make 420 a-year. Add your 
 330 a-year from the farm, sheep-walk, and cottages 
 that you let, and the total is 750. Now, with all we 
 get for nothing for our housekeeping, as I said before, 
 we can do very well with five hundred a-year, and in- 
 deed make a handsome figure. So, after allowing Sisty 
 150, we still have 100 to lay by for Blanche."
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 285 
 
 " Stop, stop, stop ! " cried the Captain, in great 
 agitation ; " who told you that I had 330 a-year ? " 
 
 " Why, Bolt, don't be angry with him." -> 
 
 " Bolt is a blockhead. From 330 a-year take v 
 200, and the remainder is all my income, besides my \ 
 half-pay." 
 
 My mother opened her eyes, and so did I. 
 
 " To that 130 add, if you please, 130 of your 
 own. All that you have over, my dear sister, is yours 
 or Austin's, or your boy's ; but not a shilling can go s 
 to give luxuries to a miserly, battered old soldier. Do "* 
 you understand me?" 
 
 " No, Roland," said my mother, " I don't under- 
 stand you at all. Does not your property bring in 
 330 a-year? 1 ' 
 
 " Yes, but it has a debt of 200' a-year on it," said 
 the Captain gloomily and reluctantly. 
 
 " Oh, Roland ! " cried my mother tenderly, and 
 approaching so near that, had my father been in the 
 room, I am sure she would have been bold enough to 
 kiss the stern Captain, though I never saw him look 
 sterner and less kissable. "Oh, Roland!" cried my 
 mother, concluding that famous EPIPHONEMA which 
 my uncle's APOSIOPESIS had before nipped in the bud, 
 " and yet you would have made us, who are twicer" 
 as rich, rob you of this little all !" 
 
 " Ah ! " said Roland, trying to smile, " but I should
 
 286 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 have had my own way then, and starved you shock- 
 ingly. No talk then of ' little parties,' and such- 
 like. But you must not now turn the tables against 
 me, nor bring your 420 a-year as a set-off to my 
 130." 
 
 " Why," said my mother generously, " you forget 
 the money's worth that you contribute all that your 
 grounds supply, and all that we save by it. I am 
 sure that that's worth a yearly 300 at the least." 
 
 " Madam sister," said the Captain, " I'm sure you 
 don't want to hurt my feelings. All I have to say is, 
 that, if you add to what I bring an equal sum to 
 keep up the poor old ruin it is the utmost that I can 
 allow, and the rest is not more than Pisistratus can 
 spend." 
 
 So saying, the Captain rose, bowed, and, before 
 either of us could stop him, hobbled out of the room. 
 
 "Dear me, Sisty!" said my mother, wringing her 
 hands, " I have certainly displeased him. How could 
 I guess he had so large a debt on the property ? " 
 
 "Did not he pay his son's debts? Is not that the 
 reason that " 
 
 "Ah!" interrupted my mother, almost crying, "and 
 it was that which ruffled him, and I hot to guess it ? 
 What shall I do? 1 ' 
 
 " Set to work at a new calculation, dear mother, 
 and let him have his own way."
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 287 
 
 " But then," said my mother, " your uncle will 
 mope himself to death, and your father will have no 
 relaxation, while you see that he has lost his former 
 object in his books. And Blanche and you too. If 
 we were only to contribute what dear Roland does, I 
 do not see how, with 260 a -year, we could ever 
 bring our neighbours round us ! I wonder what 
 Austin would say ! I have half a mind no, I'll go 
 and look over the week-books with Primmins." 
 
 My mother went her way sorrowfully, and I was 
 left alone. 
 
 Then I looked on the stately old hall, grand in its 
 forlorn decay. And the dreams I had begun to cherish 
 at my heart swept over me, and hurried me along, far, 
 far away into the golden land, whither Hope beckons ^^ 
 Youth. To restore my father's fortunes reweave 
 the links of that broken ambition which had knit his 
 genius with the world rebuild these fallen walls 
 cultivate those barren moors revive the ancient name 
 glad the old soldier's age and be to both the brothers 
 what Roland had lost a son ! These were my 
 dreams ; and when I woke from them, lo ! they had 
 left behind an intense purpose, a resolute object. 
 Dream, youth! dream manfully and nobly, and thy 
 dreams shall be prophets !
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LETTER FROM PISISTRATU8 CAXTON, TO ALBERT 
 TREVANION, E8<i., M.P. 
 
 *\ (The confettioH of a youth vho, in the Old World, find* hinuelf 
 one too many.) 
 
 " MY dear Mr Trevanion, I thank you cordially, 
 and so we do all, for your reply to my letter, informing 
 you of the villanous traps through which we have 
 passed not indeed with whole skins, but still whole 
 in life and limb which, considering that the traps 
 were three, and the teeth sharp, was more than we 
 could reasonably expect. We have taken to the 
 wastes, like wise foxes as we are, and I do not think 
 a bait can be found that will again snare the fox 
 paternal. As for the fox filial, it is different, and I 
 am about to prove to you that he is burning to redeem 
 the family disgrace. Ah ! my dear Mr Trevanion, if 
 you are busy with ' blue books ' when this letter 
 reaches you, stop here, and put it aside for some rare
 
 THE CAXTONS. 289 
 
 moment of leisure. I am about to open my heart to 
 you, and ask you, who know the world so well, to aid 
 me in an escape from those flammantia mcenia, where- 
 with I find that world begirt and enclosed. For look 
 you, sir, you and my father were right when you both 
 agreed that the mere book-life was not meant for me. 
 And yet what is not book-life, to a young man who 
 would make his way through the ordinary and con- 
 ventional paths to fortune ? All the professions are 
 so book-lined, book-hemmed, book-choked, that where- 
 ever these strong hands of mine stretch towards action, 
 they find themselves met by octavo ramparts, flanked 
 with quarto crenellations. For first, this college life, 
 opening to scholarships, and ending, perchance, as you 
 political economists would desire, in Malthusian fellow- 
 ships premiums for celibacy consider what manner 
 of thing it is ! 
 
 " Three years, book upon book, a great Dead Sea 
 before one, three years long, and all the apples that 
 grow on the shore full of the ashes of pica and primer ! 
 Those three years ended, the fellowship, it may be, 
 won, still books books if the whole world does 
 not close at the college gates. Do I, from scholar, 
 effloresce into literary man, author by profession ? 
 books books ! Do I go into the law ? books 
 books. Ars longa, vita brevis, which, paraphrased, 
 
 means that it is slow work before one fags one s way 
 VOL. n. T
 
 290 THE CAXTONS I 
 
 to a brief ! Do I turn doctor ? Why, what but books 
 can kill time, until, at the age of forty, a lucky chance 
 may permit me to kill something else ? The church ? 
 (for which, indeed, I don't profess to be good enough,) 
 that is book-life par excellence, whether, inglorious 
 and poor, I wander through long lines of divines and 
 fathers ; or, ambitious of bishopricks, I amend the 
 corruptions, not of the human heart, but of a Greek 
 text, and through defiles of scholiasts and commen- 
 tators win my way to the See. In short, barring the 
 noble profession of arms which you know, after all, 
 is not precisely the road to fortune can you tell me 
 any means by which one may escape these eternal 
 books, this mental clockwork, and corporeal lethargy ? 
 Where can this passion for life that runs riot through 
 my veins find its vent? Where can these stalwart 
 limbs, and this broad chest, grow of value and worth, 
 in this hot-bed of cerebral inflammation and dyspeptic 
 intellect ? I know what is in me ; I know I have the 
 qualities that should go with stalwart limbs and broad 
 chest. I have some plain common sense, some promp- 
 titude and keenness, some pleasure in hardy danger, 
 some fortitude in bearing pain qualities for which I 
 bless Heaven, for they are qualities good and useful 
 in private life. But in the forum of men in the market 
 of fortune, are they notfocci, nauci, nihili? 
 
