m tra THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE A Ci' LETTERS AND REMAINS OP AETHUR HUGH CLOUGH LETTERS Ml) REM.iEN\S OP ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH ' - ♦ SOMETIME FELLOW OF OBIEL COLLEGE. OXFOiiP. Others, I doubt not. if not we. . The issue of our toil^^ sh;ill sue ; YounK childi-ou feather a.-i thi'ir own The harvest that the dead had sown, The dead forgotten and unknown. ron raivATE crnrrr.Arroy onfa'. LONDON: rUINTKl> BY BPOTTISWOODE & CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE. 1865. P£4459 9? CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. VAC.F. CI.OUGH S FAMILY CHILDHOOD IX AMEEICA CHAPTER II. SCHOOL LIFE AND LETTERS 1 10 CHAPTER III. HIS FAiriLT RETURNS TO ENGLAND BALLIOL SCHOLARSHIP LIFE AT OXFOItD 30 CHAPTER IV. BECOLLECTIONS OF PROFESSOE SHAIRP — LETTERS — ELECTED FELLOW OP OEIEL — DF.ATH OF DR. ARNOLD ....... 48 CHAPTER Y. DEATH OF A. H. CLOVGh's YOFNGEST BROTHER DEATH OF HIS FATHER —LETTERS FROM SCOTLAND — RECOLLECTIONS J5Y PROFESSOR SHAIRP . — LETTERS FROM OXFORD 62 CHAPTER VI. JOITRNET TO NORTH ITALY— LONG VACATION READING-PARTY AT CAS- TLETON BEAEMAR— WRITES THE RETRENCHJIENT PAMPHLET — READING- PARTY AT DRr:MNADROCHET ........ 82 CHAPTER VII. PAMPHLET ON RETRENCHMENT AT OXFORD 92 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. PAGE A. H. CLOUGH GIVES UP HIS TUTORSHIP — GOES TO PAHIS— ACQUAINTAJ^CE WITH E3JEHSON — WHITES ' THE BOTHIE ' HESIGNS HIS FELLOWSHIP . 100 CHAPTER IX. APPOINTED PRINCIPAL OF UNIVERSITY HALL — VISIT TO EOME— EASTEK DAY POEM AND DIPSYCHUS 120 POEJUS : EASTER DAY, 1849 147 DIPSYCHUS, 1850 .......... 153 DIPSYCHUS CONTINUED ; A FRAGMENT 206 EASTER DAY. U 213 CHAPTER X. LETTERS, 1849-1852 . .215 CHAPTER XI. LEAVES UNIVEKSITY HALL — LETTERS FROM AMERICA, 1852-3 . . 230 CHAPTER XII. RETURN TO ENGLAND .4.PPOINTMENT IN EDUCATION OFFICE — LETTERS, 1853-1860 259 CHAPTER XIII. FAILING HEALTH — HIS MOTHER'S DEATH — VISIT TO SCOTLAND — MALVERN — FRESHWATER — JOURNEY TO GREECE AND CONSTANTINOPLE — AU- VEBGNE AND THE PYRENEES JOURNEY TO NORTH ITALY — HIS DEATH AT FLORENCE 300 LETTEES AND REMAINS OP AETHUR HUGH CLOUGH. CHAPTER I. CLOUGh's family — CHILDHOOD IN AMERICA. Arthur Hugh Clough was born in 1819 at Liverpool. He was the second son of James Butler Clough, of a Welsh family, who trace themselves back to Sir Richard Clough, known as agent at Antwerp to Sir Thomas G-resham. Sir Richard Clough's mother was niece to John Calvin. Sir Richard appears to have been a man of consider- able position in his own county of Denbigh. He built two houses, Plas Clough and Bachegraig, about the year 1527. He married first a Dutch lady, by whom he had a son, Richard, who carried on the name, and to whom he be- queathed Plas Clough. He married, secondly, Katharine Tudor, heiress of Berain, and descendant of Marchweithian, lord of the Welsh tribe of Is-aled. She was a relation and ward of Queen Elizabeth, being great-granddaughter of Henry VII. ; and the Queen's consent is mentioned as having been required for her marriage. Sir Richard Clough was her second husband ; and the story is told that he as well as Morris Wynn of Gwydir accompanied her to her first husband's funeral, and that INIorris Wynn when leading her out of church requested the favour of B 2 LETTEES AND REMAINS OF [Chap. I. her hand in marriage, to which she answered that she had ah'eady promised it as she went in to Sir Eichard Clough ; but added that should there be any other occasion she would remember him. After the death of Sir Richard, accordingly, she did marry him, and afterwards married, fourthly, Edward Thelwall, of Plas-y-Ward. She is said, however, to have preferred Sir R. Clough to her other hus- bands; and a curious picture of her exists, a companion to a somewhat remarkable one of Eichard Clough, holding a locket containing his ashes in one hand, and resting the other on his skull. She left only two daughters by him, one of whom mar- ried a Wynn, and was the ancestress of the family of Lord Newborough, which still possesses Maynau Abbey, given to her by Sir E. Clough. The second daughter, Katherine, married Eoger Salusbury, and received from Sir Eichard the house and property of Bachegraig, which afterwards came into the possession of Mrs. Thrale, her lineal de- scendant. The Clough family continued to reside at Plas Clough. In the beginning of the eighteenth century it was repre- sented by Hugh Clough, who had thirteen children, one of whom, called Hkewise Hugh, was Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and is buried there ; he was a friend of Cowper the poet, and is said to have been something of a poet him- self. Hugh died unmarried ; but three brothers and one sister married, and left numerous families. One of these, Eoger, thirteenth child of Hugh Clough, married Ann Jemima Butler (sister to and co-heiress with the wife of his elder brother Eichard), and had ten children, of whom James Butler Clough was the third. This son, tmlike his family, who seem to have resided constantly in Wales, settled in Liverpool, where he went into trade. There, as we have said, his second son Arthur was born. When Arthur was about four years old, his father migrated to Charleston, and remained there for several years, and 1822,] ARTIIUE HUGH CLOUGII. 3 Arthur's life till lie went to school was passed there. His sister's remembrances best illustrate this period. By Miss A. J. Clough. The first distinct remembrance I have of my brother is of his going with me in a carriage to the vessel which was to take us to America. This must have been in the winter of 1822-23, when he was not quite four years old. My next recollection is of our home at Charleston, a large, ugly red brick house near the sea. The lower story was my father's office, and it was close by a wharf where from our windows we could see the vessels l3^ng by and amuse our- selves with watching their movements. In the summer of this year (1823) we went to the North, and stayed some time in a boarding-house at New York, and afterwards with some friends who lived on the banks of the Hudson, and had a large and pleasant garden. It was here, I have heard, that Arthur learned to read. In the autumn we returned to Charleston, having: made the passage there and back by sea. The two following summers (1824 and 1825) we again visited the North ; both times we went to New York, and the first year on to Albany and Lebanon Springs, and the second time as far as Newport. After our return to Charles- ton in the autumn my father was obliged to go to England, and he took with him my eldest brother Charles, who was old enough to go to school. Arthur and I and my youngest brother George remained in the red brick house at Charles- ton with my mother and a faithful old nurse. My father was absent eleven months. Then Arthur became my mo- ther's constant companion. Though then only just seven, he was already considered as the genius of our family. He was a beautiful boy, with soft silky, almost black hair, and shining dark eyes, and a small delicate mouth, whicli our old nurse was so afraid of spoiling, when he was a baby, b2 4 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. I. that she insisted on getting a tiny spoon for his special use. As I said, Arthur was constantly with my mother, and she poured out the fulness of her heart on him. They read much together, histories, ancient and modern, stories of the Greek heroes, parts of Pope's Odyssey and Iliad, and nmch out of Walter Scott's novels. She talked to him about England, and he learnt to be fond of his own country, and delighted to flourish about a little English flag he had possessed himself of. He also made good progress in French. He was sometimes passionate as a child, though not easily roused ; and he was said to be very determined and obstinate. One trait I distioctly remember, that he would always do things from his own choice, and not merely copy what others were doing. In the summer we went down to Sullivan's Island, and lived in a sort of cottage built upon piles. Here we could walk on the shore and gather shells, and we also had a garden. We amused ourselves by watching the steamers and sailing-vessels that came over from Charleston. Some- times we had visits from friends of my father, often bring- ing over letters for my mother; but, on the whole, we lived very quietly, learning our lessons, and looking forward joy- fully to the time of our father's return from England. We went back to Charleston in the autumn. This was a weary time for our dear mother, who was continually expecting and longing for our father's return. We, too, were always on the watch for the first sight of the ship on the bay. One November morning, while we were at our lessons with our mother, there came a hasty ring at the bell. We wanted to look out and see if visitors were coming. We were not fond of visitors, and generally used to run off to our nursery at sight of them, but our mother would not let us peep this time ; we must attend to our lessons, she said ; she was sure it was only a negro man with a mes- 1826.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 5 sage. And then the door opened and our father was in the room, catching up our mother in his arms, for she was nearly fainting, while we skipped about for joy, and shouted to our mother that she had called our father a negro man. Then came the unpacking of trunks, and all the presents sent to us by our relations in England, and the news of our brother Charles. After my father's return it was a very happy time for Arthur. He still went on reading history and poetry with our mother. About this time, I believe, he read with her some cf Robertson's ' Charles V.,' and the struggle in the Netherlands in Watson's ' Philip II. ; ' also the lives of Columbus, Cortez, and Pizarro. He used also to say the Latin grammar to my father in the early morning, and do sums in the office, lying on the piled-up pieces of cotton bagging which were waiting there to be made into sacks for cotton. Here, too, we used to play and tumble about upon the cotton heaps. One of our games was playing at the Swiss Family Eobinson, in which I remember Arthur was always Ernest, because Ernest liked reading and knew so much. In hot weather, Arthur used to lie on his bed in the afternoon, reading the 'Universal Traveller ' and 'Cap- tain Cook's Travels,' in the purchase of which he had one day expended all his savings. They were both full of pic- tures, and he used to tell us that he dreamt of the places he had been reading about. He also used to go out with my father when he had business to do on the wharves and on board the ships, and sat with him and my mother in the evenings and saw the occasional visitors who came in, such as the captains of the merchantmen with whom he had dealings, and heard their stories. In the summer of 1827, we again went to Sullivan's Island. It was a pleasant time, especially as we now had our father with us. We lived in a large rambling house, with a pleasant verandah in which we had a swing, and a large garden fenced in with a hedge of yuccas, called there 6 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. I. Spanish bayonets. The house had once been an inn, and waSgbuilt in two parts. My father and mother slept in a room over a great billiard-room, only reached by an open staircase or by a little open path across a roof ; and when great storms arose, as often happened, my father used to carry us in his arms, back over the open space into the more protected part of the house. The walks on the sand were delightful to us children. It was the .finest white soft sand without a vestige of shingle on which we used to play ; and I remember that Arthur even then was too fastidious to take off his shoes and stockings and paddle about as we did. The whole island was like a great sandbank, with little growing naturally on it but a few palmettos and low woods of myrtle. Our walks along the sea often took us as far as Fort Moultrie, which in our time was a red brick fort with a dry ditch round it, without the earthworks which have since become famous. A high bank of sand lay be- tween it and the sea ; and, after crossing this, we came to a few desolate houses half buried in sand, which here lay in great heaps. Here and there grew a few palmetto trees, which the high tides or autumn storms too often carried away, to our great grief when we came to look for a favourite tree and found it gone. These sands were the haunt of innumerable curlews whose wild screams seemed to make the shore more lonely still. A beautiful grove of myrtles rose farther along the shore. The other end of the island was the inhabited part. There was the pier busy with its arrivals and departures of steamers, and sailing boats going to and fro between the island and the city, and covered with numerous car- riages and many nondescript conveyances used by the residents who came out for the summer. The bay was gay, too, with many fishing-boats belonging to the gentle- men who had a fishing club, which met at a house among the myrtles ; and many )-owing-boats also, chiefly rowed 1827.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 7 by negroes. Arthur often went out with my father on the water. Six miles off lay Charleston, on a peninsula, between its two rivers, the Cooper and the Ashley. The first sight of it showed a long line of wharves made of palmetto logs fastened together into a sort of wall, stretching perhaps half a mile along the bay, and lined with the ships and smaller craft that frequented the port. As you approached from the water vou heard the songs of -the negroes at work on the vessels. At the end of the wharves was a battery or public walk, supported against the sea by a substantial very white wall formed of oyster shells beaten fine and hard. This species of pier extended nearly a mile along the sea, and was a favourite resort both for walking and driving in the summer. It was all roughly done, as most things were in the South, but the sunshine and clear skies made it bright and cheerful. The city was not regularly built like the Northern towns. In the lower part indeed the houses were mostly built close together in rows ; but in the upper part, where the wealthier people lived, it was full of villas with gardens, all built ^vith verandahs, and many with two, an upper and a lower one. In the gardens grew many flowering trees, such as the almond, occasionally the orange, the fringe tree, a gay shrub with a very abundant white flower, and the fig ; and these hung over the garden walls into the streets. The streets, too, which were for the most part unpaved, were often planted with trees for the sake of shade. Here and there one came on a large old-fashioned mansion, that at once showed it belonged to the times before the Revolution. From Charleston, Sullivan's Island was to be seen in the distance, beyond the battery, and on the right James Island, marked by a long low line of wood. Between these two islands, commanding the entrance, Fort Sumter was afterwards built, not far from James Island. On the left 8 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Cuap. I. was Fort Pinckney, built on a small island or sandbank near the city. In 1828 we all returned to Eogland. We sailed from Charleston early in June. We greatly enjoyed the voyage ; being the only children on board, we were exceedingly petted, and the unusual sights impressed our imagination. I remember very well the sea-weed floating in quantities on the Grulf stream ; also we saw a water-spout, and grander still — but happily for us only in the distance — an iceberg. When at last we came in sight of the South of Ireland, we were met by the Irish tishermen coming out to sell us their fresh fish. Then came the slow creeping up the Channel against a head-wind, and then a calm, till one night the wind sprang up and in the morning we found ourselves in Liverpool. We then went to stay with an uncle in the country, where we met my eldest brother, and found ourselves among nine or ten cousins of different ages. This was quite a new experience to us. Arthur could not enter into the boys' rough games and amusements, and missed the constant companionship with his father. We travelled however for some months from one relation's house to another, and by degrees Arthur became more sociable. In November Arthur went to school at Chester, and my father, mother, Greorge and I sailed again to Charle- ston. This was practically the end of Arthur's childhood, and before concluding this chapter I will say a few words of my father and mother, and their influence on their children. Our father was most afl'ectionate, loving, and watchful over his children. It was from him that we received many of the smaller cares which usually come from a mother, especially on the long voyages, during which my mother suffered greatly, when he took the care of us almost entirely, and comforted us in the rough storms. This watchful and tender care for the feelings of others Arthur 1828.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGK. 9 inherited in the largest degree from his father. My father was very lively, and fond of society and amuse- ment. He liked life and change, and did not care much for reading. He had a high sense of honour, but was venturesome and over sanguine, and when once his mind was set on anything, he was not to be turned from it, nor was he given to counting consequences. My mother was very different. She had no love of beauty, but stern integrity was at the bottom of her character. She loved what was grand, noble, and enterprising, and was truly religious. She early taught us about God and duty, and having such a loving earthly father, it was not difficult to look up to a Heavenly one. She loved to dwell on all that was stern and noble. Leonidas at Thermopylae, and Epaminondas accepting the lowliest offices and doing them as a duty to his country; the sufferings of the martyrs, and the struggles of the Protestants, were among her favourite subjects. There was an enthusiasm about her that took hold of us, and made us see vividly the things that she taught us. But with this love of the terrible and grand she was altogether a woman, clinging to and leaning on our father. When he left us Arthur became her pet and her companion. I cannot but think that her love, her influence, and her teaching had much to do with forming his character. 10 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. II. CHAPTER II. SCHOOL LIFE AND LETTEES. In November 1828, Arthur went to school at Chester, and in the summer of 1829 he was removed to Rugby. A few of his early letters are given which give his impres- sions of school life. To his Sister. Chester : May 15, 1829. Dear Anne, — I received your kind letter by the barque Melantho, after an extremely long voyage. Charles received one on the same day from uncle Charles, inti- mating that we were to spend our vacation at Easter with him at the vicarage. During the Easter holidays, which we spent very pleasantly at Mold, I had plenty of leisure for drawing. Two men were hung here lately for robbing an old clergyman. We have bought a book entitled ' The Newtonian System of Philosophy,' which treats chiefly of the power and weight of air; the cause of volcanoes, earthquakes, and other phenomena of nature, such as lightning, the am-ora borealis ; also a description of the sun, planets, their moons or satellites, constellations, comets, and other heavenly bodies ; likewise <^ air-guns, balloons, air-pumps ; also a very pleasing one of snow, hail, and vapours. It also describes electricity and magnetism, and gives a brief account of minerals, vegetables, and animals. The summer vacation is now just approaching, after , which time we shall be conducted either by uncle Alfred 1829.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 11 or uncle Charles to Eugby, which is not far from Leaming- ton, at which place cousin Eliza is at school. Were you not grieved to hear that magnificent building York Minster had been partly destroyed through the destructive means of fire ? By Miss A. J. dough. My brother Arthur remained at school in Chester only nine months; he went to Eugby in the summer of 1829, where he soon began to distinguish himself. In July 1831, we came over from Charleston, and spent some months in England. He did not seem very happy at school ; his chief complaint was that he missed home so much. We paid several visits together among our relations in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Wales, and he returned to school alone, as Charles went to school abroad. It happened that we were delayed in finding a ship to take us back, and the Christmas holidays came round. He hastened away from school, and reached us two or three days before we sailed. His big prize-book, ' John- son's Lives of the Poets,' was brought in his bag to show his mother. How happy he was for those few days, for the most part reading and talking to his mother! but it soon came to an end. He and his youngest brother left us for Chester, to spend their holidays at their grand- father's, and we sailed away on Christmas eve. My mother said she would never come back to England till it was to be her home, and she kept her word. My father came over in 1833, and took my three brothers to London and to Paris. Meanwhile Arthur prospered at school : he gained the first scholarship there, and was soon in the higher forms. His holidays were spent in a variety of places ; he visited his uncle, the Eev. A. B. Clough, who was then Fellow of Jesus ; he went to Pontefract, Chester, the north coast of 12 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. II. Wales, Beaumaris, and Liverpool. He was among high church, low church, moderate, and old-fashioned people ; among country squires, and often at Mold Vicarage, where he hecame acquainted with the life of a quiet but earnest country clergyman. To his Mother. Eugby : May 15, 1830. Deae Mamma, — I am glad to tell you that both Charles and myself have been removed out of the third form into the lower fourth; we enjoyed uncle Alfred's company (he was steward to the Easter Meeting at Rugby) and also the speeches and holidays very much. There were four prizes. There was also a prize for boys in the fifth form, which was gained by Stanley for an English Essay ' On Sicily and its Revolutions.' These were all recited by their different writers on Wednesday in Easter week. After the four first had repeated their poems and read their essays, Stanley came forth and read his essay. Un- fortunately the prizes had not arrived, and therefore Dr. Arnold was obliged to postpone the delivery of them. One morning, however, at prayers, we saw a great many books in extremely handsome bindings ; and after prayers. Dr. Arnold gave them to those for whom they were intended. School House, Eugby: May 28, 1833. . . . I have gained one place in the form by this ex- amination, and I shall certainly be in the sixth form next half-year. I am now seventh, and ten at least of the Prseposters leave either now or at Lawrence Sheriffe.* To his Brother. School House, Eugby : October 13, 1834. My dear G-eorgy, — You say you do not like your school even so well as you did last year. I believe that it is « Meaning the day of Lawrence Sheriffe, which is the foundation-day of the school. 1835.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 13 worse than many places, but even liere at Kugby, the best of all public schools, which are the best kind of schools, even here there is a, vast deal of bad. It was but a few nights ago that a little fellow, not more than thirteen at the very most, was quite drunk, and that for the second time in the last year. 1 do not know that there is here much of the low mean spirit (which I fear you have so much of), but it must be remembered that Rugby is far better off in this way than most schools. To his Brother. School House, Rugby: March 4, 1835. My dear George, — ... I was a little anxious about you, but little did I suspect what was the case. A rebellion is a fearful thing, a dreadful, but it was sent for good. I cannot tell you how anxious I was when I began your letter, and as little can I tell you how over- joyed, how relieved, I was when I got through it. My dear dear George, God gave you the trial to settle your character, and I only wish that you had been more decided, as decided in your party as the boy you mention, and then how much happier you would have been. But as it is, the second temptation was resisted, and I only hope that the trial has given you strength to go on in the right way. How glad I shall be, George, when this travelling about will be over, and we shall be all quiet at our home — the first time we shall have had one for many years. Heigh-ho ! this is a delightful idea. ^t3^ To his Mother. Jesus College, Oxford: July 9, 1835. The exhibitioners this year are Lake, Penrose, and Gell. We had an extremely pleasant time up at Rugby at the examination, as the Oxford Vacation was just beginning, and we had six or seven old Rugbeians down, and in so 14 LETTERS AND KEMAINS OF [Chap. II. busy and exciting a time their company was a great relief. I had not been very well after Easter all along, but I believe that time did more to make me well than all the physic which has lengthened the doctor's bill to a most boa-constrictor-like size. I have been in one continued state of excitement for at least the last three years, and now comes the time of exhaustion. When you all come over next year, and I get home at last, I do think this will end. I must send you our Eugby magazine, which I beg you will patronise with all your might, though I suppose your canvassing materials in America are rather small. To his Brother George. School House, Eugby: September 13, 1835. Only remember— don't be indolent, Greorge ; you recollect what I told 5^ou about that family failing. Idle, I do not think you will be ; but take care you never say, * It is too much trouble,' ' I can't be bothered,' which are tolerably old favourites of yours, and, indeed, of all who have any Perfect blood in them. No doubt you will feel very much the loss of any one to talk to about religion, but let this, my dear George, only make you keep more close to Grod ; and if still — for I know that our weakness does often want more direct and visible aid than this, and that our minds are too imperfectly brought to righteousness and goodness to be continually talking even with our kind Father God, just as you would wish to talk to those of your own age sometimes, and not always to those above you onl}', how- ever much you might love them — if you do still want some one to talk to, you have only to write to me, and I shall be sure to answer you within a week or two. Ee- member too, that if the school is bad, it is no reason, no excuse for you to do as they do. Eemember, they are not 1835.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGIT. 15 many, and Jesus said that a little leaven leavens the whole lump : now, do not think that I am telling you to put your- self forward as a kind of apostle or missionary to them. Only go on without fearing or shrinking in any point from your duty ; do not mind their knowing that you are trying to serve God. The magazine prospers ; it will probably be out on the Ist October. * Egmont ' will appear, and one or two other things of mine. I assure you I have enough to do. I sometimes think of giving up fagging hard here, and doing all my extra work in the holidays, so as to have my time here free for these two objects — 1st. The improve- ment of the school; 2nd. The publication and telling abroad of the merits of the school by means of the magazine. To Ms Brother. School House, Rugby: October 11, 1835. Simpkinson left me last Monday for Cambridge, and his absence has made me head of the school-house, which is an office of considerable trust and great difficulty. Indeed, you could not do better than try to win the liking and esteem of your schoolfellows by being as kind to them as you can. I hope I am trying earnestly to do the same. But there is one danger in this oc- cupation which assails me, at least, very often ; and that is, the danger of carrying our wash too far. And remember always, that to be liked is not the thing we should wish for on its own account, but only because it will make it more easy for us to do good to those who like us. Try, my dear George, to be as active in this good work as you can be ; only take care that you have a few moments to your- self with God every day ; so that you do not forget Him in your more active employments ; if you do these two things I do not think you will be likely to fall into any more stwpors, as you call those states of mind, which I 16 LETTERS AND EEMAINS OF [Chap. 11. very well know and have often experienced. As soon as you feel anything of the kind coming on, go and do some- thing, no matter what, which will employ you actively. Perhaps, if you do some kindness to a schoolfellow, or resist him in some evil practice, you will feel this go down very rapidly. You never told us how your school- work is getting on ; do you do any Euclid now ? I have not heard from America lately ; the last letter I had was from my father, dated at Saratoga. Tell me when you write all about No. II. of the Rugby Magazine. It is very much liked here, better than the first, and we have had intelligence of its being thought very well of in the literary circles in London. I only hope it will not decay under my hands ; for I have got the management of it almost entirely by myself. To his Sister. Scliool House, Rugby. October 10, 1835. My oldest and only friend, Simpkinson, is just gone to Cambridge, and there are also two or three more gone whom I knew and loved better than the rest ; so that I am now quite alone, and am doomed so to remain for two long years. I see, however, quite plainly that this is far better for me, for now I shall not fag so much, as being of necessity thrown much more with other fellows, and wishing now most earnestly to know as many as possible ; for there is a deal of evil springing up in the school, and it is to be feared that the tares will choke much of the wheat. There is a great deal of good in the top of the school, but then it is what may be called disagreeable good, having much evil mixed with it; especially in little matters. So that from these persons good is disliked. I am trying, if possible, to show them that good is not necessarily disagreeable, and that a Christian may be, and is likely to 1835.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGIf. 17 be, a gentleman ; and that he is surely much more than a gentleman. Monday, October 12. The nights (that is, after locking-up time) are getting very long, beginning as they do now from a quarter-past six ; so that I have a great deal of time in my study, and am almost more by myself than I wish. Sometimes, when I am thus alone, I long very nnich indeed to have you all over here ; for before Simpkinson left, Rugby was almost like home to me, and now I feel the want of a home far more than I ever did before ; so that I cannot tell you how welcome next summer will be to me. Even the holidays without you seem a thing to be looked forward to very much, which they never did before, except last half-year, when I was unable to work. I am very tolerably well now, and think I have recovered altogether, though I verily believe I shall not be able ever again to fag so much ; indeed, I shall never wish to do so in the same way. You will understand a good deal of the way in which fagging hard is so frequently ruinous both to body and mind, from an article in the Rugby Magazine, No. III., which I hope you will like as much as the people on this side the Atlantic (I mean the article entitled ' A Schoolboy's Story ') ; I think you will see a good deal in that to explain it. By this time, I suppose, you are back in Charleston, and ere long I shall have heard the full account of your trip to Lake George. I had a great deal of pleasant travelling myself in the summer, particularly in that part of my journey which took me from Oxford through Cheltenham and Shrewsbury, to Beaumaris. I met a very curious animal in the coffee-room at the Shrewsbury inn, a German merchant's son from Bremen. He was very ignorant and very intelligent, so that he was also very amusino-. At one time he made me think him half an idiot, at another he seemed quite clever. Probably he had never been out c 18 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. II. of a counting-house in his life before ; at any rate, his observation must have been very Kmited, for I went to show him Lord Hill's column, and as we were walking up to it, he said, ' Well, that is very beautiful, very big,' and a moment or two after, ' and it gets bigger as we come nearer !' To J. P. Gell, Esq. School House, Rugby : October 24, 1835. I do wish that I could be acquainted and intimate with a great many fellows, but I really have not time ; and here is another advantage on the side .of evil, that bad characters are also idle, whereas good characters are industrious, so that when a fellow wants a companion he is much more likely to pitch on a bad than on a good one. I am afraid that writing or thinking much about these things does me harm. I only wish you would write to me about it, for your letters always put me more on my legs. Do you remember what Arnold says (Sermons, vol. iii. Introduc- tion) about the enduring value of the ancient philosophical and historical works ? Well, I really think that letters from fellows who have left act much in the same way, keeping one's mind ' fresh and comprehensive.' So spare not pen and paper when you can spare time. To J. P. Gell, Esq. School House, Rugby : November 9, 1835. . . I have to take care lest the excitement should carry me away ; for though assuredly there is no Simpkinson here, nor Vaughan, nor Burbidge ; yet it is most easy to find excite- ment, on the one hand, in fagging, and on the other, in associating with fellows for their good, which is a more dangerous employment than I looked for ; there is such an excess of acquaintance and such a lack of friends here ; nobody to look up to in one's common school-dealings, and so much to look up to at times in Arnold, that it is no easy 1835.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 19 matter to ' keep a level temper,' as young used to say. Sometimes all seems so very bright, the little good one has done seems so gi-eat, and the good one hopes to do so certain, that one gets quite .elevated ; then there soon follows the exhaustion, and I think it is no use trying ; and in the meantime copies, &c., have been accumulating and I am obliged to set to, though the true cure of such a state is forcing oneself to try even against hope. Besides, there are all the letters from Oxford and Cambridofe, than which more exciting things were never created. I don't know which to think the greatest, the blessing of being under Arnold, or the curse of being without a home. To his Brother. School House, Rugby : November 15, 1835. . . . I am very sorry to hear you say that you are sink- ing ; why do you not tell me your difficulties ? You say you do not like the boys about you ; indeed, I dare say you have good reason for not liking them, but wherever you go this will always be the case; you can never expect to have only good people about you, so do not let this dis- courage you. My dear Greorge, do, I beg you, strive to keep yourself up ; do resist your indolence and your fear- fulness; do exert yourself, and keep doing your work actively. I say this because I know that indolence is the common fault, as I told you, of all who have any Perfect blood in them ; and therefore you ought to, and must strive against it, or else it would have been better for you never to have been born, for you will be yielding to the devil, and become his slave. You must not think of Grod only as your loving Father and Friend, tiiough He is so much so, but also as your Judge ; as one who is so holy and pure that He cannot bear any sin in this world of His ; and who, at the same time, is so powerful as to be able to inflict the heaviest punishment. I should suppose that you did not think enough whenever you do anythinv' 20 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Cuap. II. wrong, my dear Greorge, how Grod must hate it. Do try and so act as to remain in His love. To be sure you can- not do this of yourself, but though you do require God's assistance, yet He will not give that assistance unless you do your part, and, exert yourself to do good. Before long, you will no doubt be confirmed, and then you will be able to go to the Sacrament, and thus you will gain strength more and more continually, by being continually reminded of Christ's goodness to you. Till that time comes, if your struggle is not easy, yet still it is not too hard for you, when Grod is ever ready to assist you. I know very well that you do feel this in your heart, my dear Greorge, but you must try and do more. I have no doubt that some- times you do wish to be good with all your heart, and do love God very much. But you cannot feel strongly all along, so you must make up your mind to it, which is much steadier than the heart, and pray earnestly that you may know with all your mind the necessity of doing God's will. I am not sure that this is what you want, I am writing rather at a venture ; but there is one way in which I can help you, and you me, and that is by praying for each other to God, who knows all we want ; this I hope you do. To his Mother. Finch House, near Liverpool : December 1835. To-day is Monday, and during the last eight or nine days I have had as many changes of place and companions as I ever remember, and have had a right busy and ex- citing time of it. On Friday evening before last, our great examination closed, and I was not a little disap- pointed, thinking that I ought to have done better. Then on Saturday one of my Oxford friends came down (Lake), and this of course made a great change, and raised my spirits as high as before they had been low. In the evening the class-paper came out, and I found I had got 18-35.