UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 MAY TREAT MORRISON 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 ALEXANDER F MORRISON
 
 CHAMBERS'S 
 
 MISC EL L ANY 
 
 OF 
 
 INSTRUCTIVE & ENTERTAINING TRACTS 
 
 anb ebis.e& (Ebiibn 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 W. AND R. CHAMBERS 
 LONDON AND EDINBURGH
 
 Edinburgh : 
 Printed by W. .and R. Chambers.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 No. 
 LIFE OF NELSON 17 
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE l8 
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY 19 
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO 2O 
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND 21 
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE 22 
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES 23 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY 24 
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 25 
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR 26 
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS 27 
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA 28 
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND 29 
 
 ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS 30 
 
 FLORA MACDONALD 31 
 
 'IT'S ONLY A DROP'. it 
 
 SELECT POEMS FROM COWPER 32 
 
 429451
 
 ORATIO NELSON was born on the 2gth of Sep- 
 tember 1758, in the parsonage-house of Burnham- 
 Thorpe, Norfolk, of which his father, the Rev. 
 Edmund Nelson, was rector. Horatio was his fifth 
 son, and named after his godfather, the first Lord 
 Walpole, to whom Mrs Nelson was related. The 
 early days of the young Horatio gave promise of the future man. He 
 became distinguished among his youthful companions for bold and 
 adventurous achievements. Though weak in constitution, and subject 
 o attacks of ague, which made him irritable in temper, he possessed 
 p best dispositions, and even when young, had a high sense of con- 
 scientiousness, and shrunk from everything like deception or meanness= 
 17 t
 
 LIFE OF NELSOX. 
 
 It is related of him that, when about five years of age, being on a 
 visit to his grandmother, he absented himself without permission : 
 not making his appearance at the dinner hour, the old lady became 
 much alarmed, especially as he had formed acquaintance with a gang 
 of gipsies who were loitering in the neighbourhood, and she was 
 apprehensivd they might have decoyed him away. Diligent search 
 in .'various directions was promptly instituted, and after the lapse 
 of several hon^s, he w?s found alone by the side of a rather rapid 
 aii(i/<jeep brook, wh ; ch he wa's unable to cross. His conduct on 
 thi$ occasion was peculiar to him through life he evinced no 
 symptoms of alarm, although his companion (a cow-boy little older 
 than himself) had left him ; and when his grandmother closed a 
 reproof with: ' I wonder, child, that fear did not drive you home !' 
 he promptly answered : ' Fear ! Grandmamma, I never saw fear. 
 What is it ?' 
 
 The first seminary of any importance which he attended was the 
 High School at Norwich ; and while studying here, he was recalled 
 home on the death of his mother, who expired December 24, 1767, 
 Horatio being then about nine years and three months old. How 
 little often determines one's career in life ! The funeral of Mrs 
 Nelson brought her brother, Captain Suckling, of the Royal Navy, 
 on a visit to the rectory ; and on this occasion the imagination of 
 young Horatio was fired by the stories and anecdotes of sea-life 
 which his uncle related in the company of his friends, and he deter- 
 mined, if possible, to be a sailor. His studies at Norwich, and after- 
 wards at North Walsham, failed in obliterating this juvenile fancy 
 from his mind; and his father, desirous of permitting him to follow 
 the bent of his inclinations, easily induced Captain Suckling to take 
 him under his charge. Passing over the painful parting with 
 brothers and playmates, we follow the young aspirant in his entrance 
 into active life. 
 
 The ship of Captain Suckling was lying in the Medway, and to 
 place him in the way of reaching it, Mr Nelson accompanied his son 
 to the metropolis ; but from thence he was sent down, unattended 
 and unbefriended, to Chatham. 
 
 EARLY LIFE AT SEA. 
 
 The entrance of Nelson upon the profession of which he was 
 destined to be the highest ornament, took place under extraordinary 
 circumstances. His uncle, it appears, knew not on what day he was 
 to be expected. Arriving therefore at Chatham, shivering with cold, 
 and not knowing where to go or what to do, Horatio wandered about 
 the streets for some hours, undergoing the full weight of that desola- 
 tion of heart which, even in the most favourable circumstances, 
 befalls young persons for the first time sent from a home of familiar 
 faces into the midst of strangers. At length a kind-hearted officer,
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 observing his melancholy appearance, took him to his house and 
 administered to his necessities ; after which he put him into a boat 
 to be conveyed to the Raisonable. Here again he met with disap- 
 pointment his uncle was not on board no one had been apprised 
 of his coming; and he walked the deck the whole of the remainder 
 of the day without any one noticing him, or making him an offer 
 of food; and it was not till the succeeding day that humanity 
 prompted the gunner to inquire who he was, and, as Nelson himself 
 afterwards expressed it, ' to take compassion on him.' 
 