 " In a word, dear sir and friend, in this crowded
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 291 
 
 Old World, there is not the same room that our bold 
 forefathers found for men to walk about, and jostle 
 their neighbours. No ; they must. sit down like boys 
 at their form, and work out their tasks, with rounded 
 shoulders and aching fingers. There has been a 
 pastoral age, and a hunting age, and a fighting age. 
 Now we,. harfi^ arrived at the age sedentary. Men 
 who sit longest carry all before them : puny delicate 
 fellows, with hands just strong enough to wield a pen, 
 eyes so bleared by the midnight lamp that they see 
 no joy in that buxom sun, (which draws me forth 
 into the fields, as life draws the living,) and digestive 
 organs worn and macerated by the relentless flagella- 
 tion of the brain. Certainly, if this is to be the Eeign 
 of Mind, it is idle to repine, and kick against the 
 pricks ; but is it true that all these qualities of action 
 that are within me are to go for nothing ! If I were 
 rich, and happy in mind and circumstance, well and 
 good ; I should shoot, hunt, farm, travel, enjoy life, 
 and snap my fingers at ambition. If I were so poor 
 and so humbly bred that I could turn gamekeeper or 
 whipper-in, as pauper gentlemen virtually did of old, 
 well and good too ; I should exhaust this troublesome 
 vitality of mine, by nightly battles with poachers, and 
 leaps over double dykes and stone walls. If I were so 
 depressed of spirit that I could live without remorse 
 on my father's small means, and exclaim with Claudian,
 
 292 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 * The earth gives me feasts that cost nothing,' well 
 and good too ; it were a life to suit a vegetable, or a 
 very minor poet. But as it is ! here I open another 
 leaf of my heart to you ! To say that, being poor, I 
 want to make a fortune, is to say that I am an English- 
 man. To attach ourselves to a thing positive, belongs 
 to our practical race. Even in our dreams, if we 
 build castles in the air, they are not Castles of Indo- 
 lence, indeed they have very little of the castle about 
 them, and look much more like Hoare's Bank on the 
 east side of Temple Bar ! I desire, then, to make a 
 fortune. But I differ from my countrymen, first, by 
 desiring only what you rich men would call but a small 
 fortune ; secondly, in wishing that I may not spend 
 my whole life in that said fortune-making. Just see, 
 now, how I am placed. 
 
 " Under ordinary circumstances, I must begin by 
 taking from my father a large slice of an income that 
 will ill spare paring. According to my calculation, 
 my parents and my uncle want all they have got and 
 the subtraction of the yearly sum on which Pisistratus 
 is to live, till he can live by his own labours, would be 
 so much taken from the decent comforts of his kindred. 
 If I return to Cambridge, with all economy, I must 
 thus narrow still more the res artgusta domi and when 
 Cambridge is over, and I am turned loose upon the 
 world failing, as is likely enough, of the support
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 293 
 
 of a fellowship how many years must I work, or 
 rather, alas ! not work, at the bar (which, after all, 
 seems my best calling) before I can in my turn provide 
 for those who, till then, rob themselves for me? till 
 I have arrived at middle life, and they are old and 
 worn out till the chink of the golden bowl sounds 
 but hollow at the ebbing well ! I would wish that, if 
 I can make money, those I love best may enjoy it 
 while enjoyment is yet left to them ; that my father 
 shall see The History of Human Error, complete, 
 bound in russia on his shelves ; that my mother shall 
 have the innocent pleasures that content her, before 
 age steals the light from her happy smile ; that before 
 Roland's hair is snow-white, (alas ! the snows there 
 thicken fast,) he shall lean on my arm, while we settle 
 together where the ruin shall be repaired or where left 
 to the owls ; and where the dreary bleak waste around 
 shall laugh with the gleam of corn : for you know 
 the nature of this Cumberland soil you, who possess 
 much of it, and have won so many fair acres from the 
 wild : you know that my uncle's land, now (save a 
 single farm) scarce worth a shilling an acre, needs but 
 capital to become an estate more lucrative than ever 
 his ancestors owned. You know that, for you have 
 applied your capital to the same kind of land, and, in 
 doing so, what blessings which you scarcely think of 
 in your London library you have effected! what
 
 294 THE CAXTOKS : 
 
 mouths you feed, what hands you employ ! I have 
 calculated that my uncle's moors, which now scarce 
 maintain two or three shepherds, could, manured by 
 money, maintain two hundred families by their labour. 
 All this is worth trying for! therefore Pisistratus 
 wants to make money. Not so much ! he does not 
 require millions a few spare thousand pounds would 
 go a long way ; and with a modest capital to begin 
 with, Koland should become a true Squire, a real 
 landowner, not the mere lord of a desert. Now then, 
 dear sir, advise me how I may, with such qualities as 
 I possess, arrive at that capital ay, and before it is 
 too late so that money-making may not last till my 
 grave. 
 
 " Turning in despair from this civilised world of 
 ours, I have cast my eyes to a world far older, and 
 yet more to a world in its giant childhood. India 
 here, Australia there ! what say you, sir you who 
 will see dispassionately those things that float before 
 my eyes through a golden haze, looming large in the 
 distance ? Such is my confidence in your judgment 
 that you have but to say, ' Fool, give up thine El 
 Dorados and stay at home stick to the books and 
 the desk annihilate that redundance of animal life 
 that is in thee grow a mental machine thy physical 
 gifts are of no avail to thee take thy place among 
 the slaves of the Lamp" and I will obey without
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 295 
 
 a murmur. But if I am right if I have in me attri- 
 butes that here find no market ; if my repinings are 
 but the instincts of nature, that, out of this decrepid 
 civilisation, desire vent for growth in the young stir 
 of some more rude and vigorous social system then 
 give me, I pray, that advice which may clothe my 
 idea in some practical and tangible embodiments. 
 Have I made myself understood ? 
 
 " Rarely do we see a newspaper here, but occasion- 
 ally one finds its way from the parsonage ; and I have 
 lately rejoiced at a paragraph that spoke of your 
 speedy entrance into the administration as a thing 
 certain. I write to you before you are a minister ; 
 and you see what I seek is not in the way of official 
 patronage : A niche in an office ! oh, to me that 
 were worse than all. Yet I did labour hard with you, 
 but that was different ! I write to you thus frankly, 
 knowing your warm noble heart and as if you were 
 my father. Allow me to add my humble but earnest 
 congratulations on Miss Trevanion's approaching 
 marriage with one worthy, if not of her, at least of 
 her station. I do so as becomes one whom you have 
 allowed to retain the right to pray for the happiness 
 of you and yours. 
 
 " My dear Mr Trevanion, this is a long letter, and 
 I dare not even read it over, lest, if I do, I should not 
 send it. Take it with all its faults, and judge of it
 
 296 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 with that kindness with which you have judged 
 ever 
 
 " Your grateful and devoted servant, 
 
 " PISISTBATUS CAXTON. " 
 
 LETTER FROM ALBERT TREVANION, ESQ., M. P., TO 
 PISISTRATUS CAXTON. 
 
 Library of the House of Commons, 
 Tuesday N'tyltt. 
 
 " My dear Pisistratus. * * * * * is up ! wo are in 
 for it for two mortal hours. I take flight to the library, 
 and devote those hours to you. Don't be conceited, 
 but that picture of yourself which you have placed 
 before me has struck me with all the force of an 
 original. The state of mind which you describe so 
 vividly must be a very common one, in our era of 
 civilisation, yet I have never before seen it made so 
 prominent and life-like. You have been in my thoughts 
 all day. Yes, how many young men must there be 
 like you, in this Old World, able, intelligent, active, 
 and persevering enough, yet not adapted for success 
 in any of our conventional professions ( mute, in- 
 glorious Raleighs. ' Your letter, young artist, is an 
 illustration of the philosophy of colonising. I com- 
 prehend better, after reading it, the old Greek coloni- 
 sation, the sending out not only the paupers, the
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 297 
 
 refuse of an over-populated state, but a large propor- 
 tion of a better class fellows full of pith and sap, and 
 exuberant vitality, like yourself, blending in those 
 wise cleruchice a certain portion of the aristocratic with 
 the more democratic element ; not turning a rabble 
 loose upon a new soil, but planting in the foreign 
 allotments all the rudiments of a harmonious state, 
 analogous to that in the mother country not only 
 getting rid of hungry craving mouths, but furnishing 
 vent for a waste surplus of intelligence and courage, 
 which at home is really not needed, and more often 
 comes to ill than to good ; here only menaces our 
 artificial embankments, but there, carried off in an 
 aqueduct, might give life to a desert. 
 