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 21 all I had hoped for, and also that I was head of the form in composition marks, thus securing two prizes ; then I dined at Arnold's, and had a very pleasant evening. Then followed all the misery of the last night — noise, noise, noise of preparing, and wishing good-bye, &c., till twelve o'clock and after; followed at two o'clock by the still greater noise of going. After my two hours' sleep, I had a busy morning of breakfasting with my tutor, of paying off window-bills, &c., &c., packing up, &c., &c. ; and so on till twelve o'clock, when I dined out, and returned to the school at three o'clock calling-over, wished the fellows good-bye, and waited for the coach till four in the school field. In a short time your old friend the Oxford and Leicester Eegulator — vulgarly termed the Pig — transported me to Leicester, and here I found myself in a completely new world, at a house I was strange to, with my old school-fellow Burbidge correcting the proofs of ^o. IIL of the Eugby Magazine. Next day at 10 p.m., we were joined for an hour by two more Cantabrigians (Vaughan and Grell), which was very delightful indeed. Well, not to trouble you with a further account of what we did at Leicester, on Friday night after walking for two and a half hours along Leicester streets (for the coach should have started at half-past ten, and did not till one o'clock), I began a long journey to Liverpool. After one of the coldest and bitterest nights I ever remember, and a day not much less so, I found myself about 3 p.m. at the end of the lane by the fifth milestone. I must go a little further and tell you what Ave are going to do these holidays. George is now in Chester ; he is going to Mold on Thursday the 24th inst., where I shall join him the same day. Hence after a few days we shall proceed to Min-y-don* for ten days, and thence again he will return here, and I shall probably go to Chester. * Near Conway, a house on the seashore belonging to an uncle of A. II. Clough. 22 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. II. I suppose we shall have a regular rambling time of it, which I dare say will be pleasant enough in its way ; but I cannot tell you how very, very much I long for next sum- mer, even on this ground only, that then we shall have done with this way of living. I am quite well now, and shall be, I hope. I have not been so hard at work this last half-year, and that may have something to do with it. But I think it is a good deal owing to my having to go about with other fellows more than I used to do, and this will be the case for some time now. I have, however, to look forward to a very busy half-year ; but as it will not be my last half-year, I need not be very anxious about it or excited in it. I shall have another Easter and another Exhibition time after this ; but I must do my best to be ready for next November, when I shall go up for the Balliol scholarship. At any rate, my dear mother, it is no long time now before July comes, and time passes very quickly, at least I find it does to me now. It seems now that there is nothing wanting to make my earthly happi- ness complete, so far as it can be complete, that will not be given me next summer, though indeed even now I can see some flaws in it. But there will be so many and such friends at Cambridge and Oxford, and so happy a situation at school where I know that I am loved by many, and where I am ever living under and gathering wisdom from a great and good man. Such a prospect makes one tremble, for it seems to be too fair for earth : at least it makes one resolve to do all to fix one's affections on things above, lest God should see that such fortune was too great for one, and that one could not bear it. To his Sister. Mold Vicarage : December 30, 1835. I have some difficulty in prevailing on George to do Avhat he does not like (i. e. read) for an hour and a half in the day. I do not know any boy who with so good a dis- 18;',G.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 23 position has done and does now so little to improve himself. But I hope and believe he is much better at school than he is in the holidays : indeed I think it is very natural he should be so. And it is wonderful what a degree of kind and affectionate feeling he has ; only fancy, for six or seven years he has been treasuring up his money in the savings' bank, and now it is all spent to buy me a watch. On Christmas day I found a little paper box on my plate at breakfast, and on opening it first came a quantity of brown paper, then a note, then the ribbon, and at the bottom a gold watch. The examination went off very well for me last half- year. In regular work four first-classes, in composition, divinity, classics and history ; I might have got two more in modern languages and mathematics. In extras I got two first-classes, which was all I tried for, and which will give me a prize. I shall also get a prize for. being among the four first in the composition of the half-year in the sixth : which means the Latin, prose and verse ; Greek, prose and verse ; English, prose and verse, which we have done in the half-year. To J. N. SimpJdnson, Esq. Stanley Street, Chester : January 18, 1836. I am most utterly busy now at Niebuhr for November, which time is very much in my thoughts. The bare idea of missing is horrible, and I have not done a page for the magazine as yet, though I have great hopes of writing a good deal. As to Q., you know he invited me to his bouse this winter, so I suppose he has taken a great fancy to me. He is disagreeable sometimes, and is rather narrow-minded, or rather narrow-notioned ; and having said so much ' con,' I might say a great many * pros,' but it is this very narrowness of ideas which prevents one loving him. Such people have no idea that 24 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. II. it is anything approaching to a duty to make oneself agreeable ; they have a great deal too much of the itch to become martyrs and undergo persecution. Even two or three years under Arnold have not wholly eradicated this notion in Q. himself; but if he goes, as I believe he does, to Balliol, he will, I trust, soon lose it, as I think he is sure to be admitted into the High Arnold set that is just germinating at Balliol under the auspices of Stanley and Lake. . . . You know how differently a boy regards home when he has once been to school. The kind of passive and almost apathetic feeling (to indulge in a bull) which he before had becomes high, steady and active feeling and principle. I will not say that my feelings towards him are so personal as they are to some others, because they are so closely connected with Arnold, but I am very much attached to him. . . I verily believe my whole being is soaked through with the wishing and hoping and striv- ing to do the school good, or rather to keep it up and hinder it from falling in this, I do think, very critical time, so that all my cares and affections and conversation, thought words and deeds look to that involuntarily. I am afraid you will be inclined to think this ' cant,' and I am conscious that even one's truest feelings, if very frequently put out in the light, do make a bad and disagreeable appearance ; but this however is true, and even if I am carrying it too far, I do not think it has made me really forgetful of my personal friends, such as, in particular, Gell and Burbidge and Walrond, and yourself, my dear S. To J. N. Simpkinson. School House, Rugby: Feb. 13, 1836. .... I am sure this constant writing of letters is not really a waste of time. Every one of us has much he needs to receive, and there are few who have nothing to give ; and I, for one, cannot speak too highly of the good 1836.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 25 I have got from others in this way ; it is such a constant correction of each other's wild and foolish tendencies of mind, opinion, &c. I wish I could have come to Cam- bridge very much ; but I do not agree at all in your second reason, viz. that it would make me discontented with the Balliol prospect. If I do get the scholarship, I shall not long one bit for Cambridge ; no, nor do I think I shall do so, if I don't get it. It is the very thing for which you uphold Cambridge which makes me prefer Oxford. At Oxford we only form part of a large set, and there is more hope there that a little leaven will leaven the whole lump, which is, I think, more useful than your scheme. To be sure, there will only be Stanley, Lake, Fox, Arnold, and myself; but then there are a great number of very nice men, with whom, I hope, we shall get more acquent, and this will be better. Do not think I underrate the blessing of Kugby friends ; I am only anxious to give others that blessing. I have a great deal more to say, but I must go to the De Corona, i. e. first lesson, so good-night. Combe's* shop is delicious. So is the new Irish Title Bill — auctore Lord John Eussell — at least I am told so. So also is the fact that, malgre scandal, libels and lies, ' JMorning Herald,' ' Times,' and ' John Bull,' the school is above 300. So also, I doubt not, will be the reading of ' Knight's Quarterly,' which I have just got. So also (this is indeed a climax) will be Easter. To his Mother. School House, Rugby: March 183G. .... At last the prizes are over, and the last half- sheet of the Magazine, No. IV., is also sent off, I believe ; and you can hardly fancy the feeling of this freedom, most unusual indeed to me. As for the prizes, I have this Easter got one, the Latin Verse ; and a second for * The Rugby bookseller. 26 LETTEKS AND EEMAIXS OF [Chap. II. each of the others, viz. the Latin Prose and the Greek Verse, so that I shall still have two to try for next year ; so that, of course, I am very well satisfied. I have been very well, too, on the whole ; indeed I may say exceed- ingly well, notwithstanding all the hard work, and happy too, though sometimes in rather low spirits, for I stand much alone in the school now, and I am afraid it is any- thing but good for me to be alone ; but I hope I am con- quering these fits, and I do not think they come nearly so frequently or so strongly as they used to do ; and when you are come over and settled, I think they may cease altogether ; if they do not, it will not be my own fault. Dr. Arnold, I am afraid, you know too little about yet to give him and his concerns much interest for you. Only if any rumours of ill-conduct as head-master here have crossed the Atlantic (I believe they have got a great way through the ' Times' and 'John Bull' newspapers), I might as well tell you that the Trustees of the School met last week in London, all being present except three of the twelve, and wrote a letter to the Doctor, saying that they had the most complete confidence in him ; that the school was going on as well as could be expected, and that the discipline was perfectly humane. Lord Aylesford, one of the absentees, wrote still more complimentarily to him. It is, indeed, a marvel how any one could think of circu- lating such utter falsehoods and absurdities as have been spread about by different papers for the last three months. The school is certainly at this moment not at its very highest state of excellence, such as it was in two or three years ago, but there is a very great deal of goodness and talent springing up, I hope and believe. From some cause or other, immense numbers left last Midsummer, and will again this coming one ; and the sudden elevation this causes of a large number into the place of trust and authority renders the spirit of the highest class more childish and less sensible and manly J 836.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGIT. 27 than it used to be. These are things which no one can calcuhite on, though of the most material consequence to the well-being of the school, and only show the extreme difficulty of education. Only fancy, out of the thirty-two first in the school, I suppose just half (if not more) will go; and thus a full half of the sixtli will be new and quite inexperienced, many of them quite young. Perhaps I let these things grow too much into everything else. Yet it is very fine and striking to see many of the best and cleverest Oxford and Cambridge men still watching with great interest all the little changes in the school, and still helping those that remain with their experience and wisdom. I shall not be sorry to go to Oxford now, for I find Stanley and Lake like it very much ; and I daresay Dr. Arnold will be a Bishop before long. I only hope it may not be just yet. I must, however, do my best to go there as I wish, viz. with a Balliol scholarship ; and that not only for the honour's sake, though the honour is the greatest part of it, but for the 30^. per annum which, with an exhibition, will, I trust, all but pay my way at Oxford, as Balliol is 20^. or 30^. cheaper than any other college, I understand. What may come after this I know not ; this is enough to look to as yet. And I mean, if possible, to have a quiet month for reading at Finch House before you come over. Our Easter time is just beginning. Two of our Uni- versity people are down already, Burbidge and Lake, and Gell and Simpkinson are to be here next Wednesday. From that day to its namesake of the first week after Easter, I suppose there will be little or nothing done but walking and talking. 28 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [CnAP. II. To J, N. Simpkinson, Esq. Eugby. 1836. You must not be angry at my turning back from the turnpike. I don't understand Arnold's saying what he did to Vaughan, for surely, at that rate, 0. or S. (I don't mean to be invidious on either university) might, if they ever came here, take fellows over by wholesale, without asking- leave, for of course they are in the same position, rela- tively to schoolboys, as you or Yaughan. And I was thinking of a good deal of mischief that D. and others had done at Easter among the fellows by taking advan- tage of their being ' gentlemen at large,' so that on the whole 3'ou may see that I had something more like reason, at any rate, than "mere scrupulousness about the letter of the law ; though, indeed, the letter of the law is a very good thing, as the spirit is apt to vary with the inter- preters, but what is written is written. I assure you I should have liked nothing better than to have gone with you to Dunchurch, and I reproached myself very much for not having asked Arnold, as I had meant to do, at first lesson. Do you know that to-morrow the most liberal, or Ather radical, measure is to be brought forward, of throwing open the Island to the fags ? I am not quite so liberal as to vote for that, but I am afraid it will succeed. The reason of the attempt to open it is the establishment of these new gymnastic affairs — swings, vaulting-poles, and all kinds of monkey-trick instruments, which excite a great desire in the fags for this privilege. To J. K Simjpkinson, Esq. Liverpool: July 16, 1836. Do you know I believe I am become quite a convert to the Cambridge set's superiority, though, after all, Cam- bridge can never be equal to Oxford in the grandness of the idea of it ? One may fancy Cambridge a very excel- 1836.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 29 lent and useful big place of education, but Oxford is the place for the education of statesmen and great political men ; and the influence of Oxford and its place in relation to the commonwealth is far higher for good or for evil. Suppose Oxford became truly good and truly wise, would it not be far more important, and a far greater blessing than Cambridge in the same condition ? And in this consists the superiority I used to stick up for of the Balliol set, because I believed them truly wise, and withal full of the Oxford public and political and national feeling. But to live in, and among, and as mere society, you are doubt- less better and more delightful. August 8. What a delightful thing it must be, being so near Fox How I I cannot, indeed, conceive anyone calling *the Dr.' Tom, even at Fox How. Rugby : September 23, 1836. We are all getting on very pleasantly this half-year, and the school looks remarkably harmless, and everybody in- clined to do their best and behave well, which is very delicious. We are not, however, by any means full — not more than 286, which will probably be raised to the fall complement next half. Of course, we have quite a new sixth, and certainly an improvement. The night-fagging is at last abolished totally, except half-an-hour at the be- ginning. ^^'e have our supper in the most gentlemanly fashion, in the room together, on a tray with plates and knives, and we buy very good cheeses ourselves, and make a very sociable meal of it. And at last the dream of former days is becoming a reality ; the Sixth Form Eoom is to be furnished ; Arnold gives us 51, and the trustees advance the rest, except a small sum raised by immediate subscription. Also, at last, the new window is put up, and looks, I think, very beautiful. I am very happy and comfortable, and working pretty well. 30 LETTERS AXD EEMAINS OF [CnAr. IH. CHAPTEE III. HIS FAMILY r.ETDRNS TO ENGLAND — BALLIOL SCHOLARSHIP — LIFE AT OXFORD. By Miss A. J. dough. In 1836, my father and mother and I returned to Eng- land. In the month of July 1836, we landed at Liverpool, where we met my two younger brothers, after a separation of nearly five years. Arthur was a blooming youth of seventeen, with an abundance of dark soft hair, a fresh complexion, much colour, and shining eyes full of anima- tion. Eager and earnest, his mind made up on a variety of subjects, he was ready to talk, and above all, of his school and his schoolmaster. Dr. Arnold. He fought his battles and defended his theories about church government, &c., most stoutly. Kind and considerate he was, as ever, but something of the vehemence of youth was upon him. The following autumn he gained the Balliol scholarship, and at Christmas he came once more to a home of his own. At Midijummer, 1837, he returned home with an exhibition from Eugby, and in October he went to reside at Oxford. To his Father. Oxford : November 26, 1836. I have just come out from Balliol, of which college I am now a scholar. The examination concluded this morning about twelve o'clock, and it has just been given out I have got the head one, which also includes an exhibition added to it to make it more valuable, as of themselves the scholar- ships are not worth much. We have had a long and labo- 1837.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 31 rious examination, but I am quite well, and not much tired, at least I do not feel so at present. I stay up here till next Wednesday, as the inauguration is on Tuesday evening. To J. N. SlmpJcinson, Esq. Rugby : December 9, 1836. I am sitting in Arnold's drawdng-room, of all places in the world, for my nine days at Oxford have so tired me, that after vainly trying yesterday to return to regular work, to-day I have resolved to stay out and rest m3\self ; and as there are to be, I believe, half-a-score fellows in the sick room, Mrs. Arnold kindly took me in here. The examination was, on the whole, I think, neither very favourable nor yet unfavourable to me, and it pleased Grod that I should be in health and strength and good spirits, and not much excited during the days of the work. I could not but feel, from what I heard and saw, that I had a very good chance among them, and that in one or two things I had the advantage. To his Sister. Balliol College: Oct. 15, 1837. Behold, I am in Oxford, safe and sound, capped and gowned ; have attended chapel t\vice, once with and once wdthout surplice ; have been to Hall (signifying dinner in Hall) ; also twice to a wine party ; also to call on the Master, and to the University Sermon this morning ; so that by to-morrow evening, when, I hope, my books will be arrived and arranged on my shelves, and when also, I trust, I shall be furnished with a kettle and set of tea-things (for as yet I have been dependent on the bountiful hospi- tality of my friends), I shall be pretty completely settled. I came up with Stanley and with two other Rugbeians on Friday evening, and got established in my rooms that night. They consist of one small and one smaller room. 32 LETTEES AND REMAINS OF [Chap. III. both, however, considerably larger than my study at Eugb}'', in the attics of No. 4 Staircase, outer quadrangle. To J. P. Gell, Esq. Hope Street, Liverpool : Jan. 15, 1838. Did the intelligence arrive in your parts of Arnold's wonderful victory in the Senate of London University ? i. e. the introduction of an examination in the Grospels and Acts into the Degree Examination, which must seem a strange novelty in that godless place. It must have been a very grand thing to see him get up among all those people and declare that they must do something to show that they were Christians and that it was a Christian Uni- versity. I do not know what would become of the various shades of Whigs now existing in the University if Hawkins were to be made a Bishop. These people, however, have done a vast deal of good at Oxford, when anything so ' un- gentlemanly ' and ' coarse ' and in such bad taste as Evan- gelicalism would never be able to make very much way. It seems just the sort of religious activity and zeal which one would expect to develop itself in an age of activity and shaking up in such a place as the University of Oxford. I am great friends with Brodie, and still more so, I think, with Ward, whom I like very much. I have seen more of him and of Lake than of any one else. To the Same. Oxford, BaUiol CoUege: April 8, 1838. Do you not envy me my idleness ? you, who, I sup- pose, are in the miseries of entering the Trinity College Examination. I have got through all my trouble, and am now fully at liberty to lie in bed, go to the newsroom, read reviews and novels, learn to skiff, and finally to insult you and Simpkinson. It is supposed that ]jut for this Hertford, which has 1838 ] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 33 turned out so ill for us, all knowledge of Latin in the University of Oxford would have been by this time quite extinct, except as surviving in College graces and Uni- versity oaths ; those also not understood. I wish that you were at Oxford ; it is, I am sure, so much better a place than Cambridge, and you would have the great advantage of a good chance of becoming a dis- ciple of /u,f7a9 NsavSpos, whom I like much better than I did, and admire in many points exceedingly. To J. P. GelU Esq. Balliol: May 8, 1838. One thing, I suppose, is clear — that one must leave the discussion of the Ta NsavSpcaTriKo, k.t.X. all snug and quiet for after one's degree. And it is no harm, but rather good, to give oneself up a little to learning Oxford people, and admiring their good points, which lie, I suppose, princi- pally in all they hold in opposition to the Evangelical portion of society — the benefit and beauty and necessity of forms — the ugliness of feelings put on unnaturally soon, and consequently kept up by artificial means, ever strained and never sober. I should think very likely,, too, their anti-Calvinistic views of justification were, if not just, at least very useful to lead us to the truth. I should be very sorry ever to be brought to believe their further views of matter acting on morals as a charm of sacramentalism, and the succession-notion so closely connected with it. All this, and their way of reading and considering Scripture — such a contrast to the German fashions — rests, I suppose, entirely on their belief in the infallibility of the Church down to a certain period, to which they are led by a strong sense of the necessity of some infallible authority united with a feeling of the insufficiency of the New Testament. Indeed, I think a good deal of what they say as to this latter point is stronger than anything I ever heard against it. Newman is now giving lectures on the Mystical Power V D X K 34 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. III. of the Sacraments, and seems to have stated the objection to it Scriptural ly in a very fair and candid manner. If I had said a quarter of this to , he would have set me down at once for a thorough-going convert ad Newman- ismum. But you will not be so rash ; and you remember that you asked me to write about it. It is very striking that there is a German divine among the large assortment living and thinking here, who has come to a mystical view which is no less difficult than Newman's, though not in form the same. Olshausen is his name. His notion is of a mysterious union of our bodies with our Lord's, though not by the bread and wine. To J. P. Gell, Esq. Eugby: September 1838. Arnold is coming with Bunsen to Cambridge next Christmas holidays ; about the time, I suppose, of your going up for your degree. He is quite well again, being restored by Bunsen's visit. I think, for myself, I would give two years of my life to come to have back the last one I spent at Eugby. Many of the big, unruly fellows who are troubling the school so much now, and were in my time only showing the beginnings of their badnesses, quite haunt me at times ; but that cannot be helped, so one can only hope earnestly for Theodore, who seems in- deed very brave and manly. One sees very little of Arnold here, and indeed to talk with him almost nothing. Balliol : November 18, 1838. You must know when you modestly requested me to answer your letter by return of post, that I was then in the midst of preparations for my little go, which fiery ordeal I have passed through now nearly three weeks. Also that Congreve and I have come to the conclusion that time in fee simple does not exist in Oxford, but only on credit, and that with heavv interest. 1838.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. X'j Stanley was as miicli delighted as you were with Whately, and was greatly rejoiced too at finding you so unusually (for a Cambridge man) like an Oxford man. There is, I suppose, no doubt much more interest in such matters (theological, ecclesiastical, political, &c.) here, than with you ; though the society sees is much the most inquir- ing, at any rate, on them, than any in Oxford, and it is not a very large set. The Newmanistic undergraduates mostly shut their ears and call it blasphemy, but not quite universally, and of course they, though they will not listen to anything else, have a scheme of church govern- ment, &c., which they uphold, not to say anything about understanding or appreciating it. If you were to come here (as I hope you will after your degree is done with), you would at once have Ward at you, asking you your opinions on every possible subject of this kind you can enumerate ; beginning with Covent Grarden and Macready, and certainly not ending till you got to the question of the moral sense and deontology. I don't quite like hearing so much of these matters as I do, but I sup- pose if one can only keep steadily to one's work (which I wish I did), and quite resolve to forget all the words one has heard, and to theorise only for amusement, there is no harm in it. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, in a very good University Sermon last Sunday, on the Duty of Private Judgment as opposed to the Eight, seemed to say that undergraduates were to mind their Latin and Greek and nothing else ; or nearly so. And many people here speak of the Union as an institution of very doubtful usefulness. To J. P. Gell, Esq. Oxford: 1838. We have been up here just a month and a day, enjoyino- for the last week of it most glorious weather, greatly to the increase of hunting and boating, and to the decrease of reading. Among other incidents I have had the pleasure of D 2 36 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IIL twice meeting the heresiarcli avToraros, namely John Henry Newman, once at a dinner-party, and once at a small and select breakfast. I was introduced, and had the honour of drinking wine with him ; on the strength of all which of course, as is one's boundeu duty, I must turn Newmanist. As a first step in which process, I should rebuke you for the heresy of your last letter, dated (more shame to me) Nov. 22. I hoped very much you would come here after your degree was done, but if you continue to rest on Milton's Christian Doctrines for one leg, and Calvin's Institutes for the other, I recommend you to walk away on them as fast as you can from this seat and citadel of orthodoxy. It is dif- ficult here even to obtain assent to JNIilton's greatness as a poet ; quite impossible, I should think, if you are unable to sa}^ that you ' do not know anything about his prose writ- ings.' Also you must be ready to give up that ' irreverent ' third book. Were it not for the happy notion that a man's poetry is not at all affected by his opinions or indeed character and mind altogether, I fear the ' Paradise Lost ' would be utterly imsaleable, except for waste paper, in the University. Concerning the Newnianitish phantasm, as some people term the Church, I do not know very much ; but perhaps you may be enlightened a little, and even softened by the knowledge that Newman (I believe decidedly in words, and certainly his real notion is such) holds the supremacy of the auTT) Kad dvrrjv sl\iKpLV7]s Stdvoia, but says that sub- mission to a divinely-appointed body of teachers and governors, to wit, bishops and presbyters and deacons, is the course that is pointed out to us by the aforesaid slXiKpivrp Sidvoia: inasmuch as it is evident to the reason from the circumstances of the case, &c., that the pre- ponderance of probabilities is for this view, viz. that Christian privileges and covenanted salvation have been attached to the use of certain forms and sacraments whose only qualified administrators are the Apostles' successors, the 1839.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 37 clergy ; and that these gifts and graces cannot be obtained except through the medium of these divinely-appointed priests. All persons therefore who AvilfuUy refuse to re- ceive Grod's blessings through this channel are guilty of very great sin, and put out of the covenanted privileges of Christians. 'Are not Abana and Pharphar, rivers of Dama.scus, better than all the rivers of Judah ? may I not wash in them and be clean ? ' Such is, I believe, the doctrine which they say is but a proper carrying out of the argument of Butler's Analogy. I think its proper answer must be in the lives of good men out of the influence of any such ordinances, though when anyone speaks of such they at once cry ' name,' which it is perhaps difficult to do. As for Milton, he is rejected altogether because of his divorce notions and his neglect of devotions as stated in Johnson's life of him. Doddridge is often mentioned, but I believe there is some charge against him also. This disquisition, counting the Greek, must, I think, make this letter a due member of the proportion proposed in your last — viz. : As your letter : a repartee :: this : something digestible. To J. P. Gell, Esq. Oxford: April 18, 1839. I found that at Rugby I had been quite set down among theological gossips as a Newmanist, but the impression was pretty well removed by the time I came away. P , as usual, ilowed with a continuous stream of German divinity and Biblical philology. Whit-Sunday, May 30. June 12th is Commemoration day ; I liope we shall have one Rugby prize between the five attempts made by Stanley, Lake and myself; and indeed, I believe Conf>-reve and Arnold have also made one apiece ; but the English poems are this year fifty in number, and better than usual 38 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. III. in quality, according to Keble, and as mine was rather worse than usual I have but little hope of proving a prize gooseberry; indeed I am afraid I possess none of the necessary qualifications you enumerate. I have been reading five books of Plato's Eepublic, and wish to examine you in return as to whether you be a Platonist. 1st. Do you believe that iracra fiddrjcns dvdfivTjais iart ? 2ndly. Do you agree to dividing human nature into TO ^tkoao^ov TO sTTidu/jLostSis, and to eTrcdv/xrjTiKov ? 3rdly. Do you believe that all wickedness is aKovatov and hi dyvoiav ? 4thly. Do you agree to this assertion, ' That the world will never be happy till philosophers are kings, or kings philosophers'? othly. Do you think it would be advisable to turn H.M.'s colony of Van Diemen's Land into a Platonic Eepublic ? the (pvXaKS? whereof should be educated at College — — ? (the blanks you must fill up for yourself; Queen's College, Vandiemensville is what I conjecture). If you have not hitherto studied this wondrous book I recommend you to cast aside those heterodox and heretical authors, Calvin and Milton, and immediately commence upon it. Plato not being a Christian is quite orthodox ; in fact Sewell says that his Eepublic is realised in, and indeed is a sort of prophecy of, the Catholic Church ; Coleridge meanwhile declaring it the most wonderful anticipation of Protestant Christianity. You must really come to Oxford, overcoming circumstances and cacoethes and everything else ; as otherwise I have no prospect whatever of seeing you. It is also advisable that you should see the Arch-Oxford-Tractator before you leave this part of the world, that you may not be ignorant on a topic doubtless interesting even to the remote barbarians in Van Diemen's Land. It is said that Eomanists are increasing, Newmanists increasing, Socinians also, and Eationalists increasing, but all other kinds of men rapidly decreasing, so that on your return to England perhaps 1839.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 39 you will find Newman Archbishop of Canterbury and Father Confessor to the Queen ; Lord Melbourne (if not burnt) excommunicated, and philosophers in the persons of the Apostles' apostolical ly ordained successors fairly and Platonically established as kings. The seeds of which contingent revolutions it is requisite that you should come and contemplate in Oxford. You will also have the opportunity of seeing Conybeare Pater issuing fulminatory condemnations of the Fathers at the heads of astonished Newmanists from St. Mary's pulpit; himself in shape, conformation, and gestures most like one of his own ichthyosauri, and his voice evidently proceeding from lungs of a fossil character. Again, you will see Chevalier Bunsen, Poet Wordsworth, and Astronomer Herschel metamorphosed into doctors of civil law ; a sight worthy, especially in the second case, of all contemplation. Further- more, there will be boat-races, with much shouting and beer-drinking ; a psychological study of great interest. Cum multis aliis, quge nunc describere longum est. Nil mihi rescribas, attamen ipse veni. May 2, 1839. I hope you will carry out with you, or send home for, a good Grermanised Cambridge scholar or historian, as that (next to Paley's Horae Paulinse and Eationalistic Divinity) is the great bulwark against Newmanism. And I have to tell you that Bishop Broughton, your diocesan to be, has lately been sending to Oxford to beg for contri- butions of spare books, fidXicrTa fxsv new, but if not, old, to set up a clerical library in Australia. Such oppor- tunities of disseminating Patristical and Ecclesiastical views are never missed by the ardent Newmanistic spirits, old and young, specially the latter. Whereby, unless the convict Clerisy be slower than their convict parishioners in their intellectual development, Newmanism is not im- probably already founded in the far East on the foundation of Kerr and Bramhall, St. Ignatius, St. Basil, and the Oxford tracts. 40 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. III. Pray come; and write and let me know. I said in my last — Nil mihi rescribas, attamen ipse veni. But Latin is of course to be taken rhetorically and figura- tively, and ' nil mihi rescribas ' means only — Come, if you can, before your letter. To J. N. Simpkinson, Esq. Oxford: Die Cele]perrimi Laurentii Sheriffii, 1839. I wish you would recommend me some book to give Grell before he goes to Tasmania. I should not like to give him anything ephemeral, which is a fault attaching itself, I suppose, even to ' Carlyle's Essays,' which are just published, though I admire him extremely in general, and these essays even more than the 'Revolution.' Has he got a ' Boswell's Johnson ' ? I suppose so. Carlyle says Johnson is the last of the English Tories; all since him have been but Toryish men. He has got an article on Boswell which is extremely beautiful ; likewise on Burns, which is so too. He is certainly, however, somewhat heathenish ; but that, it seems to me, is the case with all literature, old and new, EngHsh and foreign, worth calling literature, which comes in one's way. I truly hope to escape the vortex of philosophism and discussion (whereof Ward is the centre), as it is the most exhausting exercise in the world ; and I assure you I quite makarize you at Cambridge for your liberty from it. Two fragments written about this time are here given. October 1839. Truth is a golden thread, seen here and there In small bright specks upon the visible side Of our strange being's party-coloured web. How rich the converse ! 'Tis a vein of ore 1839.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 41 Emerging now and tlien on Earth's rude breast, But llowing i'ull below. Like islands set At distant intervals on Ocean's face, We see it on our course ; but in the depths The mystic colonnade unbroken keeps Its faithful way, invisible but sure. Oh, if it be .so, wherefore do we men Pass by so many marks, so little heeding ? Oxford: October 16, 1839. So I went wrong. Grievously wrong, but folly crushed itself, And vanity o'ertoppling fell, and time And healthy discipline and some neglect, Labour and solitary hours revived Somewhat, at least, of that original frame. Oh, well do I remember then the days When on some grassy slope (what time the sun Was sinking, and the solemn eve came down With its blue vapour upon field and wood And elm-embosomed spire) once more again I fed on sweet emotion, and my heart With love o'erllowed, or hushed itself in fear Unearthly, yea celestial. Once again My heart was hot within me, and, me seemed, I too had in my body breath to wind The magic horn of song ; I too possessed Up-welling in my being's depths a fount Of the true poet-nectar whence to fill The golden urns of verse. To J. N. Simpkinson, Esq. Tuesday, December 21, 1839. Q s Newmanistic tendencies are, I am afraid, as cer- tain if not as strong as you represent. He is so determined on having a conscious system that these tendencies are, I think, not unnatural. I hope you do not think me much perverted. The resistance, when there is occasion for it, 42 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. lU. against proselytisers, is of the most vague unsystematic kind, resting in the most unstable way on intuitions, idealities, &c. &c., but I am not conscious of being in any wise leavened by them. What do you think I have been bestowing the firstfruits of Christmas idleness upon ? The first part of * Die Leiden des jungen Werthers,' and really with more satisfaction and admiration than I expected; or rather, I have found all the power and little of the extravagance I looked for. I have read, too, with great pleasure, Schiller's ' Votiv- Tafeln;' at least, about half of them. Here is one — Hast du etwas? so theile mir's mit, und icli zahle was recht ist. Bist du etwas? o denn tauschen die Seelen wir aus. Again — Allen gehort was du denkst, dein Eigen ist rnir was du fiihlest ; Soil er dein Eigenthum seyn, fiihle den Gott den du denkst. I have but little appetite for work, mathematical or classical ; and there is as little compulsion to it, and as much enticement from it as is possible, in our ways of life at Oxford. November 2i, 1839. Whence comest thou ? sliady lane, and why and how ? Thou, where with idle heart, ten years ago, I wandered, and with childhood's paces slow So long uiithoiight of, and remembered now ! Again in vision clear thy pathwayed side I tread, and view thy orchard plots again With yellow fruitage hung, — and glimmering grain Standing or shocked through the thick hedge espied. This hot stiU noon of August brings the sight ; This quelling silence as of eve or night. Wherein Earth (feeling as a mother may After her travail's latest bitterest throes) Looks up, so seemeth it, one half repose. One half in effort, straining, suffering still. 