 The Raisonable had been put into commission in consequence of 
 a dispute with Spain, which seemed likely to lead to war. This 
 expectation proving happily fallacious, the vessel was quickly dis- 
 charged, so as to leave to Captain Suckling no alternative from 
 sending his nephew on board a merchant West Indiaman, under 
 charge of a master who had been his own mate. In this situation 
 young Nelson applied himself diligently to his duties, and acquired 
 a considerable knowledge of his profession ; but amongst the crew 
 he imbibed a dislike to the Royal Navy, as a service not calculated to 
 afford the best practical knowledge of seamanship and navigation. 
 On his return home, he found his uncle in command of the Triumph, 
 74, lying as guard-ship at Chatham, and he was invited to join that 
 ship. Much as he esteemed his uncle, he was averse to comply ; 
 but Captain Suckling, desirous of removing the false impressions 
 that had been made, urged upon him the many advantages to be 
 derived in the service ; and the youth reluctantly consented. A 
 period of peace offers but a confined sphere of operation for a young 
 naval officer ; there is, in fact, little opportunity of acquiring know- 
 ledge, especially on board a guard-ship, and therefore his uncle, by 
 way of encouragement, gave Horatio charge of the launch, that 
 had been decked and rigged as a cutter-tender to the ship of the 
 commanding-officer of the station. This was a situation which 
 could not fail to be agreeable to our youth, as it gratified that 
 ambition of distinction which was ever his ruling passion. His 
 exultation, however, noways allayed the thirst for information which 
 was also strong in him. His little vessel had frequently to navigate 
 the Medway down to the Great Nore, and from thence up the 
 Thames to the receiving-ship for volunteers and impressed men 
 lying off the Tower of London ; or down the intricate channels, 
 and round the North Foreland to the Downs. It was a humble 
 service ; but even humble services can be well or ill performed ; and 
 in no situation in life may a young man of apt faculties fail to 
 acquire skill that will fit him for higher callings. The boy Nelson 
 for such he really was became a clever pilot for those parts, and 
 gained a confidence in his own knowledge that increased as he grew 
 older. 
 
 In April 1773, on the application of the Royal Society, Lord 
 Sandwich ordered two stout bomb-ketches, the Racehorse and the 
 
 3
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 Carcase, to be fitted out for the purpose of getting as far north as 
 possible, in order to explore the much-talked-of North-west Passage. 
 The former vessel was commanded by the Honourable Captain 
 Phipps (afterwards Lord Mulgrave), the latter by Captain Lutwidge, 
 both excellent seamen and scientific men. Every attention was 
 paid to the equipment of the expedition, both for the attainment of 
 the object and for the comfort of the people. Nelson's mind, 
 already excited by the responsibility of command, and the acquisition 
 of nautical knowledge, especially as a pilot, no sooner heard of the 
 intended voyage of discovery than he became extremely solicitous 
 to join in it. But orders had been issued that no boys were to be 
 admitted on board of either vessel, and therefore there was no 
 prospect of his being able to go. Still, he did not fail, at every 
 convenient opportunity, to press the matter upon Captain Suckling, 
 who, won by his nephew's importunity, applied to Captain Lutwidge, 
 with whom he was upon terms of friendship, to take him in the 
 Carcase. The order of the Admiralty was for some time a consider- 
 able obstacle ; till, struck by the unsubdued spirit of the bold and 
 anxious lad, the commander of the Carcase consented to receive 
 him, and he was rated coxswain on the ketch's books. 
 
 The vessels sailed on the 2d June 1773, an d on the 28th of the 
 same month made the land of Spitzbergen, and ran along the coast, 
 which was pretty clear of ice, and the weather moderate ; but on 
 the 5th July they found a barrier that opposed their further progress. 
 The ice extended from north-west to east, without displaying any 
 opening, the vessels having run along it from east to west more than 
 10 degrees. Captain Phipps then changed his course to the east- 
 ward with no better success. On the 3ist July they were encom- 
 passed by ice, and by observation found themselves to be in latitude 
 80 37' N. ; the ships, separated by the massive blocks, being only 
 two lengths from each other, and without room to swing. 
 