 " For my part, in my ideal of colonisation, I should 
 like that each exportation of human beings had, as of 
 old, its leaders and chiefs not so appointed from the 
 mere quality of rank, often, indeed, taken from the 
 humbler classes but still men to whom a certain 
 degree of education should give promptitude, quick- 
 ness, adaptability men in whom their followers can 
 confide. The Greeks understood that. Nay, as the 
 colony makes progress as its principal town rises 
 into the dignity of a capital a polis that needs a 
 polity I sometimes think it might be wise to go still 
 farther, and not only transplant to it a high standard 
 of civilisation, but draw it more closely into connexion
 
 298 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 with the parent state, and render the passage of spare 
 intellect, education, and civility, to and fro, more 
 facile, by draughting off thither the spare scions of 
 royalty itself. I know that many of my more ' liberal ' 
 friends would pooh-pooh this notion ; but I am sure 
 that the colony altogether, when arrived to a state 
 that would bear the importation, would thrive all the 
 better for it. And when the day shall come (as to all 
 healthful colonies it must come sooner or later) in 
 which the settlement has grown an independent state, 
 we may thereby have laid the seeds of a constitu- 
 tion and a civilisation similar to our own with self- 
 developed forms of monarchy and aristocracy, though 
 of a simpler growth than old societies accept, and not 
 left a strange motley chaos of struggling democracy 
 an uncouth livid giant, at which the Frankenstein may 
 well tremble not because it is a giant, but because 
 it is a giant hah completed.* Depend on it, the New 
 World will be friendly or hostile to the Old, not in 
 proportion to the kinship of race, but in proportion to 
 the similarity of manners and institutions a mighty 
 truth, to which we colonisers have been blind. 
 
 * These pages were sent to press before the author had seen Mr 
 Wakefield's recent work on Colonisation, wherein the views here 
 expressed are enforced with great earnestness and conspicuous saga- 
 city. The author is not the less pleased at this coincidence of 
 opinion, because he has the misfortune to dissent from certain other 
 parts of Mr Wakefield's elaborate theory.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 299 
 
 " Passing from these more distant speculations to 
 this positive present before us, you see already, from 
 what I have said, that I sympathise with your aspira- 
 tions that I construe them as you would have me ; 
 looking to your nature and to your objects, I give 
 you my advice in a word EMIGRATE ! 
 
 " My advice is, however, founded on one hypothesis 
 viz., that you are perfectly sincere you will be 
 contented with a rough life, and with a moderate for- 
 tune at the end of your probation. Don't dream of 
 emigrating if you want to make a million, or the 
 tenth part of a million. Don't dream of emigrating, 
 unless you can enjoy its hardships, to bear them is 
 not enough ! 
 
 " Australia is the land for you, as you seem to 
 surmise. Australia is the land for two classes of 
 emigrants : 1st, The man who has nothing but his 
 wits, and plenty of them ; 2dly, The man who has a 
 small capital, and who is contented to spend ten years 
 in trebling it. I assume that you belong to the latter 
 class. Take out 3000, and, before you are thirty 
 years old, you may return with 10,000 or 12,000. 
 If that satisfies you, think seriously of Australia. By 
 coach, to-morrow, I will send you down all the best 
 books and reports on the subject j and I will get you 
 what detailed information I can from the Colonial 
 Office. Having read these, and thought over them
 
 300 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 dispassionately, spend some months yet among the 
 sheep-walks of Cumberland ; learn all you can, from 
 all the shepherds you can find from Thyrsis to Men- 
 alcas. Do more ; fit yourself in every way for a life 
 in the Bush, where the philosophy of the division of 
 labour is not yet arrived at. Learn to turn your 
 hand to everything. Be something of a smith, some- 
 thing of a carpenter do the best you can with the 
 fewest tools ; make yourself an excellent shot ; break 
 in all the wild horses and ponies you can borrow and 
 beg. Even if you want to do none of these things 
 when in your settlement, the having learned to do 
 them will fit you for many other things not now fore- 
 seen. De-fine-gentlemanise yourself from the crown 
 of your head to the sole of your foot, and become the 
 greater aristocrat for so doing ; for he is more than 
 an aristocrat, he is a king, who suffices in all things 
 for himself who is his own master, because he 
 wants no valetaille. I think Seneca has expressed 
 that thought before me ; and I would quote the pas- 
 sage, but the book, I fear, is not in the library of the 
 House of Commons. But now (cheers, by Jove ! 
 
 I suppose ***** is down ! Ah ! it is so ; and C 
 
 is up, and that cheer followed a sharp hit at me. How 
 I wish I were your age, and going to Australia with 
 you !) But now to resume my suspended period 
 but now to the important point capital. You must
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 301 
 
 take that, unless you go as a shepherd, and then good- 
 bye to the idea of 10,000 in ten years. So, you 
 see, it appears at the first blush that you must still 
 come to your father ; but, you will say, with this dif- 
 ference, that you borrow the capital with every chance 
 of repaying it, instead of frittering away the income 
 year after year till you are eight-and-thirty or forty 
 at least. Still, Pisistratus, you don't, in this, gain 
 your object at a leap ; and my dear old friend ought 
 not to lose his son and his money too. You say you 
 write to me as to your own father. You know I hate 
 professions ; and if you did not mean what you say, 
 you have oifended me mortally. As a father then, I 
 take a father's rights, and speak plainly. A friend 
 of mine, Mr Bolding, a clergyman, has a son a wild 
 fellow, who is likely to get into all sorts of scrapes in 
 England, but with plenty of good in him, notwith- 
 standing frank, bold not wanting in talent, but 
 rather in prudence easily tempted and led away into 
 extravagance. He would make a capital colonist, ) 
 (no such temptations in the Bush ! ) if tied to a youth - 
 like you. Now I propose, with your leave, that his j 
 father shall advance him 1500 which shall not, 
 however, be placed in his hands, but in yours, as head 
 partner in the firm. You, on your side, shall advance 
 the same sum of 1500, which you shall borrow from 
 me, for three years without interest. At the end of
 
 302 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 that time interest shall commence, and the capital, 
 with the interest on the said first three years, shall 
 be repaid to me, or my executors, on your return. 
 After you have been a year or two in the Bush, and 
 felt your way, and learned your business, you may 
 then safely borrow 1500 more from your father ; 
 and, in the meanwhile, you and your partner will have 
 had together the full sum of 3000 to commence with. 
 You see in this proposal I make you no gift, and I 
 run no risk, even by your death. If you die insol- 
 vent, I will promise to come on your father, poor 
 fellow! for small joy and small care will he have 
 then in what may be left of his fortune. There I 
 have said all ; and I will never forgive you if you 
 reject an aid that will serve you so much, and cost me 
 so little. 
 
 " I accept your congratulations on Fanny's engage- 
 ment with Lord Castleton. When you return from 
 Australia you will still be a young man, she ( though 
 about your own years) almost a middle-aged woman, 
 with her head full of pomps and vanities. All girls 
 have a short period of girlhood in common ; but when 
 they enter womanhood, the woman becomes the wo- 
 man of her class. As for me, and the office assigned 
 to me by report, you know what I said when we parted, 
 
 and but here J comes, and tells me that ' I am 
 
 expected to speak, and answer N , who is just up,
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 303 
 
 brimful of malice,' the House crowded, and hunger- 
 ing for personalities. So I, the man of the Old 
 World, gird up my loins, and leave you with a sigh, 
 to the fresh youth of the New 
 
 ' Ne tibi sit duros acuisse in prcelia dentes.' 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " ALBERT TREVANION."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 So, reader, thou art now at the secret of iny heart. 
 
 Wonder not that I, a bookman's son, and, at 
 certain periods of my life, a bookman myself, though 
 of lowly grade in that venerable class wonder not 
 that I should thus, in that transition stage between 
 youth and manhood, have turned impatiently from 
 books. Most students, at one time or other in their 
 existence, have felt the imperious demand of that 
 restless principle in man's nature, which calls upon 
 each son of Adam to contribute his share to the vast 
 treasury of human deeds. And though great scholars 
 are not necessarily, nor usually, men of action, yet 
 the men of action whom History presents to our 
 survey, have rarely been without a certain degree 
 of scholarly nurture. For the ideas whicli books 
 quicken, books cannot always satisfy. And though 
 the royal pupil of Aristotle slept with Homer under
 
 THE CAXTONS. 305 
 
 his pillow, it was not that he might dream of com- 
 posing epics, but of conquering new Hions in the 
 East. Many a man, how little soever resembling 
 Alexander, may still have the conqueror's aim in an 
 object that action only can achieve, and the book 
 under his pillow may be the strongest antidote to 
 his repose. And how the stern Destinies that shall 
 govern the man weave their first delicate tissues 
 amidst the earliest associations of the child ! Those 
 idle tales with which the old credulous nurse had 
 beguiled my infancy tales of wonder, knight- 
 errantry, and adventure, had left behind them seeds 
 long latent seeds that might never have sprung up 
 above the soil but that my boyhood was so early 
 put under the burning-glass, and in the quick forcing- 
 house, of the London world. There, even amidst 
 books and study, lively observation and petulant 
 ambition broke forth from the lush foliage of romance 
 that fruitless leafiness of poetic youth ! And there 
 passion, which is a revolution in all the elements of 
 individual man, had called a new state of being, 
 turbulent and eager, out of the old habits and con- 
 ventional forms it had buried ashes that speak where 
 the fire has been. Far from me, as from any mind of 
 some manliness, be the attempt to create interest by 
 dwelling at length on the struggles against a rash and 
 
 misplaced attachment, which it was my duty to over- 
 VOL. IT. u
 
 306 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 come ; but all such love, as I have before implied, is 
 a terrible unsettler : 
 
 " Where once such fairies dance, no grass doth ever grow." 
 