1840.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 43 This I wrote in some cornfields near Liverpool, on one of our few fine days. To J. P. Gell, Esq. New Year's Day, 1840 (To Hobart Town, V. D.L.). Liverpool: January 16, 1840. Of the three principal theological appearances spoken of for this past autumn, two have appeared — 'Arnold on Prophecy,' as you know, I suppose, and two fresh volumes of ' Fronde's Eemains ;' the third, ' Julius Hare's Sermons,' are still only in preparation. Oxford is, as usual, replete with Newraanism and Newmanistic gossip, from which it is one blessing for you that you are preserved. I saw a letter from Arnold, dated P'ox How, January, in which he said that not the school-house only, but the school would be, he believed, full next half-year. To J. N. Slmpkinson, Esq. 26 Castle Street, Liverpool : August 27, 1840. The English verse disappointment, as you suppose, was no heavy burden to bear, and if Burbidge has sent you the specimen line he threatened to do, you will say that it should have been no disappointment at' all. I have been since the vacation three weeks at Grasmere with Ward, not very far from Thorney How ; the rest of the time here studying the ethics, &c., for November. I shall go for a day or two to Kugby at the beginning of October, and then to Oxford about a fortnitiht before term com- mences, to effect the removal I must undergo from College to lodgings ; indeed, I should go earlier for the sake of better reading, but my two brothers are going out to America together (the younger for the first time), and will hardly be off sooner than October. That I have been a good deal unsettled in mind at times at Oxford, and that I have done a number of foolish 44 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. III. things, is true enough, and I daresay the change from Rugby life to its luxury and apparent irresponsibility has had a good deal of ill effect upon me. By Miss A. J. Clough. ■ In the summer of 1840 he stayed for a time at Grasmere, reading with Mr. Ward, and then spent a fortnight in a walking journey through Wales with his eldest brother ; the rest of the vacation he spent at Liverpool with his family. He became at this time more and more uneasy and unsettled in his mind, and his parents became anxious about him. But in th'e summer of 1840, his troubles of mind seemed the greatest. His tendency to High Church views had apparently passed away, and he was afloat on another sea of thought, and no one knew his mind at home. His health, too, suffered, and his mother and I grieved to see his dark hair fast falling off. But he was as thoughtful and considerate as ever : he brought home his most interesting new books; he taught me Grerman; and he used to accompany me in visits among the back lanes and streets of Liverpool, where I feared to go alone, in search of my favourite scholars. He was always tender to the feelings of others, and never caused needless pain by showing the change in his feelings roughly, but very gently he loosened the cords that bound him to the tradi- tion of his early life. He went back to college in October, and ought then to have gone up for his degree, but he wrote to his father that he had made up his mind not to go in for it till the spring ; but that as this was the case, he should for the future support himself, without assistance, on his scholar- ship and exhibition. He would not come home at Christ- mas, but remained up at Oxford during the vacation. 1841.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 45 To J. N. SimpJdnson, Esq. Oxford: Fob. 16, 1841. I should like much to have heard Carlyle's complaint against Coleridge. I keep wavering between admiration of his exceedingly great perceptive and analytical power, and other wonderful points, and inclination to turn away altogether from a man who has so great a lack of all reality and actuality. By-the-bye, there is a new and very striking portrait of him just published by Holloway, which I have seen in our Coleridge's rooms, and which, he says, is said by those who knew him to be the best by far there exists. We had a two days' visit from Arnold just before the half-year began, I thought he was not in very good spirits ; but he was certainly not out of heart. Oxford is now in full enjoyment of the Carnival. You have no idea how fast things are going here Eomewards. The more need, therefore, for Hare's defence of Luther, who is in terrible ill odour here. Is it ever to appear ? I have some idea of going to London at Easter, to get some lectures of Lowe, my tutor of Easter Term, who is now established there. I heard the other day that Walrond was to come up to try for our scholarship. Burbidge has spoken a good deal of his coming here instead of to Cambridge. I told him that I thought your discipline infinitely superior in the way of instruction ; and so I feel sure it must be, though I am willing we should be thought superior in other points. To his Sister. [After failing to obtain a first-class in the schools.] Oxford : Sunday, June 6, 1841. You must not trouble yourself about my class. I do not care a straw for it myself,*and was much more glad to 46 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. III. get it ov^er than I was disappointed at hearing of its result. I suppose a good many, whom I ought to wish to gratify, are disappointed a good deal, and it will perhaps leave me without an adequate supply of pupils this summer ; but I have already an offer of one for a month, and do not des- pair of two or three more before term ends. Otherwise it does not matter, I think, at all ; and I can assure you it has not lessened my own opinion of ray ability, for I did my papers not a quarter as well as my reading would naturally have enabled me to do ; and if I got a second with my little finger, it would not have taken two hands to get a double first (there's for you I) Neither must you think that it is about my class that I have been bothered during the last year, and that I must therefore be disap- pointed. I can assure you that it was principally about other things altogether, though you need not read or say this to my father or mother, imless you think it will do any good, which I suppose it won't. I did not like going up last October, though I daresay I should have done better then, because I had not read what I ought ; but after having so read, I had so much less care about it than I ought to have had, that I mis- managed everything in every way I could. Besides, you know the object of honours is to make men read and not to make them distinguished, and if I have read, it is all the same whether I am distin- guished or not, and, so far as I am concerned, perhaps better. Tha disappointment has been general ; tw^o or three certain firsts, besides myself, are in the second, and two or three hopeful ones in the third. Balliol has, how- ever, got two of the four prizes. So we are getting up again in the world. I only wish I might go home, but if I don't stay here every day to eat bread and butter out of the College but- tery till Wednesday fortnight I shall lose 60/. Wherefore you and I must both bo patient. 1841.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 47 Commemoration is to be a week earlier, as Prince Albert and the Duke are to be here at that time. I had a delightful walk to Braunston and Eugby, and still more so back here — about fifty miles, and mostly through fields and green lanes — quite a new way, and far pleasanter than the old one. Oxford: June 1841. I am glad my explanations have relieved your disap- pointment, though I hope you will not blab my bravado any further. However, it is not perhaps so great as you may think, for I do not doubt there are many in every examination who are capable of as much and fail much in the same way as I, only nobody knows. I am not sorry to lose reputation, for it is often a troublesome companion. Did I tell you that Ward, my friend and George's, has been turned out of his tutorship for Ultra-New- manism ? To J. N. Simpldnson, Esq. Oxford: July 11, 1841. . , . And now to thank you for the kindness of your letter. You will have seen that I am inclined rather to care too little than too much about it. My papers, I am quite sure, deserved no more than a second, and so I was, too, at the time ; there can be no question as to the fair- ness of the decision. At the same time, knowing as I do how far my papers were from representing my acquirement and my usual ability of writing upon that acquirement, I can measure more than any one else how much was in my average grasp. As for the causes of this mismanagement, I do not feel very guilty about them, though it does not therefore follow that I ought not so to feel. The only real loss that 1 care about is that of pupils whom I should have been glad to have had this summer for the money's sake, and now I hardly expect to get any. 48 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IV. CHAPTER IV. RECOLLECTIONS OF PEOFESSOK SHAIKP — LETTERS ELECTED FELLOW OF ORIEL — DEATH OF DR. ARNOLD. By Professor J. C. Shairp. It was towards the end of 1840 that I first saw A. H. Clough. As a freshman I looked with respect approach- ing to awe on the senior scholar of whom I had heard so much, stepping out on Sunday mornings to read the first lesson in Balliol Chapel. Hov/ clearly I remember his massive figure, in scholar's surplice, standing before the brass eagle, and his deep feeling tones as he read some chapter from the Hebrew prophets. At that time he was the eldest and every way the first of a remarkable band of scholars. The younger undergraduates felt towards him a distant reverence, as a lofty and profound nature quite above themselves whom they could not quite make out, but who was sure- to be some day great. Profaner spirits, nearer his own standing, sometimes made a joke of his then exceeding silence and reserve, and of his unworldly wavs. But as he was out of College rooms and reading hard for his degree, we freshmen only heard of his repu- tation from a distance, and seldom came in contact with him. It must have been early in 1841 that he first asked me to breakfast with him. He was then living in a small cottage, or cottage-like house, standing by itself, a little apart from Holywell. There he used to bathe every morning all the winter through, in the cold Holywell baths, and read hard all day. There were one or two other fresh- 1»41.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 49 men there at breakfast. If I remember right none of the party were very talkative. I have heard that about that time he wrote one day in fun an oracle, in the style of Herodotus, to his brother scholar, who was reading like himself for the Schools. The Greek I forget ; the translation he sent with it ran some- thing like this : — When as of Lancashire Shall in the schools preside, And Wynter* to St. Mary's go With the pokers by his side ; Two scholars then of Balliol, Who on double firsts had reckoned, Between them two shall with much ado Scarce get a double second. This turned out only too true an oracle. Since the beginning of class-lists, the succession of firsts among Balliol scholars was unbroken. And few Balliol scholars had equalled, none ever surpassed, Clough's reputation. I well remember going, towards the end of May or beginning of June, with one of the scholars of my own standing to the school quadrangle to hear the class-list read out, the first time I had heard it. What was our surprise when the list was read out, and neither of our scholars appeared in the first class. We rushed to Balliol and announced it to the younger Fellows who were standing at their open window. Many causes were assigned at the time for this failure, some in the examiners, some in Clough's then state of spirits ; but whatever the cause, I think the result for some years shook faith in firsts among Clough's contemporaries. It made a great impression on others ; on himself I fancy it made but little. I never heard him afterwards allude to it as a thing of any consequence. He once told me he was sick of contentions for prizes and honours before he left Kugby. * Head of St. Johft's, and at that time Vice Chancellor. E 50 I>ETTERS AXB REMAIXS OP [Chap. IV. In the November of the same year lie tried for a Balliol Fellowship, but was not successful. Tait,* however, was strong in his favour, and, I believe, some other of the Fellows. I remember one of them telling me at the time that a character of Saul which Clough wrote in that examination was, I think he said, the best, most original thing he had ever seen written in any examination. But Oriel had at that time a way of finding out original genius better than either Balliol or the Schools. In the spring of 1842, Arthur Hugh Clough was elected P'ellow of Oriel, the last examination I believe in which Newman took part. The announcement of that success I remember well. It was on the Friday morning of the Easter week of that year. The examination w^as finished on the Thursday evening. I had asked Clough and another friend, who was a candidate at the same time, to breakfast with me on the Friday morning as their work was just over. Most of the scholars of the College were staying up and came to breakfast too. The party consisted of about a dozen. We had little notion that anything about the examination would be known so soon, and were all sitting quietly, having just finished breakfast, but not yet risen from the table. The door opened wide; entered a Fellow of another College, and, drawing himself up to his full height, he addressed the other candidate : ' I am sorry to say you have not got it.' Then, ' Clough, you have ; ' and stepping forw^ard into the middle of the room, held out his hand, with 'Allow me to congratulate you.' We were all so little thinking of the Fellow9hip and so taken aback by this formal an- nouncement, that it was some little time before we knew what it was all about. The first thing that recalled my presence of mind was seeing the delight on the face of Clough's younger brother, who was present. In the summer of 1842, while I was reading in a retired * Thepi'pspnt Bishop of London, at that tim< Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College. 1841.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 51 part of Wales with two or three others, Clough, then wander- ing through the Welsh mountains, one morning looked in on us. I took a walk with him and he at once led me up Moel Wyu, the highest mountain within reach. Two things I remember that day ; one, that he spoke a good deal (for him) of Dr. Arnold, whose death had happened only a few weeks before ; another, that a storm came down upon the mountain when we were halfway up. In the midst of it we lay for some time close above a small mountain tarn, and watched the storm-wind working on the face of the lake, tearing and torturing the water into most fantastic, almost ghostly shapes, the like of which I never saw before or since. These mountain sights, though he did not say much, he used to eye most observantly. To Rev. J. P. Gell. Liverpool: September 11, 1841. Since I wrote last, two important events have befallen me ; first, my descent into a second class, of which perhaps Simpkinson may have informed you; and second, the failure of my father's commercial concern, which took place while I was in Westmoreland about a month ago. I am now busily engaged here with pupils, of whom I have nine occupying me from 9 A.m. to 4 p.m., and, whether flourishing or not under ray management, paying me a good price. They are most of them Rugby fellows de- tained here by typhus fever fears, and some of them as idle as the idlest big fellows of the shell in our time ; some of them, however, pleasant enough to deal with, and none very stupid. I am daily expecting to hear of the recall which will put an end to this contraband trade, but I shall have two or three remaining till the quarter. I am at present earning at the rate of 1,000^. per annum, but of this I have only had one week and do not expect more than another. e2 52 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IV. The first month of the vacation I spent at Grasmere, with young Walrond. We had a pleasant month, or rather six weeks, at Grasmere, and one in considerable contrast to -Liverpool tutoring. Arnold was there for the last fortnight, and we saw a good deal of him. He got while we were there his appointment to the Kegius Pro- fessorship of Modern History at Oxford, with which he seemed much pleased, and not less so because it came at the last moment of Whig patronage. He will come up annually to deliver a course, but that is all ; the emolument is small, but he said it was exactly what he had been want- ing to give him an Archimedean standing-place. A fifty- five page discussion of Arnold is to appear in the next ' British Critic,' from the pen of Ward, of whose deposition from his tutorship on account of his adhesion to the world- famous No. XC, some one perhaps may have told you. By his Sister, In the spring of 1842 he came home, to our great joy, victorious. He had been elected Fellow of Oriel, and it cheered the drooping spirits of the family. His own spirits, too, revived, and he was much happier and more like what he had been before he went to College. But that summer he suffered along with many others a severe blow in the death of Dr. Arnold, who died in June 1842. Arthur was at home just after it, and he was com- pletely overwhelmed. He could not rest, and seemed unable to take interest in anything, and he went away almost immediately into Wales and wandered about there alone. In general he never could speak of what troubled him most. To Rev. J. P. Gell. Oxford: April 17, 1842. Since I wrote last I have been in for the Balliol Fellow- ship, and have been rejected ; and for the Oriel, to which 1842]. ARTHUR HUGH CLOUOII. 53 you will be glad to hear I was elected, about a fortnight ago. Here I am now fairly domesticated, having under- gone the pomps and vanities of High-table and Common- room almost daily without intermission since term began. I am very sorry, however, to leave Balliol, which I confess to liking better, I fear, than Kugby itself, and never expect to find equalled by Oriel ; nor do I altogether like the change from independent bachelorship to High-table and Common-room-dom. Our resident Fellows are Newman, who, however, is mostly at his parish of Littlemore, two miles off, where he has lodgings ; Litton ; Eden, one of the working men of the University business, examiner in the schools at present, and for some years tutor and chief dis- ciplinarian of Oriel, though now he is out of office ; then we have Marriott ; Frasei*, a tutor, who is an Ireland scholar, a Shrewsbury man; Church; Christie; Cornish, on a local foundation ; and Dayman, who is married, and retains his fellowship therefore only for this his year of grace ; lastly. Chase, elected with me. I am busy also with pupils, of which I 'have more than I wish just at present. The Univei'sity is listening as patiently as it can to Garbett's Bampton Lectures, which are each an hour and a half in length. You know, I suppose, his contest for the Professorship of Poetry with Williams (of the Cathedral). Newmanism is left apparently to do as it ! pleases for the present ; three or four undergraduates and one bookseller have lately crossed from its ranks to those of Komanism, but in general things are very quiet. November 5, 1842. I am to tell you from Stanley, that there is a subscrip- tion going forward for a memorial to Arnold ; first, a scholarship at Oxford or Eugby, to be held first by his sons, and to be called by his name ; and secondly, a monument of some kind in the chapel. I have engaged to write a life of Agesilaus for a biographical dictionary. Also, I have more dining out than I used to have, owing ^ 54 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IV. to my exaltation in the academical world. Even to-day, which, as being Friday, should be, according to Oxford, anything but a feast, I have a heterodox engagement which will . occupy two hours at least. I am however getting on pretty well this term, perhaps because I have more to do ; the long vacation I spent chiefly in Ireland, with Carey, whom you perhaps remember among the attaches of Messiter and Fox, at Price's. He was very desirous to be at home, and yet to have some one to read with him ; so I was persuaded to go with him, and get another pupil to go also to Cork Harbour, his father being General in command of the Cork district, and living at Cove. We saw all the world military there, captains, colonels, and knights in arms, which last title might be given to some of the infant Careys (the family consisting of a dozen, besides one son in Afghanistan), for it seems they all go into the army, excepting the genius under my tutorage ; and even he says that if he does not get a good degree, he shall give up all thoughts of the Church, and get a commission. I came back sooner than I intended to England, to see my father and brother start for America. Also, I may inform you that I had a bathe this morning at our mutual friend's. Parson's Pleasure — the tempera- ture both of air and water in nowise, however, resembling that which you experienced there, it being the coldest morning I have bathed this year. I have great reason to thank Carey for having delivered me already this week from two Common-room and one Head-of-a-House dinner-parties at the early hour of eight ; which abrupt retirement also, if the reason be announced with the judicious unostentatious-audible tone, serves the purpose of an advertisement similar to the creaking-booted physician-incipient's periodical retirement from public worship. 1843.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGIL 55 To his Sister. Oriel: Feb. 23, 1843. I have no news to tell you, unless that Carey has been here, and announced himself as about to receive a com- mission and go to India. I believe my last communication was before our College journey to Wadley to hold the JNIanorial Court. We were a party of seven, the Provost, the senior Treasurer, and the Steward (or agent, a solicitor) in a chaise ; myself and three other Fellows on horseback. We had luncheon at the Manor House, held the Court, the principal business (so to call the transactions, for they hardly deserve the name) consisting in settling disputes about some common land, of which the deeds of the Manor have of course the superintendence and chief rights. In old times these Courts, at which regular juries are still formed and sworn in ' to inquire,' i.e. hold inquisition and try cases ' for the Queen,' had power over life and death. However, all the death we caused was that of the lamb which was slaughtered to provide our dinner at the inn, where we dined together before returning. The place is sixteen miles off, and we had a pleasant ride home by moon- light. June 7, 1843. I have just been hearing Newman preach. Next week [j I shall be very busy examining candidates for our Scholar- ship, and then will come collections, that is, examinations J of the men before they go down. Dr. Pusey has been condemned by the A'^ice Chancellor and a Court of six Doctors, for a sermon he preached about a fortnight ago. He is forbidden to preach before the University for two years. He issued a protest against the decision, and to- day I understand there is a meeting of JNIasters of Arts about it, in which I fancv Ward must be concerned. 56 LETTEES AND KEMAINS OF [Chap. IV. By Professor Skairp. Early in the autumn of 1843, Clougli came to Grasmere to read with a Balliol reading-party, of which I was one. He was with us about six weeks, I think staying till towards the end of September. This was his earliest long vacation party, all things on a smaller scale than his later ones by Loch Ness, or on Dee-side, but still very pleasant. He lived in a small lodging immediately to the west of Grrasmere church ; we in a farm-house on the lake. During these weeks I read the Greek tragedians with him, and did Latin prose. His manner of translating, especi- ally the Greek choruses, was quite peculiar ; a quaint archaic style of language, keeping rigidly to the Greek order of the words, and so bringing out their expression better, more forcibly and poetically than any other translations I had heard. \\^hen work was done w^ used to walk in the afternoon with him all over that delightful country. His ' eye to country ' was wonderful. He knew the whole lie of the different dales relatively to each other; every tarn, beck, and bend in them. He used, if I remember right, to draw pen and ink maps, showing us the whole lineaments of the district. Without any ob- trusive enthusiasm, but in his own quiet manly way, he seemed as if he never could get too much of it — never walk too far or too often over it. Bathing too formed one of his daily occupations, up in a retired pool of the stream that afterwards becomes the Rotha, as it comes out of Easedale. One walk, our longest, was on a Saturday, up Easedale, over the Raise by Greenup, Borrowdale, Honister Crag, imder the starlight, to Buttermere. In the small inn there we stayed all Sunday. Early on Monday morning we walked by two mountain passes, to a farm at the head of Wastwater to breakfast. On the way we crossed Enner- dale, and up the pass close under the nearly perpendicular precipices of the Pillar — a tall mountain, which is the 1843.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 57 scene of Wordsworth's pastoral of ' The Brothers.' From the head of Wastvvater, up past the great gorge of the Mickledoor, to the top of Scawfell, then down past the east side of Bowfell towards Langdale Pikes, and so home to Grasmere. As we passed under Bowfell a beautiful autumn afternoon, we lay a long time by the side of the lovely Angle Tarn. The sun, just before he sunk beside Bowfell, was showering down his light, which dimpled the smooth face of the tarn like heavy drops of sun-rain. Every now and then a slight breeze would come and scatter the rays broadcast over the little loch, as if some unseen hand was sowing it with golden grain. It was as memorable an appear- ance as that ditferent one we had seen a year ago on Moel Wyn. These things, though Clough observed closely, and took pleasure in, he did not speak often about, much less indulge in raptures. Some of our party were very good hill-men. One day, five or six in all set out a race from our door by Grasmere Lake to the top of Fairfield. He was the second to reach the sum- mit. His action up hill was peculiar ; he used to lay himself forward almost horizontally towards the slope and take very long strides which carried him quickly over the ground. Few men, so stout as he then was, could have matched him up a mountain. Shortly after this time at Oxford, somewhere that is between 1843 and 1845, 1 remember to have heard him speak at a small debating society called the Decade, in which were discussed often graver subjects, and in a less popular way, than in the Union. Having been an unfre- quent attender, I heard him only twice. But both times, what he said and the way he said it, were so marked and weighty as to have stuck to memory when almost every- thing else then spoken has been forgotten. The first time was in Oriel Common-room ; the subject proposed — * That Tennyson was a greater poet than Wordsworth.' This was one of the earliest expressions of that popularity 58 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IV. — since become nearly universal — which I remember. Clough spoke against the proposition, and stood up for Wordsworth's greatness with singular wisdom and modera- tion. He granted fully that Wordsworth was often prosy, that whole pages of the ' Excursion ' had better have been written in prose ; but still, when he was at his best, he was much greater than any other modern English poet, saying his best things without knowing they were so good, and then drawling on into prosaic tediousness, without being aware where the inspiration failed and the prose began. In this kind of unconsciousness, I think he said, lay much of his power. One of the only other times I heard him speak was about the same time when a meeting of the Decade was held in Balliol Common-room. The subject of debate was — ' That the character of a gentleman was in the present day made too much of.' To understand the drift of this would require one to know how highly pleasant manners and a good exterior are rated in Oxford at all tjmes, and to understand something of the peculiar mental atmosphere of Oxford at that time, Clough spoke neither for nor against the proposition ; but for an hour and a half — well on to two hours — he went into the origin of the ideal, historically tracing from mediaeval times how much was implied originally in the notion of a " gentle knight." Truthfulness, consideration for others (even self- sacrifice), courtesy, and the power of giving outward expression to these moral qualities. From this high stan- dard he traced the deterioration into the modern Brum- magem pattern which gets the name. These truly gen- tlemen of old time had invented for themselves a whole economy of manners, which gave true expression to what was really in them, to the ideal in which they lived. These manners, true in them, ])ecame false when adopted traditionally and copied from without by modern men placed in quite different circumstances, and living dif- ferent lives. When the same qualities are in the hearts 1843.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 5<> of men now, as truly as in tlie best of old time, they will fashion for themselves a new expression, a new economy of manners suitable to their place and time. But many men now wholly devoid of the inward reality, yet catching at the reputation of it, adopt these old traditional ways of speaking and of bearing themselves, though they express nothing that is reall}^ in them. One expression I remember he used to illustrate the truth that where the true gentle spirit exists, it will ex- press itself in its own rather than in the traditional way. ' I have known peasant men and women in the humblest places, in whom dwelt these qualities as truly as they ever did in the best of lords and ladies, and who had invented for themselves a whole economy of manners to express them, who were very " poets of courtesy." ' His manner of speaking was very characteristic, slow and deliberate, never attempting rhetorical flow, stopping at times to think the right thing, or to feel for the exactly fitting word, but with a depth of suggestiveness, a hold of reality, a poetry of thought, not found combined in any other Oxonian of our time. To Rev. J. P. Gell. Liverpool : October 8, 1843. I do not think I am particularly inclined to become a Puseyite, though it is very likely my Puseyite position may prevent my becoming anything else ; and I am rumi- nating, in the hope of escaping these terrible alternatives, a precipitate flight from Oxford, that is, as soon as my exhibition expires, for I cannot think of sacrificing 601. on any consideration. Also, I have a very large amount of objection, or rather repugnance, to sign ' ex animo ' the thirty-nine Articles, which it would be singular and un- natural not to do if r stayed in Oxford, as without one's M.A. degree one of course stands quite still, and has no <60 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IV. resource for employment except private pupils and private reading. It is not so much from any definite objection to this or that point, as general dislike to subscription, and strong feeling of its being a bondage and a very heavy one, and one that may cramp and cripple one for life. What to do, if I don't stay at Oxford, is a very different question. I do not dislike the tutor's work at Oriel, but without taking an M.A. I cannot go on with it ; and if, as I supposed, I give up both this and residence, where to go and what to do will be a perplexity. However, I shall do nothing &(tts durjKsaTov ti iradslv before this time year ; though, as to the tutorship, I shall probably have to decide before this reaches you. I have employed this Midsummer vacation half in going abroad, and half with pupils at Grrasmere. I left England the 1st of July, with Walrond ; went to Havre, Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Grenoa, Leghorn, where Burbidge joined us; with him we went to Pisa and Florence, and from Florence made excursions to the monasteries of Vallombrosa, Ca- maldoli, and Laverna. I was then ill for about a week at Fioreuce ; left Walrond and Burbidge, and started for England. I went by Bologna, Parma, and Piacenza, to Milan ; saw the Cathedral, the most beautiful building I ever beheld, as also the Leonardo da Vinci, which i?, I think, the most beautiful painting. Then I crossed the Simplon, went up the Ehone, over the Grimsel Pass, and one or two others in the Bernese Oberland, and so to Thun and Berne, and thence by Basle and the Rhine home. I liked Switzerland much better than Italy myself, principally, perhaps, because it was so exceedingly hot, and so impossible to enjoy exercise, in the latter ; perhaps, also, in some degree, from being continually lionised about galleries and the like, which is far less agreeable than walking through the beauty of a country. I went off directly after my return to Gfrasmere, where I had a party of pupils waiting for me, and there passed six 1843.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 61 weeks of a very pleasant mixture of work and walking about. Stanley was at f'ox How for tbe last three weeks, working at the memoir, "We have all been reading a grand new philosophy-book, ' Mill on Logic ; ' very well written at any rate, and * strin- gent if not sound.' 62 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. V. CHAPTER V. DEATH OF A. H. CLOUGh's YOUNGEST BROTHER — DEATH OF HIS FATHER — LETTERS FROM SCOTLAND RECOLLECTIONS BY PROFESSOR SHAIRP — LETTERS FROM OXFORD. By Miss A. J. Clough. In November 1843, our youngest brother Greorge died suddenly at Charleston, after only a few days' illness. None of his family were with him, and the first ill news that came was the news of his death. My father was at Boston, on his way to join my brother, when the tidings reached him. Straitened circumstances and much sorrow pressed on those at home. Arthur was at Oxford when the evil news came, but he hastened home as soon as he could, in December, and did all in his power to cheer and help us. In July 1844, my father returned home ill. He never recovered the shock he had received in hearing of his son's death, when alone at Boston, and, after three months' lin- gering at home, he died. At this time my eldest brother also was absent in America till immediately before my father's death. During the long vacation, Arthur went first to Patterdale for a month with Mr. M. Arnold and Mr. Walrond, and spent the rest of the time at home, except about five weeks, when he was with pupils in Yorkshire. During this time he devoted himself con- stantly to tlie care of his father, and to cheering his mother and me. 1844.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 63 To Rev. T. Burhidge. Oxford: June 1844. I have just received your letter with a rejoinder to my anti-non-interference philippic. Of course I do not mean that if a labourer has at present his proper proportion for twelve hours' work, he should have the same sum for ten. But I do believe that he has not his proper proportion, that capital tyrannises over labour, and that Government is bound to interfere to prevent such bullying ; and I do believe, too, that in some way or other the problem now solved by universal competition or the devil-take-the- hindmost may receive a more satisfactory solution. It is manifestly absurd that, to allow me to get my stockings a halfpenny a pair cheaper, the operative stocking-weaver should be forced to go barefoot. It is, surely, not wholly Utopian to look for some system which will apportion the due reward to the various sets of workmen, aud evade this perpetual struggle for securing (each man to the exclusion of his neighbour) the whole market. I have got two beautiful white water-lilies floating in a green dessert dish beside me. Envyest thou not, Sici- lian Shepherd ? or hast thou thyself also such treasures ? To Rev. J. P. Gell. Liverpool: July 13, 1844. I believe my last letter was written at the end of last long vacation. I remember I was at that time in doubt about signing the Articles ; I did, however, sign them, though reluctantly enough, and I am not quite sure whether or not in a justifiable sense. However, I have for the present laid by that perplexity, though it may perhaps recur some time or other, and in general I do not feel perfectly satisfied about staying in my tutor capacity at Oxford. 64 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. V. I suppose Stanley's memoir will somehow or other have reached you. I found the letters more interesting even than I had expected, and the biographical part as good, though I think in some parts it is wanting. It is very judicious in keeping the right mean between reserve and exposure. I have in the last ten days also seen the monument, which is placed at a considerable height, so as to rise above any one's head in the pew, in the north division of the east wall looking down the chapel. I think I should have preferred it on one side ; the figure, also, though from the recumbent position it is of less matter, is sadly devoid of likeness ; the design in other respects is good, and I liked Bunsen's epitaph better than 1 thought I should have done. The chapel looks very well with its five painted win- dows ; the St. Thomas is, though modern, as good, I think, as the old ones. They are making alterations in the quadrangle. Tait wants the school-house fellows to have single studies throughout, and is in consequence building fresh studies over the cloister opposite the writ- ing-school. » I am considerably inclined just now to set to work at Political Economy, for the benefit of the rising genera- tion, and to see if I cannot prove the Apostle of ' anti- laissez-faire.' To his Sister. Patterdale: July 26, 1844. I cannot say that I believe that the walk to the Orme's Head, however beautiful, was equal to what we have here ; but then I am very fond of lakes, and not very partial to the sea. There is no part of Wales equal to this, except the immediate districts of Snowdon and Cader Idris, and I am not sure that they are. Yesterday we went to Helvellyn, meeting a party from 1844.