 On the 3d August, finding that the ice did not give way, but, on 
 the contrary, pressed so heavily that some of the blocks were forced 
 above the others as high as the mainyard, the officers gave orders 
 to cut a passage through ; but the progress made by the men was so 
 small, and the dangers to which they would be exposed by wintering 
 there so great, that Captain Phipps announced his intention of 
 launching the boats (which had been prepared for such an exigency) 
 over the ice, and abandoning the vessels altogether. After this 
 undertaking had been commenced, an opening was observed ; all 
 sail was set on the two vessels, to force them along ; and on the gth, 
 the ice becoming more loose, they moved slowly through small 
 openings, and got past the boats, which were taken on board again. 
 On the following day, after encountering much peril, a brisk wind 
 from north-north-east carried them clear, and they returned to the 
 harbour of Smeerenburg, on the coast of Spitzbergen, to repair 
 damages.
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 Young Nelson acquired much praise for his assiduity and intre- 
 pidity during the period of peril. He had charge of one of the 
 exploring boats, and acquitted himself so well, that he gained the 
 approbation of both Captain Phipps and his own commander. One 
 night, whilst blocked up in the ice, a bear was observed prowling 
 about the Carcase, and Nelson, who had the watch on deck, unper- 
 ceived, armed himself with a musket, and, accompanied by a ship- 
 mate, went in pursuit of the animal. A heavy fog came on, and 
 Nelson's absence being detected, a search was promptly instituted, 
 but without effect, and he was given up for lost. As daylight advanced, 
 however, he was discovered at a considerable distance off, and his 
 companion about midway between him and the vessel. By the aid 
 of the glass, Nelson was seen with his musket clubbed near to an 
 immense white bear that was separated from him by a chasm in 
 the ice. A gun was fired to recall him ; but he hesitated to obey : 
 at last, however, he returned, and then he related that, having 
 presented his musket at the bear, it had missed fire ; but anxious to 
 slay the creature, he had followed, under a hope of getting a good 
 blow at it with the butt of his weapon. The firing of the gun from 
 the ship frightened the beast away, and probably saved the lad's 
 life. His captain severely reprimanded him for quitting the vessel 
 without leave, and demanded the cause of his placing himself in 
 so much peril. ' Sir,' answered Nelson, ' I wanted to kill the bear, 
 that I might get the skin for my father. ' 
 
 After recruiting the strength of the crews, and repairing the injuries 
 sustained from the icebergs, Captain Phipps sailed from Smeeren- 
 burg to renew his task ; but finding everywhere that the barrier was 
 impenetrable (many of the bergs being not less than three hundred 
 feet in height), and the season getting far advanced, he bore up on 
 the 22d August for England, where soon afterwards the vessels were 
 paid off. 
 
 The dangers to which he had been exposed, and the hardships he 
 had undergone, had no influence to daunt the intrepid heart of 
 Nelson. He had increased his stock of knowledge, his mind had 
 become more expanded, and he had gained that perfect self-confi- 
 dence which generally leads to prominent results in after-life. His 
 uncle and his father were proud of him ; for both Captain Phipps 
 and Captain Lutwidge had given him excellent certificates of conduct, 
 and had also spoken highly of him to Captain Suckling. The 
 voyage had not been of long duration ; but in his brief career as a 
 sailor he had visited the torrid and the frigid zone, and experienced 
 the extremes of heat and cold ; and besides being made acquainted 
 with the difference in climates, had also been instructed in the use 
 and practice of astronomical instruments, and otherwise improved 
 himself in navigation.
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 JOINS THE ROYAL NAVY. 
 
 The exploring vessels were paid off a few days after Nelson had 
 entered upon his fourteenth year, and he passed a short interval at 
 the parsonage-house in Burnham-Thorpe, where he was looked upon 
 as a hero. He then rejoined his uncle at Chatham ; but under- 
 standing that the Seahorse, a frigate of twenty guns, was fitting for 
 the East Indies, under the command of the celebrated Captain 
 Farmer, whose bravery was well known, he applied to be removed 
 into her ; and through the interest of his uncle, and the recom- 
 mendation of Captains Phipps and Lutwidge, he succeeded. He 
 was not at first rated as a midshipman, though he was privileged to 
 appear on the quarter-deck, and messed with the 'young gentlemen ;' 
 Captain Farmer's name was so famous, that parents who had des- 
 tined their sons for the sea were glad to get them under so gallant a 
 chief, and consequently the vacancies were filled ; but to give him 
 the pay of an able seaman, he was rated as a foretop-man, and 
 in reefing and furling sails, the foretop was the station he occu- 
 pied, to assist in the operation and to see it well performed. As 
 soon as a vacancy occurred on the books, it was filled up with his 
 name. 
 
 He joined the Seahorse in October 1773, very little more than a 
 fortnight after being paid off from the Carcase ; and now he was 
 about to traverse the Indian Ocean. The manners of Nelson did 
 not at first please his new messmates ; his indefatigable attention to 
 his duties did not altogether accord with their aristocratic feelings ; 
 and when they saw him dipping his hands into a tar-bucket, and assist- 
 ing the men in working amongst the rigging, they looked upon it as 
 degrading to an officer : but his amiable disposition soon conquered. 
 In the difficulties of this crisis, he was much supported by a kindred 
 spirit which he found in a midshipman named Thomas Troubridge, 
 afterwards associated with him in several of his most brilliant 
 adventures, and who, like himself, had been connected with the 
 merchant service. Two such natures could not be near each other 
 without forming a strong friendship : that of Nelson and Troubridge 
 was to last for life. They were fortunate in having for the master 
 of their vessel a gentleman named Surridge, who, sympathising in 
 their extreme desire to advance in professional skill, took them under 
 his especial care and tuition, and afforded them admirable nautical 
 instruction, particularly after reaching the East Indies, when with 
 his pupils he engaged himself in making accurate surveys in the Bay 
 of Bengal. 
 
