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 TEE 
 
 CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK.
 
 
 THE HERMIT OF BELLTFULLE.
 
 THE 
 
 CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK 
 
 * 
 
 WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 ^5f Bermit of 33ellpfulle. 
 
 BY DOUGLAS JERROLD. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PUBLISHED AT THE PUNCH OFFICE, 
 
 85, FLEET STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXLVJI.
 
 LONDOR ; 
 BEADBURV AND EVA^'8, PBIXTEBS WniTBFBIABI.
 
 
 JH 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK 
 
 PAGZ 
 1 
 
 ESSAYS. 
 
 FOLLY OF THE SWORD 
 ELIZABETH AND VICTORIA 
 THE ORDER OF POVERTY 
 A GOSSIP AT RECULVERS 
 THE OLD MAN AT THE GATE 
 
 141 
 141) 
 161 
 172 
 
 179 
 
 RESERVl
 
 THE 
 
 CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK; 
 
 W'lTH SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 ^I^E ^etmit of 33cIlBfuIIc. 
 
 "YY^E have vet no truthful map of England. No oifeuce 
 to the publishers ; hut the verity must he uttered 
 We have pored and pondered, and gone to our sheets with 
 weak, winking eyes, having vainly searched, we cannot 
 trust ourselves to say how many hundred maps of our 
 heloved land, for the exact whereahout of Clovernook. 
 We cannot find it. More : we doubt — so imperfect are 
 all the maps — if any man can drop his finger on the 
 spot, can point to the blessed locality of that most 
 blissful village. He could as easily show to us the 
 hundred of Utopia ; the glittering weathercocks of the 
 New Atalantis. 
 
 And shall we be more communicative than the 
 publishers ? No ; the secret shall be buried with us ; 
 we will hug it under our shroud. We have heard of 
 shrewd, short-speeched men who were the living caskets 
 of some healing jewel ; some restorative recipe to draw 
 the burning fangs from gout ; some anodyne to touch 
 away sciatica into the lithesomeness of a kid ; and these 
 men have died, and have, to their own satisfaction at 
 least, carried the secret into their coffins, as though 
 
 B
 
 2 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 the mystery would comfort tliem as they rotted. There 
 have been such men ; and the black, begrimed father of 
 ail uncharitableness sits cross-legged upon their tomb- 
 stones, and sniggers over them ! 
 
 Nevertheless, we will not tell to the careless and 
 irreverent world — a world noisy with the ringing of 
 shiUings — the whereabout of Clovcrnook. We might, 
 would we condescend, give an all-sufficient reason for 
 our closeness : we will do no such thing. No : the 
 village is our own — consecrated to our own delicious 
 leisure, when time runs by like a summer brook, 
 dimpling and sweetly murmuring as it runs. We have 
 the most potent right of freehold in the soil ; nay, it is 
 our lordship. We have there droits du seigneur ; and 
 in the very despotism of our ownership might, if we 
 would, turn oaks into gibbets. Let this knowledge 
 suffice to the reader ; for we will not vouchsafe to him 
 another pippin's-worth. 
 
 Thus nmch, however, we will say of the history of 
 Clovernook. There is about it a very proper mist and 
 haziness ; it twinkles far, far away through the darkness 
 of time, like a taper through a midnight casement. 
 The spirit of fable that dallies with the vexed heart 
 of man, and incarnates his dreams in living presences 
 — for mightiest of the mighty is oft the muscle of 
 fiction — fable says that Clovernook was the work of 
 some sprite of Fancy, that in an idle and extravagant 
 mood, made it a choice country seat ; a green and 
 flowery place, peopled with happy faces. And it was 
 created, says fable, after this fashion. 
 
 The sprite took certain pieces of old, fine linen, 
 which were torn and torn, and reduced to a very pulp, 
 and then made into a substance, thin and spotless. 
 And then the sprite flew away to distant woods, and 
 gathered certain things, from whicli was expressed a 
 Uquid of darkest dye. And then, after tlie old, time- 
 honoured way, a living thing was sacrificed ; a bird 
 much praised by men at Michaelmas, fell with bleeding
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. J 
 
 throat ; and the sprite, pkicking a feather from the 
 poor dead tjilng, waved and waved it, and the village 
 of Clovernook grew and grew ; and cottages, silently 
 as trees, rose from the earth ; and men and Avonien 
 came there by ones and twos ; and in good time 
 smoke rose from chimneys, and cradles were rocked. 
 And this, so saith fable, was the beginning of Clovernook. 
 
 Although wo will not let the rabble of the world 
 know the whereabout of our village — and by the rabble, 
 be it understood, we do not mean the wretches who are 
 guilty of daily hunger, and are condemned in the court 
 of poverty of the high misdemeanor of patches and rags, 
 — but we mean the mere money-changers, the folks who 
 carry their sullen souls in the comers of their pockets, 
 and think the site of Eden is covered with the Mint ; 
 althougli we will not have Clovernook startled from its 
 sweet, dreamy serenity — and we have sometimes known 
 the very weasels in mid-day to doze there, given up to 
 the delicious influence of the place — by the chariot 
 wheels of that stony-hearted old dowager. Lady Mam- 
 mon, with her false locks and ruddled cheeks, — we 
 invite all others to our little village ; where they may 
 loll in the sun or shade as suits them ; lie along on the 
 green tufty sward, and kick their heels at fortune : 
 where they may jig an evening dance in the meadows, 
 and after retire to the inn — the one inn of Clovernook 
 — glorified under the sign of " Gratis ! " 
 
 Match us that sign if you can. What are your 
 Georges and Dragons, yom* Kings' Heads, and Queens' 
 Arms ; your Lions, Red, White, and Black ; your Mer- 
 maids and your Dolphins, to that large, embracing 
 benevolence — Gratis ? Doth not the word seem to 
 throw its arms about you with a hugging welcome ? 
 Gratis ! It is the voice of Nature, speaking from the 
 fulness of her large heart. The word is written all over 
 the blue heaven. The health-giving air whispers it 
 about us. It rides the sunbeam — (save when statesman 
 puts a window-pane 'twixt us and it). The lark trills it 
 
 B 2
 
 4 TIIE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 high lip ill its skyey dome ; the little wayside flower 
 breathes gratis from its pinky mouth ; the bright brook 
 murmurs it ; it is written in the harvest moon. Look 
 and move where we will, delights — all "gratis." all 
 breathing and beaming beauty — are about us ; and yet 
 how rarely do we seize the happiness, because, forsooth, 
 it is a joy gratis ? 
 
 But let us back to Clovernook. We offer it as a 
 country tarrying-place for all who will accept its hos- 
 ])itality. We will show every green lane about it ; every 
 clump of trees — every bit of woodland, mead and dell. 
 The villagers, too, may be found, upon acquaintance, not 
 altogether boors. There are some strange folk among 
 them. Men who have wrestled in the world, and have 
 had their victories and their trippings-up ; and now they 
 have nothing to do but keep their little bits of garden- 
 ground pranked with the earliest flowers ; their only 
 enemies, weeds, slugs, and snails. Odd people, we say 
 it, are amongst them. Men, whose minds have been 
 strangely carved and fashioned by the world ; cut like 
 odd fancies in walnut-tree ; but though curious and 
 grotes([ue, the minds arc sound, with not a worm-hole 
 in them. And the.^e men meet in summer under the 
 broad mulberry-tree before the "Gratis," and tell their 
 stories — thoughts, humours ; yea, thoir dreams. They 
 have nothing to do but to consider that curious bit of 
 clock-work, the mind, within them ; and droll it some- 
 times is, to mark how they will try to take it to pieces, 
 and then again to adjust its little wheels, its levers, 
 and springs. 
 
 Some of these worthy folk may, in good time, be made 
 known to our readers. But our first business is to intro- 
 duce to them a most wise, and withal jocund sage, 
 dwellmg about a mile and three quarters from Clover- 
 nook, and known to the villagers as the Hermit of 
 Bollyfulle. It was a happy chance that brought the 
 anchorite and ourselves together. Thus it happened. 
 
 An autumn day had died gloriously in the west ; dark-
 
 THE CIIUOXICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 5 
 
 noss came rapidly upon us, aud to be brief with our 
 mishap, vvc had lost our waj. We had travelled from 
 
 , a Inarket-town, and as our saddle-bags — for 
 
 we were upon our choice gelding — were, strangely 
 enough, stuti'od with the lawful golden coin of the realm, 
 our fears rose with our sense of property. Again and 
 again we thought of our gold, and thinking, sweated. 
 To our apprehension, the gelding's logs became as eight ; 
 for though we saw no horse following us, yet could we 
 certainly distinguish the sound of eight hoofs. We 
 kept up a sharp trot, and oddly enough, the gelding 
 tliat half-an-huur before showed signs of weariness and 
 distress, trotted, trotted on as though fiesh from a 
 night's rest, corn and beans. As we went on, every- 
 thing seemed strangely changing about us. The sky 
 that had been black as coal, broke into a mild, clear 
 grey ; star by star came twinkling out ; the cold, 
 autumn wind blew soft and warm ; our spirits became 
 suddenly lightened, when our gelding — it is a most 
 sagacious beast — made a dead halt. 
 
 The creature stood fast, and we looked vainly about 
 us. We saw nothing — heard nothing:. The animal still 
 stood as upon a pedestal. And now, it pricked its ears 
 — and now, snuffed, snuffed the air. Then the truth, 
 in truth's best sweetness, came upon us. We were close 
 to a human dwelling-place ; we were in the neighbour- 
 hood of some of the units of the large family of man. 
 Hope could not have deceived us : no, the truth was 
 plain ; for we smelt a smell of bacon and eggs. 
 
 Now, the gelding had merely paused to awaken our 
 attention to the odorous fact. This opinion we carry, 
 fast as a clenched nail, within us. For we merely took 
 a deep inspiration, jerked our right knee against the 
 saddle, and Bottom — for such is the beast's name — 
 immediately understood that we had taken his meaning, 
 and with mended step, went ambling on, as though his 
 soul danced to the music of the frying-pan. A most 
 rational beast is Bottom.
 
 n THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 Still, we trotted on, down close, winding, mossy 
 lanes — with odd, large, gnarled trees, throwing their 
 arms across the narrow road, and sometimes meeting 
 and hugging one another, like Titan wrcstlei-s. There 
 was something strange in the trees ; something, as 
 we thought, half-human : now and then they looked 
 like giants ; and now, we thought we saw the red goat- 
 like noses of satyrs among the hranches, with a quick 
 jerking of their horned heads. Once or twice, thinking 
 of our saddle-bags, we should have fainted from sheer 
 cowardice; but as Bottom ambled onward, there was an 
 incrcasinii:, a sustaininir smell of bacon and cijfjs. 
 
 At length. Bottom stopt in a sort of triangular nook. 
 There was no outlet. We looked ; was it a glow- 
 worm glimmering through that mass of green ? No : it 
 was tallow, delicious, household tallow ; or if not, oil from 
 leviathan. We dismounted, and groping our way, at 
 length, through a wilderness of woodbine and ivy, found 
 the dour. AVe knocked. 
 
 " Come in," cried a voice, loud as a trumpet. 
 
 Melodious syllables ! Sweet accents of sweet hos- 
 pitality ! Harmonious to the traveller on the outside, 
 glorifying to the man at the hearth! lie has escaped 
 somewhat of the smitings of this single-stick world, 
 who, when he hears knuckles at his postern, can throw 
 himself back in his chair like a king upon his throne, 
 and without a qualm of the heart, cry — " Come in !" 
 
 In darkness, we clawed about the door ; at length we 
 found the latch. In a moment we were at the hearth- 
 stone of the greatest animal in the scale of creation — 
 an animal that cooks. 
 
 "And who are you ? " cried the master of the mansion. 
 
 What a pert, every-day asking is this ! What a 
 query to answer ! Reader, did you ever, for one moment, 
 say to your own soul, — "Who are you?" You know 
 that you are a something, but what thing ? You know 
 that there is some living power, some knack within 
 you, that helps you through life ; that enables you to
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 7 
 
 make a bargain with an eye to a good pennyworth ; 
 that even urges you to pick a wife from a few millions ; 
 that walks with you in your business walks, that broods 
 Avith you at homo over your ledger — but what is it ? 
 Did you ever try to bring it face to face with yourself ? 
 Did you ever manfully endeavour to jiluck, for a moment, 
 this mystery from your blood, and look at it eye to eye — 
 this You ? It may be a terrible meeting ; but sit in the 
 magic circle of your own thoughts, and conjure the 
 thing. It may be devil — it may be angel. No. You 
 will take the chance : yuu are not curious : you are 
 content to jog on ; you know that you are you ; but 
 for the v:hat you, whether perfect as the angels, or 
 scabbed like Lazarus, why should you seek to know ? 
 Rather, dwell in the hopeful sweetness of your no- 
 knowing. 
 
 "And who are vou?" again asked the man we had 
 elected for our host, ere we had time or thought to 
 answer. 
 
 " We are travellers, and have lost our way," said we. 
 
 " Sit down and eat," said the master of the mansion. 
 " And then, if the world has left you a light conscience, 
 you can, if you will, sleep." 
 
 " We '11 tirst see to Bottom, and then have with you," 
 said we ; for there was a ring of trutli and good-fellow- 
 ship in the man's voice, that, as we felt, made us old 
 acquaintances. We crossed the threshold, and taking 
 saddle and bridle from Bottom, sent him to his supper of 
 sweet grass. We then returned to our host. 
 
 " And what brought you here?" he asked, offering 
 the dish. 
 
 " Bacon and eggs," said we, helping ourselves to the 
 oflorious condiments bearing those names. 
 
 The man paused, looked down upon us, scratcheu the 
 nape of his neck, and walked to a corner of his habita- 
 tion. He then returned with a blushing gammon, which 
 he sliced with the potent hand of a master. Smiling 
 upon our appetite, he cracked a dozen or two more eggs, 
 and flung them singing into the pan.
 
 8 TILE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 We would give a hundred guineas from the aforesaid 
 saddle-bags, we thought, if wc could carry away with us 
 a lively portrait of our host. We shall never forget 
 him : he will to our mind always be a stirring pre- 
 sence ; but how — how shall we ever fix him upon paper? 
 
 " You don't eat," said our host, seeing our knife and 
 fork for a moment idle, as we mused upon the dithculty. 
 '• Eat, cat, if you'd be welcome to the Hermit of Belly- 
 fulle." 
 
 " Arc you a hermit ? " we asked, with a wondering 
 look. 
 
 *' Have I not said it ? The Hermit of BollyfuUc, and 
 this my Hermitage ; this the Cell of the Cork.screw," 
 cried the anchorite ; and he then turned to the pan, 
 his eye melting on the frying eggs. 
 
 The Hermit appeared between fifty and sixty — nearer 
 .si.xty. He would have looked tall, but for his breadth 
 of shoulder and bow of belly. His arms Avere short, 
 thick, and sinewy ; with a fist that might have throttled 
 a wild boar or a keen attorney. Alto^rether he was 
 a massive lump of a man, hard and active. His face 
 was big and round, with a rich, larder look about it. 
 His wide, red cheeks were here and there jewelled with 
 good living. As gems are said by some to be no more 
 than a congelation of the rarest essences attracted and 
 distilled from mother earth, so were the living rubies 
 burning in the cheeks of the Hermit, the hardened, 
 incarnated juices of the deer of the forest — the volatile 
 spirits of the vine. The Hermit had no nose ; none, 
 ladies, none. There was a little nob of flesh, like a 
 small mushroom, dipt in wine, which made its unobtru- 
 sive way between the good man's cheeks, and through 
 which he has been known to sneeze : but impudence 
 itself could not call that piece of flesh a nose. The 
 Hermit's mouth had all the capacity of large benevo- 
 lence ; large and wide, like an old pocket. There seemed 
 a heavy imctuousncss about the lower lip ; a weight and 
 drooping from very mellowness — like a ripe peach, 
 orackino- in the sun. His teeth — but that he had lost
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 9 
 
 Diie, as wc afterwards learned, in active service on a 
 Strasburg ham — were regular as a line of infantry, and 
 no less danjrerous. His forehead was large : his black 
 hair waning into grey, save that one lock which grew 
 like the forelock of old Time, was raven still. Ilis eyes 
 were small, and so deep in his head, no man ever saw 
 the whites of them : there tliey were, like black beads 
 sunk in scarlet flet^h. Such is the poor, weak picture of 
 the glorious living face : and then every bit of it shone, 
 as thouoh it had been smeared with sacrificial fat. The 
 Hermits voice was deep and clear ; and he had a sweet, 
 heart-warming chuckle, which came like wine gurgling 
 from a flask. The very pope of hermits was the Hermit 
 of Bcllyfulle. 
 
 This worthy anchorite wore no weed of grey — not he. 
 He had a capacious gown of faded scarlet damask, worn 
 — much worn : yet there were traces in it of i)ast beauty ; 
 goodly bunches of grapes, antique flagons, and Cupids 
 flaying a buck. This robe was girded about the waist 
 with a thick silken rope ; a relic, as he told us, picked 
 up in a pilgrimage. It had been a bell-rope in the 
 best hostelry of Palestine. The nether anatomy of the 
 recluse showed, as we thought, that all the vanity of 
 the world had not died within him, for he wore black 
 velvet breeches ; and, moreover, seemed to throw an 
 approving glance at his leg, cased in unwrinkled silken 
 hose of ebon black. His feet were easily lodged in large 
 slippers of cramoisy velvet, with here and there a glini- 
 merinj: of old trold lace. 
 
 A hermit would be no hermit without a skull. The 
 anchorite of BellyfuUe was fitly provided with such 
 tangible aid to solemn reflection : for he had the skull 
 of a heathen Paladin, in the which — for the top had been 
 curiously sawn off, and hinged, and a silver box con- 
 trived in the cavity— in th.e which the Hermit of Belly- 
 fuUe kept his best tobacco. He moreover showed his 
 horror and contempt for heathenism by sinking the 
 basanet of a Saracen knight into a spittoon.
 
 10 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 The Cell of the Corkscrew revealed the magimnimity 
 of its hermit indweller. Its walls were tapestried with 
 sides of bacon, with hams smoked over fires of cedar and 
 sandal-wood. Festoons of sausages hung from the roof, 
 dazzliuji the eves and meltinix the heart of tlie beholder. 
 Frequent peering forth, with death-grim snout, a boar's 
 liead would show itself, to the ear of fancy <rruntin!r for 
 the knife. And now, the eye would wander to a squab 
 of flesh — a buffalo's hump — toothsome to rest upon. 
 And then there were tongues, as many as nt Babel, 
 hanging on all sides ; tongues of deer, of antelope, of 
 Indian ox, smoked and cured by Indian cooks. Glow- 
 ing and beautiful were a hundred vitreous jars of 
 pungent pickle, disposed about the cell with the finest 
 consideration of colour and effect. There, too, was the 
 delicious olive, in its mild, immortal green, for Bacchus 
 in his after-dinner hour to dally with. 
 
 It was not until the next morning that the Ilemiit 
 discovered to us all the riches, the stores, the conve- 
 niences of the Cell of the Corkscrew, and its adjoining 
 messuages. But as we have opened the matter, we will 
 not put it off to a future page, but at once make an 
 end of it. We found that the room wherein we supped 
 was made sacred to knife and fork. By the way, let 
 us inform the reader that those instruments, of huge 
 dimensions, surmounted the mantel-piece. The Hermit, 
 raising his small jet eyes towards them, mildly said, with 
 a slight chuckle, " My lares — the guardian angels of my 
 fire-side." 
 
 An adjoining roo7n was fitted round with shelves, on 
 which were pots and packages of preserves and spices, 
 and baskets of candied fruits, and here and there a case 
 of heart-consoling Curacoa — soft and subtle noyeau — 
 biting absinthe ; nay, all the cordials refined by the 
 inquiring spirit of man from nature's raw materials. 
 " What a delicious smell!" we cried. "I call it my 
 phoenix' nest," said the Hermit, and he said no more. 
 He then took us down into his cellar. We descended
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLO^ERXOOK. H 
 
 some fifty steps into a place of vast extent. " Cut by 
 some good-natured people of the olden time," said the 
 Hermit ; " cut out of the living rock. And now, sir, the 
 sun shines on no sort of grape that is not hottlod here ;" 
 and the Hermit spoke with a voice of triumph, and gently 
 waved the lamp in his hand to and fro, its beams falling 
 upon a thousand and a thousand bottles, that to our 
 excited fancy seemed to laugh like negroes in the sun. 
 
 " Simple, thoughtless man would not think it, but 
 there is much knowledge to be taken from this cellar," 
 said the Hermit. 
 
 " With the help of a corkscrew," said we. 
 
 " Right ; with the blessing of a corkscrew," cried 
 the Hermit. " But for a time treading on the carnal man, 
 there is other, higher knowledge. You will observe, sir, 
 that I have laid out my bottles geographically ; from the 
 cyder of Devonshire to the rice spirit of China. In this 
 way, I manage to go entirely round the world once a 
 year." ^^ 
 
 " Is it possible?" we asked, and "we fear it," in a 
 voice of incredulity ; for the Hermit drew himself up, 
 and spoke very solemnly. 
 
 " Man," said he, " a lie in any place is a poor sneak- 
 ing thing ; still, a lie may be better or worse by its 
 locality. Now the man," and here the anchorite trem- 
 bled with emotion, "the man who would tell a lie in 
 a wine-cellar, is a wretch unutterable. His heart 's-blood, 
 at the best, is bad vinegar." 
 
 " It is — it is," said we, feeling the rebuke. "And 
 this is a map of the world, done by Bacchus ? " 
 
 The Hermit of Bellyfulle, smiling benevolently, gently 
 nodded his head. " You will perceive it. Here, as I said, 
 is the cyder, the ale of England. There, Champagne, 
 Burgundy, Bordeaux. There, the Johannisberg. At 
 the present time, I am in Hungary, drinking Tokay." 
 
 " It is delightful," we said, " to meet you in so 
 favom-ed a place." 
 
 Leaving the cellar, the Hermit took us to his farm-
 
 12 THE CnaONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 yard. Instantaneously we were surrounded by all sorts 
 of poultry. Wc were particularly pleased with a breed 
 of fowls, of enormous size, and of the whitest and most 
 dazzlinij^ plumage. 
 
 " You like them ? " said the Hermit, observing our 
 look of admiration. " So do I. Were it not that I am 
 almost dead to fleshly atlcctions, I should say they 
 wore my passion. They are capons, sir. It is a 
 strange weakness, but I love them dearly ; especially 
 with pork, judiciously pickled. I call them, sir," and 
 the Hermit faintly smiled, " I call them my monks." 
 
 We next visited the fish-ponds. " Here, sir," said the 
 Hermit, " are my trout." 
 
 " IIuw very large !" we exclaimed, as some huge fish 
 darted from under the weeds. 
 
 " Now, sir, though you will not venture to doubt 
 ray word, others might. I have a great moral expe- 
 riment going on among these fish. They are entirely 
 fed upon artificial flies." 
 
 " Is it possible ? " we asked. *' For what purpose ? " 
 
 " To show the sufficiency of the imagination to the 
 satisfaction of the boUy," rejtlied the Hermit. 
 
 " It will be a great political discovery," said we. 
 •• Have you tried the system on yourself? " 
 
 Either the Hermit did not hear us, or hearing, dis- 
 dained an answer ; for he walked on, we following. 
 " My orchard," said he, pointing to a very forest of 
 trees, loaded with the fruits of autumn. 
 
 " Are you not frequently robbed ? " we asked. " Have 
 you no spring-guns, man-traps — " 
 
 " Jjook," said the Hennit, and he pointed to a written 
 board fastened to one of the trees — there were twenty 
 such about the orchard — which board contained a notice, 
 inviting in the prettiest and most paternal words all little 
 boys who might pass that way, to come into the orchard, 
 and cat their fill. They were warned upon no account 
 to take the smallest fruit, but to carefully pick the 
 largest, the ripest, and the best. There were likewise
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 13 
 
 ladders provided tliat the bojs might not injure the 
 bou£rhs, or rend their breeches bv clinibino;. Or if they 
 should chance to tear their garments, there was an 
 oilskin bag hanging from a large walnut-tree in the 
 middle of the orchard, in which bag were needles and 
 thread, to repair for the nonce any gash that might 
 else scandalise the out-door world. 
 
 " But do not the birds plunder you ? " we asked. 
 
 " My cherries, for two or three years, suffered griev- 
 ously from the rooks," said the Hermit ; ♦' but they are 
 sensible birds, sir ; very sensible. I bought the cast-off 
 coat of a Jew money-lender, and stuffing it with straw, 
 I hung it upon the highest tree. The rooks are clever 
 birds, sir — they never perched again." 
 
 Having shown to the reader the cell and grounds — 
 we have jmrposoly omitted all notices of bed-rooms, 
 pantry, and out-houses, of the Hermit of BellyfuUe — we 
 must brinir the said reader back to the first hour of our 
 introduction to the anchorite. Be it remembered, that 
 we are still tired and joint-sore w^ith our journey, and 
 that we have only eaten three rashers, and swallowed 
 half-a-dozen eggs. 
 
 To say nothing of the external dignity of the Hermit, 
 it was evident to us, from one single circumstance, that 
 he was a man of superior mind. He never uttered a 
 syllable until we both had supped. In an afterchange 
 of thought, the Hermit confessed that he admired his 
 guest u])on the same high principle. 
 
 "A man, sir," observed the sage, "who gabbles at 
 his dinner, may be said to swallow, not to eat. Eating, 
 sir, is as nmcli a mental, nay more so than a physical 
 task. There is, sir, a wonderful sympathy between the 
 brain and the palate. Talk destroys the exquisite har- 
 mony between them. All the nobler functions of the 
 soul should be present during every mouthful ; and so 
 sublimating it, the wise man eats with his brain, the 
 fool with his mouth." 
 
 " You have studied these things curiously," said we. 
 
 M
 
 14 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 " It was my prime object in quitting the world. I 
 resolved, upon the death of my fourth wife, to shut myself 
 up from the vanities of life, and write a cookery book 
 — an encyclopaedia of the kitchen. " 
 
 "It is to bo hoped," said we, "you have not repented 
 of your magnanimity ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; no. I have been hard at work — but it is 
 the labour of a life. I have toiled ten years, and only 
 got to ducks." 
 
 " Ducks ! " 
 
 " Ducks, sir. Ten years, and only finished four 
 letters : but hope is strong : I have no doubt I shall 
 live to see Z. By that time the ignorant world will 
 begin to feel its mouth water for a sirloin of zebra ; 
 and I am the on!}' man who can tell the world how to 
 cook it." 
 
 " A sirloin of zebra ! Was there ever such a joint 
 put upon a spit ? " 
 
 " 1 have partaken, sir, of hundreds ; but those feasts 
 were in the blessed region of As-you-like. " 
 
 " As-you-Uke ! Where may that rt-gion be ? " we 
 asked. 
 
 The Hermit's eyes filled with tears, and he answered, 
 with a broken voice, *' I cannot tell — I cannot tell ; 
 thouirh I have lived there — have children there — I know 
 not where it is, know not how to seek it." 
 
 " How," we asked, *' did you first find it out ? " 
 
 " That, sir, is the strangest story of my life ; though 
 I have many, many stories in that box," and the Her- 
 mit pointed to a large cedar chest in the corner, " that 
 may some day puzzle the printer. However, sir, all I 
 know you shall know. Brandy or Hollands ? " asked 
 the Hermit, pushing the bottles. " Both smuggled, 
 upon my honour," said the sage, laying his hand upon 
 his breast. "Do you take lemon? Here, sir, is a 
 squeezer made of true eremite maple. Sugar ; water, 
 hot and cold. And uow, sir, you shall have my story. 
 I call it —
 
 THE CIIRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 15 
 
 " I have been a traveller, sir ; a great traveller. It 
 was my fortune, when about five-and-twenty, to sail to 
 the Inilian Seas. We dropped anchor close to one of 
 the islands to be found in those blissful waters. I went 
 ashore, and evervthin": about me seemed new and 
 Strange, but beautiful, very beautiful. 1 had wandered 
 from my part)', and was alone in a field overgrown with 
 hyacinths, when a bottle suddenly sprang up beneath 
 my foot ; and as I walked, the bottle — a black wine- 
 bottle, no more — hopped, hopped like a bird, before me. 
 I ran after it ; but the faster I i"an, the quicker it hopped. 
 At length, mustering all my strength, I ran until I 
 fairly ran the bottle down. Then smelling at its mouth, 
 for there was no cork in it, I smelt a most delicious 
 oJoar ; I raised the bottle to my lips, and drank. 
 Instantly my hands seemed riveted around the vessel, 
 and two wings sprang from the sides of the bottle. In 
 a moment, I was raised from the earth. I tried to let 
 go tho bottle, but my hands were as a part of it ; and 
 still the bottle Hew and llew like an eagle to the sun ; 
 and I swooned, and knew no more until I awoke in a 
 region which the inhabitants told me was the kingdom 
 of As-you-like. 
 
 " I looked about me, and I could have sworn that I 
 was in some street in London ; for in my boyhood, I had 
 once visited that wonderful and wicked city, taken 
 thither by my grandfather. The houses were familiar 
 to me ; the character of the people, their clothes, nay, 
 their language, all seemed known to me ; but when I 
 said as much, the worthy folks about me smiled at my 
 delusion ; and further, when I told them the story of the 
 bottle, they shook their heads, and said they doubted 
 not I should soon discover my mistake And very soon 
 I did so. That I should know the lano-uage of the 
 people of As-you-like as perfectly as themselves was
 
 10 THE CimOXICLES OF CLOVEUKOOK. 
 
 only a part of the mystery of the hottle. 1 had drunk 
 it from its mouth. 
 
 " It was plain that I was considered a curiosity by 
 the folks, who, indeed, looked upon me with that sort of 
 pity and furbearance which I have known displayed by 
 Boft-hearted people towards a Hottentot. It was plain 
 they felt that I had much in common with them all, 
 but was nevertheless of a much lower degree of sensi- 
 bility and intelligence. It is right, however, that I 
 should confess that this opinion arose from my own 
 eoar.sc habits — from my education, and my manners 
 contracted in my previous life. To me, they seemed the 
 simplest, the most foolish of created things ; whilst, as 
 1 afterwards discovered, they at times looked upon me 
 with so nmch aversion, that, had they not been the tcn- 
 dcrest, the gentlest people in the world, they would 
 have cast me forth to perish in the streets. But I 
 am forgetting myself," said the Ilermit — " I am falling 
 into the common talk of the world about us : it was 
 impossible that even a dog should perish in the streets 
 of As-you-like. 
 
 " Before I descend to my own particular adventures 
 in that glorious region, I will endeavour to give you 
 some idea of its government, its religion, its laws, and 
 the social habits of its people. Pardon me, sir," said 
 the Hermit, wiping his eyes and emptying his glass, 
 " but I cannot touch upon this theme, vithout feeling 
 my heart melt like butter in my body. Whilst I talk 
 of As-you-like, my spirits sink ; I am heavy, to very 
 dumpishne.^s." 
 
 Pausing a moment, and clearing his throat, the Hermit 
 proceeded. 
 
 " And first, sir, for the order of government. As- 
 you-like is a monarchy ; a limited monarchy. At the 
 time I dwelt there, the crown Avas worn by King Abdo- 
 men, almost the greatest man that ever walked. His 
 natural accomplishments were many : he was held to make 
 a more melodious sneeze than any man in the universe.
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 17' 
 
 He invented buttons, the people of As-you-like before 
 his time tying their clothes about them with strings. 
 He also invented quart goblets. He was the son of 
 Iving Stubborn, known as the King of the Shortwools. 
 
 " After the king came the nobilit}' ; that is, the men 
 who had shown themselves better than other men, and 
 whose virtues were worked into their titles. 
 
 " Thus there was the Duke of Lovingkindness ; the 
 Marquis of Sensibility ; the Earl of Tcnderhcart ; the 
 Baron of Hospitality, and so forth. Touching, too, 
 was the heraldry of As-you-like. The royal arms were, 
 charity healing a bruised lamb, with the legend, Dicu 
 ct pau. And then for the coach-panels of the aristo- 
 cracy, I have stood by the hour, at holiday times, 
 watching them ; and tears have crept into my eyes, 
 and my heart has softened under their delicious influence. 
 There were no lions, griffins, panthers, lyn.xes — no 
 swords or daggers — no short verbal incitements to man- 
 quelling. Oh, no ! One nobleman would have for his 
 bearings a large wheaten loaf, with the legend — Ask 
 and have. Another would have a hand bearing a purse, 
 with the question — Jf'ho lacks ? Another would have a 
 truckle-bed painted on his panels, with the words — To 
 the tired and footsore. Another would display some 
 comely garment, with — Neiv clothes for rags. Oh ! I 
 could go through a thousand of such bearings, all with 
 the prettiest quaintness showing the soft, fleshly heart 
 of the nobleman, and inviting, with all the brief sim- 
 plicity of true tenderness, the hungry, the poor, the 
 weary, and the sick, to come, feed, and be comforted. 
 And these men were of the nobility of As-you-like ; 
 nor was there even a dog to show his democratic teeth 
 at them. 
 
 " The church was held in deepest reverence. Happy 
 was the man who, in his noon-day walk, should meet a 
 bishop ; for it was held by him as an omen of every 
 manner of good fortune. This beautifid superstition 
 arose, doubtless, from the love and veneration paid by 
 
 c
 
 18 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 the people to the ministers of reUgion, who, from their 
 tenderness, their piety, their afiection towards their 
 flocks, were looked upon as the very porters to heaven. 
 Tlie love of the people placed in the hands of their bishops 
 heaps and heaps of money ; hut as quickly as it was 
 heaped, was it scattered again by the ministers of the 
 faith, who were thus perpetually preaching goodness and 
 charity at the hearths of the poor, and the poor were 
 every hour lifting up their hands and blessing them. It 
 was not enough that the bishops were thus toilsome in 
 thjeir out-door work of good ; but in the making of new 
 laws and amending of old ones, they showed the 
 sweetness, and, in the truest sense, the greatness, of 
 the hiuuan spirit. During my stay in As-you-like, what 
 we should call the House of Lords, but what in that 
 country was called the House of Virtues, debated on 
 what some of their lordships deemed a very pretty case 
 to go to war upon ; and sooth to say, for a time, the 
 House of Virtues seemed to forget the active bcnevo- 
 lence that had heretofore been its moAnng principle. 
 Whereupon the bishops one by one arose, and from their 
 lips there flowed such heavenly music, in their eyes 
 there sparkled such apostolic tears, that all the members 
 of the House of Virtues rose, and with one accord fell 
 to embracing one another, and called all the world their 
 brothers, and vowed they would talk away the misunder- 
 standing between themselves and neighbours ; they 
 would not shed blood, they would not go to war. 
 
 •' And this was ever after called the peace of the 
 bishops. 
 
 " The second deliberative assembly was called the 
 House of Workers. No man could be one of these, who 
 had not made known to the world his wisdom — his justice 
 — his worship of truth for truth's sake. No worker was 
 returned upon the mere chance of his fitness. He must 
 be known as an out-door worker for the good of his 
 fellowmon, before he could be sent, an honoured member, 
 to the House. The duty of the assembly was to make
 
 THE cithoxicles of CLOVERNOOK. 19 
 
 laws ; and as these were to be made for all men, it was 
 the prime endeavour and striving of the workers to write 
 them in the -plainest words, in the briefest meaning. 
 They would debate and work for a whole day — they 
 always assembled with clear heads and fresh spirits 
 every morning at nine — to enshrine their wisdom in the 
 fewest syHables. And Avhereas, here with lis we give 
 our children Goody Two Shoes and Jack and the Bean 
 Stalk, as the easiest and simplest lessons for their tender 
 minds to fasten on, in As-you-like the little creatures 
 read the Abridgment of the Statutes for their first book ; 
 so clear, so lucid, so direct was it in its meaning and its 
 purpose. 
 
 " Nevertheless, as there were some dull and giddy 
 folk, who, after all the labour of the House of Workers, 
 could or would not know the laws, there were certain 
 meek and loving-kind professors called goodmen guides, 
 answering to our attornics, whose delight it was, for the 
 very smallest imaginable sum, to interpret and make 
 known the power and beauty of the statutes. And 
 whereas, among us, physicians and surgeons — may the 
 spirits of charity and peace consecrate their fire-sides ! — 
 set apart a portion of the day to feel the pulse of 
 stricken poverty, to comfort and solace the maimed and 
 wasting poor — so in As-you-like, did these goodmen 
 guides give a part of their time to the passionate and 
 ignorant, advising them to abstain from the feverish 
 turmoil of law ; showing them how suspense would bake 
 their blood and eat their hearts, and wear and weigh 
 down man's noble spirit. And thus, these goodmen 
 guides would, I may say, with a silken string, lead men 
 back to content and neighbourly adjustment. When 
 men could pay for such counsel, they paid a moderate 
 cost ; when they were poor, they were advised, as by the 
 free benevolence of the mediator. 
 
 " The people of As-you-like had, a thousand years or 
 so before, waged war with otlier nations. There could 
 be no doubt of it, for the cannon stiU remained. I saw 
 
 c2
 
 20 Tin: CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 what at one time had been the arsenal. There were 
 several pieces of artillery ; the swallows had built their 
 nests nnder their very mouths. As I will not disguise 
 anything, I own there were a few persons who, when a 
 war was talked of, the war so happily prevented by the 
 bishops, strutted and looked big, and with swollen cheeks 
 gabbled about glory. But they were smiled at for their 
 simplicity ; ad^nsed, corrected by the dominant reason of 
 the country, and, after a time, confessed themselves to be 
 very much ashamed of their past folly. 
 
 " Perhaps the manner in wh.ich the As-you-likeans 
 transacted business was strange ; it may appear incredible. 
 I was never more surprised than when I first overheard 
 two men dealing for a horse. One was a seller of horses, 
 the other seemed a comfortable yeoman. ' That is a 
 pretty nag of yours,' said the yeoman. ' Pretty enough 
 outside,' said the horse-dealer. ' I will give you ten 
 lumps for it,' said the farmer (the h(7np signifying our 
 pound). ' No, you shall not.' answered the horse-dealer ; 
 ' for the nag shys. and stumbles, and is touched a little 
 in the wind. Nevertheless, the thins: is worth four 
 lumps.' — ' You have said it?' cried the yeoman. ' I 
 have said it,' answered the horse-dealer. Understand, 
 that this is the only fonn of oath — if I may so call it 
 — in As-you-hke. ' You have said it ?' 'I have said it.' 
 Such is the most solemn protestation among all people, 
 from the king to the herdsman. 
 
 " The shops in As-you-likc are very beautiful. All 
 the goods are labelled at a certain price. You want, 
 let us say, a pair of stockings. You enter tlic shop. 
 The common salutation is ' Peace under this roof ' — and 
 the shopkeeper answers — * Peace at your home.' You 
 look at the stockings, and laying down the money, take 
 the goods and depart. The tradesman never bends his 
 back in thankfulness until his nose touches the counter ; 
 he is in no spasm of politeness ; not he ; you would 
 think him the buyer and not the seller. I remember 
 being particularly astonished at what I thought the ill
 
 THE CimOSICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 21 
 
 manners of a tradesman, to whom I told nij astonishment. 
 ' What, friend,' he said, 'should I do ? My neighhour 
 wants a fire-shovel — I sell a fire-shovel. If I ouoht to 
 fling so many thanks at him for buying the fire-shovel, 
 should he not first tliank me for being here with fire- 
 shovels to sell ? Politeness, friend — as you call it — 
 may he very well ; but I should somehow suspect the 
 wholesale dealer in it. Where I should carry away 
 so much politeness, I should fear I had short weight." 
 A strange people, you must own, these As-you-likeans. 
 
 " Taxation was light, for there was no man idle in 
 As-you-like. Indeed, there was but one tax : it was 
 called the truth-tax ; and for this reason. Every man 
 gave in an account of his wealth and goods, and paid in 
 proportion to his substance. There had been other taxes, 
 but all these were merged into this one tax, by a solemn 
 determination of the House of Virtues. ' Since Provi- 
 dence has given to us the greatest measure of its gifts, 
 it has thereby made us the chancellors to poorer men.' 
 Upon this avowed principle, the one tax was made. 
 ' Would it not be the trick of roguery to do otherwise ? ' 
 they said. ' Should we not blush to see the ploughman 
 sweating at his task, knowing that, squared by his means, 
 he paid more than we ? Should we not feel the robbers 
 of the man — not the Virtues banded together to protect 
 him ? ' And thus, there was but one tax. In former 
 ages there had been many ; for I was shown in the 
 national museum of As-you-like, several mummies, dry 
 and coloured like saddle-leather, that in past centuries 
 had been living custom-house officers and excisemen. 
 
 " There were prisons in As-you-like, in which the idle 
 and the vicious were made to work, and taught the 
 wickedness, the very folly of guilt. As the state, how- 
 ever, with paternal love, watched, I may say it, at the 
 very cradles of the poor, — teaching the pauper, as he 
 grew, a self-responsibility ; showing to him right and 
 wrong, not permitting him to grow up with, at best, an 
 |ldd, vague notion, a mere guess at black and white, —
 
 22 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 there were few criminals. The state did not expose its 
 babies — for the poor are its children — to hang them 
 wlien men. 
 
 " So dear were the wants of the poor to the rulers of 
 As-you-likc, that, on one occasion, in a year of scarcity, 
 the monarch sold all his horses — the beautiful cattle 
 went at 70,000 lumjys — and laid out the money in 
 building school-rooms and finding teachers for pauper 
 babies. 
 
 " And the state, believing man to be something more 
 than a thing of digestion, was always surrounding the 
 people with objects of lo\oliness, so that a sCnse of the 
 beautiful might be with them even as the colour of their 
 blood, and thus might soften and elevate the spirit of man, 
 and teach him true gentleness out of his very admiration 
 of the works of his fellow. Hence, the museums and 
 picture-galleries, and abbeys and churches were all 
 thrown open to the people, who always seemed refined, 
 subdued by the emanations of loveliness around them. 
 
 " There were very many rich people in As-you-like, 
 but I never knew them to be thought a bit the better 
 of for their money. They were thought fortunate — no 
 more. They were looked upon as men, who having put 
 into a lottery, had had the luck to draw a prize. As 
 for the poor, they were always treated with a softness 
 of manner that surprised me. The poor man in As-you- 
 like seemed privileged by his poverty. He seemed to 
 have a stronger claim to the sympathies of those, in 
 worldly substance, over him. Had a rich man talked 
 brutally, or domineered over, or ill-used a pauper in 
 As-you-like, he would have been looked upon as we look 
 upon a man who beats a woman. There was thought 
 to be a moral cowardice in the act that made its doer 
 despicable. Hence, it was as common in As-you-like to 
 see the rich man first touch his hat to the poor, as with 
 us for the pauper to make preliminary homage to wealth. 
 Then, in As-you-like, no man cared to disguise the 
 smallness of his means. To call a man a pauper was n#
 
 THE CnnONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 23 
 
 more than with us to say his eyes are grey or hazel. 
 And though there were poor men, there was no famish- 
 ing creature, «iio (Jod's image, sitting with his hony, idle 
 hands before him, like a maniac in a cage ; brutalized, 
 maddened by the world's selfishness. 
 
 " For ten years I lived in As-you-lilvC. Ten happy 
 years. I married, became a father, and" — 
 
 "And what," — we asked of the Hermit, — "what 
 made you leave so blessed a spot ? " 
 
 " I was one day in my garden, strolling about, whilst 
 they were laying dinner. 1 paused to look at my melon- 
 bed, when out hopped the black bottle. Without a 
 thouijht I ran after it — woe is me that I did so ! — 
 and caught it in my grasp. I felt the bottle mount ; 
 I became instantly dizzy, and I know not what passed, 
 but when I came to myself, I was lying on a truss of 
 straw in an English farm-yard." 
 
 " A most extraordinary adventure," said we. 
 
 " Yes, I 've seen a few things in my time," said the 
 Hermit, — "but they must remain for future talk be- 
 tween us." 
 
 Worn with our last night's journey, and beguiled into 
 the sweet sin of late hours by the curious liquor and 
 eke curious discourse of the Hermit of BeUyfuUe, it was 
 not until the clock struck nine that we became conscious 
 of our new resting-place. A bright day shone upon us 
 reproachfully through the casement ; flowers shook their 
 heads impatiently at the panes ; cocks without crowed, 
 as we thought, in angry note, at their master's guest, 
 and the clock — a pretty piece of Venice work upon the 
 mantel-piece — ticked remonstrance. With a jump, we 
 leapt from goose feathers to the floor. 
 