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 65 Fox How, Ambleside, and Grasmere at the top. 1 liave been up three times before, so that I had no objection to see the hills as they were yesterday, namely, in a good deal of haze, and by no means distinct. To Rev. J. P. Gell. Patterdale: July 31, 184 4. I came to Fox How about three weeks ago to meet Matt, and stayed one day. Walrond joined us here after the first week ; at the end of the 5th I depart, go home to see my father, who has just got home from America, after a visit by the way, superinduced by south-easters, to the vicinity of the Hebrides, and then I go to coach two pupils in Yorkshire for a month or five weeks. The vaca- tion then will be ' welly ' (as they say here for * well-nigh ') run out, and I shall then presently return to my tutoriali- ties at Oxford. Your request for a sermon cannot be acceded to. I am not, nor am likely as yet, to be aught but a laic, and lay sermons I leave for Johnson and Coleridge. You must, therefore, be content with such poor and scanty seimiones repentes per humum as you get in my rare epistles. You shall have one when I go into orders — oh, questionable when ! What, according to your experience, is the best division of the day in this country ? The question centres in that other momentous question, ' What is the properest hour to eat ?' We began with — breakfast, 8 ; work, 9.30 to 2.30 ; bathe, dinner, walk, and tea, 2.30 to 9.30 ; work, 9.30 to 11. We now have revolutionised to the following con- stitution, as yet hardly advanced beyond paper : — 13reak- fast, 8 ; work, 9.30 to 1.30 ; bathe, dinner, 1.30 to 3 ; work, 3 to 6 ; walk, ad infinitum ; tea, ditto. M. has gone out fishing, when he ought properly to be working, it being nearly four o'clock, and to-day proceeding F C6 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. V. in theory according to Constitution No. 2 : it has, liowever, come on to rain furiously ; so Walrond, who is working sedulously at Herodotus, and I, who am writing to you, rejoice to think that he will get a good wetting. To Rev. J. P. Gell. Oriel: Nov. 25, 1844. Your letter reached me just at the time of my father's death. In August, when I wrote, he was improving, and our alarm had ceased ; but he had a relapse not long after, and for a month before the end we were in full expectation of such a result. He died on October 19, a few hours after the arrival of my brother from America. Your letter was in answer to mine written exactly twelve months before, when I was in doubt about subscription to the thirty-nine Articles. It certainly was very curious get- ting an answer to feelings which were of a year's standing, especially as I had pro tevipore (perhaps tempori serviens), laid them by almost completely ; and indeed you know already that I signed without demur, and have been work- ing away in the thoroughly terrestrial element of College tutorism, not to speak of Mendicity Societies and the like. Nevertheless, I still consider the old scruple to be a sort of St. Paul who ought not to be put off by any, in however high place, to a more convenient season, or at any rate ought to have a convenient season found him before long. And I can't profess myself one whit appeased by your burst of wonder and opposition. So the sooner you come home the better, otherwise you will perhaps hear of some very desperate step, though of becoming an Independent mi- nister I certainly have no present thought or desire. My own justification to myself for doing as I am doing is, I fear, one which would be as little approved of by you as my objections on the other hand. However, it is simply that I can feel faith in what is being carried on by my 1844.] ARTHUR IR^GII CLOUGII. 07 jTfeneration, and tliat I am content to be an operative — to dress intellectual leather, cut it out to pattern, and stitch it and cobble it into boots and shoes for the benefit of the work which is been guided by wiser heads. But this almost cuts me out of having any religion whatever ; if I begin to think about Grod, there arise a thousand ques- tions, and whether the thirty-nine Articles answer them at all, oir whether I should not answer them in the most diametrically opposite purport, is a matter of great doubt. If I am to study the question, I have no right to put my name to the answers beforehand, or to join in the acts of a body and be to practical purpose one of a body who accept these answers of which I propose to examine the validity. I will not assert that one has no right to do this, but it seems to me to destroy one's sense of perfect freedom of inqm'ry in a great degree ; and I further incline to hold that inquiries are best carried on by turning speculation into practice, and my speculations no doubt in their earlier stages would result in practice considerably at variance with thirty-nine- Article subscription. Much as I like, fond as I am of Oxford, and much as I should hate the other element undisguised, I verily believe that, as a prelimi- nary stage, it would be far better to be at Stinkomalee (the London University acknowledges that agnomen, I believe). Amongst the irreligious, I should have Abdiel- itish tendencies : here, what religion I have I cannot dis- tinguish from the amalgamations it is liable to, and I am, right or wrong, as matter of fact, exceedingly averse to act on anything but what I have got from myself, or have so distinctly appropriated as to allow my original tenants as it were time and space to state and vindicate their claim against the new comers. Without in the least denying Christianity, I feel little that I can call its power. Believing myself to be in my unconscious creed in some shape or other an adherent to F 2 68 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF LChap. V. its doctrines, I keep within its pale ; still, whether the spirit of the age, whose lacquey and flunkey I submit to be, will prove to be this kind or that kind, I can't the least say. Sometimes I have doubts whether it won't turn out to be no Christianity at all. Also, it is a more fre- quent question with me whether the master whom I work under, and am content to work under, is not carrying out his operations himself elsewhere, while I am, as it were, obeying the directions of a bungling journeyman no better than myself. As the great Goethe published in his youth the * Sor- rows of the Young Werther,' so may I, you see, the great poet that am to be, publish my ' Lamentations of a Flunkey out of place.' You, perhaps, will say the lamentations are more out of place than the flunkey. And certainly Flunkey hath no intention of giving notice to quit just at present, nor of publishing lamentations at all. Thou, however, in thy wisdom, consider the sad ex- amples and perplexities that encounter said flunkey amidst all the most flunkeyish occupations of his flunkeydom, and in the hope that at this time next year he will still be en- gaged in these same occupations, transmit to him advice and good counsel as to those same scruples and perplex- ities. In the meantime he must dress and put on his livery for dinner. \Exit Flunkey. To Rev, J. P. Gell. Liverpool : April 2, 1845. Easter vacation should furnish forth a letter, more especially as I anticipate a singularly busy Easter Term, since one of our three tutors is to be examiner in the schools. First of all ; you will be glad to hear that Matt Arnold is elected Fellow of Oriel. This was done on Friday last, March 28, just thirty years after his father's election. Mrs. Arnold is of course well pleased, as also 1845.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 69 the venerable poet at Eydal, who had taken M. under his special protection. Mrs. Arnold I saw at Fox How ; she was looking remarkably well, though the party seemed strangely small, all the boys being away. The beauties of Parson's Pleasure, where we were wont to bathe in the early morning, have been diminished by the unsightly erection, by filthy lucre-loving speculators, of a bathing-house, and I have therefore deserted it. But a substitute is to be found. If you do not come soon, I shall perhaps have fled from my tutorial bower and committed something avqK£. VII. CHAPTER VII. PAMniLET ON EETRENCHMENT AT OXFORD. By Godfrey Lushington, Esq. In the spring- of 1847, at the time when the terrible famine broke out in Ireland, a Retrenchment Association was formed in Oxford, having for its object to induce the University residents to restrain their unnecessary expen- diture during the period of public distress. Mr. Clough joined the Association, and was from the first one of its most earnest supporters. The extravagance and self- indulgence of the life around him, which to him had never been otherwise than distasteful, now at this junc- ture came to appear something shocking. Accordingly, he put forth a pamphlet addressed to the University, entitled * A Consideration of Objections against the Retrenchment Association,' and he put it forth with his name. If we would understand the character of such a demonstration, we must remember how alien to imdergraduate life is the very idea of self-denial ; above all, how inseparably bound up with the traditions and habits of the place is expense, and the pride in expense ; and that this appeal of a purely moral and public character came from a College tutor and a layman, himself but a few years older than those whom he was addressino:. * God, by a sudden visitation, has withdrawn from the income He yearly sends us in the fruits of His earth, sixteen millions sterling. Withdrawn it, and from whom ? 1847.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII, 93 On whom falls tlie loss? Not on the rich and luxurious, but on those whose labour makes the rich man rich, and gives the luxurious his luxury. tShall not we then, the affluent and indulgent, spare somewhat of our afflu- ence, curtail somewhat of our indulgence, that these (for our wealth too and our indulgence in the end) may have food while they work, and have work to gain them food ? ' Thus Mr. Clougli simply puts the question. But he did not at all insist upon the Association. ' About that, let the undergraduates do as they like. But, in any case, and in every case, let not the sky, which in Ireland looks upon famishment and fever, see us here at Oxford, in the midst of health and strength, over-eating, over-drinking, and over-enjoying. . . . You must not insult Grod alike and man with the spectacle of your, sublime indif- ference. The angels of heaven, one might believe, as they pass above these devoted shores, in gazing upon that ordained destruction, let fall untasted from their immor- tal lips the morsel of animal sustenance.' He then considers one by one the objections brought against the Association, and places his finger upon the weak point of each. It is in the name of duty that in one form or another the excuse is offered for doing nothing:. But what is the life that those who thus excuse themselves lead ? Is it a life really of duty ? or is it a life of self- indulgence. Let this be a test of their sincerity. Does an undergraduate plead that he is an undergraduate, with an allowance only ; that he has no money of his own to give away, and has no business to give away his father's ? To such a one Mr. Clough recommends to act up to his words, and to spare his father's pocket, if that be his duty. But he adds this, probably not unnecessary warning, ' Do not, in the name of common sense, first refuse to give because the money is not yours, and then go and spend on yourself, because it is yom* father's.' Or are there others who woidd plead their debts, their obligation 94 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. VI I. to creditors, their duty to be just before being generous, and so forth ? Why then, let such be just, let them save and pay their debts ; but ' let them not, with money in their pockets, refuse to give to the Irish, because they owe money to tradesmen; neglect to pay their tradesman, because paying tradesmen is not giving to Ireland, and so in the end do neither, let their bills go on increasing, and spend their ready money on extra amusements not to be had without it.' Or again, is the protest against retrenchment made in the name of those who depend for their livelihood upon the custom of the University, ' the shopkeepers, and shop- keepers' workpeople, tailors and confectioners, ostlers and waiters ? ' Mr. Clough is careful to do justice to what force there is in this, as he terms it, ' the tradesman's objection.' ' It is hard upon them that their bread should be thus suddenly taken out of their mouths, and it is not they but their University customers who are to blame. " We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear." This suffering is upon our heads. But the question is, who had best suffer ? those who are working to bring things right, or those whom we could not save from suffering without crippling our means for all ? which must be put on shortest allowance, the able soldier or the camp-follower?' ' At no time whatever, I believe, can our large expendi- ture upon objects of luxury be justified. At a time like this, when we know that wages paid to those who work in the farm and the factory will bring no corn, while wages paid to Oxford tradesmen will only increase our useless consumption, I see not how any doubt can be felt.' Enough has been already quoted to show that it is far otherwise than in the spirit of an ordinary alms collector that Mr. Clough speaks to the University. ' Ijet it be fairly felt,' he says, ' that what we call boimtv 1847.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 95 and charity is not, as we fain would persuade ourselves, a matter of gratuitous uncalled-for condescension as of God to men, or men to meaner animals, as of children feedino^ the robins, or ladies watering their flowers ; hut on the contrary, a supplementary but integral part of fair deal- ing, the payment of a debt of honour.' And, ' as a matter of pure justice and not of generosity, England is bound to share her last crust with Ireland, and the rich men to fare as the poor.' But ]Mr. Clough's characteristic love for first principles leads him to go further, and to urge upon his readers a reconsideration of the ideal of the modern aristocracy which, like Dives, wouhl shut its eyes and ears to the Lazarus at its gates — a reconsideration the more oppor- tune, because this ideal is one to which English youth too often find their introduction in the University. * As this our English aristocracy draws its recruits almost exclusively from the newl}'- rich, what, may we ask, is the most fitting lesson it should inculcate upon them, what dis- cipline and what drill should it place thorn under ? Shall it meet them half way with the precept of. Expense and ostentation ? Shall it say, Your business as a member of the best part of the English nation is to entertain, to give good dinners, and see the world ; to have houses larger than you want, servants more than you want, carriages more than you use, horses more than you have work for ? Is this to be the talismanic tradition handed down from chivalrous days to the new generation ; is this the torch of wisdom and honour which our feudal aristocracy transmits to the new one that succeeds it ? Is this all which they can give us whose- boast it is to belong- to the historic beinc: of Eno-- land — to be the conducting medium through which the past sends its electric power into the present. Eating and drinking, and (we must remember, that I suppose) a dash of gentlemanly manner ? 'To what result then do we come? To something like this. 96 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. VII. ' First of all, that the welfare of the nation does un- donbtedly require the existence of a class free for the most part to follow their own devices ; that it is right that there should be men with time at their disposal, and money in their purses, and large liberty in public opinion ; men who, though thousands and tens of thousands perish by starvation, stoically meanwhile in books and in study, in reading, and thinking, and travelling, and — it w^oidd seem too, enjoying, in hunting, videlicet, and shooting, in duets, and dancing, by ball-going and grousing, by dejeuners and deer-stalking, by foie-gras and Johannis- berger, by February strawberries and December green peas, by turbot, and turtle, and venison — should pioneer the route of the armies of mankind ; should, an intrepid forlorn hope, lead the way up the breach of human des- tiny to the citadel of truth ; and, devoted priests and prophets, solve some more than " Asian mystery " by pil- grimage to the Palestine of Cockaigne ! But that how- ever essential be these higher classes, still there remains the question. Is there not a holier land than Cockaigne ; is not temperance as efficient a sapper and miner as wine of Burgundy ; is not labour better than enjoyment ; is it not higher cultivation "to do justice and mercy, and walk humbly," than to " eat and drink and be drunken ;" and though thought and study be glorious, may we not com- bine "plain living and high thinking;" though science, and art, and philosophy be divine, is not charity " yet a more excellent way ? "' Again, as to property, whilst impugning as idle any at- tempt which does not start with the necessity of a secure basis for the rights of property, Mr. Clough has no mercy for the prejudices of those who regard laissez-faire as the privilege of the rich. Those who would fain acquiesce in the famine as a heaven-sent calamity, to be suffered by those iq)on whom it falls, would such not do well to reflect upon the words, ' The earth hath He given to the children of 1847.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 97 men ?' * Not, says the Scripture, to the children of the rich, or of the noble, or of those who have had it hitlierto ; not to the well-bred and well-educated — rather, it might seem, to the children of those by the sweat of whose brow it is subdued. ' So might some one put it. And far more near to the truth do I deem it would be to declare, that whoever is born into the world has a just claim to demand thejein and therefrom work and wages for work ; is bound to do his part in the labour, and entitled to expect his propor- tion in the fruits ; even as in some Alacran shipwreck, each new-comer, scevis projectus ab undis (it is the old Lucretian image), may be called upon to share in the toils, and may demand to share in the food ; and no old citizen of the rocks shall dare to say. We may monopolise the work alike and the pay ; we have hands enough for the work, and will have no new mouth for the victuals ; far truer, though not the whole truth, I think, would this be than the fairest human-law theory of sacred indefeasible monopoly vested in hereditary lords of creation.' And there is a lesson for the hour which the rich have to learn respecting themselves and their own position : — ' ye, born to be rich, or at least born not to be poor ; ye young men of Oxford, who gallop your horses over Bullingdon, and ventilate your fopperies arm-in-arm up the High-street, abuse if you will to the full that other plea of the spirits and thoughtlessness of youth, but let me advise you to hesitate ere you venture the question. May I not do what I like with my own ? ere you meddle with such edge-tools as the subject of property. Some one, I fear, might be found to look up your title-deeds, and to quote inconvenient Scriptures.' * It cannot, at least, be denied that in great calamities a higher law, " a law within the law," steps in to supersede that of property.' ' Property is scarcely, by law or gospel, that inalienably H 98 LETTEES AND REMAINS OF [Chap. VII. personal, individual thing, which we that have it would believe it to be. As in the dangers and distresses of so- ciety great characters are for the first time seen, and as soon as seen are recognised, even so in calamities and horrors the old laws of meU'm and tuum shrink to nothing while a loftier principle reveals itself, and no man gainsays it.' ' Beyond the reach of all statutes of limitation there are bills that must be liquidated, creditors that must not be deferred. Many yet shall come in from the highways and hedges, and join in the meal with us that came early ; a posthumous brother is yet to be born to share and share alike in our father's bequests. ' Terraque mancipio nulli datur, omnibus usu.' ' No such thing can there be as a right to do what you will with your own. The property is not your own ; scarcely your own at any time ; during times of calamity in nowise except to do good with and distribute. Neither again can you plead the good it does you : who made thee to differ ? you cannot even plead the good which your cultivation, so obtained, does the nation ; that cultivation could be better obtained without it. Nor yet that you are patronising arts and sciences ; genius, and skill, and knowledge. You are so, no doubt — but the thing could be done as well and better if you employed painters and architects — engravers and jewellers — builders and engineers — not upon your own dining-rooms and drawing-rooms ; but upon churches, and schools, and hospitals, public works and public institutions. And that patronage would be as superior to the present, as the patronage of painting, properly so called, to that of the painting of portraits.' These may seem over-strong views. Mr. Clough him- self afterwards came to see that he had under-estimated the necessity and the value of those contributions to the general stock of civilised life which proceed from indi- vidual efforts prompted at least partially by motives of 18-47.J ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 99 self-regard and personal ambition. But be these views politically sound or unsound, of this we may be sure, that those to whom this pamphlet is specially addressed found in such words only a stimulant to a better and more self- denying way of life. And so Mr. Clough concludes : — * One word more. Nothing that is said here is intended to go against enjoyment, as such. It is perhaps scarcely natural for young men to feel strongly that which they do not see. It were absurd to affect a gloom which does not exist. But it is not absurd to avoid in our enjoyments that which a little reflection can show us to be wrong, to be hurtful or unfitting: it is not absurd to lay down a few rules beforehand which will keep up in our minds the general impression that those unseen miseries are, though unseen, not unreal : it is not absurd to do, with or without sensation and sentiment, those acts which tend to their alleviation, to avoid simply because it has been shown to be the right course, expensive and ostentatious gratifica- tions. And simple enjoyments are, if not the most volup- tuous and delicately refined, assuredly the manliest and healthiest, the most honest and rational and permanent.' H 2 100 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. VIII. CHAPTER VIII. A. H, CLOUGH GIVES UP HIS TUTORSHIP GOES TO PARIS- ACQUAINTANCE WITH EMEIi RESIGNS HIS FELLOWSHIP. ACQUAINTANCE WITH EMERSON ^-WRITES ' THE BOTHIE '- In 1848, A. H. Clough finally resolved to give up his tutor- ship, which he did in April, and a few months later he also resigned his Fellowship at Oriel. In May 1848 he went to Paris, and saw something of what was going on in that year of revolution. About this time he made the acquaintance of Mr. Emerson, which was then and after- wards very valuable to him. In the autumn he spent some time at home with his mother and sister at Liver- pool, and during this time he wrote his poem of ' The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich.' In October he resigned his Fellowship. By this step he gave up all his immediate means of subsistence, and threw himself on the world anew. For some time he was without any regular employ- ment. To T. Arnold, Esq. Oriel : Jan. 31, 1848. In England we go on in our usual humdrum way ; the ecclesiastical world agitated by all manner of foolish Hamp- den-rows : of the confused babble about which all quiet people are infinitely tired. I have given our Provost notice of my intention to leave his service (as tutor) at Easter. I feel greatly rejoiced to think that this is my last term of bondage in Egypt, though I shall, I suppose, quit the fleshpots for a wilderness, with small* hope of 1848.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 101 manna, quails, or water from the rock. The Fellowship, however, lasts for a year after next June. I had not, I think, seen the Kajah Brooke when you departed. I liked him extremely ; met him once at breakfast with Stanley, and once in the evening with our Provost ; quite a kingly man, clear-sighted and simple- minded, full of will and purpose, but witliout a grain of self-will or ambition. Stanley says that he deprecated English, or indeed European, colonisation in Borneo as bad for the natives. He had had 2,000 offers, but declined generally, saying the time was not yet come. To a Friend. [In answer to a remonstrance against his intention of resigning his Fellowship.] February 20, 1848. Be not afraid : I love my mother earth, and ' in the air will never float ' * Until I get a little boat,' and of a better build than the famous ' Crescent Moon.' No, but remember withal, that no man moves without having one leg always off, as well as one leg always on the ground. Your stationary gentleman undoubtedly has both for a basis, and much good may his double pedestal do him. and go shuffling along, lifting their feet as little as possible from the earth. There are also horses, are there not, called ' daisy-cutters ? ' not, as I am told, the best breed. The mere carnal understanding, I grant you, goes on its belly in the shape of the serpent. "While this and other reptile faculties grovel on the ground, imagination and fancy, with the eagle and the butterfly, move in liquid air. But the vivipara, my friend, ' in whom should meet the properties of all,' must do neither, or both. Expect therefore from me, if not the stately march of the sub- limest mammalian type, at any rate, nothing worse than the per-saltum locomotion of the kangaroo. 102 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. VIIT. However powerful my centrifugal force, I shall be cer- tain to be recalled by the at least equally powerful gravita- tion of hunger and thirst, not to mention nakedness. The spirit truly is centrifugal, but the flesh centripetal ; wherefore man, being a compound, revolveth in a sphere. Under cover of which theory I retreat to my bed. To T. Arnold, Esq. Oriel : February 25, 1848. Diis alitor visum — so my packet had to lie by a month. Meanwhile, Willie has gone to India, and the French have begun a new revolution. Possibly my letter may bring the news. Switzerland has had its revolution, and Naples also ; Tuscany and the Sardinian States have in consequence got new Constitutions, and the Pope has turned off his cardi- nals and replaced them by lay ministers, and it is said is preparing a constitution. Surely the Frenchman mustn't be behind hand ! One can hardly talk of other things when one once gets on this topic. Well, and when shall I see you again ? 6 ©fov olosv. Will you hire yourself out as a common labourer ? I hope not ; but one may do worse, undoubtedly; 'tis at any rate honester than being a teacher of XXXIX. Articles. I rejoice to see before me the end of my servitude, yea, even as the weary foot-traveller rejoices at the sight of his evening hostehy, though there still lies a length of dusty road between. But what will follow I can't say. The chances of going abroad will very likely be cut off, for we may shortly see Europam flagrare bello : the Austrianfs driven out of Lombardy by French bayonets. Alter eri tum Lodi, and another Areola shall crown delectos heroes with, we will hope, a better used victory. But the French armies are not quite apostolic, nor do I put nuich faith in Michelet's holy bayonets as preachers of any kind of (fospel. 1848.] ARTIIUll HUGH CLOUGII. 103 To his Sister. Oriel: April 18, 1848. I am glad you liked the Blumen-Frucht und Dorn-stiicke. If there is any fault in Richter, it is perhaps that he is too sentimental ; but it is a great comfort to get a little taste of that sweetmeat now and then ; and in him you have it always not in its merely luscious form, but tempered with agreeable acids and delicate laurel-leaf bitters. Up here at Oxford I keep in general company very quiet; insomuch that I heard yesterday that people not unfrequently take me for some little time after introduc- tion to be no less than a Puseyite ; but at the same time, I could sometimes be provoked to send out a flood of lava boiling hot amidst their flowery ecclesiastical fields and parterres. Very likely living in this state of suppressed volcanic action makes one more exasperated than one should be when any sort of a crater presents itself. Natheless, there is wisdom in withholding. Tell mother not to finish all her furnishings, and get ' everything handsome about her ' before I come home, which will be about the 1st of May, for then I shall be able to stay if I please for three weeks or more, as my tutorship will be in the hands of another. To his Sister. Paris: Thursday, May 11, 1848. The only events since I wrote on Tuesday have been my visit to the Theatre de la Republique to see Rachel in ' Phedre,' and the arrival of Emerson. With the former I was a little disappointed, but I am going again to study the thing. I have been to see the Jardin des Plantes, and the column erected to the honour of the revolution of July 1830, on the site of the Bastille. It was here that the Republic was solemnly inaugurated in February, and here I think it was they burnt the throne. 104 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. VUL George Sand's newspaper, the *Vraie Republique,' dis- approves of the new Provisional Grovernment (Arago, Marie, Gamier-Pages, Lamaitine, and Ledru-Eollin) al- together, though privately she is friendly with and indeed attached to Lamartine. People are coming up from the country to the great national fete of Sunday next, and of course they all want to go to hear the debates. The weather is splendid; the sun glorifies us by day, the moon by night. Sunday, May 14. I don't expect much good will come of this present Assembly. It is extremely shopkeeperish and merchantisii in its feelings, and won't set to work at the organisation of labour at all ; but will prefer going to war to keep the people amused, rather than open any disagreeable social questions. The Socialist people are all in the dumps. Tuesday, May 16. P.S. — Yesterday was a day of great peril and disorder : an emeute. The Chamber was invaded and turned out by a mob, and the hall occupied by them for two hours. At last the national guard turned them out. A new government had been named by the mob, and some of the chiefs went off to the Hotel de Ville, a mile off, to set it going. However, the national guard followed and put it down. Lamartine came with Ledru-Rollin and rode along the quays to finish the work, with dragoons and cannon. I was at his side for a quarter of a mile, and saw him of course distinctly. There was no firing, and scarce any fighting. The whole thing is put down for the present ; and I am glad it is, on the whole. The cry was ' Vive la Pologne ; ' but the object was to get rid of the Assembly, and set up a more democratic set of people. PVom 1 1 a.m. to 9 P.M., or even later, there was nothing to be seen but crowds and excitement : fifty or sixty are arrested. 1848.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 105 To Rev. A. P. Stanley. Paris: M:iy 14, 1848. Sunday, the fete as should liave l)oen. I am still a stranger to th*e Assembly. The difficulty is extreme. Miss * Jewsbury got a diplomatic ticket for two or three hours : she describes them as very good sensible- looking men. She has never been in the House of Com- mons. Lamartine's culmination is said to be over ; his declared desire not to part with Ledru-Kollin is the commonly supposed cause of his sinking to the fourth place in the votes. But some say that the bourgeoisie, to shirk the organisation of labour question, are eager for war, and Lam artine, having proclaimed 'Paix a tout prix,' is therefore thought an obstacle. On all hands, there is every prospect, on dit, of war. To-day the rumour ran that the armies had entered Piedmont, and to-morrow comes the Polish (juestion. The Socialists, i.e. the leaders, for the most lament this extremely. The people of course are excited about Poland, and either are indifferent to the Socialist ideas or are blind to the certainty of these questions being then indefinitely adjourned. The boys (17 and 18) of the garde mobile are infected with bourgeoisitic loyalty, also the new members of the national guard. The Socialists simply deplore the whole result ; regard the whole thing as at present a failure — a bourgeoisitic triumph. ' Mais attendons.' * Voila, mon cher,' the socialistic statements as received by me into arrect ears last night from a dis- tinguished St. Simonian. The Champ de Mars was not by any means ready yester- day morning for the postponed fete ; when I went I found there only the great statue * La Eepublique en platre,' and a few boards, &c., and not many men at work. There's been thunder and lightning, and ' graudes eaux,' not of Versailles, so perhaps it's as well. Yesterday I had the pleasure of hearing the ' rappel ; " a foolish, unnecessary 106 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. VHI. order, on account of a quiet Polish petition presentation, and now no one acknowledges to having signed it. How- ever it made row enough at the time. The Socialist party is too weak to attempt anything; in fact they profess that the bourgeoisie is eager to attack and- slaughter them. However, I did see some St. Antoine-ish giants in bonnet- rouge and blouse, who had a very who's afeared ? appear- ance, arguing with and defying well-dressed multitudes in the Eue de Kivoli, about the rappel time yesterday. Citizen Blanqui had, I confeijs, a certain hang-dog con- spirator aspect, which did him no credit. Lamartine continues to live in his own house, and is not going to the Ely see Bourbon, nor the other men to the Petit Luxembourg. The Assembly will go on till the next revolution, probably. ' Les journaux du soir ! ' * Voila " La Presse," derniere edition du soir ! ' . . . ' " La Seance," demandez " La Seance," " L'Assemblee." ' . . . ' Colere du pere Du- chesne ! . . . le pere en colore ! — cinq centimes, un sou.' . . . ' " La Patrie," voila " La Patrie ! " ' . . . * Les editions du soir, dernieres nouvelles de Pologne ! ' . . . ' L'insurrection de Madrid, par le citoyen Cabet, "Le Populaire," — cinq centimes, un sou.' ' Demandez " La Presse : " grande colere du pere Duchesne, le p^re Duchesne est en veritable colere ! le pere ' . . . ' "Le National," demandez "Le National!" "L'Assemblee Constituente ! " ' L , attache of the English press, is of opinion that if the money hold out till confidence in a new government gets itself fairly established, all will be well. The people mean to wait and see if their condition is to be mended ; if so well, whatever the form of government ; if not, * we must go into the streets again.' You know I am a bad hand at lionising. I do little else than potter about under the Tuileries chestnuts, and here and there about bridges and streets, 'pour savour er la re- jjublique. I contemplate with infinite thankfulness t>ip 1848.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 107 blue blouses garnished with red of the garde mobile; and emit a perpetual incense of devout rejoicing for the piu'ified state of the Tuileries, into which I find it impos- sible, meantime, to gain admittance. I growl occasionally at the sight of aristocratic equipages which begin to peep out again, and trust that the National Assembly will in its wisdom forbid the use of livery servants. But there is not very much to complain of generally : one cannot better express the state of Paris in this respect, than by the statement that one finds it rather pointed to be seen in the streets with gloves on. To the Same. Paris: May 19, 1848. Ichabod, Ichabod, the glory is departed I Liberty — Ecpiality and Fraternity, driven back by shop-l;eeping bayonet, hides her red cap in dingiest St. Antoine. Well- to-do-ism shakes her Egyptian scourge to the tune of ' Ye are idle, ye are idle;' the tale of bricks will be doubled: and Moses and Aaron of Socialism can at the best only pray for plagues ; which perhaps will come, paving stones for vivats, and emeutes in all their quarters. Meantime, the glory and tlie freshness of the dream is departed. The very garde mobile has dropped its dear blouse and red trimmings for a bourgeoisie-prtetorian uniform, with distinctive green hired soldier epaulettes. The voice of clubs is silenced : inqidsitors only and stone walls of Vincenues list the words of Barbes. Anti-rappel Oourtais no longer hushes the drum which, as he said, vexes the people (' cela fache le peuple ') ; conciliatory active Caussidiere gives place to a high-shop successor. Wliere- fore, bring forth, ye millionaires, the three-months-hid- den carriages ; rub clean, ye new nobles, the dusty em- blazonries ; ride forth, ye cavalier-escorted amazons, in iinl'earing flirtations, to your Bois de Boulogne. The world begins once more to move on its axis, and draw on its kid- 108 LETTERS AND EEMAINS OF [Chap. Vlll. gloves. The golden age of the republic displays itself now, you see^ as a very vulgar parcel-gilt era ; nevertheless, in all streets and gardens, proclaims itself 'L'Ere Nouvelle ! ' * La Liberte ! ' ' La Eeforme ! ' . . ' Vraie Republique ! ' . . . ' Grande Seance de I'Assemblee Nationale : dix centimes, deux sous ; seulement deux sous.' ' Arrestation ! ' ' Demandez " La Presse ; " la lettre du citoyen Blanqui ! ' . . . ' Derniers soupirs du pere Duchesne ! ' Saturday, May 20. To judge from * Galignani's ' extracts, the English papers are as usual exaggerating. I don't believe the affair of the 15th was anything like the conspiracy described in the ' Times ' and ' Chronicle.' Monday, May 22. The weather performed a most dramatic change ; and Sunday morning, the day of the fete, dawned all glorious. There was a noise of drums as early as four o'clock. I got up about six, and found myself on the Place de la Concorde at a quarter to seven, with a considerable crowd. The deputies did not leave the Chamber till half-past eight. They sat on the steps mostly, with their scarfs, &c. About half-past eight they came down and headed the procession. There were parties from the departments, in and out of uniform, with each its flag, Poland, Italy, and Germany mustered a considerable show. There were not above six or seven ' noirs affranchis,' and under a green flag, proclaiming in front * L'Irlande,' and behind ' Club des Trlandais,' walked about three of our fellow-subjects of the sister-island. ' Les blesses ' were noticeable, and ' les vieux de la vieille.' There was a great deal of confusion, march- ing and counter-marching, and there was a full half-hour's interval in the procession before ' le char ' came up ; and it was an ugly affair when it did come. The ' jeunes filles ' looked pretty in their white dresses, with the tricolor streaming from the * left ' shoulder, and artificial oak- wreaths in their hair ; pretty en masse, but individually 1848.] AETITUR HUGH CLOUGH. 