 At first the climate agreed with Nelson's health ; he grew stout in 
 person and florid in complexion ; but his anxious zeal and untiring 
 application preyed upon a constitution still weak. He was attacked 
 
 6
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 by fever, which reduced him to a skeleton, and for some time he lost 
 the entire use of his limbs. The commander-in-chief, Sir Edward 
 Hughes, would willingly have retained him upon the station ; but 
 regard for his existence pleaded for his being sent home, though 
 apprehensions were entertained that he could never reach England. 
 His friend Troubridge, who attended to his wants, and nursed him 
 with the utmost care, was greatly distressed at his situation. His 
 disease baffled the power of medicine, and he appeared to be sinking 
 fast, when he was put on board the Dolphin of 20 guns, commanded 
 by Captain James Pigot his old commander, Captain Farmer, 
 giving him strong testimonials as to conduct and character. The 
 parting between Nelson and Troubridge was very affecting the 
 former expecting soon to be in eternity, the latter left to toil in the 
 duties of the naval service. 
 
 For a long time during the passage to England, Nelson's life hung 
 tremblingly in the balance ; and had he been in less humane hands, 
 his hammock would have been his shroud, and his grave the ocean ; 
 but from Captain Pigot he received the most careful attention and 
 kindness ; and to this worthy officer, under the blessing of Provi- 
 dence, may be attributed the rescuing of the future hero from death. 
 On his arrival at home, about the middle of September 1776, his 
 health was found to be improved, but he was still weak and 
 emaciated, and labouring under that heavy depression of spirit 
 which may truly be called sickness of heart. He had left his mess- 
 mates happy in pursuing the line of active duty, and full of exulting 
 hopes ; whilst he, enervated and almost helpless, had a dark cloud 
 hanging over him, presaging a career that seemed dreary and 
 unprofitable. Some years afterwards, when speaking upon this 
 subject, he said : ' I felt impressed with a feeling that I should never 
 rise in my profession. My mind was staggered with a view of the 
 difficulties that opposed my progress, and the little interest I possessed 
 to advance me in the service. There appeared to be no means by 
 which I could attain the object of my ambition. After a long and 
 gloomy reverie, in which I almost wished myself overboard, a sudden 
 glow of patriotism was kindled in my breast, and presented my 
 sovereign and my country as my patrons, and I exclaimed : Well, 
 then, I will yet live to be a hero, and confiding in Providence, I will 
 fearlessly meet and brave every danger.' 
 
 This was a spirit of mingled enthusiasm and natural piety, which 
 at all future periods animated Nelson, and supported him under 
 every trial. Previous to his return from India, Captain Suckling 
 had been made comptroller of the navy, an office that conferred 
 considerable influence. When the Dolphin was paid off on the 
 24th September, Nelson was sent on board the Worcester of 64 guns, 
 commanded by Captain Mark Robinson, whose name has been 
 recorded amongst the bravest in England's naval history. He served 
 a short time as master's mate ; but whilst lying at Spithead under
 
 LIFE OE NELSON. 
 
 sailing orders to convoy a fleet of transports and merchantmen to 
 Gibraltar, one of the lieutenants committed suicide during a fit of 
 insanity, and Nelson, at the request of his captain, was appointed 
 acting-lieutenant in his stead by the port-admiral at Portsmouth, 
 Sir James Douglas. He had not then entered upon his nineteenth 
 year, nor had he passed his examination ; but so excellent were his 
 recommendations, that the utmost confidence was reposed in him ; 
 and his captain was often heard to say, that ' in the night-watches 
 he felt equally as easy when Nelson had charge of the deck as when 
 the oldest officer in the ship was there.' His grateful esteem was 
 continued to Captain Robinson throughout his life. 
 
 RISES IN THE SERVICE DURING THE AMERICAN WAR. 
 