 We flung open the casement, and the sweet, fresh, 
 nimble air came, like God's blessing, into the chamber. 
 Sinking in an easy chair, with a stocking in our right 
 hand, we made stern questioning of our memory. It 
 vas all true — true as adamant. We were the guest of
 
 24 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 the bounteous Hermit of Bellyfulle ; we sat, at tha 
 time, beneath the roof-tree of the Cell of the Corkscrewt 
 How, indeed, could we question the sweet reality ? 
 All things about us revealed the taste, the mellow 
 heart, of the anchorite householder. The chamber was 
 small — the bed a primitive truckle ; but there was an 
 Indian carpet, soft as lamb's-wool, on the floor ; there 
 were books, not many, on a shelf : and the black oak 
 wainscot was carved with fruit and knots of flowers, with 
 here a flask and there a flaggon. Above the mantle- 
 piece was this sentence, in letters of ruddy gold : — 
 
 (Uappp is tf)t man Uitio map tell all fits Ortams. 
 
 In a compartment of the wainscot, over the head of 
 the bed, was also wTitten : — 
 
 fBafcc roar ttD as a coffin. 
 
 anD lour roffin OiiU be as a bcO. 
 
 As we pondered on the philosophy of these lines, we 
 looked dreamily about us, and for the first time saw in 
 a corner of the chamber a little door. Above it was 
 carved a small delicate hand and arm in the action of 
 beckoning, with what seemed to us a string of pearls 
 about the wrist. Throwing down our stocking, we 
 opened the door, and heard distinctly the sound of 
 runnin"- water. We descended two or three low steps, 
 and following our ear, went through a narrow, winding, 
 sloping passage, cut, as it seemed, out of rock, the floor 
 covered with rushes and moss. In half a minute we 
 stood besi^le a brilliant fountain, tumbling and glittering 
 in a large natural basin — a hollow of the rock. The 
 sky was sapphire blue, and flowers, carefully tended, 
 grew around the edge of the spring : and there, too, was 
 short greensward, tender to the feet. Towels, dried on 
 beds of thyme, were spread on a sort of garden-seat, 
 with slippers, dressing-gown, and other covering. We 
 at once apprehended the meaning of the beckoning 
 hand, and with short preparation plunged into the spring.
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 25 
 
 In due season we returned to our chamber. Touching 
 was the care of our liost ! A small tankard of hot 
 spiced wine stood upon the table, filling the room with 
 aromatic sweetness. Was not this the very heart of 
 hospitality ? As we hastily prepared ourselves to meet 
 the eremite, we heard voices ; and, as we thought, the 
 sweet, low voice of woman. Could it be the Hermit's 
 wife ? He had said nothing of so blissful an appen- 
 dage to Corkscrew Cell ; nevertheless, it miglit be. 
 We quickened our speed ; for, thought we, Madam the 
 Hermitess may be waiting breakfast. 
 
 We hastened to what we will call the refectory. The 
 Hermit was seated in his chair ; the breakfast — it would 
 have put a stomach into a mummy — was laid out, widely 
 and bounteously. As we entered, the Hermit raised 
 his face, scarlet Avith eating, from a platter ; and his 
 little black eyes twinkling welcome, he nodded, and 
 gasped from his full mouth — " Salve ! Sit and eat." 
 
 One hour at least had run to the past, ere another 
 word was spoken. " That brawn, sir, was cured in 
 Paradise," were the next words uttered, as the Hermit 
 pushed away his platter, and fell like a pillow in his 
 chair. " The hog, sir, is a wonderful philosopher." 
 
 "Philosopher!" we cried, for the moment inatten- 
 tive to the truth delivered. 
 
 " Philosopher ! We call him filthy, ugly names ; 
 brand him as a foul and doltish thing. It is like the 
 hurried ignorance of men. I look upon the pig, sir, as 
 the philosopher of brutes — yea, the Diogenes of four- 
 legged creatures. Consider, sir. Contemplate the doings 
 of a hog. See him, sir, with his frank stupidity ; or 
 what, to skin-deep thinkers, seemeth stupidity. Mark 
 him wallowing in gutter-mud ; see him in the haunts of 
 men, even where fever comes, sometimes, alas ! as 
 kindest handmaid to poverty. See him, with his broad, 
 quivering snout snufling. at the thresholds of very beg- 
 gars. With what gust wiU he munch a cabbage-stalk ! 
 With what a grunt of gratitude will he take unto him-
 
 26 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 self tlie leavings of the veriest poor ! There is nought 
 that tooth can pierce, that goodman hog will turn aside 
 from. He will get fat and flavour from a dunghill ; 
 nay, in hopeful discovery, shove liis snout into a cinder 
 heap. These are bad habits ; nasty, foul, degrading 
 practices. And yet, sir, what comes of them ? Why, 
 this, sir — this ;" and the Hermit struck the flat of his 
 knife on a huge wedge of brawn. "Your philosopher 
 considers, and takes experience of man ; and only as 
 he is curious in all the doings, from noblest to basest 
 of the animal, is he, the said philosopher, worthy of 
 his gown. He elaborates and refines his experience, 
 gathered from highway and alley, and hovel, and 
 cellar ; and then out of the very juices of this digested 
 wisdom, he leaves an oral system, or a written scroll. 
 Now, sir, what the brawn is to tho hog, is Plato's book 
 to Plato ; a sweet and unctuous lump, di-awn and 
 rarefied, and elaborated, from even the foulest doings 
 of the world for the world's better wisdom. When my 
 lady sees Master Pig munching and wallowing in a 
 ditch, she curls her nose and lifts her shoulders at his 
 nastiness. And lo ! when the same pig's leg, fragrant 
 with sage and patriarchal onion, smokes upon the board, 
 — the same lady sendeth her plate three times. It is 
 even so with philosophers, and the true men of the 
 world. They have lived and died despised in alleys ; 
 and afterwards are fed upon in tapestried chambers. 
 I never look upon a hog, even in his foulest plight, but 
 I consider him tenderly, aft'ectionately, as the hving, 
 pauper laboratory from which in good season men may 
 carve most melting sweets. It is in this spirit, I — as 
 I take it — judiciously class philosopher and pig." 
 
 "True," said we; "there maybe affinity." Then 
 resolving to know if it was the voice of woman we had 
 heard, we returned to the swine-flesh and the lady 
 glanced at by our host. " Your figure of the lady 
 and the pig's leg," said we, " reminds us of a question 
 we had to ask. Pardon us, if we are bold ; but heard
 
 TIIE CIIROXICLES OV CLOVEUNOOK. 27 
 
 we not, eve we entered, the small, musical pipe of the 
 other sex ?" 
 
 " My laundress, sir," answered the Hermit ; " she 
 lives in Clovernook. In the wicked, noisy, topsy-turvy 
 world you come from, she was a lady in her own right, 
 with broad acres and sacks of gold." 
 
 " And now a laundress," cried we. " How came 
 such change about ? What cruelty of fortune ? " 
 
 " A touch of conscience — a sweet touch, sir. The 
 Countess, it was her belief, had killed two milliners." 
 
 •' Killed them !" we cried. 
 
 "Not a statutable, T^'burn-killing," answered the 
 Hermit ; " not what would be called killing by twelve 
 men bolted in a box ; but what, sir, a jury of angels 
 may look very grave at, and more, return a most imcom- 
 fortablc verdict upon." 
 
 " Pray, sir, explain the case," we said. 
 
 " Phoo I the story 's as short as short-cake," said the 
 Hermit. "Her Ladyship would take no answer: it 
 was a birth-day, or a court-day, or a gad-about of some 
 sort ; and her Ladyship, at a short notice, was to be 
 very fine indeed. There were three girls, milliners, all 
 sick and wasted at the time, with fading eyes, hectic 
 faces, and deep coughs — death, sir, croaking and wheez- 
 ing in their throats. The last work two of the girls 
 did was for Lady Swandown. She went to the show, 
 whatever it was, with almost the last sigh of the girls 
 in her fine dress. The two girls died, and her Lady- 
 ship — she is yet a fine woman, sir, in the rich fulness 
 of some forty-five — forswore the drawing-room world, 
 and coming here to Clovernook, brought the surviving 
 sister with her." 
 
 " Is it possible ? " we asked. 
 
 " You shall see the Countess Swandown ; though in 
 Clovernook she is simply called Dame Diaper. Ha ! it 
 is a pretty sight to see her tending Mabel, as we call 
 her here, the last of the sister milliners : to see the 
 Countess petting and nursing her, and walking with
 
 28 THE CHROXICLES OP CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 lier down the green lanes ; and when the poor thing is 
 too weak to walk, it is indeed pleasant to see the 
 Countess drawing the sick milliner in a little, light, 
 easy sort of a coach," 
 
 *' A sight indeed ! " we cried. 
 
 " Yes," said the Ilermit, with a grave look ; " when 
 we think of the poor things already killed, and the 
 creature yet suffering, it is a sight, I think, to please 
 the very cherubs. You shall see them both, sir ; both 
 Dame Diaper and Mabel." 
 
 "But you said the Countess — that is, the Dame — 
 was laundress here ? " 
 
 " I should say, a sort of lady -laundress ; a clear- 
 starchcr. She has taken the work by way of penance ; 
 and bringing all her genius to bear upon it, has elevated 
 a mere knack into fine art, sir. My cravats and ruflles 
 are very pictures. You heard us talking ? Ay, sir, 
 the old story — the old grievance, sir, 'twixt man and 
 woman," said the Ilermit. 
 
 " And what is tliat, sir ? " we asked. 
 
 The Ilermit, shaking his head and groaning, cried — 
 " Buttons." 
 
 " Buttons ! " said we. 
 
 The Ilermit drew himself closer to the table, and 
 spreading his arms upon it, leaned forward with the 
 serious air of a man prepared to discuss a grave thing. 
 " Buttons," he repeated. Then clearing his throat, 
 he began : "In the course of your long, and, as I 
 hope, well-spent life, has it never come with thunder-bolt 
 conviction upon you, that all washerwomen, clear- 
 starchers, getters-up of fine linen, or under whatever 
 name Eve's daughters, — for as Eve brought upon us the 
 stern necessity of a shirt, it is but just that her girls 
 should wash it, — under whatever name they cleanse and 
 beautify flax and cotton, that they are all under some 
 compact, implied or solemnly entered upon amongst 
 themselves and their non-washino-, non-starchiufj, non- 
 getting-up sisterhood, that by means subtle, and almost
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK, 29 
 
 mortally certain, they shall worry, coax, or drive all 
 bachelors and widowers soever into the pound of irre- 
 deemable wedlock ? Has this tremendous truth, sir, 
 never struck you ? " 
 
 " How — by what means ? " we asked. 
 
 " Simply, by buttons," answered the Hermit, bring- 
 ing down his clenched fist upon the table. 
 
 We knew it — we looked incredulous. 
 
 " See herCj sir," said the Hermit, leaning still fur- 
 ther across the table. " I will take a man, who, on his 
 outstart in life, set his hat acock at matrimony — a man 
 who defies Hymen and all his wicked wiles. Neverthe- 
 less, sir, the man must wear a shirt ; the man must liave 
 a washerwoman. Think you, that that shirt, returning 
 from the tub, never wants one — two — three buttons ? 
 Always, sir — always. Sir, though I am now an ancho- 
 rite, I have lived in your bustling world, and seen, ay, 
 quite as much as any one of its manifold wickedness. 
 Well, the man — the buttonless man — at first calmly 
 remonstrates with his laundress. He pathetically wrings 
 his wrists at her, and shows his condition. The woman 
 turns upon him her wainscot face, and promises amend- 
 ment. The thing shall never happen again. The 
 week revolves. Think you, the next shirt has its just 
 and lawful number of buttons ? Devil a bit I ' 
 
 Starting at the word, we looked, we fear, reproachfully 
 in the Hermit's face. 
 
 " Pardon me ; let it be as it had never been said," 
 cried the anchorite — a deeper tint dawning in his face, 
 and his eye looking suddenly moist. " Pardon me, but 
 the heart has strange chords ; even buttons may some- 
 times shatter them." 
 
 We bowed, and begged the Hermit to proceed. 
 
 *' Well, sir," said our host, after an efi'ort, " week 
 after week the poor man wrangles with his washer- 
 woman : from the very gentleness of even maidenly 
 complaint, the remonstrance rises to a hurricane of 
 abuse ; and still the washerwoman, as it would seem
 
 30 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 bound by her oath to her untnamcd sisterhood, brings 
 home no shirt complete in all its buttons. Man — the 
 fiercest of his kind — cannot always rage. lie becomes 
 tired — ashamed of clamour. He sighs, and bears his 
 buttonless fate. His thoughts take a new turn. In 
 his melancholy, his heart opens ; he is softened — sub- 
 dued ; and in this, his hour of weakness, a voice — a 
 demon voice — whispers to him, • Fond, foolish man ! 
 why trust thy buttons to an alien ? Why helplessly 
 depend upon the needle and thread of one Avho loves 
 not thee, but thy shilling ? Take a wife ; have a 
 woman of thine own, who sliall care for thy buttons ! ' 
 The tempter is strong. The man smiles distrustfully, 
 but still he smiles. That very night — it so happens — 
 he goes to a house-warming. lie is partner at cards 
 with Miss Kitty. She never did look so toothsome. 
 And then her voice — 'twould coax a nail out of heart of 
 oak. The man thinks of his buttons ; and before ho 
 leaves the house, Kitty has been brought to confess that 
 she doesn't know what she may do — she may marry, 
 or she may not." 
 
 " Is it possible ?" we cried, with a laugh. 
 
 "Sir," said the Hermit, "'tis not a thing to idly 
 laugh at. Take fifty matches, and be assured of it, if 
 you sift 'em well, out of forty, at least, you'U find buttons 
 in some shape at the bottom of 'em." 
 
 " It may be," we said. 
 
 " It is," cried the Hermit with emotion. "Asses 
 are led by their noses ; men by their buttons." 
 
 There was a dead pause. The Hermit had us in a 
 clinch. We felt ourselves beaten, and therefore flung 
 our discourse once more upon swine's flesh. "It is 
 delicious brawn," we cried. "Blessings have fallen 
 upon the man who reared it." 
 
 " Perhaps," said the Hermit, with a faint smile, " the 
 fellow knew well how to feed hogs. Understand me ; 
 I am no unbeliever in the efiicacy of blessings : potent 
 are they, sweetly potent where they fall. Yet, sir, like
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 81 
 
 all goodness, they are sometimes terribly libelled in the 
 world. I have known men by the very lithesomeness of 
 their backs, and bronze of their faces, get fat and golden. 
 Well, sir, to what have they sworn they owed all their 
 grease and prosperous yellowness ; forsooth, to the bless- 
 ings that fell upon them — blessings rewardful of their 
 piety. These men, sir, I know it, have in a business way 
 picked pockets, yet have they declared they owed their 
 substance to the untiring fingers of their saints." 
 
 "Very like," said we. 
 
 " Sir, it is," said the Hermit ; " and the brawn 
 before us brings to my memory a little story that may 
 shadow forth this truth, I have noted down the tale, 
 and 'tis there — in that cedar chest, as I have said, 
 with a hundred others. Do not stir ; I think I can 
 remember the little history, without rummaging the 
 papers. I call it — 
 
 ^ S!)orf Storg of a OToto antr a *oh). 
 
 " You were never at Naples, sir ? — No ? Well, I will 
 not commiserate you ; I will not triumph ; I will spare 
 your feelings. Naples ! If, sir, there be a place where 
 a man may forget taxes and all the tribulation of what 
 with great gravity we call civilized life, it is — always 
 excepting my own Clovernook — it is Naples ! 
 
 " Saint Anthony is a great fellow at Naples : a saint, 
 sir, of the first water. Perhaps, I am wrong in the 
 epithet : water being rarely a test of saints ; monks, 
 who are to saints what porwiggles are to frogs, for the 
 most part abominating that pauper fluid. No matter. 
 Saint Anthony is a great gun at Naples, whatever he 
 may be elsewhere : for saints, like fox-hunting lords of 
 the manor, though they may make a terrible clatter in 
 their own neighbourhood, are sometimes held dirt cheap 
 in other places. Well, sir, Saint Anthony in his mortal 
 days had a kindly yearning, a love, a gentleness, a pity 
 towards everything that lived ; beasts, birds, fishes,
 
 32 THE CHKONICLES OP CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 reptiles. WTiat Atticus was to Cicero, Saint Anthony's 
 pig was to Saint Anthony. Great was his power over 
 animals ; most melodious, most convincing his speech ; 
 as Avas proved by his sermon to the fishes, which touched 
 them all alike, the hard roes and the soft. Saint Anthony 
 died — but to this day Saint Anthony lives in Naples. 
 Once a year, with reverent care, people bring to him 
 their various four-footed chattels ; yea, the two-legged 
 birds, to boot, that they may be soused with water 
 blessed at the shrine of Saint Anthony ; the said water 
 being fatal to measles, mange, glanders, pip, and every 
 other malady that walks or flies. Do you laugh, sir? 
 I am sorry for it. Call it superstition if you will ; super- 
 stition hath uglier blotches than this. There is, to my 
 mind, a fine spirit of humanity in this custom ; nay, a 
 beautiful piece of natural religion. Men, who acknowledge 
 its sanctity, thereby acknowledge in the very hog that 
 grunts about them, a something cared for by the Divine 
 Schemer of things : it is a creature, part and parcel of 
 the wondrous whole ; a thing to be used tenderly by 
 men, seeing it is not despised by a saint. The water 
 of Saint Anthony, thus sprinkled and falling upon 
 brutes, must cool the pride of human-kind, showing, 
 that although it is the highest piece of heaven's Avork on 
 this earth, it is not the sole piece. And thus, the 
 peasant taught by the love and benevolence of Saint 
 Anthonv towards his horse, is taught a tenderness for 
 the creature which otherwise he had not known. He, 
 Pictro, has his saint to guard and bless him, but — to 
 Pietro's mind — so have Pietro's cows and sheep : and 
 so, the saintly care about all, brings all into a narrower 
 circle. 
 
 " Therefore, at Naples, great is Saint Anthony. Fine 
 ladies send their lap-dogs to be sprinkled, and they yelp 
 back with blessings about them. Parrots are soused, and 
 lo ! they scream defiance at the pip ; and if limited 
 before in their vocabulary, have full soon in their throats 
 a very dictionary.
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 33 
 
 " Gano was a Neapolitan farmer ; a heavy, stupid, yet 
 withal, a most religious man. Not an animal that called 
 him master, tliat was not sprinkled, once a year, with 
 the water of Saint Anthony : and thereupon, the ewes 
 yeaned twins, the hens never failed of eggs, and multi- 
 plication was ever triumphant in his dove-cote ! Though 
 Gano could not drive all his stock to the shrine of Saint 
 Anthony, he never failed once a year to purchase of 
 the priest a sufficiency of water, wherewith to sprinkle 
 his property at home ; and all things throve with him 
 accordingly. 
 
 " Gano had hought a young sow ; a spare thing, — but 
 with the blessing of Saint Anthony and plenty to eat, 
 the sow, it was the belief of Gano, would plump and 
 fatten. Gano failed not to drive the sow to Saint 
 Anthony's water, where, at Gano's special intercession, 
 it was doubly sluiced. Gano drove the sow home ; and 
 thoughts of ham and bacon, and savoury sausage, sang 
 sweetly in his brain as he meditated upon the blessings 
 of Saint Anthony. Weeks passed away, and nevertheless 
 the sow did not fatten ; no, it somewhat pined and 
 shrunk. There was some devil in the pig ! So, at 
 least, thought Gano. 
 
 " A short while after, Gano bought a cow. Had she 
 been sprinkled by Saint Anthony ? No. It was almost 
 no matter ; she was so fine a cow, without aspersion. 
 Her black skin was like Genoa velvet ; and then so 
 sweet, so gracious a look about the head ! More than 
 all, every day she gave a flood of milk. Leagues ahout 
 there was talk of Gano's cow. 
 
 " As it sometimes happens with men, so did it happen 
 with Gano's cow. Just as her fame had spread around, 
 and brought many folks to see her, her merits became 
 less : she began to shrink ; and for milk, less and less 
 was drawn from her night and morning. It was well 
 for the faith of Gano that it was so : for looking, as iu 
 his infidel moments he had looked, upon the sleek 
 carcase of the cow, the animal unblessed, unsprinkled 
 
 D
 
 34 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 by Saint Anthony, and comparing it with the spare con- 
 dition of the sow that had been washed almost from 
 snout to tail by the eflSeacious water, Gano — the saints 
 forgive him ! — began to consider within himself, whether, 
 after all. Saint Anthony was so indispensable to the 
 health of a farm-yard. Weak, wicked Gano ! 
 
 "Still thccowdwindled, andasitdwindled, still — it was 
 strange, or rather it was by no means strange — still 
 the sow increased. The cause was plain. The blessings 
 of Saint Anthony were working in the marrow of the 
 swine ; the saint was covering its bones with flesh ; and 
 in a short time, the wonder and admiration before 
 bestowed upon the cow — were off'ercd to the pig. It 
 was prophesied by some that the cow would die ; but it 
 was no matter : the added value of the sow would more 
 than make good the loss ; it was so wonderful in its fat 
 — so beautiful, yet mighty in its proportions. Still the 
 sow fattened, and still the cow gave no milk. 
 
 " See you not,' said old, pious neighbours to Gano — 
 ' see you not the blessings of good Saint Anthony ? 
 How have they descended upon the swine ! whilst for 
 that unblessed, misbegotten cow — cut her throat, burn, 
 consume her ; otherwise siie will bring a curse upon your 
 cattle, and blight upon your crops.' Gano felt the 
 rebuke ; acknowledged the evil dwelling in the cow, 
 the goodness fattening in the swine. If the cow should 
 die, it would be a just punishment on her presumptuous 
 owner. 
 
 " Matters went on, and even the fame of Saint Anthony 
 increased with the fat of the sow. Never had the saint's 
 water been so highly prized. At length, the true cause 
 of the sow's fatness was discovered ; and thus it was. 
 
 " Very early one morning, Gano rose, and going to 
 where the cow was stalled, saw the sow lying on its fat 
 belly beneath the cow, with the teat in its mouth, 
 milking, milking with all its might, and grunting com- 
 placently at the larceny ! 
 
 " Gano, though astounded, and on the instant suspicious
 
 THE CnUONICLES OF CLOVEUNOOK. 36 
 
 of the truth, said nothing to his neighhours. It might 
 have been the first time that the sow had so behaved 
 itself. He would wait and watch. He did so : and six 
 mornings, at the same hour, he saw tlie sow in the 
 same place, milking, milking, and grunting the while ! 
 Almost every ounce of swine's fat was due to the cow. 
 The neighbours had sworn that the sow had prospered 
 by the peculiar blessings of Saint Anthony. Alas ! the 
 sow had flourished upon stolen milk. 
 
 " Now, sir," said the Hermit, " is there no lesson in 
 this little story ? Teaches it nothing ?" 
 
 " We think we apprehend its drift," was our answer. 
 
 " Sir, in your world — for in Clovcrnook we know 
 no such animals — many are the fat swine, and only fat 
 at the e.xpense of poor, defrauded cattle." 
 
 " It may be," we replied. 
 
 " May be, sir ? Ila I I know it is," said the Hermit ; 
 " and of all sorts of fatness, that is the vilest, the coarsest, 
 which owes its grossness to hypocrisy. You shaU see a 
 man rich in pocket and poor in soul. He goes to his 
 church, and owns himself, to his passing condescension 
 by the way, a miserable sinner ; he returns homeward, 
 and proves himself to be so, albeit the proof never strikes 
 him, by sjjurning the Sabbath-beggar at his threshold. 
 This man was never known to do a large goodness. 
 Neither was any positive, legal wickedness proved against 
 him. No : he never grumbles at the church rates, for 
 once a week he is decorously placed in his comfortable 
 pew. He pays his way, and can show stamped receipts 
 as vouchers for the goodwill he bears towards all men. 
 He is a Christian ; for one of his godfathers now alive 
 can testify to his baptism ; nay, he has the register 
 among other precious family documents. Hence, if he 
 be wealth}', why, riches have descended upon him as 
 the bounty rewarding his virtues. His own goodness 
 has been turned into a benison. And he has oppressed 
 no one ? He has wronged no one ? He has not armed 
 himself with an imjust, though an allowed usage to add 
 
 d2
 
 36 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 tohishoarrls — to increase his wealth ? Alas, sir, alas ! " 
 cried the Hermit, " against how many such men, may 
 the accusing spirit some day thmidcr forth, * Stolen 
 milk !' " 
 
 We were about to vcTiture some rejoinder when the 
 door was gently opened, and a negro child, as he appeared, 
 about ten years old, glided in, and made up to the 
 Hermit, presenting to him a velvet cap, and a staff of the 
 wliitest ivory. 
 
 " My little boy, sir," said the Hermit ; and the 
 child gently nodiled to us, as pleased with the words of 
 his master. " This is my hour for a walk-: will you use 
 your legs ? Or, if it please you better, will you stay and 
 read? Bezoar will show you my book-room." We at 
 once preferred to accompany our host. " Farewell, 
 child ; and let me hear good words of you," said the 
 Hermit, tenderly laying his hand upon the little woolly 
 head. Saying this, the Hennit donned his cap, grasped 
 his ivory staff, and courteously showed us from the cell. 
 Our curiosity was immediately aroused by the little 
 negro. Our host observed this in our looks, and said — 
 " Yes ; a fine little boy, and from a curious place, 
 too. You shall hear something of him as we walk. 
 This way, by your leave : it is a solitary by-road, and 
 winds to the top of yonder hill ; whence you may 
 look down upon Clovernook, lying lamb-like and quiet 
 at the bottom." Saying this, the Hermit turned to 
 the left from his orchard, a large sheep-dog bounding 
 after him, and leaping about him, and barking loudest 
 gladness. " Gently, Colin, gently," said the Hennit ; 
 and the dog thrust his nose into his master's hand, and 
 taking a deep snuff, was on the instant quiet, and falling 
 behind, walked gravely as a court follower. 
 
 " And the little black boy's name is Bezoar ? " 
 said we, urging the promised story. 
 
 " Bezoar," answered the Hermit ; who, after a 
 pause, continued. " He is older than his looks ; and 
 his brain is still the oldest part about him. He comes
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 37 
 
 from a curious place, unknown I believe to any tra- 
 veller, but myself. Do you know much of geography, 
 sir f 
 
 We answered, and, we fear, without a blush, " No- 
 thing." 
 
 " Your ignorance will spare me some description. 
 Let it suffice to you, that the birthplace of Bozoar is 
 an unknown tract — unknown to all but myself — some- 
 where in Japan. At one time ofmy life, I drove a 
 large trade in Dutch dolls. I travelled to Japan with 
 my merchandise, and making my way to the Emperor's 
 court, became an especial favourite by means of my 
 ware. The poor people had never before beheld a doll : 
 and as my dolls were the first sort fashioned to open 
 and shut their eyes, and emit certain sounds from the 
 mouth— the invention has, I have heard, been shame- 
 lessly copied in France — they were considered in that 
 strange, uncivilised country, as things of almost greater 
 worth than mere men and women ; henceforth, they who 
 would prosper in the sight of the Emperor, became as 
 nearly as was allowed to them, like unto dolls. The 
 greater the doll, the finer the courtier. I soon disposed 
 of all my goods, which being limited in supply, carried 
 any price. I really believe, so great was the passion, 
 that some wives would have parted Avith their husbands 
 for dolls ; and am almost convinced that husbands might 
 have been found who wovdd have changed their living, 
 ogling, talking spouses, for mere machines of painted 
 wood that only opened their eyes, and sounded a few 
 sounds, when the wires were pxilled for such purpose. 
 I became a great favourite with the Emperor ; and 
 protected and authorised by his letter — it was embroi- 
 dered in letters of gold on violet-coloured satin — roamed 
 everywhere." 
 
 " But what we want " — 
 
 The Hermit stopped dead at the imseemly interruption. 
 With a sweet smile on his face, he shook his head, and 
 leaning on his staff, looked in our eyes. " Once upon a
 
 38 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERSOOK. 
 
 time, do vou know what patience wanted ? " asked he of 
 Bellyfulle. 
 
 We confessed our ignorance. 
 
 " She wanted a nightingale. Well, sir, patience 
 waited, and the egg sang." 
 
 We bowed to the soft rebuke, and promised to hold 
 our peace. The Hermit continued. 
 
 " As I said, I roamed whore I would. In my wan- 
 derings, I fell among a strange sort of people ; strange 
 in this way. Though the people were divided into an 
 equal number of white and black, there was no pride of 
 colour in the fair, no humiUation in the sooty. All were 
 alike." 
 
 "And how was this compassed? " we asked, unable 
 to suppress the question. 
 
 *' There ran a legend in the country that it had not 
 always been so, but that the blessing — for so the people 
 called it — had been brought about by one of their demi- 
 gods as I could understand, a sort of Japanese Prome- 
 theus. The blacks — people will tell you there are no 
 blacks in Japan ; you have my full authority to con- 
 tradict them — had been hardly used : stripped, mutilated, 
 sold, made merchandise of, as in other places black flesh 
 has been, and is. The land was cursed with the wicked- 
 ness : on one side there was stony-hearted arrogance ; on 
 the other, agony, debasement. Well, the Japanese God 
 changed this ; and how ? One morning — a time an- 
 swering to our 1st of May — all who had gone to bed as 
 negroes, rose as white men ; and the white got up blacks 
 For a whole twelvemonth, sir," said the Hermit of 
 Bellyfulle, " I was myself a black man." 
 
 " Impossible ! " we cried ; but a glance from the 
 Hermit subdued us into a look of belief. 
 
 " A black man," repeated the anchorite, gently 
 striking his ivory staff upon the ground ; " and, the year 
 past, I became of my first colour. And this, sir, is the 
 case with all the dwellers in that country. Each party 
 takes the colour of each for one twelvemonth. One 
 year black, one white."
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 30 
 
 " When the change was first ordered," said we, " it 
 must have astounded tlie better people." 
 
 " It was a ^ne lesson, sir ; a fine practical teaching 
 of humility. And after all, what is it at this moment 
 going on in that very remote province of Japan, what 
 is it more than you figure to yourselves in the world 
 you come from ? The Japanese divinity did but anti- 
 cipate the work of the future. Men, I mean Christian 
 men, do not imagine to themselves angels of different 
 coloured skins : they do not conceive the notion of black 
 cherubim. Grave-dust, that truest fuUers'-earth, surely 
 takes out the negro stain. I take it, sir," — and the 
 Hermit paused in his walk, and closing his hands, let 
 his staff fall in his arms, — " I take it, sir, we all rise 
 alike ^ " 
 
 We said nothing ; and for a few minutes the Hermit, 
 resuming his pace, Avas silent. He then observed, and 
 we thought in a somewhat pensive tone, " The pretty 
 boy at the cell — yes, sir, I call him pretty — was a native 
 of the strange land I have spoken of. I have seen that 
 jetty boy white as the whitest English maiden. He was 
 an orphan when I brought him away ! 
 
 " And at that time in his year of black ? " we ven- 
 tured to ask. 
 
 "Yes, sir," answered the Hermit; not observing, 
 or not condescending to observe, a tone of levity that, 
 struggle as we would, broke from us : for sooth to say, 
 we thoufjht the Hermit^ — as doubtless the reader will 
 think — either pleasantly jesting or pleasantly mad. 
 "Yes, sir," said the sage of Belh'fulle, " he was then 
 black. He has never changed since." 
 
 " We can well believe it," was our avowal. 
 
 " It was my hope — otherwise I had never brought 
 the dear child from his delightful land — the paradise of 
 the world, sir ! every single grape there is big as a 
 walnut : it was my hope, had the change from black to 
 white gone on, that the world might have been instructed. 
 As it is, sir, were I simply to publish the truth, 'twould 
 be taken as a traveller's story."
 
 40 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 "Just 80," said we. "For there are some distant 
 truths that, however beautiful, will not bear a voyage. 
 You may carry ice to the Indies, if you carefully stow it; 
 but travellers, sir, sometimes find their best of truths 
 melt by the way." 
 
 As we came to a turning of the path, we met one of 
 the villagers of Clovcrnook ; as I afterwards found, an 
 old man, who, in the outside world, had been a planter, 
 and the owner of a thousand slaves. lie had left nearly 
 all his wealth behind him, and by tlic greatest luck had 
 escaped to the village ; there, in its sweet serenity, to 
 peep into the holes and corners of his soid, and blow 
 the worldly dust out of them, as the housewife blows 
 and dusts her best ihina. And, indeed, such care had 
 been most necessary. He was, as the Hermit after- 
 wards told me, a sharp-faced, wan, edgy kind of man 
 when he set out for Clovernook. with a restless anxiety 
 of eve. and quick, whistling kind of speech. When we 
 saw him, there was a look of gentleness in his old face, 
 and his eye shone deeply, yet tranquilly, and he spoke 
 M'ith a sweet cheerful gravity — the natural tone of good 
 old age. 
 
 "A good day and many," said the Hermit to the 
 old man. " You will find your scholar at the Cell, 
 Master Simon." And the old man, smiling, and gently 
 bowing, without a word, passed on. 
 
 " What scholar do you speak of, may we ask?" said 
 we. 
 
 " Bezoar, the black boy," answered the Ilerrait. 
 " Master Simon teaches him chess." 
 
 " Ghess ! a planter, and an owner of a thousand 
 negroes, teach a black boy chess !" we cried. 
 
 " 'Tis a pretty game," said the Hermit, not attend- 
 ing to the contrast we had ventured, — " a pretty game; 
 and serves to remind us, here in Clovernook, that there 
 are such things as kings and queens, and blazoned 
 braying state. That there are — or have been knights, 
 sworn to do manly service, and alack ! too often for-
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 41 
 
 getting the vow. That there arc — yes, still are — 
 castles, strongholds of wrong — prison fastnesses for 
 feeble innocence. That there still exist — we know 
 them not in Clovcrnook — worthy, pious bishops, pulpy 
 and rich as pine-apples. Kings, queens, knights, 
 bishops, and castles ! " cried the Hermit. " How few 
 the syllables ! Yet in this world what an uproar have 
 they made ! How much wickedness and suti'oring, and 
 violence, and stone-blind bigotry — if we read the history 
 of this dear old mother earth — Gracious Heavens," 
 cried the Hermit lifting his hand, " what daily Neroes 
 are we to her ! What multiplied, and still miiltiplying 
 evils may all be written down in five small words ! 
 Kings, queens, knights, bishops, castles ! What a 
 significant short-hand is here, my master," said the 
 Hermit, and he shook his head, and stalked freshly 
 onward. 
 
 We followed him in silence along the path that, 
 with gentle acclivity, wound around the hill. Beautiful 
 was the way ! Myrtles, geraniums, and a thousand 
 odoriferous shrubs blossomed and breathed about us. 
 No dead leaf was seen ; no withered twig deformed the 
 place ; no slug, no snail, crawled in the path. Bare- 
 footed Venus might have trod the grass, it was so soft, 
 so clean, so dehcate. Seats, and banks, and mossy 
 green alcoves were formed at various distances, along 
 the way ; places of rest and shelter from the sun and 
 shower. "Here," said the Hermit, pausing — "here 
 is the Grotto of the Cup and Cake ;" he then turned 
 aside, and entering what seemed to us the mouth of 
 a cavern, bade us follow. We obeyed, and in a few 
 moments stood in a circular grotto, into which the light 
 through various crannies, cunningly fashioned, found its 
 way ; falling upon a myriad of shells of rainbow tints, 
 that flashed and glowed about us, burning in the air. 
 We heard the creeping of a spring, and guided by the 
 sound, saw it falling in a thousand silver threads from 
 a corner of the roof. An old man, clothed in white
 
 42 TITE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 linen, received us. We shall never forget the benignity 
 of his aspect. He was above the middle height ; his 
 face was pale as moonshine ; liis eyes of a bright 
 grey, and his hair and beard were white as thistle- 
 down. "Here is a man," thought we, "whose life 
 has been a long task of holiness." He approached us, 
 with a large shell-goblet in one hand, and a small basket 
 of cakes in the other. " Drink," said the Hermit, 
 handing us the vessel. 
 
 " Is it water? " cried we. 
 
 " Almost : mere noontide tipple," answered the ^age 
 of Bellyfulle. " I call it the Etcctra Cordial. Harmless 
 as mouse's milk, sir. A nun might sec tlie bottom of 
 the cup, yet see no worse for't. We are now at half- 
 way distance from the summit of the hill. Here every 
 villager halts, and takes the cup and cake. Then, 
 with strengthened hams, plods onward. Some cakes? 
 and the llcnnit presented the basket. " They are made 
 by a French Duchess ; a dweller in the village below. 
 She bought the secret at, I cannot say what price, from 
 a cardinal, her confessor. 
 
 " Have the cakes any name ? " we asked. 
 
 With a slight movement of the left eyelid, the Her- 
 mit answered — " Maids'-lips." 
 
 We drank and ate, then followed the Hermit from 
 the Grotto of the Cup. " And who may be our host ? " 
 we asked. " Some man of lifelong piety and worth, no 
 doubt?" 
 
 " In the outside world," said the Hermit ; "for 'tis 
 thus we ever speak of the cannibal country you come 
 from, he kept a gin-shop, in close propinquity to the Old 
 Bailey. In his time he has been thrice fined by the 
 excise for having, accidentally no doubt, certain com- 
 pounds in his house, to give, as the wickedness of man- 
 kind imputed, an unlawful vivacity to his liquors. That 
 man has seen much of the world, aad from an eminence 
 not enjoyed by all men." 
 
 " What eminence ? " we asked.
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 43 
 
 "The pillory," answered the Hermit. "For one 
 hour did he twirl before the faces of a mocking, egg- 
 flincincr ccneration ; and at leni>th descended from his 
 altitude a t'hanged man." 
 
 " No doubt," said we. 
 
 " lie was set up a false-swearing publican, and came 
 down a philosopher. In one hour did he see the vanity, 
 the folly, the wicked violence of the world. In the 
 midst of men he was apart from them : his moral 
 feelings drew themselves inward like the horns of snails. 
 Whilst twirling round like a pig at the spit, with abo- 
 minable odours at his nostrils, and thd hubbub of vulgar 
 malice in his ears, the poor man's soul retreated into 
 itself, and shutting his eyes upon the mob about him — 
 he had good reason for that, sir — he saw with the 
 better vision of penitent hope, an abiding-place like this 
 of Clovernook ; a sanctuary from his world of adultera- 
 tion and short measure. Released by Mr. John Ketch 
 — ha, sir ! we have a hangman in Clovernook " — 
 
 "Is it possible ? " we cried in great astonishment, 
 
 " One who was a hangman. Here, his duty is to 
 prune trees, and kill pigs. Released, the publican turned 
 his heels upon the world, and — his lucky star guiding 
 him hither — he became the host of the Cup and Cake. 
 His otHce is to supply the villagers of Clovernook with 
 bite and sup, when it pleases them to rest at the Grotto. 
 Employed in this duty, he never speaks ; but at the 
 'Gratis,' sir, he is a talking fellow, and will chirrup a 
 song like a cricket." 
 
 " IIow beautiful ! " we exclaimed; for the Hermit's 
 talk had carried us to the top of the hill. High bushes 
 had, for some distance, shut out the view of the village 
 beneath, so that making a sudden turn, the scene burst 
 in all its unfolded loveliness upon us. At the summit 
 was a wide, long marble seat canopied with trees of 
 willow and acacia. We sat down, and revelled in our 
 very heart, as we gazed about, below us. 
 
 " You are now," said the Hermit, " on the top of
 
 44 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 Gossip Hill ; and there at our feet, sparkling like an 
 emerald in the sun, lies Clovemook. Now, sir," cried 
 the Hermit, and his face fell into shadow, " I have 
 seen nearly all the granite and marble triumphs of the 
 world : all the structures set up by the vanity of man 
 to dare time to do its worst. And I have never looked 
 at those mighty conquests of stone — those altars where 
 men may venerate the might and grandeur of human 
 labour — that I have not been saddened by the thought, 
 the idle fancy, that the very blood and marrow of men, 
 victims of lawless rule, cemented the blocks before me. 
 I have looked at the Pvramids, and seen ten thousand 
 thousand ghostly faces staring on me : yea, the whole 
 mass has seemed to mc the petrified bones of a thousand, 
 thousand slaves. Antiquity cannot take out the blood- 
 mark : philosophy, or what has quicker vision, sj-mpathy, 
 may still behold the stain ; the winds of centuries cannot 
 bleach it. I have galloped over the Appian Way, and 
 my horse's hoofs have spurned what to my eyes was 
 once the flesh of outraged man.'' 
 
 "Kindred thoughts," said we, "might give expres- 
 sion, animation, to every brick of every city." 
 
 " Certainly," said the Hermit, " if men would so 
 consider it. ^^^lat is Saint Paul's ? A mass of stone, 
 no more, to the tens of thousands that crawl, or lounge, 
 or jerk, or hurry by it. Such it seems: but what is it, 
 looking with thoughtful eyes? \Vliy, a multitude of 
 buildinjr activities. We look again : labour has ceased ; 
 the fabric is done ; and the harmony of the work steals 
 into our brain like the voice of a sweet singer." 
 
 "Even so," said we. "And thus the quietude of 
 the scene about us takes possession of the soul, and 
 soothes it down to gentleness and peace." 
 
 " Sir," cried the Hermit, " Corinth, Babylon, Palmyra, 
 what city you will, was never so fair a sight as that village 
 at our foot. A handful of its thatch is more than worth the 
 brazen gates of Thebes. Its very chimney smoke rises 
 to my nostrils, like the sweet odour of a sacrifice. And
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 45 
 
 ■wherefore is it thus ? What should make that httle 
 span of earth, with its few cottages, simple as swallows'- 
 nests — what slioulJ give to that village worth and ma- 
 jesty not found in cities ? Why, sir, the human goodness 
 that sanctifies it. There the hearth-gods are gentleness 
 and truth. There, man is not a he to man ; a daily 
 shufHer, an allowed hypocrite, who, ostrich-like, hides 
 his head in a bush of expediency, and thinks the angels 
 see not his plumes of vanity fluttering about him. There, 
 a creed is not a best coat, to be only worn upon certain 
 days, lest it should be worn out : no, sir^ it is the 
 e very-day working-garment ; and odd enough to say — 
 a strange thing not credible in your outside world — the 
 more the said coat is worn, the better and the brighter 
 it becomes ; and so," said the Ilermit with a grave voice 
 and an upward look, " and so to the end, until it is so 
 bright, so beautiful, it seems to catch a lustre from ap- 
 proaching heaven." 
 
 The Hermit paused, and for some moments we both 
 sat in silence contemplating the scene around and 
 beneath us. At length we observed, gazing down upon 
 the village, — " Its beauty seems to grow upon us," 
 
 " Yes," said the Hermit ; "for the two devils. Hypo- 
 crisy and Selfishness, those everywhere fiends of your 
 world, have never entered there." 
 
 *' Indeed they travel," said we. 
 
 "Why, with you," cried the Hermit, "they are as 
 the universal Pan. Take me — in fancy, only, mark 
 me — into your world, and tell me a sound that is not 
 mixed with their voices, even though it may be a bishop's 
 whisper; show me a thing they will not spot, even though 
 it be a bishop's lawn. Why, they are the twin deities, 
 or devilries of your earth ; they shout from the house- 
 tops ; they creak in carriage-wheels ; they ring in the 
 change of the shopkeeper : and with placid faces, I 
 much fear it, they lay their hands above their fungus 
 hearts, and cry ' content ' and ' non-content, ' and ' ay ' 
 and ' no,' in Lords and Commons."
 
 4G THE CHRONICLES OF CLOTERNOOK. 
 