109 not by any means remarkable either for face or figure. Moreover, they were declassicised by their use of parasols. I don't think they and the char got fairly to their work's end till one o'clock. I passed and proceeded to the Champ de Mars, where, a little after twelve, went up the tricolor balloon, but in a rather disorganised condition. My modesty prevented my getting through the exterior circle of national guards ; so that I did not come into the presence of the Government and Assembly, which I believe I might have done. But the perpetual gun-firing gave me a head-ache, and I retired early. The illumination in the Champs Elysees was extremely pretty ; the whole avenue was like a great ball-room, with double rows of pendant chandeliers and continuous festoons of ' lampions ' on each side. The crowd was enormous. It was funny in the afternoon to see the classical virgins walking about with their papas and mammas, people of the under-shoe-making and back-street shopkeepiug class. A good many of them got into the enclosure round the Bourse, and were, about 6 P.M., dancing vigorously (without music) with gardes mobiles, and other indiscriminates. To his Sister. Paris : May 22. There is no prospect whatever of any immediate recur- rence of disturbances. The old leaders and conspirators are either arrested or in concealment. Within three months time, I have little doubt there will be another emeute. But for the next month I think the Assembly is quite secure, and if only it contrives to find out its wise men, it may survive all troubles, and gradually regenerate the nation. But in this if a great deal of difficulty is in- volved. There are very few English here, but a good many Americans. no LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. VIII. To Rev. A. P. Stanley. 4 Eue MontThabor: May 26, 1848. It is quite certain that the government are hampered extremely by the old Gauche Dynastique, Odillon-Bar- rot and C*% who are adroit debaters, and frighten down the new men. Lamartine thinks it impossible to do the thing without Ledru-Kollin, and the democracy who trust in him ; and in many ways he would wish to con- ciliate and even confide in the bonnet-rouge. But the old Gauche, with the garde boutiquiere to back them, think they may carry things with a high hand ; and in the Chamber are not unsuccessful. Yet it is wholly impossible that a Gauche-Dynastique Republic should succeed ; Lamartine would be fool as well as knave to support such a chimera. It is very possible he may have to go out for a while, of course with Ledru-Rollin ; but unless Thiers comes in to the Chamber and aggravates the mischief by lending his real oratorical power to the Gauche, and indeed I hope even in that contingency, it is very probable Lamartine will gradually discipline the inexperienced new members into a good working majority. I don't hear any one say Lamartine has been paying his debts ; I suppose Ledru- Rollin has. George Sand has gone into the country. She says that the air of Paris seemed ' lourde ' to her, after hearing the ' a-bas ' of the national guard, and after the arrests of so many generous-minded men. Pierre Leroux was arrested, but is released. Saturday, May 27. So you see, I rely on the wisdom of Lamartine's tactics, however untriumphant at present ; not that I imagine he has got the solution of the labour problem, or that mere well-meaningness and generous aspiration will suffice. But at present no man can absolutely affirm that by any definite plan more is attainable. The new elections, you know, are on the 5th ; I shall 1848.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. Ill stay till that night at any rate. The cry, * To your Clubs, O Israel ! ' is commencing. Thiers and Girardin will pro- bably get in, but not for Paris. I have just heard them crying, 'Lettred' Henri Cinq au President de I'Assemblee: cinq centimes, im sou.' For the last time but one I return from Kachel's ' Marseillaise.' To-night there is some ' rap- pel ' ing going on somewhere. Have you seen in any of the papers revelations of the purposes of the Constituent Committee ? An Assembly of 750 ; and a President by universal suffrage ; gratuitous education, and right of work. So I read in the ' Deraocratie Pacifique,' with corroboration. The coalition of the more democratic Clubs amongst the representatives will be, I presume, a great assistance to the Grovernment. You know that two, one in the Eue des Pyramides, the other in the Palais National, amounting to 200 representants together, and one containing Carnot and another minister, the other presided over by Dupont de I'Eure, have united, and a third is expected to send in its adhesion. I have just been to the Club de la Eevolution, ci-devant Barb^s. They had a lively and almost fierce debate about ' fusion.' Were they to * fusionner ' with the National ? advances having been made and ill-received, should they be renewed ? News of Barbes' condition and behaviour in prison were given, and received with clamorous Vive Barbes!! Said Barbes, I hear, is a man of wealth, en- joying, usually in prison, 4,000^. a year. I am grieved to hear of the mutilation of our statute. But I should myself accept the most deformed renovation. The list of Chartist petitioners (so to call them) was for- warded to me here, costing about three francs. We, I presume, might easily make up a list of five points : Aboli- tion of Subscription ; Keconstitution of P^ellowships ; New Hebdomadal Board ; Extra-Collegial Matriculation ; and Permanent Commission. 112 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [CiiAr. VIIT. Monday, May 29. They are going to remodel, perhaps destroy, the ateliers. I hope not destroy, for I conceive the system to be good, if it were only well managed. At present, undoubtedly, there are great irregularities. Alexander Dumas has writ- ten a Protest against the Decree of Banishment (of the Eoyal Family), which his friend ' La Liberte ' declines to insert (so declareth A. D. in the ' Assemblee Nationale ') for fear of pecuniary loss. The ' Assemblee Nationale ' is a vile Guizotin journal, conducted, I hear, by the man who perjured himself about the pistols in the famous duel case. De Tocqueville voted for the Decree. Odillon-Barrot shirked ; Louis Blanc, apparently, against it. Paris: May 30, 1848. Paris is tranquil and dull. The bourgeoisie, which had at first awkwardly shuffled on the blouse, is gradually taking heart to slip on its fine clothes again ; and perhaps ere long will unbutton the breeches pocket. To-morrow there is to be an ' interpellation ' in the Assembly about the Neapolitan business. One great sub- ject under discussion in the Bureaux (where most of the work is done) is the ' projet de divorce,' simply restoring, I believe, the provisions of the Code Napoleon, which in 1816, on the return of the Bourbons, were in like manner simply erased. Divorce is allowed for * sevice,' and for incompatibility of temper under restrictions ; e.g. the husband must be above twenty-five, and the wife above twenty-one and under forty-five : and consent of parents must be obtained. Nor can divorce for this cause be allowed except after two (or three) years of marriage. I see it stated that the Bureaux are not favourable. But the great subject of subjects is of course the question of the Ateliers Nationaux. The statistics published in the ' Constitutionnel ' are of course utterly repudiated by the other party, and indeed they 184S.] ARTHUR IlUdll CLOUfilT. 113 are partly withdrawn by the * Constitutionnel ' itself. But there must be a great deal of irregularity and unfair dealing. For the real ouvriers out-of-work, a franc a day throughout, plus two francs extra for two or three days work, is not, if a man has a family, very extravagant. Rut lots of porters, e. g., are on the list. Wednesday, May 31. Last night I visited the Club des Femmes, presided over by a ]Mme. Niboyer. Alas, poor woman I she has a terrific task ; not to speak of having to keep women silent, she has to keep men, or say beasts, in order. The place is filled with them, and a more grievous spectacle of the un-politesse of Frenchmen I never saw ; but I believe it has been a good deal worse. However, Mme. Niboyer is a woman of considerable power and patience, and she works through it, though to what effect I don't know. Perhaps it may be useful for Frenchmen to see a woman face them, and present herself before them not for purposes of flirtation. I got disgusted with my male neighbours, and came away before it ended. The subject was divorce. The feeling, I think, was against the present project, the cries certainly so. Edition du soir. To-day has produced three remarkable documents : 1st. The Grovernment exposition of the events of May 15, with which maybe read Lamartine's speech of Tuesday night. The blame is left on de Courtais and the 1st Legion of the National Guard ! Notice towards the end the phrase ' Y-a-t-il eu de complot ? Qui sont les coupa- bles ? ' questions left at present unsettled. 2nd. Tlie candidature of our friend A. Dumas. It is due to the Marquis Alexandre to give his own words : ' Ce qu'il faut a la Chambre, c'est des hommes d'energie. Des hommes qui parlent hautement leur pensee. Des hommes <|ui lii soutiennent avec la voix, avec la plume, avec le I 114 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. VIII. bras, si besoin est. Je crois avoir prouve par la guerre que je fais depuis deux mois a la reaction et a la terreur que je suis de ces hommes. Voulez-vous de moi pour repre- Sentant? Al. Dumas.' 3rd. The candidature of A. Dumas' friend Joinville, who is proposed by a shopkeeper, who gave his name, dating from the Rue Bergere. ' The Assembly has ex- patriated him ; true ; but the people made the Assembly ; ergo, if the people choose Joinville . . . .' q. e. d. The elections (eleven for the Seine, i. e. Paris) are considered very uncertain ; there is all kind of division. Caussidiere, perhaps ? D'Alton Shee, not imlikely ; Chan- garnier. Not Emile de Grirardin, nor Thiers; nor, I presume, any socialist, such as Pierre Leroux, Thores, Proudhon, Cabet. Here is a ' mot ' on the situation : * Les seuls hommes possibles sont incapables ; et les seuls capables sont impos- sibles.' Another clever suggestion is that there should always be a 'provisional government, as the only security for pe-mianence. Remembrances to all my concitoyens at Oriel ; how many tricolor noeuds shall I bring ? To Rev. A, P. Stanley. June 6, 1848. I am safe again under the umbrageous blessing of constitutional monarchy, at Long's Hotel, Bond-street. I left Paris yesterday. The Republique was ' as well as can be expected.' Of the city of Paris my report must be * left voting,' — voting, and reading in huge attroupements the new edict against attroupements. To-day was to tell the fate of the candidates, and to-morrow commences the reorganisation of the ateliers nationaux. 1848.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 115 To T. Arnold, Esq. Liverpool: July 16, 1848. When I last wrote to you, the three days of February were still echoing, and now the four days of June have scarcely ceased to reverberate ; between which times a good deal has happened both to myself and to the world in general. For myself, I went to Paris on the 1st of JNIay, and stayed there five weeks ; saw the opening of the Assembly, the emeute or echauffouree (as they prefer calling it) of the 15th, and the fete of the following Sunday. After the 15th the sky was certainly overcast, but in my first fort- night, and in a* degree through the whole time, I was in extreme enjoyment, walked about Jerusalem and told the towers thereof with wonderful delight ; the great impression being that one was rid of all vain pretences, and saw visibly the real nation. The sentry posts were all occupied by men in blouse, of the national or mobile or republican guard, and the Tuileries gardens full of the same blue blouse ; while the Palace itself showed occasionally on its balcony some convalescent ' blesse de Fevrier,' helped along, as he took the air, by wife and child. All things quite ' decently and in order,' without any visible repressive external force; indeed, for two days between the resignation of the Pro- visional and its reappointment as the Executive Com- mittee, there was no government whatever, barring of course the Assembly. Lamartine (I saw him and Ledru-Eollin ride to the Hotel de Ville on the 15th,) seems certainly to have been deficient in definite purpose and practicality; but I fancy he and his colleagues hardly had a fair chance ; they had no time to get the Assembly into working condition, hampered in it as they were by Odillon-Barrot and Co. who are very skilful debaters, before the people began to get angry and suspicious. The four days of June I dare- I 2 116 LETTERS AXD REMAINS OF [Chap. VIII. say you have heard spoken of in a somewhat shrieky accent. But the cruelties are unquestionably exaggerated, and are attributable to the formats, who naturally mixed with the ouvriers, and there are many opposite traits recounted. The story of the cantinieres selling poisoned brandy was not verified by the examination before magistrates, or by the analysis of the chemists. I confess I regard it in the same light as a great battle, with, on the whole, less horror, and certainly more meaning, than most great battles that one reads of. However, there is no doubt that France's prospects are dubious and dismal enough, and one is almost inclined to think that the outbreak was premature ; with their ideas so far from ripe, the French had better, if possible, have endured a little longer the immorality of Louis Philippe's government ; but yet, on the whole, one accepts the thing with gratitude. It will, I think, probably accelerate change in England : and perhaps you may yet live to see some kind of palingenesy effected for your repudiated country. Sav/bb av Troppcodsv 18oi/u,t)v. The next topic is Emerson, whom I left yesterday on the deck of the Halifax steamer, and saw pass rapidly down the Mersey on his way home. He came to Oxford just at the end of Lent term, and stayed three days. Everybody liked him, and as the orthodox mostly had never heard of him, they did not suspect him ; he is the quietest, plainest, unobtrusivest man possible ; will talk, but will rarely discourse to more than a single person, and wholly declines ' roaring.' He is very Yankee to look at, lank and sallow, and not qidte without the twang ; but his looks and voice are pleasing nevertheless, and give you the impression of perfect intellectual cultivation, as completely as would any great scientific man in England — Faraday or Owen, for instance, more in their way perhaps than in that of Wordsworth or Carlyle. I have been with him a great deal ; for he came over to Paris and was there a 1848.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 117 month, during which we dined together daily: and since *hat I have seen him often in London, and finally here. One thing that struck everybody is that he is much less Emersonian than his Essays. There is no dogmatism or arbitrariness or positiveness about him. Next to myself, is, I suppose, accounted the wildest and most ecervele republican going. I myself, apropos of a letter of Matt's, which he directed to Citizen Clough, Oriel liyceum, Oxford, bear that title par excellence. Waterhead : September 4. I have been visiting Fisher in Patterdale, where he has his first reading-party. He got a first-class duly and honourably at Easter, -narpos dfjisivojv, outdoing his coach. I believe I shall probably, in about six weeks' time, publish, conjointly with Burbidge. a volume of poems. Some of them I hope you will like, but I don't think much will come of it. I don't intend writing any more verse, but have a notion for essays. I gave my tutorship up at Easter, and I seriously think of doing the same with the fellowship in October at latest. To Oxford: October 23, 184S. My relations wrote kindly and temperately {on hearing of the resignation of the felloiaship), on the whole ; made the most of conscientiousness, but were alarmed with ideas of extreme and extravag-ant views. My little book, I hope, will be out in ten days. To T. Arnold, Esq. 99 Holywell, Oxford : November 6, 1848. I have given up the fellowship, though the Provost still forbears to go through the formal step of officially announcing my resignation ; so that I am loose on the 118 LETTERS ATs^D REMAINS OF [Chap. VIII. world, and, being just out of my old place, I am ready to look at every new place, and likely enough to go to none. Even if literature does look likely, I confess I should like to knock about the world a little bit more before I do much in that way; yea, though I am all but thirty already. I am extremely jolly meantime, rejoicing in my emancipation. I stay up here ; it is now three weeks within twenty-four hours since I resigned ; and people don't cut me at all. 1 dine at some high tables, and generally (retaining my gown, for I don't wish to volunteer to cast that off) I am treated as a citizen. I have an invitation to stand for the Headship of the new University Hall (on the Oxford and Cambridge College system) to be attached to University College, London. My poem ' The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich,' in about 2,000 hexameters, ' A Long- Vacation Pastoral,' has appeared, and has tolerable success in Oxford ; but that its local allusions might readily give it. To his Sister. December 1848. It is far nobler to teach people to do what is good because it is good simply, than for the sake of any future reward. It is, I daresay, difficult to keep up an equal religious feeling at present, but it is not impossible, and is necessary. Besides, if ive die and come to nothing it does not therefore follow that life and goodness will cease to be in earth and heaven. If we give over dancing, it doesn't therefore follow that the dance ceases itself, or the music. Be satisfied, that whatever is good in us will be immortal; and as the parent is content to die in the consciousness of the child's survival, even so, why not we ? There's a screed which will suffice for the present. A belongs, I see, to the new High Churchites, who want to turn all the quiet people adrift ; it is the New Plot ; but so long as one isn't obliged to sign articles, or 1849.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 119 go to daily service, or prayer-meeting-, or the like, I don't see why one should excommunicate oneself. As for the Unitarians, they're better than the other Dissenters, and that's all ; but to go to their chapels, — no ! To R. W. Emerson^ Esq. February 10, 1849. My dear Sir, — How could I tell you of my Pastoral -to- be when it had not been thought of? It was only begun in September, and when I left you in July on the deck of your steamer, I had no thought of that or any other new poem. I hope ere this a little volume, half belonging to me, half to an old scliool friend, will have reached you : this does contain old things, the casualties of at least ten years. You may fancy how truly welcome all your kind praise of the first of them has been to me ; so far as praise goes I hardly venture to accept it, but as recognition I heartily feed on it. Meantime, in England I shall not be troubled with a very onerous weight of celebrity. Mr. Kingsley, a chief writer in ' Fraser,' devoted the whole of a cordial eulogistic article to the ' Pastoral,' and has made it toler- ably known ; but the ' Spectator ' was contemptuous ; and in Oxford, though there has been a fair sale and much talk of it, the verdict is, that it is 'indecent and profane, immoral and (I) communistic' Will you convey to Mr. Longfellow the fact that it was. a reading of his ' Evangeline ' aloud to my mother and sister, which, coming after a reperusal of the ' Iliad,' occa- sioned this outbreak of hexameters ? J 20 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IX. CHAPTER IX. APPOINTED PRINCIPAL OF UNIVERSITY HALL — VISIT TO ROME — EASTER DAY POEM AND DIPSYCHUS. In the beginning of 1849, A. H. Clough accepted the Headship of University Hall, London, an institution then jvist founded. He took the opportunity of the interval before the opening of it in October to make a journey to Rome, which happened to fall at the time of the siege of Rome by the French, of which he witnessed the whole course. To T. Arnold, Esq. Liverpool : February 15, 1849. Alea jacta est; I stay for the present here. I have accepted the position at University Hall ; and commence there in October, with a good deal of misgiving it must be confessed ; but on the whole, I believe myself right. I am not so clear as you are of the rottenness of this poor old ship here. Something, I think, we rash young men may learn from the failure and discomfiture of our friends in the new republic. The millennium, as Matt says, won't come this bout. I am myself much more inclined to be patient and make allowance for existing necessities than I was. The very fighting of the time taught one that there were worse things than pain, and makes me more tolerant of the less acute though more chronic miseries of society ; these also are stages towards good, or conditions of good. Whether London will take my hopefulness out of me remains to be seen. Peut-etre. 1849.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 121 I like the Manchester people, of whom I liave been seeing a little, better than the Liverpuddliaus. Tliey are more provincial perhaps, but have more character ; are less men of the world, but more men of themselves. Your sanguine friend still puts his trust in master manu- facturers, as in those olden foolish days, when the face of Fortescue shone triumph in the Decade. Yet why be troubled about politics and social matters ? Here also, as on the Poirirua road, sweet odours of human nature ascend to the heavens. To quit the country for altogether is not, so far as I can tell, my vocation. This may be Ur of the Chaldees, or even Egypt, but no angel hath as yet spoken to me, either in dreams by night or in any burning bush of the desert. February 24. To-day, my dear brother republican, is the glorious anniversary of the great revolution of '48, whereof what shall we now say ? Put not your trust in republics, nor in any institution of man. God be praised for the down- fall of Louis Philippe. This, with a faint feeble echo of that loud last year's scream of a bas Guizot, seems to be the sum total ; or are we to salute the rising sun with Vive I'Empereur and the green liveries? Meantime, the great powers are to restore the Pope, and crush the renas- cent (alite lugubri) Roman republic, of which Joseph Mazzini has just been declared a citizen. To his Mother. Rome, Hotel d'Angleterrc : April 18, 1849. I am at Rome ; I stayed two days at Paris, where I called on your American friends the Murats, and saw ]Madame and her sister. She is now Mme. la Princesse, and her daughter Mdlle. la Princesse. There is no immediate expectation of any change in the government here ; the only difficulty is to get money. They are going to divide the lands of the Church in small 122 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IX. farms among the peasants ; but payment will not be made for some time for these allotments. St. Peter's disappoints me : the stone of which it is made is a poor plastery material ; and, indeed, Eome in general might be called a rvhhishy place ; the Roman antiquities in general seem to me only interesting as antiquities, and not for any beauty. The Arch of Titus is, I could almost say, the only one really beautiful relic I have yet seen. I have seen two beautiful views since I came, one from San Pietro in Montorio, the other from the Lateran Church, over the Campagna. The weather has not been very brilliant. April 21. I have seen the Vatican gallery and Sistine Chapel. To- day being the natal day of Rome, was to have been a great feast, with illumination of the Coliseum, &c., but it is im- possible for the weather. I see the ' Times ' tells very odd stories of Eome. People here tell you that it has been bought by Austria. At any rate the story of the proposed sale of the Belvidere Apollo to the Americans is as simply a joke, I am told, as another story, that the Pantheon was sold to the English for a Protestant chapel. To F. T. Palgrave, Esq. Rome : April 23, 1849. In my way here I saw Grenoa again, and visited the Doria Palace, which had just been quitted by the victorious Piedmontese soldiery, who had not, I am glad to say, damaged the frescoes on the ceilings, as far as I saw (the battle of the Titans, which I suppose is the finest, was ([uite uninjured), but in other respects had played all sorts of furious and beastly pranks. The balcony with the fresco figures of Andrea Doria and his family is a good deal damaged, one or two cannon-balls have passed through, and the soldiers have scratched it with their 1849.] AKTIIUR HUGH CLOUGII. 1-2.3 bayonets. The furniture is all destroyed ; it belonged, they say, to the Prince of Carignano, the King's uncle or cousin, who had latterly taken the palace : gilded cupboards and tables, japanned cabinets and chess-boards, porcelain vases and French clocks, mingled their precious fragments on the floors, with relics of bread and other deposits, among which empty bottles should l)e mentioned; the Prince appears to have had a fine assortment of Madeira. No other damage is done in Grenoa. About 1 50 refugees came off with us in the French steamer ; the government paid for them as far as Leghorn, but at Leghorn they wouldn't have them, so they came on to Civita Vecchia, and I see several of them about in the streets ; they are incorporated with the other forces. Yesterday was the most lively day I have had here. In the morning a review in the Piazza before St. Peter's, where Avezzana, the Genoese commander, who is also an American citizen, and is now Minister of V»^ar, reviewed about 10,000 men and twenty pieces of artillery. In the evening a grand illumination of the Campidoglio, Forum, &c,, all the way to the Coliseum, which was the great scene. When I entered, it was mostly dark, and a great crowd filling it, a band somewhere above the entrance playing national hymns. At the end of the great hymn, of which I don't know the name, while the people were clapping, viva-ing and encoring, light began to spread, and all at once the whole amphitheatre was lit up with — the trois couleurs ! the basement red fire, the two next stories green, and the plain white of the common light at the top. Very queer, you will say; but it was really fine, and I should think the Coliseum never looked better than it did, if not then, at least afterwards, when the plain light was left, and the area got cleared. The same thing was done again for the outside. In the afternoon, I bad paid my visit to Mazzini ; a French envoy or agent was with him, and I had to acknow- 124 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IX. ledge the triumviral dignity by waiting almost an hour in the ante-chamber. However, on the envoy's retiring, he discoursed with me for half an hour. He is a less fanatical fixed-idea sort of man than I had expected ; he appeared shifty, and practical enough. He seemed in excellent spirits, and generally confident and at ease. He asked me if I had seen anything of the pillaging, which the English papers were acquainted with; he said that any of the English residents would bear witness to the perfect tran- quillity, even greater than before, which prevailed in the city (and certainly I see nothing to the contrary). The ' Times,' he said, mtist be dishonest, for the things it spoke of as facts were simply not facts ; emeutes where emeutes had never been thought of ; the only outbreak had been at Ascoli, near the Neapolitan frontier, where a sort of brigandage had been headed by two or three priests, but easily suppressed. In Rome there were plots going on amongst some of the nobles and priests, but they were well known to the government. The temper of the people and the Assembly alike was clearly against the restoration of the temporal power ; on that point he believed the Right would go heartily with the Left in the Assembly, and the people be unanimous. The object at present was rather to repress violence against the priest-party or Neri, to which some sec- tions of the populace Avere inclined ; but this the govern- ment was careful to do. The feeling everywhere is, he says, simply political or national. Communism or Socialism are things undreamt of. Social changes are not needed; there are no manufacturing masses, and in the lands there is a metayer system. You have heard perhaps that they are going to divide church lands amongst peasants ; this is true, but only of a portion, a surplus he called it, after provi- sion is made for the carrying on of the services of each establishment. They have got about 22,000 troops, and mean to have 50,000, so as to be able to take the field, at any rate not in mere despej-ation. But he expects foreign 1849.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 125 intervention in the end, and of course thinks it likely enough that tiie Komana ReppuLlica will fall. Still he is convinced that the separation of the temporal and spiritual power is a thing- to be, and that to restore the Pope as before will merely breed perpetual disquiet, con- spiracies, assassinations, &c. ; and he thinks it possible the Great Powers may perceive this in time. The French envoy had asked him if he would apply to France for protection ; he said, No, but that if France or any other power offered protection, they would welcome it. So much for Mazzini. Meantime, Eome is very peace- able to all appearance, rather cold however, and very rainy : the illumination, which you should be told was in honour of the Palilia, was put off one day in consequence. I do not observe much enthusiasm for the Eomana Rep- publica : but neither do I hear as much complaint as might be expected from the shop-folk and foreigners' jackals. The religious customs seem to thrive still ; they kissed away yesterday at St. Peter's toe as fast as they could have done in its best days. Money however is scarce ; one pays 30 per cent for silver, and Mazzini acknowledged that the financial crisis was a great difficulty ; but, as he said, it was unavoidable in revolutions. I get on but poorly in lionising, but have at last to-day seen the Sibyls. How much of this is restoration? how much is really Raphael? Michael Angelo's Moses has 'met my views' as much as anything I have seen. Are the two figures beside it also by M. Angelo ? And tell me, what is M. Angelo's design for St. Peter's exactly ? do the huge inside pilasters belong- to him ? I think it utterly lamentable and destructive that his plan was not carried out. Tell Blackett he really must defend S. P. Q. R. in the ' Grlobe.' It is a most respectable republic; it really {ipse dixit) thought of getting a monarch, but couldn't find one to suit. 12G LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Ciiai-. IX. To Ms Sister. Rome : April 30, 1849. Perhaps it will amuse you hereafter to have a letter commenced while guns are firing, and I suppose men falling dead and wounded. Such is the case on the other side the Tiber, while I peacefully write in my distant chamber with only the sound in my ears. I went up to the Pincian Hill and saw the smoke and heard the occa- sional big cannon, and the sharp succession of skirmishers' volleys — bang, bang, bang — away beyond St. Peter's. They say the French have settled down in three positions, and do not mean to enter till the Neapolitans arrive. And the affair of to-day is probably only with their advanced guard : the Eomans profess to have carried off four cannon and fifty prisoners, but who knows ? May 2. 600 prisoners and 500 killed and wounded, they say. The French have certainly retired. Bu^t the Neapolitans are at hand. To his Mother. Rome: May 11, 1849. The war would seem to you very small if you saw it; and except for the nuisance of all galleries being shut, I should be very well content. We are all safe and com- fortable, with British flags hanging out of our windows ; and Lord Napier, an attache of the British Embassy at Naples, has been here, and is at present, I believe, at Palo, a port between this and Civita Vecchia, where H.M. S. ' Bulldog ' is lying, and has arranged with Marshal Oudinot that his troops are to behave politely to us. Which troops came again yesterday within three miles, but have done nothing, and are said to be retiring. The Neapolitans, i.e. a detachment of 7,000 men near Pales- trina, are stated to have got a severe licking from the corps of Garibaldi, about 5,000, the day before yesterday. 1849.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 127 The ouly awkward thing that has liappened in the city has been the killing of four or perhaps five priests by the mob, soon after the news of the advance of the Nea- politan army. Some say that one of them had fired out of a window and killed a soldier ; others that they were found making off to the Neapolitans. However, some, I don't know the exact number, were killed in the street. Next day the government sent out a proclamation, and I have heard of no more outrages of this kind. Some plun- dering by the troops has given trouble, but they seem to be suppressing it. Meantime the gates are all shut, and the streets strongly barricaded. The Pincian gardens, the great resort for walking, are closed and fortified, and between the Trinita dei jNIonti and Sta. Maria Maggiore, in one line of streets, you can count I think six barricades, besides smaller ones in the side streets. My great affliction is that the Vatican is shut up. I got into the Sistine Chapel, however, and St. Peter's of course is open. These and the Pantheon are my resources. Many of the churches are occupied as hospitals (the French- men who were taken up wounded are very kindly and lovingly treated there, I am told ; and they have sent back their prisoners without stipulation), and the Palaces are mostly shut up. May 16. Two French commissioners arrived here 3^esterday, and it is understood that France has more peaceful intentions than appeared before. Miiy 17. Hostilities are suspended between us and the French. I shall be as greatly surprised as pleased if the two republics come to a good understanding. The people here will not like to have the Pope except as Head of the Church, and the French will insist on something more. 128 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IX. To the Same. May 28, 1849. At last I have got my permit for the Vatican. Once having seen a couple of lines from Mazzini, how the officials skipped about for me ! I was ashamed really to take all they offered me, good creatures. If I could have got this paper before, it would have been much better ; but I had great reluctance to obtrude myself on the Dictator, as the ' Times ' calls him, and some difficulty to get at him at last, he being, of course, ' moltissimo occupato.' Bulbs from the fountain of Egeria I have no chance of getting, nor shall I see Tivoli, Albano, or Nemi, for it requires a permit from the Minister of War, and I cannot for shame bother the Dictator any further with my trivial English -tourist importunities. The Romans are content the French should remain at Civita Vecchia, or even Viterbo (for the sake of health). They sent them the other day an immense quantity of cigars and snuff for a present. To T. Arnold, Esq. Rome: May 24, 1849. You will have heard of our driving back the French (April 30), and amongst many lies would probably detect the fact that the French never entered the town. Whether the Eoman Eepublic will stand I don't know, but it has under ]Mazziui's inspiration shown a wonderful courage and a glorious generosity, and at any rate has shaken to its foundations the Odillon-Barrot Ministry, which I trust may yet go to its own place. 'Peace be with all such ! ' I live here, studying chiefly Michael Angelo, specially in the Sistine Chapel. I believe the engraving of his ' Creation of Eve ' there, more than anything else, led me to Rome. T conceive myself to under.stand his superiorit}'- 184!).] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 129 and Leonardo da Vinci's to Eapliael, who is only natural, while they are intellectual: he produces with, and they out of nature. The idea of St. Peter's has been wholly killed out of it, partly by the horrid internal ornaments, but still more completely by the change of the form from a Greek to a Latin cross ; the latter belonging to Grothic, which Michael Angelo rejects, because he asserts totality. There ! To Rev. A. P. Stanley. Rome: May 24. 1849. Your historic soul shall be gratified — better late than never — with an account of the fight of the 30th of April; fatto d'armi gloriosissimo. * Yes, we are fighting at last.'* ... * Meantime, the ^quians and Volscians, quitting Algidus and concentrating their scattered forces on Velitrae, ventured under the walls of this stronghold to give battle to the detachment of Graribaldians which the bold temper of their leader had brought up somewhat in advance of the main body of the Eomans. The enemy, driven after a severe conflict into the town, acknowledsfed his discomfiture by a retreat during the following night in the direction of Terracina.' There, to be translated into the style of Livy. However, I forbear to proceed, for it is a fatiguing exer- cise, and ere this goes, our history will have something- newer to record than the fuga del Ke Bomba of Sunday, 3 A.M., 30th inst. May 31. If you are interested in our politics you should study the letters to Lesseps by Mazzini. Only a vagrant artist or two represent with me our country. Freeborn, British Consul, abides with his flag ; but Lowe, the British grocer, is at Florence. Piale, successor of Monaldini, is a huge republican, and stands at corners in f\dl civica uniform, shutting up the reading-room. The Miss Pfyfifers also love * Poems, p. 190 ct seq. ft 130 LETTERS AND KEMAINS OF [Chap. IX. their country and hate the priests ; but their betrothed lovers being of the old Gfuardia Nobile, take the other line. Papa Pfyffer (my landlord) follows these, but pro- tests against cardinalism loudly. Priests, by the way, walk about in great comfort — arm-in-arm with a soldier, perhaps ; in cafes and legnos and all profane places they are seen circulating as freely at least as government paper. Confession is still administered openly with long sticks in St. Peter's, and the Apostle's toe multitudinously kissed. The Bambino also drives about to see the sick in infinite state, and is knelt to and capped universally. Wandering about alone and wdth the map I have been twice hailed by the civicas as a ' spione,' but after some prattle affectionately dismissed. The barricades are very strong. A perfect agger Serviauus and fossa Quii^tium crosses the road between the Palatine and Aventine ; and before the Porta del Popolo there is an immense work. In the line from the Trinita del Monte to Sta. Maria Maggiore there are five or six, besides laterals. The soldiers, so far as one sees, are well behaved ; but the government has been scolding a good deal. It is pleasant to my pastoral soul to see them sitting by market-women and shelling peas. I have only seen Mazzini once, but have been up to his rooms three or four times. Anyone can go ; he is sadly ahopv^opos for a rvpavvos, and I wonder no spirited Jesuit has yet looked in with a pistol. June 1. At this moment comes a rumour to say that the French are comhinati with us. But no ; it proves that after getting certain conditions accepted by the Eomans, Lesseps had them refused by Oudinot, so he is off to Paris to see about it there. INIeantime, I take it, Oudinot will only sulk without fighting. June 3. On the contrary, just the reverse. They are at it, at- at-at it, with small arms frequent and occasional cannons, 1849.] ARTHUR JIUGII CLOUGII. 