 The Worcester was employed with convoys till April 1777, on the 
 loth of which month Nelson passed his examination most triumph- 
 antly. On the following day he received his commission as second- 
 lieutenant of the Lowestqffe, a frigate of 32 guns, under Captain 
 William Locker, in which he sailed for Jamaica. At this time 
 Britain was engaged in the disastrous war with her colonies. The 
 Lowestqffe, in one of her cruises after French and American privateers, 
 captured an American letter of marque. It was blowing a strong 
 gale at the time, and a heavy sea running, but it was deemed 
 necessary to board ; and the boat being hoisted out, the first-lieutenant 
 was ordered away for the purpose. Whether he disliked the job or 
 not, he was rather long below in seeking for his side-arms. Captain 
 Locker, during the interval, came on deck, and seeing that the boat 
 was likely to be swamped alongside, exclaimed : ' What ! have I no 
 officer in the ship to board the prize?' The master immediately 
 volunteered ; but Nelson, whom a sense of delicacy to the first- 
 lieutenant had kept from offering himself, instantly ran to the gang- 
 way, and stopping the master, said : ' Avast there ; it is my turn 
 now ; and if I come back, it will be yours.' He jumped into the 
 boat, and succeeded in getting upon the American's deck. He found 
 her completely water-logged, from the heavy press of canvas she had 
 been carrying, so that the boat was washed in board and out again 
 with the sea. 
 
 Similar acts endeared him to Captain Locker ; and the death of 
 his uncle about this time rendered his commander's friendship the 
 more valuable. Earnestly desirous of active employment, he obtained 
 the command of a small schooner, tender to the frigate, and in her 
 he cruised amongst the islands, and gained a correct knowledge of 
 West India pilotage, particularly of the keys to the northward of 
 Hispaniola a cluster of small rocks and islands, which render the 
 navigation extremely difficult. By Captain Lockers warm eulogiums 
 and recommendations, Sir Peter Parker removed him into the 
 Bristol, his flag-ship ; but this change was only for a short time ; 
 8
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 for, on the 8th of December 1778, Nelson, then about twenty years 
 and two months old, was appointed commander of the Badger sloop, 
 Collingwood taking his place as first-lieutenant of the Bristol. He 
 was ordered to protect the Mosquito shore and the Bay of Honduras 
 from the depredations of American privateers, which service he 
 effectually performed, gaining so much grateful respect from the 
 settlers, that they unanimously voted him their thanks. On his 
 return to Montego Bay, Jamaica, the Glasgow frigate came in, and, 
 in about two hours after her arrival, was discovered to be in flames, 
 from the igniting of a cask of rum. Nelson repaired on board 
 without a moment's delay, and, by his presence of mind and promp- 
 titude, was mainly instrumental in preventing the loss of life which 
 otherwise must certainly have ensued. He continued in the Badger 
 till the nth June 1779, when (though not twenty-one) he was posted 
 into the Hinckinbrooke, of 28 guns, a captured French merchantman 
 that had been bought into the service, and Collingwood again 
 succeeded him in the Badger. 
 
 Nelson was next concerned in a naval expedition against the 
 Spanish territories in Honduras ; but this proved a disastrous affair. 
 The troops, under the charge of a major in the army, were disem- 
 barked on this low part of the South American continent, March 24, 
 1 780. When too late, it was found that no one knew the country, 
 and the difficulties which presented themselves were of so formidable 
 a character that most hearts failed. Nelson, who had charge of the 
 nautical part of the enterprise, was not the man to be appalled by 
 such difficulties. He mustered a party of seamen, and, with his 
 own boats and the canoes of the Indians, ascended the river San 
 Juan, then unusually low. Every day the hazards and labour 
 increased under the intense heat of a scorching sun, and both banks 
 of the river being covered with lofty trees, the circulation of air was 
 utterly impeded, and at night the unwholesome and heavy dews 
 saturated the clothes of the people. Sickness broke out ; but still 
 they persevered till the Qth of April, when a battery upon the island 
 of St Bartolomeo opened its fire upon them, and Nelson, accom- 
 
 Sanied by Captain Despard of the army, leaped upon the muddy 
 each at the head of a few seamen, stormed the fortification, and 
 took it. Two days aftenvards they appeared before the fortress of 
 St Juan. Nelson advised that it should be carried at once by 
 assault, and volunteered, as he called it, 'to head the boarders ;' but 
 the military chief deemed it necessary to carry on a protracted siege, 
 with all its details and formalities, and thus much time was thrown 
 away. The fatigue and unhealthy climate rapidly thinned the 
 ranks ; the rains set in, and disease to an alarming extent prevailed 
 when the garrison surrendered on the 24th. Had Nelson's counsel 
 been followed, the greater portion of these disasters might have 
 been spared. They found the castle and town destitute of every- 
 thing that was required by the sick, and devoid of all comfort and 
 
 17 9
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 maintenance for those who still remained on duty. At last the inter- 
 ment of the dead became impracticable to the living, and the putrid 
 bodies were launched into the stream, or left for the birds to prey 
 upon. In these circumstances, the conquest was abandoned, and 
 out of 1800 men, not more than 380 returned; whilst, of the whole 
 crew of the Hinchinbrooke, consisting of 200 men, only 10 were 
 saved. The transports' people all died ; and several of the vessels 
 being destitute of hands, were left to sink at their anchors. 
 