 " Indeed, sir," said we, "this is bitterness." 
 "Ha! ha!" and the Hermit Liughed ; "that's an 
 old complaint." Then turning full upon us, the Sage 
 of Bellvfulle, with a twinkling of the eye common to 
 him when liit by some quaint thought, asked — " When 
 the world was very young, do you know where Truth 
 lived ? Doubtless. In a well ; that is a story, old 
 almost as the stars. And there she dwelt, and the 
 water of the well was in such high repute, men would 
 use no drop of any other. And so they drank it, they 
 washed their faces with it, cooked and scoured with it. 
 There was no water like that from the well of Truth. 
 Time plodded on, and the knaves, and the knaves' pup- 
 pets, fools, vowed that the water became worse and 
 worse, unfit for man or beast. It was brackish, foul, 
 filthy, sulphurous ; indeed, what was it not ? Men re- 
 fused even to wash their hands with it. No housewife 
 would boil her lentils in it. Men, temperate men, qua- 
 lified their wine with it ; and after, swore it was the 
 water that gave them the headache. Shepherds watered 
 their flocks at the well, and, as the shepherds declared, 
 the sheep fell into the rot. No man could say a good 
 Avord for the water of the well of Truth ; it was so hitter 
 no man could stomach it. Whereupon the people took 
 counsel, and determined to expel Truth from the well, 
 some old varlets declaring that they knew the time 
 when the well was most sweet and medicinal ; hut then 
 it Avas before Truth had been permitted to take up her 
 abode in it. It was Truth, and Truth only that had 
 made the stream so shockingly bitter. And so, with one 
 •accord, they hauled Truth by the hair of her beautiful 
 and immortal head from the well, and turned her naked 
 upon the earth, to find shelter where she might. Of 
 course, in her nude condition, she could not appear in 
 cities. Nevertheless, though she herself was abused and 
 driven to rocks and desert places, her well has main- 
 tamed her name ; and so for thousands of years men 
 have drunk at what they called Truth's Well, only Truth
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 47 
 
 was out. Certain it is, now and then she comes and 
 takes up hei- old abiding-place ; and then do good people, 
 who have unwarily taken a mouthful of the water, spit it 
 out again, and with wry faces, and shuddering anato- 
 mies, cry, — ' How very bitter ! ' Sometimes, too. Truth, 
 to get the poor devil a bad name, will wander like a 
 stray gnat into his ink-bottle ! Miserable scribbler ! 
 Branded, tattooed worse than any New Zealander with 
 his own goose-quill. Virtuous, honest, benevolent peo- 
 ple who love their species, that is, the Adam and Eve 
 of the printing-office, the race of men and women in 
 good hold type, for they care not so much about the 
 living vulgarities ; they scream like a lady at a loaded 
 pistol, or rather like a thumb-sucking baby at aloes, at 
 the man of bitter ink ; it is so very bitter." 
 
 " Truly, sir," said we, " 'tis not a profitable liquid to 
 him who uses it." 
 
 " Sir," cried the Hermit, " I have much to say upon 
 ink ; but for the present, I will give you some brief 
 advice. I know not your condition, nor do I seek to 
 know it : you may be in the fulness of wealth and feli- 
 city. Nevertheless, sir, fortune, to try you, may compel 
 you to be an author. You may, sir, hve by self-con- 
 sumption." 
 
 " How, sir ? " we asked. 
 
 " Did you ever see a crowd of monkeys in a cage ? 
 Answer ; and I will tell you what I mean by self-con- 
 sumption. You have seen the animals ? " 
 
 " Often," we replied. 
 
 " There is, I believe, a disease among monkeys ; a 
 horrid, morbid appetite which pricks the creature to 
 nibble, and bite away his own tail." 
 
 " We have observed it," was our answer. 
 
 " Sir," cried the anchorite, " I've seen monkeys that 
 have had the fit so very strong upon them, that their 
 tails have been bitten short to the buttock — left with 
 scarcely a stump for pity to weep over. What, think 
 you, among the tribe of monkeys were these animals 
 with self-eaten tails ? ' '
 
 48 THE CHKONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 We could not tell. 
 
 " Alas ! sir," cried the Hermit of Bcllyfulle, " they 
 were authors. And now, sir, let me for a moment speak 
 of ink. I will, for an instant, do you the injury to ima- 
 gine you an author. Now, sir, if you woidd keep a fair 
 reputation, and not have dirty water thrown upon you, 
 in the name of virtue, hy moralists from attics — not be 
 squirted at in the cause of benevolence by sensitive 
 folks, who can scarcely spell the syllables that stand for 
 the virtue, avoid bitter ink as you would shun the small- 
 }»ox. No, sir : dip your pen in a mild, sweet fluid ; and 
 if you will attend to my instructions, in this manner you 
 will make it." 
 
 The Hermit cleared his throat, and seizing our right 
 hand between his palms, and looking intently at us, 
 spoke with an earnestness that played along our heart- 
 strings. He began : — 
 
 " A way to make profitable ink : — Seek a she-ass. 
 with a week-old foal, that has been foaled at the fall of 
 the moon, fur the moon is much to be considered in this 
 matter. Go out at midnight, and milk the ass into a 
 skillet that hath never been tainted with aufjht but oat- 
 meal porridge. Whilst you milk, softly carol, ' Sing a 
 song of sixpence,' ' Little Jack Hornier,' or any other 
 innocuous ballad. Tut the milk by, and in the morning 
 stir it with a pigeon's feather. Add to the milk the 
 yolk of three pha-nix' eggs. Boil it over a fire of cin- 
 namon sticks, and then jiut to it an ounce of virgin 
 honey, made by bees that never had a sting. Be parti- 
 cular in this, or the ink will be spoiled, ^^^len this is 
 done, put by the mixture until the first of April. It 
 matters not how long it may be till then, for the phoenix' 
 eggs, when you have obtained them, will keep the milk 
 sweet for ever. Well, on the first of April, before 
 breaking your fast, take the milk and strain it care- 
 fully through the nightcap of your grandmother. If 
 you have not a grandmother of your own, borrow a 
 neighbour's. In three days the ink will be as good as 
 ever it will be for use."
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 49 
 
 " And this," said we, " is the way to make a profit- 
 able compound ? 
 
 " You pcrceijc," said the Ucrmit, " there is nothing- 
 bitter in the ingredients. Some of your critics might 
 drink of the ink, as though it was their own mother's 
 milk. Profitable, did you ask ? Why there is sweetest 
 sorcery in the ink. You have only to dip your pen into 
 it, and whatever you write will be all that is mild and 
 beautiful. There will be no wrong, no wickedness in 
 this world — at least, by the grace of tlic ink. there will 
 be none in your picture of it, — but it will be a world of 
 unmixed virtues. Your ink will never then be led into 
 the unprofitable knack of calling selfishness and villany 
 by their proper names, but you will wink and lot them 
 'trot by.' Every man will appear to you— at least your 
 ink will make you swear he does — like Momus's man, 
 with a pane of glass in his breast, and behind the glass, 
 a ruddy angel ! All the injustice of life — tlie wicked- 
 ness that man in his sorry ignorance inflicts upon his 
 neighbour, will be instinctively avoided by you ; the 
 while the injustice grows, and the wickedness triumphs, 
 and you, with your sweet and profitable ink, have helped 
 to cast no shame upon the abomination ! And you will 
 put all the world in holiday attire ; the beggar-girl will 
 be dressed in sarsnet and tifiany, and ploughmen them- 
 •selves wear smock-frocks of white satin. And so doing, 
 you will win the good word of those who never think for 
 themselves — a large class, sir ; and of those — almost 
 as large — who think falsely for other people. You will 
 be amiable, good, kind, far-seeing, deep-seeing, and you 
 will not be bitter ! " 
 
 " Truly, sir, the ink that will do this," said we, " is 
 a golden gift." 
 
 " It has been found so," said the Hermit. " And 
 now, sir, let me show you Clovernook and its population. 
 Place these upon your nose, and look about you." With 
 this, the Hermit gave us a pair of spectacles. The 
 glasses were in a frame of heavy brass-work, curiously 
 
 E
 
 50 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 overwrought with strange, odd marks. Lookinj; at them, 
 we asked, " \Vliat may these denote ? " 
 
 " I cannot tcU," answered the Hermit. " They were 
 the work of a Portuguese philosopher. The Inquisition 
 found a gallantce-show in his house, and burnt him for 
 a wizard. I bought the spectacles of his widow : she 
 was blind, or, I take it, had never sold them. You will 
 find them curious glasses." 
 
 Marvellous, in truth ! Putting them on, the whole 
 of the village was brought in wonderful di.stiuctness to 
 us. Though Gossip Hill was of exceeding height, and 
 at least two miles distant from Clovemook, yet so strong 
 was the power of the spectacles, that we could distin- 
 guish the white throats of the young martens thrust 
 from the nests built beneath the cottage eaves ; could 
 see the tints of the bouseleek on the cottage roofs, the 
 colours and small threads of lichen on the church tower. 
 " Wonderful — wonderful ! " we cried. 
 
 " They are good glasses," said the Hermit — " very 
 good. I have sat here, and looked through them so 
 often, that I know every flaw and weather-stain on every 
 roof and wall. Yet, some eyes they will not suit. Can 
 you see the hour by the church clock ? 
 
 "The hour I " we cried. " Nay, we can see a fly 
 upon the minute-hand." 
 
 " What is the fly about ?" asked the Hermit, mus- 
 ingly. 
 
 " Nothing," we answered. " It is motionless." 
 
 " And the hand moves towards the hour ? Is the fly 
 still there ? " asked the sage. 
 
 " Still there," said we. 
 
 "And still idle ! Ha, my son," and the Hermit sighed, 
 " how many of us are no other than lazy flies upon the 
 hand of time ? What other thing do you see ? " 
 
 " A pair of daws. One of them lias just flown up 
 with stolen goods in its beak." 
 
 " The wickod one ! " said the Hermit with a laugh. 
 " Robs poor villagers, and yet lives in a church. They
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVEllXOOK. 51 
 
 are old sinners, sir, those daws ; I know them. They d 
 take tithe of wool from a day-old lamb, and the one 
 chicken from a widow's one hen. Yot there they haunt 
 and roost in their grave black, and bring scandal upon 
 our dear old church by the rapacity of their wa^s." 
 And then the Ilorniit smiled, and was silent. After u 
 pause he asked, " What think you of our church of (.'lo- 
 vernook ? " 
 
 " Very beautiful," said we, " in its sweet simplicity ;" 
 for the doors were open, and we could see the whole 
 interior of the building. " It looks the abode of peace 
 and truth." 
 
 " Ay, it does, sir. Yet there is an old legend that 
 in former times there was fierce strife in that little church. 
 The quarrel is known as the schism of the Blue and 
 Black. It was thus, sir : — The parson died ; and when 
 another parson was to be chosen, many of the congre- 
 gation declared they would give ear to no preacher 
 whose eyes were not blue. No grace could flow from a 
 pastor with black e^'cs. Other of the people were as 
 resolute on the contrary. They held blue eyes to be 
 heretical, unbelieving, and typical of burning sulphur : 
 hence, they would have black eyes in the parson, and 
 none other." 
 
 " And how," we asked, "was the dispute accommo- 
 dated?" 
 
 " In this wise : as neither party would give way, two 
 persons were chosen. When Blue Eyes preached in the 
 morning, Black Eyes held forth in the afternoon. Thus 
 both congregations were equally satisfied, and, let us 
 hope it, equally blessed." 
 
 " Do you believe this foolish tale ? " we asked. 
 
 "There are people who call it fabulous — the gossip 
 of fiction. I cannot say what happened in Clovernook, 
 but I will tell you what I once saw in the land of the 
 Mogul. There, sir, there were certain bonzes or priests, 
 who, like the twirling dervises you may have heard of, 
 were wont to show their devotion by spinning, like tops.
 
 62 THE CimOXICLES OF CLOVfillNOOK. 
 
 in white gowns. Suddenly there came other derviscs, 
 who spun in black gowns ; then others came, who spun 
 in yellow raiment ; others in scarlet ; others in purple. 
 And every colour had its champions and apostles ; and 
 there were many foul words, and a little foul play, ex- 
 changed among them. The tumult convulsed the land 
 — every party vowing to fight to the death for the one 
 colour. When I left the country, it was torn to pieces 
 by the separate factions of the separate coloured gowns. 
 After some years I roturnod. and found the whole land 
 in peace ; and how, sir, think you, was amity restored ? 
 A great man — a man of genius and benevolence — arose, 
 and ho combined all the opposite colours into one sted- 
 fust. admiring body of himself; for he, looking upon any 
 colour as of no matter, if the twirlinir wore 5r*»od — if the 
 
 ' Or? 
 
 spinning were sincere — he, the meek and easy man, 
 spun in something very like a harlecjuin's jacket." 
 
 '* A pagan philosopher," said we. 
 
 " There was some thought, some suggestive wisdom, 
 in this harlequin humour. The light that blesses us, is 
 poured ujton us in one white stream from the everlasting 
 fount ; and yet it is a light of many colours. Alas, my 
 son ! " cried the sage, " what a place would this be, if 
 the many-coloured creeds of this world did not, by Al- 
 niighty goodness, make the white light of the world to 
 come ! 
 
 The Hermit paused, and we continued to survey the 
 interior of the church. *' Beautifully simjtle," said we ; 
 ** no stained glass : no gold-fringed, gold-tasseled pulpit 
 cushion ; and no pews." 
 
 " Why, no," said the Hermit, " no pews. In your 
 world, I have puzzled myself to think what kind of 
 place your stickling pew-holders must paint to themselves 
 when they imagine heaven ? A place with pews ? With 
 a better sort of volvet — softer seats — more harmonious 
 lunges to the doors — white, cloud-like hassocks?" 
 
 ** They can have no such thoughts," cried we. 
 
 " Why not ? " asked the Ilermit briskly. " Nay,
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVEUNOOK. 53 
 
 they must. What is, or should be, a church to the mind 
 of the worshipjicr, but as the porch to eternity ; wherein 
 he stands, pondering tlie terrible mystery within him : a 
 place set apart from the sordid cares and crimes of the 
 world, Avhere, shakin<T the dust from his soul, he hopes, 
 fears, dreads, prays for an angelic change ? — lie is at 
 the outer door of the dread Future ; and shall he there 
 whine like a canting beggarman at the threshold ? 
 Tell lies of sores and wretchedness ? shall he call him- 
 self a worm, yet, in the pride of his maggot heart, 
 enshrine himself in a cabinet, shrinking from the neigh- 
 bourhood of brother crawlers? Think you," said the 
 Hermit, " that men will rise in pews ■! I fear me not." 
 
 Again the Hermit paused. " What think you of our 
 churchyard ?" he asked. "You see, there are no cy- 
 presses ; no weeping willows ; no undcrtiiker yews ; but 
 sweet, odorous shrubs and orange trees, with bud, blos- 
 .som, and the ripe fruit ; types of those who lie below." 
 
 " And no epitaphs ?" said we. 
 
 "Nor naked skulls, nor cross-bones carved in stone ; 
 nor cherub cheeks, with marble tears ; nor aught of the 
 gimcrackery of woe that libels death, making the 
 deliverer horrible. Beneficent death ! In the church- 
 yards of your outside world he sits like a bloud-smeared 
 Indian, counting his scalps. And then, your tomb- 
 stones ! What a multitude of contrary counsel — of creed- 
 denying misery is there I I have walk among them ; 
 and fancy has given to them features, expression ; the 
 embodied voice and feeling of the written thin":. Whv 
 one howls, ' worms and darkness,' in the desolation of 
 despair; one with wailing, shivering voice, cries — 'the 
 eold, cold grave ;' another gnashes its teeth at the 
 'tyrant death.' And are these the looks, the voices, 
 the words of hope — the words of the faith the men pro- 
 fessed to die in ? It would be more than curious," said 
 the Hermit, in a solemn tone, " if the spirits of the dead 
 might write their own epitaphs." 
 
 The deep earnestness of the Hermit's manner made us
 
 54 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERN'OOK. 
 
 gaze at him. It was strannje ; but he appeared to us 
 almost a double man. liis face soemod to lose its 
 fleshly, full-fed, laughing look, when he talked in this 
 wise — and was refined and animated ; wholly redeemed 
 from its vinous aspect by the seriousness of his discourse. 
 At his cell, he seemed to us the champion and the 
 genius of creature-comforts — the true and doughty 
 HeiTuit of Bellyfulle ; and now discoursing of death, 
 his wrongs, and the fopperies cast upon him, the Hermit 
 appeared as one who had castigated his spirit in the 
 wilderness. 
 
 " Is it not strange," asked the Hermit, " that men 
 should seek for skulls and bones, and turned-down 
 torches, to make them feel the true solemnity of death ? 
 These things arc to the imagination what strong liquors 
 arc to the blood. They confuse the sense of truth. Can 
 there be a more beautiful or more hopeful memento of 
 the dead, than the mere heap of earth that covers them ? 
 Lovely, pregnant earth ! Teeming with life ! Holding 
 in its dusty bed the colour and the sweetness of the 
 future amaranth ! And yet in your world, you place a 
 skull and cross-bones over dead men's clay, and write 
 up desolate sentences of worms and darkness ; of terror 
 and the fell destroyer ; as though the wailing spirit of 
 the dead cried from beneath. Verily, sir," said the 
 Hermit, " the tombstones of a Christian churchyard do 
 at times jangle with the sweet spirit of Christianity. 
 I have looked at them with pity ; may I be pardoned 
 the emotion ! sometimes with slight resentment." 
 
 " The graves beneath us are covered with herbs and 
 flowers. None osier-bound," said we. 
 
 " Look at the wall, there, to the right," said the 
 Hermit. 
 
 We looked, and saw a long row of bee-hives. " Bees 
 hived in a churchyard !" we cried, astonished. 
 
 " Every grave," said the Hermit, " is planted with 
 thyme and other herbs : with flowers, that the bees 
 most love. The whole village is suppUed with honey,
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 55 
 
 sucked, elaborated from the churchyard. There, mj 
 bones will he. And there the bees will work, and 
 working, sing* above them. To ray heathen mind a 
 sweeter, a more hopeful music, than dolorous words of 
 worms and darkness, chipjied by stone-cutter." 
 
 "Bees hived in a ]ilace of graves!" wc repeated. 
 " 'Tis a stransje fancy." 
 
 " Call it what you will," said the Hermit. " we leave 
 it to your outside world to seek for sighs and groans, 
 and tribulation, in your burying places. The villagers 
 of Clovernook — great happiness is it that it is so — seek 
 nought but honey from the churchyard." 
 
 "Who is that — the sexton!"" we asked, seeing an 
 old hale man, with mattock and axe, enter at the gate. 
 
 *' Our sexton," said the Hermit. "In your world, 
 he was a man of pills ; a most potent, money-seeking 
 quack. His penance, here, is to dig graves. With 
 you, it may be said, he employed journeymen." 
 
 " He was known as the sexton's friend. But," said 
 we, " you have several times spoken of penance. Are 
 all the dwellers of Clovernook vowed to penance for 
 the folhes or the worse guilt of their former lives ?" 
 
 " Assuredly," said the Hermit. " Save the few chil- 
 dren born here, nearly all the men and women of Clover- 
 nook take some self-imposed task, to cleanse themselves 
 of past foulness, past folly. I had forgotten," said the 
 Hermit, rising, " I ought first to have shown you The 
 Valley of Naps." 
 
 " The Valley of Naps," we cried ; " what place is 
 that?" 
 
 " It lies on the other side of the Hill, between this 
 and the village. By that valley all who come from your 
 world to end their lives in Clovernook, are made to enter. 
 Here," said the Hermit, turning his back upon the 
 >'illage, and following a narrow, winding path -" here 
 you may see something of it. Look," said the Hermit, 
 and he pointed downwards to a dark speck of wood. 
 " Your spectacles will serve you little here. That
 
 50 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 black blot of trees — tbat is tbe entrance to the Valley 
 of Naps. When the traveller arrives there, he puts up 
 at The Wanniiig-I'an — the only hostelry in the Valley. 
 The landlord is said to have been a Lord Chancellor in 
 his day ; and his servants customs and excise officers. 
 The traveller is shown to bed, and after a nap of some 
 six months, he rises, puts on new clothes, and having 
 left his old face at the Shrine of the Lookintr-Glass, 
 sets forward to Clovernock." 
 
 '■ Dear sir," we cried, " explain all this. ^Vhat do 
 you mean ? IIow can a man leave his face ? " 
 
 " Why, sir," asked the eremite, " tliinlt you that 
 Clovernook would be the Paradise it is, if its viUaj;ers 
 had broucjht their wordly visai^es with tliem ? Oh, 
 most beautiful and most foul is the human countenance ! 
 A page, writ with sunny characters — a greasy, dirty, 
 dog's-eared leaf I Are there not faces, with every trace 
 of d\\'\n\ty thouffht out of them? Faces, with quick, 
 hungry, subtle eyes ; and cheeks and brows, lined 
 and cut as with the sharji edges of sixpences ? Have 
 you walked the streets of cities and not beheld such 
 faces ? If so, believe it, you have dull eyes. Well, the 
 people bound for Clovernook leave the raiment of the 
 outer world at the Warming-Pan ; and with it their 
 natures as deformed and warped in the world they have 
 iiuitted. Then thev call at the Shrine of tbe Looking- 
 Glass, and take a last peep of their worldly faces. 
 They look into the mirror, and looking, leave all the 
 black lines, the wrinkles of calculation, the pallor and 
 sallowness of sorrow in the glass, and step forward 
 with faces happy, bright, and beaming as from a talk 
 with angels." 
 
 *' And, of course, never again visit the Valley of 
 Naps ?" said we. 
 
 " Yes, indeed," said the Hermit, "and have solemn 
 sport there. I have told you, that every traveller leaves 
 at the Warming-Pan his coarse and sordid worldly 
 nature with his old clothes. Well, every New Year's
 
 THE CnnONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 57 
 
 Eve, these past natures, these phantasma of the world 
 without, appear in the cast raiment, and are invited hy 
 the purified villagers of Clovernook, their past owners. 
 There is, I have said, much sport there ; and it happens 
 after this fashion. Although everybody beside knows 
 the shadow, the ghost of the past, to be the past property 
 of the man upon whom the spectre fixes itself; yet di-es 
 the amended man himself deny the phantom ; endea- 
 vouring by all means to put it off upon any other of 
 his fellows. It is strange sport to see how ghosts are 
 bandied about ; like unacknowledged paupers in the world 
 you come from." 
 
 "But the villagers of Clovernook," said we, "do 
 not forget their former doings i"' 
 
 "On the contrary," replied the Hermit, "they have 
 a quick, most curious knowledge of their past lives, 
 save on the solemnity of New Year's Eve ; and then, 
 for the time, do they forget all things. You see our 
 sc-xton there" — for by this time we had returned to 
 our seat, looking down upon Clovernook, — " there was 
 rare sport with him at Shadow Fair." 
 
 " Shadow Fair !" we echoed. " Is that the name of 
 the festival held in the Valley of Naps ?" 
 
 " It is ; and the sexton went, with others, last New 
 Year's Eve. lie was immediately owned by his ghost, 
 the phantasm, the slough of his moral self left at the 
 Warming-Pan. The ghost was a long, thin-faced ghost, , 
 with a bit of mangy hair on the upper lip. The ghost 
 made up to the sexton, who immediately took to his 
 heels, the ghost following him, and pelting hira with the 
 spectres of his own pills, as people pelt one another with 
 sugar-plums at a carnival. There was great sport, I 
 can tell you. The pills — the ghost seemed to have 
 myriads of them in his coat-pockets, — fell in showers 
 about the sexton, the ghost straining its thin voice, and 
 calling out that the sexton could not take too many 
 of them. Where the pills fell, poisonous fungus, small 
 toadstools, with bolus heads, came up, killing everything 
 around."
 
 rj^ THE CIIROXICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 " And will the poor sexton suffer the game pelting 
 next New Year's Eve ?" we asked. 
 
 " Assuredly," said the Hermit. 
 
 " May he not have better wisdom than to visit Shadow 
 Fair ?" said we. 
 
 *' He cannot choose," replied the Hermit. *' It is 
 the inevitalile fate of every villairer of Clovernook, to go 
 every Now Year's Eve to the Valley of Naps." 
 
 " What I is death in the village ?" we asked, seeing 
 the .sexton doff his coat, and hegin delving. 
 
 '* Yes. A villager died three days ago. He was 
 ninety-three, and this day week — yes, this day week 
 — he played at cricket." 
 
 ••And who is that old man," we asked, "with 
 long white hair, at the bottom of the hill, peei»ing and 
 prying into the hedge?" 
 
 " He, sir, was a sharj) attorney ; a very keen tool, 
 indeed, in your world," .said the Hermit ; " but here 
 lie spends his days in picking cotton blight and canker 
 from the trees, and freeini; flies from cobwebs." 
 
 '* And here comes a gay, thin-faced old man, with a 
 wooden leg." 
 
 " He was a great general — a very mighty gene- 
 ral ; he has killed his thousands, and knocked down 
 cities by the dozen. And now, what think you, does 
 he in Clovernook ? Why, every evening he waits in 
 the skittle-ground of the ' Gratis' to set up the nine- 
 pins. The rest of his time he employs in snaring jays, 
 daws, and magpies ; and when he has taught them 
 to cry ' Peace, jyeaee, peace ! ' he lets them fly, as 
 he says, to teach their ignorant brethren." 
 
 " And now the general meets a tall, lusty man." 
 
 " I know him. He was a prime minister for years. 
 Here he turns humming-tops and other nick-nacks for 
 children." 
 
 " And who is this, now — ?" 
 
 " Patience," said the Hermit, with a smile, as he 
 rose from his seat, " you will know all the villagers
 
 THE CIIROXICLES OF CLOVERN'OOK. 59 
 
 in good time — shall meet tlicni all, and hear their 
 stories, too, at pur only inn, the ' Gratis.'" 
 
 With growing reverence for the Sage, vrc attended 
 the Hermit of BellyfuUe back to his cell. " In half an 
 hour," said he, graciously smiling, " it will be dinner 
 time. Half an hour," he repeated with musical em- 
 phasis, as he passed into his chamber. Having profitably 
 employed the time with cold wati'r, we then, refreshed 
 yet hungry, sought our host. The Hermit awaited us. 
 lie had put aside his cloak of the morning, and was again 
 wrapped in his old damask gown. He perceived that 
 we observed the change. " My custom, sir," he said ; 
 *' I never yet could dine in full dress. The digestive 
 organs, sir, abominate close buttoning ; and do their 
 work sulkily, grumblingly. No, sir ; a man in full 
 dress may chew and swallow, but he never dines. The 
 stomach cannot lionestly perform its functions in state." 
 We smiled : whereupon the Hermit with a grave, sly 
 look, asked — "Will you answer me this question?" 
 We bowed. " Do you think it in the power of 
 mortal man to give a fair, wise, learned judgment 
 upon any dish or sauce soever, the said man being, at 
 the time of tasting, in tight boots ? Sir, it is impossible. 
 The judicial organ is too delicate, too exquisitely nerved, 
 to vindicate its sweet prerogative, unless the whole 
 man, morally and bodily, be in a state of deep repose. 
 And, therefore, can there be a greater wrong committed 
 upon the cook, than the common injury of dining to 
 music ? It is abominable. Once — I well remember it 
 — I chewed to the clangor, and crash, and thunder of a 
 military band. Well, sir, the dinner was excellent — 
 admirable as a dinner ; but I have no more judgment 
 than a beast, if I had any other taste in my mouth save 
 the brass of the trumpets, and the tough parchment of 
 the drum-heads. Silence, profound and solemn, is due 
 to the first hour of dining. One minute before that 
 time the finest jest is but a presumptuous imperti- 
 nence. In my encyclopaedia of the kitchen I have treated
 
 CO THE CITRONirLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 of these tilings — philosophically and at large. For the 
 present" 
 
 Here the IIoiTiiit upraised his forefinger, and at the 
 same time the door was opiMiod, and a man, drest in 
 snowy wliite, followed hy Ht-zoar, brought in the first 
 dish. Placing it upon the table, the man dispppeared, 
 Bezoar taking his place bi-hind the Hermit's chair. And 
 then the Hermit ro.se, and baring his head, said grace. 
 " Thanks be rendered for this : and may no man dine 
 worse !" With this short ceremony the Hermit entered 
 upon his serious task. He dined as though he was 
 fultilling a devout e.xercise of his life. Not a word es- 
 caped him, as dish after dish was levied upon, then 
 taken away. We conlTess our ignorance of the many 
 delicious things set before the Hermit, they had been so 
 disguised, so elevated by the art of the cook. As, in 
 .silence, we watched the doings of the Sage — for soon we 
 sat with idle knife ami fork, whilst still our host cut 
 awa}' — we marvt-llcd that a man so caj>able of solemn 
 thoughts — a man who could discourse, as he had done, 
 upon a churchyard — and the pride, the guilt, the empty 
 fooli.shness of lifi^ — should be so cm-i<ius. so eajxerin his 
 food. With his strange quickness of mind, he jumped 
 at our thoughts, and said — " I doubt not I can guess 
 your meditation. I, myself, with the wings of my soul, 
 have tried to escape from this mound of flesh," and he 
 glanced at his stomach ; " but the soul is, at best, as a 
 trained hawk ; let it fly as high as it will, there is its 
 master for the time, with his feet upon the earth ; and 
 straightway it drops from the clouds at his call." Saying 
 this, the Hermit pushed away his final plate. He had 
 dined — for he had spoken. 
 
 " This wine is miraculous," said we, filling a glass of 
 tokay. 
 
 *' Yes ; I shall remain some time in Hungary," an- 
 swered the Hermit, sipping the liquor with educated lips. 
 "This," said the Sage, holding the wine between him 
 and the light, " this is the true blood of our dear mother
 
 TIIE CnnOKICLES OF CLOVERXOO G\ 
 
 earth. I have often wondered at the sneaking ingra- 
 titude of astrunoniieal men. In the name of grapes, 
 wliy should not Bacchus have a star to himself ? We 
 have only to reflect upon the characters of the Pagan 
 deities siderally honoured, to feel the indignity done to 
 Bacchus. There is Saturn, a tyrant and a child-eator, 
 — he must he set in a ring, and nominally hung in the 
 sky. Mars, a bully, and nine times out of ten no whit 
 better than a highwayman or burglar. — he, too, must 
 twinkle insultingly upon men, made fouls and rogues, 
 tyrants and victims, by his aboTuinable influence ; yes, 
 he, the recruiting sergeant of the heavens — must stare 
 with his red face upon us ; — and Mercury, thief and 
 orator to boot, may wink through the long night, all 
 having their admirers and worshippers ; whilst for 
 Bacchus, he, with all his great bounty, is starless ami 
 unhonoured. 'T would be a pleasant, yea a proper 
 thinir, " said the Hermit with a lauirh, " to find a fire- 
 new planet for him."' 
 
 "Indeed, " we answered, "in these days, it is not 
 likely that Bacchus will meet with so bountiful an astro- 
 nomer. In the outside world — to use your own words 
 of Ciovernook — his godship is in sad disgrace. His 
 bottles are broken ; his pottle-])ots shivered ; his name 
 anathematized. Boys and girls, scarcely forgetful of 
 the taste of mother's milk, renomice him and his 
 ways ; and more, by the potent ehxjuence of child- 
 hood, compel father and motlier to forswear the worship 
 of the frantic god. Drunkenness itself has lost its 
 blotched and scarlet face, and, like the hart, pants 
 only for pure water." 
 
 "Can it be?" asked the Hermit. "I never knew 
 a drunkard so reformed, unless, indeed, he had been to 
 the Land of Turveytop." 
 
 " The Land of Turveytop I" we cried : "where may 
 that be ? what people inhabit it, and what wonders may 
 be done there ?" 
 
 " As for its latitude," said the Hermit, " why, I will 
 not puzzle your geography with it. The people ar-^ of
 
 G2 THE CHKOXICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 gigantic stature, at least forty feet high ; yet mild and 
 benevolent — the nurses and pastors of the ordinary race 
 of mortals." 
 
 " And is the land far distant ?" we asked. 
 
 " Some hundred leagues, no more, from Clovemook. 
 
 I was brought up there : understand rao — brought up, 
 
 after the fashion of the Turveytopians. The truth is, 
 
 when I had arrived at man's estate, I found myself in 
 
 possession of a bit of nearly every vice that blackens 
 
 the sons of Adam. I will not run over the list, but to 
 
 save your time and my breath will merely desire you to 
 
 think me at that time knowing in all the rascally 
 
 accomplishments generally shared among a crowd of 
 
 sinners. And yet, though wild and lawless, and hotly 
 
 pursuing all sorts of mad delights, I never felt a touch 
 
 of happiness. My pleasure was at best delirium that left 
 
 me spent and heavy-hearted. It was in one of those 
 
 moods, when the whole world about me was, to my 
 
 moral vision, coloured like so much brown paper, that 
 
 walking at the base of a high mountain, it suddenly 
 
 opened before me. Sir," said the Hermit, with a 
 
 grave look that rebuked our gaze of incredulity, " I 
 
 say the mountain opened. A narrow passage, adown 
 
 which the sun shone with intense brightness, and 
 
 whence I heard delicious sounds, as of distant music, was 
 
 before me. Without a thought I entered it ; when 
 
 having run a few paces, I turned round, and — the 
 
 marrow froze in my bones — I saw the mountain had 
 
 closed again behind me. I was trapped ; swallowed ; 
 
 a miserable lump of bieathing mortahty, in the bowels of 
 
 the earth. Great was the anguish of my heart ; yet, 
 
 strangely enough, hght, like sunlight, streamed down 
 
 the long passage before me, and the soxmds of the 
 
 music became louder and louder. By degrees they 
 
 carried peace and fortitude into my soul, and I began 
 
 to walk rapidly forward. As I walked, the passage 
 
 became wider, and at length ended in an open country ; 
 
 where, save that the grass, the flowers, the trees, and 
 
 all things about me, were of gigantic proportions, all in
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 63 
 
 form were the same as the things of the world I had 
 left. I walked until I saw, what at first appeared to 
 nie, huge rock*. Continuing to approach them, I dis- 
 covered them to he houses. My heart dropped within 
 me, for I feared that I was in a land of giants. As the 
 thought foil upon mo, I turned round and almost swooned 
 to the earth with fear. A giantess of nine-and-thirty 
 feet three inches high — as I afterwards discovered — 
 stood hofore me. Instantly I believed I was destined to 
 be eaten alive. Though constitutionally gallant towards 
 the sex, I was yet so wayward, that I would rather 
 have fallen into the jaws of a tigress or any other 
 female boast, than have formed the meal of the giantess 
 before me. She saw my terror, and a smile broko 
 upon her broad, good-humoured face, like a sunbeam 
 on a rose-garden. A few strides brought her to me. I 
 fell upon my knees, and lifted up my bands imploringly 
 to her. Never did man drop at the foot of woman in 
 more earnestness of soul. Never could he pray more 
 fervently to be taken in marriage, than did I supplicate 
 not to be chewed alive. The giantess, with a laugh 
 that almost stunned me, bent over me ; chucked me 
 under the chin ; playfully nipped the end of my nose ; 
 indented the tip of her fore-finger in both my cheeks, 
 and shrilly crying Lhikklukkhik, — which answers to our 
 homely catchy, catchy — took me in her arms like a raw, 
 red-faced, hour-old baby." 
 
 "A strange place this Turveytop, and a strange peo- 
 ple," cried we. "And amongst these folks you say 
 you were brought up ? Brought up ! Why, you were 
 of man's estate when the mountain opened and received 
 you." 
 
 " True ; but it is the benevolence of the Turveytopians 
 to take in men and women to nurse : to bring them up 
 anew ; and to this philanthropic end, every new comer is 
 treated as a new-born babe. Bless you I I have seen 
 a philosopher, who had made a great noise among 
 his brother pigmies on the outside of the mountain, I
 
 G4 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 have seen him sent back to nurse's milk and pap. The 
 one great principle of the Turveytopians is this, to take 
 no knowlod!::;c for pjranted on the part of those they 
 nurse. Ma}- this tokay, sir." — cried the Hermit, about 
 to quaff — "may it turn to train oil in my gullet, if I 
 have not seen a Chancellor made, whether or no, to suck 
 his thumb, because the little varlet would affect pre- 
 cocity and quarrel with his nurse, as if to suck his 
 thumb was an act below his consequence. I have 
 seen, too, a Lord Chamberlain taught again to walk : 
 yes, seen him toddling after a sugar-stick held tempt- 
 ingly, encouragingly, 'twixt his nurse's fingers." 
 
 '* And for what purpose," we asked, " this teaching 
 over again ? Was it not a waste of time and pains ? " 
 
 "Assuredly not," answered the Hermit gravely: 
 and then fixing his eye upon us, he asked, "Have you 
 not known follis in the outside world, who — standing it 
 may be within a few years of their grave — seemed, 
 nevertheless, as if they had learned all their worldly 
 knowledge the wrong way ? As if, to be aught good, 
 wise, and morally dignified, they should learn the lesson 
 of life again ; yea, beginning in the nursery, should 
 sprawl and roar in the nurse's lap ? You cannot think 
 this ? It matters not : the honest Turveytopians have 
 this belief, and therefore take weak and wicked men 
 and women, of every age, as younglings from the 
 womb ; they are called the babes of the mountain — 
 children of earth ; and for the many vices and faidts 
 which they bring with them into Turve^^op, why, they 
 are considered as spots and flaws inseparable from their 
 former condition. " Oh I the men I have seen there," 
 cried the Hermit, with a laugh — "the kings, lord.<;, 
 bishops, lawmakers I have seen, aU put into second 
 swaddling-clothes, and brought up again as gentle, wise, 
 iharitable, sagacious folk, doing good credit to the beau- 
 tiful earth, which, in their former days, they so grievously 
 scandalized." 
 
 " Eat surely," said we, *' it was to take the training a
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 65 
 
 little too far back. We cannot, we repeat, but think 
 it loss of time and trouble." 
 
 " Certainly not," cried the Hermit. " Consider, sir, 
 how delightful it must be, by a strong effort of the soul, 
 to lose and forget all that wc have mislearned of life, 
 and so begin the lesson again — with clear heads and 
 ruddy hearts. To compass this with the reprobates of 
 the world is the purpose of the Turveytopians — wise, 
 gracious, wonderful giants that they are — mighty only 
 in their goodness, superhuman in their sweet charities." 
 
 " Pray," we cried, " tell us your history wliilst in 
 Turveytop." 
 
 '« You shall hear it, sir," said the Hermit, " and the 
 brief histories of many others." 
 
 We drew close to the table, and waited the story with 
 impatience. 
 
 " Though trembling violently in the arms of the 
 giantess, I became gradually self-assured by the sweet 
 good-humour of my nurse. She gazed and nodded 
 smilingly at me, hke a girl with a new doll ; and although 
 I felt distressed and humiliated. I nevertheless smiled — 
 though I fear a wan, sickly smile — in acknowledgment of 
 her tenderness. Then she threw me up in the air, and 
 caught mo again in her arms. Never before had I 
 been so far from earth. My head swam, and my 
 stomach — I had that day dined off eel-pie and goose- 
 threatened treachery, when I heard a loud voice exclaim 
 in the very purest English, — for the Turveytopians 
 know all the languages of the earth, — ' Slut ! baggage !^ 
 Is that the way to toss and jolt a new-born babe?' 
 Holding, me in her arms, my nurse turned round, and I 
 beheld in the speaker a matronly giantess, with a kind, 
 motherly countenance. ' A pretty skittish thing you are 
 to trust babies to,' she cried. ' Poor poppet,' — and the 
 benevolent gentlewoman wiped my nose, — ' it doesn't 
 look half an hour old ; and yet here, you are, throwing 
 it up and chm-ning its little bowels like butter.' 'La, 
 grandmother ! ' cried the girl, * it doesn't mind it. See, 
 
 F
 
 66 THE cnnoxicLEs of clovernook. 
 
 if it doesn't laugh ! ' I certainly did grin. ' Laugh ! ' 
 said the old dame ; ' you know-nothing hoyden ! laugh ! 
 Poor little heart, it's wind.' At this, 1 couldn't help it, 
 I chuckled ^ngorously. ' There ! if the dear lamh isn't 
 choking,' cried the woman ; ' away with it to the 
 nursery, or you '11 have its precious life upon your soul.' 
 Instantly the girl hugged mc to her bosom, cast her 
 apron over me, and ran — I thought she flew — with all 
 her legs. I saw nothing until the girl carried me into 
 a spacious, lofty room, which in a moment I knew must 
 be the nursery. There wore about twenty other infants, 
 from a day to a week old ; infants I must call them, 
 though all of them were older than myself. Some were 
 screaming, shouting, swearing in the most shocking 
 manner that they were not babies, that they were men 
 — wise, learned, authoritative men — and would shake 
 the pillars of the heavens ere they would be treated 
 as sucklings." 
 
 " And what said the nurses ? " we asked. 
 
 "Oh, sir! what nurses usually say at such a time. 
 They bawled and shouted too. Then they called the 
 babies 'precious ducks,' 'darlings,' 'apples of their 
 eyes,' 'plagues,' and then 'precious ducks' again. 
 There was an old dowager from the outside world — how 
 she had ever wandered into Turveytop I know not — 
 who, screaming like a catcall, begged to ask the wretches 
 if they knew what they were about. Declared that she 
 had a son lord chief justice, and then desired to know if 
 she was to be treated like a child." 
 
 "And what was the answer ? " we inquired. 
 
 " None, sir," said the Hermit — " none, save that 
 the woman who was swatliing and dressing her, shrilly 
 sang a nursei-y song, and tossed her about like so much 
 pie-crust. From this, I found that no big words, no 
 struggling of mine, would prevail, and therefore meekly • 
 resigned myself. And, sir, I had my reward ; for 
 having been properly powdered and swaddled, my nurse 
 declared that I was the quietest dove of a babe she 
 had ever handled ; quite a lamb."
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 67 
 
 " And, pray forgive the question, did they really give 
 you to a wet nift-se ?" 
 
 " They did, sir," answered the Hermit smiling, "and 
 a very comfortable woman she was. It was wonderful 
 how soon I accommodated myself to a milk diet. In a 
 short time I seemed to have sucked in a serenity of 
 soul. Recovered somewhat from the amazement of the 
 day, T took counsel with myself in bed." 
 
 " Delicious, peace-giving bed!" we cried. 
 
 The Hermit looked grave. " Happy is the man," he 
 answered, " who can say peace-giving bed. For oh, sir ! 
 what a rack to the spirit of man may be found in goose- 
 down ! You do not seem to apprehend me ? Consider, 
 sir, Avhat an unavoidable self-confessional is bed. Think, 
 sir, what it is to have our conscience put to the question 
 of goose-feathers. You are in bed, peace-giving bed, you 
 say — it is deep night ; and in that solemn pause, you 
 seem to feel the pulse — to hear the very heart of time. 
 You try to think of many things, but the spirit or demon 
 of the bed sets up yourself before yourself — brings all 
 your doings to the bar of your own conscience ; and 
 what a set of scuiTy gaol-birds may be among them I 
 They peep in at your curtains, crowd at the foot of your 
 fbed, and though you burn no rushlight, you see their 
 leering, sneaking faces. Alas ! you cannot disown them : 
 you know that some time or other you have given them 
 house-room in yom- soul, and, like unclean things, they 
 have repaid the hospitahty with defilement. There 
 they are, old co-mates, sworn acquaintances ; and yet 
 the world could not believe that, for a moment, you kept 
 such company. Oh, no ! abroad in the world you have 
 all sorts of graces accounted to you. Alack ! that night- 
 cap and sheets should, to your own conscience, make 
 you bankrupt. They make you know yourself hypo- 
 crite ; stand before you, even though you He in dark- 
 ness, your polished, easy, cordial, out-door self — a man 
 without a subterfuge, a soul without a meanness. And 
 your head upon your pillow — if conscious blood beat 
 
 f2
 
 68 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 at your heart — you blush for the counterfeit you have 
 a thousand times put off upon the world, and shudder 
 at the accusing naughtinesses about you. Peace-giving 
 bed! It may be so; and it maybe — oh, sir!" cried 
 the sage of Bellyfidle, " if all our faults, our little 
 tricks, our petty cozenings, our bopeep moods with truth 
 and justice, could be sent upon us in the blankets, all 
 embodied, sir, in fleas, how many of us of lily skins 
 would get up spotted scarlet ?" 
 
 " But surely, fcir, " said we, " you had no time for such 
 remorseful thoughts in the nursery ?" 
 