 To re-enter boyhood, go with meek docility through 
 its disciplined routine how hard had I found that 
 return, amidst the cloistered monotony of college ! 
 My love for my father, and my submission to his 
 wish, had indeed given some animation to objects 
 otherwise distasteful ; but, now that my return to the 
 University must be attended with positive privation to 
 those at home, the idea became utterly hateful and 
 repugnant. Under pretence that I found myself, on 
 trial, not yet sufficiently prepared to do credit to my 
 father's name, I had easily obtained leave to lose the 
 ensuing college term, and pursue my studies at home. 
 This gave me time to prepare my plans, and bring 
 round how shall I ever bring round to my adven- 
 turous views those whom I propose to desert ? Hard 
 / it is to get on in the world very hard ! But the 
 4 most painful step in the way is that which starts 
 from the threshold of a beloved home. 
 
 How ah, how, indeed ! " No, Blanche, you 
 cannot join me to - day ; I am going out for 
 many hours. So it will be late before I can be 
 home." 
 
 Home ! the word chokes me ! Juba slinks back
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 307 
 
 to his young mistress, disconsolate ; Blanche gazes at 
 me ruefully from our favourite hill-top, and the flowers 
 she has been gathering fall unheeded from her basket. 
 I hear my mother's voice singing low, as she sits 
 at work by her open casement. How ah, how, 
 indeed !
 
 PART THIRTEENTH.
 
 PART THIRTEENTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ST CHRYSOSTOM, in his work on The Priesthood, 
 defends deceit, if for a good purpose, by many Scrip- 
 tural examples ; ends his first book by asserting that 
 it is often necessary, and that much benefit may arise 
 from it, and begins his second book by saying that 
 it ought not to be called deceit, but " good man- 
 agement.' 1 ' 1 * 
 
 Good management, then, let me call the innocent 
 arts by which I now sought to insinuate my project 
 into favour and assent with my unsuspecting family. 
 And first I began with Roland. I easily induced him 
 to read some of the books, full of the charm of Aus- 
 
 * Hohler's Translation.
 
 312 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 tralian life, which Trevanion had sent me ; and so 
 happily did those descriptions suit his own erratic 
 tastes, and the free, half-savage man that lay rough 
 and large within that soldierly nature, that he himself, 
 as it were, seemed to suggest my own ardent desire 
 sighed, as the careworn Trevanion had done, that 
 " he was not my age," and blew the flame that con- 
 sumed me with his own willing breath. So that when 
 at last wandering one day over the wild moors I 
 said, knowing his hatred of law and lawyers 
 
 " Alas, uncle, that nothing should be left for me but 
 the bar! 1 ' 
 
 Captain Roland struck his cane into the peat, and 
 exclaimed, " Zounds, sir ! the bar and lying, with 
 truth and a world fresh from God before you ! " 
 
 "Your hand, uncle we understand each other. 
 Now help me with those two quiet hearts at home ! " 
 
 " Plague on my tongue ! what have I done ? " said 
 the Captain, looking aghast. Then, after musing a 
 little time, he turned his dark eye on me, and growled 
 out, " I suspect, young sir, you have been laying a 
 trap for me ; and I have fallen into it, like an old fool 
 as I am." 
 
 " Oh, sir, if you prefer the bar ! 
 
 "Rogue!" 
 
 " Or, indeed, I might perhaps get a clerkship in a 
 merchant's office?"
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 313 
 
 " If you do, I well scratch you out of the 
 pedigree ! " 
 
 " Huzza, then, for Australasia !" 
 " Well, well, well," said my uncle, 
 
 " With a smile on his lip and a tear in his eye ; " 
 
 " the old sea-king's blood will force its way a soldier 
 or a rover, there is no other choice for you. We shall 
 mourn and miss you ; but who can chain the young 
 eagles to the eyrie ?" 
 
 I had a harder task with my father, who at first 
 seemed to listen to me as if I had been talking of an 
 excursion to the moon. But'I threw in a dexterous 
 dose of the old Greek Cleruchice cited by Trevanion 
 which set him off full trot on his hobby, till, after 
 a short excursion to Euboea and the Chersonese, he 
 was fairly lost amidst the Ionian colonies of Asia 
 Minor. I then gradually and artfully decoyed him 
 into his favourite science of Ethnology ; and while he 
 was speculating on the origin of the American savages, 
 and considering the rival claims of Cimmerians, 
 Israelites, and Scandinavians, I said quietly, " And 
 you, sir, who think that all human improvement de- 
 pends on the mixture of races you, whose whole 
 theory is an absolute sermon upon emigration, and 
 the transplanting and interpolity of our species you, 
 sir, should be the last man to chain your son, your
 
 314 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 elder son, to the soil, while your younger is the very 
 missionary of rovers." 
 
 " Pisistratus," said my father, " you reason by 
 synecdoche ornamental, but illogical ;" and there- 
 with, resolved to hear no more, my father rose and 
 retreated into his study. 
 
 But his observation, now quickened, began from 
 that day to follow my moods and humours then he 
 himself grew silent and thoughtful, and finally he took 
 to long conferences with Roland. The result was 
 that, one evening in spring, as I lay listless amidst the 
 weeds and fern that sprang up through the melancholy 
 ruins, I felt a hand on my shoulder ; and my father, 
 seating himself beside me on a fragment of stone, said 
 earnestly " Pisistratus, let us talk I had hoped 
 better things from your study of Robert Hall." 
 
 " Nay, dear father, the medicine did me great good : 
 I have not repined since, and I look steadfastly and 
 cheerfully on life. But Robert Hall fulfilled hismission, 
 and I would fulfil mine." 
 
 " Is there no mission in thy native land, plane- 
 ticose and exallotriote spirit ?"* asked my father, with 
 compassionate rebuke. 
 
 " Alas, yes ! But what the impulse of genius is to 
 the great, the instinct of vocation is to the mediocre. 
 
 * Words coined by Mr Caxton from *\***w*i<, disposed to roaming, 
 and i{AAT{*4r J to export, to alienate.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 315 
 
 In every man there is a magnet ; in that thing which 
 the man can do best there is a loadstone." 
 
 " Papae ! " said my father, opening his eyes ; " and 
 are no loadstones to be found for you nearer than the 
 Great Australasian Bight?" 
 
 " Ah, sir, if you resort to irony, I can say no more ! " 
 My father looked down on me tenderly, as I hung my 
 head moody and abashed. 
 
 " Son," said he, " do you think that there is any 
 real jest at my heart when the matter discussed is 
 whether you are to put wide seas and long years 
 between us ?" I pressed nearer to his side, and made 
 no answer. 
 
 " But I have noted you of late," continued my 
 father, " and I have observed that your old studies are 
 grown distasteful to you ; and I have talked with 
 Roland, and I see that your desire is deeper than a 
 boy's mere whim. And then I have asked myself 
 what prospect I can hold out at home to induce you to 
 be contented here, and I see none ; and therefore I 
 should say to you, ' Go thy ways, and God shield 
 thee,' but, Pisistratus, your mother ! " 
 
 " Ah, sir, that is indeed the question ! and there 
 indeed I shrink. But, after all, whatever I were 
 whether toiling at the bar, or in some public office 
 I should be still so much from home and her. And 
 then you, sir she loves you so entirely, that "
 
 316 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 " No," interrupted my father ; " you can advance 
 no arguments like these to touch a mother's heart. 
 There is but one argument that comes home there 
 Is it for your good to leave her ? If so, there will be 
 no need of farther words. But let us not decide that 
 question hastily ; let you and I be together the next 
 two months. Bring your books and sit with me ; 
 when you want to go out, tap me on the shoulder 
 and say ' Come.' At the end of those two months, 
 I will say to you ' Go,' or * Stay.' And you will 
 trust me ; and if I say the last, you will submit ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, sir yes ! "
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THIS compact made, my father roused himself from 
 all his studies devoted his whole thoughts to me 
 sought with all his gentle wisdom to wean me imper- 
 ceptibly from my one fixed tyrannical idea, ranged 
 through his wide pharmacy of books for such medi- 
 caments as might alter the system of my thoughts. 
 And little thought he that his very tenderness and 
 wisdom worked against him, for at each new instance 
 of either my heart called aloud, " Is it not that thy 
 tenderness may be repaid, and thy wisdom be known 
 abroad, that I go from thee into the strange land, 
 O my father!" 
 