 It may easily be supposed what were the feelings of Nelson under 
 the pressure of such calamities. He had been injured by drinking 
 from a brook into which boughs of the manchineel-tree had been 
 thrown ; and though his undaunted spirit remained unsubdued, yet 
 sickness almost conquered his frame, and he never ceased to feel 
 the consequences through the remainder of his life. 
 
 During the siege, Captain Glover died at Jamaica, and Nelson 
 was appointed to his vacant command in the Jason, of 44 guns, 
 Collingwood being at the same time made post on board the 
 Hinchinbrooke. Nelson joined his new command ; but though the 
 admiral had him nursed at his own residence, and the best medical 
 aid was afforded, yet his constitution was so severely affected, that 
 it was deemed necessary that he should return to England. Accord- 
 ingly he sailed in the Lion, 64, commanded by the Honourable 
 William Cornwallis ; and to the indefatigable care of this gallant 
 but rough seaman, Nelson believed himself to be indebted for the 
 prolongation of his life. 
 
 On his arrival in England, the emaciated and helpless young 
 captain was conveyed on shore, and carried to Bath, where the 
 effects of the change, and the waters, produced a satisfactory result ; 
 and at the end of three months he found himself so far recovered, 
 that to remain any longer idle was distressing to him. He hastened 
 to the metropolis, applied for employment, and in August 1781, he 
 was appointed to the command of the Albemarle, 28, and was kept, 
 during the ensuing winter, on that coldest and most unpleasant of 
 stations the North Sea. 
 
 The war at this time carried on against France and the United 
 States rendered it necessary that British merchant ships, in their 
 voyages across the Atlantic, should be protected by vessels of war. 
 In April 1782, Nelson went with the Albemarle as part of a convoy 
 to Newfoundland and Quebec, and afterwards cruised in Boston 
 Bay. While here, he captured a fishing-schooner, and although the 
 master of this small craft pled hard for liberty, the whole of his 
 property being embarked in his vessel, and having a wife and family 
 at home, Nelson was inexorable, and, retaining his vessel, kept him 
 as pilot. The taking of helpless fishing-vessels during war has been 
 generally condemned as an act of tyranny, and is so rarely practised, 
 that the capture on the present occasion is only excusable in Nelson 
 from the emergency in which he was placed. The result, at any
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 rate, proved that he acted from no bad feeling. Four French sail- 
 of-the-line, and a large frigate, came out from Boston to capture the 
 Albemarle, and as their sailing was superior, there was every 
 prospect of her being taken ; but Nelson, guided by the master of 
 the captured schooner, boldly ran amongst the many shoals of St 
 George's Bank, where his larger pursuers did not deem it advisable 
 to follow him. The frigate continued the chase ; but seeing that 
 Nelson had thrown his main-topsail to the mast to wait for him, he 
 discontinued his pursuit, and joined the squadron. For this service 
 the fishing-schooner was restored to its owner, with a certificate 
 from Nelson to secure its master from being molested by any other 
 vessel. The grateful man afterwards came at night, at the hazard 
 of his life, to the ship with a present of sheep, poultry, and vegetables, 
 which proved a seasonable supply, as the scurvy was very bad 
 amongst the seamen. The certificate then given is still preserved 
 in Boston. 
 
 In October 1782, the Albemarle was ordered to take a convoy from 
 Quebec to New York, where Nelson found Lord Hood, and accom- 
 panied him to the West Indies. Here he was introduced to Prince 
 William Henry (afterwards king of England), who was a midship- 
 man in the flag-ship, the Barfleur, 98. Their first interview was 
 rather remarkable. As a matter of course, his Royal Highness had 
 heard much of Nelson, and picturing his appearance and stature 
 in accordance with the fame he had acquired, he expected to see 
 something noble-looking and gigantic. His surprise was great when 
 he found him ' the merest boy of a captain he had ever seen, dressed 
 in a full gold-laced uniform coat, an old-fashioned white waistcoat, 
 slashed in front, and the flaps hanging down over his thighs,, 
 white knee-breeches, buckles in his shoes, and his hair, lank and 
 impowdered, tied behind in a stiff Hessian tail of considerable 
 length.' His Royal Highness could not conceive who he was, or 
 what he wanted; but Lord Hood soon solved the mystery by an 
 introduction, and telling the prince that 'if he wished for any 
 information upon naval tactics, he knew of no officer of the fleet 
 more capable of affording it.' From this period the prince became 
 the firm friend of Nelson, and declared that ' his address and 
 conversation were irresistibly pleasing ; and when he spoke on 
 professional subjects, it was with an enthusiasm that evidenced 
 how much his whole soul was engaged in them.' 
 