 " No — not then," answered the Hermit. " Then, as 
 I said, I took counsel with myself ; and resolved, since 
 the strangeness of my fate had cast me in Turveytop, 
 to bear with meekness all that might befall me. The 
 giant folk are wise, benevolent, I thought ; else, where- 
 fore should they seek to purge men of their wicked 
 worldlincss, taking them back to their first swaddling- 
 hour, that they may learn the lesson of life anew ? Yes ; 
 I will forget the scurvy wisdom that puffed my heart, 
 and made me cock my cap, a knowing fellow. I will let 
 the cunTiing, self-complacent, braggart creature die here 
 where I am, and be taken up* a baby — yea, a very 
 suckling." 
 
 "This, sir," we said, "would be a rare secret to 
 teach men." 
 
 " It was taught in Turveytop — truly taught ; but I 
 know not how it was, there was something in the place, 
 the people, that after a time made the most stubborn of 
 the babes apt and cunning pupils. For myself, I 
 resolved upon docility ; and lying where my nurse had 
 placed me, I bade all my rascal thoughts depart ; by a 
 strong efl'ort of the soul kicked from my brain many a 
 shrewd deceit, that, in former days, I had treasured 
 more than gold and jewels." 
 
 " And so became a babe again ?'* 
 
 " What a deUcious pause was that ! How sweet that 
 cleanliness of soul ! There I lay in thoughts of
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOA'ERNOOK. 69 
 
 lavender ; for the babiliood of Tnrveytop is not like 
 our first eliildlu)od. There, man is not a midway thing, 
 between two mysteries, the cradle and the coffin. No, 
 sir ; having purged my brain of its secreted Avicked- 
 ness, I was conscious of my sweet condition, I felt 
 and rejoiced in my infancy of heart, and I have not 
 forgotten its deliciousness. I was resolved to begin 
 my life anew ; and as a droll destiny had given me 
 a nursling to the giants, I so played my part of babi- 
 hood, that my nurse outsounded all her gossips with 
 my praises. Thus, I never cried or whimpered, but 
 suffered myself to be dressed and undressed, crowing 
 the while, and walking up my nurse's knees — and 
 cooino- and laujrhino- in her lap. In this, as I have said, 
 I found my account : in a fortnight I was short-coated, 
 and in another fortnight was put upon my feet, for my 
 nurse declared that in a week I should be able to walk 
 alone. Many of my companions were less docile. There 
 was one — he had been an admiral — who roared and 
 swore in a terrible vein, and vowed he would only be 
 quieted with pig-tail tobacco. Another, a weazened babe 
 — a money-lender in fonner life — was never silent but 
 when he was allowed to wear his nurse's silver thimble 
 on his head, he did so love the metal. Most of the 
 children, however, lost by degrees the errors and weak- 
 nesses of their former days, and in time became span- 
 
 new creatures." 
 
 " And pray, sir," we asked, "what term of probation 
 did they pass, ere they were permitted to claim man's 
 estate ? " 
 
 *' That depended upon the progress of the individual; 
 for, with the Turveytopians the year of discretion was 
 not fixed by the almanac, but by the wisdom and purity 
 of the neophyte. There were, certainly, a few babies 
 — I must still call them so— who had been in Turveytop 
 for centuries. You are awai-e, sir, that it was the fashion 
 with those sorry dogs the Romans, when any of their 
 heroes were missing, to swear that they had been carried
 
 70 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 off by Mars, charioted by a clap of thunder. A flam- 
 sir — a political flam — to double-gild the memory of ruffi, 
 ans. The truth is, they were taken to Turveytop, and 
 there they still remain ; they are such hopeless block- 
 heads, they can learn nothing good and peaceable. There, 
 they arc vermin-hunters to the giants, waging war with 
 the rats and mice ; no child's sport, sir, when you 
 consider the strength and immensity of the beasts. Poor 
 King Arthur, whom the Welshmen look for — and King 
 Sebastian, still expected by all believing Portuguese — 
 both of them are in TuiTcytop, and there; I think, are 
 likely to remain. Arthur, the mirror of knighthood, is 
 a sulky, watery-headed lout, continually robbing the 
 other children of their nuts and apples — throwing sticks 
 at the legs of flies, and slily sticking pins into the 
 youngest babies. The Welshmen believe in Arthur's 
 return, faithfully as in leeks ; but, sir, the Turvey- 
 topians know that he Avould only spoil his reputation, 
 so keep him where he is. And for the good King Sebas- 
 tian, who, nearly three hundred years ago, passed into 
 Africa, to cut Moorish tliroats, he was spirited off to 
 Turveytop, to be taught decent dealing." 
 
 "And how has the teaching prospered?" we 
 inquired. 
 
 "Very badly, sir," answered the Hermit. "I don't 
 know how it is, but the heroes and wise folks of our 
 world become sad lubbers and dunces among the giants. 
 I have seen King Sebastian seated with twenty other 
 kings and legislators, all of them famous upon our earth 
 for their justice and wisdom; I have seen each of them, 
 with a piece of chalk between his fingers, vainly trying to 
 draw a straight line. For centuries have they in Turvey- 
 top been set to do such simple task, before they should 
 be permitted to return to their old world again ; yet has 
 no one of them accomplished it. No, sir ; there is not 
 one of them who does not draw zifj-zasf. And the best 
 of it is, each of them swears that his own crookedness 
 ia the straightest of the straight. The Turveytop
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 71 
 
 geometrician shakes his head with a mild pity, where- 
 upon the late, kings and lawmakers sulk, and, in a low 
 voice, swear at him. Fate alone can tell when poor 
 Sebastian will get to Portugal again. A sad thing for 
 him, sir," said the Hermit — "for I doubt not that there 
 his worst zig-zag might pass for a perfect straight line. 
 The dunces I have heard at school, too ! " — and the 
 Hermit sighed, 
 
 " Then they sent you all to school ? " we observed. 
 
 " As.suredly, " said the Hcnnit, " and to me sweet and 
 pleasant was the academy. Not that we were packed off, 
 to be nailed to a form, as soon as we could lisp ; — the 
 Turveytopians are wiser, more benevolent. No — we 
 sprawled and kicked about in the sun, and rode cock- 
 horse upon the backs of snails, and took flying leaps 
 upon grasshoppers, and tore our frocks, and roUcd in 
 puddles, and dirtied our faces, and ran thorns into our 
 fingers — and, in short, did every other trick that endears 
 a child to its parents. Yes, our constitution was suf- 
 fered to strengthen like palm-trees in the sun and air, and 
 the alphabet was an uuthought-of calamity, until we 
 were at least seven years old. The girls were taken in 
 hand at five ; for women, sir, are somehow always in 
 advance of us." 
 
 " Is that your faith ? " 
 
 "Is it not indisputable? Though Eve was younger 
 than Adam, was she not more than a match for him ? 
 As for girls," said the Hermit with a gentle chuckle, 
 " I know not if it be not a great defect in their educa- 
 tion that they should be taught to read and write at all." 
 
 " It cannot be, sir," we cried, " Wliat ! rear the 
 tender, blooming souls in ignorance ? " 
 
 "Why not?" said the Hermit, stroking his chin, 
 whilst his eye twinkled. " Why not, sir? Ignorance 
 is the mother of admiration. Perhaps they'd love us 
 all the better for it. Ha, my friend ! you know not what 
 mischief may be done when you teach a girl to spell, 
 and put a pea in her hand. It 's adding weapons of
 
 72 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 offence where there was more than enough hefore. 'Tis 
 like giving another quill to a porcupine. Relentless souls, 
 how many of them %vill write ! Man,^ — let him he 
 praised, though praised in a whisper for it ! — ^lias his 
 fits of lordly idleness, his accidental headache in the 
 morning, and he turns from his standish as from a 
 nauseous ch-aught, and his grey goose feather rises 
 upon his stomach as though it was the bird's yester- 
 day's flesh ; and so, taking his hat, he lounges abroad, 
 hugging his laziness and dearly loving it : or he sits in 
 his chaii-, the world unthought of, humming upon its axis, 
 and he, in sweetest independence, twiddling his thumbs. 
 Not so with woman, sir ; she has no idleness, not she ; 
 that blot darkens not the crystal purity of her resolu- 
 tion. She, like frail bibulous man, has never one of his 
 headaches ! No, sir, the world gets no such respite. 
 Fatally industrious, and sweetly temperate, your writing 
 woman, like a cuttle-fish, secretes ink for every day." 
 
 " 'Twill go ill with you," said we to the sage, " should 
 woman write your epitaph." 
 
 "Nay, her gratitude will protect me," answered the 
 Hermit, " seeing that I shall then let her have what 
 is dearest to the sex." 
 
 " And what is that ? " we asked. 
 
 •' The last word," — and the Hermit blandly smiled. 
 •' Nevertheless, sir, let what I have said rest between 
 us. For the sex — blessings on their honied hearts ! — 
 will forgive wrong, outrage, perjury sworn ten times 
 deep — anything against their quiet, but a jest. Break 
 a woman's heart, and she 'U fit the pieces together, and. 
 with a smile, assure the penitent that no mischief is 
 done — indeed, and indeed, she was never better. Break 
 a joke, light as water-bubble, upon her constancy, her 
 magnanimity — nay, upon her cookery — and take good 
 heed ; she declares war — war to the scissors. There 
 was my great aunt Dorcas. Poor soul ! Her husband 
 had tried the woman a hundred cruel ways, and found 
 her, as her own mother declared, quite an angel. Her
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 73 
 
 heart had been broken manjs many years ; and yet so 
 well do women^repair the ravages of time and accident, 
 nobody wourd 'ever have thought it. Well, sir, this 
 woman, who had endured wrong, neglect — nay, some 
 did whisper, the slight of iufidehty, to boot — this woman, 
 who, placidly as a saint in china, had smiled upon a 
 husband's villainies, at length parted from the man 
 upon a custard ! Yes, sir : her t^Tant of a mate — as 
 he thought, poor wretch! pleasantly enough — flung a 
 heavy joke, before company, too, upon his wife's pastry. 
 The man had never been known to attempt a jest till 
 then. Whereupon, aunt Dorcas said she had endured 
 enough ; there was a limit even to a wife's forbearance. 
 She rose from the table, and died upon a separate main- 
 tenance." 
 
 "Pray, sir," we inquired, "has your philosophy 
 fathomed the cause of all this ?" 
 
 " 'Tis in the deeper gravity of the sex," said the 
 Hermit, "Nay, sir, I mean it. They are shallow 
 thinkers, sir, who declare women to be light and frivo- 
 lous. Depend upon it, they take life much more in 
 earnest tban we do. Hence, sir, woman is rarely a 
 joke-making animal. Far better than we does she know 
 the perishable materials of which life is made, and 
 takes serious care of them accordingly. And then,^ sir, 
 the dehcacy of the sex makes them shrink from a jest. 
 Like pistol or small sword, it is a masculine weapon, 
 and not to be intruded upon their gentle presence. No, 
 sir ; a woman may be brought to forgive bigamy, but 
 not a joke." 
 
 "It maybe so," said we ; "but, sir, all this time 
 we have wandered from Turveytop. You were sent to 
 school there, you say ?" 
 
 " I was — and there, indeed, the time went gaily by. 
 Benevolent and gentle was the schoolmaster, and worthy 
 of the honours lavished by the state upon him. Ay, 
 sir, you may look ; but in Turveytop the schoolmaster 
 is not a half -drudge, half-executioner. No, sir ; the ira-
 
 74 THE CmiONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 portance, the solemnity, of his mission is conceded. 
 Children are not sent to liim Avith no more ceremony 
 than if they were terrier-pups, packed to the farrier to 
 have their tails docked and their ears rounded. In 
 Turveytop, the schoolmaster is considered the maker 
 of the future people — the moral artificer of society. 
 Hence, the state pays him peculiar consideration. It is 
 allowed that his daily lahours are in the immortal 
 chambers of the mind — the mind of childhood, new 
 from the Maker's hand, and undefiled by the earth. 
 Hence, there is a solemnity, almost a sacredness, in 
 the schoolmaster's function ; upon him and his high and 
 tender doings does the state of Turveytop depend, that 
 its prisons shall be few. It is for him to wage a daily 
 war with the gaoler. His work is truly glorious, for 
 it is with childhood — beautiful childhood!" cried the 
 Hermit passionatcl}- — " I10I3- childhood, with still the 
 bloom of its first home upon it I For, indeed, there is 
 a sanctity about it — it is a bright new-comer from the 
 world unknown, a creature with unfolded soul ! And 
 yet, sir, are there not states where, whilst yet the crea- 
 ture draws its pauper milk — of the same sort, by the 
 way, that nurtured Abel — we give it to those fiends of 
 earth, violence and wrong, and then scourge, imprison, 
 hang the pupil for the teaching of its masters ? Child- 
 hood, with its innocence killed in the very seed ? 
 Childhood, a fetid imp in rags, with fox-like, thievish 
 eyes and lying breath, the foul weed of a city ? Such, 
 indeed, it is to the niceness of our senses, shrinking at 
 the filth and whining of that world-wrinkled babe. 
 But look at it aright, sir," — cried the Hermit with new 
 animation — "translate its mutterings into their true 
 meaning. What do you see ? — what hear ? The hnea- 
 ments and crvings of an accusinor demon : a ffiant thinor 
 of woe and mischiefs scowling and shriekino: at the world 
 that hath destroyed its holiness of life ; that, seizing it, 
 yea from the hand of its Maker, hath defaced the 
 divinity of its impress, and made it devil — a devil to
 
 THE CHRONICLES OP CLOVERNOOK. 75 
 
 do a devil's mischief ; then to he doomed and punished 
 by a self-conij)lacent world, that lays the demon in a 
 felon's grave, and after, sighs and wrings the hands at 
 human wickedness." 
 
 " In the strange land you speak of," we observed, 
 wishing to divert the passion of the Hermit, for, indeed, 
 he seemed . strangely possessed, — "you said that child- 
 hood had its sacred claims allowed. There, all were 
 taught — all tended. The schoolmaster, too, had high 
 privileges ?" 
 
 " The highest," cried the sage, his light good-humour 
 returning. " Indeed, in Turveytop the schoolmasters 
 may be said to take the place of our commanding 
 soldiers. We give rank, distinction, high praises to 
 generals and such folk for the cunning slaughter of 
 their thousands. We take the foul smell out of blood- 
 shed, and call men-quellers heroes. We give them gold 
 lace, and stick feathers upon them, and hang them 
 about with Orders of Saint Fire, Saint Pillage, and 
 Saint Slaughter. We strip the skin from the innocent 
 sheep to make rub-a-dub to their greatness, and blow 
 their glory to the world from blatant brass. Now, the 
 Turveytopians have no soldiers ; but they give the same 
 amount of honour to their schoolmasters. They have 
 a belief that it is quite as noble to build up a mind as to 
 hack a body ; that to teach meekness, content, is as 
 high a feat as to cut a man through the shoulder bone ; 
 that, in a word, it is as wise and useful, and surely as 
 seemly in the eye of watchful Heaven, to fill the human 
 brain with thoughts of goodness, as to scatter it from a 
 skull, cleft by the sword in twain. Hence, the school- 
 master in Turveytop is a great social authority, honoured 
 by the state. The savage counts his glories by scalps ; 
 the refined man of war bv his fjazettes. The g-eneral 
 kills five thousand men — defeats some twenty thou- 
 sand. He may have picked a quarrel with them, that 
 he might pick his sprig of laurel, and rejoice in lawful 
 plunder. He has done his work upon hiunanity ; he has
 
 / b THE CHROXICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 acted his part in the world — a world of human sjnipathics 
 — and he becomes earl, or steps up duke. It is his 
 rightful wage, paid by a grateful hand. The school- 
 master of Turveytop numbers his scholars ; shows the 
 heroes he has made ; the victors over self among his 
 army ; the troops of wise and peaceful citizens he has 
 marshalled for the field of life, and is honoured and re- 
 warded accordingly." 
 
 *' And you were sent to one of these great pedagogues 
 — these laurelled teachers ?" 
 
 " E.xccllent old man !" cried the Hermit. " He was 
 sorely tried by some of us. The perverscness, the 
 stupidity of some of mj' school-fellows passes belief ; yet 
 the nu^ster's sweetness of spirit was unconquerable. 
 Some of his pupils he never could teach to spell the 
 commonest syllables. There was one boy — in our world 
 he would have passed for about sixty-five — who never 
 could master the word good. For years, as I understood, 
 he had been haggling at it. ' Now, my poor little boy,' 
 I have heard the schoolmaster cry a hundred and a 
 hundred times, a melancholy smile upon his reverend 
 face, ' now, my child, spell me good.' Whereupon the 
 pupil — a thin-faced, greenish-eyed fellow, and, as I 
 learned, a former dealer in foreign stocks — would answer 
 ' g-o-l-d/ And thus it had been with him for years ; 
 and thus, if alive, it may be with him now. Wretched 
 little dunce ! He could not comprehend any other 
 way of spelling good than g-o-l-d. He, however, was 
 not alone in his dulness. No ; there Avere twenty other 
 scholars from the outside world who still stumbled at the 
 syllable. Will it be believed ? — There was one boy, 
 about fifty-two, with a drum-like belly and a somewhat 
 purplish nose. It was whispered that, ere he was brought 
 to Turveytop, he had been a vicar, more than apostoli- 
 cally sharp for his tithes. Well, sir, you would have 
 expected higher intelligence from such a scholar ; yet 
 somehow he never could master the monosyllable. 
 ' Good ' would be the word of the teacher, and still thf
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 77 
 
 fat-bellicd boy would spell ' p-i-g.' How our clear school- 
 master would look pci-plexed ! How plainly I could see 
 him striving to account for the confusion in the pupil's 
 mind, that still from year to year had gone on spelling 
 'good' with the letters 'p-i-g.' The simple mono- 
 syllable was a trying task for many of the scholars. 
 Indeed, how few of them — from the defect of their 
 previous worldly education — coirld spell the word the 
 proper way! The old admiral I have already spoken of, 
 always insisted upon spelling it — ' g-r-o-g.' From my 
 heart, I pitied the schoolmaster ; for whilst other teach- 
 ers were seeing the young Turveytopians advance in all 
 their daily lessons, and so, doing their master honour in 
 the land, our poor pedagogue was doomed to sit almost 
 hopelessly amid a crowd of dunces, whose dull or 
 debauched faculties rendered them incapable of the 
 easiest tasks. And yet no word of passion or reproach 
 ever escaped the teacher. ' Poor little boy,' he would 
 say, with a sigh, having hammered for an hour and 
 more at the word 'good,' while some foxhunting 
 m-chin, with his hands in his pockets, and a brassy 
 confidence in his face, would spell 'dog ;' — ' poor httle 
 boy,' the giant schoolmaster would exclaim, ' it is not 
 your fault, poor heart! no, it is the dark, dreadful world 
 you have come from !' It is a sad thing to think of," 
 said the Hermit, " yet are there many, many pupils, 
 growing hoary, and still mis-spelling 'good,' nay, dying, 
 and still unable to master that easy monosyllable. For I 
 know not how many hundred years King Arthur there, 
 in the preparatory school of Turveytop, has been sulking 
 with his thumb in his mouth, still spelling ' h-l-o-o-d' for 
 'good.' The last time I saw him he had on a dunce's 
 paper cap, made out of a poem written in this world to 
 his especial honour." 
 
 " And Iving Arthur, and lung Sebastian, too, — you 
 have talked with them in Turveytop ?" we cried. 
 
 "Most certainly," said the Hermit. 
 
 " And Numa Pompihus ? " —
 
 78 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK 
 
 " And Joanna Southcote," said the sage. 
 
 " Is it possible ?" weexclaimed. "Joanna Soutlicotel 
 Then she is not dead ? That is, she will keep her word, 
 and come back to us ? " 
 
 " And open a baby linen warehouse," said the Her- 
 mit, " She told me as much, for the comfort of her 
 believers ; though, to confess the truth, I have never 
 until now bragged of my acquaintance with her. As, 
 however, she has been given up as incurable by the 
 Turveytopians, there is but little chance of her returning 
 to this world, since they suffer no one to come back who 
 does not at least promise continued amendment. Now, 
 Joanna, as I have said, is incurable." 
 
 " And what her malady ? " we asked. 
 
 "Lying, sir," answered the sage. "And her great 
 grief is, that nobody in Tiu-veytop will believe her. 
 Poor thin 2: ! How she laments her loss of this world ! 
 She dwelt alone in a little cottage, and being famous 
 for her tea-cakes — for there is a sort of sanctity that 
 hath a quick sense of kitchen comforts — was much visited 
 by King Arthur, Sebastian, and other dunces of Turvey- 
 top. I deny it not ; I have made one at these meetings. 
 She was a sleek-looking, cosey woman, with a voice like 
 a flute. On my first visit to her, — for there was some- 
 thing about her that somewhat tickled me, " 
 
 "Her tea-cakes?" we ventured in the smallest 
 voice to observe. 
 
 "Well, sir," said the Hennit, with a smile, "when 
 there be not other virtues, let even tea-cakes pass for 
 something. On my first visit, she would have devoured 
 me for news. ' Anything stirring in my way in London ? ' 
 she asked. I answered, ' No, madam ; nothing what- 
 ever. I left all the people very dull — not at aU what 
 they were when you were among them.' — ' Well, I did 
 give them a rouse,' she said ; and then mournfully 
 added, * but I suppose they have forgotten me ? ' — 
 ' Why, the truth is, madam, ingratitude is the public's 
 sin ; nevertheless, you are still spoken of, and by a
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 79 
 
 hopeful few are promised back again. The worst of it 
 is, should yon really return, I fear there will be unbe- 
 lievers who, even to your face, will disown you.' — 
 ' Never mind that,' said Joanna ; ' only let me get back 
 again, and I warrant me I '11 have the world by the nose 
 once more. As for being disowned, why, for the matter 
 of that, I 'd take another name, and start a new mys- 
 tery. Is there, at the present time, think you, room for 
 such a novelty ? ' — ' As I have said, madam, we have 
 been somewhat dull in such matters of late. There 
 has been no new prophet on the stage for some time.' — 
 ' Then the world wants one. Don't tell me, I know 
 it : bless you, after a season, the world gets sick and 
 tired of its old, old truths, — and longing, hungering 
 for a good lie, will swallow anything. Otherwise, do 
 you think I should have gone down as I did ? though 
 even I made one great mistake — my He was not quite 
 strong enough.' — ' Pretty well, I think, madam.' — •' Not 
 at all,' said Joanna ; ' and then I gave it too short a 
 date. Nevertheless, I did hook 'em, — folks of all degrees, 
 — 'a good sprinkUng of the high with the low — gentle 
 and simple — rich and poor. Well, if there is any sport 
 worthy of human enjoyment, it is cheating om* feUow- 
 creatures."' 
 
 " The old harridan ! " we cried. 
 
 " Still give her the praise of an ingenuous tongue," 
 said the Hermit. " Joanna only confessed what I fear 
 me, many believe and practise, yet vehemently deny. 
 The woman spoke in earnest, and that's something. 
 And I fear me, she spoke truly of the world's hunger 
 at intervals for imposition. It is, I suppose, with the 
 multitude as sometimes with single Nokes or Styles : 
 truth becomes to them monotonous — propriety dulness ; 
 and so they get a zest for a lie, and make holiday with 
 extravagance. Nay, sir, if we look philosophically into 
 the matter, the greater the outrage offered to their 
 minds, the deeper, by consequence, their faith in it. A 
 zany boasts his daily intercourse with angeUc spirits :
 
 80 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 the daring of the falsehood carries away the imagination 
 of weak and simple folks who clap hands with the im- 
 postor, that they may be nearer to his celestial intelli- 
 gences. The spiritual mountebank , juggling with human 
 hopes and fears, offers a closer knowledge of the mys- 
 tery of mysteries. Hence, the dupe is often born of the 
 zealot. Enough of this. Perhaps, some day Joanna 
 will be again in the world : though, as she says, under 
 another name, and preaching forth another marvel. It 
 has been tlius almost since Truth was born — and she 
 came smiling from chaos ujjon the earth — rand will be 
 thus until the end." 
 
 "And the Turv-cytopians ? Wliat of their govern- 
 ment — their laws, and customs?" 
 
 " Of such matters know I nothing," said the Hermit, 
 " save that the schoolmasters were, so to speak, the 
 nobiUty of the people. We scholars, spirited from the 
 outside world to be brought up and taught in all things 
 anew, were confined to the nursery, the school-room 
 and play-grounds. Indeed, save tliat the benevolence 
 of our masters was more remarkable than in the teachers 
 of dancing-dogs, they seemed to look upon us as inferior 
 creatures, that might, with time and pains, be taught 
 some tricks of humanity — that possibly, by a sojourn 
 in Turveytop, might be made less mischievous to one 
 another when sent back to the world we were taken 
 from. Hence, I saw but little of the political and social 
 condition of Turveytop. There ran a legend that, many 
 hundred years ago, there arose a civil war in the land, 
 which was ended in a way it would be pleasant to see 
 imitated." 
 
 " How, sir ? " we asked. 
 
 " Why, the two parties had armed themselves with 
 swords and spears and battle-axes — things unknown till 
 then — and guns and cannon, and all the devilry wliich 
 laurels come of. Thus armed, the divided people took 
 the field. The opposing chiefs had marked their ground, 
 and every man rubbed his hands — for the Turveytopians
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 81 
 
 were, for the time, frantic with malice — at the sweet 
 thought of chgpping his neighbour through the skull, 
 Avhilst those birds of glory, the vultures, were already 
 cock-a-whoop for human flesh. Now, at that time the 
 Turveytopians worshipped, among other divinities, a 
 certain God of Lausrhter. I know not that such was 
 his name ; but mirth, loud, reckless, rollicking mirth, 
 was his hiffh attribute. This god had of late been much 
 neglected. The Turveytopians — having their hearts 
 filled with rancour, and in the drunkenness of their 
 wrath yearning for nought but blood and wounds — had 
 wickedly neglected the service of their beneficent Numen. 
 Oh, glorious laughter ! " cried the Sage of BellyfuUe, 
 falling back in his chair, and turning his broad shining 
 face xipwards, whilst his eyes twinkled benigidy, and his 
 lips seemed trembling with a jest — " thou man-loving- 
 spirit, that for a time dost take the burden from the 
 weary back — that dost lay salve to the feet, bruised and 
 cut by flints and shards — that takest blood-baking melan- 
 choly by the nose, and makest it grin despite itself — that 
 all the sorrows of the past, the doubts of the future, eon- 
 foundest in the joy of the present — that makest man 
 truly philosophic — conqueror of himself and care ! 
 What was talked of as the golden chain of Jove, was 
 nothing but a succession of laughs, a chromatic scale of 
 merriment, reaching from earth to 01}Tnpus. It is not 
 true that Prometheus stole the fire, but the laughter of 
 the gods, to deify our clay, and in the abundance of our 
 merriment, to make us reasonable creatures. Have 
 you ever considered, sir, what man would be, destitute 
 of the ennobling faculty of laughter ? Why, sir, laugh- 
 ter is to the face of man — ^what sinovia, I think ana- 
 tomists call it, is to his joints, — it oils, and lubricates, 
 and makes the human countenance divine. Without 
 it, our faces would have been rigid, hj-sena-like ; the 
 iniquities of our heart, with no sweet antidote to work 
 upon them, would have made the face of the best among 
 us a horrid, husky thing, with two sullen, hungry, cruel 
 
 u
 
 82 THE CimOXICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 lights at the top — for foreheads would have then gone 
 out of fashion — and a cavernous hole below the nose. 
 Think of a babe without laughter ; as it is, its first intelli- 
 gence ! The creature shows the divinity of its origin and 
 end, by smiling upon us : yes, smiles are its first talk with 
 the world, smiles the first answers that it miderstands. 
 And then, as worldly wisdom comes upon the little thing, 
 it crows, it chuckles, it grins, and shaking in its nurse's 
 arms, or in waggish humour playing bo-peep with the 
 breast, it reveals its high destiny — declares, to him with 
 cars to hear it, the heirdom of its immortality. Let ma- 
 terialists blaspheme as gingerly and as acutely as they 
 will, they must find confusion in laughter. Man may 
 take a triumphant stand upon his broad grins ; for he 
 looks around the world, and his innermost soul, sweetly 
 tickled with the knowledge, tells him that he alone of all 
 creatures laughs. Imagine, if you can, a laughing fish. 
 Let man then send a loud ha I ha ! through the universe, 
 and be reverently grateful for the privilege." 
 
 " And the Turveytopians, you say, sir, had their 
 God of Laughter ? " 
 
 " And, from what I could gather, he held a most 
 exalted place in their Pantheon. Sweet, too, especially 
 sweet, was one of their customs of sacrifice. It was 
 this. A man always dedicated his first joke, what- 
 ever it might be, to the God of Laughter. There 
 was a fine spirit of gratitude in the practice, a sweet 
 acknowledcrment of the honied uses of mirth in this 
 our daily draught of life, otherwise cold, flatulent, and 
 bitter. This first ofi'ering was always a matter of great 
 solemnity. The maker of the joke, whether man or 
 maid, was taken in pompous procession to the shrine of 
 the god. And there, the joke — beautifully worked in 
 letters of gold upon some rich-coloured silk or velvet — 
 was given in to the fiamen, who read it to the assem- 
 bled people, who roared approving laughter. The 
 joker was then taken back in triumph to his house, and 
 feasting and sports for nine days marked this his first
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERyOOK. 83 
 
 act of citizenship ; for I should tell you that no joke- 
 less man eouliJ claim any civil rights. Hence, when the 
 man began to joke, he was considered fit for the gravest 
 offices of human government ; and not till then." 
 
 " What ! no civil rights ? Had he no vote — if indeed 
 there were votes in Turveytop — for his representative 
 in the Senate ? — for " — 
 
 "Sir," replied the Hermit, gravely, "he had no 
 voice in anything ; not even in the making of a beadle. 
 The man without a joke in Turveytop was a wretch, 
 an outcast; indeed, to give you the strongest, the truest 
 comparison, he was what your man in England is, with- 
 out a guinea." 
 
 " Miserable wretch ! " we cried. " And what became 
 of these creatures ? ' ' 
 
 " As I learned, the jokeless did all the foul and 
 menial work. Miserable men, indeed ! I have heard of 
 a country in which the social dignity and moral intelli- 
 gence of the man was computed by the soap he was 
 wont to outlay upon his anatomy. He might be too 
 poor to buy the soap ; never mind that ; it was a terrible 
 thing, and stung the penniless offender like a nettle, 
 to call him « the miwashed ! ' Now, in Turveytop, it 
 amounted to the same degree of ignominy to call a 
 man the jokeless ! Some of these might be in tatters 
 and starving ; well, they would ask charity, and how ? 
 They would say nothing of rags and hunger, but stop- 
 ping the rich, they would despairingly slap the forehead, 
 and in a hollow voice, cry ' No joke ! ' Thus, in those 
 days of Turveytop, jokes gave dignity to the highest 
 offices of the state. Senators and magistrates thought of 
 nothing but making a joke of their functions and repu- 
 tation. They had their great reward not only in the 
 admiration of the people, but in the high degree of 
 mental expression and physical beauty which their genius, 
 constantly exercised, inevitably awarded them." 
 
 " Have jokes such benign power upon then- makers ?" 
 we asked. 
 
 g2
 
 84 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 "Unquestionably," answered tlae Hermit, startled at 
 the question. " Take a sulky fellow, with a brow ever 
 wrinkled at the laughing hours, let them laugh ever 
 so melodiously — who looks with a death's head at the 
 pleasant fruits of the earth heaped upon his table — 
 who leaves his house for business as an ogre leaves 
 his cave for food — who returns home joyless and grim 
 to his silent wife and creeping children, — take such a 
 man, and, if possible, teach him to joke. Why, sir, 
 'twould be like turning a mandril into an Apollo. A 
 hearty jest kills an ugly face. The divine nature of 
 man irradiates and ennobles what at first sight seems 
 Avholly animal. What a mighty joker was Socrates ! 
 Yes, joker, sir ; and rightly have the sculptors ima- 
 gined that knotty countenance, sublimed and sweetened 
 by the laughing spirit within ! Now, the jokeless of 
 Turveytop — as it was related to me — became physically 
 forlorn ; the sympathy of mind and flesh was so active. 
 Hence, they were drudges, scavengers, bone-grubbers, 
 pickers-up of old rags and iron, bearers of burdens, 
 outcasts, miserable creatures ; — the jokers all the wliile 
 sitting high in place, their checks greasy Avith the mar- 
 row of the earth, their eyes twinkhng with its nectar." 
 
 " Strange, indeed!" we cried. 
 
 "Ay, sir," said the Hermit, " for there are places 
 in which, nine times out of ten, your joker is the lean 
 drudge, and the dull fellow has the po^bel]y, the pvirple 
 nose, and the fidl purse." 
 
 " And now, sir, for the civil war in Turveytop ? 
 You say it was pleasantly ended ?" 
 
 "In this fashion," said the Hermit, "if I have 
 heard the legend truly. The two armies, in high con- 
 ceit with their murderous weapons — for until that time 
 there had been no men-kilhng engines known in Turvey- 
 top — lusted for the fight. Now, sir, you have heard or 
 read of the vast concern shown by the gods of the 
 heathen in the battles of their favourite soldiers — as if, 
 for instance, you and I should have pet emmets iu the
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 85 
 
 bloody struggle for an ear of barley. Indeed, wliethcr 
 or no, man toill make his gods shoulder the knapsack 
 with him : he will make them enter the breach, fire 
 the town, clap a ready hand upon movables ; knock 
 a wayward householder on the head, and after, take 
 enjoyment in the cellar, the larder, and the chamber. 
 Man will, as I say, take his gods campaigning with him; 
 and, sir, it must be owned, scurvy treatment they oft- 
 times meet with at his hands. When he has laboured 
 profitably in the bloody harvest, he gives them money 
 for their good-will and support ; and, alas, poor gods ! 
 with swaggering, blaspheming impudence, thanks thenx 
 for his good fortune in robbery and slaughter. To hear 
 of certain thanksgivings for successful battle, should we 
 not believe that the devil had made his Adam, and 
 that the slaughtered creatures were children of the 
 demon handiwork, begotten by the evil principle, to be 
 zealously attacked and butchered by the progeny of 
 him who walked and talked Mith God in Paradise ? It 
 would seem thus ; but it is not so. No, we are chil- 
 dren of one Father, and when we have killed some thou- 
 sand brethren or so, why, with unwashed hands and 
 demure faces, we thank God for his good help in the 
 fratricide. In the outside world of brazen brows, there 
 is no impudence like the impudence of what men call 
 relifrion." 
 
 " Still, sir," we urged, " you wander from the battle 
 of Turveytop." 
 
 " Right : to wander is a besetting sin of mine. Keep 
 we now to the story. Well, sir, the two armies were 
 about to fight, when the God of Joking — whose shrine 
 had been sadly despised and neglected in preparation 
 for the war — resolved to put an end to the wickedness, 
 and so to bring the Tmweytopians back again to jests 
 and reason. ^Miereupon, as the story runs, the God 
 Jocus repaired to a high hill near the battle-field, and 
 seating himself cross-legged on its summit, called his 
 thousands of servants about him, giving them due ordei-s 
 
 /
 
 no THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 for their goodly work. The god surveyed the hosts 
 holow him with a vran smile, and then clapping his hands 
 to his sides, he laughed a laugh of thunder. On this, the 
 trumpets brayed once, and once only, and the armies en- 
 gaged. In a moment the god saw that his sprites — there 
 were immortal thousands, though born of human brains — 
 had done his wise behest. There was no smoke — no fire. 
 The great guns were dumb — the muskets undischarged ; 
 for be it known to you, sir, that the Turveytopians 
 had at the time all the weapons since inyented in our 
 miniature world. Then you might have seen the sol- 
 diers charge, and their brittle bayonets break harmless 
 against the bellies of the foes : then would some seize 
 their weapons, and with the butt-end strike the enemy 
 in the teeth. And the enemy stood and licked their lips. 
 Wherefore, you will ask ? I will tell you. The musket- 
 stock was no longer walnut-wood ; but, by the be- 
 nignity of the great God Jocus, a thing of savoury 
 sausage-meat, calling up the spirit of enjojTuent in the 
 heart of man, as it smote his nostril. In this way, sir, 
 all things were changed. Here you would see a soldier 
 take a cartridge from his box, and with bloody and 
 sepulchral looks bite the cartridge-end. At that moment 
 the face changed to sweetness and content ; for, the 
 cartridge bitten, a delicious cordial flowed into the 
 mouth of the biter, and winding about his stony heart, 
 melted it into human jelly. Here you would sec a 
 grenadier sucking a bayonet, as a nursling sucks a 
 lollipop ; and wherefore ? — The great God Jocus had 
 turned the deadly weapon into sugar-candy. In another 
 place you might behold the small drums turned into pots 
 of jelly, and the little drummer-boys eating therefrom, 
 and painting their downy faces with raspberry and cur- 
 rant of more than martial red. Big drums took the 
 shape and flavour of rounds of beef ; and in a thought, 
 the kettles were bufi'aloes' dried humps. The pioneers' 
 caps became wine-coolers, and their aprons napkins of 
 damask. Grey-headed officers swallowed their own
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 87 
 
 swords, turned into macaroni. A cymbal-player was 
 seen to devour his cymbals, suddenly changed into 
 ratafia paste.' What had been gunpowder was eaten by 
 the handful as small saccharine comfits ; cartridge- 
 bullets were candied plums, and gave great pleasure 
 both to horse and foot. Well, sir, it is not to be thought 
 that discipline could survive temptation such as this. 
 No, sir : at first there was vast astonishment ; then a 
 low murmur of delight ran through either host ; then 
 there was a mighty smacking of lips ; and then the 
 opposing armies laughed a tremendous laugh, and em- 
 braced. On this a solemn cacchination escaped the great 
 God Jocus, who, uncrossing his legs, vanished. The 
 news flow among the women of Turveytop, who, coming 
 and bringing their children to the field, made merry 
 with the army. A banquet was resolved upon ; it was 
 but rightful thanksgiving to the benevolent .Jocus, whose 
 noble pi-actical jest had saved the blood of Turveytop ; 
 and more, had provided, yea, in the very engines of war, 
 the wherewithal to comfort the bowels and rejoice the 
 heart of man. The substance of dried meats was found 
 in gun carriages ; delicious cheeses were in the wheels ; 
 and pikes and halberds were nought more deadly than 
 attenuated sausage, pungent and aromatic. The great 
 guns, too — charged as it was thought with agony and 
 death for thousands — contained nothing more mischie- 
 vous than ruby wine. The cannon shot, turned to corks, 
 were now withdrawn ; and the armies ate and drank, 
 and laughed and sang, and danced, and gave hearty 
 thanks to the great God Jocus." 
 " And so the matter ended ? " 
 
 " Even so, sir," replied the Hermit ; " the field 
 whereon the armies met was called, from that time, the 
 Field of the Sage and Onions, those vegetables from 
 that very day abounding there. And in memory of the 
 time, the Turveytopians, in solemn procession, once a 
 year gather of the produce to stuif their geese. You 
 smile, sir. Think you, sir, it is not better to pull an
 
 88 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 onion than to pluck laurel ? There are fewer tears 
 drawn by homely scallion than by the green leaf." 
 
 " A strange freak, sir," we said, " of the God Jocus ! 
 It was at tliat we smiled." 
 
 "A strange, yet mighty benevolence!" cried the 
 Hermit. " Would that he — or some kindred benefi- 
 cence — could descend upon carnivorous war, wlien and 
 wheresoever it should purpose to feed, and turn its 
 carving sword to sugar I ' ' 
 
 " And pray, sir," asked we of the Hermit, " by what 
 chance did you escape from the land of Turvcytop ? " 
 
 " I was turned out in my sleep ; yes, carried away 
 in deep slumber ; for, waking one morning, I found 
 myself at the foot of the mountain, Avhich, I know not 
 how long before, had opened to receive me." 
 
 " Your soul made clean — your heart spotless, as 
 when first touched into life, and it began beating towards 
 the grave ? " 
 
 " I am afraid so," said the Hermit, with a remorseful 
 sigh. 
 
 *' Afraid ? " 
 
 "Ay, sir," said he, "much afraid; seeing how 
 stained and grimy they have since become. Every man 
 has not the happiness of a purification in Turveytop ; 
 tlierefore, should not enduring cleanliness be looked 
 for from the lucky ones ? And yet, sir, the very best 
 of us soil, ay, sooner than a bride's riband." 
 
 At this time the declining sun flamed goldenly through 
 the casement. We looked, doubtless, yearningly towards 
 it, for the Hermit rising, said, with solemn voice — 
 " Let us abroad, and behold God Almighty in the 
 heavens." Then taking his staff, he passed into the 
 garden, and silently we followed him. 
 
 It was a glorious time. The air fell upon the heart 
 like balm ; the sky, gold and vermilion-flecked, hung, a 
 celestial tent, above mortal man ; and the fancy-quick- 
 ened ear heard sweet, low music from the heart of earth, 
 rejoicing in that hour of gladness.
 
 THE CHKOXICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 8J> 
 
 " Eveninjrs such as this," said the Hermit, after a 
 pause, " seen* to me the very holiday time of" death ; an 
 hour in which the slayer, throned in glory, smiles 
 henevolently down on man. Here, on earth, he gets 
 hard names among us for the unseemliness of his looks, 
 and the cruelty of his doings ; but in an hour like this, 
 death seems to me loving and radiant, — a great bounty, 
 spreading an immortal feast, and showing the glad 
 dwelling-place he leads men to." 
 
 " It would be great happiness could we always think 
 so. For so considered, death is, indeed, a solemn bene- 
 ficence — a smiling liberator, turning a dungeon door 
 upon immortal day. But when death, with slow and 
 torturing device, hovers about his groaning prey ; when, 
 hke a despot cunning in his malice, he makes disease and 
 madness his dallying serfs " 
 
 " Merciful God ! " cried the llormit, " spare me that 
 final terror I Let me not be whipped and scourged by 
 long, long suflering to death — be dragged, a shrieking ' 
 victim, downward to the grave ; but let my last hour he 
 solemn, tranquil, that so, with open, unblenched eyes, I 
 may look at coming death, and feel upon my cheek his 
 kiss of peace ! 
 
 Thus spoke the Hermit, with passionate fervour. 
 His mind seemed solemnly uplifted. We turned aside 
 from him, following one of the many garden paths. 
 After some minutes, the Hermit came up with us. He 
 was ao-ain the cheerful, lio-ht-hearted anchorite. "What 
 say you," said he, " to pass an hour or so at ' the 
 Gratis ? '" 
 
 " ^Vllere we shall meet the villagers of Clovernook ? " 
 
 " Some of them, at least," said the Hermit. " I have 
 not been there these three weeks. This way : we shall 
 have time to stroll a round ; there are some ruins — for 
 Clovernook has its antiquities — I shall be glad to show 
 you." The Hennit led the way from the garden, and 
 with a few strides we found ourselves in a delicious green 
 lane. " This," said he of Bellyfulle, " is called Velvet-
 
 00 THE CHROXICLES OF CLOTERXOOK. 
 
 path, and leads eastwardly to the village. \\Tiat do 
 you pause at ? " asked the Hermit, as we suddenly stopped, 
 listening to sheep-bells, that sounded at various distances, 
 and in various notes, through the balmy air. 
 
 " The sheep-bells. How beautifully toned," we said. 
 " Of all rustic sounds, our favourite music." 
 
 "To me," said the Hermit, "the sheep-bell sounds 
 of childhood ; yea, of babyhood. In the world without 
 us, it hath often been to me a solace and a sweetness. 
 
 1 have seen little of the green earth — knew, alas ! 
 how little of its softening loveliness, its beautiful records 
 of God's tenderness to man in herbs and flowers, that in 
 their beauty seem sown by angel hands for man's delight. 
 Of these things I had little seen or known ; I was so 
 early built up in the bricks of a city : otherwise, sir, 
 harsh thoughts and foolish sneers, evil and folly be- 
 gotten in a too-early, sordid strife with man, perhaps, 
 had not defiled me. The sheep-bell was the one remem- 
 brance — the one thought still dwelling in my brain, and 
 with its sometime music calling up a scene of rustic 
 Sabbath quietude. Swelling meads in their soft green- 
 ness ; hedge-rows, and their sparkling flowers ; a row of 
 chesnut trees in blossoming glory ; a park ; a flock of 
 nibbling sheep — a child, the mute yet happy wonderer 
 at all." 
 