131 at the Porta San Pancrazio. We becran at four this mornincr. Oudinot had said distinctly he would not attack before Monda}'^, but his Parisiaca fides brings him here this pre- sent blessed Sunday. 11 P.M. After something like seventeen hours' fighting, entirely outside in the Villa Pamfili grounds, here we are in statu quo, barring a good many morti e feriti. To T. Arnold, Esq. Sunday, 10 .-v.m., Juik' 3. This is being written while guns are going off, there — , there — , there! For the P>ench are attacking us again. j\Iay the Lord scatter and confound them ! For a fort- night or more they have been negotiating and talking, and inducing the government to send off men against the Austrians at Ancona, and now here they are with their cannon. It is a curious affair, truly ; the French Envoy Plenipotentiary makes an accommodamento ; the General repudiates it, and, without waiting even for advice from Paris, attacks. To J. C. Shahj/, Esq. Rome-: Juue 2, 1849. Concerning Komau politics, hath not God made great newspapers, and appointed the ' Times ' for certain seasons ? Which even though it lie . . . But briefly for P 's sake. Lesseps, the envoy, agreed yesterday to four con- ditions with the Roman government : the French army to go into cantonments in the healthy districts hereabouts, but not in the city : guaranteeing these districts against foreign invasion, but exercising no political power, till things should be settled. But Oudinot repudiates. There, — but for the awful lies which all the newspapers, specially the ' Debats,' ' Constitutionnel,' and ' Times ' indulge in, I would not have said a word thereupon. But they do lie, indeed ! 132 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IX. June 3. No ; your letter won't go to-day : for the French are attacking us — there ! there ! ' But do Thou unto them as unto the Midianites. my Grod, make them like unto a wheel.' 10 P.M. Seventeen blessed hours have they battled — 3.30 a.m. to 8.30 P.M., and the French, I am told, have been unable to plant their cannon against the wall. The Villa Pamfili has been taken and retaken two or three times. But to us only smoke and occasional flashes are visible. June 4, Tuesday. They can't get in ; they banged away by moonlight most of last night; but as I see a French,officer at Toulon says, Oudinot is not the man. June 5. This is the third day, and they are still outside. The Pancrazio untaken, and the Villa Pamfili in our hands still. June 18, Monday. Groing, going, and to-morrow I shall be gone. "We have had a fortnight of gunnery, and what now, heaven knows ; perhaps more gunnery ; but to-day I hear hardly anything. Yes,— there is one. But we have been bom- barded, think of that ! It is funny to see how like any other city a besieged city looks. Unto this has come our grand Liberty-Equality-and-Fraternity Revolution ! To F. T. Palgrave, Esq. Rome : June 21, 1849. Shall I date one more letter from Rome ? I hope to get off to-day, but Frenchmen break down bridges. Here we are in the nineteenth day of our siege, expecting immediate assault, of which however I hear as yet no notice. In the way of cannonade or fusillade, all at this moment is silent. But the breach is full}^ big enough, and the last breach was being made, they say, two or even three 1849.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 133 days ai^o. Meantime all is tranquil witliin. The soldiers, I think, will fight to the last, and then retire upon the castle or into the mountains. And though I suspect some plotting is at work, yet the whole basso popolo will fight, and tlie middle classes mostly, and the * youth ' almost universally will at least offer a passive resistance. It is curious how much like any other city a city under bombardment looks. One goes to the Ara Cell or the Palatine to look at the firing ; one hears places named where shells have fallen ; one sees perhaps a man carrying a bit of one. The * Monitore ' this morning says, that the Temple of Fortune has been damaged, and that a ball has entered the roof exactly above the Aurora of Guido. The Eomans have suffered heavy losses in their sorties ; but they seem to have obstructed the works a good deal. The French papers spoke of ten days as the utmost space required for preparation ; and on the 12th Oudinot an- nounced himself ready to enter. Assure yourself that there is nothing to deserve the name of ' the Terror.' There may be timidity in the passiveness of the Moderates, and I will not say that if they tried resistance against the Government, they would not be suppressed force by force. But one sees no intimi- dation. Since May 4th the worst thing I have witnessed has been a paper in MS. put up in two places in the Corso, pointing out seven or eight men for popular resentment. This had been done at night : before the next eveninor a proclamation was posted in all the streets, from (I am sure) Mazzini's pen, severely and scornfully castigating such proceedings. A young Frenchman in a cafe, hearing his country abused, struck an Italian; he was of course surroimded, but escaped by the interference of the national guard and of the British Consul. The soldiers, so far as I see, are extremely well behaved, far more seemly than our regulars ; they are about of course in the streets and cafes, but make no disorder. Ladies walk in 134 LETTERS AND REMAINS OP [Chap. IX. the Corso till after 10 p.m. Farewell ; I must go and see about my place. Alas ! it is hopeless. I am doomed to see the burning of Rome, I suppose. The world, perhaps in the same day, will lose the Vatican and me ! However, they won't get in yet, I guess. June 22. It may have been merry in Dunfermline grey when all the bells were ringing ; but here at Rome it is by no means so. They are sounding the storm-alarm. Venit summa dies. During the night the French made a gene- ral attack from the Portese south to the Popolo north, and managed to throw a body of 500 (?) men into a solitary house within the walls, at the soiith-west corner. To F. T. Palgrave, E.-^q. Rome : Juue '28, 1849. I wrote on the 22nd, just after the misfortune of the night of the 21st. I was not then certain of the fact, that the passage of the breach was effected without a shot being tired; the 600 men of the Roman line who were there were seized with a panic, and their commanding officer is said to have told them to save themselves — any- how, save themselves they did, and only lost a barricade, which these poor brutes had been working at for a month. A very fatal go, indeed ; but not so immediately fatal as was expected when I wrote, and when all the bells were ringino-. The batteries of the new Roman line com- manded the breach, and the French have had to dig a trench to secure their advance. In the following night (of Friday, 22nd) an immense number of bombs were thrown ; they fell chiefly in the Piazza di Venezia, Piazza Sant' Apostoli, and Via del Gesii. I do not think much harm was done, and the people took it coolly enough. I found a crowd assembled about 9 P.M. in the north-east corner of the Piazza Colonna, 1849.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 135 watching these pretty fire-works, * ecco un altro ! ' One first saw the ' lightning ' over the Post-office ; then came the missive itself, describing its tranquil parabola ; then the distant report of the mortar ; and finally the near explosion, which occasionally took place in the air. This went on all night. But it has not been repeated in the same degree. The Consuls have remonstrated with Oudinot, but he, I believe, pleads ' orders.' The operations meantime, till yesterday, were unimportant, e.g. four cannon were got up on the breach, but the Eoman batteries say that they upset them. On Sunday night, however, the 26th, there was another general attack, and under cover of this the French got their guns planted on the breach, and were playing Avith these all yesterday upon our batteries of S. Pietro in Montorio, which I fear will not be long tenable. This morning I hear nothing I can rely on, and consider- ing the bombs, I forbore to visit my look-out of the Ara Celi. As for the feelings of the people, I can of course say little. I fancy the middle-class Romans think it rather useless work, but they don't feel strongly enough on the matter to make them take steps against a government which I believe has won their respect alike by its modera- tion and its energy ; perhaps, too, they are afraid of the troops, under which term however do not understand foreigners, unless you choose to give that name to the levies of the Papal States in general. Visiting the Monte Cavallo hospital the other day, where there are I think 200 men, three Poles and one Frenchman were specially pointed out to me, that I might say some words of French to them. All the others I saw were Italians, from Bologna, Ferrara, Eavenna, Perugia, and soforth. There was one Swiss. Most of them had received their wounds on the 3rd. Nice fellows they seemed, young, and mostly cheerful, spite of their hurts. One had lost an arm and a leg ; another had a ball in his hip yet to be extracted ; * and the like.' 136 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IX. On the whole, I incline to think they will fight it out to the last, but chi lo sa? We have a General Archioni, a Milanese noble, a fine brave fellow, in the lodgings here, with his secretary and capo del state maggiore, and a soldier or two. He was posted at the Villa Ludovisi, and thither two days ago we all went — fourteen, ' Mama ' and four daughters, and niece, and their escort, a gay party of pleasure. Festa di San Pietro : Friday, 29. I have been this morning to the Coliseum, whence you see the position very well and securely. The French bat- teries are too strong for the Eomans, I think ; they respond but feebly. The secretary of the General here detected two nights ago some people making signals ; he took some * civicas ' and went and arrested them ; there were three monks and two ' civicas ' in open communication with the French, while it was still daylight. A good deal of this telegraphing goes on, they tell me. The ' panic ' of the 21st seems to have been a good deal felt as a disgrace; these last few days they have been fighting very bravely, I take it. The ' Moniteur ' this morning states the number of foreigners in the Koman service to be 1,650 ; 800 Lombards, 300 Tuscans, 250 Poles and French, and 300 miscellaneous in Garibaldi's corps. The national guard is 14,000 strong ; the army, I suppose, 20,000. A bomb, I am thankful to say, has left its mark on the facade of the Gesii. I wish it had stirred up old Ignatius. Farewell. A. H. C. Le Citoyen, malgre lui. To M, Arnold, Esq. Rome: June 23, 1849. I advertise you that I hope to be in the Geneva country in August, reposing in the bosom of nature from the fatigues of art and the turmoil of war ! ! ! Quid Roma3 faciam ? What's politics to he, or he to politics ? But it is impos- 1849.] AETIIUR HUGH CLOUGH. 137 sible to get out, and if one did, Free])orn, Vice-consul, who however is a Caccone, says the French avan-posti shoot at one. July 3. Well, we are taken ; the battery immediately to the left (as you go out) of St. Pancrazio was carried by assault on the night of the 29th or morning of the 30th, while we in this corner got bombarded by way of feint. The Eoman line in several cases has behaved ill, and certainly gave way here rather early ; afterwards, however, under Garibaldi's command, it seems to have fought well, at least two regiments, who are now off with him and his free corps to the Abruzzi. On Saturday morning (30th June) the Assembly resolved to give in ; Mazzini & Co. resigned ; and a deputation went off to Oudinot. Sunday was perfectly tranquil ; yesterday evening Garibaldi withdrew his troops from the Trastevere, and went off by the S. Giovanni. To-day they say the French will enter. Altogether, I incline to think the Eoman population has shown a good deal of 'apathy;' they did not care about the bombs much, but they did not care to fight ve7'y hard either. The Lombards are fine fellows, and, the Bolognese too; the only pity there were not more of them. If you put the whole lot of them together, Poles, Lombards, Tuscans, French, they would not exceed 3,000. On the whole, the French were not very barbarous, but if we had not yielded, I believe they meant to bombard us really ; and as it was, their shells might have done irreparable harm. At noon to-day, the Assembly proclaims the Constitu- tion ! which it had just completed. To F. T. Palgrave, Esq. Eome: July 4, 1849. If you should happen to read in the ' Constitutionnel' that 'on Tuesday, July 3rd, our army entered Rome amidst the 138 LETTEKS AND EEMAINS OF [Chap. IX. acclamations of the people,'' perhaps you will not be the worse for a commentary on the text. On Monday evening Garibaldi, with all the free corps except some Lombards under Medici, and with a good many Eoman troops in addition, set off for the Abruzzi. At Tuesday at noon the Assembly proclaimed the Consti- tution on the Campidoglio. I went there and heard it. There were present perhaps 800 or 900 people. This done, I presume the deputies dispersed, the labours of the Con- stituent being clearly completed. The French had already begun their entry, and occupied the Ponte Sisto, and, I believe, the Trinita dei Monti. About half-past four I went out, and presently saw a detachment coming up from the Palazzo Borghese to the Condotti. I stood in the Corso with some thirty of the people, and saw them pass. Fine working soldiers indeed, dogged and business-like ; but they looked a little awkward, while the people screamed and hooted, and cried ' Viva la Reppublica Romana.' When they had got past, some young simpleton sent a tin pail after them ; four or five faced round with bayonets pre- sented, while my young friend cut awa}'' up the Corso double quick. They went on. At this moment some Roman bourgeois as I fancy, but perhaps a foreigner, said something either to express his sense of the folly of it, or his sympathy with the invaders. He was surrounded, and I saw him buffetted a good deal, and there was a sword lifted up, but I think not bare ; I was told he got oft". But a priest who walked and talked publicly in the Piazza Colonna with a Frenchman was undoubtedly killed. I know his friends, and saw one of them last nigbt. Poor man, he was quite a liberal ecclesiastic, they tell me, but certainly not a prudent one. To return to my own experience. After this the column passed back by another street into the Corso, and dispersed the crowd with the bayonet-point; they then went on and occupied, I take it, the Post-office, 1849.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 139 which I afterwards found full of them. About six o'clock I walked out aoain, and found the Monte Cavallo, the Palazzo Earberini, and other places occupied. I thus missed the entry of Oudinot and his staff. I got back only just to see the final dragoons ; but an English acquaintance informed me that in passing by the Cafe Nuovo, where an Italian tricolor hung from the window, Oudinot plucked at it, and bid it be removed. The French proceeded to do this, but the Komans intervened ; Cemuschi, the barricade commissioner, took it down, kissed it, and, as I myself saw, carried it in triumph amidst cheers to the Piazza Colonna. I did not follow, but on my bolder friend's authority I can state that here the French moved up with their bayonets and took it from Cemuschi, stripping him moreover of his tricolor scarf. One hears reports of as many as eight Ivomans being killed for fraternising with the Gaul, and of some of the French themselves having been assassinated. My friend told me two shots were fired from a cafe in the Corso when the troops pai^sed that way at half-past four. This morniniJf I have been to the field of battle and looked at the trenches. I condescended to speak with two French- men, consoling myself by an occasional attempt at sarcasm. They said the Komans did nothing at all when the batteries were assaulted : but the artillery had been well directed. You see lots of villas, six or seven at least, in ruins ; S. Pietro in Montorio is in a sad state ; balls have come in and knocked great holes, and the east end is nearly in ruins, but the paintings are most, if not all, quite safe : those of Sebastian del Piombo certainly, and Bramante's chapel is wholly untouched. My French officer said the troops were about 25,000. Almost all are in the city. The Roman forces are to withdraw immediately into cantonments assigned by Oudinot, and guaranteed against the Austrians. The national guard will be disarmed, and then all will be considered safe. On the whole, the French soldiers seemed to me to show excellent temper. At the same time, some 140 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IX. faces I have seen are far more brutal than the worst Garibaldian ; and we have hitherto seen nothing so un- pleasing in the female kind as the vivandiere. The Graul is certainly the stronger animal, but assuredly the greater beast. The American banker tells me he was told that in the morning the French were cheered. I rather doubt it ; but I believe the bourgeoisie in part are very glad it is over. Naturally, for there was to have been a regular bombard- ment ; so said my French friend. They had got a large supply ready, just come from France. The priest is not dead, and perhaps will survive ; but another I hear was hewed in pieces for shouting 'Viva Pio Nono,' 'Abasso la Eeppublica,' &c. Oudinot's proclamation is expected every moment. They say it will declare a state of siege ; name a military governor and commander of the garrison ; dissolve the national guard and the Assembly, and soforth. To F. T. Palgrave, Esq. Rome : July 6, 1849. Medium of all desirable communication with my brethren at home ! you shall receive one more despatch. I think of going off to Albano, or some of these places, which now one supposes will be attainable. Tivoli, they say, is dubious. Garibaldi went off that way, and the French have sent a detachment after him, with orders, one is told, to give no quarter. It is a sight to make one gnash one's very wisdom teeth to so about the fallen Jerusalem and behold the abomina- tion of desolations standing where "it ought not ; not that the French misbehave, so far as I see, individually. They appear to me to display considerable temper. Still one is told that they carried off a lot of lemons, &c., the first night without paying for them. One soldier, they say, was stabbed by a Trasteverine woman at the Ponte Sisto for insidting her. Any way, one sees how ' riling ' it is to be conquered. 1849.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. ' 141 I am greatly rejoiced meantime that they have been obliged to proclaim the state of siege. They make much of the adhesion of the army. I don't exactly know- how far it has been given. Two regiments went off with Garibaldi, and one heard divers stories. However, with the alternative of dissolution and beggary, it is no marvel that the Eoman line, not a popular body, should consent to give its service to any de-facto government. Last night, for the first time, * by order,' we were all driven in at half-past nine. I found a bayonet point within a few inches of me as I came along the Corso, while the battalion was clearing it. Has the ' Times ' correspondent told the funny way in which they have shown their spite b}^ daubing out all the French sign-boards ? The natives do not universally quit the cafes when the French come in ; at the Bon Gout in the Piazza di Spagna they appear to be treated with polite indifference ; in the Cafe Nuovo, such unmistakeable disgust was evinced that considering also its size and importance, for you know it is a whole palace, and the great place of resort, they have seen fit to shut it up and fill it with soldiers. Elsewhere the enemies feed together, but with a pale very distinctly marked between them. Mazzini was still here yesterday. Galetti, president of the Assembly, and commander of the Carbineers, was taken under American protection (as I hear) ; otherwise he would have been arrested ; but the political arrests have been limited to some half-dozen agitators. Ciceruacchio got oflf with an American passport. You know the Assembly sat on the day after the French entree ; Mazzini was present. They passed some three or four decrees, and put them up in the streets. Oudinot's proclamation dissolving the old government came out an hour or two after. I told you that Garibaldi lost his negro on the 3rd. ' II Moro,' as they called him, was the son of a rich negro 142 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. TX. merchant at Monte Video, who, though married and father of a family, yet, for the love of the Italian captain, came over to fight by his side, which they say he never quitted. I have seen each separately, but not together. There is a Mrs. Graribaldi ; she went out with him to the Abruzzi. I hope the French won't cut them to pieces, but vice versa. July 7. Last night I had the pleasure of abandoning a cafe on the enti'ance of the French. The Italians expect you to do so. It was quite composedly done ; no bravado or hurry. Mazzini, on the 30th, after the capture of the bastion, proposed to the Assembly that it, with the army, should quit Eome, carry off the artillery, and occupy some strong- hold. But the Assembly at first would not ; and after, when it would, could not. The course actually taken was repugnant to Mazzini's views, who was anxious to save Eome from destruction, but at the same time to hold out somewhere and somehow to the last. The Chigi chapel, in Sta. Maria del Popolo, is a remark- able case. Eaphael's Jonah is untouched, but the statue next it has been chipped in two places by a ball. Nothing else is hurt. To F. T. Palgrave, Esq. Rome: July 13, 1849. We are all in admiration here of M. de Corcelles' state- ment, that during the twenty-six days that elapsed of the siege, not one bomb had been thrown into the city. I dare- say a large proportion of what were thrown were grenades, but that there were bombs in the strictest sense, is un- doubted. A military friend whom I can trust has seen one, and I think I myself have. Moreover, the grenades were large. And I presume M. de Corcelles will prefer saying plainly that he was misinformed, to the alternative of professing not to have meant to deny grenades. On the night of the 22nd, 150 missives of the bomb or the grenade 1849.] . ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 14:1 species are said to have been thrown into the town; 130 were counted by an acquaintance of mine, a Roman ; at the rate they were being plied while I was looking on my- self, I cannot doubt some ligure like this must be correct. On the night of the 29th, a French officer told an English gentleman the detachment in the Borghese grounds was ordered to fire 120 shots into the Piazza di Spagna quarter, as a feint ; they had no particular aim, but seeing a light in a high window, they took it for their mark, and — hiuc illae lachrymee — hence those balls and bombs, or, I beg pardon, grenades perhaps, which frightened us out of our propriety into the prime piano. Mazzini, through the negotiation of Mr. Cass, the American Charge d'affaires, received a passport in his own name from the French, and went off via Civita Vecchia, with a bearer of despatches from the same JMr. Cass, I think, on Tuesday last, the 10th. He would go into Switzerland. This is quite positive. On Monday I was at Albano. The French, seventy horse, came in that afternoon at four. The Spaniards meantime had just the previous night occupied Grenzano, three miles off. One hears that the French have turned them out of it. Two newspapers appear in Rome besides the official gazette, called the ' Giornale di Roma;' one of these, the ' Costituzionale,' belongs to the 'prete interest ; the other, ' La Speranza dell' Epoca,' to Mamiani and coterie. They are under a military censure, but liberally exercised ; a new appointment was freely commented on in malam partem yesterday by this latter print. The Principessa di Belgiojoso is still here, looking after her feriti at the Monte Cavallo, who, as I think by Mr, Cass's intercession, are allowed to remain there ; at first, orders were given that they should be removed within a week. Garibaldi is said to have effected a jimction at Terni with Forbes, an Englishman holding rank here of colonel I think, and commanding a small detachment. 144 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. IX. Add to the list of fortunate escapes, that a ball struck the facade of the Palazzo Sciarra on the terzo piano. On the secondo in front is the gallery, whose ample windows give light to the famous Modestia e Vanita of Leonardo da Vinci, the Violin Player of Kaphael, Titian's Bella Donna, and others, most of which, however, had been put into the passage for safety. Freeborn, the Consul, has got one bomb in his bank. Do you know the difference between the two things, bomb and grenade? bomb has two handles, and grenade is a hollow ball with a hole in it ; that is all I know. Grenades, they say, burst in the air ; otherwise they are as big as bombs, and by no means innocent things. July 14. Griving the French and the * Times ' credit for some degree of truth-telling, the simple truth would appear to be, that we have been grenaded, not bombarded. It is possible that the cannon and mortars were pointed merely to the breach, and that the bombs and balls that came in were merely bad shots. But the obus (singular or plural) must certainly have been pointed against the very heart of the city, the Pantheon and Capitol ; and a discharge of 150 or more grenades in a single night is, if not a bombardment, still . My authority about Mazzini's movements is Miss Fuller, an American, who was in immediate communication with Mazzini and Mr. Cass, and who was a party to the negotiation. She is now gone to Eieti. To the Same. Geneva : August 7. I shall go and see Mont Blanc, among other duties (for I am finishing my education before coming to town), and move homeward by the Ehine. I saw the French enter Rome, and then went to Naples, which I greatly enjoyed. Thence direct by Genoa and Turin to this place, and from here by Interlaken home. I am full of adnii- 1849.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 145 ration of Mazzini. But, on the whole, ' Farewell, politics, utterly ! What can I do ? ' Study is much more to the purpose. This is a dull sky-and-water atmosphere, after the blue sweaters of the South ; and the English locust of course prevails in it. As appears in the last letter, A. H. Clough went after the conclusion of the siege of Rome to Naples. While there he wrote a poem called ' Easter Day,' which is given here ; a semi-dramatic expression of the contrast he felt between the complete practical irreligion and wickedness of the life he saw going on, and the outward forms and cere- monies of religion displaying themselves at every turn. How can we believe, it seems to say, that ' Christ is risen' in such a world as this? how, if it was so, could such sin and such misery continue until now ? Yet, if we must give up this faith, what sadness and what bitterness of disappointment remain for all believers who thus lose all that is most dear to them. And he abandons himself to this feeling of grief and hopelessness, only still vaguely clinging to the belief that in earth itself there may be, if nowhere else, a new refuge and a new answer to this sad riddle. The mood of rami, which he depicts in such terrible colours is not to be regarded as his own habitual belief. The poem is in no sense a statement of facts or opinions, but a strong expression of feeling — above all, the feelinof of the greatness of the evil which is in the world. A poem follows, called * Dipsychus,' whicli, although written a year later, it has been found convenient to plact.^ in immediate connection with the preceding. In the autumn vacation of 1850, A. H. Clough made a journey to Venice, and this poem, written then or soon after, shows the mark of Venice in all its framework and its local L 146 LETTERS AND EEMAINS OF [Chap. IX. colouring. Though too unfinished to be published among his poems, it is thought that it will be interesting here, as being a record of many of his thoughts and feelings at this period, and also because it contains many of the shorter poems published before separately, the spirit of which may be better appreciated when' they are read with their original context. Two other shorter poems or fragments are added. The first is a sketch for a continuation of ' Dipsychus,' written much later, though the exact date is not known. This, it will be seen, is in no sense a second part ; it only shows how the thoughts which appear in * Dipsychus ' continued to work in his mind, and how, while feeling strongly both the necessity for practical life, and the almost necessary loss of ideal purity caused by contact with the world, he yet always retained confidence in the higher aspiration surviving in any honest mind, and in the value of honest work. There is, perhaps, also greater dramatic capacity manifested in it than in his other writings. The second short poem is distinctly a second part to the ' Easter Day ; ' but it is not written under the same feeling as the first part ; it is rather a reaction from it, and it was, perhaps, not written at the same time. Like the first part, it gives no distinct statement of views ; but it shows that whatever his mood, and whatever his intellectual perplexities, the faith in Grod and in good, and the sense of the divine character of Christ, survived. 1849.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUOTI. 147 EASTER DAY. NAPLES, 1849. Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past, With fiercer heat than flamed above my head My heart was hot within me ; till at last My brain was lightened when my tongue had said — Christ is not risen ! Christ is not risen, no, — He lies and moulders low ; Christ is not risen ! What though the stone were rolled away, and though The grave found empty there ? — If not there, then elsewhere ; If not where Joseph laid him first, why then Where other men Translaid him after, in some humbler clay. Long ere to-day Corruption that sad perfect work hath done. Which here she scarcely, lightly had begun : The foul engendered worm Feeds on the flesh of the life-giving form Of our most Holy and Anointed One. He is not risen, no — He lies and moulders low ; Christ is not risen ! Wliat if the Avomen, ere the dawn was grey, Saw one or more great angels, as they say (Angels, or Him himself) ? Yet neither there, nor then. Nor afterwards, nor elsewhere, nor at all, Hath He appeared to Peter or the Ten ; Nor, save in thunderous terror, to blind Saul ; Save in an after Gospel and late Creed, He is not risen, indeed, — Christ is not risen ! l2 148 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [1849. Or, what if e'en, as runs a tale, the Ten Saw, heard, and touched, again, and yet again ? What if at Emmaiis inn, and by Capemavim's Lake, Came One, the bread that brake — Came One that spake as never mortal spake. And with them ate, and drank, and stood, and walked about ? Ah ! ' some ' did well to ' doubt ! ' Ah I the true Christ, while these things came to pass, Nor heard, nor spake, nor Avalked, nor lived, alas ! He was not risen, no — He lay and mouldered low, Christ Avas not risen ! As circulates in some great city crowd, A rumour changeful, vague, importunate, and loud, From no determined centre, or of fact Or authorship exact. Which no man can deny Nor verify ; So spread the wondrous fame ; He all the same Lay senseless, mouldering, low : He was not risen, no — Christ was not risen ! Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ; As of the ujDJust, also of the just — Yea, of That Just One, too ! This is the one sad Gospel that is true — Christ is not risen ! Is Pie not risen, and shall we not rise ? Oh, we unwise ! What did we dream, what wake we to discover ? Ye hills, fall on us, and ye mountains, cover ! In darkness and great gloom Come ere we thought it is our day of doom ; From the cursed world, Avhich is one tomb, Christ is not risen ! 1849.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 149 Eat, drink, and play, and think that this is bliss : There is no heaven but this ; There is no hell, Save earth, Avhich serves the purpose doubly Avell, Seeing it visits still With equalest apportionments of ill Both good and bad alike, and brings to one same dust The unjust and the just With Christ, who is not risen. Eat, drink, and die, for we are souls bereaved : Of all the creatm-es under heaven's wide cope We are most hopeless, who had once most hope. And most beliefless, that had most believed. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ; As of the imjust, also of the just — Yea, of that Just One too ! It is the one sad Gospel that is true — Christ is not risen ! Weep not beside the tomb, Ye women, unto whom He was great solace while ye tended Ilim ; Ye Avho with napkin o'er the head And folds of linen round each wounded limb Laid out the Sacred Dead ; And thou that bar'st Him in thy wondering wumb ; Yea, Daughters of Jerusalem, depart. Bind up as best ye may yoiu* own sad bleeding heart : Go to yovu* homes, your living children tend, Your earthly spouses love ; Set your affections not on things above. Which moth and rust coiTupt, which quickliest come to end : Or pray, if pray ye must, and pray, if pray ye can, For death ; since dead is He whom ye deemed more than man, Wlio is not risen : no, — But lies and moulders low, — AVho is not risen ! 150 LETTEKS AND REMAINS OF [1849. Ye men of Galilee ! Why stand ye looking up to heaven, where Him ye ne'er may see, Neither ascending hence, nor returning hither again ? Ye ignorant and idle fishermen ! Hence to your huts, and boats, and inland native shore, And catch not men, but fish ; Whate'er things ye might wish, Him neither here nor there ye e'er shall meet with more. Ye poor deluded youths, go home. Mend the old nets ye left to roam, Tie the split oar, patch the torn sail : It was indeed an ' idle tale,' — He was not risen ! And, oh, good men of ages yet to be. Who shall believe because ye did not see — Oh, be ye warned, be wise ! No more with pleading eyes. And sobs of strong desire. Unto the empty vacant void aspire. Seeking another and impossible birth That is not of your own, and only mother earth. But if there is no other life for you, Sit down and be content, since this must even do : ^ He is not risen ! One look, and then depart, Ye humble and ye holy men of heart ; And ye ! ye ministers and stewards of a Word Which ye would preach, because another heard, — Ye worshippers of that ye do not know, Take these things hence and go : — He is not risen ! Here, on our Easter Day We rise, we come, and lo ! we find Him not, Gardener nor other, on the sacred spot : Where they have laid Him there is none to say ; No sound, nor in, nor out — no word Of where to seek the dead or meet the living Lord. 1S49.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 151 There is no glistering of an angel's wings, There is no voice of heavenly clear behest : Let us go hence, and think upon these things In silence, which is best. Is lie not risen ? No — But lies and moulders low ? Christ is not I'isen ? 152 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [1850. PROLOGUE TO DIPSYCHUS. ' I HOPE it is in good plain verse,' said my iincle, — ' none of yoiir hurry-scurry anapaests, as you call them, in lines which sober people read for plain heroics. Nothing is more disagreeable than to say a line over two, or, it may be, three or four times, and at last not be siu-e that there are not three or four ways of reading, each as good and as much intended as another. Simplex duntaxat et unum. But you young people think Horace and your uncles old fools.' ' Certainly, my dear sir,' said I ; 'that is, I mean, Horace and my uncle are perfectly right. Still, there is an instructed ear and an uninstructed. A rude taste for identical recurrences would exact sing-song from " Paradise Lost," and grumble because " II Pense- roso" doesn't run like a nursery rhyme.' 'Well, well,' said my uncle, ^sunt certi denique fines, no doubt. So commence, my young Piso, while Aristarchus is tolerably wakeful, and do not waste by yom* logic the fiind you will want for your poetry.' 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGIf. 153 DIPSYCHUS. PART I. Scene I. — The Piazza at Venice, 9 p.m. — Dijysychus and the Spirit. Di. The scene is different, and the place, the air Tastes of tlie nearer north ; the people Not perfect southern lightness ; wherefore, then, Should those old verses come into my mind I made last year at Naples ? Oh, poor fool ! Still resting on thyself — a thing ill-worked — A moment's thought committed on the moment To unripe words and rugged verse : — ^ Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past, ' With fiercer heat than flamed above my head ' My heart was hot within me ; till at last 'My brain was lightened when my tongue had said — ' Christ is not risen ! ' Sp. Christ is not risen ? Oh, indeed, I didn't know that was your creed. Di. So it Avent on, too lengthy to repeat — ' Christ is not risen.' Sp. Dear, how odd ! He'll tell us next there is no God. I thought 'twas in the Bible plain. On the third day He rose again. Di. 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; 'As of the unjust, also of the just — ' Yea, of That Just One, too ! ' Is He not risen, and shall we not rise ? 'Oh, we unwise ! ' Sp. H'm ! and the tone, then, after all, Something of the ironical ? Sarcastic,, sjiy ; or Avere it fitter To style it the religious bitter ? 