 And the two months expired, and my father saw 
 that the magnet had turned unalterably to the load- 
 stone in the great Australasian Bight ; and he said to 
 me, " Go, and comfort your mother. I have told her 
 your wish, and authorised it by my consent, for I 
 believe now that it is for your good."
 
 318 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 I found my mother in the little room she had appro- 
 priated to herself next my father's study. And in 
 that room there was a pathos which I have no words 
 to express ; for my mother's meek, gentle, womanly 
 soul spoke there, so that it was the Home of Home. 
 The care with which she had transplanted from the 
 brick house, and lovingly arranged all the humble 
 memorials of old times, dear to her affections the 
 black silhouette of my father's profile cut in paper, 
 in the full pomp of academics, cap and gown, (how 
 had he ever consented to sit for it!) framed and 
 glazed in the place of honour over the little hearth ; 
 and boyish sketches of mine at the Hellenic Institute, 
 first essays in sepia and Indian ink, to animate the 
 walls, and bring her back, when she sat there in the 
 twilight musing alone, to sunny hours, when Sisty 
 and the young mother threw daisies at each other ; 
 and, covered with a great glass shade, and dusted 
 each day with her own hand, the flower-pot Sisty 
 had bought with the proceeds of the domino-box, on 
 that memorable occasion on which he had learned 
 " how bad deeds are repaired with good." There, 
 in one corner, stood the little cottage piano, which I 
 remembered all my life old-fashioned, and with the 
 jingling voice of approaching decrepitude, but still 
 associated with such melodies as, after childhood, we 
 hear never more! And in the modest hanging
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 319 
 
 shelves which looked so gay with ribbons, and tassels, 
 and silken cords my mother's own library, saying 
 more to the heart than all the cold wise poets whose 
 souls my father invoked in his grand Heraclea. The 
 Bible over which, with eyes yet untaught to read, I 
 had hung in vague awe and love, as it lay open on 
 my mother's lap, while her sweet voice, then only 
 serious, was made the oracle of its truths. And my 
 first lesson-books were there, all hoarded. And 
 bound in blue and gold, but elaborately papered up, 
 Cowper's Poems a gift from my father in the days 
 of courtship sacred treasure, which not even I had 
 the privilege to touch ; and which my mother took 
 out only in the great crosses and trials of conjugal 
 life, whenever some word less kind than usual had 
 dropped unawares from her scholar's absent lips. 
 Ah ! all these poor household gods, all seemed to look 
 on me with mild anger ; and from all came a voice to 
 my soul, " Cruel, dost thou forsake us ! " And -^ 
 amongst them sat my mother, desolate as Rachel, 
 and weeping silently. 
 
 " Mother ! mother ! " I cried, falling on her neck, 
 " forgive me it is past I cannot leave you ! ' T
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " No no ! it is for your good Austin says so. 
 Go it is but the first shock." 
 
 Then to my mother I opened the sluices of that 
 deep I had concealed from scholar and soldier. To 
 her I poured all the wild, restless thoughts which 
 wandered through the ruins of love destroyed to 
 her I confessed what to myself I had scarcely before 
 avowed. And when the picture of that, the darker, 
 side of my mind was shown, it was with a prouder 
 face, and less broken voice, that I spoke of the 
 manlier hopes and nobler aims that gleamed across 
 the wrecks and the desert, and showed me my 
 escape. 
 
 " Did you not once say, mother, that you had felt it 
 like a remorse, that my father's genius passed so 
 noiselessly away, half accusing the happiness you 
 gave him for the death of his ambition in the content
 
 THE CAXTONS. 321 
 
 of his mind ? Did you not feel a new object in life 
 when the ambition revived at last, and you thought 
 you heard the applause of the world murmuring 
 round your scholar's cell ? Did you not share in the 
 day-dreams your brother conjured up, and exclaim, 
 1 If my brother could be the means of raising him in 
 the world!' and when you thought we had found 
 the way to fame and fortune, did you not sob out 
 from your full heart, ' And it is my brother who 
 will pay back to his son all all he gave up for 
 me'?" 
 
 " I cannot bear this, Sisty ! cease, cease ! " 
 " Xo ; for do you not yet understand me ? Will 
 it not be better still, if your son yours restore to 
 your Austin all that he lost, no matter how? If 
 through your son, mother, you do indeed make the 
 world hear of your husband's genius restore the 
 spring to his mind, the glory to his pursuits if you 
 rebuild even that vaunted ancestral name, which is 
 glory to our poor sonless Roland if your son can 
 restore the decay of generations, and reconstruct from 
 the dust the whole house into which you have entered, 
 its meek presiding angel? ah, mother! if this can be 
 done, it will be your work ; for unless you can share 
 my ambition unless you can dry those eyes, and 
 smile in my face, and bid me go, with a cheerful 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 322 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 voice all my courage melts from my heart, and again 
 I say I cannot leave you ! " 
 
 Then my mother folded her arms round me, and 
 we both wept, and could not speak but we were 
 both happy.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Now the worst was over, and my mother was the 
 most heroic of us all. So I began to prepare myself 
 in good earnest, and I followed Trevanion's instruc- 
 tions with a perseverance, which I could never, at 
 that young day, have thrown into the dead life of 
 books. I was in a good school amongst our Cumber- 
 land sheepwalks, to learn those simple elements of 
 rural art which belong to the pastoral state. Mr 
 Sidney, in his admirable Australian Hand-Book^ 
 recommends young gentlemen who think of becoming 
 settlers in the Bush to bivouac for three months on 
 Salisbury Plain. That book was not then written, 
 or I might have taken the advice ; meanwhile I think, 
 with due respect to such authority, that I went 
 through a preparatory training quite as useful in 
 seasoning the future emigrant. I associated readily 
 with the kindly peasants and craftsmen, who became 
 my teachers. With what pride I presented my
 
 324 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 father with a desk and my mother with a work-box, 
 fashioned by my own hands ! I made Bolt a lock for 
 his plate-chest, and (that last was my magnum opus, 
 my great masterpiece) I repaired and absolutely set 
 going an old turret clock in the tower, that had stood 
 } at two P.M. since the memory of man. I loved to 
 think, each time the hour sounded, that those who 
 heard its deep chime would remember me. But the 
 flocks were my main care. The sheep that I tended 
 and helped to shear, and the lamb that I hooked out 
 of the great marsh, and the three venerable ewes 
 that I nursed through a mysterious sort of murrain, 
 which puzzled all the neighbourhood are they not 
 written in thy loving chronicles, O House of Caxton ! 
 And now, since much of the success of my experi- 
 ment must depend on the friendly terms I could 
 establish with my intended partner, I wrote to Tre- 
 vanion, begging him to get the young gentleman who 
 / was to join me, and whose capital I was to administer, 
 to come and visit us. Trevanion complied, and there 
 arrived a tall fellow somewhat more than six feet 
 high, answering to the name of (j_uy TniMin^, in a 
 cut-away sporting-coat, with a dog-whistle tied to the 
 button-hole ; drab shorts and gaiters, and a waistcoat 
 with all manner of strange furtive pockets. Guy 
 Bolding had lived a year and a half at Oxford as a 
 " fast man j" so " fast" had he lived that there was
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 325 
 
 scarcely a tradesman at Oxford into whose books lie 
 had not contrived to run. 
 
 His father was compelled to withdraw him from the 
 university, at which he had already had the honour 
 of being plucked for " the little go ;" and the young 
 gentleman, on being asked for what profession he was 
 fit, had replied with conscious pride, " That he could 
 tool a coach!" In despair, the sire, who owed his 
 living to Trevanion, had asked the statesman's advice, 
 and the advice had fixed me with a partner in expa- 
 triation. 
 