 " And the scene charmed by the simple sheep-bell ? " 
 " Even now," said the Hermit, " it is in certain moods 
 my best music. Many an evening have I seated my- 
 self on that mossy cushion, at the foot of yonder beech- 
 tree, and leaning back with folded hands and closed 
 eyes, have let my brain drink and drink its stilling 
 sounds ; and I have gone off into day-dreams, heaven 
 knows where. I have been in the holy East ; have 
 heard the flocks of the Patriarchs, and seen Rebecca at 
 the weU." 
 
 Thus talking, we had proceeded half-way up Velvet- 
 path, when a man in rustic dress, followed by a sheep- 
 dog, came over a stile close upon us. He immediately
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 91 
 
 paused, and taking off his hat, accosted the Hermit — 
 " A blessed evening, this." 
 
 •' All 's well ? " asked the s<age. 
 
 "All's well," answered the man. The Hermit smiled 
 and bowed, and saying, " God be with you, Joseph," 
 passed on. 
 
 " Who is he ? " we asked. 
 
 " My shepherd," answered the Hermit of Bellyfullc ; 
 " and I would answer for it even upon parchment, as 
 honest, simple a creature as a day-old lamb. Look at 
 him : I warrant me he is about to play his evening music 
 to his dog." 
 
 It was even so ; for turning round we saw Joseph 
 seated under a tree, vehemently twanging a Jew's-harp. 
 " A strange instrument for a shepherd." 
 
 " He hath wonderful knowledge of that piece of iron," 
 said the Hermit; "nor is it strange it should be so. 
 For twenty years it was, in the outside world, the con- 
 stant companion of his lips." 
 
 " Indeed ! what was your shepherd, ere in happy 
 hour he came to Clovernook ? " 
 
 " He was door-keeper to a sponging-house. Yes, 
 he was the janitor ; the demon of the iron grill ; and 
 would solace his darkness and captivity (for keeper of 
 prisoners, he himself was the greatest) with that vocal 
 raetal. Poor wretch ! That fourpenny harp was his 
 comfort — his consolation — his bhthe society." 
 
 " Is he not a Jew ? " we asked. 
 
 " Yes ; and served a Hebrew master," answered the 
 Hermit, who smilingly added, " I knew the gentleman 
 AveU." 
 
 " Pray, sir, has your philosophy discovered why, of 
 all men, Jews — at first a pastoral, country-loving people 
 — shovdd delight to take service under the sheriff, so 
 that they may carry away captive the spendthiift and 
 the wretched, holding the human chattels under lock 
 and key ? Why, of all folks, should Jews deUght to 
 be bailiffs ? " 
 
 " It may be," said the Hermit, " in memory and
 
 92 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 sweet revenge of the Egyptian bondage. Poor things ! 
 they still make bricks, too ; ay, and briok houses ; 
 though the cruelty of modern law, I hear, denies them 
 straw bail." 
 
 " How earnestly the dog watches the musician's 
 face ! " Ave cried ; for the animal, sitting upright, stared 
 with contemplative looks at the shepherd. " We never 
 saw more meaning in a cur's countenance." 
 
 " Humph ! Strange things are told of that dog," 
 said the Hermit. " Joseph insists upon it that the 
 spirit of a London money-lender, an old acquaintance, 
 animates Flip. You may be sure, sir, I have no such 
 superstition, or would hardly trust my flocks within 
 range of its teeth. Yet has the dog marvellous saga- 
 city. Put a bad shilling among a hundred good ones, 
 and Flip, with sensitive nostril, will detect the counter- 
 feit. Many a man, sir, would think it impossible to 
 earn higher praise. A fine, elevating gift, sir, that 
 quick sense of bad money. I knew a man — poor fellow ! 
 — who bought the faculty at what you and I should think 
 a great cost. It is an odd story, but true, sir — true as 
 the stars. I call the tale the 
 
 CragctJi) of ii)t Cill. 
 
 " A strange, household title," said we ; " pray 
 relate it." 
 
 " You would hardly think, sir, that the matter 
 happened in London ? Li a mean, obscure street ; a 
 place where the hard realities of life knocked daily, 
 hourly, at people's hearts ? Where the men and women 
 seemed only made to work, and eat, and sleep, and 
 die ; the unideal, moving things of the world, the mere 
 biped furniture of the earth. And yet, sordid and 
 barren as the spot may be, there is the restless spirit 
 of man, yearning and struggling to deliver itself from 
 the squalor that defiles it. See man, the natural monarch 
 of the eai'th, styed like a hog. Why, even there, in 
 chin-deep misery, visions will now and then glorify the 
 habitation. The poetic spirit — for what is hope but the
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 93 
 
 poetry of daily life ? — will touch the coarsest soul that 
 answers, like a harp-string to the wind, unconscious of 
 the power that stirs it. Let this remembrance go with 
 you, and you shall behold no place where man is mean or 
 common. Take the thought with you in nooks and 
 alleys, where the sweet air of heaven sickens with dis- 
 ease, and man seems not made of the earth of Paradise, 
 but of city mud, a stark, foul, brutish thing ; even there 
 man is glorified by his hopes, that, like angel-faces in 
 a dungeon, brighten and beautify his prison. Let us 
 imagine, sir," said the Hermit, letting his ivory staff 
 fall in his arm, and leaning against a huge, sheltering 
 S3'camorc — " let us imagine some city quarter, in which 
 the inhabitants — miserable creatures! — should be be- 
 reaved of all hope. A little higher only would they be 
 than apes. They would seem to us the lay-figures of 
 humanity ; moving images, with tongues to wag and 
 eyes to open. We should behold their habitations with 
 shuddering looks and shrinking nose, and hurry from 
 the spot, as though fever and poverty clawed like 
 demons at our skirts, to taint and ruin us. Any way, 
 the dwellers of Hopeless Quarter Avould seem to us — 
 dignified as we are by four meals a day, and with no rent 
 in our coats, no crack in our shoe-leather — as forlorn 
 animals, permitted on the earth for some mysterious 
 purpose, but who, though something like ourselves in 
 outward guise, had nothing else in common with us ! 
 Would not such be the belief of many of us ? " 
 
 " It is more than likely," we answered. 
 
 " Why, sir," cried the Hermit, with a grave look, 
 *' it is our creed. Every street, lane, or alley that 
 harboui's the wretched poor, is, to our gingerly appre- 
 hension. Hopeless Quarter. We wholly avoid it ; or if 
 otherwise, with our moral thumb and finfjer holding our 
 moral nose, we hurry through it. We cast a rapid look 
 at the forlorn inhabitants — a frightened glance in at 
 doorways and down cellars — and never for one brief 
 minute think, that beneath that outward husk of hu-
 
 94 THE CURONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 manity, that in those miserable abiding-places of mortal 
 suffering, there is the aspect, and the earthly refuge of 
 the future angel. Many a time, sir," said the Sage of 
 Bellyfulle, " I have walked the streets, and day-dream- 
 ing, have fashioned to myself the doings, the hopes and 
 cares of the householders. To my fancy, the brick 
 walls of the houses have turned to glass, and I have 
 seen all that passed inside. Well, I have been rarely 
 rapt by what I have beheld in the palaces and mansions 
 of the rich. There, human life, when at the purest and 
 the best, is as a graceful nymph, whose slightest motion 
 is silent music — whose look is sweet, intelligent serenity 
 — whose breath is odorous as morning air. Beautiful is 
 her speech ; for she talks lilies and roses. There is 
 an atmosphere about her that steals upon the heart, 
 and lulls it into sweet placidity. But, sir, the heart 
 knows not — or should not know — such dreamy rest at 
 the doors of the very poor. No ; its blood quickens 
 and glows as it beholds the daily battle. There are 
 the poor fighting with the world, that, like a huge ma- 
 chine set in motion by some necromantic wickedness, 
 has action, speech, cunning, force tremendous, everything 
 but heart. A mighty creature, bloodless and pulseless. 
 Great are the odds against poverty in the strife. Alas ! 
 alas ! how often is the poor man the compelled Quixote ; 
 made to attack a windmill in the hope that he may get 
 a handful of the corn it grinds ? " 
 
 " Even so," said we ; " and many and grievous are 
 his bufi"ets ere the miller — the prosperous fellow with 
 the golden thumb — rewards poor poverty for the imequal 
 battle." 
 
 " There it is," cried the Hermit, " There is the 
 heroism which, at the houses of the poor, has made me 
 see and feel the majesty of poverty ; has in my eyes 
 made starveling spinners and weavers more than kingly. 
 It is a fine show, a golden sight, to see the crowning of 
 a king. I have beheld the ceremony — with undazzled 
 eyes have well considered all its blaze of splendour. A
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 95 
 
 tender thing to think of is the kiss of peace ; heautiful 
 the homage ; heart-stirring the voice of the champion, 
 when the brave knight clashes his defying gauntlet on 
 the marble stone ; very solemn the anointing — and most 
 uplifting the song of jubilate when all is done. But, 
 sir, to my coarse apprehension, I have seen a nobler 
 sight than this — a grander ceremony, even at the hearth- 
 stone of the poor. I will show you a man, worn, spent ; 
 the bony outline of a human thing, with toil and want, 
 cut, as with an iron tool, upon him ; a man to whom 
 the common pleasures of this our mortal heritage are 
 unknown as the joys of Paradise. This man toils and 
 starves, and starves and toils, even as the markets vary. 
 Well, he keeps a heart, sound as oak, in his bosom. 
 In the sanctity of his soul, bestows the kiss of peace 
 upon a grudging world : he compels the homage of 
 respect, and champions himself against the hardness of 
 fortune. In his wretched homestead he is throned in 
 the majesty of the affections. His suffering, patient, 
 loving wife — his pale-faced, ill-clad children — are his 
 queen and subjects. He is a king in heart, subduing 
 and ruling the iron hours ; unseen spirits of love and 
 goodness anoint him ; and, sir," said the Hermit, in a 
 solemn voice — " as siu-ely as the kingdom of God is more 
 than a fairy tale, so surely do God's angels sing that 
 poor man's jubilate." 
 
 Here the Hermit paused ; and then, grasping his 
 staff, walked silently on. He seemed for a time brood- 
 ino; over new thoufrhts. At length he looked round 
 with his sunny smile, and his eye twinkled again. " De- 
 pend upon it," he said, " you shall hear 'more of Joseph 
 and his dog. Ay, there he is, stiU twanging to him. 
 Poor fellow, when he kept the key of the bailiff's house, his 
 chief company was the canary of the bailiff's wife. He 
 would finger his Jew's-harp against the bird's flying 
 notes, and I verily believe felt all the envy of a musical 
 rival. The canary, with its shower of sounds, fairly 
 smothered the Jew's-harp ; and I beheve Joseph, in
 
 QQ THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 tranquil despair, thought of hanging it upon the willow, 
 when a cat chewed up the yellow songster. No singing 
 woman ever hated a sister syren with greater zeal than 
 did Joseph hate that canary." 
 
 " But, sir," we ventured to ohserve, *' you have 
 forgotten the story, or Tragedy of the Till." 
 
 " True," replied the Hermit. " It is a strange tale, 
 but it hath the recommendation of brevity. Some folks 
 may see nothing in it but the tricksiness of an extravagant 
 spirit ; and scJme, perchance, may pluck a heart of 
 meaning out of it. However, be it as it may, you shall 
 hear it, sir. There was a man called Isaac Pugwash, 
 a dweller in a miserable slough of London, a squalid 
 denizen of one of the foiU nooks of that city of Plutus. 
 He kept a shop ; which, though small as a cabin, was 
 ^asited as granary and store-house by half the neigh- 
 bourhood. All the creature-comforts of the poor — from 
 broad, to that questionable superfluity, small-beer — were 
 sold by Isaac. Strange it was, that with such a trade, 
 Pugwash grew not rich. He had many bad debts ; and 
 of all shop-keepers, was most unfortunate in false 
 coin. Certain it is, he had neither eye nor ear for 
 badmone3^ Counterfeit semblances of majesty beguiled 
 him out of bread, and butter, and cheese, and red herring, 
 just as readily as legitimate royalty struck at the Mint. 
 Malice might impute something of this to the political 
 principles of Pugwash, who, as he had avowed himself 
 again and again, was no lover of a monarchy. Never- 
 theless, I cannot think Pugwash had ao little regard for 
 the countenance of majesty, as to welcome it as readily 
 when silvered copper as when sterling silver. No, a 
 wild, foolish enthusiast was Pugwash, but in the house- 
 hold matter of good and bad money he had very 
 wholesome prejudices. He had a reasonable wish to 
 grow rich, yet was entirely ignorant of the by-ways and 
 short-cuts to wealth. He would have savmtered through 
 life with his hands in his pockets, and a daisy in his 
 mouth ; and dying with just enough in his house to pay
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 97 
 
 the undertaker, would have thought himself a fortunate 
 fellow ; he was, in the words of Mrs. Pugwash, such a 
 careless, foolish, dreaming creature. He was cheated 
 every hour by a customer of some kind ; and yet to 
 deny credit to any body, he would as soon have denied 
 the wife of his bosom. His customers knew the weak- 
 ness, and failed not to exercise it. To be sure, now and 
 then, fresh from conjugal counsel, he would refuse to 
 add a single herring to a debtor's score ; no, he would 
 not be sent to the workhouse by any body. A quarter 
 of an hour after, the denied herring, with an added small 
 loaf, was given to the little girl, sent to the shop by 
 the rejected mother, — ' he couldn't bear to see poor 
 children wanting anything.' 
 
 *' Pugwash had another unprofitable weakness. He 
 was fond of what he called nature, though in his dim, 
 close shop, he could give her but a stifling welcome. 
 Nevertheless, he had the earliest primroses on liis counter, 
 — ' they threw,' he said, ' such a nice light about the 
 place.' A sly, knavish customer presented Isaac with 
 a pot of polyanthuses, and, won by the flowery gift, 
 Pugwash gave the donor ruinous credit. The man with 
 wallflowers regularly stopt at Isaac's shop, and for only 
 sixpence, Pugwash would tell his wife he had made the 
 place a Paradise. ' If we can t go to nature, Sally, 
 isn't it a pleasant tiling to be able to bring nature to 
 us ?' Whereupon Mrs. Pugwash would declare, that 
 a man with at least three childi-en to provide for had no 
 need to talk of nature. Nevertheless, the flower-man 
 made his weekly call. Though at many a house, the 
 penny could not every week be spared to buy a hint, 
 a look of nature for the darkened dwellers about him, 
 Isaac, despite of Mrs. Pugwash, always pm'chased. It 
 is a common thing, an old famihar cry," said the Hermit 
 — " to see the poor man's florist, to hear his loud-voiced 
 invitation to take his nosegays, his penny-roots ; and 
 yet is it a call, a conjuration of the heart of man over- 
 laboured and desponding — waUed in by the gloonx of a 
 
 H
 
 98 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 town — divorced from the fields and their sweet healthful 
 influences — almost shut out from the sky that reeks in 
 vapour over him ; — it is a call that tells him there are 
 things of the earth beside food and covering to live for ; 
 and that God in his great bounty hath made them for 
 all men. Is it not so ? " asked the Hermit. 
 
 " Most certainly," we answered ; "it woidd he the 
 very sinfulness of avarice to think otherwise." 
 
 " Why, sir," said the Hermit benevolently smiling, 
 "thus considered, the loud-lunged city bawl er of roots 
 and flowers becomes a high benevolence, a peripatetic 
 priest of nature. Adown dark lanes and miry alleys 
 he takes sweet remembrances — touching records of the 
 loveliness of earth, that with their bright looks and balmy 
 odours cheer and uplift the dumpish heart of man ; that 
 make his sovd stir within him, and acknowledge the 
 beautiful. The penny, the iU-spared penny — for it would 
 buy a wheaten roll — the poor housewife pays for root of 
 primrose, is her ofl"ering to the hopeful lovehness of 
 nature ; is her testimony of the soul strugghng with 
 the bUghting, crushing circumstance of sordid earth, and 
 sometimes yearning towards earth's sweetest aspects. 
 Amidst the violence, the coarseness, and the suffering 
 that may surrovmd and defile the wretched, there must be 
 moments when the heart escapes, craving for the innocent 
 and lovely ; when the soul makes for itself even of a 
 flower a comfort, and a refuge." 
 
 The Hermit paused a moment, and then in blither 
 voice resumed. " But I have strayed a little from the 
 history of our small tradesman, Pugwash. Well, sir, 
 Isaac for some three or four years kept on his old way, 
 his wife still prophesying in loud and louder voice the 
 inevitable workhouse. He would so think and talk of 
 nature when he should mind his shop ; he would so 
 often snatch a holiday to lose it in the fields, when he 
 should take stock and balance his books. What was 
 worse, he every week lost more and more by bad money. 
 With no more sense than a buzzard, as Mrs. Pugwash
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 1)9 
 
 said, for a good shilling, he was the victim of those 
 laborious folks who make their money with a fine inde- 
 pendence of the state, out of their own materials. It 
 seemed the common compact of a host of coiners to put 
 off their base-born offspring upon Isaac Pugwash ; who, 
 it must be confessed, bore the loss and the indignity 
 like a Christian martyr. At last, however, the spirit 
 of the man was stung. A guinea, as Pugwash behoved 
 of statute gold, was found to be of little less value than 
 a brass button. Mrs. Pugwash clamoured and screamed 
 as though a besieging foe was in her house ; and Pug- 
 wash himself felt that further patience would be pusilla- 
 nimity. Whereupon, sir, what think ye Isaac did ? 
 Why, he suffered himself to be driven by the voice and 
 vehemence of his wife to a conjurer, who in a neigh- 
 bouring attic was a sideral go-between to the neigh- 
 bourhood — a vender of intelligence from the stars, to 
 all who sought and duly fee'd him. This magician 
 would declare to Pugwash the whereabout of the felon 
 coiner, and — the thought was an anodyne to the hurt 
 mind of Isaac's wife — the knave would be law-throttled. 
 " With sad, indignant spirit did Isaac Pugwash seek 
 Father Lotus ; for so, sir, was the conjurer called. He 
 was none of yotir common wizards. Oh no ! he left 
 it to the mere quack-salvers and mountebanks of his 
 craft to take upon them a haggard solemnity of look, 
 and to drop monosyllables, hea\'y as bullets, upon the 
 ear of the questioner. The mighty and magnificent 
 hocuspocus of twelvepenny magicians was scorned by 
 Lotus. There was nothing in his look or manner that 
 showed him the worse for keeping company with spirits ; 
 on the contrary, pei'haps, the privileges he enjoyed of 
 them served to make him only the more bUthe and jocund. 
 He might have passed for a gentleman, at once easy and 
 cunning in the law ; his sole knowledge, that of laby- 
 rinthine sentences made expressly to wind poor common 
 sense on parchment. He had an eye like a snake, a 
 constant smile upon his lip, a cheek coloured hke an 
 
 h2
 
 100 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 apple, and an activity of movement wide away from the 
 solemnity of the conjurer. He was a small, eel-figured 
 man of about sixty, dressed in glossy black, with silver 
 buckles and flowing periwig. It was impossible not to 
 have a better opinion of sprites and demons, seeing that 
 so nice, so polished a gentleman was their especial pet. 
 And then, his attic had no mystic circle, no curtain 
 of black, no death's head, no mummy of apocr}']>hal 
 dragon — the vulgar catch-pennies of fortune-telling 
 trader. There was not even a pack of cards to elevate 
 the soul of man into the regions of the mystic world. 
 No, the room was plainly yet comfortably set out. 
 Father Lotus reposed in an easy chair, nursing a snow- 
 white cat upon his knee ; now tenderly patting the 
 creature with one hand, and now turning over a little 
 Hebrew volume with the other, li a man wished to 
 have dealings with sorry demons, could he desire a 
 nicer little gentleman than Father Lotus to make the 
 acquaintance for him ? In few words, Isaac Pugwash 
 told his story to the smiling magician. He had, amongst 
 much other bad money, taken a counterfeit guinea ; 
 could Father Lotus discover the evil-doer ? 
 
 " 'Yes, yes, yes,' said Lotus, smihng, 'of course — 
 to be sure ; but that will do but little : in ycur present 
 state, — let me look at yoirr tongue.' Pugwash obedi- 
 ently thrust the organ forth. * Yes, yes, as I thought. 
 'Twill do you no good to hang the rogue ; none at all. 
 What we must do is this — we must cure you of the 
 disease.' 
 
 "'Disease!' cried Pugwash. 'Bating the loss of 
 my money, I was never better in all my days. ' 
 
 " ' Ha ! my poor man,' said Lotus, ' it is the bene- 
 volence of nature, that she often goes on, quietly 
 breaking us up, we knowing no more of the mischief 
 than a girl's doll when the girl rips up its seams. Your 
 malady is of the perceptive organs. Leave you alone, 
 and you'll sink to the condition of a baboon.' 
 
 " * God bless me !' cried Pugwash.
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 101 
 
 " ' A jackass with sense to choose a thistle from a 
 toadstool will be a reasoning creature to you ; for con- 
 sider, my poor soul,' said Lotus in a compassionate 
 voice, * in this world of tribulation we inhabit, consider, 
 what a benighted nincompoop is man, if he cannot elect 
 a good shiUing from a bad one.' 
 
 " ' I have not a sharp eye for money,' said Pugwash 
 modestly. ' It's a gift, sir ; I'm assured it's a gift.' 
 
 " ' A sharp eye ! An eye of horn,' said Lotus. 'Never 
 mind, I can remedy all that ; I can restore you to the 
 world and to yourself. The greatest physicians, the 
 wisest philosophers, have, in the profundity of their 
 wisdom, made money the test of wit. A man is believed 
 mad ; he is a very rich man, and his heir has very good 
 reason to believe him lunatic ; whci'eupon the heir, the 
 madman's careful friend, calls about the sufferer a com- 
 pany of wizards to sit in judgment on the suspected brain, 
 and report a verdict thereupon. Well, niuet3'-nine times 
 out of the hundred, what is the first question put, as 
 test of reason ? Why, a question of money. The phy- 
 sician, laying certain pieces of current coin in his palm, 
 asks of the patient their several value. If he answer 
 truly, why truly there is hope ; but if he stammer, or 
 falter at the coin, the verdict runs, and wisely runs, 
 mad — very mad.' 
 
 " * I 'm not so bad as that,' said Pugwash, a little 
 alarmed. 
 
 " ' Don't say how you are — it 's presumption in any 
 man,' cried Lotus. ' Nevertheless, be as you may, I '11 
 cure you, if you '11 give attention to my remedy.' 
 
 " ' I '11 give my whole soul to it,' exclaimed Pugwash. 
 
 '* * Very good, very good ; I like your earnestness, 
 but I don't want all your soul,' said Father Lotus, 
 smiling — ' I want only part of it : that, if you confide in 
 me, I can take from you with no danger. Aye, with 
 less peril than the pricking of a whitlow. Now, then, 
 for examination. Now, to have a good stare at this soul 
 of yours.' Here Father Lotus gently removed the white
 
 102 THE CnROMCLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 cat from his knee, for he had been patting her all the 
 time he talked, and turned full round upon Pugwash. 
 ' Turn out your breeches' pockets,' said Lotus — and the 
 tractable Pugwash immediately displayed the linings. 
 ' Humph ! ' cried Lotus, looking narrowly at the brown 
 holland whereof they were made — ' very bad, indeed ; 
 very bad ; never knew a soul in a worse state in all my 
 life.' 
 
 " Pugwash looked at his pockets, and then at the 
 conjurer : he was about to speak, but the fixed, earnest 
 look of Father Lotus held him in respectful silence. 
 
 " * Yes, yes,' said the wizard, still eyeing the brown 
 holland, ' I can see it all ; a vagabond soul ; a soul 
 wandering here and there, like a pauper without a settle- 
 ment ; a ragamuffin sold.' 
 
 " Pugwash found confidence and breath. ' Was there 
 over such a joke ? ' he cried : ' know a man's soul by 
 the linings of his breeches' pockets I ' and Pugwash 
 laughed, albeit uncomfortably. 
 
 " Father Lotus looked at the man with philosophic 
 compassion. * Ila, my good friend ! ' he said, ' that all 
 comes of your ignorance of moral anatomy. ' 
 
 " ' Weil, but Father Lotus ' 
 
 " ' Peace,' said the wizard, ' and answer me. You 'd 
 have this soul of your's cured ? 
 
 " ' If there 's anything the matter with it,' answered 
 Pugwash. * Though not of any conceit I speak it, yet I 
 think it as sweet and as healthy a soid as the souls of my 
 neighbours. I never did wrong to anybody. ' 
 
 " ' Pooh ! ' cried Father Lotus. 
 
 " ' I never denied credit to the hungry,' continued 
 Pugwash. 
 
 " ' Fiddle-de-dee ! ' said the wizard, very nervously. 
 
 " ' I never laid out a penny in law upon a customer ; 
 I never refused small beer to ' 
 
 " ' Silence ! ' cried Father Lotus ; ' don't offend phi- 
 losophy by thus boasting of your weaknesses. You are in 
 a perilous condition ; still you may be saved. At this
 
 THE CHROXICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 103 
 
 very moment, I much fear it, gangrene has touched 
 your soul : nevertheless, I can separate the sound from 
 the mortified parts, and start you new again as though 
 your lips were first wet with mother's milk.' 
 
 " Pugwash merely said — for the wizard began to awe 
 him — ' I 'm very much obliged to you. ' 
 
 " ' Now,' said Lotus, ' answer a few questions, and 
 then I '11 proceed to the cure. What do you think of 
 money ? ' 
 
 "' A very nice thing,' said Pugwash, 'though I can 
 do with as little of it as most folks.' 
 
 " Father Lotus shook his head. ' Well, and the world 
 about you ? ' 
 
 " ' A beautiful world,' said Pugwash ; ' only the worst 
 of it is, I can't leave the shop as often as I would to 
 enjoy it. I 'm shut in all day long, I may say, a pri- 
 soner to brickdust, herrings, and bacon. Sometimes, 
 when the sun shines, and the cobbler's lark over the 
 way sings as if he 'd split his pipe, why then, do you 
 know, I do so long to get into the fields ; I do hunger 
 for a bit of grass like any cow.' 
 
 " The wizard looked almost hopelessly on Pugwash. 
 ' And that 's your religion and business ? Infidel of 
 the counter ! Saracen of the till ! However — pa- 
 tience,' said Lotus, ' and let us conclude. — And the men 
 and women of the world, what do you think of them ? ' 
 
 " ' Grod bless 'em, poor souls ! ' said Pugwash. ' It 's 
 a sad scramble some of 'em have, isn't it ? 
 
 "'Well,' said the conjurer, 'for a tradesman, your 
 sold is in a wretched condition. However, it is not so 
 hopelessly bad that I may not yet make it profitable to 
 you. I must cure it of its vagabond desires, and above 
 all make it respectful of money. You will take this 
 book.' Here Lotus took a little volume from a cup- 
 board, and placed it in the hand of Pugwash. ' Lay it 
 under your pillow every night for a week, and on the 
 eighth morning let me see you.' 
 
 Come, there 's nothing easier than that,' said Pug- 

 
 104 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 wash, with a smile, and reverently putting the volume 
 in his pocket — (the book was closed by metal clasps, 
 curiously chased) — he descended the garret stairs of the 
 conjurer. 
 
 " On the morning of the eighth day, Pugwash again 
 stood before Lotus. 
 
 " ' How do you feel now ? ' asked the conjurer, ■with a 
 knowing look. 
 
 " ' I hav'n't opened the book — 'tis just as I took it,' 
 said Pugwash, making no further answer. 
 
 " ' 1 know that,' said Lotus ; ' the clasps be thanked 
 for your ignorance.' Pugwash slightly coloured ; for 
 to say the truth, both he and his wife had vainly pulled 
 and tugged, and fingered and coaxed the clasps, that 
 they might look upon the necromantic page. ' Well, 
 the book has worked,' said the conjurer. ' I have it.' 
 
 " ' Have it ! what ? ' asked Pugwash. 
 
 "'Your soul,' answered the sorcerer. ' In all my 
 practice,' he added, gravely, ' I never had a soul come 
 into my hands in worse condition.' 
 
 " ' Impossible I ' cried Pugwash. ' If my soul is, as 
 you say, in your own hands, how is it that I 'm alive ? 
 how is it that I can eat, drink, sleep, walk, talk, do every- 
 thing, just like any body else ? ' 
 
 "•Ha!' said Lotus, 'that's a common mi-stake. 
 Thousands and thousands would swear, aye, as they 'd 
 swear to their own noses, that they have their souls in 
 their own possession — bless you,' and the conjurer 
 laughed maliciously, ' it 's a popular error. Their souls 
 are altotjether out of 'em.' 
 
 " ' Well,' said Pugwash, ' if it's true that you have, 
 indeed, my soul, I should Uke to have a look at it.' 
 
 " ' In good time,' said the conjurer ; 'I'll bring it 
 to your house, and put it in its proper lodging. In 
 another week I '11 bring it to you ; 'twill then be strong 
 enough to bear removal. ' 
 
 " ' And Avhat am I to do all the time without it ? ' 
 asked Pugwash, in a tone of banter. ' Come,' said he.
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 105 
 
 still jesting, • if you really have my soul, what 's it like 
 — what 's its colour ; if indeed souls have colours ? ' 
 
 " ' Green — green as a grasshopper, when it first came 
 into my hands,' said the wizard; 'but 'tis changing 
 daily. More ; it was a skipping, chirping, giddy soul ; 
 'tis every hour mending. In a week's time, I tell you, 
 it will be fit for the business of the world.' 
 
 " ' And pray, good father — for the matter has till now 
 escaped mc — what am I to pay you for this pain and 
 trouble ; for this precious care of my miserable soul ? ' 
 
 " ' Nothing,' answered Lotus, ' nothing whatever. 
 The work is too nice and precious to be paid for ; I have 
 a reward you dream not of for my labour. Think you 
 that men's immortal souls are to be mended like iron 
 pots, at tinker's price ? Oh, no ! they who meddle with 
 souls go for higher wages.' 
 
 " After further talk Pugwash departed — the conjurer 
 promising to bring him home his soul at midnight, that 
 night week. It seemed strange to Pugwash, as the time 
 passed on, that he never seemed to miss his soul ; that, 
 in very truth, he went through the labours of the day 
 with even better gravity than when his soul possessed 
 him. And more ; he began to feel himself more at 
 home in his shop ; the cobbler's lark over the way 
 continued to sing, but awoke in Isaac's heart no thought 
 of the fields : and then for flowers and plants, why 
 Isaac began to think such matters fitter the thoughts 
 of children and foolish girls, than the attention of grown 
 men, with the world before them. Even Mrs. Pugwash 
 saw an alteration in her husband ; and though to him 
 she said nothing, she returned thanks to her own sagacity 
 that made him seek the conjurer. 
 
 " At length the night arrived when Lotus had promised 
 to bring home the soul of Pugwash. He sent his wife 
 to bed, and sat with his eyes upon the Dutch clock, 
 anxiously awaiting the conjurer. Twelve o'clock struck, 
 and at the same moment Father Lotus smote the door- 
 post of Isaac Pugwash.
 
 106 THE CnnOXTCLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 " * Have you brought it ? ' askedPugwash. 
 " • Or wherefore should I come ? ' said Lotus. ' Quick : 
 show a hght to the till, that your soul may find itself at 
 home.' 
 
 " ' The till ! ' cried Pugwash ; ' what the devil should 
 my soul do iu the till ? ' 
 
 " ' Speak not irreverently,' said the conjurer, ' but 
 show a light.' 
 
 •' ' May I hvo for ever in darkness if I do ! ' cried 
 Pugwash. 
 
 " ' It is no matter,' said the conjurer ; and then he 
 cried, ' Soul, to yoiu- earthly dwelling-place ! Seek it 
 — you know it.' Then turning to Pugwash, Lotus said, 
 ' It is all right. Your soul 's in the till.' 
 
 " ' How did it get there ? ' cried Pugwash in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " • Through the sht in the counter,' said the conjurer ; 
 and ere Pugwash could speak again, the conjurer had 
 quitted the shop. 
 
 " For some minutes Pugwash felt himself afraid to 
 stir. For the first time in his hfe, he felt himself ill at 
 ease — left as he was with no other company save his 
 own soul. He at length took heart, and went behind 
 the counter that he might see if his soul was really in 
 the till. With trembling hand he drew the cofi"er, and 
 there, to his amazement, squatted hke a tailor, upon a 
 crown-piece, did Pugwash behold his o^vn soul, which 
 cried out to him in notes no louder than a cricket's — 
 * How are vou ? /am comfortable.' It was a strange 
 yet pleasing sight to Pugwash, to behold what he felt 
 to be his own soul embodied in a figure no higger than 
 the top joint of his thumb. There it was, a stark 
 naked thing with the precise features of Pugwash ; 
 albeit the complexion was of a yellower hue. * The 
 conjurer said it was green,' cried Pugwash ; ' as I live, 
 if that be my soul — and I begin to feel a strange, odd 
 love for it — it is yellow as a guinea. Ha ! ha ! Pretty, 
 precious, darling soul ! ' cried Pugwash, as the creature
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 107 
 
 toolc up every piece of coin in the till, and ranc; it with 
 such a look of rascally cunning, that sure I am Fugwash 
 would in past times have hated the creature for the trick. 
 But every day Pugwash became fonder and fonder of the 
 creatm'e in the till ; it was to him such a counsellor, and 
 such a blessing. Whenever the old flower-man came to 
 the door, the soul of Pugwash from the till would bid 
 him pack with his rubbish : if a poor woman — an old 
 customer it might be — begged for the credit of a loaf, 
 the Spirit of the Till, calling through the slit in the 
 counter, would command Pugwash to deny her. More : 
 Puofwash never again took a bad shillinfj. No sooner 
 did he throw the pocket-piece down upon the counter, 
 than the voice from tlic till would denounce its worthless- 
 ness. And the soul of Pugwash never quitted the till. 
 There it lived, feeding upon the colour of money, and 
 capering, and rubbing its small scoundrel hands in glee 
 as the coin dropt — dropt in. In time, the soul of Pug- 
 wash grew too big for so email a habitation, and then 
 Pugwash moved his soul into an iron box ; and some 
 time after, he sent his soul to his banker's — the thing 
 had waxed so big and strong on gold and silver." 
 
 "And so," we observed, "the man flourished, and 
 the conjurer took no wages for all he did to the soul of 
 Pugwash ? 
 
 "Hear the end," said, the Hermit. " For some time, 
 it was a growing pleasure to Pugwash to look at his soul, 
 busy as it always was with the world-buying metals. At 
 length he grew old — very old ; and every day his soul 
 grew ugher. Then he hated to look upon it ; and then 
 his soul would come to him, and grin its deformity at 
 hira. Pugwash died, almost rich as an Indian king — 
 but he died, shrieking in his madness, to be saved from 
 the terrors of his own soul." 
 
 " And such the end," we said ; such the Tragedy of 
 the Till. A strange romance." 
 
 " Komance," said the Sage of BeUyfulle ; "sir, 'tis 
 a story true as Hfe. For at this very moment how many
 
 108 TIIE CnROXICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 thousands, blind and deaf to the sweet looks and voice 
 of nature, live and die with their Souls in a Till ? " 
 
 We answered jiot, but for some minutes followed the 
 Hermit in silence, as he stcpt along Velvet Path ; and 
 the beauty of the place seemed to us to increase at every 
 foot-fall. "What picturesque trees!" we suddenly 
 cried, making a dead halt before two withered yews. 
 
 ♦' Said I not," asked the Hermit, with a smile, " that 
 Clovernook had its ruins ? " 
 
 " There is a noble desolation in their dead trunks — 
 their bare pronged branches. In their sapless naked- 
 ness, with flower, and leaf, and blade springing around 
 them ; they stand solemn mementos of the end of all 
 things." 
 
 " True," answered the Hermit ; "eloquently doth a 
 dead tree preach to the heart of man — touching its appeal 
 from the myriad forms of life bursting about it ! Yes, 
 the dead oak of a wood, for a time, gives wholesome 
 check to the heart, expanding and dancing with the 
 vitality around. In its calm aspect, its motionless look, 
 it works the soul to solemn thought, lifting it upwards 
 from the earth." 
 
 ."There is a desolate grandeur in these old yews," 
 we cried. 
 
 " Poor things," said the smiling Sago, " they were 
 cruelly killed, — though, doubtless, murdered with the 
 best intentions. Look at them, sir, in their majestic 
 ruins ; contemplate their magnificent nakedness ; and 
 then, sir, drop at least one tear for their untimely fate, — 
 poor withered victims of the fantasy of woman 1 " 
 
 " Of woman !" we exclaimed. " How, sir, of woman?" 
 
 "How many springs might they have flourished !" 
 cried the Henuit. with a restrained humour curling his 
 lip, and twinkling in his eye ; " how many autumns 
 might they have borne their pinky berries ! — how many 
 pairs of little birds might have wedded and built in their 
 boughs, and brought up rejoicing families ! — but that 
 woman, sir, fantastic tyrannous woman, killed them in
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 109 
 
 their prime — slew them in their green strength — made 
 dead timhcr*of their expanding greatness. Thus, sir," 
 cried the Saire of Bcllvfulle, " doth the female creature 
 
 CD *i ' 
 
 sometimes blight the budding hopes of man, and change 
 the flourisliinn: hero into a dead log. Poor ignorant 
 souls ! when they do worst murder, they call it love. 
 They take a tough yew-tree in hand, and working their 
 charms upon it, turn it into very touchwood. They 
 seize the hardest heart of stubborn man ; and like a 
 lump of dough, they toss it and thuuip it, and roll it 
 out, and lump it together again ; and now make fancy 
 pie-crust of it — and now a homely dumpling. Oh, sir I 
 whenever I feel my just anger at the ways of woman 
 subsiding into unmanly softness, I come and look at 
 these yews, and am stirred uj) again. The elephant, 
 it is said, whets his tusks upon the gnarled trunks of 
 trees. Upon these yews do I from time to time sharpen 
 up my blunted indignation." 
 
 " Ha ! as we thought. Then these yews bear a 
 legend ?" 
 
 " Yea," said the Hermit, with mock affliction ; " most 
 fruitful is their barrenness — most abounding in matter 
 for contemplation are their nude and ghastly branches. 
 Think you, sir, you have the heart to listen to the story ?" 
 
 " At least, well try," was our answer ; and the Her- 
 mit, affecting to wipe a tear from his eyes with the back 
 of his broad hand, and then heaving a profound prepa- 
 ratory sigh, began the tale. 
 
 Ci)c SfgcutJ of l^oslf^ ; or, tl)c ©Itf {HattJ^' ©mit 
 
 SjiiSbantis. 
 
 *' The precise date of this history," said the Hermit, 
 " is lost in one of the corner cupboards of time ; but 
 once it was, believe me, fresh as Eve's cheek — and still 
 the unwrinkled spirit of truth dwells in it, making it as 
 a tale of yesterday. Beautiful truth ! never yomig and
 
 110 THE CHKOXICLES OF CLOTERNOOK. 
 
 never old ; but keeping, through all change and all time, 
 its bloom and grace of Paradise, even to the Judgment. 
 
 " Well, sir, it is somewhere written in our Chronicles 
 of Clovernook, that once upon a time two gentle maidens, 
 by name Bridget and Veronica, came from the outside 
 world, and entering the Valley of Naps, and taking their 
 due rest at the Warming-Pan, and leaving what was 
 dim and worn in their looks at the shrine of the Looking- 
 Glass, they were at length, according to custom, ad- 
 mitted among the happy villagers. They never told 
 their story ; but it was plain they had jilted some poor 
 innocent men out of their hearts, they were so wont to 
 giggle, and laugh, and — not to speak it irreverently be- 
 fore the blooming faces of the whole sex — would rejoice 
 like two successful pickers of pockets, or other flourish- 
 ing malefactors. With all this, it was plain that they 
 were sometimes not at their ease. It was marked of 
 them that they would frequently wander to the very top 
 of Gossip-IIill, and there, unmindful of the dewy grass, 
 would drop themselves despairingly down, and sit watch- 
 ing and watching, with their faces toward the Valley of 
 Naps, as though they expected some old acquaintance to 
 arrive thereby. The simple-hearted chronicler who has 
 set this down — what an innocent, milk-white goose must 
 have bred his pen !— confesses that he knows not whom 
 Bridget and Veronica could expect. Perhaps, says he, 
 it may have been their brothers ; perhaps their uncles. 
 Of course, sir, it was the weak, foolish young men whom 
 they had barbarously stript of their affections, and left 
 to perish on the world's highway ; these it was for whom 
 Bridget and Veronica risked sciatica and rheumatic pains, 
 nailed, as it woidd seem, hour after hour, upon the green- 
 sward, looking for lost love. 
 
 " Ha, sir, here is a lesson, if the obstinacy of woman 
 would only let her con it. Consider, sir ; call to mind 
 the barbarous impertinence of those two young women — 
 when with murderous and triumphant eyes they walked 
 the world — relentlessly dragging forlorn young men by
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. Ill 
 
 their heartstrings through briar and brake ; over flints, 
 through gutters, and up dreary, winding lanes ; still 
 drafrcrina: them onward, onward, and now and then tum- 
 ing round, and with settled malice smumg, and showmg 
 their red, pulpy lips, and cruellest white teeth. Con- 
 sider these homicidal maidens in their flaunting hours 
 of conquest, stopping with mincing steps upon men's 
 hearts, and deeming in their arrogance that they con- 
 ferred much honour with the points of their toes. Ha, 
 sir ! such pictures make a bold man shudder at the 
 tyranny of woman ! In his virtuous indignation at such 
 violent wrong, he feels that no punishment can revenge 
 him upon the sex ! And then, alas ! sir, when he sees 
 the poor forlorn things sorry for what they have done — 
 when, victims to their own dreadful ignorance, like a 
 babe that hath unwittingly lot ofl' a blunderbuss, they 
 are laid prostrate, fairly knocked do^vn by their own act, 
 why, sir — philosopher and flinty-bosomed fellow as I am 
 — I feel myself ashamed when I pity them." 
 
 " Yet, after all, it is a magnanimous softness," said 
 we, falhng in with the humom- of the sage. 
 
 " And thus, sir, I have felt two tears, big as ordinary 
 marbles, roll adown my cheeks, when I have read the 
 simple text of the simple chronicler, who relates that, 
 night after night, Bridget and Veronica, still seated 
 on the cold and colder grass, looked down into the 
 Valley of Naps. Poor things I Every night their 
 fancy believed that their lovers — the scolded, kicked, 
 spurned dogs of other days — were with hopeful faces 
 struo-crlinQ; towards the Warminfi;-Pan, and would, with 
 the morrow's sun, enter Clovernook ! Alas, and alas ! 
 can we doubt that the young men had wedded them- 
 selves to kinder, more compassionate mates, and that 
 oft, when their late mistresses were watching for them 
 — watching and shivering in the night wind — they, 
 snug fellows, were in their first sleep, close by their 
 happy wives ? Yet still would Bridget and Veronica, 
 seated on the damp grass, feel that every night their
 
 112 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 Lopes grew colder and colder ; and then would they look 
 up at the stars, and then would Venus seem to wink 
 reproachfully down upon them, sajnng in that wink, — 
 ' Oh, Bridget and Veronica, what fools you were ! ' 
 
 " Time passed on — winter came — and JBridget and 
 Veronica, warned hy the sudden hite of rheumatic pains, 
 •watched no more on Gossip-IIill. It was plain, they 
 thought, that their lovers were dead, otherwise they 
 must have followed them. Why, sir, the men lived to 
 he happy great grandfathers, and died somewhere about 
 fourscore and five. Bridget and Veronica suffered them- 
 selves to sink gracefully down upon their sorrow as 
 though it were a cushion ; came here to Velvet Path, 
 built a sort of comfortable nuimerv, and were — if his- 
 tory is to be trusted in anything — the inventresses of 
 muffins." 
 
 "It is well," said we, "when the afflictions of the 
 heart can be so profitably diverted." 
 
 " Thus, sir," replied the Hermit, " private sorrows 
 often become public luxuries. I never cut my wintry 
 muffin — never see the butter shining like bright amber 
 upon it — that I do not feel a gentle sweUing of the heart 
 towards Bridget and Veronica. Though, to be sure, it 
 is especially the bounden duty of women to bend all 
 their little energies to the one task of lightening and 
 adorninjr masculine human life. Sir." said the Hermit 
 with a grave look, " when we think what women have 
 brought upon us poor men, they owe us all sorts of 
 muffins." 
 
 " ^^^lat they have brought upon us!" we cried. 
 " How, sir ? What do you mean ?" 
 