 From his earliest years Nelson possessed a happy power of making 
 friends, and the still happier power of securing their friendship when 
 once it was gained. His character was firm, but mild and concilia- 
 ting; and though the ebullitions of temper, arising from the irritation 
 caused by bodily infirmities, would at times manifest themselves, yet 
 these instances were rare ; and no one could be more ready to offer 
 an apology, or make an atonement, when he conceived that his words 
 or actions had been harsh or unjust. The seamen loved him with
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 a fervour peculiar to their character; for though he was strict in 
 discipline, he was ever ready to give encouragement, and never 
 flinched from his own duty, however severe. He led them in their 
 enterprises, bore more than a due proportion of their hardships, and 
 in difficult circumstances indulged in no better fare than themselves. 
 To the officers under him he was considerate and kind ; and when 
 a youngster who had never before washed his hands in salt water 
 joined him, he invariably made it a rule to encourage him in every 
 possible way, probably remembering what he had himself suffered 
 when he first stepped on board a ship of war. We shall give an 
 instance of his readiness to render justice to every one. It appears 
 that Lord Hood placed great reliance on his judgment and skill. 
 His lordship, apprehensive that the French would endeavour to 
 escape through some of the intricate passages of the Bahamas, said 
 to Nelson : ' I suppose, sir, from the length of time you were cruising 
 among the Bahama Keys, you must have a good knowledge of the 
 pilotage?' Nelson replied : ' It is true, my lord, I have made myself 
 well acquainted with the different channels, but in that respect my 
 second-lieutenant 'is by far my superior.' 
 
 Intelligence was received that the French had got into Puerto 
 Cabello, on the coast of Venezuela, and Nelson took his station 
 between that port and La Guayra, where he cruised under French 
 colours. It happened that one of the royal launches belonging to 
 the Spaniards, deceived by the appearance of the Albemarle, came 
 within hail of her, and the officers were invited in the French language 
 to ' come on board.' They did so without hesitation, and freely gave 
 information respecting the numbers and force of the enemy. The 
 officers and crew of the launch, supposing that the frigate was 
 recently from France, were anxious to obtain intelligence of what 
 was passing in that country, and their surprise may be conjectured 
 when they found themselves prisoners. Nelson, however, treated 
 them with the utmost urbanity; the men were supplied with food 
 by the brave tars, and the officers (amongst whom was a prince 
 of the German Empire, and brother to the heir of the Electorate of 
 Bavaria, with several Frenchmen of distinction, who, in the pursuit 
 of science, were collecting specimens in the various departments of 
 natural history) were regaled at Nelson's own table with the best 
 his ship afforded. Nevertheless they were not much at ease when 
 they looked upon themselves as captives, and their scientific pursuits 
 arrested. For a short interval Nelson enjoyed their embarrassment 
 and chagrin ; but he was too noble-minded to triumph over distress 
 when it was in his power to relieve it ; and therefore, with all the 
 generosity characteristic of his nature, he told them 'they were 
 perfectly free, and might depart with their boat and all in it as soon 
 as they wished ; ' and it may be truly believed that no one was better 
 pleased with this act than Nelson himself. 
 
 In the beginning of 1783, war between England and France and
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 Spain ceased, and the unhappy and ill-conceived contest with the ' 
 American colonists was likewise terminated. Nelson returned 
 home, and his ship was paid off at Portsmouth (July 31). He had, 
 before this time, formed an attachment to a young lady, daughter of 
 a clergyman of the Church of England, and he was desirous of 
 marrying ; but his narrow circumstances forbade their union, and 
 he was even induced to reside for some time in France, that he 
 might economise his half-pay. Returning early in the ensuing 
 year, he obtained an appointment to the Boreas, 28 guns, ready to 
 sail for the Leeward Islands with the lady of the commander-in- 
 chief, Sir Richard Hughes, and her family. Being on the peace 
 establishment, the frigate's complement of officers was considerably 
 increased. There were not fewer than thirty young gentlemen as 
 volunteers of the first class, and midshipmen ; and Nelson generously 
 took upon himself the task of superintending their nautical education, 
 and never missed a day visiting the school-room, and personally 
 aiding the youngsters in their studies. Nor did his benevolence 
 stop here ; for, being an excellent practical seaman himself, he lost 
 no opportunity of imparting the best instruction to ' his boys.' If 
 he saw any of the lads manifest symptoms of fear on first going 
 aloft, he would ascend the rigging himself, to shew how easily it 
 might be accomplished ; and by these means he created a stimulus 
 that never failed to produce the best effects. 
 