154 • LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [1850. Di. Interpret it I cannot. I but wrote it — At Naples, truly, as the preface tells, Last year, in the Toledo ; it came on me. And did me good, at once. At Naples then, At Venice now. All ! and I think at Venice Christ is not risen either. Sp. Nay, Such things don't fall out every day : Having once happened, as we know. In Palestine so long ago. How should it now at Venice here ? Where people, true enough, appear To appreciate more and understand Their ices, and their Austrian band, And dark-eyed girls. Di. The whole great Square they fill, From the red flaunting streamers on the staffs, And that barbaric portal of St. Mark's, To where, imnoticed, at the darker end, I sit upon my step — one great gay crowd. The Campanile to the silent stars Goes up, above — its apex lost in air — While these do what ? Sp. Enjoy the minute, And the substantial blessings in it : Ices, par exemple ; evening air, Company, and this handsome square ; And all the sweets in perfect plenty Of the old clolee far niente. Music ! Up, up ; it isn't fit With beggars here on steps to sit. Up, to the cafe ! take a chair, And join the wiser idlers there. And see that fellow singing yonder ; Singing, ye gods, and dancing too — Tooraloo, tooraloo, tooraloo loo — Fiddledi diddlcdi, diddle di di ; Figaro sh, Fiyaro giii — Fitjaro qua., Figaro Ui ! — How he likes doing it — Ha, ha ! 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 155 Di. While these do what ? Ah heaven ! too true, at Venice Christ is not risen either. Scene II. — The Public Garden. Di. Assuredly, a lively scene ! And, ah, how pleasant something green ! With circling heavens one perfect rose Each smoother patch of water glows. Hence to where, o'er the full tide's face, We see the Palace and the Place, And the white dome ; beauteous, but hot. Where in the meantime is the spot — My favourite — where by masses blue, And white cloud-folds, I follow true The great Alps, rounding grandly o'er. Huge arc, to the Dalmatian shore ? S}'). This rather stupid place, to-day. It 's true, is most extremely gay ; And rightly — the Asstmzione Was always a gran^ funzione. Di. What is this persecuting voice that haunts me ? What ? whence ? of whom ? How am I to detect ? Myself or not myself? My own bad thoughts, Or some external agency at work, To lead me Avho knows whither ? Sp. Eh ? We 're certainly in luck to-day : What crowds of boats before us plying — Gay parties, singing, shouting, crying — Saluting others past them flying ! What numbers at the causeway lying ! What lots of pretty girls, too, hieing Hither and thither — coming, going, And with what satisfaction showing Their dark exiiberance of hair, Black eyes, rich tints, and sundry graces Of classic pure Italian faces ! 156 LETTEKS AND KEMAINS OP [l850. DL Ah me, me ! Clear stars above, thou roseate westward sky, Take up my being into yours ; assume My sense to know you only ; steep my brain In your essential purity ; or, great Al^s, That wrapping roimd your heads in solemn clouds Seem sternly to sweep past our vanities. Lead me with you — take me away, preserve me ! Di. O moon and stars, forgive ! and thou, clear heaven, Look pureness back into me. Oh, great God ! Why, why, in wisdom and in grace's name, And in the name of saints and saintly thoughts, Of mothers, and of sisters, and chaste wives, And anorel woman-faces we have seen, And angel woman-spirits we have guessed. And innocent sweet children, and piu-e love. Why did I ever one brief moment's space But parley with this filthy Belial ? Was it the fear Of being behind the world, which is the wicked ? ScENK I^. — At the Hotel. Sp. Come, then, * And with my aid go into good society. Life little loves, 'tis true, this peevish piety ; E'en they with whom it thinks to be seciirest — Your most religious, delicatest, purest — Discern, and show as pious people can Their feeling that you are not quite a man. Still the thing has its place ; and with sagacity Much might be done by one of yoiu* capacity. A virtuous attachment formed judiciously Would come, one sees, uncommonly propitiously : Turn you but your affections the right way. And what mayn't happen none of us can say ; For, in despite of devils and of mothers, Your good young men make catches, too, like others. 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 157 Di. To herd with people that one owns no care for ; Friend it with strangers that one sees but once ; To drain the heart with endless complaisance ; To warp the unfinished diction on the lip, And twist one's inouth to counterfeit ; enforce Reluctant looks to falsehood ; base- alloy The ingenuous golden frankness of the past ; To calculate and plot ; be rough and smooth, Forward and silent, deferential, cool, Not by one's humour, which is the safe truth, But on consideration. Sp. That is, act On a dispassionate judgment of the fact ; Look all the data fairly in the face, And rule your judgment simply by the case. Di. On vile consideration. At the best. With pallid hotbed courtesies to forestall The green and vernal spontaneity, And waste the priceless moments of the man In regulating manner. Whether these things Be right, I do not know : I only know 'tis To lose one's youth too early. Oh, not yet — Not yet I make the sacrifice. Sp. Du tout ! To give up nature 's just what Avould not do. By all means keep your sweet ingenuous graces, And use them at the proper times and places. For work, for play, for business, talk, and love, I own as wisdom truly from above, That scripture of the serpent and the dove ; Nor 's aught so perfect for the world's affairs As the old parable of wheat and tares ; What we all love is good touched up with evil — Religion's self must have a spice of devil. Di. Let it be enough. That in our needful mixture Avith the Avorld, On each new morning with the rising sun. 158 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [1850. Our rising heart, fresh from the seas of sleep, Scarce o'er the level lifts his purer orb Ere lost and sullied with polluting smoke — A noon-day coppery disk. Lo, scarce come forth, Some vagrant miscreant meets, and with a look Transmutes me his, and for a whole sick day Lepers me. Sp. Just the one thing, I assure you, From which good company can 't but secure you. About the individual 's not so clear, But who can doubt the general atmosphere ? Di. Ay, truly, who at first ? but in a while — Sp. O dear, this o'er-discernment makes me smile. You don't pretend to tell me you can see Without one touch of melting sympathy Those lovely, stately flowers that fill with bloom The brilliant season's gay parterre-like room. Moving serene yet swiftly through the dances, Those graceftil forms and perfect countenances. Whose every fold and line in all their dresses Something refined and exquisite expresses. To see them smile and hear them talk so sweetly. In me destroys all lower thoughts completely ; I really seem, without exaggeration, To experience the true regeneration. One's own dress, too — one's toanner, what one 's doing And saying, all assist to one's renewing. I love to see, in these theii* fitting places. The bows, and forms, and all you call grimaces. I heartily could wish we 'd kept some more of them, However much we talk about the bore of them. Fact is, your awkward parvenu.s are shy at it, Afraid to look like waiters if they try at it. 'Tis sad to what democracy is leading — Give me your Eighteenth Century for high breeding. Though T can put up gladly Avith the present, And quite can think our modern jDarties pleasant. 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 159 One shouldn't analyse the thmg too nearly : The main effect is admirable clearly. * Good manners,' said our good great-aunts, 'next to piety : ' And so, my friend, hurrah for good society ! Scene IV. — On the Piazza. Sp. Insulted ! By the living Lord ! He laid his hand upon his sword. * Fo7't,' did he say ? a German brute, With neither heart nor brains to shoot. Di. What does he mean ? he 's wrong, I had done nothing. 'Twas a mistake — more his, I am .sure, than mine. He is quite wrong — I feel it. Come, let us go. Sp. Go up to him ! — ^you must, that 's flat. Be threatened by a beast like that ! DL He 's violent ; what can I do against him ? I neither wish to be killed, or to kill : Wliat's more, I never yet have touched a sword, Nor fired, but twice, a pistol in my life. Sp. Oh, never mind, 'twon 't come to fighting — Only some verbal small requiting ; Or give your card — we '11 do't by -writing. He '11 not stick to it. Soldiers too Are cowards, just like me or you. What ! not a single word to throw at This snarling dog of a d — d Croat ? ■Di. My heavens ! why should I care? he does not hurt me. If he is wrong, it is the worse for him. I certainly did nothing : I shall go. Sp. Did nothing ! I should think not ; no, Nor ever will, I dare be sworn ! But, O my friend, well-bred, well-born — You to behave so in these quarrels Makes me half doiibtful of your morals ! It were all one, You had been some shopkeeper's son, 160 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [1850. "W hose childhood ne'er Avas shown aught better Than bills of creditor and debtor. Di. By heaven, it falls from off me like the rain From the oil-coat. I seem in spirit to see How he and I at some great day shall meet Before some awful judgment-seat of truth ; And I covdd deem that I behold him there Come praying for the pardon I give now, Did I not think these matters too, too small For any record on the leaves of time. O thou great Watcher of this noisy world, What are they in Thy sight ? or what in his Who finds some end of action in his life ? Wliat e'en in his whose sole permitted course Is to pursue his peaceful byway walk, And live his brief life piu-ely in thy sight, And righteously towards his brother-men ? Sp. And whether, so you 're just and fair, Other folks are so, you don't care ; You who profess more love than others For yoiir poor sinful human brothers. Di. For grosser evils their gross remedies The laws afford us ; let us be content ; For finer wounds the law would, if it could. Find medicine too ; it cannot, let us bear ; For sufferance is the badge of all men's tribes. S}^- Because we can't do all we would, Does it follow, to do nothing's good ? No way to help the law's rftugh sense By equities of self-defence ? Well, for yourself it may be nice To serve vulgarity and vice : Must sisters, too, and wives and mothers, Fare like their patient sons and brothers? Di. He that loves sister, mother, more than me 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. IGI Sp. But the injustice — the gross wrong ! To whom on earth does it belong If not to you, to Avhom 'twas done, Who see it plain as any sun, To make the base and foul offender Confess, and satisfaction render ? At least before the termination of it Prove your own lofty reprobation of it. Though gentleness, I know, was born in you, Surely you have a little scorn in you ! Di. Heaven ! to pollute one's fingers to pick up The fallen coin of honour from the dirt — Pure silver though it be, let it rather lie ! To take vip any offence, where 't may be said That temper, vanity — I know not what — Had led me on ! To have so much as e'en half felt of one That ever one was angered for oneself ! Beyond suspicion Caesar's wife should be, Beyond suspicion this bright honour shall. Did he say scorn ? I have some scorn, thank God. Sp. Certainly. Only if it 's so, Let us leave Italy, and go Post haste, to attend — you 're ripe and rank for 't — The great peace-meethig up at Frankfort. Joy to the Croat ! Take our lives, Sweet friends, and please respect our wives ; Joy to the Croat ! Some fine day, He '11 see the error of his Avay, No doubt, and will repent and pray. At any rate he '11 open his eyes. If not before, at the Last Assize. Not, if I rightly understood you, That even then you'd pimish, would you ? Nay, let the hapless soul go free — Mere murder, crime, or robbery. In whate'er station, age, or sex, Your sacred spirit scarce can vex : *' De minimis non curat lex. M 162 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [1850. To the Peace Congress ! ring the bell ! Horses to Frankfort and to • ! Di. I am not quite in union with myself On this strange matter. I must needs confess Instinct turns instinct out, and thought Wheels round on thought. To bleed for others' wrongs In vindication of a cause, to draw The sword of the Lord and Gideon — oh, that seems The flower and top of life ! But fight because Some poor misconstruing trifler haps to say I lie, when I do not lie, Wliy should I ? Call you this a cause ? I can't. Oh, he is wrong, no doubt ; he misbehaves — But is it worth so much as speaking loud ? And things so merely personal to myself Of all earth's things do least affect myself S];). Sweet eloquence ! at next May Meeting How it would tell in the repeating ! I recognise, and kiss the rod — The methodistic ' voice of God ; ' I catch contrite that angel whine. That snuffle human, yet divine. Di. It may be I am somewhat of a poltroon ; I never fouglit at school ; whether it be Some native poorness in my spirit's blood. Or that the holy doctrine of our faith In too exclusive fervency possessed My heart with feelings, with ideas my brain. Sp. Yes ; you would argue that it goes Against the Bible, I suppose ; But our revered religion — yes, Our common faith — seems, I confess, On these points to propose to address ^ The people more than you or me — At best the vulgar bourgeoisie. 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUOH. !(;:{ Tlie sacred writers don't keep coiint, But still the Sermon on the Mount Must have been spoken, by what's stated, To hearers hy the thousands rated. I cufF some fellow ; mild and meek He shoiUd turn round the other cheek. For him it may be right and good ; We are not all of gentle blood Really, or as such understood. Dt. There are two kindreds upon earth, 1 know — The oppressors and the oppressed. But as for me, If I must choose to inflict wrong, or accept. May my last end, and life too, be with these. Yes ; Avhatsoe'er the reason, want of blood, Lymphatic humours, or my childlaood's faith. So is the thing, and be it well or ill, I have no choice. I am a man of peace. And the old Adam of the gentleman Dares seldom in my bosom stir against The mild plebeian Christian seated there. Sp. Forgive me, if I name my doubt, Whether you know \fort' means 'get out.' Scene Y.- The Lido. Sp. What now ? the Lido shall it be? That none may say Ave didn't .see The ground which Byron i^sed to ride on, And do I don't know Avhat beside on. Ho, barca ! here ! and this light gale Will let us run it with a sail. Di. I dreamt a dream : till morning light A bell rang in ray head all night, Tinkling and tinkling first, and then Tolling and tinkling, tolling again. So brisk and gay, and then so slow ! O joy and tornu" ! mirth and woe \ M 2 164 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [1850. Tingling, There is no God ; ting, ting, — Dong, there is no God; dong. There is no God ; dong, dong. Ting, ting, there is no God ; ting, ting. Come, dance and play, and merrily sing, Staid Englishman, who toil and slave From yoiir first childhood to your grave, And seldom spend and always save — And do your duty all your life By your young family and Avife ; Come, be 't not said you ne'er had known What earth can furnish you alone. The Italian, Frenchman, German even. Have given up all thoughts of heaven : And you still linger — oh, you fool ! — Because of what you learnt at school. You should have gone at least to college, And got a little ampler knowledge. A.h well, and yet — dong, dong, dong : Do as you like, as now you do ; If work 's a cheat, so 's pleasure too. And nothing 's new and nothing 's true ; Dong, there is no God ; dong. O, in our nook unknown, unseen, We '11 hold our fancy like a screen Us and the dreadful fact between ; And it shall yet be long — ay, long — The quiet notes of our low song Shall keep us from that sad dong, dong. — Hark, hark, hark ! O voice of fear, It reaches us here, even here ! Dong, there is no God ; dong. Ring ding, ring ding, tara, tara, To battle, to battle — haste, haste — To battle, to battle — aha, aha ! , On, on, to the conqueror's feast, From east to west, and south and north. Ye nii'ii of valour and of worth, 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 1G5 Ye mighty men of arms, come forth And work yonr Avill, for that is just ; And in your impulse put yoiu: trust, Beneath your feet the fools are dust. Alas, alas ! O grief and wrong, The good are weak, the wicked strong ; And oh, my God, how long, hoAV long ! Dong, there is no God ; dong. Ring, ting ; to bow before the strong, There is a rapture too in this ; AVoi-k for thy master, Avork, thou slave — He is not merciful, but brave. Be 't joy to sei-ve, who free and proud Scorns thee and all the ignoble ci-owd ; Take that, 'tis all thou art allowed, Except the snaky hope that they May sometime serve wlio rule to-day. When, by hell- demons, shan't they pay? O wickedness, O shame, and grief, And heavy load, and no relief! O God, O God ! and which is worst, To be the cui'ser or the curst, The victim or the min-derer ? Dong, • Dong, there is no God ; dong. Ring ding, ring ding, tara, tara, Away, and hush that preaching — fogh ! Ye vulgar dreamers about peace, Who offer noblest hearts, to heal The tenderest hurts honoiu: can feel, Paid magistrates and the police ! O peddling merchant-justice, go, Exacter rules than yoxirs we know ; Resentment's rule, and that high law Of whoso best the sword can draw. Ah well, and yet— dong, dong, dong. Go on, my friends, as now you do ; Lawyers arc villains, soldiers too ; 166 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [1850. And nothinf^ 's new, and notliinij 's true. < Dong, there is no God ; doiig. I had a dream, from eve to light A bell went soimding all the night. Gay mirth, black woe, thin joys, huge pain : I tried to stop it, but in vain. It ran right on, and never broke ; Only Avhen day began to stream Through the white curtains to my bed, And like an angel at my head Light stood and touched me — I awoke, And looked, and said, ' It is a dream.' S]!. Ah ! not so bad. You 've read, I see, Yoiur Beranger, and thought of me. But really you owe some apology For harping thus upon theology. I 'm not a judge, I own; in short. Religion may not be my forte. The Church of England I belong to. And think Dissenters not far wrong too ; They 're vulgar dogs ; but for his creed I hold that no man will be d d. But come and listen in your turn. And yoii shall hear and mark and learn. ' There is no God,' the wicked saith, ' And truly it "s a blessing, For what He mig^ht have done with us It 's better only guessing.' ' There is no God,' a youngster thinks, ' Or really, if there may be. He surely didn't mean a man Always to be a baby.' ' There is no God, or if there is,' The tradesman thinks, ' 'twere lluuiy If He should take it ill in mc To make a I'tUU' iikhu-v.' 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 167 'Whether there be,' the'rich iiuui says, ' It matters very little, For 1 aud mine, thank somebody, Are not in want of victual.' Some other.s, also, to themselves, Who scarce so much as doubt it. Think there is none, when they are well. And do not think about it. But country folks who live beneath The shadow of the steeple ; The parson and the parson's wife. And mostly married people ; Yovitha green and happy in first love. So thankful for illusion ; And men cavight out in what the world Calls guilt, in first confusion ; And almost every one when age. Disease, or sorroAvs strike him, • Inclines to think there is a God, Or something very like Him. ]3ut eccoci ! with o\xv barchetta, Here at the Sant' Elisabetta. Di. Vineyards and maize, that 's pleasant for sore eyes. Sp. And on the island's other side, The place where Murray's faithful Guide Informs ns Byron used to ride. Di. The trellised vines ! enchanting ! Sandhills, ho ! The sea, at last the sea — the real broad sea — Beautiful ! and a glorious breeze upon it ! Sp. Look back ; one catches at this station Lagoon and sea in combination. Di. On her still lake the city sits, Where bark and boat around her flits ; 168 LETTERS ATs^D REMAINS OF [1850. Nor dreams, her soft siesta taking, Of Adriatic billows breaking. I do ; I see and hear them. Come ! to the sea ! Oh, a grand surge ! we'll bathe ; qiiick, quick ! — undress ! Quick, quick ! — in, in ! We'll take the crested billows by their backs And shake them. Quick I in, in ! And I will taste again the old joy I gloried in so when a boy ; Aha ! come, come — great waters, roll ! Accept me, take me, body and soul ! That's done me good. It grieves me though, I never came here long ago. Sp. Pleasant, perhaps ; however, no offence, Animal spirits are not common sense ; They 're good enough as an assistance, But in themselves a poor existence. But you, with this one bathe no doubt Have solved all questions out and out. 1850.] AKTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 169 PART II. Scene I. — The interior Arcade of the Doge^s Palace. Sp. Thunder and rain ! dear, O dear ! But see, a noble shelter here, This grand arcade where our Venetian Has formed of Gothic and of Grecian A combination strange, but striking, And singularly to my liking ! Let moderns reap where ancients sowed, I at least make it my abode. And now let's hear your famous Ode: * Through the great sinful ' — how did it go on ? For Principles of Art and so on I care perhaps about three ciirses — But hold myself a judge of verses. Di. ' My brain was lightened when my tongue had said, " Christ is not risen." ' Sp. Well, now it's anything but clear Wliat is the tone that 's taken here : AVhat is your logic ? what's your theology ? Is it, or is it not, neology ? That's a great fault ; you're this and that, And here and there, and nothing flat; Yet writing's golden Avord what is it, But the three syllables ' explicit ?' Say, if you cannot help it, less. But what you do put, put express. I fear that rule won't meet yoiu* feeling •: You think half showing, half concealing, Is God's own method of revealing. Di. To please my own poor mind ! to find repose ; To physic the sick soul ; to furnish vent To diseased humours in the moral frame ! 170 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [1850. Sp. A sort of seton, I suppose, A moral bleeding at the nose : H'm ; — and the tone too after all, Something of the ironical ? Sarcastic, say ; or were it fitter To style it the religious bitter ? Di. Interpret it I cannot, I but wrote it. Sp. Perhaps ; but none that read can doubt it, There is a strong Strauss-smell about it. Heavens ! at your years your time to fritter Upon a critical hair-splitter ! Take larger views (and quit your Germans) From the Analogy and sermons ; I fancied, — you must doubtless know, — Butler had proved an age ago, That in religious as profane things 'Twas useless trying to explain things ; Men's business-Avits, the only sane things, These and compliance are the main things. God, Revelation, and the rest of it, Bad at the best, Ave make the best of it. Like a good subject and wise man. Believe whatever things you can. Take your religion as 'twas foimd you. And say no more of it, confound you ! ,• And now I think the rain has ended ; And the less said, the soonest mended. Scene II. — In a Gondola. Sjy. Per ora. To the Grand Canal. Afterwards e'en as fancy shall. Di. Afloat ; we move. Delicious ! Ah, What else is hke the gondola ? This level floor of liquid glass Begins beneath us swift to pass. It goes as though it Avent alone By some impulsion of its own. (HoAV light it moves, liow softly! Ah, Were ail things like the gondola ! ) 1850.] ARTIIUn HUGH CLOUGU. 171 How light it moves, liow softly ! Ah, Coiild life, as does our gondola, Unvexed with quaxrels, aims and cares, And moral duties and affairs, Unswa3'ing, noiseless, swift and strong. For ever thus — thus or]ide alono; ! (How light we move, how softly ! Ali, Were life but as the gondola !) With no more motion than should bear A freshness to the languid air ; With no more effort than exprest The need and natiu-alness of rest, Which we beneath a gratefid shade Shoidd take on peaceful pillows laid ! (How light we move, how softly ! Ah, Were life but as the gondola !) In one imbroken passage borne To closing night from opening morn, Uplift at whiles slow eyes to mark Some palace front, some passing bark ; Through windows catch the varying shore, And hear the soft turns of the oar ! (How light we move, how softly ! Ah, AVere life but as the gondola !) So live, nor need to call to mind Our slaving brother here behind ! ^o /Sp. Pooh ! Nature meant him for no better Than our most humble menial debtor ; Who thanks us for his day's employment As we our purse for our enjoyment. iJi. To make one's fellow-man an instriunent — Sj). Is just the thing that makes him most content. Di. Our gaieties, our luxuries. Our pleasiu'es and our glee. Mere insolence and w.uitonness, Alas ! they feel to me. 172 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [1850. HoAv shall I laugh and sing and dance ? My very heart recoils, While here to give my mirth a chance A hungry brother toils. The joy that does not spring from joy Which I in others see, How can I venture to employ, Or find it joy for me ? Sp. Oh come, come, come ! By Him that sent us here, Who's to enjoy at all, pray let us hear? You won't ; . he can't ! Oh, no more fuss ! Wliat's it to him, or he to us ? Sing, sing away, be glad and gay, And don't forget that we shall pay. Di. Yes, it is beautiful ever, let foolish men rail at it never. Yes, it is beautiful truly, my brothers, I grant it you duly. Wise are ye others that choose it, and happy ye all that can use it. Life it is beautiful wholly, and could we eliminate only This interfering, enslaving, o'ermastering demon of craving, This wicked tempter inside us to ruin still eager to guide us. Life were beatitude, action a possible pure satisfaction. Sp. (Hexameters, by all that 's odious, Beshod with rhyme to run melodious !) Di. All as I go on my way I behold them consorting and coupling ; Faithful it seemeth, and fond ; very fond, very possibly faithful ; All as I go on my way with a pleasure sincere and un- mingled. Life it is beautiful truly, my brothers, I grant it you duly ; But for perfection attaining is one method only, abstaining; Let us abstain, for we should so, if only we thought that we coidd so. 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 173 Sp. Brcavo, bravissimo ! this time though You rather were run short for rliyrae though ; Not that on that account jo\\i verse Could be much better or much worse. This world is very odd we see, We do not comprehend it ; But in one fact we all agree, God won't, and we can't mend it. Being common sense, it can't be sin To take it as I find it ; The pleasure to take pleasure in ; The pain, try not to mind it. Di. O let me love my love unto myself alone, And know my knowledge to the world unknown ; No witness to the vision call. Beholding, unbeheld of all ; And worship thee, with thee withdrawn, apart, Whoe'er, whate'er thou art. Within the closest veil of mine own inmost heart. Better it were, thou sayest, to consent, Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent ;. Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable siu-e, The unlovely lovely, and the filthy pure ; In self-belyings, self-deceivings roll. And lose in Action, Passion, Talk, the soul. Nay, better far to mark off" thus much air. And call it heaven ; place bliss and glory there ; Fix perfect homes in the unsubstantial sky. And say, what is not, will be by-and-by ; What here exists not must exist elsewhere. But play no tricks upon thy soul, O man ; Let fact be fact, and life the thing it can. Sp. To those remarks so sage and clerkly. Worthy of IMalebranche or Berkeley, I trust it won't be deemed a sin ir I too juiswer ' with a grin.' 174 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [1850. These juicy meats, this flashing wine, May be an unreal mere appearance ; Only — for my inside, in fine, They have a singular coherence. Oh yes, my ^^ensive youth, abstain ; And any empty sick sensation, Remember, anything like pain Is only your imagination. Trust me, I 've read yotu* German sage To far more purpose e'er than you did ; You find it in his wisest page, Whom God deludes is well deluded. Di. Wliere are the great, whom thou wouldst wish to praise thee ? Where are the piu-e, whom thou wouldst choose to love thee ? Where are the brave, to stand supreme above thee. Whose high commands would cheer, whose chidings raise thee ? Seek, seeker, in thyself; submit to find In the stones, bread, and life in the blank mind. (Written in London, standing in the Park, One evening in July, just before dark.) Sp. As I sat at the cafe, I said to myself, They may talk as they please about Avhat they call pelf, They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking, But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinkinsr, HoAv pleasiint it is to have money, heigh ho ! How pleasant it is to have money. I sit at my table en grand scir/nenr, And when I have done, throw a crust to the poor; Not only the pleasure, one's self, of good living. But also the pleasure of now and then giving. So pleasant it is to have money, lieigh ho ! So pleasant it is to have money. i85g.j ARTHUR HUGH clough. 175 It Avas btit last winter I came up to town, But already I 'm getting a little renown ; I make new acquaintance where'er I appear ; T am not too shy, and have nothing to fear. So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho ! So pleasant it is to have money. I drive through the streets, and I care not a d n ; The people they stare, and they ask who I am ; And if I should chance to run over a cad, I can pay for the damage if ever so bad. So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho ! So pleasant it is to have money. We stroll to our box and look down on the pit, And if it weren't low should be tempted to spit ; We loll and we talk until people look up, And when it 's half over we go out to sup. So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho ! So pleasant it is to have money. The best of the table:^ and the best of the fare — And as for the others, the devil may care; It isn't our fault if they dare not afford To sup like a prince and be drunk as a lord. So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho ! So pleasant it is to have mone3^ We sit at our tables and tipple champagne ; Ere one bottle goes, comes another again ; The waiters they skip and they scuttle about. And the landlord attends us so civilly out. So pleasimt it is to have money, heidi ho ! So pleasant it is to have money. It was but last -winter I came up to town, But already I 'm getting a little renown ; I get to good houses without much ado. Am beginning to see the nobility too. So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho ! So pleasant it is to have money. 176 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [l€50. O dear ! wliat a pity they ever should lose it ! For they are the gentry that knoAV how to use it ; So grand and so graceful, such manners, such dinners, But yet, after all, it is Ave are the winners. So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho ! So pleasant it is to have money. Thus I sat at my table en grand seigneur^ And when I had done threw a crust to the poor ; Not only the pleasure, one's self, of good eating, But also the pleasure of now and then treating. So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho ! So pleasant it is to have money. They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, And how one ought never to think of one's self, And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking — My pleasiue of thoright is the pleasure of thinking How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho ! How pleasant it is to have money. (Written in Venice, but for all parts true, 'Twas not a crust I gave him, but a sous.) A gondola here, and a gondola there, 'Tis the pleasantest fashion of taking the air. To right and to left ; stop, turn, and go yonder. And let us repeat, o'er the tide as we Avauder, How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho ! How pleasant it is to have money. Come, leave your Gothic worn-out story, San Giorgio and the Eedentore ; I from no building, gay or solemn, Can spare the shapely Grecian column. 'Tis not, these centuries foiu-, for nought Our European world of thought Hath made familiar to its home The classic mind of Greece and Eome ; 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 177 In all new work that would look fortli To more than antiquarian worth, Palladio's pediments and bases, Or something siiich, will find their places : Maturer optics don't delight In childish dim religious light, In evanescent vague effects That shirk, not face one's intellects ; They love not fancies just betrayed, And artful tricks of light and shade, But pure form nakedly displayed. And all things absolutely made. The Doge's palace though, Irom hence, In spite of doctrinaire pretence, The tide now level with the quay, Is certainly a thing to see. "We '11 turn to the Kialto soon ; One 's told to see it by the moon. A gondola here, and a gondola there, 'Tis the pleasantest fashion of taking the air. To right and to left ; stop, turn, and go yonder, And let us reflect, o'er the flood as we wander, How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho ! How pleasant it is to have money. Di. How light we go, how soft we skim, And all in moonlight seem to swim o' The south side rises o'er our bark, A wall impenetrably dark ; The north is seen profusely bright; The water, is it shade or light ? Say, gentle moon, which conquers now The flood, those massy hulls, or thou ? (How light we go, how softly ! Ah, Were life but as the gondola !) How light we go, how soft we skim ! And all in moonlight seem to swim. In moonlight is it now, or shade ? In planes of sure division made, N 178 LETTERS AND EEMAINS OF [1850. By angles sharp of palace walls The clear light and the shadow falls ; O sight of glory, sight of wonder ! Seen, a pictorial portent, under, > O great Rialto, the vast round Of thy thrice-solid arch profound ! (How light we go, how softly ! Ah, Life should be as the gondola !) How light we go, how softly — Sp. Nay ; 'Fore heaven, enough of that to-day : I'm deadly weary of your tune, And half-ennuye Avith the moon ; The shadows lie, the glories fall. And are but moonsliine after all. It goes against my conscience really To let myself feel so ideally. Come, for the Piazzetta steer ; 'Tis nine o'clock or very near. These airy blisses, skiey joys Of vague romantic girls and boys, "Which melt the heart and the brain soften, When not affected, as too often They are, remind m'e, I protest. Of nothing better at the best Than Timon's feast to his ancient lovers, Warm water under silver covers ; ' Lap, dogs,' I think I hear him say ; And lap who will, so I'm away. Di. How light we go, how soft we skim ! And all in moonlight seem to swim ; Against bright clouds projected dark, The white dome now, reclined I mark. And, by o'er-brilliaut lamps displayed. The Doge's columns and arcade; Over still waters mildly come The distant waters and the hum. 1850.] AETHUU HUGH CLOUGII. 179 (How light we go, how softly ! Ah, Life should be as the gondola !) How light we go, how soft we skim. And all in open moonlight swim ! All, gondolier, slow, slow, more slow ! We go ; but wherefore thus should go ? Ah, let not muscle all too strong Beguile, betray thee to our wrong ! On to the landing, onward. Nay, Sweet dream, a little longer stay ! On to the landing ; here. And, ah ! Life is not as the gondola. Sp. Tre ore. So. The Parthenon e Is it ? you haunt for your limone. Let me induce you to join me, In gramolate persiche. Scene III. — The Academy at Venice. Di. A modern daub it was, perchance, I know not : but the connoisseur From Titian's hues, I dare be sure, Had never tiumed one kindly glance. Where Byron, somewhat drest-up, draws His sword, impatient long, and speaks Unto a tribe of motley Greeks His fealty to their good cause. Not far, assumed to mystic bliss. Behold the ecstatic Virgin rise : Ah, wherefore vainly to fond eyes That melted into tears for this ? Yet if we must live, as would seem, These peremptory heats to claim. Ah, not for profit, not for fiime, And not for pleasure's giddy dream, And not for piping empty reeds. And not for colouring idle dust ; If live we positively -must, God's name be blest for noble deeds. N 2 180 LETTERS AND REMAINS OP [1850. Verses ! well, they are made, so let them go ; No more if I can help. This is one way The procreant heat and fervour of our youth Escapes, in puff, and smoke, and shapeless words Of mere ejaculation, nothing worth. Unless to make maturer years content To slave in base compliance to the world. I have scarce spoken yet to this strange follower Whom I picked up — ye great gods, tell me where ! And when ! for I remember such long years. And yet he seems new come. I commune Avith myself; He speaks, I hear him, and resume to myself; Whate'er I think, he adds his comments to ; Which yet not interrupts me. Scarce I know If ever once directly I addressed him : Let me essay it now ; for I have strength. Yet what he wants, and what he fain would have. Oh, I know all too surely ; not in vain, Although unnoticed, has he dogged my ear. Come, we'll be definite, explicit, plain ; I can resist, I know ; and 'twill be well For colloquy to have used this manlier mood, Which is to last, ye chances say how long ? How shall I call him ? Mephistophiles ? Sp. T come, I come. Di. So quick, so eager ; ha ! Like an eaves-dropping menial on my thought. With something of an exultation too, metliinks, Out-peeping in that springy, jaunty gait. I doubt about it. Shall I do it ? Oh ! oh ' Shame on me ! come ! Shall I, my follower, Should I conceive (not that at all I do, 'Tis curiosity that prompts my speech) — But should I form, a thing to be supposed, A wish to bargain for your merchandise. Say what were your demands ? what were your terms ? What should I do ? what should I cease to do ? 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 181 What incense on what altars must I burn ? And what abandon ? what vinlearn, or learn ? Eeligion goes, I take it. Sp. Oh, You'll go to church of course, you know ; Or at the least will take a pew To send your wife and servants to. Trust me, I make a point of that ; No infidelity, that's fiat. Di. Religion is not in a pew, say some ; Cucullus, you hold, facit monachum. SjJ. Wliy? ^^ *° feelings of devotion, I interdict all vague emotion ; But if you will, for once and all Compound with ancient Juvenal — Orandum est, one perfect prayer For savoir-vivre and savoir-faire. Theology — don't recommend you. Unless, turned lawyer, heaven should send you In your profession's way a case Of Baptism and prevenieut grace ; But that's not Ukely. I'm inclined. All circumstances borne in mind. To think (to keep you in due borders) You'd better enter holy orders. Di. On that, my friend, you'd better not insist. Sp. Well, well, 'tis but a good thing miss'd. The item 's optional, no doubt ; But how to get you bread without ? You'll marry ; I shall find the lady. Make your proposal, and be steady. Di. Marry, ill spirit ! and at your sole choice ! Sp. De rigueur ! can't give you a voice. Wliat matter ? Oh, trust one who knows you, You'll make an admirable sposo. 