 " AU the pain, the trouble, and the weariness of sin- 
 ful life. Now, sir," said the Hermit, "muffins and 
 other such innocent delights go a great way to break 
 the FaU." 
 
 " They built a nunnery, you say ? WTiy, there is no 
 etone, no brick of it," cried we. 
 
 "No; a great evidence," replied the Hermit, "of
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 113 
 
 the antiquity of the legend. The less we find to prove 
 the truth of ^ story, the greater should be our faith in 
 it : such, sir, is the true antiquarian creed, and for 
 myself, I am a devout behever. It is very true, the 
 nunnery is gone ; the oven to which mankind owes its 
 first muffins is a thino- of shadows. Nav. the said mankind 
 with greasy chin, cheek-deep in mufiins, may in its 
 besetting ingratitude deny the very existence of Bridget 
 and Veronica. AVliat care I for that ? — here, sir, in 
 these old yews, their mournful, blighted husbands " 
 
 " Husbands ! " 
 
 "Husbands," repeated the Hermit; "I see and 
 acknowledge them ; even as in the sorrowful furbelow 
 of a widow, I am made to acknowledge her departed 
 spouse." 
 
 " Pray, sir, explain. What riddle is this ? How 
 came these dead, leafless trunks to be called the hus- 
 bands of the maidens Bridget and Veronica ? Their 
 husbands forsooth ! ' ' 
 
 "Ay, sir," cried the Hermit; "and what was 
 worse, their murdered mates. They stand, in their pre- 
 sent desolation, gaunt witnesses of the volatility, the 
 wilfulness of the sex. Yes, sir ; they were stripped to 
 the condition you see them in, and left upon the world. 
 I will tell you — as, indeed, I have gathered it from the 
 chronicler — how it was. For some years, Bridget and 
 Veronica smiled graciously upon the villagers of Clover- 
 nook. Nevertheless, there was no man among them 
 bold enough to return the courtesy. Yes, the women 
 flung down their smiles, but no man with proper chi- 
 valry took them up. Well, sir, this could not go on. 
 Bridget and Veronica felt, with increasing years, increas- 
 ing philosophy ; and precisely at the time that all men 
 had resolved never to make them wives, they — stubborn 
 souls ! — detennined not to wed the best, the noblest 
 creature alive. The human heart has, of course, its 
 pouting fits ; it determines to live alone : to flee into 
 desart places ; to have no employment, that is, to love 
 
 I
 
 114 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 nothing ; but to keep on sullenly beating, beating, beat- 
 ing, until death lays his little finger on the sulky thing, 
 and all is still. This, the human heart, in some way- 
 ward fit proposes to itself, and thinks itself strong as 
 adamant in its determination. Well, it goes away from 
 the world, and straightway — shut from human company 
 — it falls in love with a plant, a stone — yea, it dandles 
 cat or dog, and calls the creature darling." 
 
 " True, sir ; it is the beautiful necessity of our nature 
 to love something." 
 
 " And so Bridget and Veronica — sympathizing spin- 
 sters ! — fell in love with these yew trees, and their love 
 proved tragical to them ; for the yews withered, died 
 under the affection. Patience, sir, and you shall know 
 the whole history. When the sisters came here — so 
 runs the legend — these yews were brave, wide-spreading 
 trees ; freely flourishing, vnth Nature only tending 
 them : broad robust fellows were they, when Bridget 
 and Veronica cast their hearts upon them. And then 
 the women, in the very fantasy of their passion, resolved 
 to cut and trim the yews — to lop and trim them — into 
 what they called shape. Doubtless, sir, you have seen 
 in the outside world mummeries of the sort ; have seen 
 trees taken out of Heaven's hand, and cut and trimmed 
 into peacocks, pyramids, and nameless monsters ? Now 
 Bridcret and Veronica — at least let us award them such 
 praise — eschewed all other shapes, save the form of 
 man ; hence, had they the yew trees cunningly fashioned 
 into two brave knights, with shield on arm and sword in 
 hand. Thus did the maidens delicately show their 
 yearning sympathies towards the sex — thus did they 
 make manifest to all Clovernook the tenderness of their 
 imrequited hearts. Poor souls ! it would have been the 
 worst surliness of man to grudge them such poor com- 
 fort : it was not for men who, in their own persons, had 
 refused to become the living, fleshly protectors of Bridget 
 and Veronica, to sneer at and condemn the vcfjetable 
 substitutes, which, in the very meekness of misfortune,
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERKOOK. 115 
 
 the poor women had elected for their helpmates. If man 
 will not became spouse to woman, is it just in him — is it 
 even decent — to upbraid and make sorry mirth of the 
 dear creature, if she wed herself to a yew, a cedar, a 
 holly-bush ? When, sir, I have beheld the virgin inno- 
 cence of threescore fondlino; and feedino: with tit-bits 
 some wheezing, apoplectic Dutch pug, 1 have felt com- 
 passion, ay, heightened somewhat into admiration, for 
 the poor soul, who, making the best of hard fortune — 
 who, turning the slights of the world to the best account 
 — has cheerfully, magnanimously, sunk the husband in 
 the dog. When I have seen waning beauty begin to 
 feed cockatoos and parrots, giving them sugar from her 
 own mouth, I have felt for the hard condition of the 
 feeder — have been moved to deepest pity for her strait. 
 And thus, had I lived in the days of Bridget and Vero- 
 nica, I could have cheerfully touched my bonnet to 
 their yew-tree husbands, standing here in all weathers, 
 knowins: that it was not the fault of the poor maidens 
 
 o 
 
 poor 
 
 themselves — their first caprice excepted — that their 
 spouses gf-ew outside the house, when assuredly the 
 dear women would have rather had them cosy at the 
 fireside. 
 
 " Poor souls ! The chronicler tells us that both 
 Bridget and Veronica would, in the spring time, watch 
 their shooting mates ; would Avith softened hearts behold 
 their tips of tender green, and strive to feel, with all the 
 love of loving wives, renewed affection for their vegetable 
 lords. In summer they would sit under the protecting 
 shadow of their husbands, working needlework of such 
 surpassing delicacy and brightness, that the degenerate 
 women of om- day never, even in day-dreams, see the 
 like. Autumn, too, would find Bridget and Veronica 
 constantly hovering near the knights ; and in winter 
 time, with the earth iron-bound, and icicles hanging 
 from the eaves, sweet was it to the spirit of either wife 
 to hear the robin red-breast, perched now upon the pum- 
 mel of the knight's sword — now upon his cascpe — and 
 
 l2
 
 116 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOTERXOOK. 
 
 now upon bis shoulder — singing a song of hope to deso- 
 lation !" 
 
 " And 3'ct, sir," we observed, "with all this tender- 
 ness, you say the women kiUed their growing bus- 
 bands ?" 
 
 " So says the chronicler," answered the ITcrmit, " and 
 the evil happened after this manner. One winter the 
 cold was terrible, I^ong was it before the breath of 
 spring called forth the buds ; and then, with all other 
 things sprouting and shooting, the yew-tree knights 
 showed not the green leaf. With a sweet superstition, 
 Bridget and Veronica gave themselves up for lost ; they 
 believed that their lives depended upon the vitality 
 of the yews : let the knights cease to bud, and they 
 — their widows — must cease to breathe. They were 
 even as the Hamadryads, and only held existence during 
 the leafing of their lords. Long and sharp was the sus- 
 pense. Day after day, the folks of Clovernook would 
 call to know the best or worst. The husbands of Bridget 
 and Veronica were especial favourites : middle-aged 
 folks from their childliood remembered them ; they had 
 stood so boldly, valorously, through the storms of years ; 
 and then it had been so pleasant to watch the spring 
 green steal upon the edge of their swords, to see it 
 freshen up their shields, and break in their helmets. It 
 was, too, an anxious time with the children of Clover- 
 nook to see the knights trimmed every autumn ; to watch 
 the cunning progress of the shears, as, in the artistic 
 hands of the gardener, they worked in and out, above and 
 below, reforming the wanderings of vegetation, and 
 clipping vagrant and slovenly twigs into the proper trim- 
 ness of knighthood. And at these clippings Bridget 
 and Veronica were always present, directing with earnest 
 and affectionate eye the operations of the steel ; and, 
 strange to say, every new autumn feeling a deeper love, 
 a closer tie towards their pruned helpmates. 
 
 " At lenirth the kniorhts took new heart, and beijan to 
 shoot. What a load was lifted off the hearts of Bridget
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 117 
 
 and Veronica ! Tlieir liusbands — for by such fond 
 names were the trees known to all Clovernook — were not 
 dead ; the pride and glory of the place still flourished. 
 Again would the women sit and embroider beneath tlieir 
 shadows — again would they rejoice in the strength of 
 their spouses. Fond human hopes — vain aspirations ! 
 It is true that the knights were alive and lusty ; but 
 frost — a mortal frost — had pinched both their noses ; 
 the prominent grace and beauty of the knightly counte- 
 nance was gone ; whatever else might shoot, the nose 
 would never grow aicain ! 
 
 " Now, sir, you or I might think a noseless knight 
 far better than a knight defunct. Not so Bridcret and 
 Veronica : in the noble recklessness of their sex, they 
 declared they Avould rather that their yew-tree husbands 
 should have died outright, than stand throutrh all 
 weathers disgraced and noseless : there would have been 
 dignity in complete death ; but to be maimed, disfigured, 
 made ridiculous by calamity, it was insupportable. 
 Misery they could endure, but not mockery. 
 
 " Well, sir, iu this time of tribulation, the gardener 
 hazarded a hope. If the head of each knight were cut 
 closer in, a new nose might be brought out ; but then to 
 show a diminished head upon the old broad shoulders 
 would look disproportionate — ungainly. If a nose must 
 be had, it could only be produced by lessening the knight 
 from head to heel ; bv reducins: the whole figfure ; 
 indeed, by bringing down what was grand and gigantic 
 into the proportions of very common Ufe. Thus a nose 
 might be obtained ; but was it not to purchase a nose at, 
 in sooth, a most preposterous price ? 
 
 " The gardener had said enough. He had given it 
 as his opinion that the noses might be restored, and it 
 mattered not to Bridget and Veronica — poor headstrong 
 women ! — how it Avas brought about. A nose they would 
 have, come what might : the gardener was ordered to 
 produce the noses, and to leave the rest to fate. The 
 day was fixed ; all Clovernook attended the solemnity
 
 118 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 and day after day, with breathless attention, hung upon 
 the movements of the gardener, who, on the third day, 
 had so successfully dwarfed one of the knights, that he 
 looked no bigger than page to his undipped companion. 
 But then the little fellow had a beautifid nose ; and 
 in the very completeness of his countenance brought out 
 the degradation of his noseless co-mate. A dwarf with 
 a nose was by far more preferable than a giant without ; 
 and the next day the gardener was set to work to finish 
 his Ifxbours. A few days, and the husbands of Bridget 
 and Veronica again displayed their full-grown noses to 
 the sun. To be sure, they had lost immensely both in 
 height and bulk ; but each had gained a nose. 
 
 " And Bridget and Veronica were contented, happy 
 women ; they looked at their husbands, and felt grateful 
 for their noses. Alas, and alas ! they knew not, dear 
 souls, that they had bought noses with lives. But 
 so it was ; the poor fellows had been cut so close to the 
 quick, had been so shorn, that they could not sunive the 
 treatment of the shears. In a word, sir, the yew-trees 
 died ; the husbands of Bridget and Veronica gave up 
 leafing, and in a short time became the bare, unprofitable 
 things you see them." 
 
 " And the women, sir, the maiden-widows of the 
 yew-tree lords ? " 
 
 " They saw no second spring. Their husbands had 
 ceased to shoot, and they dropt Avith the fall of their leaf. 
 It is strange that the dead, sapless trunks should have 
 stood so long ; but," said the Ilermit, " I take it, they 
 are kindly preserved by fate as lasting records of 
 woman's wilfulness. To me, sir, these dry logs are 
 touching orators. Indeed, are they not preachers of 
 great counsel to what we jocosely call the gentle sex ? " 
 
 " Counsel ! what counsel ? " 
 
 " This," answered He of Beilyfulle, — " that come 
 what may, a woman should never risk the loss of a 
 husband for the sake of his nose."
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 119 
 
 We will not venture to declare that the Ilermlt was 
 too exhausted by the delivery of this truth to continue 
 his talk ; we think not. Nevertheless, we think that 
 the story struck upon some chord in his heart, and made 
 him for a time taciturn. Indeed, in the matter of noses, 
 the Hermit could hardly escape suspicion ; there was 
 much equivocation in the centre of his face ; was it a 
 nose, or was it not ? Had he been a sufferer from the 
 caprice of the sex ? We are afraid so. 
 
 With slow and silent steps we trod Velvet Path, 
 following the silent Hermit. At length he paused before 
 a barn. " There," said he, " there is another of our 
 Clovernook ruins." 
 
 " A ruin! " we cried. " Indeed, it seems a goodly 
 barn, in excellent, most perfect condition." 
 
 " True, sir, it seems so ; and yet is it a ruin : what 
 think you it once was ? You cannot guess ? Mint, 
 hospital, or prison ? Sir, it was a palace ; a kingly 
 abiding-place. Monarchs were crowned where now the 
 folks of Clovernook thrash beans and wheat." 
 
 " Indeed ! " we cried, and without a second thought 
 were passing on, when the Hermit jiaused, and laid his 
 hand upon our shoulder. 
 
 " Is not such a ruin," he asked, " of all antiquities 
 most potent in its call to the heart and the imagination ? 
 To me it seems to hint the history of human kind. A 
 palace and a barn ! How far were men from the palace 
 when they first laboured the earth ! What changes of 
 thought — what growth of energy — what subtlety — what 
 calculation — what playing of man against man — motive 
 against motiVe, — ere the king arose from among his 
 fellows, and clay was deified by clay ! What a leap 
 from Adam's spade to Solomon's sceptre ! Lingering 
 here, dreaming on this spot, it seems to me that I can 
 almost see the growth of the world ; can almost behold 
 the advance and struggle of the race, from the hour 
 that all men tilled the earth, and tended flocks, to the 
 first crowning of a king — a shepherd king ! A palace 
 and a barn !
 
 120 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 " Now is it an abiding-place for men who, ages elapsed, 
 are the things of ceremony ; who, the pastoral days long 
 gone, live a life of artificial wants, of artificial homage ; 
 whose best enjoyment is self-sacrifice to pomp ; and now, 
 time has run on, and the flail is heard where royal 
 trumpets sounded. The sons of Adam quit fields find 
 flocks to build a palace ; the king is anointed ; state 
 keeps its court ; death shoots his silent arrows ; ages 
 pass, the husbandman takes possession of the kingly 
 palace, and winnows grain where monarchs held their 
 sway. The palace turned to the barn seems to make 
 goodly reparation. Adam gets his own again." 
 
 At length we reached the end of Velvet Path, which 
 gently winding brought us to the door of the Gratis, the 
 one hostelry of Clovernook. A few of the villagers were 
 at the door, and greeted the Hermit with happy saluta- 
 tions ; for, as they declared, he had been some time a 
 stranofer to them. '* I should have come to the cell to- 
 morrow," said an old man, whose turbancd head and 
 expressive face made us curious to loam his history. 
 " Who is he ? " we asked of the Hermit, as he turned 
 into the Gratis. 
 
 " We call him Mahomet," answered the Sage. " In 
 the outside world he was a street-dealer in rhubarb." 
 
 " Mahomet ! Surely not a Turk ? " we cried. 
 
 " ^^^ly not ? " asked the Hermit. " We leave the 
 battles of creeds to the noisy, impudent world you come 
 from. Here, in Clovernook, no man seeks to thrust 
 himself between his fellow and Heaven." 
 
 " And have you a mosque in Clovernook? If not, 
 where does your Turk Avorship ? " 
 
 "■'■ Did I not, from Gossip Hill, point out the place ? 
 We have no other. There, all men, in their turn, 
 communicate with the other world. There, all, in their 
 turn, give place to one another ; humility teaches them 
 tolerance. No man here makes to himself a trading 
 property in human souls ; no man asserts for himself 
 exclusive freehold in heaven. You are yet young amongst
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 121 
 
 US, sir, and I see marvel at my words ; you will find 
 them true— ^true to the letter. Enough for the present ; 
 come, I '11 show you to the parlour." We followed the 
 Hermit, and in a few moments found ourselves in a large 
 apartment, in which were about twenty persons seated 
 in easy arm-chairs around a table. " My friend," said 
 the Hermit, introducing us. All the company rose, and 
 bowing towards us, cried " Welcome." They then took 
 their seats, and instantly we felt as we were at home. As 
 the villagers will, in due time, introduce themselves, we 
 shall not now dwell upon their various characters. One 
 man alone we will speak of. He looked so old, and yet 
 so purified from the stains and marks of years, he seemed 
 something more than mortal. His face was smooth and 
 thin ; pale, too, as moonlight ; his eyes were of a clear, 
 deep, piercing grey, and his snow-white hair, parted at 
 the forehead, hung massively down his shoulders. His 
 smile was sweet and guileless as the smile of a babe. A 
 wreath of amaranth encircled his head. " AVho is he ? " 
 we asked of the Hermit ; and the Sage answered, " He 
 is the oldest inhabitant." 
 
 At length, then, thought wo, he is found ; at length 
 we see in the body that strange, mysterious person, 
 whose experience at times amazes a young and thought- 
 less generation. The Oldest Hihabitant ! How often 
 do we hear his voice, like the voice of the cuckoo, 
 coming to us from an unseen anatomy ! What garnered 
 knowledge must be his ! What hard frosts has he 
 chronicled ! What times of scarcity — what days of 
 fatness ! Xow doth he pass judgment upon gooseberries, 
 declaring them to be the largest within his memory ; 
 now doth he the like service to hail-stones I And now 
 precisely doth he measure the height of floods, and now 
 weigh the weight of spent thunder ! There is some- 
 thing solemn, too, in the Oldest Inhabitant. He is the 
 link between the dead and the living : in the course of 
 uatvire, the next to be called from among us ; his place 
 immediately supplied by a second brother. Generations
 
 122 THE CHROXICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 have gone, passed into the far world, and left him here 
 their solitary spokesman — the one witness of the wonders 
 that had birth among them. He remains here to cheek 
 the vanity of the present, by his testimony to the past. 
 Where would be all human experience without the 
 Oldest Inhabitant ? Yet, surely, we thought — in no 
 way discouraged in our belief by the placid, gentle looks 
 of the venerable man at the table — surely, the Oldest 
 Inhabitant loves now and then to pass off a joke upon 
 his ignorant juniors. Yes : antiquity likes a hoax, and 
 often, by its officer, the Oldest Inhabitant, puts off a 
 flam upon the unconscious and too confiding present. 
 Such was our thought ; and, in truth, it was, after, well 
 justified by the practice of the white-haired sage at the 
 board. No little boy ever loved apples better than the 
 Oldest Inhabitant loved a joke. In his time, he had 
 written much for the newspapers. 
 
 " You were talking, Master Cuttlefish," said the 
 Hermit, addressing a villager about fifty years old — a 
 man with a remarkably blithe look, and ready manner. 
 •' Let us interrupt no tale," cried He of BellyfuUe. 
 
 " I was about to tell a little pen-and-ink experience ; 
 an incident that happened to me in my days of goose- 
 quill," said Cuttlefish ; from which I guessed that the 
 speaker had driven the dangerous trade of author. 
 
 " There is little in the story ; only, indeed, this much, 
 that it taught me to have some tolerance even for those 
 of the very worst report." 
 
 " Call you that little?" cried the Hermit, — " why, 
 'tis one of the prime lessons of benignant man. Let us 
 have the story. But say, is it not a little chilly to- 
 night ? Could we not bear some heat, eh ? " Where- 
 upon, all called for a fire. The Oldest Inhabitant rang 
 a silver bell that stood upon the table ; when, instantly, 
 a face that — in short, one of those faces that coming 
 suddenly upon startled man, fairly make him gasp at 
 their alarming beauty — looked in at the door. " Sweet- 
 lips," said the Hermit, " a fire." The girl nodded and
 
 THE CHROXICLES OF CLOVEUXOOK, 123 
 
 again closed the door ; but ere we could recover ourselves 
 she again entered the room, carrying a small faggot of 
 cinnamon, which she laid upon the hearth, and stooped 
 to arrange some logs for kindling. Think her thus 
 occupied, whilst with dull, pale ink, we vainly try to 
 draw her beauty. Sweetlips — for such in Clovernook 
 was her name — had in her time been Maid of Honour at 
 the English court : she was still unmarried, and it was 
 said, had renounced the outside world, and become maid 
 at the Gratis, for the pure love of independence. Now, 
 then, for her face. (The pen shakes in our hand, as 
 though conscious of the hopeless task wherein we woxdd 
 employ it.) Iler face was beautifully fair — perfectly 
 regular. It was a dream of a rapt sculptor, incarnate 
 and living. Talk of music, the face seemed to breathe 
 nothing but harmonious sprightly thoughts. Her pretty 
 forehead was a tablet that seemed consecrated from the 
 mark of age ; no, time, with his sacrilegious pen, should 
 never mark one black line there. It was living ivory, 
 defying wrinkles. Her lips ! we almost faint, putting 
 down the monosyllable — her lips, scarlet as blood, 
 seemed pouting with unconscious wealth. Her eyes 
 were of dark, heart-devouring hazel ; with now a little 
 love in them glancing timidly about, and now a merry 
 little devil. Her hair — if it was hair — came bright and 
 smoothly as light about her temples, and hung in lustrous 
 curls at her neck. Then her form ! What swelling 
 ripeness ! Her waist — we could see it ; even the arm 
 of the Oldest Inhabitant appeared for a moment as it 
 would move towards it ; her step seemed to strike music 
 from the ground, — and then her foot ! — what man, with 
 the heart of man, would not have made that heart its 
 cushion ? Her voice, too ! She spoke but three words, 
 and for the next half-hour we were listening to some 
 delicious music. Her dress was of the prettiest, quaintest 
 fashion. She wore a white lawn boddice, laced with 
 silken lace before ; her gown was of dove colour ; and 
 her snow-white apron was curiously worked with fruits
 
 124 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOS, 
 
 and flowers around the border ; needle never wrought 
 such delicate similitudes. 
 
 " Swcctlips," said the Hermit, "to-night I'll take 
 my tankard." Whereupon the girl brought a large 
 silver vessel of wonderful workmanship, and with an 
 eloquent smile placed it before the Sage of BellyfuUe. 
 He, with an affection almost fatherly, patted her on her 
 cheek, and in his cordial voice wished that, die when she 
 would, it might be with a wedding-ring upon her finger. 
 " And now," said the Hermit, turning to Cuttlefish, 
 " tell yovu- story." 
 
 " There is but little story in the matter," said Cuttle- 
 fish ; " it is nothing more than an incident of my goose* 
 quill days." 
 
 '• Begin," cried the Hermit of BellyfuUe ; and imme- 
 diately the speaker obeyed. 
 
 *' It had been my ill fortune to be called a genius by 
 my discriminating parents, who, hugging themselves in 
 the possession of such a treasure, would constantly 
 remark that I did nothing like any other boy. No 
 matter what was the mischief, to their satisfaction I 
 always contrived to give it an original turn that mightily 
 recommended the misdoing. My brothers were dull, 
 stupid fellows, who — I have heard my father declare it 
 twenty times — would never make a figure in the world. 
 No ; it would be to me — his youngest and only hope — 
 that the name of Cuttlefish would owe a lasting lustre. 
 And this belief was as a religion to my poor mother. Dear 
 soul ! she once visited Westminster Abbey. She had 
 not been five minutes in Poets' Corner, before she burst 
 into tears, and was compelled to quit the place At the 
 earnest entreaties of my father, she, after a time, con- 
 fessed the cause of her emotion. She could not, she 
 said, look at the statues of the great people about her, 
 without feeling that her dear Jacky — myself — would 
 one day stand among 'em. She couldn't help, she said, 
 the feelings of a mother ; and they had been too much 
 for her."
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 125 
 
 " Poor soul ! " cried the Hermit. ** It is something, 
 to be sure, to the small pride of fleshly man to think of 
 standinor in an attitude of eternal marble for all comers 
 of all generations ; and yet the halfpence taken for the 
 show do somewhat jingle a discordance. They bring 
 the dead philosopher of the Abbey down to the living 
 Spotted Boy of the caravan. 'Tis making Madam Fame 
 the money -taker at a threepenny show. Perhaps," 
 added the Hermit, with a smile, " 'twas this thought 
 that touched your mother into tears. Women jump like 
 cats to conclusions ; and the poor soul might have been 
 shocked at the prospect of the copper fee." 
 
 " She might," said Cuttlefish, " I cannot say. It 
 may, however, be some comfort to her spirit to know 
 that I shall certainly escape the degradation. However, 
 with this belief, that I should irradiate the name of 
 Cuttlefish, my parents let me follow my own will, which, 
 at a very early age, developed itself towards doing- 
 nothing. And, indeed, throughout my life, that, ray 
 first bent, has ever directed me. My brothers, who were 
 so very stupid, and therefore fit for nothing, were early 
 placed in the world, and indicated the truth of the 
 parental opinion, by making their fortunes. They were 
 dull blockheads, according to my father, and so became 
 men of wealth and influence by the very force of their 
 insensibility. Now I, who was brimful of genius, was to 
 do everything by some extraordinary hocus-pocus dreamt 
 of by my parents, but of which I, indeed, had not the 
 remotest knowledge. ' Leave Jack alone,' would still 
 be my father's cry, ' he '11 make his way in the world — 
 how can it be otherwise ? he has such wit ! ' Well, 
 after spending my little patrimony — and in its happy 
 mode of outlay I may be permitted to observe I showed 
 a genius for ten thousand a vear — and after losing some 
 twelvemonth or two at bo-peep with bailiff's, you will 
 judge of my destitution when I tell you that I found 
 myself reduced to pen and ink. Oh, my friends ! there 
 is a condition for the human animal. Consider the
 
 126 THE CHRONICLES OP CLOVERNOOK.. 
 
 outcast. The maker of matches has a business ; nay, 
 he is the possessor of a mystery. When he has made 
 his matches, there they are — tangible wood and brim- 
 stone ; their merits open to the eye of cook and house- 
 maid. Conscious of the excellence of his ware, the 
 match-maker may higgle gallantly for his price ; matches 
 are things wanted in the commerce of life ; it is no diffi- 
 cult task to recommend their utility to the world, alive 
 as it is to the worth of firelight. But books ! their 
 worth is a matter of fancy, say of weakness, to the 
 weaker part of mankind ; they have no standard value, 
 none, at their birth. Hence, the unknown maker of a 
 book — I speak especially of the time when I first sinned 
 in ink — is a sort of gipsy in the social scale ; a pic- 
 turesque vagabond, who somehow or the other contrives to 
 live on the sunny side of the statutes, but is nevertheless 
 vehemently suspected of all sorts of larceny by respecta- 
 ble householders. Shall I ever forget the uneasiness, 
 the look of distrust from my landlady, when first the 
 alarming truth fell upon her, that her three-pair room 
 sheltered an author — or rather, an author in the shell, 
 for as then I had hatched nothing, but was only sitting 
 upon foolscap ? Good soul ! in a flutter of concern, she 
 told me that that very room had been tenanted, for three 
 long years, by an honest journeyman tailor, whose rent 
 was regular as the Saturday. She looked at me from 
 head to heel, and said she hoped that all was right ; though 
 I could perceive that she spoke in the very forlornuess 
 of the feeling. And after all, the woman had truth upon 
 her side. Her tenant tailor had an allowed business ; 
 was a recognised necessity by fallen man ; was moreover 
 one of a worshipful guild ; an artificer whose cunning 
 administered to human pride ; whose handiwork was 
 aU-in-all to worldly triumphs. For instance, what would 
 be a coronation without a tailor ? AVliat would be man, 
 left to nothing more than sheepskins and parrots' plumes? 
 Hence, the woman, in her strong sense of the decencies 
 of life, acknowledged the vital use of the labourer of the
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 127 
 
 needle ; hence, when she learnt that I only dealt in pen 
 and ink, she looked upon me as a sort of vagabond con- 
 juror ; a white wizard, whose very mono}' — if ever she 
 saw it — might he of doubtful origin. Shillings got 
 out of an inkstand, she could hardly look upon as good 
 mint coin : and for this reason, she could not compre- 
 hend how any man, by mere pen, inS, and paper, could 
 give value received for the ready cash. Now the tailor's 
 work was plain : a pair of breeches was a tangible 
 thing ; and spoke as it were common sense to the com- 
 mon sense of man and womankind. But authorship ! 
 Alas, how small to the breeches was a tale in verse !" 
 
 " Right, very right," said the Oldest Inhabitant. " I 
 can remember in the days of my youth that people who 
 dealt in pen and ink were made to live in a quarter of 
 the city by themselves, for fear the rest of the inha- 
 bitants should catch their disorder. They were set 
 apart, like folks in a fever. And it was good policy, 
 that — very good. Notwithstanding, the disease would 
 now and then spread. Indeed, a few foolish people went 
 so far as to say that some babies were born with it." 
 And here the Oldest Inhabitant gave a soft, flute-like 
 chuckle, and then was silent. 
 
 " There I was, the born genius, as my begetters had 
 averred," said Cuttlefish, " with wit enough to turn the 
 world, destitute, penniless. Can I cease to remember 
 the blank, hopeless look, with which, for an hour and 
 more, I sat for the first time gazing at the blank paper ! 
 Then I rose from my wooden chair, and approached my 
 chamber-window. I looked down into the street. There 
 were coaches, and waggons, and drays, and carts — a 
 thousand passing evidences of wealth and commerce. They 
 all belong to somebody, said I. There — I would fancy — 
 goes a physician in his carriage to sell Latin promises of 
 health. There, the merchant to his counting-house; there, 
 the lawyer to his ofiice ; there, too, a fellow cries rabbits ; 
 and there, at yonder corner, sits an old woman vending 
 pippins. Look where I will, I see no one who has not
 
 128 THE CHROXICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 a wherewithal — a something to trade upon : real chattels, 
 speaking to the dullest sense. And my stock in trade, 
 thought I, with a despairing fall of the heart, is words; 
 mere syllahles. Alas ! in the humility of my soul, I 
 would have exchanged my richest stock for the slippers 
 hawked hy an old Levite past my door. Man can under- 
 stand the worth of shoe-leather, when the hest written 
 foolscap shall be to him as waste-paper. Humbled by 
 these thoughts, I returned to my chair ; and again gazing 
 on the barren sheet, groaned with sorrow that I had been 
 born the genius of my house. How I chidcd fate' that 
 had not made me like my brothers, dull fellows — fools ! " 
 
 " Come to your story," said the Hermit, impatiently 
 appeaUng to his tankard. " ^^^lat were the first doings 
 of your maiden quill ? " 
 
 *' You shall hear," said Cuttlefish. " I know not how 
 long I sat with my skull clasped by my hands ; trying 
 vriih all my might to conjure my brains. However, I was 
 at length aroused by a shai-p knuckle rap at my door ; 
 which then opened, and a gentleman — as he appeared to 
 me — of great dignity of manner, entered the room. 
 Pray, sir, I asked with growing confidence, for I saw the 
 man could not be a bailiff", ' To whom do I owe the 
 honour of this visit ?' " 
 
 *' ' As for my name, sir,' replied the stranger, with a 
 melancholy smile, ' you know it well, though at present 
 we will speak no further of it. You deal in pen and ink. 
 1 have a little job for you.' Saying this, the stranger laid 
 aside his cloak, and displayed a very beautiful court-suit 
 of black. His ruffles and cravat were of the most superb 
 lace ; and his finger bore a diamond, which shone hke a 
 little §un in the room, drawing my eye ^^^th it wherever 
 it moved. He was in every respect most richly appointed, 
 vet was there nothing in his braverv of the coxcomb. He 
 must be a cabinet-minister was my first behef ; and then 
 I thought, perhaps, a quack doctor." 
 
 " Did you not ask his name ? " inquired the Hermit. 
 
 " Yes," answered Cuttlefish ; " but his first reply was
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOTEUNOOK. 129 
 
 only a smile, and a gentle shake of the head. Then he 
 said, ' Oh ! never mind my name — you have heard of me, 
 who shall say how many times ? ' Then he drew him- 
 self a chair, and took a seat by the fire, which, for lack 
 of fuel, was fast dying in the grate. Seeing this, he 
 took the ruin of a poker, for it was no more, in his hand, 
 and asking, with the blandest smile — ' Will you allow 
 me ? ' thrust it among the dying cinders. Instantane- 
 ously they blazed up, casting a brilliant light throughout 
 the room. ' Bless me,' I cried, ' I thought the fire was 
 out.' Wlicreupon the stranger, with the same sweet, 
 3'et strange smile, briefly i-emarkcd — ' Nothing like pok- 
 ing ! ' Then my visitor again looked melancholy — again 
 was silent. At length, I observed — ' You said. Sir, 
 something about a job : of what character ? A piece of 
 large history — or merely a little bit of private scandal ? ' 
 
 " ' Not that — not that,' said the stranger, with slight 
 emotion. ' I have suffered too much from the scandal of 
 the world ; have too keenly felt its wickedness to inflict it 
 even upon a beggar. The truth is, I came here to hire 
 you to pen my defence.' 
 
 " ' Alas, Sir ! ' I cried, ' what have you done ?' The 
 stranger merely shook his head, and drew a deep, deep 
 sicjh. ' With what are vou charged ?' I demanded. 
 
 "'With everything,' answered my visitor ; 'that is, 
 with everything which the world calls wicked.' 
 
 " At these words, I leapt from my chair. 
 
 " ' But, Sir,' said the stranger, taking a handkerchief 
 from his pocket, and passing it gently across his eyes, 
 ' but. Sir, though I do not wish to pass myself off" as a 
 pattern person, I am nevertheless crueUy slandered. 
 Look here, Sii*,' and to my astonishment, my visitor 
 drew a large folio from his coat-pocket. ' Be good 
 enough to run your eye along that passage. ' 
 
 " I did so, and read as follows. ' Whereupon the old 
 woman, upon being questioned, confessed that the devil 
 had appeared to her in the shape of a black cat ; that he 
 promised her poicer over all things ; and upon such pro- 
 is.
 
 130 TOE CHRONICLES OF CLOVEUXOOK. 
 
 mise, she became a icitch. This liappened at eleven at 
 night, on the 24</t of October, in the year .' 
 
 " * Now, Sir,' said the stranger, ' I am prepared to 
 show the falsehood of every syllable of the old woman's 
 story. ' 
 
 " ' You prove ? ' I cried ; and then it immediately 
 came into my mind that the unhappy gentleman was 
 lunatic ; and that it was his peculiar disorder — dreadful 
 malady ! — to believe himself no other than the Wicked 
 One. Or, perhaps, thought I, he may be some poor 
 hypochondriacal creature, who vill be Beelzebub, and 
 nobody else. I have heard of folks thinking them- 
 selves into tea-pots — of insisting upon lowering them- 
 selves to mean and base vessels ; with this man, the 
 disease may have worked ambitiously. Hence, poor 
 creature ! he may be a demon in his own conceit ; and 
 for a time, it may be humane to humour him. ' Then, 
 Sir,' I said to my visitor, ' there is no truth in the old 
 gentlewoman's story ? You were not bargaining with 
 the witch on the night of ' 
 
 " ' I can prove an alibi,' cried the stranger, with some 
 vehemence. ' On that very night, I was closeted with a 
 certain minister of state, whoso name, by the way, I 
 must beg leave to suppress — making a bargain between 
 him and a noble duke, for a vacant garter. And yet, 
 Sir, you must remark the grossness of the libel. It is 
 therein written that I appeared as a black cat ; that I 
 visited a wretched old crone in a miserable, degrading 
 disguise, as though ashamed of myself. Infamous scan- 
 dal, Sir ! I tell you, at that very time I was in my own 
 person talking to one of the first men of the land ; to a 
 man of wealth and education ; to one who had taken all 
 sorts of honours at college ; to one whose eloquence would 
 lead away senates captive ; whose keen logic would split 
 hairs as a bill-hook would split logs. It was with him, 
 Sir — with him, the noble and enUghtened — that I was 
 chatting the whole of the night ; and yet it is set down 
 in that folio that I was wasting precious time, and forget-
 
 THE CHROXICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 131 
 
 ting what was due to myself — by masquerading it with 
 some mumpish harridan as a black cat. Upon my word,' 
 said the stranger, with a look of injury — * if men affect 
 to despise my principles, they might respect my taste. 
 The truth is, they commit all sorts of shameful deeds, 
 and then lay the temptation upon my shoulders. Be it 
 murder, or be it robbery of a hen-roost, I am called the 
 wicked instigator of the enormity ; when the assassin and 
 the thief had nobody but themselves to thank for the evil 
 doing. It is, Sir, upon this point that I wish the aid of 
 your pen to set me right with the world.' 
 
 " It is clear, thought I, the man is mad. Poor fellow ! 
 But I'll hear his story out. 
 
 '* ' Look here, Sir,' said he, and again he dived into 
 his coat pocket ; again he pulled forth another large folio. 
 * Read this,' he said. 
 
 " Obediently, I took the volume, and read the passage 
 to which the stranger's finger pointed ; it ran thus — 
 ' Furthermore it was a common report that when any 
 gentleman or lord came to see the Lord of Orne, they 
 were entertained (as they thought) very honourably, being 
 served with all sorts of dainty fare and exquisite dishes, 
 as if he had not spared to make them the best cheer that 
 might be. But at their departure they that thought them- 
 selves well refreshed found their stomachs empty, and 
 almost pined for want of food, having neither eaten nor 
 drank anything, save in imagination oidy ; and it is to be 
 thought that their horses fared no better than their mas- 
 ters. It happened one day that a certain lord being 
 departed from his house, one of his men having left some- 
 thing behind, returned to the castle, and entering sud- 
 denly into the hall where they dined a httle before, he 
 espied a monkey beating very sorely the master of the 
 house that had feasted them of late I And there be others 
 that say that he hath been seen through the chink of a 
 door, lying on a table upon his belly, and a monkey scourg- 
 ing him very strangely ; to whom he should say, — Let me 
 alone, — let me alone ; wilt thou always torment me thus? ' 
 
 k2
 
 132 THE CmiOXICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 " ' Non', Sir,' said the stranger, with a piteous look, 
 ' you at once apprehend the monkey — you know for whom 
 he is intended ?' 
 
 "' It is no difficult matter to guess,' said I. 
 
 "'Upon my honour,' said the stranger, rising from 
 his seat, and speaking with difficulty from emotion, 'upon 
 my honour, whatever may have been the parts I have 
 acted, I never yet appeared as a monkey ; never, Sir ; the 
 accusation is only one of the ten thousand falsehoods con- 
 cerning me that men have invented to disguise the wicked 
 deeds of their own free spirits. 1 ask, wherefore monkey ? 
 What should I have gained by so base, so low a disguise ? 
 Besides, why should I have taken the trouble to visit the 
 Lord of Orne ? Would it not,have been more reasonable 
 to wait till his lordship came to me ?' 
 
 " Poor fellow ! again I thought — he is very mad 
 indeed ! 
 
 " ' Look here, again. Sir,' said the stranger, and he 
 took another, a smaller book, from his pocket. ' Read 
 here: more scandal.' 
 
 " Taking the volume from his hand, I read as foUows: 
 ' There was a conjuror at Salzburg, that vaunted that he 
 could gather all the serpents within half a mile round 
 about into a ditch, and feed them and bring them up 
 there ; and being about the experunent, behold the old 
 and grand serpent came in the while, which whilst the 
 conjuror thought by the force of his charms to make it 
 enter the ditch among the rest, he set upon and inclosed 
 him round about hke a girdle so strongly, that he drew 
 the conjuror into the ditch with him, where he miserably 
 died.' 
 
 " ' The fellow's foot slipped,' said the stranger. ' May 
 I die for ever if I had any hand in it — and then for the 
 story of the serpent — but never mind ; please to look at 
 this. ' With this the stranger took another folio from his 
 pocket. Opening it upon the table, he pointed to a para- 
 graph, and in the mildest voice, said ' Lege.^ I obeyed. 
 
 " ' It was, in truth, a very lamentable spectacle that
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 133 
 
 f 
 
 happened to the governor of Macon, a magician, whom 
 the Devil saatched up in dinner-while, and hoisted aloft, 
 carrying him three times about the town of Macon in the 
 presence of many beholders, to whom he cried in this 
 manner — Help ! help I my friends ! so that the whole 
 town stood amazed thereat. Yea, and the remembrance 
 of this strange accident sticketh at this day fast in the 
 minds of all the inhabitants of the country ; and they 
 say that this wretch, having given himself to the Devil, 
 provided himself with store of holj bread, which he 
 always carried about with him, thinking thereby to 
 cheat him ; but, in truth, it served him in no stead, as 
 his end declared.' 
 
 ' ' ' What think you of that ? ' asked the stranger. 
 ' Do you mark the fully, the useless labour they put 
 upon me ? Why should I have taken the trouble of 
 carrying the governor three times about the town, when 
 I had but to wait patiently for him — to bide my time, as 
 you worldly people say, and he 7nust have found me ? 
 Besides, what an ass docs the scandal-monger make me ! 
 Is it Hkely that I should so forget my own interest as to 
 make so public an example of my victim ? Was that 
 the way, think you, to draw other folks in ? But there, 
 there is the blundering of the clu'oniclers. Now, they 
 call me all sorts of names to show my cunning ; and now 
 they make me do tricks that would disgrace a fool. Why 
 can't they be consistent ? ' 
 
 " Yes ; the poor man is certainly mad, again and 
 again I said to myself ; though, to confess the truth, 
 when I saw him dive his hands into his pockets, and 
 draw from them huge folios, I did, despite of myself, 
 feel a strange fear — a creeping terror. 
 
 "'Read here! ' he cried; ''tis, I know, a well-known 
 story ; yet read it, that I may, as your law-makers have 
 it, explain.' 
 
 " Obediently I read. 
 
 " ' Cornelius Agrippa, a great student in magic, and 
 a man both famous by his own works and others' report.
 
 134 THE CHROXICLES OF CLOVERXOOK. 
 
 for his necromancy, went always accompanied with the 
 Devil in the similitude of a black dog. But when his 
 time of death drew near, and he was urged to repent- 
 ance, he took off the enchanted collar from the dog's 
 neck, and sent him away witli these terms, — Get thee 
 liencc, thou cursed beast, ichich hast utterly destroyed vie. 
 And the doc: ^^'T^s never after seen.' 
 
 " ' What think you of that ? ' asked the stranger, with 
 a slight sneer. ' Why there never was a greater flam. 
 I knew Cornelius Agrippa very well.' 
 
 " ' Indeed ! ' I cried, with increasing uneasiness, 
 which nevertheless I endeavoured to conceal. * What 
 sort of a man may he have been ? ' 
 
 " ' An excellent person ; and for his dog — poor, 
 faithful creature, it was the very fidelity of the animal 
 that made him suspected by the hard-judging world : it 
 was his vcrj' excellence that drew the scandal down upon 
 him. The dog was incorruptible, and therefore, said 
 men, the Devil was in him.' 
 
 " And you knew Cornelius Agrippa ? ' I ventured 
 again to ask. 
 
 " ' That is,' answered the stranger, ' I wanted to 
 know him. I kflew his worldly miseries ; I knew the 
 contempt and lies that were visited upon him. I knew 
 him an outcast from his fellows, spurned, hated by them ; 
 yet with a stout and constant spirit working for the last- 
 ing delights of those who persecuted him. I knew all 
 this ; and then, indeed, I tempted him, as I have 
 tempted others of his tribe, with ease, with wealth, with 
 all the sounding, hollow music of the world ; but Corne- 
 lius laughed at me and my promises ; took his staff, 
 whistled to his dog, and trudged securely about the 
 world, though at every footstep its dwellers would 
 have stoned him. To be sure I had this dehght. I 
 found that his dog had brought a bad name upon his 
 master : that was something.' 
 
 " ' Poor Cornelius ! ' cried I. 
 