 My first feeling, in greeting the " fast " man, was" 
 certainly that of deep disappointment and strong 
 repugnance. But I was determined not to be too 
 fastidious ; and, having a lucky knack of suiting my- 
 self pretty well to all tempers, (without which a man 
 had better not think of loadstones in the great Austra- 
 lasian Bight,) I contrived before the first week was 
 out to establish so many points of connexion between 
 us that we became the best friends in the world. 
 Indeed, it would have been my fault if we had not, 
 for Guy Bolding, with all his faults, was one of those 
 excellent creatures who are nobody's enemies but x 
 their own. His good humour was inexhaustible. 
 Not a hardship or privation came amiss to him. He 
 had a phrase " Such fun !" that always rushed laugh- 
 ingly to his lips when another man would have cursed
 
 326 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 and groaned. If we lost our way in the great track- 
 less moors, missed our dinner, and were half-famished, 
 Guy rubbed hands that would have felled an ox, and 
 chuckled out " Such fun ! " If we stuck in a bog, if 
 we were caught in a thunder-storm, if we were pitched 
 head over heels by the wild colts we undertook to 
 break in, Guy Bolding's sole elegy was " Such fun ! "" 
 That grand shibboleth of philosophy only forsook him 
 at the sight of an open book. I don't think that, at 
 ^^ that time, he could have found "fun" even in Don 
 Quixote. This hilarious temperament had no insen- 
 sibility ; a kinder heart never beat, but, to be sure, 
 it beat to a strange, restless, tarantula sort of measure, 
 which kept it in a perpetual dance. It made him one 
 of those officiously good fellows, who are never quiet 
 themselves, and never let any one else be quiet if they 
 can help it. But Guy's great fault, in this prudent 
 world, was his absolute incontinence of money. If 
 you had turned an Euphrates of gold into his pockets 
 at morning, it would have been as dry as the great 
 Sahara by twelve at noon. What he did with the 
 money was a mystery as much to himself as to every 
 one else. His father said in a letter to me, that " he 
 had seen him shying at sparrows with half-crowns ! " 
 That such a young man could come to no good in 
 England, seemed perfectly clear. Still, it is recorded 
 of many great men, who did not end their days in a
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 327 
 
 workhouse, that they were equally non-retentive of 
 money. Schiller, when he had nothing else to give 
 away, gave the clothes from his back, and Goldsmith 
 the blankets from his bed. Tender hands found it 
 necessary to pick Beethoven's pockets at home before 
 he walked out. Great heroes, who have made no 
 scruple of robbing the whole world, have been just as 
 lavish as poor poets and musicians. Alexander, in 
 parcelling out his spoils, left himself " hope ! " And 
 as for Julius Caesar, he was two millions in debt when 
 he shied his last half-crown at the sparrows in Gaul. 
 Encouraged by these illustrious examples, I had hopes 
 of Guy Bolding ; and the more as he was so aware of 
 his own infirmity that he was perfectly contented with 
 the arrangement which made me treasurer of his 
 capital, and even besought me, on no account, let him 
 beg ever so hard, to permit his own money to come 
 in his own way. In fact, I contrived to gain a great 
 ascendency over his simple, generous, thoughtless 
 nature ; and by artful appeals to his affections to all 
 he owed to his father for many bootless sacrifices, and 
 to the duty of providing a little dower for his infant 
 sister, whose meditated portion had half gone to pay 
 his college debts I at last succeeded in fixing into his 
 mind an object to save for. 
 
 Three other companions did I select for our Cleru--^ 
 chia. The first was the son of our old shepherd, who
 
 328 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 had lately married, but was not yet encumbered with 
 children, a good shepherd, and an intelligent, steady 
 fellow. The second was a very different character ; 
 he had been the <3read_of the whole squirearchy. A 
 more bold and dexterous poacher did not exist. Now 
 my acquaintance with this latter person, named 
 Peterson, and more popularly "Will o^^h 
 had commenced thus : Bolt had managed to rear in 
 a small copse about a mile from the house and which 
 was the only bit of ground in my uncle's domains that 
 might by courtesy be called " a wood " a young 
 colony of pheasants, that he dignified by the title of 
 a " preserve. " This colony was audaciously despoiled 
 and grievously depopulated, in spite of two watchers 
 who, with Bolt, guarded for seven nights successively 
 the slumbers of the infant settlement. So insolent 
 was the assault, that bang, bang went the felonious 
 gun behind, before within but a few yards of the 
 sentinels and the gunner was off, and the prey seized, 
 before they could rush to the spot. The boldness and 
 skill of the enemy soon proclaimed him, to the ex- 
 perienced watchers, to be Will o' the Wisp : and so 
 great was their dread of this fellow's strength and 
 courage, and so complete their despair of being a 
 match for his swiftness and cunning, that after the 
 seventh night the watchers refused to go out any 
 longer ; and poor Bolt himself was confined to his
 
 A FAMILY PICTUEE. 329 
 
 bed by an attack of what a doctor would have called 
 rheumatism, and a moralist, rage. My indignation 
 and sympathy were greatly excited by this mortifying 
 failure, and my interest romantically aroused by the 
 anecdotes I had heard of Will o' the Wisp ; accord- 
 ingly, armed with a thick bludgeon, I stole out at 
 night, and took my way to the copse. The leaves 
 were not off th6 trees, and how the poacher contrived 
 to see his victims I know not ; but five shots did he 
 fire, and not in vain, without allowing me to catch a 
 glimpse of him. I then retreated to the outskirt of 
 the copse, and waited patiently by an angle, which 
 commanded two sides of the wood. Just as the dawn 
 began to peep, I saw my man emerge within twenty 
 yards of me. I held my breath, suffered him to get a 
 few steps from the wood, crept on so as to intercept 
 his retreat, and then pounce such a bound! My 
 hand was on his shoulder prr, prr, no eel was ever 
 more lubricate. He slid from me like a thing imma- 
 terial, and was off over the moors with a swiftness 
 which might well have baffled any clodhopper a race 
 whose calves are generally absorbed in the soles of 
 their hobnail shoes. But the Hellenic Institute, with its 
 classical gymnasia, had trained its pupils in all bodily 
 exercises ; and though the Will o' the Wisp was swift 
 for a clodhopper, he was no match at running for any 
 youth who has spent his boyhood in the discipline of
 
 330 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 cricket, prisoner's bars, and hunt-tlie-hare. I reached 
 him at length, and brought him to bay. 
 
 " Stand back!" said he, panting, and taking aim 
 with his gun ; " it is loaded. " 
 
 " Yes," said I ; " but though you're a brave poacher, 
 you dare not fire at your fellow-man. Give up the 
 gun this instant. " 
 
 My address took him by surprise ; he did not fire. 
 I struck up the barrel, and closed on him. We 
 grappled pretty tightly, and in the wrestle the gun 
 went off. The man loosened his hold. " Lord ha' 
 mercy ! I have not hurt you?" he said falteringly. 
 
 "My good fellow no," said I; " and now let us 
 throw aside gun and bludgeon, and fight it out like 
 Englishmen, or else let us sit down and talk it over 
 like friends." 
 
 The Will o' the Wisp scratched its head and 
 laughed. 
 
 " Well, you're a queer one ! " quoth it. And the 
 poacher dropped the gun and sat down. 
 
 We did talk it over, and I obtained Peterson's 
 promise to respect the preserve henceforth ; and we 
 thereon grew so cordial that he walked home with me, 
 
 I and even presented me, shyly and apologetically, 
 with the five pheasants he had shot. From that time 
 I sought him out. He was a young fellow not four- 
 and-twenty, who had taken to poaching from the wild
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 331 
 
 sport of the thing, and from some confused notions 
 that he had a license from Nature to poach. I soon 
 found out that he was meant for better things than to 
 spend six months of the twelve in prison, and finish 
 his life on the gallows after killing a gamekeeper. 
 That seemed to me his most probable destiny in the 
 Old World, so I talked him into a burning desire for 
 the New one : and a most valuable aid in the Bush he 
 proved too. 
 
 My third selection was in a personage who could 
 bring little physical strength to help us, but who had/ 
 more mind (though with a wrong twist in it) than all 
 the others put together. 
 