182 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [1850. Di. Enough. But action — look to that well, mind me ; See that some not imworthy work you find me ; If man I be, then give the man expression. Sp. Of course you'll enter a profession ; If not the Church, why then the Law. By Jove, we'll teach you how to draw ! Besides, the best of the concern is I'm hand and glove with the attorneys. With them and me to help, don't doubt But in due season you'll come out ; Leave Kelly, Cockburn, in the lurch. Bttt yet, do think about the Church. Di. 'Tis well, ill spirit, I admire your wit ; As for your wisdom, I shall think of it. And now farewell. Scene IV. — In St. Mark''s. DijjsycJms alone. ■ The Law ! 'twere honester, if 'twere genteel, To say the dung-cart. What ! shall I go about, And like the walking shoe-black roam the flags To see whose boots are dirtiest? Oh the luck To stoop and clean a pair ! Eeligion, if indeed it be in vain To expect to find in this more modem time That which the old world styled, in old-world phrase. Walking with God. It seems His newer wiU We should not think of Him at all, but trudge it, And of the world He has assigned us make What best we can. Then love : I scarce can think That these be-maddening discords of the mind To pure melodious sequence could be changed, And all the vext conundrums of our life Solved to all time by this old pastoral Of a new Adam and a second Eve Set in a garden which no serpent seeks. And yet I hold heart can beat ti-ue to heart : And to hew down the tree which bears this fniit, To do a thing which cuts me off fi'om hope. 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 188 To falsify the movement of Love's mind, To seat some alien trifler on the throne A queen may come to claim— ithat were ill done. Wluit ! to the close hand of the clutching Jew Hand up that rich reversion ! and for Avhat ? This would be hard, did I indeed believe 'Twould ever fall. That love, the large repose Kestorative, not to mere outside needs Skin-deep, but throughly to the total man, Exists, I will believe, but so, so rare, So doubtful, so exceptional, hard to guess ; When guessed, so often counterfeit ; in brief, A thing not possibly to be conceived An item in the reckonings of the wise. Action, that staggers me. For I had hoped, Midst weakness, indolence, frivolity. Irresolution, still had hoped ; and this Seems sacrificing hope. Better to wait ; The wise men wait ; it is the foohsh haste. And ere the scenes are in the slides would play. And while the instruments are tuning, dance. I see Napoleon on the heights intent To arrest that one brief unit of loose time Which hands high Victory's thread ; his marshals fret, His soldiers clamour-low : the very guns Seem going off of themselves ; the cannon strain Like hell-dogs in the leash. But he, he waits ; And lesser chances and inferior hopes Meantime go pouring past. Men gnash their teeth ; The very faithful have begun to doubt ; But they molest not the calna eye that seeks Midst all this huddUng silver little worth The one thin piece that comes, pure gold ; he waits. O me, when the great deed e'en now has broke Like a man's hand the horizon's level line, ScT soon to fill the zenith Avith rich clouds ; O, in this narrow interspace, this marge. This list and selvage of a glorious time. 184 LETTEKS AND REMAINS OF [1850. To despair of the great and sell unto the mean ! O thou of little faith, what hast thou done ? Yet if the occasion coming should find us Undexterous, incapable ? In light things Prove thou the arms thou long'st to glorify, Nor fear to work up from the lowest ranks Whence come great Nature's Captains. And high deeds Haunt not the fringy edges of the fight. But the pell-mell of men. Oh, what and if E'en now by lingering here I let them slip. Like an unpractised spyer through a glass. Still pointing to the blank, too high. And yet. In dead details to smother vital ends Which would give life to them ; in the deft trick Of prentice -handling to forget great art, To base mechanical adroitness yield The Inspiration and the Hope a slave ! Oh, and to blast that Innocence, which though Here it may seem a dull unopening bud, May yet bloom freely in celestial clime ! Were it not better done then, to keep ofi" And see, not share, the strife ; stand out the waltz Which fools whirl dizzy in ? Is it possible ? Contamination taints the idler first ; And without base compliance, e'en that same Which buys bold hearts free course, Earth lends not these Their pent and miserable standing-room. Life loves no lookers-on at his great game, And with boy's mahce still delights to tui-n The tide of sport upon the sitters -by. And set observers scampering with their notes. Oh, it is great to do and know not what, Nor let it e'er be known. The dashing stream Stays not to pick his steps among the rocks, Or let his water-breaks be chronicled. And though the hunter looks before he leap, 'Tis instinct rather than a shaped-out thought That lifts him his bold way. Then, instinct, hail ; 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 185 And farewell hesitation. If I stay, I am not innocent ; nor if I go — E'en should I lall — beyond redemption lost. Ah, if I had a course like a full stream, If life were as the field of chase ! No, no ; The life of instinct has, it seems, gone by, And will not be forced back. And to live now I must sluice out myself into canals, And lose all force in ducts. The modern Hotspur Shrills not his trumpet of To Horse, To llorae ! But consults columns in a railway guide ; A demi-god of figures; an Achilles Of computation ; A verier Mercury, express come down To do the world with swifl arithmetic. Well, one could bear with that, were the end ours, One's choice and the correlative of the soul ; To drudge were then sweet service. But indeed The earth moves slowly, if it move at all, And by the general, not the single force Of the link'd members of the vast machine. In all these crowded rooms of industry. No individual soul has loftier leave Than fiddling with a piston or a valve. Well, one could bear that also : one would drudge And do one's petty part, and be content In base manipulation, solaced still By thinking of the leagued fraternity, And of co-operation, and the effect Of the great engine. If indeed it work, And is not a mere treadmill ! which it may be. Who can confirm it is not ? We ask action. And dream of arms and conflict ; and string up All self-devotion's muscles ; and are set To fold up papers. To what end? we know not. Other folks do so ; it is always done ; And it perhaps is right. And we are paid for it, For nothing else we can be. He that eats Must serve ; and serve as other servants do : 186 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [IS.W. And don the lacquey's livery of the house. O could I shoot my thought up to the sky, A column of pure shape, for aU to observe ! But.I must slave, a meagre coral-worm, To build beneath the tide with excrement "What one day will be island, or be reef. And will feed men, or wreck them. Well, well, well. Adieu, ye twisted thinkings. I submit : it must be. Action is what one must get, it is clear ; And one could dream it better than one finds, In its kind personal, in its motive not ; Not selfish as it now is, nor as now Maiming the individual. If we had that. It would cure all indeed. O, how would then These pitiful rebellions of the flesh, These caterwaulings of the eflfeminate heart, These hurts of self-imagined dignity, Pass like the seaweed firom about the bows Of a great vessel speeding straight to sea ! Yes, if we could have that ; but I suppose We shall not have it, and therefore I submit ! Sp, (from within.) Submit, submit ! 'Tis common sense, and human wit Can claim no higher name than it. Submit, submit ! Devotion, and ideas, and love, And beauty claim their place above ; But saint and sage and poet's dreams Divide the light in coloured streams, Which this alone gives all combined, The ' siccum lumen ' of the mind, Called common sense : and no high wit Gives better counsel than does it. Submit, submit ! To see things simply as they are Here at our elbows, transcends far Trying to spy out at midday Some ' bright particular star ' which may, 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGIL 187 Or not, be visible at night, But clearly is not in daylight ; No inspiration vague outweighs The plain good common sense that says, Submit, submit ! 'Tis common sense, and human wit Can ask no higher name than it. Submit, submit ! Scene V. — The Piazza at Night. Di. There have been times, not many, but enough To quiet all repinings of the heart ; There have been times, in which my tranquil soul, No longer nebulous, sparse, errant, seemed Upon its axis solidly to move. Centred and fast : no mere elastic blank For random rays to traverse unretained, But rounding Imuinous its fan- ellipse Around its central sun. Ay, yet again, As in more faint sensations I detect, With it too, round an Inner, Mightier orb. May-be with that too — tliis I dare not say — Around yet more, more central, more supreme, Whate'er, how numerous soe'er they be, I am and feel myself, where'er I wind, What vagrant chance soe'er I seem to obey, Communicably theirs. O happy hours ! O compensation ample for long days Of what impatient tongues call wretchedness ! O beautiful, beneath the magic moon. To walk the watery way of palaces ! O beautifid, o'ervaulted with gemmed blue. This spacious coiu-t, with colour and with gold, With cupolas, and pinnacles, and points. And crosses multiplex, and tips and balls (Wherewith the bright stars unreproving mix, Nor scorn by hasty eyes to be confused) ; Fantastically perfect this low pile 188 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [1850. Of oriental glory ; these long ranges Of classic chiselling, this gay flickering crowd, And the calm campanile. Beautiful ! O, beautiful ! and that seemed more profound, This morning by the pillar when I sat Under the great arcade, at the review, And took, and held, and ordered on my brain The faces, and the voices, and the whole mass O' the motley facts of existence flowing by ! ; perfect, if 'twere all ! But it is not ; Hints haunt me ever of a more beyond : 1 am rebuked by a sense of the incomplete, Of a completion over soon assumed, Of adding up too soon. What we call sin, I could believe a painful opening out Of paths for ampler virtue. The bare field, Scant vsdth lean ears of harvest, long had mockec' The vext laborious farmer ; came at length The deep plough in the lazy undersoil Down-driving ; with a cry earth's fibres crack, And a few mouths, and lo ! the golden leas. And autumn's crowded shocks and loaded wains. Let us look back on life ; was any change, Any now blest expansion, but at first A pang, remorse-like, sliot to the inmost seats Of moral being ? To do anything. Distinct on any one thing to decide, To leave the habitual and the old, and quit The easy chair of use and wont, seems crime To the weak soul, forgetful how at fii'st Sitting down seemed so too. And, oh ! this woman's heart. Fain to be forced, incredulous of choice, And waiting a necessity for God. Yet I could think, indeed, the perfect caU Should force the perfect answer. If the voice Ought to receive its echo fi-om the soul. Wherefore this silence ? If it should rouse my being, Why this reluctance ? Have I not thought o'er much Of other men, and of the ways of the world ? 1850.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 189 But what they are, or have been, matters not. To thine own self be true, the wise man says. Are then my fears myself? O double self ! And I untrue to both ? O, there are hoiirs, When love, and faith, and dear domestic ties, And converse with old friends, and pleasant walks. Familiar faces, and familiar books, Study, and art, upliftings unto prayer, And admiration of the noblest things, Seem all ignoble only ; all is mean. And nought as I would have it. Then at others. My mind is in her rest ; my heart at home In all around ; my soul secure in place, And the vext needle perfect to her poles. * Aimless and hopeless in my life I seem To thread the winding by-ways of the town. Bewildered, baffled, hurried hence and thence, All at cross purpose even with myself. Unknowing whence or whither. Then at once, At a step, I crown the Campanile's top. And view all mapped below ; islands, lagoon, A hundred steeples and a million roofs. The fruitfiil champaign, and the cloud-capt Alps, And the broad Adriatic. Be it enough ; If I lose this, how terrible ! No, no ; I am contented, and will not complain. To the old paths, my soul ! O, be it so ! I bear the work-day burden of dull Hfe About these foot-sore flags of a weary world, Heaven knows how long it has not been ; at once, Lo ! I am in the Spirit on the Lord's day "With John in Patmos. Is it not enough. One day in seven? and if this should go. If this pure solace should desert my mind. What were all else ? I dare not risk this loss. To the old paths, my soid ! Sp. Oh yes. To moon about religion ; to inhume Yoiu' ripened age in solitary walks. 190 LETTEES AND REMAINS OF [1850. For self-discussion ; to debate in letters Vext points witli earnest friends ; past other men To cherish natural instincts, yet to fear them And less than any use them ; oh, no doubt, In a corner sit and mope, and be consoled With thinking one is clever, while the room Eings through with animation and the dance. Then talk of old examples ; to pervert Ancient real facts to modern unreal dreams, And build up baseless fabrics of romance And heroism upon historic sand ; To burn, forsooth, for action, yet despise Its merest accidence and alphabet ; Cry out for service, and at once rebel At the application of its plainest rules : ^ and of a dense, supercilious, narrow-minded common sense, which of course speaks pretty loudly. To his Wife. Athens: April 24, 1861. This morning about six I got up, and found we had just passed Cerigo, and had turned up north-eastward along the Peloponnesian coast. By half-past nine we had passed Hydra and seen Calaurea, and were in sight of ^gina right before us, and of Sunium on the right in the distance. Coming up from breakfast (half-past nine) we presently came in sight of a low set of petty hills rising from a little plain, and on one of the lowest saw the Parthenon. Pass- ing ^gina and advancing towards Salamis we have this right before us, Hymettus on the right, Pentelicus more distant, Parnes beyond the plain, the bay stretching to- wards Corinth on the left, Salamis hiding all the coast left of Athens, and all very bright and sunny. We landed in Piraeus about twelve, and came on shore in a boat and up here in a vettura. I'm two pairs up, looking towards the Acropolis. 18G1.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 303 April 28. On Friday we went to Eleusis, through the pass of Daphne; there is scarcely anything left; the little vilhige just a))out occupies the site of the great temple. There is a little quay like a sickle running out into the water, and in one spot some lesser ruins have been opened out. The bay, which is completely shut in by Salamis, is beautiful, and so is the plain, now green with young corn, and the mountains of Parnes behind it. Dark poppies and small camomile flowers abound everywhere instead of grass, and a good many flowers quite strange to me. April 29. Last night I dined at the Wyses', and met General Church, Mr. Finlay, Mr. Elliot, Secretary of Legation, Captain Lambert, K. N. (of the Scylla, which lies in the Piroeus), who was at Marsala when Garibaldi landed, and seems a fine hearty gallant sort of officer. An Austrian Secretary of Legation and an Attache made up the party. Captain Lambert spoke of the harbour. Phalerum they say is the right harbour, it is so hard to tack into Piraeus. General Church spoke of seventeen tacks. But there is no trade at the back. Patras, said Sir T. Wyse, is the only place with a hack to it ; i.e. currants. The weather has become perfectly fine, the sun hot, but a fresh breeze blowing. In a fortnight, they say, all will be brown. Just now the land is green with barley, into which they turn the horses, partly cutting it, partly leav- ing them to feed on it as it stands, only shackling them. This place is very pleasant to stay at, in the lounging way. I walked to Colonus and the Academy, about a mile and a half away, going north-east towards the Cephis- sus and the ' Olive Grove.' You are let into a farm-house garden, with all sorts of fruits and vegetables, quince-trees, pomegranate-trees, orange-trees, &c. ; and here also are a few remains, I suppose the trees have never grown 304 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. XIII. well up again since Sylla cut them down.* There are a few old olives, and about the farm newer trees, planes chiefly. Then you cross a bare field to the bare hill or mound of Colonus, where are two marble monuments to Ottfried Miiller and to Lenormant. The view of the Acropolis is very good. In the evening I rambled about, along the Ilissus, picked some maiden-hair from the rocks over the springs of Calirrhoe, where we found women washing and donkeys drinking, and so through some beer and wine gardens along the water-side to the Stadium, a great hollow in the hill-side where the foot races were. Tuesday, April 30. Yesterday I went to Phyle, up on the hills of Parnes ; took four hours on horseback to get there, and nearly four hours back. This is Greek Passion Week, and horses are not easy to get ; my guide had a very poor one. Phyle is romantic enough ; a very steep, rough horse-way leads to it, and on one side of it, to Thebes. It is a fort with three sides remaining, and two towers, and from the plateau you see Hymettus and the plain with the Acropolis far below. The road up rounds a shoulder of ^gialus, and then gets wilder. You see goats about, nearly all black. The whole of the mountains are pine-wooded — a light-green with a stone-pine head ; they spring from the bare rock. There is a thin herbage in places, with bare shrubs ; the biggest is the irplvos, with little prickly holly-leaves, quite red when young as now, and very close ; numerous flowers at Phyle, cistus, thyme in blossom. The young pines look soft of foliage : I mistook them for deciduous trees. To-day Mr. Finlay called, and' took me to the Univer- sity Library, and to the ^ovXsvrrjpiov, where the ^ovKrj were sitting, and apparently at work. There are fifty ^ovXsvrai. * dough's Plutarch. Life of Sylhi, vol. iii. p. 157. 1861.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 305 Also we saw the Chamber, who seemed wholly idle. Thence to the new Cathedral, not yet finished, and very gorg'eous (for so small a. place) inside; thence to his house, where the visit ended by some Scotch marmalade, of which one takes a spoonfid and a glass of water. At the library I saw a new Greek translation of Plutarch, and of Homer, in verse. I also saw Mr. Finlay's Attic coins, from the cnaTrjp to the lowest. May 1. This morning I was called at ten minutes to four ; got some cafe-au-lait and went down to Piraeus, and embarked on a Greek steamer, which at six started for Kalamaki, a little landing-place on the Isthmus, whence the road runs over, four miles long, to New Corinth. As I started, on the road to Piraeus, the light of sunrise (about 5.20) came over Lycabettus, the sun actually rising over Hymettus with the Parthenon between. People were then in the fields. Acrocorinthus was visible pretty nearly all the way, and latterly the mountains of Phocis, clouded, over the low isthmus ; Megara just beyond, and Salamis very noticeable. Old Corinth, or New Corinth the elder, nearly on the site of the antique, was wholly destroyed by earthquake in 1857. To New Corinth, which is on the sea-side of the Gulf of Corinth, the passengers are taken by omnibus and cart, and embark for Patras. At Kalamaki I mounted a horse with a Greek saddle, the most dreadful invention in the world, which made it hopeless to reach Corinth and return before the steamer returned to Athens; however, we went on as well as the saddle allowed, some way up towards Acro- corinthus, a wild country, with a great deal of low pine about, and with old quarries, and saw from the higher part * the Gulf of Corinth stretching away to the moun- tains of Phocis, heavily clouded, to the northern side of it. When we got back it was just beginning to rain, and it has * From the Aerocorinth watched the clay Light tlie eastern and the western bay. — Pocm^, p. 2;)G. X 30& LETTEES AND EEMAINS OF [Chap. XIII. rained hard ever since. I was fain to go into the cabin, where I found however a resource in a Greek army doctor (in full uniform, I only found out that he was a doctor after- wards). He spoke French well enough. This rain is said to be very unusual. The morning from five o'clock was delightful. Kalamaki is just at the north-east extre- mity of the low level of the Isthmus, out of which Acro- corinthus rises, almost by itself, and which is filled up, north and south, as the space widens, by high mountains. May 2. The town is full of people buying and selling for Trdaxa, e. g. lambs ; there are flocks all about, on the Areopagus, and also the outskirts. Wax candles also, besides the usual marketings. May 4. Yesterday was Friday, in Grreek irapaa-Ksvri, and yester- day in particular, Grood Friday, rj /xsydXt] irapacrKsv^, a great fast, and everybody buying his lamb for the Pascha of Sunday. On Thursday I went up Pentelicus ; left this at eight, got up by twelve. The view was clouded to the west and north-west, but Euboea and the Euripus and Marathon lay like a map below, also South Attica, with Andros, Tenos, Ceos, and over Euboea, less distinct, Scyros. The upper slopes of the mountain are clad with arbutus chiefly, just going out of flower. There are marble quarries for a great part of the way up, and one with a great grotto or cave richly adorned with the common English maiden-hair, and with a little of the true Capillus veneris. Coming down I stopped to lunch beside the monastery of the Pan-agia ; bread and cheese and oranges, by a beautiful gushing water in a sort of cup out of a wall, tall white poplars overhead, olives, and also large dwarf oaks (fifteen feet high or more), the first I have seen. I looked into the monastery court, in the middle of which is a huge bay tree. Mr. Psyllis, a Greek gentleman, a senator, whom 1861.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 307 Mr. Finlay liad introduced me to, happened to be there ; he was spending- his holiday there with, some of his family, so he talked to me, and presently gave me coffee, which Miss Victoria, his daughter, presented on a tray to us, retiring after so doing. Then he took me up a little out- side staircase to a little set of rooms, and presented me to his relation, the abbot or rjyovfisvos, Cyrillus AsXyspios, a fine-looking elderly man, who lives there in two small rooms; one a sort of reception-room where sometimes the king and queen come, and therefore adorned with their pictures (two common engravings) ; the other his bedroom and sitting-room, where he had a little wood fire. He also asked me to take coffee, so presently his domestic made it at this fire, and presented it, with that well-known Turkish sweetmeat, but made at Syra, and much nicer, and with a glass of water. You take first sweetmeat ; secondlv, coffee ; thirdly, water. The monastery is very rich. Last night (May 3rd) was a great night. The people at eight crowd to the churches. In every church a bier is laid out with a great cloth over it, and a figure or representation (sometimes a little embroidered map) of the crucifixion. The people all come in (in the chief church between files of soldiers) and kiss the figure, and then perhaps go out. About half-past nine the priests take up the bier and carry it out, and the people follow after with lighted candles (steariques), and go all about the streets. The chief procession had a band of military music at the head, and lots of soldiers, then some banners and crosses, and then, a little way behind, the priests and the bier. All the streets are filled with the people carrying lighted steariques, and blue and red lights were let off. ■^o-day is pretty quiet, only they are still buying lambs, which are all to be killed, poor things, this evening. Sunday, May 5. The paschal lambs were very generally sacrificed in the course of yesterday afternoon. About 4 p.m. I met their X 2 308 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chaf. XIII. skins walking about on the backs of sundry collectors of lambskins here, as of hareskins with you, and on the doors of the houses one might see here and there in the byeways a skin ready for delivery. In the afternoon I went up to the Parthenon ; the effect of interval and depth in the columniation is far greater than in any picture or imitation ; then out on a road towards Phalerum with very good views of the Parthenon. Coming back I met the lambskins on the backs of skin- collectors, and hanging at doors, in the byeways by the Lantern of Demosthenes. I was tired and a little out of sorts at night, and so did not sit up to see the hullabaloo at 12 p.m., when the king and queen after attending divine service come out upon a platform and show themselves, in honour of the great event, and in token that o ')(^pL(nos avscmf]. This morning I was disturbed by certain worse than heathen Greeks howling away under my window in a yard, and looking forth beheld four paschal lambs over the embers, stuck through with poles, and the heathens turning them, and singing strange words, among which I thought I could occasionally detect ' Yesous.' Wednesday, May 8. The weather continues uncertain. Yesterday I went in a boat from Piraeus out into Salamis Bay, past Psyttalea, and then back and round the whole headland of Piraeus, to see the little harbour on the other side, and the walls, of which very nearly all the circuit can be traced by blocks still remaining. The two harbours, Munychia and Zea, are pretty little coves, both very small, Munychia ex- tremely so, with jetties of stone closing its mouth ; it is shallow and deserted. The rain came on, so I came, up by omnibus to the aari, where the dances that should have been, round the Temple of Theseus, were much interrupted. 18G1.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 309 Thursday, May 9. In the afternoon, yesterday, I went to the Acropolis from three to six, and looked at the sculptures on the left hand as you go in. Note the minute comparative size of the Erecbtheum, which is also a good deal lower in site than the Parthenon. I suppose the figures are perhaps seven feet high. This small size shows very well from the terrace under Lycabettus, where you see both. ■ I and two other gentlemen have agreed to go to Nauplia by steamer on the 12th, and to ride thence to Corinth, returning by stea«ier from the Isthmus on the 15th. The weather is now beautiful, and seems to promise favourably. New snow seems to have fallen on some of the hills near the Isthmus. We are to go with Spiro Adamopulos, a well-known trustworthy guide. Pray can you guess Avhat a (psaoTrcoXsLov is, or a KaTTvoTTOiXelov, or finally, a Trvsv/jLaTOTrcoXslov ? There are a great many in Athens, but there are even more Ka(f>(f)£vsia. You know of course a virohrj^aTdiroLos, but what is a paiTTijs? and should you know an omnibus as a Xsoxpopsiov ? Saturday, 11. ^ I dined yesterday at the Hills', at three, meeting Miss Bremer, who has been living here three years. She is a little shrunk old lady, very quiet. In the evening I went to a mixed soiree, consisting chiefly of Greeks, from nine to near twelve ; music, with two professionals, Italians. I talked a little to Miss Bremer, and to a Mr. and Mrs. and Miss Dragoumi. jNIrs. and Miss Dragoumi had come with us in the boat; he conducts a Greek review. The music was good, I think ; they get pianos from Vienna, and have some good masters. They say the Greek girls marry at seventeen ; they learn French and music very well. Everybody learns French ; a good many, English, to read ; everybody, old Greek, to read a little. 310 LEISTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. XIII. Thursday, May 16. I have got back, a little tired, but no worse. We had a beautiful sail by steamer to Nauplia on Sunday ; it is a filthy place, and we left it gladly at six on jNlonday, on horseback ; saw the ruins of Tiryns, TipvvOd rs rsixiosaaav, and stopped half an hour at Argos, after a ride of seven miles. It was by this time nine o'clock, and very hot ; and we didn't go up the Acropolis, but rode off, and in about an hour and a half reached our halting-place below Mycenas, remains of walls on some bare rocky ground a mile above being visible as we rode up. We lunched under a tree, almost the only tree visible, and then went up, riding. The Tomb,* or Treasury, is extremely remark- able, so also are the other ruins, the Grate and the Wall. Thence back by another course to the road, and shortly into a pass, the rprjros, which became wooded, with shrubs, and had a pleasant stream. So into a fine upland among hills, then down into an open valley, or plain among hills, where we saw the three columns of Nemea ; then down to them, and back over the hill-side, lower down to our former line, and so down a water-course to another little 'plain, to four houses among some willows — one a small barrack for some ten soldiers ; one a little cook and coffee shop ; one, I suppose, a little farm, and a sort of granary place behind the shop, with a room fitted up over one part of the granary for strangers. Here we lodged, and next day went on to Corinth ; but here rain came on, and we saw no view. We slept at Kalamaki on the east side of the Isthmus, and came on yesterday. T go to-day to Constantinople, and shall return on the 31st. * With wonder in the spacious gloom Stood of the Mycenaean tomb. —Poems, p. 256. 1861.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 311 To the Same. Constantinople : Sunday, May 19, 10 a.m. We arrived here this morning at half-past four, and landed between six and seven ; it was raining all the time, so that the far-famed first view was nil for us. But our voyage otherwise was prosperous, fair and fine all the way; the moon and stars bright over the isles of Marmora, when we went to bed last night. The steamer only left Piraeus at 3 p.m. on Friday. We passed under Cape Colonna, and saw the temple very well about 5.30 P. M. ; passed then through the strait between the southern point of Euboea and the northern point of Andros : the former is known as Capo d'Oro, i.e. Caphareus, where Minerva drowned Ajax the Lesser. Night fell as we left Euboea ; and when I came on deck at 6.30 a.m. yesterday, we had Lesbos, a long range of mountains, on the immediate right; and the coast of Asia, south of the Troad, on the right bow. An aged modern Greek pointed out to me a small thing on the horizon, almost straight ahead, a little to the left of our course, which he said was Tenetho, ' bello paese, buono vino, buon' e forte.' Some little after we passed it, and several French savans began to quote ' Est in conspectu,' rather reminding one of ' As in praesenti.' We went in between Tenedos or Tenetho (a desert-looking island still, but with one little corner occupied by a little town, with a fort and three minarets) and the Troad, and at this crisis were summoned to breakfast, but recovered (most of us) the deck in time to see the actual plain of Troy, and the entrance of the Dardanelles. There should have appeared three tumuli at the turn, but I could not wel] make them out. The embouchure of the Simois, just above the town, leffe you look up into the plain, backed, many miles off, by Mount Ida. And so up the Dardanelles, which were crowded with 312 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. XIII. vessels taking advantage of the south wind, and so to Dardanelles (the Turkish town so called), where we stop, to obtain permission to go on ; here are the castles and the consuls, and H.M.S. ' Melpomene,' having just, as I now learn, brought Lord Dufferin from Beyrout ; and one hears that the Sultan is very ill and likely to die, which on arriving here one learns is all a lie. Then past Sestos and Abydos, and the strait gradually widens till at Gal- lipoli, where the French and English armies encamped, it opens into the Sea of Marmora. Lampsacus is on the right, a little before Gallipoli on the left, ^gospotami I couldn't quite make out. The Sea of Marmora, also, was full of shipping, most in full sail for Constantinople, some also beating down, outward bound. May 20. Another wet day! Was there ever such a disaster? We are to have the firman to see St. Sophia on Wednesday ; to-morrow we are to do the walls ; Thursday, Scutari ; Friday, Sweet Waters ; Saturday, the Bosporus. But the place is one requiring blue sky and bright sun, and there is no promise of either. The hotel is costly, but comfortable in its way, if one only had not to stay in it altogether. May 21, 6-30 p.m. We waited because of heavy clouds this morning for more than an hour, and then mounted our horses, and set out just in time for a heavy shower, but before getting quite wet we were across the bridge of boats, and under shelter in the bazaar, through whose covered arcades we paced on horseback, between silks and shawls, &c., with great imperturbability. When we got to the end, the shower was over, and passing the Mosque of Sultan Bajazet, and under the Seraskierat tower, we went right ahead through strange Turkish lanes with pavements worse than execrable, and in about two hours from starting, reached the ancient citadel of the Seven Towers, 1861.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 313 still all entire. There, under some trees, we dismounted, and with some trouble <^ot admittance into the court, full of trees and shrubs of natural growth. The trees are here more northern than in Greece, ashes, a sort of lime, planes not abundant, wild figs, and the cypresses, which I suppose are almost all planted ; the cemeteries, of course, are perfect forests of them. So up to the parapet, and up a tower for the view ; the Sea of Marmora here, the city there — a very fine view ; then out and along the outside of the ancient walls, for a long way, to a cafe at the Adrianople gate ; then inside to Belisarius's castle, and on foot through a house full of Jews (seven or eight girls pulling at us for baksheesh) to a parapet, for another view of the Golden Horn. Thence through a horrible Jews' quarter, and a not much better Greek quarter, across to the Patriarchal Church, and so along the Golden Horn shore, but sepa- rated from it by houses, to our former bridge, and so across to Pera and home, 1 1 a.m. to 6 r.M. May 23. Yesterday, with some rain and some fatigue, we did the Seraglio (French engravings and French gout). Kiosk of Amurath II. (better), St. Irene, St. Sophia, the Mosque of Ahmed (all white, except some blue China tiles, beautiful courtyard and fountains), the Hippodrome, and the Tomb of Sultan Mahmoud— all this under the protection of a firman, and in a party of nearly twenty strangers. Sultan Mahmoud's is a sort of conservatory tomb — large windows all round, with white curtains, light and airy, and high- domed roof. The Sultan is buried there, with his wife, sister and four daughters. The Seraglio was a good deal below one's expectations; St. Sophia certainly beyond mine. The amplitude of the dome is very impressive ; it is a sort of Pantheon exalted into a Monotheon. Michael Angelo ought to have seen it. 314 LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap, XIIL How many times in the course of the day's work we had to pull off boots and shoes and put on slippers, I can't dare to say. The weather is still unsettled. The Bithynian Olympus is one long range of snow-covered Alp. Till yesterday we had a fire in the sitting-room, and yesterday we missed it. I have found great solace from a terrace on the roof, which gives a tolerable view of the Strait, and the Seraglio point, and Scutari, and the hills across the end of the Sea of Marmora, and the snowy Olympus overtopping them. May 24, 10 a.m. This, you know, is the Mahometan Sunday, and the Sultan goes to mosque, and we are to go and stare at him on his way. Mosque is at twelve o'clock, and we start at eleven. I dined yesterday with Dr. Beretta, who is a most amiable kind man, but first I went with him to see Elizabeth Kondaxaky, the Cretan sibyl, who prophesies, fortunately in English, as well as Greek, and other tongues, whereof she has the gift. I have not exactly summed up the result of her prophecies, but she seems to be for England and Turkey — the latter as ' a necessary evil,' and the former as the natural protector of necessary evils. May 26, On Friday we went to see the Sultan go to mosque, which he did in his caique of twenty oars or more. We were received into the house of Halil Bey, a profane Frank-mannered Turk, with windows looking, some upon the Bosporus, where the caique passed by, and some upon the court of the mosque, where the Sultan disem- barked, so we saw the poor creature admirably ; he looks quite * the sick man.' When he got on shore, a sort of chant was set up, interpreted to us, as ' Sultan ! trust not in yourself; there is God above, who is greater than you,' which was not saying very much. 1861.] ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGII. 315 Then I left my companions and went back to the hotel, and then over to Scutari with Dr. Pincoff, and saw all •Scutari, Barrack and General Hospitals, and F. N's own tower, and rooms, and everything, of which you shall hear Avhen I return. We went by steamer up the Bosporus, to Buyukdere, and up a hill to see the Black Sea. Sunday, 5 p.m. We have been to see the dancing dervishes, really not an unedifying spectacle in the way of a divine service. ' God, what a wonderful Creator Thou art ' Thou hast made so many thousand human beings, black and white, and whom Thou pleasest, black or white. Thou canst raise to be distinguished.' To such words and other such, chanted with musical instruments accompanying, twenty men, in presence of their chief, in solemn silence, go twirling about with extended arms and spinning long- petticoats. ' God, what a wonderful Creator Thou art ! ' &c. &c. Adieu. In June he returned to England. He seemed to long for home and to be unable to bear long absences. He spent a fortnight in Derbyshire with his family ; he spoke little of his journey, and seemed languid and depressed, though not positively suffering. After this he went to London with them, and on July 6th went off again through Paris to Auvergne and the Pyrenees. There he was for- tunate enough to join, though but for a short time, his friends Mr. and Mrs. Tennyson, whose companionship made his solitary wanderings pleasant, and to it probably he owed more than pleasure, the stimulus to produce the poems which were his last creations. It has been said that his later poems give signs of his failing strength ; but whether or not this strikes the reader, in any case the rapidity and ease with which they were written show 31 G LETTERS AND REMAINS OF [Chap. XIII. how instinctively he returned to poetry as soon as ever the stress of work was removed from him. The first of the Mari Ma