 " * Nay,' said the stranger, * not for the evil that it
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 135 
 
 did to Cornelius, but to those who reviled and hunted 
 him. Do you not see — I knoiv the truth — that the malice 
 garnered in the souls of the persecutors is of more worth 
 to me than the suftcriug of the persecuted ? On one 
 hand, I have wickedness and folly working in ten thou- 
 sand hearts — that is sin by wholesale. Think you, when 
 the martyr roasts at the stake, that it is his pains I 
 delight in ? No : it is the rejoicing of the men who 
 have doomed him to the fate ; it is the ferocious 
 happiness of the multitude that makes my delight — 
 it is — ' 
 
 "I started from the stranger, who, recalled to him- 
 self by my agitation, mildly said — ' To return to Corne- 
 lius Agrippa. To the last he rejected my friendship ; 
 and though it has passed from mouth to mouth among 
 men that he and I did business together, it is not the 
 truth. With his stout heart he spurned me ; and so, I 
 confess it, out of pure spite, I contrived to fasten a bad 
 name upon his black dog. ' 
 
 " ' Poor malice, indeed,' I cried. 
 
 *' 'Why, yes,' said the stranger ; 'but it has served 
 its pui-pose ; and, happily for my interest, there are few 
 men — I mean the men in advance of the millions — who, 
 by the beautiful falsehood of the world, have not all of 
 them been charged with black dogs of some sort.' Saying 
 this, the stranger lightly laughed. 
 
 " ' And now. Sir, may I ask your precise business 
 with me ? ' I asked, all the while feeling that I was closeted 
 with a madman ; though at the same time not unvisited 
 by strange thoughts, which, however thick, and fast they 
 came, I strove to master. 
 
 "'Have patience,' said the sti'anger, 'let me first 
 supply you with your materials.' 
 
 ' ' Hereupon the stranger, fast as he could, dipped both 
 hands into his pockets, drawing therefrom foHos, quartos 
 — in truth, books of all dimensions, dropping them upon 
 the ground, fast as hail-stones. As volume after 
 volume fell, my blood became colder and colder, my hair
 
 136 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 
 
 stood up like wire ; I sat in my chair motionless as 
 though caught in a trap. With every moment I became 
 more and more assured that I was giving audience to 
 something supernatural, if not to the great fiend himself. 
 In my confused horror, I asked myself, is he a doomed 
 bookseller ? — and then there was a remarkable inteUi- 
 genee in his face that gave no warranty of such a 
 belief. At length, he .leemed to have emptied his 
 pockets, and stood up to the shoulders amid a heap of 
 volumes. 
 
 " At last, I was able to stammer, * And do all those 
 books contain something about you ? ' 
 
 " ' All ; and ten thousand thousand more,' answered 
 the fiend, for it was he, indeed. * It has still been the 
 trick, the injustice of man, to shutHc otf the rascalities 
 of his nature upon my shoulders. For thousands of 
 years have I borne this injustice ; but I will no longer 
 endure with meekness the sins that really and truly 
 belDnj; to man himself. I will no louder be made the 
 stupid blundering hero of his fireside tales ; no longer 
 be turned into all shapes, foolish, base, and contemi)tible, 
 to excuse his ends. No : though, to confess it, I hate 
 printer's ink as I hate the glory of the sun, nevertheless 
 I will. I must, fight man with his own dirty missiles ; 
 and will, therefore, print a book. It is, I am aware, a 
 miserable strait to be reduced to, — a condition I little 
 dreamt of when I was wont to dodge John Gutenburg 
 about the streets of Mentz, and now and then stand 
 beneath his eaves, hsting the first creakings of his virgin 
 press. I little thought that I should be brought to this 
 pass ; but so it is : my best weapon is now a fine, bold 
 type. I have chosen you ' — and here the fiend gave the 
 nod of a patron — ' to do my work.' 
 
 " With much labour did I assure the fiend, that I was 
 wholly unworthy of the distinction. ' ^^hj not take the 
 job to some experienced quill ? ' 
 
 " ' No,' answered the fiend, ' I would rather intrust 
 myself to your simpUcity. You are yet obscure, unknown ;
 
 THE CHROXICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 137 
 
 and will for a time be docile : I say for a time, for when 
 the book sh'all have won you a reputation, you will be as 
 insolent and as unmanageable as the rest of them. How 
 many authors have I in my time set up ! and how shame- 
 fully have they rewarded me ! ' Here the fiend ran over 
 
 a bead-roll of names from Faustus to but no matter, 
 
 making out a strong case of thanklcssness against one 
 and all of them. ' Now you,' ho said, ' will, I doubt 
 not, finish what I want before you are quite spoiled. 
 Here, as I said,' and he looked at the mountain of 
 volumes, ' are a few of your materials. I will, as you 
 proceed, bring you more.' 
 
 " I shuddered as I glanced at the crushing heap of 
 books. ' A few of the materials ! ' I cried ; ' why, 
 'twill take me a life to go through them ; for, to say the 
 truth, I am a slow reader.' 
 
 " * You '11 find the labour nothing,' said the fiend, ' for 
 I have doubled down the leaves at all the strong bits of 
 scandal, and have pencilled my refutation in the margin. 
 All that will be wanted from you, will be to put the 
 matter into nice clear Enghsh, fit even for families. I 
 could do it myself, but truly, I am not confident as to the 
 purity of my language. I know something of all tongues, 
 to be sure, quite well enough to speak ; but not, I fear, 
 to write. I was once very well skilled in the dead 
 tongues, but, for want of practice, I feel myself now and 
 then at favdt in them. My Coptic is quite gone ; but I 
 have contrived to keep up my Hebrew talking with the 
 stock-jobbers and money-lenders.' 
 
 "'And pray,' I ventured to ask, 'what is your 
 favourite language of all the modern ? ' 
 
 " ' I talk a great deal of French ; indeed, without 
 vanity, I may say it — I think I have the true Parisian 
 accent. Not that 1 have had cause to neglect my 
 Enghsh — oh, dear no ; I talk much EngUsh, and let me 
 tell you. to some of the very highest people. I know, 
 the prejudice runs that I delight in low company ; that 
 my especial haunts are alleys, cellars, filthy places that
 
 138 THE CHROKICLES OF CLOVERXOOK, 
 
 even make me stop my nose to tliiuk of them. Having 
 an interest in all human life, I certainly do at times 
 visit such places, but I am just as often — nay, oftencr — 
 to be found in boudoirs, in statesmen's closets, and royal 
 drawing-rooms. But to business. You will immediately 
 get on with your work,' and the fiend pointed to the 
 work. 
 
 "'Upon my soul,' I cried with vehemence, 'I had 
 rather you took it somewhere else ; I shall make nothing 
 of it ; you'll only suffer in my Jiands.' 
 
 " ' But, look here,' said the fiend ; and opening a 
 volume where a leaf was turned, he read as follows : — 
 ' The poor child, possessed by the Devil, vomited nothing 
 but bits of glass, crooked pins, and died at midnight.* 
 ' Observe my note upon this,' said the fiend. At the very 
 time I am set down as doing this mischief upon some 
 babe or suckling, I was — here I have written it — supping 
 with Pope Leo the Tenth. And so throughout. You 
 •will find that my defence consists in a round of alibis. 
 You will find — and it is in such spirit that I wish you to 
 enforce the lesson — that what men falsely, fraudfully, 
 foolishly call the instigation of the Devil, the temptation 
 of the Devil, the prompting of the Devil, the work of the 
 Devil, is no other than the antics of their own stupid, 
 stubborn, headlong passion. It is thus the repentant 
 pickpocket vows that it was I who crooked his finger for 
 the theft — the murderer swears 'twas I who gave him 
 his weapon — the adulterer, that 'twas I who burned in 
 his veins, and made him spirit off his neighbour's wife. 
 All lies, all wilful hypocrisy, fathered upon me, who am 
 determined to put up with the calumny no longer ; and 
 for this reason, I shall be just as sure of those who do a 
 wrong as if I bore the shame of tempting them to the 
 iniquity. I shall have them still, with the proper credit of 
 their coming to me unpressed, unimnted. Therefore, you 
 will immediately from these and from the other books I 
 will bring you, write my defence.' 
 
 •' ' Will you have it in a folio ? ' I faintingly asked.
 
 THE CHROXICLES OF CLOVERNOOK. 139 
 
 "'Certainly not,' said the fiend; 'a small pocket 
 book for m^ money. Let me see ; properly condensed 
 'twill make two nice volumes. I shall pay you hand- 
 somely. I will give you a hundred guineas for the 
 work.'" 
 
 "And pray," asked the Hermit of Bellyfulle, "did 
 you ever write the book ? " 
 
 " Never," said Cuttlefish with emphasis, " never 
 wrote a single line." 
 
 " And why not ? " inquired the sage. 
 
 " Because, would you believe it," cried Cuttlefish with 
 a roaring laugh, " because the Devil was ass enough to 
 pay me fifty guineas for the work in advance." 
 
 I 
 
 But the meetings at the " Gratis " are no more. The 
 hostelry itself is closed, found to be unlicensed by the 
 prim propriety of the world. The Hermit has wandered 
 we know not whither. Now and then his wise, happy, 
 cordial spirit seems to visit knots of men gathered to- 
 gether, to sit the sometime jurymen upon the faults 
 and follies of the earth ; when he asserts the influence 
 of liis benevolent soul in the broad charity of the verdict. 
 Yes ; we must hug the belief that the Hermit is still a 
 pilgrim among men, though, like some kaiser out upon 
 a holiday, he travels unknown. 
 
 And Clovemook ? It is gone ; wiped out of the map 
 of the earth. Even as some scene, bright with the 
 hues of the land of dreams, the wonder-work of the 
 golden-handed Clarksonius Stanfieldius, — is blanked and 
 blotted out, that its whitened web may bear, it may 
 be, a cold lodging-house or a colder prison, — so is 
 Clovemook but a place that was ; a hamlet Avherein
 
 l-iO THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVEUNOOK. 
 
 fancy has loitered away a truant hour; loitered, to be 
 called back to the hard bricks and mortar that carry 
 rent-charge ; to the real world gaol locked and grated 
 by Mulcibcr Convention. A gaol wherein man, with his 
 nose at the bars, will nevertheless see some sort of 
 Clovernook beyond. No unjust sentence ; no keeper 
 Fortune, no turnkey Circumstance can blind his brain to 
 that fancy land. He will enjoy it : it is the heritage 
 of the imperial soul of man : and therefore — though a 
 tliinjr of dreams — far more enduring than the stones of 
 Babylon.
 
 ESSAYS. 
 
 THE FOLLY OF THE SWORD. 
 
 May we ask the reader to behold \rith us a melan- 
 choly show — a saddening, miserable spectacle ? We will 
 not take him to a prison, a workhouse, a Bedlam, where 
 human nature expiates its guiltiness, its lack of worldly 
 goods, its most desolate perplexity ; but we will take 
 him to a wretchedness, first contrived by wrong, and 
 perpetuated by folly. Wo will show him the embr^^o 
 mischief that, in due season, shall be born in the com- 
 pleteness of its terror, and shall be christened with a 
 sounding name, Folly and Wickedness standing sponsors. 
 
 We arc in St. James's Park. The roval standard of 
 England burns in the summer air — the queen is in Lon- 
 don. We pass the palace, and in a few paces are in 
 Birdcage Walk. There, reader, is the miserable show 
 we promised you. There are some fifty recruits, di'illed 
 by a sergeant to do homicide cleanly, handsomely. In 
 Birdcage Walk, Glory sits upon her eggs, and hatches 
 eagles I 
 
 How very beautiful is the sky above us ! What a 
 blessing comes with the fresh, quick « air ! The trees, 
 drawing their green beauty from the earth, quicken our 
 thoughts of the bounteousness of this teeming world.
 
 142 TIIE FOLLY OF THE SWORD. 
 
 Here, in this nook, this patch, wlicic we yet feel the 
 vibrations of surroundinij London — even here. Nature, 
 constant in her beauty, blooms and smiles, uplifting the 
 heart of man, if the heart be his to own her. 
 
 Now look aside, and contemplate God's image with a 
 musket. Your bosom still expanding with gratitude to 
 Nature, for the blessings she has heaped about you, 
 behold the crowning glory of God's work managed like a 
 machine, to slay the image of God — to stain the teeming 
 earth with homicidal bluod — to fill the air with howling 
 anguish ! Is not yonder row of clowns a melancholy 
 sight ? Yet are they the sucklings of Glory — the baby 
 mighty ones of a future Gazette. Reason beholds them 
 with a deep pity. Imagination magnities them into 
 fiends of wickedness. There is carnage about them — 
 carnage, and the pestilential vapours of the slaughtered. 
 What a fine-looking thing is war ! Yet, dress it as we 
 may, dress and feather it, daub it with gold, huzza it, 
 and sing sw^aggering songs about it — what is it, nine 
 times out of ten, ]>ut Murder in uniform ? Cain, taken 
 the sergeant's shilling i 
 
 And now we hear the fifes and drums of her Majesty's 
 grenadiers. They pass on the other side ; and a crowd 
 of idlers, their hearts jumping to the music, their eyes 
 dazzled, and their feelings perverted, hang about the 
 march, and catch the infection — the love of glory ! And 
 true wisdom thinks of the world's age, and sighs at its 
 slow advance in all that really dignities man, the truest 
 dignity being the truest love for his fellow. And then 
 hope and a faith in human progress contemplate the 
 pageant, its real ghastliness disguised by outward glare 
 and frippery, and know the day will come when the 
 symbols of war will be as the sacred beasts of old 
 Eg>qit — things to mark the barbarism of by -gone war ; 
 melancholy records of the past perversity of human 
 nature. 
 
 We can imagine the deep-chested laughter — the look 
 of scorn that would annihilate, and then the small com-
 
 THE FOLLY OF THE SWOIID. 143 
 
 passion — of the Man of War, at this, the dream of folly, 
 or the wantlerings of an inflamed brain. Yet, oh, man 
 of war ! at this very moment are you shrinking, wither- 
 ing, like an aged giant. The fingers of Opinion have 
 been busy at your plumes — you are not the feathered 
 thing you were ; and then that little tube, the goose- 
 quill, has sent its silent shots into your huge anatomy ; 
 and the corroding IXK, even whilst you look at it and 
 think it shines so brightly, is eating with a tooth of rust 
 into your sword. 
 
 That a man should kill a man, and rejoice in the 
 deed — nay gather glory from it — is the act of the wild 
 animal. The force of muscle and dexterity of limb, 
 which make the wild man a conqueror, are deemed in 
 savage life man's highest attributes. The creature, 
 whom in the pride of our Cliristianity we call heathen 
 and spiritually desolate, has some personal feeling in the 
 strife — he kills his enemy, and then, making an oven of 
 hot stones, bakes his dead body, and, for crowning satis- 
 faction, cats it. Ilis enemy becomes a part of him ; 
 his glory is turned to nutriment ; and he is content. 
 ^\^lat barbarism ! Field-marshals sicken at the horror ; 
 nay, troopers shudder at the tale, like a fine lady at a 
 toad. 
 
 In what, then, consists the prime evil ? In the miir- 
 der, or the meal ? ^\^lich is the most hideous deed — to 
 kiU a man, or to cook and eat the man when killed ? 
 
 But softly, there is no murder in the case. The craft 
 of man has made a splendid ceremony of homicide — has 
 invested it with dignity. He slaughters with flags flying, 
 di-ums beating, trumpets braying. He kills according to 
 method, and has workUy honours for his grim handiwork. 
 He does not, like the unchristian savage, carry away 
 with him mortal trophies from the skulls of his enemies. 
 No ; the alchemy or magic of authority turns his well- 
 won scalps into epaulets, or hangs them in stars and 
 crosses at his button-hole ; and then, the battle over — the 
 dead not eaten, but carefully buried — and the maimed
 
 14-t THE FOLLY OF THE SWOBD. 
 
 and mangled howling and blaspheming in hospitals — 
 the meek Christian warrior marches to church, and 
 reverently folding his sweet and spotless hands, sings 
 Tc Deum. Angels waft liis fervent thanks to God, to 
 whose footstool — on the man's own faith — he has so 
 lately sent his shuddering thousands. And this spirit of 
 destruction working within him is canonized by the craft 
 and ignorance of man, and worshipped as glory ! 
 
 And this rehgion of the sword — this dazzling heathen- 
 ism, that makes a pomp of wickedness — seizes and dis- 
 tracts us, even on the threshold of life. Swords and 
 drums are our baby playthings ; the t}'pes of violence 
 and destructinii are made the pretty pastime of our 
 childhood ; and as we grow older, the outward magni- 
 6cence of the ogre Glory — his trappings and bis trum- 
 pets, liis privileges, and the songs that are shouted iu 
 liis praise — ensnare the bigger baby to his sacrifice. 
 Iliiice, slaughter becomes an exalted profession ; the 
 marked, distinguished emjilo^nnent of what, in the jargon 
 of the world, is called a gentleman. 
 
 But for this craft operating upon this ignorance, who 
 — in the name of outraged God — would become the hire- 
 ling of the Sword ? Hodge, poor fellow, enbsts. He 
 wants work ; or he is idle, dissolute. Kept, by the 
 injustice of the world, as ignorant as the farm-yard 
 swine, he is the better instrument for the World's craft. 
 His car is tickled with the fife and dnim ; or he is 
 drunk ; or the sergeant — the lying valet of glory — tells 
 a good tale, and already Hodge is a warrior in the rough. 
 In a fortnight's time you may sec him at Chatham ; or, 
 indeed, he was one of those we marked iu Birdcage 
 Walk. Day by day, the sergeant works at the block 
 ploughman, and chipping and chipping, at length carves 
 out a true, haudsume soldier of the line. What knew 
 Hodge of the responsibility of man ? What dreams had 
 he of the self-accountabihty of the human spirit ? He is 
 become the lackey of carnage, the liveried footman, at 
 a few pence per day, of fire and blood. The musket-
 
 TIIE FOLLY OF THE SWOUD. 145 
 
 stock, whicli'for niauv an hour he husjs — hugs iii sulks 
 and weariness — was no more a party to its present use, 
 than was Hodg^e. Tliat piece of walnut is the fraj^nicnt 
 of a tree which miijht have given shade and fruit for 
 another century ; homely, rustic people gathcrina; under 
 it. Now, it is the instrument of wrong and violence ; 
 the working tool of slaughter. Tree and man, are not 
 their destinies as one ? 
 
 And is Hodge alone of benighted mind ? Is he alone 
 deficient of that knowledge of moral right and wrong 
 which really and truly crowns the man, king of himself? 
 \Mien he surrenders up his nature, a mere machine with 
 human pulses, to do the bidding of war, has he taken 
 counsel with his own reflection — does he know the limit 
 of the sacrifice? lie has taken the shilling, and he 
 knows the facings of his uniform. 
 
 Wlien the born and bred gentleman, to keep to coined 
 and current terms, pays down his thousand pounds or so, 
 for his commission, what incites to the purchase ? It 
 may be the elegant idleness of the calling ; it may be 
 the bullion and glitter of the regimentals ; or, devout 
 worshipper ! it may be an unquenchable thirst for glory. 
 From the moment that his name stars the Gazette, what 
 does he become ? The bond-servant of war. Instantly, 
 he ceases to be a judge between moral right and moral 
 injury. It is his duty not to think, but to obey. He 
 has given up, surrendered to another, the freedom of his 
 sovd : he has dethroned the majesty of his own will. He 
 must be active in \vrong, and see not the injustice : shed 
 blood for craft and usurpation, calling bloodshed valour. 
 He may be made, by the iniquity of those who use him, 
 the burglar and the brigand ; but glory calls him pretty 
 names for his prowess, and the wicked weakness of the 
 world shouts and acknowledges them. And is this the 
 true condition of reasonable man ? Is it by such means 
 that he best vindicates the greatness of his mission here ? 
 Is he, when he most gives up the free motions of his 
 own soul — is he then most glorious ?
 
 146 THE FOLLY OF THE SWORD. 
 
 A few months ago, chance shewed us a band of ruffians, 
 who, as it afterwards appeared, were intent upon most 
 desperate mischief. They spread themselves over the 
 country, attacking, robbing, and murdering all who fell 
 into their hands. Men, women, and children, all suffered 
 ahke. Nor were the villains satisfied with this. In their 
 wanton rutlilessness, they set fire to cottages, and tore 
 up and destroyed plantations. Every footpace of their 
 march was marked with blood and desolation. 
 
 Wlio were these wretches? — you ask. ^\^lat place 
 did they ravage ? Were they not caught, and punished ? 
 
 They were a part of the army of Africa ; valorous 
 Frenchmen, bound for Algiers, to cut Arab throats ; and 
 in the name of glory, and for the everlasting honour of 
 France, to burn, jiillage, and despoil ; and all for national 
 honour — all for glory ! 
 
 But Glory cannot dazzle Truth. Does it not at times 
 appear no other than a highwayman, with a pistol at a 
 nation's breast? A burglar, with a crow-bar, entering 
 a kingdom. Alas I in this world there is no Old Bailey 
 for nations. Otherwise, where would have been the 
 crowned heads that divided Poland ? Those felon mo- 
 narchs, anointed to — steal ? It is ti-ue, the historian 
 claps the cut-purse conqueror in the dock, and he is tried 
 by the jury of posterity. He is past the verdict, yet is 
 not its damnatory voice lost upon generations. For thus 
 is the world taught — albeit slowly taught — true glory ; 
 when that which passed for virtue is tnily tested to be 
 vile ; when the hero is hauled from the car, and fixed for 
 ever in the pillory. 
 
 But war brings forth the heroism of the soul : war 
 tests the magnanimity of man. Sweet is the humanity 
 that spares a fallen foe ; gracious the compassion that 
 tends his wounds, that brings even a cup of water to his 
 burning lips. Granted. But is there not heroism of a 
 grander mould ? — The heroism of forbearance ? Is not 
 the humanity that refuses to strike, a nobler ^^^tue than 
 the late pity born of violence ? Pretty is it to see the
 
 THE FOLLY OF THE SWORD. 147 
 
 victor with salve and lint kneeling at his bloody trophy — 
 a maimed and agonized foUow-man, — but surely it bad 
 been better to withhold the blow, than to have been first 
 mischievous, to be afterwards humane. 
 
 That nations, professing a belief in Christ, should 
 couple glory with war, is monstrous blasphemy. Their 
 faith, their professing faith, is — "love one another:" 
 their practice is to — cut throats ; and more, to bribe and 
 hoodwink men to the wickedness, the trade of blood 
 is magnified into a virtue. We pray against battle, 
 and glorify the deeds of death. We say, beautiful are 
 the ways of peace, and then cocker ourselves upon our 
 perfect doings in the art of man-slaying. I-et us then 
 cease to pay the sacrifice of admiration to the demon — 
 War ; let us not acknowledge him as a mighty and 
 majestic principle, but, at the very best, a grim and 
 melancholy necessity. 
 
 But there always has been — there always will be, 
 war. It is inevitable ; it is a part of the condition of 
 human society. Man has always made glory to liimself 
 from the destruction of his fellow, and so it will continue. 
 It may be very pitiable ; would it were otherwise I But 
 so it is, and there is no helping it. 
 
 Happily, we are slowly killing this destructive fallacy. 
 A long breathing-time of peace has been fatal to the 
 dread magnificence of glory. Science and philosophy — 
 povera e nuda filosofial — have made good their claims, 
 inducing man to believe that he may vindicate the divinity 
 of his nature otherwise than by pei-petratiug destruc- 
 tion. He begins to think there is a better glory in the 
 communication of triumphs of mind, than in the clash of 
 steel and roar of artillery. At the present moment, a 
 society, embracing men of distant nations — " natural 
 enemies," as the old, wicked cant of the old patriotism 
 had it — is at work, plucking the plumes from Glory, 
 unbracing his armour, and divesting the ogre of all that 
 dazzled foolish and unthinking men, showing the rascal 

 
 148 THE FOLLY OF THE SWORD. 
 
 in his natural hideousness, in all his base deformity. 
 Some, too, are calculating the cost of Glory's table : 
 some showing what an appetite the demon has, devouring 
 at a meal the substance of ten thousaud sons of industry 
 — yea, eating up the wealth of kingdoms. And thus, 
 by degrees, are men beginning to look upon this god, 
 Glory, as no more than a finely-trapped Sawney Bean, — 
 a monster and a destroyer — a nuisance ; a noisy lie.
 
 ELIZABETH AND VICTOEIA. 
 
 Every generation compared to the age it immediately 
 succeeds, is but a furtlier lapse from Paradise. Every 
 grandfather is of necessity a wiser, Idnder, nobler being 
 than the grandson doomed to follow him — every grand- 
 mother chaster, gentler, more self-denying, more devoted 
 to the beauty of goodness, than the giddy, vain, thought- 
 less creature, who in her time is sentenced to be grand- 
 mother to somebody, whose still increased defects will 
 only serve to bring out the little lustre of the gentle- 
 woman who preceded her. Man, undoubtedly, had at 
 the first a fixed amount of goodness bestowed upon him ; 
 but this goodness, by being passed from generation to 
 generation, has, like a very handsome piece of coin, with 
 arms and legend in bold relief, become so worn by con- 
 tinual transit, that it demands the greatest activity of 
 faith to believe that which is now current in the world, 
 to be any portion of the identical goodness with which 
 the human race was originally endowed. Hapless crea- 
 tures are we ! Moral paupers of the nineteenth century, 
 turning a shining cheek upon one another, and by the 
 potent force of swagger, passing off our thin, worn, 
 illegible pieces of coin — how often, no thicker, no weigh- 
 tier than a spangle on a player's robe ! — when our 
 glorious ancestors, in the grandeur of their goodness, 
 could ring down musical shekels ! Nay, as we go back, 
 we find the coin of excellence so heavy, so abounding, 
 that how any man — Sampson perhaps excepted — had 
 strength enough to carry his own virtues about him, 
 puzzles the efi"eminacy of present thought. Folks then 
 were doubtless made grave, majestic in their movements 
 by the very weight of their excellence. ^Vhilst we.
 
 150 ELIZABETH AND VICTORIA. 
 
 poor anatomies — skipjacks of the nincteeuth century — 
 yvG carry all our ready virtue in either corner of our waist- 
 coat pocket, and from its very lightness, are unhappily 
 enabled to act all sorts of unhallowed capers — to forget 
 the true majesty of man in the antics of the mountebank. 
 Forlorn degradation of the human race ! 
 
 But the tears of the reader — for if he have a heart 
 of flesh, it is by this time melting in his eyes — are not 
 confidently demanded for only the one generation where- 
 of (seeing he is our reader) he is certainly not the worst 
 unit : but we here require of him to weep for posterity ; 
 yes, to subscribe a rivulet of tears for the generations 
 to come. The coinage of the virtues at present in circu- 
 lation among us is so thin, so defaced, so battered, 
 so dipt, that it appears to us wholly impossible that 
 anv portion of the currency can descend a couple of 
 generations lower. Wliat, then, is to become of our 
 grandchiltlren ? Without one particle of golden truth 
 and goodness left to them, for we cannot take into 
 account the two or three pieces hoarded — as old ladies 
 have hoarded silver pennies — what remains, what alter- 
 native for our descendants but to become a generation 
 of coiners ? Can any man withstand the terror of this 
 picture, wherein all the world are shown as so many 
 passers of pocket-pieces, lacquered over with something 
 that seems like gold and silver, but which, indeed, is 
 only seeming ? A picture wherein he who is the ablest 
 hypocrite — passing off the greatest amount of false coin 
 upon his neighbour — shall appear the most virtuous per- 
 son ? Is not this an appalling scene to contemplate ? 
 Yet, if there be any truth in a common theory, if 
 there be any veracity in the words written in a thou- 
 sand pages, uttered at every fire-side, dropt in the casual 
 meeting of man and man at door-steps, in by-lanes, 
 highways, and market-places — the picture we have sha- 
 dowed forth must become an iron present. 
 
 " We shall never see such times again !" 
 
 " The world isn't what it used to be."
 
 ELIZABETH AND VICTORIA. 151 
 
 "When I was a boy, things hadn't come to this 
 pass," 
 
 " The world gets wickeder and wickeder." 
 
 Since the builders of Babel were scattered, these 
 thoughts have been voiced in every tongue. From the 
 very discontent and fantasticalness of his nature, man 
 looks backward at the lost Paradise of another age. He 
 affects to snuff the odour of its fruits and flowers, and 
 with a melancholy shaking of the head, sees, or thinks 
 he sees, the flashing of the fiery swords that guard them. 
 And then, in the restlessness of his heart, in the 
 peevishness and discontent of his soul, he says all sorts 
 of bitter things of the generation he has fallen among ; 
 and, from the vanished glory of the past, predicts in- 
 creasing darkness for the future. Happily, the pro- 
 phesying cannot be true ; and happily, too, for the 
 condition of the prophet, he knows it Avill not. But 
 then there is a sort of comfort in the waywardness of 
 discontent ; at times, a soothing music to the restless- 
 ness of the sold in the deep bass of hearty grumbling. 
 
 The ingratitude of the act is entirely forgotten in 
 the pleasure. "Ha! those were the merry days — the 
 golden times of England they were ! " May not this 
 be heard from the tradesman, the mechanic, as he is 
 borne past Tilbm-y Fort, and the thoughts of Queen 
 Elizabeth, of her " golden days," ring in his brain ; 
 and living only in the nineteenth centm-y, he has some 
 vague, perplexing notion that he has missed an Eden, 
 only by a hundred years or two. He thinks not — why 
 should he ? — of the luxm-y he now pm'chases for a shil- 
 ling ; a luxury, not compassable in those golden days 
 by all the power and wealth of all the combining sove- 
 reigns of the earth ; for he is a passenger of a 
 Gravesend steam-boat, the fare twelvepence. 
 
 We would not forget that wonder of Ehzabeth's navy, 
 the Great Harry. No ; we would especially remember 
 it, to compare the marvel, with all its terrors, to the 
 agent of our day, which wrought and directed from a
 
 J 52 ELIZABETH AXD VICTORIA. 
 
 few gallons of water, makes the winged ship hut as a log 
 — a dead leviathan upon the deep ; which, in the cer- 
 tainty and intensity of its power of destruction must, in 
 the fulness of time, make hlood-spilling war bankrupt, 
 preaching peace with all men, even from " the cannon's 
 mouth." 
 
 We are, however, a degenerate race. In our maudlin 
 sensibility, we have taken under our protection the very 
 brutes of the earth — the fowls of the air — the fish of the 
 sea. We have east the majesty of the law around the asses 
 of the reign of Victoria — have assured to live geese a pro- 
 perty in their own feathers — have, with a touch of tender- 
 ness, denounced the wood-plugged claws of the lob- 
 sters of Billingsgate. We have a society, whose motto, 
 spiritually, is — 
 
 " Never to link our pleasure or our pride 
 With suffering of the meanest thing that lives." 
 
 Very different, indeed, was the spirit of the English 
 people, when their good and gracious Queen Elizabeth 
 smiled sweetly upon bull-dogs, and found national music 
 in the growl, the roar, and the yell of a bear-garden ; 
 whereto, in all the courtesy of a nobler and more virtuous 
 age, the sovereign led the French ambassador ; that, as 
 chroniclers tell us. Monsieur might arrive at a sort of 
 comparative knowledge of English bravery, judging the 
 courage of the people by the stubborn daring of their 
 dogs. 
 
 Then we had no Epsom, with its high moralities — no 
 Ascot, with its splendour and wealth. Great, indeed, 
 was the distance — deep the abyss — between the sove- 
 reign and the sovereign people. 
 
 And in those merry, golden days of good Queen Bess, 
 rank was something ; it had its brave outside, and 
 preached its high prerogative from externals. The 
 nobleman declared his nobility by his cloak, doublet, and 
 jerkin ; by the plumes in liis hat ; by the jewels flashing 
 in his shoes. Society, in all its gradations, was inexo- 
 rably marked by the tailor and goldsmith.
 
 ELIZABETH AND VICTORIA. 153 
 
 But what is the tailor of the nineteenth century ? 
 What doth he for nohiHty? Alas! next to nothing. The 
 gentleman is no longer the creature of the tailor's hands 
 — the being of his shopboard. The gentleman must 
 dress himself in ease, in affability, in the gentler and 
 calmer courtesies of life, to make distinguishable the 
 nobility of his nature from the homeliness, the vulgarity 
 of the very man Avho, it may be, finds nobility in shoe- 
 leather. Thus, gentility of blood, deprived by innovation 
 of its external livery — denied the outward marks of 
 supremacy — is thrown upon its bare self to make good 
 its prerogative. Manner must now do the former duty 
 of fine clothes. 
 
 State, too, was, in the blessed times of Elizabeth, a 
 most majestic matter. The queen's carriage, unUke 
 Victoria's, was a vehicle wondrous in the eyes of men as 
 the chariot of King Pharoah. Now, does every poor 
 man keep his coach — price sixpence ! How does the 
 economy of luxury vulgarize the indulgence ! 
 
 Travelling was then a grave and serious adventure. The 
 horse-litter was certainly a more dignified means of 
 transit than the fuming, boiUng, roaring steam-engine, 
 that rushes forward with a man as though the human 
 anatomy was no more than a woolpack. In the good old 
 times of Queen Bess, a man might take his five long 
 days and more for a himdred miles, putting up, after a 
 week's jolting, at his hostelry, the Queen's Head of 
 Islington, for one good night's rest, ere he should gird 
 up his loins to enter London. Now, is man taught to 
 lose all respect for the hoariness of time by the quickness 
 of motion. Now, may he pass over two hundred miles 
 in some seven or eight hours if he will, taking his first 
 meal in the heart of Lancashire, and his good-night 
 glass at a Geneva palace in London. Is it wonderful 
 that our present days should abound more in sinful levity 
 than the days of the good Queen Elizabeth, seeing that 
 we may, in the same space of time, crowd so much more 
 iniquity ? The truth is, science has thrown so many
 
 154 ELIZABETH AND VICTORIA. 
 
 hours upon our hands, that we are compelled to kill them 
 with all sorts of arrows — which, as moralists declare, 
 have mortal poison at the barb, however gay and bril- 
 liant may be the feathers that carry it home. Dreadful 
 will be the time when that subtle fiend, science, shall 
 perform nearly all human drudgery ; for then men in 
 their very idleness will have nought else to destroy 
 save their own souls ; and the destruction will, of course, 
 be quicker, and, to the father of all mischief, much more 
 satisfactory. 
 
 Again, in the good times of Elizabeth, humanity was 
 blessed with a modesty, a deference — in these days of 
 bronze, to be vainly sought for — towards the awfulness 
 of power, the grim majesty of authority. And if, indeed, 
 it happened that some outrageous wretch, forgetfid of 
 the purpose of nature in creating him the Queen's liege- 
 man, and therefore her property — if, for a moment, he 
 should cease to remember the fealty which, by the prin- 
 ciple of the divine right of kings, should be vital to him 
 as the blood in his veins — why, was there not provided 
 for him, by the benignity of custom and the law, a salu- 
 tary remedy ? If he advanced a new opinion, had he 
 not ears wherewith, by hangman's surgery, he might be 
 cured of such disease ? If he took a mistaken view of 
 the rights of his feUow-subjects, might he not be taught 
 to consider them from a higher point of elevation, and so 
 be instructed ? 
 
 Booksellers, in the merry time of Elizabeth, were 
 enabled to vindicate a higher claim to moral and physical 
 daring than is permitted to them in these dull and driv- 
 elling days. He who published a book, questioning — 
 though never so gently — the prerogative of her Majesty 
 to do just as the spirit should move her, might have his 
 right hand chopped oflP, and afterwards — there have been 
 examples of such devotion — wave his bloody stump, with 
 a loyal shout of " God save the Queen ! " But these 
 were merry days — golden days — in which the royal pre- 
 rogative was more majestic, more awful, than in the
 
 ELIZABETH AND VICTORIA. 155 
 
 nineteenth century. And wherefore ? The reason is 
 plain as the Queen's arms. 
 
 The king of beasts Hves on flesh. His carnivorousness 
 is one of the great elements of his majesty. So was it in 
 the times of Elizabeth, with the Queen's prerogative. It 
 was for the most part fed upon flesh. It would be a 
 curious, an instructive calculation, could we arrive at the 
 precise number of noses, and arms, and hands, and 
 human heads, and quarters of human carcases, which — 
 during the merry, golden reign of Elizabeth, of those 
 days we shall never see again — were required by law to 
 keep strong and lusty the prerogative of the Virgin 
 Queen ! How, as the human head festered and rotted 
 above the city gates, was the prerogative sweetened by 
 the putrefaction ! And then the daily lessons preached 
 by the mute horror of the dead man's mouth, to the 
 human life daily passing beneath it ! ^V^lat precepts of 
 love and gentleness towards all men fell from the shri- 
 velled lips — what Christianity gleamed from the withered 
 eye-balls ! How admirably were the every-day thoughts 
 of men associated with prerogative, its majesty for ever 
 preached by dead men's tongues — its beauty visible in 
 dead men's flesh. Those were the golden days — the 
 merry days — we shall never see such times again. Now, 
 a poor and frivolous race, we pass beneath Temple Bar, 
 untaught by the grim moralities that from its height 
 were wont to instruct our forefathers. In the days of 
 Elizabeth, we might have lounged at the door of the city 
 shopkeeper, and whilst chafi"ering for a commodity of this 
 world, have had our thoughts elevated by a consideration 
 of the ghastly skull — grinning a comment upon all earthly 
 vanities — above us. Those days are gone — past for ever. 
 We have now plate-glass and dainty painting, and pre- 
 cious woods, in the shops of our tradesmen, but nought to 
 take us from the vanity of life — no prerogative of a 
 Virgin Queen, in the useful semblance of a memento mori. 
 
 It is to the want of such stern yet wholesome monitors,
 
 15G ELIZABETH AND VICTORIA. 
 
 we are doubtless to attribute tbe decay of the national 
 character. We are sunk in effeminacy ; withered by the 
 fond ministerings of science. The road of life — which, 
 by its ruggedness, was wont to try the sinews of our 
 Elizabethan ancestors — we, their degenerate children, 
 have spread as with a carpet, and hung the walls around 
 us with radiant tapestry. The veriest household drudge 
 of our time is a Sardanapalus compared to the lackey of 
 the Virgin Queen. The tatterdemahon who lives on 
 highway alms may look down upon the beggar of Eliza- 
 beth ; for the mendicant of Victoria may, with his 
 prayod-for pence, pm-chase luxuries unknown to the 
 Dives of former days. 
 
 And what — if we listen to complaining patriotism — 
 what is the evil born of this ? A loss of moral energy ; 
 a wasting away of national fibre. Believe this melan- 
 choly philosophy, and national weakness came in (a 
 moral moth in the commodity) with silk stockings. Ere 
 then was the bearing of man more majestic in the eyes of 
 angels ! For then was the sword the type of station ; 
 a gentleman no more appearing abroad without his 
 rapier than a wasp without its sting. Human life coidd 
 not but lose part of its dignity with its cold steel. What 
 a fine comment on the charity, the gentleness, the 
 humanity of his fellow-men, did every gentleman wear 
 at his side ! He was, in a manner, his own law-maker, 
 his own executioner. In the judgment of later philosophy, 
 we are prone to believe that the said gentlemen may 
 appear, at the best, ferocious simpletons — creatures 
 swaggering " between heaven and earth," with their 
 hands upon their hilts, ready and yearning for a thrust 
 at those who took the wall of their gentihty. Ha ! 
 those, indeed, were the good old days ! And then came 
 a whining, curd-complexioned benevolence, and in pro- 
 gress of time, its thin, white, womanly fingers unbuckled 
 the sword-belt of the bully, and organized police. Sword- 
 makers were banki-upt, and human nature lost a grace !
 
 ELIZABETH AND VICTORIA. 157 
 
 Thus, it appears, tlie world has been from age to age 
 declining in. virtue, and can only escape the very profound 
 of iniquity by a speedy dissolution. Every half-dozen 
 years or so, a prophet growls from a collar, or cries from 
 the altitude of a garret, the advent of the last day. An 
 earthquake, or some other convulsion (the particulars of 
 which are only vouchsafed to the prophet) is to destroy 
 the earth, or London at least ; whereupon old gentlemen 
 remove to Gravesend, and careful housewives take stock 
 of their plate. Now, every such prophecy, instead of 
 bewildering honest people with all sorts of fears, and all 
 sorts of anxieties for their personal property, ought to 
 make them sing thanksgiving songs for the promised 
 blessing. It being the creed of these people that the 
 world gets worse and worse, they would at least have 
 the comfort to know that they had seen the last of its 
 wickedness. For a moment, reader, we will suppose 
 you one of these. Consider, upon your own faith, what 
 a terrible wretch will necessarily be your great-great- 
 great-great-great-grandson ! Well, would it not be 
 satisfaction to you that this dragon (we believe dragons 
 are oviparous) should be crushed in the egg of the 
 future ? How would you like your own flesh and blood 
 inevitably changed by the course of time into the anatomy 
 of something very like a demon ? You are bad enough 
 as you are ; that dismal truth your own humihty 
 preaches to you ; to say nothing of the plain-speaking 
 of your neighbours. No ; out of pure love and pity for 
 humanity, you ought to wish all the world to stop with 
 your own pulse. It is hard enough now, even for the 
 best of us, to keep on the respectable side of the statutes ; 
 but, with the growing wickedness of the world, we should 
 like to know what sort of metal will the laws be made of. 
 The great social link must, inevitably, be a fetter. 
 
 How often have we stood, with the unseen tears in 
 our eyes, watching the nobility of the land, in nobility's 
 best bib and tucker, winding in golden line to the 
 drawing-room of Queen Victoria ! Alas ! degenerate
 
 158 ELIZABETH AND VICTORIA. 
 
 (lukcs — faded duchesses. Afarquises fallen upon evil 
 times — marchionesses very dim indeed ! \Miat are you 
 to the nobility of Elizabeth ? ^Vhat to the ^andees of 
 those merry days, the golden shadow of which is bright- 
 ness itself to the cold, grey glimmering of the present ? 
 We have yet one thought to comfort us ; and that is, a 
 half behef that the court of EUzabeth was lield as 
 notliing to all courts preceding ; and so back, until 
 Englishmen mourned over the abomination of cloaks 
 and vests, sorrowing for those golden days, those good 
 old times of the painted Britons ! Great was the 
 virtue abounding in Koad ; grievous the wilful iniquity 
 woven in broad-cloth. 
 
 Queen EUzabeth died — fair, regal bud! — in the 
 sweetness of virginity ; and though the sun (by some 
 despairing effort) managed to rise the next morning, it 
 has never been wholly itself since. She died, and was 
 brought to Whitehall, to the great calamity of the fish 
 then swimming in the river ; for a poet of the day, 
 quoted by Camden, has eternized the evil that in the 
 hour fell upon Thames flounders : — 
 
 " The Quecne was brought by water to Whitehall ; 
 At every stroke the oares teares let fall ; 
 More clung about the barge ; fish under water 
 Wept out tlieir eyes of pearle, and steame blinde after. 
 I think the bargemen might with easier thighes 
 Have rowed her thither in her people's eyes. 
 Yet, howsoere, thus much my thoughts have scann'd, 
 She 'd come by water, had she come by land." 
 
 So closed the golden days of Queen Elizabeth ; leaving 
 us, in all the virtues and comforts of the world, the 
 bankrupt children of Queen Victoria ! 
 
 Unworthy is he of the balmy sweetness of this blessed 
 May who can think so ! A churlish, foolish, moody 
 traitor to the spirit of goodness and beauty that, as 
 with the bounty of the sun and air, calls up forms of 
 loveliness in his path, and surrounds him with ten 
 thousand household blessings ! With active presencse,
 
 ELIZABETH AND VICTORIA. 159 
 
 which the poet of Elizabeth, in even his large love for 
 man, could scarce have dreamed of ; or, dreaming, 
 seen thcnT as a part of fairy fantasy — a cloud-woven 
 pageant ! 
 
 Let the man who lives by his daily sweat pause in 
 his toil, and, with his foot upon his spade, watch the 
 white smoke that floats in the distance ; listen to the 
 lesseninjT thunder of the entjine that, instinct with 
 Vulcanic life, has rushed, devouring space, before it. 
 That little curl of smoke hangs in the air a thing of 
 blessed promise — that roar of the engine is the melody 
 of hope to unborn generations. But now, the digger of 
 the soil looks moodily at that vapour, and his heart is 
 festering with the curse upon the devil Steam ; that 
 fiend that grinds his bones beneath the wheels of British 
 Juffffcrnaut. Poor creature ! The seeming demon 
 is a beneficent presence that, in the ripeness of time, 
 will work regeneration of the hopes of men. 
 