 A worthy couple in the village had a son, who 
 being slight and puny, compared to the Cumberland 
 breed, was shouldered out of the market of agricul- 
 tural labour, and went off, yet a boy, to a manufac- 
 turing town. Now about the age of thirty, this 
 mechanic, disabled for his work by a long illness, 
 came home to recover ; and in a short time we heard 
 of nothing but the pestilential doctrines with which 
 he was either shocking or infecting our primitive 
 villagers. According to report, Corcyra itself never 
 engendered a democrat more awful. The poor manN 
 was really very ill, and his parents very poor ; but I 
 his unfortunate doctrines dried up all the streams I 
 of charity that usually flowed through our kindly
 
 332 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 hamlet. The clergyman (an excellent man, but of 
 the old school) walked by the house as if it were 
 tabooed. The apothecary said, " Miles Square ought 
 to have wine ;" but he did not send him any. The 
 farmers held his name in execration, for he had 
 incited all their labourers to strike for another shilling 
 a-week. And but for the old tower, Miles Square 
 would soon have found his way to the only republic 
 in which he could obtain that democratic fraternisation 
 for which he sighed the grave being, I suspect, the 
 sole commonwealth which attains that dead flat of 
 social equality, that life in its every principle so 
 heartily abhors. 
 
 I My uncle went to see Miles Square, and came 
 back the colour of purple. Miles Square had preached 
 him a long sermon on the unholiness of war. " Even 
 in defence of your king and country ! " had roared 
 the Captain; and Miles Square had replied with a 
 remark upon kings in general, that the Captain could 
 not have repeated without expecting to see the old 
 tower fall about his ears ; and with an observation 
 about the country in particular, to the effect that 
 u the country would be much better off if it were 
 conquered ! " On hearing the report of these loyal 
 and patriotic replies, my father said, " Papse ! " and, 
 roused out of his usual philosophical indifference, wont 
 himself to visit Miles Square. My father returned as
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 333 
 
 pale as my uncle had been purple. " And to think," 
 said he mournfully, "that in the town whence this 
 man comes, there are, he tells me, ten thousand other ; 
 of God's creatures who speed the work of civilisation 
 v/liile execrating its laws ! " 
 
 But neither father nor uncle made any opposition 
 when, with a basket laden with wine and arrow-root, 
 and a neat little Bible, bound in brown, my mother 
 took her way to the excommunicated cottage. Her 
 visit was as signal a failure as those that preceded it. 
 Miles Square refused the basket ; " he was not going 
 to accept alms, and eat the bread of charity ; " and on 
 my mother meekly suggesting that, "if Mr Miles 
 Square would condescend to look into the Bible, he 
 would see that even charity was no sin in giver or 
 recipient," Mr Miles Square had undertaken to prove ) 
 " that, according to the Bible, he had as much a right v 
 to my mother's property as she had that all things ; 
 should be in common and, when all things were in 
 common, what became of charity ? No ; he could 
 not eat my uncle's arrow-root, and drink his wine, 
 while my uncle was improperly withholding from him 
 and his fellow-creatures so many unprofitable acres : 
 the land belonged to the people." It was now the 
 turn ofJEisi&tcatus to go. He went once, and he went 
 often. Miles Square and Pisistratus wrangled and 
 argued argued and wrangled and ended by taking
 
 334 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 a fancy to each other ; for this poor Miles Square was 
 not half so bad as his doctrines. His errors arose 
 from intense sympathy with the sufferings he had 
 witnessed, amidst the misery which accompanies the 
 reign of millocrntism^ and from the vague aspirations 
 of a half-taught, impassioned, earnest nature. By 
 degrees, I persuaded him to drink the wine and eat 
 the arrow-root, en attendant that millennium which 
 was to restore the land to the people. And then my 
 mother came again and softened his heart, and, for 
 the first time in his life, let into its cold crotchets the 
 warm light of human gratitude. I lent him some 
 books, amongst others a few volumes on Australia. 
 A passage in one of the latter, in which it was said 
 " that an intelligent mechanic usually made his way 
 in the colony, even as a shepherd, better than a dull 
 agricultural labourer," caught hold of his fancy, and 
 seduced his aspirations into a healthful direction. 
 Finally, as he recovered, he entreated me to let him 
 accompany me. And as I may not have to return to 
 Miles Square, I think it right here to state, that he 
 did go with me to Australia, and did succeed, first as 
 a shepherd, next as a superintendant, and finally, on 
 saving money, as a landowner ; and that, in spite of 
 his opinions on the unholiness of war, he was no 
 sooner in possession of a comfortable log homestead, 
 than he defended it with uncommon gallantry against
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 335 
 
 an attack of the aborigines, whose right to the soil 
 was, to say the least of it, as good as his claim to my 
 uncle's acres ; that he commemorated his subsequent 
 acquisition of a fresh allotment, with the stock on it, 
 by a little pamphlet, published at Sydney, on the 
 Sanctity of the Rights of Property / and that, when I 
 left the colony, having been much pestered by two 
 refractory " helps" that he had added to his establish- 
 ment, he had just distinguished himself by a very 
 anti-levelling lecture upon the duties of servants to 
 their employers. What would the Old World have 
 done for this man !
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 I HAD not been in haste to conclude my arrange- 
 ments, for, independently of my wish to render myself 
 acquainted with the small useful crafts that might be 
 necessary to me in a life that makes the individual 
 man a state in himself, I naturally desired to habituate 
 my kindred to the idea of our separation, and to plan 
 
 ^- provide for them all such substitutes or distrac- 
 tions, in compensation for my loss, as my fertile 
 imagination could suggest. And first, for the sake of 
 Blanche, Roland, and my mother, I talked the Captain 
 into reluctant sanction of his sister-in-law's proposal, 
 to unite their incomes and share alike, without consi- 
 dering which party brought the larger proportion into 
 the firm. I represented to him that, unless he made 
 that sacrifice of his pride, my mother would be wholly 
 without those little notable uses and objects those 
 small household pleasures so dear to woman ; that 
 all society in the neighbourhood would be impossible,
 
 THE CAXTONS. 337 
 
 and that my mother's time would hang so heavily 
 on her hands, that her only resource would be 
 to muse on the absent one and fret. Nay, if he 
 persisted in so false a pride, I told him, fairly, that I 
 should urge my father to leave the tower. These 
 representations succeeded; and hospitality had com- 
 menced in the old hall, and a knot of gossips had 
 centred round my mother groups of laughing 
 children had relaxed the still brow of Blanche and 
 the Captain himself was a more cheerful and social 
 man. My next point was to engage my father in the 
 completion of the Great Book. " Ah, sir," said I, 
 " give me an inducement to toil, a reward for my 
 industry. Let me think, in each tempting pleasure, 
 each costly vice No, no ; I will save for the Great 
 Book ! and the memory of the father shall still keep 
 the son from error. Ah, look you, sir ! Mr Trevanion 
 offered me the loan of the 1500 necessary to com- 
 mence with ; but you generously and at once said 
 No ; you must not begin life under the load of debt." 
 And I knew you were right, and yielded yielded 
 more gratefully, that I could not but forfeit something 
 of the just pride of manhood in incurring such an 
 obligation to the father of Miss Trevanion. There- 
 fore I have taken that sum from you a sum that 
 would almost have sufficed to establish your younger I 
 and worthier child in the world for ever. To that/ 
 
 VOL. II. Y
 
 338 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 child let me repay it, otherwise I will not take it. 
 Let me hold it as a trust for the Great Book ; and 
 promise me that the Great Book shall be ready when 
 your wanderer returns, and accounts for the missing 
 talent." 
 
 And my father pished a little, and rubbed off the 
 dew that had gathered on his spectacles. But I 
 would not leave him in peace till he had given me his 
 word that the Great Book should go on a pas du geant 
 nay, till I had seen him sit down to it with good 
 heart, and the wheel went round again in the quiet 
 mechanism of that gentle life. 
 
 Finally, and as the culminating acme of my diplo- 
 macy, I effected the purchase of the neighbouring 
 apothecary's practice and good-will for Squills, upon 
 tenns which he willingly subscribed to ; for the poor 
 man had pined at the loss of his favourite patients, 
 though, Heaven knows, they did not add much to his 
 income. And as for my father, there was no man 
 who diverted him more than Squills, though he accused 
 him of being a materialist, and set his whole spiritual 
 pack of sages to worry and bark at him, from Plato 
 and Zeno to Reid and Abraham Tucker. 
 
 Thus, although I have very loosely intimated the 
 flight of time, more than a whole year elapsed from 
 the date of our settlement at the tower and that affixed 
 for my departure.
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 339 
 
 In the meanwhile, despite the rarity amongst us of 
 that phenomenon a newspaper, we- were not so utterly 
 cut off from the sounds of the far-booming world 
 beyond, but what the intelligence of a change in the 
 administration, and the appointment of Mr Trevanion -' 
 to one of the great offices of state, reached our ears. 
 I had kept up no correspondence with Trevanion sub- 
 sequent to the letter that occasioned Guy Bolding's 
 visit ; I wrote now to congratulate him : his reply 
 was short and hurried. 
 