 Let the poor man — the mechanic of a town — ^look 
 around him. Let him in his own house, humble though 
 it be, acknowledge the presence of a thousand comforts 
 which, had he lived two centuries ago, he could not with 
 a baron's wealth have purchased. Not mere creature 
 enjoyments ; but humanizing, refining pleasures, drawing 
 man nearer to man, expanding the human heart, and 
 imparting to humanity the truest greatness in the 
 jjreatest gentleness. 
 
 " What ! " it may be asked — " can you have the 
 hardihood, or the ignorance, to vaunt these days above 
 the days of Elizabeth ? These days, with famine 
 throwing the shuttle — with ignorance, wholly brutish, 
 digging in the pit — with gold, a monster all brain, and 
 so the very worst of monsters — dominating through- 
 out the land, and crushing the pulses of thousands 
 within its hard, relentless grasp ? Would you not 
 rather pray for a return of those merry, merry days, 
 when men were whipped, imprisoned, branded, burnt, at 
 little more than the mere will of Majesty, for mere
 
 ICO ELIZABETH AND VICTORIA. 
 
 opinion — but who bad, nevertheless, bacon and bread 
 and ale sufficient to the day ? " 
 
 No ; we would go no step backward, but many in 
 advance ; our faith still increasing in the enlarged 
 sympathies of men ; in the reverence which man has 
 learned and is still learning to pay towards the nature 
 of his fellow-men ; in the deep belief that whatever 
 change may and must take place in the social fabric, — 
 we have that spirit of wisdom and tolerance (certainly 
 7iot a social creature of the golden days) waxing strong 
 anions: us, — so stron*; that the fabric will be altered 
 and repaired brick by brick, and stone by stone. Mean- 
 while, the scaffolding is fast growing up about it.
 
 THE ORDER OF POVERTY. 
 
 Why shoulil not Lazarus make to himself an order of 
 tatters ? Wliy should not poverty have its patch tf 
 honour ? Wherefore should not the undubhed knights 
 of evil fortune carry about them, with a gracious humility, 
 the inevitable types of their valorous contest with tLe 
 Paynim iniquities of life ? Whi-refore may not man 
 wear indigence as proudly as nobility flashes its jewels ? 
 Is there not a higher hcraldrv than that of the collefje ? 
 
 Not a very long time ago, the King of Greece awarded 
 to an Enjrlishman the Order of the Redeemer. The En- 
 glishman did not reject the gift ; he did not stare with 
 wonder, or smile in meek pity at the grave mockery of 
 the distinction ; but winning the consent of our Sove- 
 reign Lady Victoria to sport the jewel, the Knight of 
 Christ — kniiiht bv the handiwork of the King of Greece 
 — hung about him tlie Order of the Redeemer ! 
 
 And what may he the gracious discipline of this 
 Order of Redemption ? lias the new Knight sold off 
 all that he had, and given the money to the poor ? 
 We have heard of no such broker's work ; and fiurely 
 the newspaper tongue would have given loud utterance 
 to the penitence of Mammon. What discipline, then, 
 does this Order of Christ compel upon its holy and 
 immaculate brotherhood ? What glorifying services 
 towards the heart and spirit of man — what self-majtyr- 
 dom does it recompense ? Is it the bright reward of 
 humility — of active loving-kindness towards everytliing 
 that breathes ? Is it, that the knighted, beyond ten thou- 
 sand thousand men, has proved tlie divine temper of the 
 spiritual follower of Jesus, making his hourly life an 
 active goodness, and with every breath drawn, drawing 
 
 M
 
 162 THE ORDER OF rOTERTT. 
 
 nearer to rewarding Heaven ? Surely, the Order of 
 the Redeemer — that awful, solemn badge, setting apart 
 its wearer from the sordid crowd of earth — could onlv 
 be vouchsafed to some hard Christian service, — could 
 only reward some triumphant wrestling of the suffering 
 soul — some wondrous victory in the forlorn hope of this 
 dark struggling life. These are our thoughts — these 
 our passionate words ; whereupon, the Herald of the 
 Court of Greece — a grave, fantastic wizard — with mildly- 
 reproving look and most delicate speech, says — " You 
 are wrong : quite wrong. The Order of the Redeemer, 
 though by no means the first Order, is- a very pretty 
 Order in its way. Six months since we gave it to Captain 
 Jonquil, from Paris ; and truly no man more deserved 
 the Order of the Redeemer. He taught His Ma- 
 jesty's infantry the use of the bayonet : his howitzer 
 practice, too, is a divine thing. Captain Jonquil is a 
 great soldier. Last week, the Order of the Redeemer 
 was also bestowed upon Andreas ; a great favourite at 
 court — hut, if the naughty truth must he told, a pimp." 
 
 Alas ! is heraldry always innocent of blasphemy ? 
 
 On the l:3th of June, 184-3, a grave masque — a 
 solemn ceremony — was held at the Court of St. James's. 
 Heraldry again looked smug and pompous. A Knight 
 was to be made of " the most ancient Order of the 
 Thistle." Let us make a clean breast of our ignorance ; 
 ■we assert nothing against the antiquity of the Thistle ; 
 for what we know, it may be as old — ay, as old as 
 asses. But upon the glad 1 3th of June, a Chapter was 
 held, and John, Marquis of Bute, and the Rigl.t Hon. 
 William, Earl of Mansfield, were elected Knights. They 
 of course took the oaths to protect and succour distressed 
 maidens, orphans, and widows ; to abstain from every 
 sort of wrong, and to do every sort of right. 
 
 "The M.irquis of Bute then kneeling near the Sovereign, and Mr. 
 Woods on his knee, presenting to the Queen the riband and jewel of 
 the Order, Her Majesty was graciously pleased to place the same over 
 the noble Marquis's left shoulder. His Lordship rising, kissed the 
 Sovereign's hand, and having received the congratulations of the Knights 
 brethren, retired."
 
 THE ORDER OF POVERTY. 1G3 
 
 From that moment, John, Marquis of Bute, looked 
 and moved with tlie aspect and bearing of a man, 
 radiant wiHi new honours. He was a Knight of the 
 Thistle ; and the jewel sparkling at his bosom feebly 
 typified the bright, admiring looks of the world — the 
 gaze of mingled love and admiration bent upon him. 
 But on this earth — in this abiding-place of equity — men 
 do not get even thistles for nothing. It may, indeed, 
 happen, that desert may pant and moan without honour ; 
 but in the court of kings, where justice Aveighs with 
 nicest balance, honour never with its smiles mocks imbe- 
 cility, or gilds with outward lustre a concealed rottenness. 
 Honour never gives alms, but awards justice. Alendi- 
 cancy, though with liveried lackies clustering at its car- 
 riiige, — and there is such pauperism, — may whine and 
 pray its hardest, yet move not the inflexible herald. 
 He awards those jewels to virtue, which virtue has 
 sweated, bled for. And it is with this belief, yea, in the 
 very bigotry of the creed, we ask — what has John, 
 Marquis of Bute, fulfilled to earn his thistle ? ^^^lat, 
 the Right Hon. William, Earl of Mansfield ? What dragon 
 wrong has either overcome ? What giant Untruth stormed 
 in Sophist Castle ? What necromantic wickedness baffled 
 and confounded ? Yet, these battles have been fought 
 — these triumphs won ; oh ! who shall doubt them ? 
 Be sure of it, ye imbelieving demagogues — scoffing ple- 
 beians, not for nothing nobility browses upon thistles. 
 
 We pay all honour to these inventions, these learned 
 devices of the Herald. They doubtless clothe, comfort, 
 and adorn humanity, which, without them, would be 
 cold, naked, shrunk, and squalid. They, moreover, 
 gloriously attest the supremacy of the tame, the civilized 
 man, over the wild animal. The Orders of the Herald 
 are tattoo without the pain of puncture. The New Zea- 
 lander carries his knighthood, lifled and starred and 
 flowered in his visage. The civilized knight hang-s it 
 more conveniently on a riband. 
 
 We are such devout believers in the efficacy of Orders, 
 
 m2
 
 164 THE ORDER OF POVERTY. 
 
 that we devote this small essay to an attempt to make 
 them, under some phase or other, imiversal. We will 
 not linger in a consideration of the Oi'ders already dead ; 
 lovely was their life, and as fragrant is their memory. 
 There was one Order — Teutonic, if we mistake not, the 
 Order of Fools. There was a quaint sincerity in the 
 very title of this brotherhood. Its philosophy was out- 
 speaking ; and more than all, the constitution of such a 
 chapter admitted knights against whose worthiness, 
 whose peculiar right to wear the badge, no envious 
 demagogue could say his bitter saying. Surely, in our 
 reverence for the wisdom of antiquit}', this Order might 
 have resurrection. The Fool might have his bauble newly 
 varnished — his cap newly hung with tinkling bells. 
 Some of us chirp and cackle of the wisdom of the by- 
 gone day ; but that is only wisdom which jumps with 
 our own cunning ; which fortifies us in the warm and 
 quiet nook of some hallowed prejudice. From the mere 
 abstract love of justice, we should be right glad to have 
 the Order of Fools revived in the fullest splendour of 
 Folly. Such an Order would so beneficently provide 
 for many unrewarded public idlers — ay, and pubhc 
 workers. 
 
 There was a time, when the world in its first childhood 
 needed playthings. Then was the Herald the worlds 
 toy-maker, and made for it pretty little nick-knacks — 
 golden fleeces — stars, ribands and garters ; tempting 
 the world to follow the kickshaws, as nurse with sugared 
 bread-and-butter tempts the yeanling to try its tottering 
 feet. The world has grown old — old and wise : yet is 
 not the Herald bankrupt, but Hke a pedlar at a fair, 
 draws the hearts of simple men after the shining, silken 
 glories in his box. Meanwhile, philosophy in hodden 
 grey, laughs at the crowd, who bellow back the laugh, 
 and sometimes pelt the reverend fool for his irreligious 
 humour ; for he who believes not in Stars and Gartei s 
 is unbehever ; to the world's best and brightest faiih, 
 atheist and scoifer.
 
 THE ORDER OF POVERTY. 10.') 
 
 Is it not strange that a man should think the better 
 of himself for a few stones glittering in his bosom ? 
 That a costly band about the leg should make the blood 
 dance more swiftly through tlie arteries ? That a man 
 seeing his breast set with jewellers' stars, should think 
 them glorious as the stars of heaven, — himself, little less 
 than an earthly god, so deified ? If these things be 
 really types and emblems of true greatness, what rascal 
 poverty besets the man -without them ! How is he 
 damned in his baseness I What mere offal of humanity, 
 the biped without an Order ! And, therefore, let stars 
 be multiplied ; and let nobility — like bees — suck honey 
 from Thistles ! 
 
 We are, however, confirmed in our late failing faith. 
 We are bigoted to Orders. Men, like watches, must 
 work the better upon jewels. Man is, at the best, a 
 puppet ; and is only put into dignified motion when 
 pulled by Blue or Red Ribands. Now, as few, indeed, 
 of us can get stars, garters, or ribands, let us have Orders 
 of our own. Let us, with invincible self-complacency, 
 ennoble ourselves. 
 
 In the hopeless ignorance and vulgarity of our first 
 prejudice, we might possibly want due veneration for the 
 Golden Fleece ; an ancient and most noble Order, worn 
 by few. Yet with all our worst carelessness towards the 
 Order, we never felt for it the same pitying contempt 
 we feel towards an Order worn by many — not at their 
 button-holes, not outside their breasts, but in the very 
 core of their hearts, — the Order of the Golden Calf. 
 
 Oh ! bowelless Plutus, what a host of Knights ! 
 What a lean-faced, low-browed, thick-jowled, swag-bellied 
 brotherhood ! Deformity, in all its fantastic vai'iety, 
 meets in the Chapter. They wear no armour of steel or 
 brass, but are cased in the magic mail of impenetrable 
 Bank-paper. They have no sword, no spear, no iron 
 mace with spikes ; but they ride merrily into the fight 
 of life, swinging about gold-gutted purses, and levelling 
 with the dust rebellious poverty. These are the Knights
 
 106 THE ORDER OF POVERTY. 
 
 of the Golden Calf. It is a glorious community. What 
 a look of easy triumph they have ! With what serene 
 self-satisfaction they measure the wide distance between 
 mere paupers — the Kniglits of the Order of Nothing — 
 and themselves ! How they walk the earth as if they 
 alone possessed the patent of walking upright ! How 
 they dilate in the light of their own gold, like adders in 
 the sun ! 
 
 A most fatal honour is this Order of the Golden Calf. 
 It is worn unseen, as we have said, in the hearts of 
 men ; hut its effects are visible : the disease speaks out 
 in every atom of flesh — poor human worm's-meat ! 
 — and throbs in every muscle. It poisons the soul ; 
 gives the eye a squint ; takes from the face of fellow-man 
 its God-gifted dignity, and makes him a thing to prey 
 upon : to work, to use up ; to reduce to so much hard 
 cash ; then to be put up, with a wary look of triumph, 
 into the pocket. This Order damns with a leprosy of 
 soul its worshipper. It blinds and deafens him to the 
 glories and the harmonies ministrant to poorer men. 
 His eye is jaundiced, and in the very stars of God he 
 sees nous^ht but twinklincr ijuineas. 
 
 At this moment great is the Order throughout the 
 land ! Tvrannous its laws, reckless its doinijs. It is 
 strong, and why should it be just ? To be of this 
 Order is now the one great striving of life. They alone 
 are men who wear the jewel — wretches they without 
 it. Man was originally made from the dust of the 
 earth : he is now formed of a richer substance • the 
 true man is made of gold. Yes, the regenerate Adam 
 is struck only at the Mint. 
 
 The Knights of the Order of the Golden Calf have 
 no formal ceremony of election ; yet has brother Knight 
 almost instinctive knowledge of brother. In the solitude 
 of his own thoughts is he made one of the community ; 
 in utter privacy he kisses the pulseless hand of Plutus, 
 and swears to his supremacy. The oath divorces him 
 from pauper-life — from its cares, its Avants, its sym-
 
 THE ORDER OP POVERTT, 167 
 
 pathics. He is privileged from the uneasiness of tliouglit, 
 the wear and tear of anxiety for fellow-man ; he is eoni- 
 pact, and «elf-concentrated in his selfishness. Nought 
 ruffles him that touches not that inmost jewel of his soul, 
 his knighthood's Order. 
 
 In the olden day, the Knights of the Fleece, the 
 Garter, and other glories, won their rank upon the 
 hattle-field, — hlood and strife being to them the hand- 
 maids of honour. The chivalry of the Golden Calf is mild 
 and gentle. It splits no brain-pan, spills no blood ; yet 
 is it ever fightinc:. We are at the Exchann^e. Look at 
 
 CI c> o 
 
 that easy, peaceful man. What a serenity is upon his 
 cheek ! What a mild lustre in his eye ! How plainly 
 is he habited ! He wears the livery of simplicity and 
 the look of peace. Yet has he in his heart the Order 
 of the Golden Calf. He is one of Mammon's boldest 
 heroes. A very soldier of fortune. He is now fighting 
 — fighting valorously. He has come armed with a bran- 
 new lie — a falsehood of surpassing temper, which Avith 
 wondrous quietude he lays about him, making huge 
 gashes in the money-bags of those he fights with. A 
 good foreign lie, well finished and well mounted, is to 
 this Knight of the Golden Calf as the sword of Faery to 
 Orlando. With it he sometimes cuts down giant for- 
 tunes ; and after, " grinds their bones to make his 
 bread." 
 
 And there are small esquires and pages of the Order ; 
 men who, with heart-felt veneration, lick their lips at 
 the Golden Calf, and with more than bridegroom vearn- 
 ing pant for possession. These small folk swarm like 
 summer-gnats ; and still they drone the praises of the 
 Calf ; and looking at no other thing, have their eyes 
 bleared and dazzled to all beside. 
 
 The Knights of the Golden Calf shed no blood ; that 
 is, the wounds they deal bleed inwardly, and give no 
 evidence of homicide. They are, too, great consumers 
 of the marrow of men ; and yet they break no bones, 
 but by a trick known to their Order extract without frac-
 
 JOS THE ORDER OF POVERTY. 
 
 turc precious nutriment. They are great alchemists, 
 too ; and turn the sweat of unrequited jioverty, aye, the 
 tears of childhood, into drops of gold. 
 
 Much wrong, much violence, much wayward cruelty — 
 if the true history of knighthood were indicted — lies 
 upon the Fleece, the Garter, yes, upon the Templars' 
 Lanih ; — yet all is but as May-day pastime to the 
 voracity, the ignorance, the wilful selfishness, the bestial 
 lowiugs, of the Golden Calf. And of this Order, the 
 oldest of the brotherhood are the most gluttonous. There 
 is one whose every fibre is blasted with age. To the 
 imagination his face is as a coffin-plate. Yet is he all 
 belly. As cruel as a cat, though toothless as a bird ! 
 
 Oh, ye knights, great and small — whether expanding 
 on the mart, or lying perdu in back-parlours, — fling 
 from your hearts the Order there, and feel for once the 
 warmth of kindly blood ! The brotherhood chuckle at 
 the adjuration. Well, let us fight the Order with an 
 Order. 
 
 The Order of Poverty against the Order of the Golden 
 Calf ! 
 
 Will it not be a merry time, when men, with a blithe 
 face and open look, shall confess that they are poor ? 
 ^V^hen they shall be to the world what they are to them- 
 selves ? When the lie, the shuffle, the bland, yet 
 anxious hypocrisy of seeming, and seeming only, shall 
 be a creed forsworn ? When Poverty asserts itself, and 
 never blushes and stammers at its true name, the Knights 
 of the Calf must give ground. Much of their strength, 
 their poor renown, their miserable glory, lies in the 
 hypocrisy of those who would imitate them. They be- 
 lieve themselves great, because the poor, in the very 
 ignorance of the dignity of poverty, would ape their 
 magnificence. 
 
 The Order of Poverty I How many sub-orders might 
 it embrace ! As the spirit of Gothic chivalry has its 
 fraternities, so might the Order of Poverty have its dis- 
 tinct devices.
 
 THE ORDER OF POVERTY. 169 
 
 The Order of the Thistle ! That is an order for 
 iiobihty — a glory to glorify marquisate or earldom. 
 Can we not, under the rule of Poverty, find as happy a 
 badge ? 
 
 Look at this peasant. Ilis face bronzed with mid- 
 day toil. From sun-rise to sunset, with cheerful looks 
 and uncomplaining words, he turns the primal curse to 
 dignity, and manfully earns his bread in the sweat of 
 his brow. Look at the fields around ! Golden with 
 blessed corn. Look at this bloodless soldier of the 
 plough — this hero of the sickle. His triumphs are there, 
 piled up in bread-bestowing sheaves. Is he not Sir 
 Knight of the Wheat-Ear ? Surely, as truly dubbed in 
 the heraldry of justice, as any Knight of the Thistle. 
 
 And hei-e is a white-haired shepherd. As a boy, a 
 child, playful as the lambs he tended, he laboured. Ho 
 has dreamed away his life upon a hill-side — on downs — 
 on solitary heaths. The humble, simple, patient watcher 
 for fellow-men. Solitude has been his companion : he 
 has grown old, wrinkled, bent in the eye of the burning 
 sun. His highest wisdom is a guess at the coming 
 weather : he may have heard of diamonds, but he knows 
 the evening star. He has never sat at a congress of 
 kings : he has never helped to commit a felony upon a 
 whole nation. Yet is he, to our mind, a most reverend 
 Knight of the Fleece. If the Herald object to this, let 
 us call him Knight of the Lamb ! In its gentleness and 
 patience, a fitting type of the poor old shepherd. 
 
 And here is a pauper, missioned from the workhouse 
 to break stones at the road-side. How he strikes and 
 strikes at that unyielding bit of flint ! Is it not the 
 stony heart of the world's injustice knocked at by 
 poverty ? ^Yhat haggardness is in his face I '^^^lat a 
 blight hangs about him ! There are more years in his 
 looks than in his bones. Time has marked him with an 
 iron pen. He wailed as a babe for bread his father was 
 not allowed to earn. He can recollect every dinner — • 
 they were so few — of his childliood. He grew up, and
 
 170 TIIE ORDER OF POVERTY. 
 
 want was with him, even as his shadow. lie has shivered 
 witli cold — fainted with hiuiger. His every day of hfc 
 has heen set about hy goading wretchedness. Around 
 him, too, were the stores of plenty. Food, raiment, and 
 money mocked the man made half mad with destitution. 
 Yet, with a valorous heart, a proud comiucst of the 
 shudderinir sitirit, he walked with honestv and starved. 
 His long journey of life hath been through thorny places, 
 and now he sits upon a pile of stones on the way-side, 
 breaking tliem for workhouse bread. Could loftiest 
 chivalry show greater heroism — nobler self-control, than 
 this old man, this weary breaker of flints ? Shall he 
 not be of the Order of Poverty ? Is not penury to him 
 even as a robe of honour ? His grey workhouse coat 
 braver than purple and miniver ? He shall be Knight 
 of the Granite if you will. A workhouse gem, indeed — 
 a wretched, highway jewel — yet, to the eye of truth, 
 finer than many a ducal diamond. 
 
 This man is a weaver ; this a potter. Here, too, is a 
 razor-giinder ; here an iron-worker. Labour is their 
 lot ; labour they yearn for, though to some of them labour 
 comes with miserable disease and early death. Have 
 we not here Knights of the Shuttle, Knights of Clay, 
 and Kiiiglits of Vulcan, who prepare the carcase of the 
 mant engine for its vital flood of steam ? Are not these 
 among the noblest of the sons of Poverty ? Shall they 
 not take hiirh rank in its Order ? 
 
 "SVe are at the mouth of a mine. There, many, 
 many fathoms below us, works the naked, grimed, and 
 sweating wretch, oppressed, brutalized, that he may dig 
 us coal for our winter's hearth ; where we may gather 
 round, and with filled bellies, well-clothed backs, and 
 hearts all lapped in self-complacency, talk of the talked- 
 of evils of the world, as though they were the fables of 
 ill-natured men, and not the verities of bleeding life. 
 That these men, doing the foulest offices of the world 
 should still be of the world's poorest, gives dignity to 
 want — the glory of long-suifering to poverty.
 
 THE ORDER OF POVERTY. 171 
 
 And SO, indeed, in the mind of wisdom, is poverty 
 ennobled. .And for the Knights of the Golden Calf, how 
 are they outnumbered ! Let us, then, revive the Order 
 of Poverty. Tonder, Reader, on its antiquity. For 
 was not Christ himself Chancellor of the Order, and the 
 Apostles Knights Companions ?
 
 A GOSSIP AT RECULVERS. 
 
 The spirit of the Saxon seems still to linger along 
 tlie shores of Kent. There is the air of antiquity 
 ahout them ; a somethinjr breathinir of the olden day — an 
 influence, surviving all the changes of time, all the vicis- 
 situdes of politic and social life. The genius of the 
 Heptarchy comes closer upon us from the realm of sha- 
 dows : the Wittenagemote is not a convocation of ghosts 
 — not a venerable House of Mists ; hut a living, talking, 
 voting Parliament. We feci a something old, strong, 
 stubborn, heartv ; a somethinsr for the intense meaning 
 of which we have no other word than " English," rising 
 about us from every rood of Kent. And wherefore this ? 
 England was not made piecemeal. Ilcr foundations in 
 the deep — could a sea of molten gold ])urchase the worth 
 of her surrounding ocean ? — are of the same age. The 
 same sun has risen and set upon the whole island. 
 Wherefore, then, is Kent predominant in the mind for 
 qualities which the mind denies to other counties ? 
 Because it is still invested with the poetry of action. 
 Because we feel that Kent was the cradle of the mar- 
 row and bone of England ; because we still see, ay, as 
 palpably as we behold yonder trail of ebon smoke, — 
 the broad black pennant of that mighty admiral. Steam, 
 — the sails of Caesar threatening Kent, and Kent bar- 
 barians clustering on the shore, defying him. It is thus 
 that the spirit of past deeds survives immortally, and 
 works upon the future : it is thus we arc indissolubly 
 linked to the memories of the bygone day, by the still 
 active soul that once informed it. 
 
 How rich in thoughts — how fertile in fancies that 
 quicken the brain and dally with the heart, is every
 
 A GOSSIP AT RECULVERS. 173 
 
 foot-pace of this soil ! Reader, be Avith us for a brief 
 time, at this beautiful village of Ilcrne. The sky is 
 sullen ; arid summer, like a fine yet froward wench, 
 smiles now and then, now frowns the blacker for the 
 passing brightness : nevertheless, summer in her worst 
 mood cannot spoil the beautiful features of this demure, 
 this antique village. It seems a very nest — warm and 
 snug, and green — for human life ; with the twilight 
 haze of time about it, almost consecrating it from the 
 aching hopes and feverish expectations of the present. 
 Who would think that the bray and roar of multitudinous 
 London sounded but some si.\ty miles away ? The 
 church stands peacefully, reverently; like some old, 
 visionary monk, his feet on earth — his thoughts with 
 God. And the graves are all about ; and things of 
 peace and gentleness, like folded sheep, are gatliered 
 round it. 
 
 Tiiere is a stile which man might make the throne 
 of solemn thought — his pregnant matter, the peasant 
 bones that lie beneath. And on the other side, a park, 
 teeming with beauty ; with sward green as emeralds, 
 and soft as a mole's back ; and trees, with centuries 
 circulatino: in their onarled massivencss. 
 
 But we must quit the churchyard, and turning to the 
 right, we will stroll towards Reculvers. IIow rich the 
 swelling meadows ! How their green breasts heave 
 with conceived fertility ! And on this side corn-fields ; 
 the grain stalk thick as a reed ; the crop level and 
 compact as a green bank. And here, too, is a field of 
 canary-seed : of seed grown for London birds in London 
 cages. The farmer shoots tlie span-ow — the little rustic 
 scoundrel — that, with felonious bill, would carry away 
 one grain sown for, made sacred to, Portman-square 
 canary ! We might, perhaps, find a higher parallel to 
 this, did we look with curious eves about us. Never- 
 theless, bumpkin sparrow has his world of air to range 
 in ; his free loves ; and for his nest his ivied wall or 
 hawthorn busli. These, say the worst, are a happy
 
 174 A GOSSIP AT RECDLVER3. 
 
 set-oflf even against a gilt-wired cage ; sand like dia- 
 mond dust ; unfailing seed, and sugar from even the 
 sweeter lips of lady mistress. Powder and small shot 
 may come upon the sparrow like apo])lexy upon an 
 alderman, with the unholted morsel in its gidlet ; yet, 
 consider — hath tlic canary no danger to encounter ? 
 Doth not i)ros])onty keep a cat ? 
 
 Well, this idle gossip has brought us within a short 
 distance of Reculvers. Here — so goes the hoary le- 
 gend — Augustine impressed the first Christian foot 
 upon the English shore, sent hither by good Pope 
 Gregory ; no less good that, if the same legend be true, 
 he had a subtle sense of a joke. Christianity, unless 
 historians say what is not, owes somewhat of its intro- 
 duction into heathen England to a pun. The story is so 
 old, that there is not a schoolmaster's dog throughout 
 merry Britaiu, that could not bark it. Nevertheless, we 
 will indicate our moral courage by repeating it. Our 
 ink turns red with bhishcs at the thought — no matter — 
 for once we will write in our blushes. 
 
 Poj)e Gregory, seeing some white-haired, pink-cheeked 
 boys for sale in the Roman slave-market, asked, who 
 they were ? Sunt Anrfli — they arc English, was the 
 response. Non sunt AnrjU — scd Auf/cli ; they are not 
 English, but angels, was the Papal playfidness. His 
 Holiness then inquired, from what part of England. 
 Dcirii, they are Deirians, was the answer. Whereupon 
 the Pope, following up his vein of pleasantry, said, Xon 
 Dcirii, scd De ird, — not Deirians, but from the anger 
 of the Lord : snatched, as his Holiness indicated, from 
 the vengeance that must always light upon heathenism. 
 
 This grey-haired story, like the grey hairs of Nestor, 
 is pregnant with practical wisdom. Let us imagine Pope 
 Gregory to have been a dull man ; even for a Pope a 
 dull man. Let us allow that his mind had not been 
 sufficiently comprehensive to take within its circle the 
 scattered lio;hts of intelliirence which, brought into a 
 focus, make a joke. Suppose, in a word, that the pope
 
 A GOSSIP AT RECULVERS. 17o 
 
 had had no ear for a pun ? Saint Augustine might 
 still have watched the bubbles upon Tiber, and never 
 have been sea-sick on his English voyage. 
 
 What does this prove ? What does this incident 
 preach with a thunder-tongue ? Why, the necessity, 
 the vital necessity, of advancing no man to any sort of 
 dignity, who is not all alive as an eel to a joke. We arc 
 convinced of it. The world will never be properly ruled, 
 until jests entirely supersede the authority of Acts of 
 Parliament. As it is, the Acts are too frequently the 
 jests, without the fun. 
 
 We are now close to Reculvers. There, reader, there 
 — where you see that wave leaping up to kiss that big 
 •white stone — that is the very spot where Saint Augus- 
 tine put down the sole of his Catholic foot. If it be not, 
 we have been misinformed, and cheated of our money ; 
 we can say no more. 
 
 Never mind the spot. Is there not a glory lighting 
 up the Avhole beach ? Is not every wave of silver — 
 every little stone, a shining crystal ? Doth not the air 
 vibrate with harmonics, strangely winding into the heart, 
 and awakening the brain ? Are we not under the spell 
 of the imagination which makes the present vulgarity 
 melt away like morning mists, and shows to us the full, 
 uplighted glory of the past ? 
 
 There was a landing on the Sussex Coast ; a landing 
 of a Duke of Normandy, and a horde of armed cut- 
 throats. Lookinir at them even through the distance of 
 some eight hundred years, what are they but as a gang 
 of burglars ? A band of pick-purses — bloodshedders — 
 rol)be**s ? 
 
 What was this landing of a host of men, in the full 
 trump and blazonry of war, — what all their ships, their 
 minstrelsy, and armed power, — to the advent of Augus- 
 tine and his fellow-monks, brouglit hither by the forloru- 
 ness of the soul of man ? It is this thought that makes 
 this bit of pebbled beach a sacred spot ; it is this spirit 
 of meditation that hears in every little wave a sweet and 
 solemn music.
 
 176 A GOSSIP AT HECULVERS. 
 
 And there, where the ocean tumbles, was in the olden 
 day a goodly town, sapped, swallowed by the wearing, 
 the voracious sea. At lowest tides, the people still dis- 
 cover odd, quaint, household relics, which, despite the 
 homely brooding of the finders, must carry away their 
 thoughts into the mist of time, and make them feel 
 anticjuity. The very children of the village are huck- 
 sters of the spoils of dead centuries. They grow up 
 with some small trading knowlodge of fossils ; and are 
 deep, very deep in all sorts of petrifactions. They must 
 have strange early sympathies towards that mysterious 
 town with all its tradesfolk and market-folk sunk below 
 the sea ; a place of which they have a constant inkling in 
 the petty spoils lashed upward by the tempest. Indeed, 
 it is difficult for the mind to conceive the annihilation of 
 a whole town, engulphed in the ocean. The tricksy 
 fancy will assort itself ; and looking over the shining 
 water, with summer basking on it, we are apt to dream 
 that the said market-town has only suffered a " sea 
 change ;" and that fathoms deep, the town .still stands 
 — that busy life goes on — that ]»eople of an odd, sea- 
 green aspect, it may be, still carry on the •work of mortal 
 breathing ; make love, begot little ones, and die. But 
 this, indeed, is the dream of idleness. Yet, who — if he 
 could change his mind at will, would make his mind 
 incapable of such poor fantasies ? How much of the 
 coarse web of existence owes its beauty to the idlest 
 dreams with which we colour it ! 
 
 The village of Reculvers is a choice work of antiquity. 
 The spirit of King Ethelbert tarries there still, and lives 
 enshrined in the sign of a public-house. It would be 
 well for all kings, could their spirits survive with such 
 genial associations. There are some dead royalties too 
 profitless even for a public sign. Who, now, with any 
 other choice would empty a tankard under the auspices 
 of Bloody Mary, as that anointed "feraininitie " is called ; 
 or take a chop even at Nero's Head ? No : inn-keepers 
 know the subtle prejudices of man, nor violate the sym- 
 pathies of life with their sign-posts.
 
 A GOSSIP AT RECULVERS. 177 
 
 Here, on the sanded floor of King Ethelbcrt's hostelry, 
 do village antiquarians often congregate. Here, at times, 
 are stories told — stories not all unworthy of the type 
 of Anticjuarian Transactions — of fibuhv, talked of as 
 "buckles," and other tangible bits of Roman history. 
 Here, we have heard, how a certain woman — living* at 
 this blessed houi-, and the mother of a family — went out 
 at very low tide, and found the branch of a filbert-tree 
 with clustering filberts on it, all stone, at least a thousand 
 years old — and more. Here, too, have we heard of a 
 wonderful horse-shoe, picked up by Joe Squellins ; a 
 shoe, as the finder averred, as old as the world. Poor 
 Joe ! What was his reward ? — it may be, a pint of ale 
 for that inestimable bit of iron ! And yet was he a 
 working antiquarian. Joe Squellins had within him the 
 unohristcned elements of F. S. A. I 
 
 The sea has spared something of the old church-yard ; 
 although it has torn open the sad sanctity of the grave, 
 and reveals to the day, corpse upon corpse — layers of the 
 dead, thickly, closely packed, body upon body. A lateral 
 view of rows of skeletons, entombed in Christian earth 
 centuries since, for a moment staggers the mind, with 
 this inward peep of the grave. We at once see the close, 
 dark prison of the church-yard, and our breath comes 
 heavily, and we shudder. It is only for a moment. 
 There is a lark sinsrino:, singing over our head — a mile 
 upwards in the blue heaven — singing like a freed soul : 
 we look again, and smile serenely at the bones of what 
 was man. 
 
 Many of our gentle countrymen — fellow-metropohtans 
 — who once a year wrif»a:le out their souls from the slit 
 of their tills to give the immortal essence sea air, make 
 a pilgrimage to Keculvers. This Golgotha, we have 
 noted it, has to them especial attractions. Many are 
 the mortal relics borne away to decorate a London chim- 
 ney-piece. Many a skeleton gives up its rib, its ulna, 
 two or three odd vertebrce, or some such gimcrack to the 
 London visitor, for a London ornament. Present the 
 
 N
 
 178 A GOSSIP AT RECULVERS. 
 
 same man with a bone from a London hospital, and he 
 would hold the act abominable, irreligiously presump- 
 tuous. But time has "silvered o'er" the bone from 
 Reculvers ; has cleansed it from the taint of mor- 
 tality ; has merged the loathsomeness in the curiosity ; 
 for Time turns even the worst of horrors to the broadest 
 of jests. We have now Guy Fawkes, about to blow 
 Lords and Commons into eternity — and now Guy Fawkes, 
 masked for a pantomime. 
 
 One day, wandering near this open grave-yard, wc 
 met a boy, carrying away, with exulting looks, a skull 
 in very perfect preservation. He was a-London boy, 
 and looked rich indeed with his treasure. 
 
 " What have you there ? " we asked. 
 
 " A man's head — a skull," was the answer. 
 
 " And what can you possibly do with a skuU ? " 
 
 " Take it to London." 
 
 " And when you have it in London, what then will 
 you do with it ?" 
 
 " I know." 
 
 " No doubt. But what will you do with it ?" 
 
 And to this thrice-repeated question, the boy three 
 times answered, " I know." 
 
 "Come, here's sixpence. Now, what will you do 
 with it ?" 
 
 The boy took the coin — grinned — hugged himself, 
 hugging the skull the closer, and said very briskly — 
 " Make a money box of it ! 
 
 A strange thought for a child. And yet, mused we 
 as we strolled along, how many of us, with nature bene- 
 ficent and smiling on all sides, — how many of us think 
 of nothing so much as hoarding sixpences — yea, hoard- 
 ing them even in the very jaws of desolate Death !
 
 THE OLD MAN AT THE GATE. 
 
 Is Surrey, some three miles from Chertsey, is a quiet, 
 dull, sequestered nook, called Slieppcrton Green. Whe- 
 tlier the new philanthropy of new pauper laws hath, of 
 late years, sought out the spot, I know not. At the 
 time whereof I write, the olden charity dwelt in an old 
 workhouse — a primitive ahiding-place for the broken 
 ploughman, the palsied shepherd, the old, old peasant, 
 for whom nothing more remained in this world but to die. 
 The governor of this abode of benevolence dwelt in the 
 lower part of the building, and therein, as the village 
 trade might fluctuate, made or mended shoes. Let the 
 plain truth be said — the governor was a cobbler. Within 
 a stone's cast of the workhouse, was a little white gate 
 swung between two hedge-hanks in the road to Chertsey. 
 Here, pass when you would, stood an old man, whose 
 self-imposed office it was to open the gate ; for the 
 which service the passenger would drop some small 
 benevolence in the withered hand of the aged peasant. 
 This man was a pauper — one of the almsmen of the 
 village workhouse. 
 
 There was a custom — whether established by the 
 governor aforesaid, or by predecessors of a vanished 
 century, I know not — that made it the privilege of the 
 oldest pauper to stand the porter at the gate ; his per- 
 quisite, by right of years, the halfpence of the rare 
 pedestrian. As the senior died, the living senior suc- 
 ceeded to the office. Now the £:ate — and, now the 
 grave. 
 
 And this is all the history ? AU. The story is told 
 — it will not bear another syllable. The " Old Man "
 
 180 THE OLD MAN AT THE GATE. 
 
 is at the gate ; the custom which places him there has 
 heen made known, and with it ends the narrative. 
 
 How few the incidents of life — how multitudinous its 
 emotions ! How flat, monotonous may be the circum- 
 stance of daily existence, and yet how various the thoughts 
 which spring from it ! Look at yonder landscape, 
 broken into hill and dale, with trees of every hue and 
 form, and water winding in silver threads through velvet 
 fields. How beautiful — for how various ! Cast yoiu" 
 eye over that moor ; it is flat and desolate — barren as 
 barren rock. Not so. Seek the soil, and then, with 
 nearer gaze, contemplate the wondrous fornis and colours 
 of the thousand mosses growing there ; give ear to the 
 hum of busy life sounding at every root of poorest grass. 
 Listen ! Does not the heart of the earth beat audibly 
 beneath this seeming barrenness — audibly as where the 
 com grows and the grape ripens ? Is it not so with the 
 veriest rich and the veriest poor — with the most active 
 and with apparently the most inert ? 
 
 That " Old Man at the Gate " has eighty years upon 
 his head — eighty years, covering it with natural reverence. 
 He was once in London — only once. This pilgrimage 
 excepted, he has never journeyed twenty miles from the 
 cottage in which he was born ; of which he became 
 the master ; whereto he brought his wife ; where his 
 children saw the hght, and their children after ; where 
 many of them died ; and whence, having with a stout 
 soul, fought against the strengthening ills of poverty 
 and old age, he was thrust by want and sickness out, 
 and, with a stung heart, he laid his bones upon a work- 
 house bed. 
 
 Life to the " Old Man " has been one long path across 
 a moor — a flat, unbroken journey ; the eye uncheered, 
 the heart unsatisfied. Coldness and sterility ha^e com- 
 passed him round. Yet, has he been subdued to the 
 blankness of his destiny ? Has his mind remained the 
 unwrit page that schoolmen talk of — has his heart be- 
 come a clod ? Has he been made by poverty a moving
 
 THE OLD MAN AT THE GATE. 181 
 
 image — a plough-guiding, corn-thrashing instrument ? 
 Have not unutterable thoughts sometimes stirred within 
 his brain-^thoughts that elevated, yet confused him 
 with a sense of eternal beauty — coming upon him like 
 the spiritual presences to the shepherds ? Has he not 
 been beset by the inward and mysterious yearning of the 
 heart towards the unknown and the unseen ? He has 
 been a plouglrman. In the eye of the well-to-do, digni- 
 fied with the accomplishments of reading and writing, is 
 he of little more intelligence than the oxen treading the 
 glebe. Yet, who shall say that the influence of natiu^e — 
 that the glories of the rising sun — may not have called 
 forth harmonies of soul from the X'ustic drudge, the 
 moving statue of a man ! 
 
 That worn-out, threadbare remnant of hiunanity at 
 the gate ; age makes it reverend, and the inevitable — 
 shall inevitable be said ? — injustice of the world, invests 
 it wifth majesty ; the majesty of suffering meekly borne, 
 and meekly decaying. " The poor shall never cease out of 
 the land." This text the self-complacency of competence 
 loveth to quote : it hatli a melody in it, a lulhng sweet- 
 ness to the selfishness of oui" natm'e. Hunger, and cold, 
 and nakedness, are the hard portion of man ; there is 
 no help for it ; rags must flutter about us ; man, yes, 
 even the strong man, his only wealth (the wealth of 
 Adam) wasting in his bones, must hold his pauper hand 
 to his brother of four meals per diem ; it is a necessity 
 of nature, and there is no help for it. And thus some 
 men send their consciences to sleep by the chinking of 
 their own pm-ses. Necessity of evil is an excellent philo- 
 sophy, apphcd to everybody but — ourselves. 
 
 These easy souls will see nothing in our " Old Man at 
 the Gate " but a pauper, let out of the workhouse, for the 
 chance of a few halfpence. Surely, he is something 
 more ? He is old ; very old. Every day, every hour, 
 earth has less claim in him. He is so old, so feeble, that 
 even as you look he seems sinking. At sunset, he is 
 scarcely the man who opened the gate to you in the
 
 182 THE OLD MAN AT THE GATE. 
 
 morning. Yet there is no disease in him — none. He 
 is dying of old age. He is working out that most awful 
 problem of hfc — slowly, solemnly. He is now, the 
 badgcd pauper — and now, in the unknown country with 
 Solomon ! 
 
 Can man look upon a more touching solemnity ? There 
 stands the old man, passive as a stone, nearer, every 
 moment, to churchyard clay ! It was only yesterday 
 that he took his station at the gate. His predecessor 
 lield the post for two years ; he too daily, daily 
 
 " Till like a clock, worn out with eating time. 
 The weary wheels of Hfc at length stood still." 
 
 How long will the present watcher survive ? In that 
 very uncertainty — in the very hoariness of age which 
 brings home to us that uncertainty — there is something 
 that makes the old man sacred ; for, in the course of 
 nature, is not the oldest man the nearest to the angels ? 
 
 Yet, away from these thoughts, there is reverence 
 due to that old man. AV'hat has been his life ? A war 
 with suffering. \\'hat a beautiful world is this ! How 
 rich and glorious! How abundant in blessings — great 
 and little — to thousands ! What a lovely place hath 
 God made it ; and how have God's creatures darkened 
 and outraged it to the wrong of one another ! Well, 
 what had this man of the world ? Wliat stake, as the 
 effrontery of selfishness has it ? The wild-fox was 
 better cared for. Though preserved some day to be 
 killed, it v:as preserved until then. What did this old 
 man inherit ? Toil, incessant toil, with no holiday of 
 the heart : he came into the world a badged animal of 
 labour ; the property of animals. What was the earth 
 to him ? — a place to die in. 
 
 " The poor shall never cease out of the land." Shall 
 we then, accommodating our sympathies to this hard 
 necessity, look serenely down upon the wretched ? ShaU 
 we preach only comfort to ourselves from the doomed con-
 
 THE OLD MAN AT THE GATE, 183 
 
 dition of others ? It is an easy philosophy ; so easy there 
 is hut little wonder it is so well exercised. 
 
 But " Tlie Old Man at the Gate " has, for seventy 
 years, worked and worked ; and what his closing reward ? 
 The workhouse. Shall we not, some of us, hlush crim- 
 son at our own world-successes, considering the destitu- 
 tion of our worthy, single-hearted follows ? Should not 
 affluence touch its hat to " The Old Man at the Gate" 
 with a )"everence for the years upon him ; he — the born 
 soldier of poverty, doomed for life to lead life's forlorn 
 hope ? Thus considered, surely Dives may unbonnet to 
 Lazarus. 
 
 To our mind, the venerahlcness of age made " The 
 Old Man at the Gate " something Uke a spiritual presence. 
 He was so old, who could say how few the pulsations of 
 his heart between him and the grave ! But there he 
 was with a meek happiness upon him ; gentle, cheer- 
 ful. Ho was not built up in bricks and mortar ; but was 
 still in the open air, with the sweetest influences about 
 him ; the sk}'^ — the trees — the green sward, — and flowers 
 with the breath of God in them I 
 
 THE END.
 
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