 An intelligence that startled me more, and more 
 deeply moved my heart, was conveyed to me some 
 three months or so before my departure, by Treva- 
 nion's steward. The ill health of Lord Castleton had , 
 deferred his marriage, intended originally to be cele- 
 brated as soon as he arrived of age. He left the 
 university with the honours of " a double-first class ;" 
 and his constitution appeared to rally from the effects of 
 studies more severe to him than they might have been 
 to a man of quicker and more brilliant capacities 
 when a feverish cold, caught at a county meeting, in 
 which his first public appearance was so creditable as 
 fully to justify the warmest hopes of his party, produced 
 inflammation of the lungs, and ended fatally. The {^ 
 startling contrast forced on my mind here sudden 
 death, and cold clay there youth in its first flower, 
 princely rank, boundless wealth, the sanguine expecta-
 
 340 THE CAXTONS. 
 
 tion of an illustrious career, and the prospect of that 
 happiness which smiled from the eyes of Fanny that 
 contrast impressed me with a strange awe : death 
 seems so near to us when it strikes those whom life 
 most flatters and caresses. Whence is that curious 
 sympathy that we all have with the possessors of 
 worldly greatness, when the hour-glass is shaken and 
 the scythe descends ? If the famous meeting between 
 Diogenes and Alexander had taken place, not before, 
 but after' the achievements which gave to Alexander 
 the name of Great, the cynic would not perhaps have 
 envied the hero his pleasures nor his splendours 
 neither the charms of Statira, nor the tiara of the 
 Mede; but if, the day after, a cry had gone forth, 
 " Alexander the Great is dead !" verily I believe that 
 Diogenes would have coiled himself up in his tub, and 
 felt that, with the shadow of the stately hero, some- 
 thing of glory and of warmth had gone from that sun, 
 which it should darken never more. In the nature 
 of man, the humblest or the hardest, there is a some- 
 thing that lives in all of the Beautiful or the Fortunate, 
 which hope and desire have appropriated, even in the 
 vanities of a childish dream.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " WHY are you here all alone, cousin ? How cold 
 and still it is amongst the graves ! " 
 
 " Sit down beside me, Blanche ; it is not colder in 
 the churchyard than on the village green." 
 
 And Blanche sat down beside me, nestled close 
 to me, and leant her head upon my shoulder. We 
 were both long silent. It was an evening in the early 
 spring, clear and serene the roseate streaks were 
 fading gradually from the dark gray of long, narrow, 
 fantastic clouds. Tall, leafless poplars, that stood in 
 orderly level line, on the lowland between the church- 
 yard and the hill, with its crown of ruins, left their 
 sharp summits distinct against the sky. * But the 
 shadows coiled dull and heavy round the evergreens 
 that skirted the churchyard, so that their outline was 
 vague and confused ; and there was a depth in their 
 gloomy stillness, broken only when the thrush flew
 
 342 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 out from the lower bushes, and the thick laurel-leaves 
 stirred reluctantly, and again were rigid in repose. 
 There is a certain melancholy in the evenings of early 
 spring which is among those influences of nature the 
 most universally recognised, the most difficult to 
 explain. The silent stir of reviving life, which does 
 not yet betray signs in the bud and blossom only 
 in a softer clearness in the air, a more lingering pause 
 in the slowly lengthening day ; a more delicate fresh- 
 ness and balm in the twilight atmosphere ; a more 
 lively yet still unquiet note from the birds, settling 
 down into their coverts ; the vague sense under all 
 that hush, which still outwardly wears the bleak ster- 
 ility of winter of the busy change, hourly, momently, 
 at work renewing the youth of the world, reclothing 
 with vigorous bloom the skeletons of things all these 
 messages from the heart of nature to the heart of 
 man may well affect and move us. But why with 
 melancholy ? No thought on our part connects and 
 construes the low, gentle voices. It is not thought 
 that replies and reasons : it is feeling that hears and 
 dreams. Examine not, child of man ! examine not 
 that mysterious melancholy with the hard eyes of thy 
 reason ; thou canst not impale it on the spikes of thy 
 thorny logic, nor describe its enchanted circle by 
 problems conned from thy schools. Borderer thyself
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 343 
 
 of two worlds the Dead and the Living give thine 
 ear to the tones, bow thy soul to the shadows, that 
 steal, in the season of change, from the dim Border 
 Land. 
 
 BLANCHE (in a whisper.) What are you thinking 
 of? speak, pray ! 
 
 PISISTRATUS. I was not thinking, Blanche ; or, if 
 I were, the thought is gone at the mere effort to seize 
 or detain it. 
 
 BLANCHE (after a pause.) I know what you mean. 
 It is the same with me often so often, when I am 
 sitting by myself, quite still. It is just like the story 
 Primmins was telling us the other evening, " how 
 there was a woman in her village who saw things and 
 people in a piece of crystal, not bigger than my hand:* 
 they passed along as large as life, but they were only 
 pictures in the crystal." Since I heard the story, 
 when aunt asks me what I am thinking of, I long to 
 say, " I'm not thinking ! I am seeing pictures in the 
 crystal ! " 
 
 * In primitive villages, in the west of England, the belief that 
 the absent may be seen in a piece of crystal is, or was not many 
 years ago, by no means an uncommon superstition. I have seen 
 more than one of these magic mirrors, which Spenser, by the way, 
 has beautifully described. They are about the size and shape of a 
 swan's egg. It is not every one, however, who can be a crystal-seer; 
 like second-sight, it is a special gift.
 
 344 THE CAXTONS : 
 
 PlSISTRATUS. Tell my father that] it will plea<o 
 him. There is more philosophy in it than you are 
 aware of, Blanche. There are wise men who have 
 thought the whole world, its " pride, pomp, and cir- 
 cumstance," only a phantom image a picture in the 
 crystal. 
 
 BLANCHE. And I shall see you see us both, 
 as we are sitting here and that star which has 
 just risen yonder see it all in my crystal when 
 you are gone! gone, cousin!" And Blanche's 
 head drooped. 
 
 There was something so quiet and deep in the ten- 
 derness of this poor motherless child, that it did not 
 affect one superficially, like a child's loud momentary 
 affection, in which we know that the first toy will 
 replace us. I kissed my little cousin" s pale face, and 
 said, " And I too, Blanche, have my crystal ; and 
 when I consult it, I shall be very angry if I see you 
 sad and fretting, or seated alone. For you must 
 know, Blanche, that that is all selfishness. God made 
 us, not to indulge only in crystal pictures, weave idle 
 fancies, pine alone, and mourn over what we cannot 
 help but to be alert and active givers of happiness. 
 Now, Blanche, see what a trust I am going to bequeath 
 you. You are to supply my place to all whom I leave. 
 You are to bring sunshine wherever you glide with
 
 A FAMILY PICTURE. 345 
 
 that shy, soft step whether to your father, when you 
 see his brows knit and his arms crossed, (that, indeed, 
 you always do,) or to mine, when the volume drops 
 from his hand when hev walks to and fro the room, 
 restless, and murmuring to himself then you are to 
 steal up to him, put your hand in his, lead him back 
 to his books, and whisper, ' What will Sisty say if his 
 younger brother, the Great Book, is not grown up 
 when he comes back?' And my poormother, Blanche ! 
 ah, how can I counsel you there how tell you 
 where to find comfort for her ? Only, Blanche, steal 
 into her heart and be her daughter. And, to fulfil 
 this threefold trust, you must not content yourself 
 with seeing pictures in the crystal do you under- 
 stand me?" 
 
 "Oh yes," said Blanche, raising her eyes, while 
 the tears rolled from them, and folding her arms 
 resolutely on her breast. 
 
 " And so," said I, " as we two, sitting in this quiet 
 burial-ground, take new heart for the duties and cares 
 of life, so see, Blanche, how the stars come out, one 
 by one, to smile upon us; for they, too, glorious 
 orbs as they are, perform their appointed tasks. 
 Things seem to approximate to God in proportion 
 to their vitality and movement. Of all things, least 
 
 inert and sullen should be the soul of man. How 
 VOL. n. z
 
 34f, THE CAXTONS. 
 
 the grass grows up over the very graves quickly 
 it grows and greenly but neither so quick nor so 
 green, my Blanche, as hope and comfort from human 
 sorrows." 
 
 
 END OF VOLDME II. 
 
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