 In the course of his service at this period, Nelson shewed that he 
 was not only a bold and able seaman, but a man of a sagacious and 
 determined mind. Previous to the American colonies declaring 
 their independence of England, they enjoyed, almost exclusively, 
 the trade with the West India Islands ; and, taking advantage of 
 their vessels still retaining British registers, they continued to carry 
 on their traffic as subjects of Great Britain, to the injury of the 
 loyalists who had settled in Nova Scotia. The Navigation Act of 
 England expressly prohibited all foreigners from carrying on trade 
 with the West Indies, and Nelson, considering the Americans as 
 foreigners since their separation from the mother-country, resolved < 
 to carry out the provisions of the act to its fullest extent. He gave 
 the Americans warning of his intention, and sent many away, that' 
 it might not be charged upon him that he had taken undue advantage 
 of them. He apprised the admiral, Sir Richard Hughes, of his 
 design, who at first gave it his sanction, but subsequently withdrew 
 it, and sent Nelson a written order not to proceed. Major-general 
 Sir Thomas Shirley, governor of the Leeward Islands, also opposed 
 the captain of the Boreas, and at an interview between the two 
 officers, Sir Thomas angrily exclaimed that ' old generals were not 
 in the habit of taking advice from young gentlemen.' To which 
 Nelson replied : ' Sir, the prime-minister of England is not older 
 than I am, and I think myself as capable of commanding one of his. 
 Majesty's ships as Mr Pitt is of governing the state.'
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 The alternative with him was, that he must either disobey the 
 order of the admiral, or render acts of parliament a nullity ; and 
 therefore, relying on his integrity, he wrote to the admiral, declining 
 obedience to his instruction. Sir Richard was extremely angry, and 
 would have superseded Nelson ; but the flag-captain dissuaded him 
 from it, and told him that the whole squadron considered the order 
 illegal. The admiral afterwards became convinced of his error, and 
 thanked Nelson for having shewn it to him. 
 
 Nelson prepared to act with promptitude, in which he was joined 
 by his old friend Collingwood, who commanded the Mediator frigate, 
 and his brother, who commanded the Rattler sloop. At Nevis, four 
 Americans were seized, both hulls and cargoes, and condemned in 
 the Admiralty Court. The owners instituted suits against Nelson, 
 and laid their damages at 40,000. Frequent attempts were made 
 to arrest him; but through the address of his first-lieutenant, Mr 
 Wallis, he escaped the process. One day an officer, remarking upon 
 the harassment and restraint under which he laboured, happened to 
 use the word 'pity.' Nelson sharply answered : ' Pity, did you say? 
 I shall live, sir, to be envied, and to that point I shall always direct 
 my course.' Representations being made to the king, orders were 
 sent out that he should be defended at the expense of the crown, and 
 at his suggestions the Registry Act was framed. 
 
 This approbation of his sovereign and the government could not 
 but be welcome to him ; but when the thanks of the treasury were 
 transmitted to Sir Richard Hughes for that which Nelson had per- 
 formed in defiance of the admiral, he felt both offended and indig- 
 nant ; under a conviction, however, that he had fulfilled his duty, he 
 took no further notice of the affair. 
 
 While on the West India station, Nelson married (March II, 1787) 
 Mrs Nisbet, widow of a physician in Nevis, and niece of Mr Herbert, 
 the president of that island. Mr Herbert, it appears, had been 
 offended with his daughter, and expressed a determination to bequeath 
 all his property to his niece : but Nelson's noble mind scorned to 
 profit by such a resolve : he unceasingly pleaded for the daughter, 
 and at length succeeded in accomplishing a reconciliation between 
 Mr Herbert and his child. 
 
 Nelson's unaccommodating integrity brought him at this time 
 into discredit with certain Admiralty functionaries. Becoming aware, 
 and obtaining proofs of vast frauds being practised on government 
 in the West Indies, he transmitted the information to the proper 
 quarter, and for his pains was ordered to return with his vessel to 
 England. This was a gross and most undeserved indignity ; for no 
 officer had conducted himself with more ability. On his return he 
 was attacked by fever and sore throat, but he never quitted his ship ; 
 and when orders arrived for her to be paid off, he solemnly declared 
 his intention to resign his commission, and for this purpose he 
 immediately waited upon the first lord of the Admiralty. Lord Howe 
 14
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 conversed with him for some time, and having become fully satisfied 
 of his rigid integrity and honour, his lordship presented him to the 
 king, who received him graciously. Pleased with his reception, 
 he not only remained in the service, but, by dint of exertion, 
 brought the peculators to justice, and caused an immense saving to 
 government. 
 
 Having no command, he took his wife and son-in-law to visit his 
 father at Burnham-Thorpe, where he occupied himself in field-sports 
 and agriculture, Mrs Nelson generally accompanying him. But he 
 was not suffered to remain in perfect quiet. The Americans 
 renewed their vexatious actions, laying the damages at ^20,000; 
 and he would have quitted England for France, had he not received 
 the assurances of the administration that all necessary protection 
 and support would be afforded to him. 
 
 CAREER DURING THE FRENCH WAR. 
 
 We have now to follow Nelson into the heat of the great war in 
 which he obtained such high distinction. Hitherto, his adventurous 
 character had enjoyed but limited scope ; now, it was to be afforded 
 a wide field for exertion. The French having declared war against 
 Great Britain, February 1, 1793, a contest began, which soon brought 
 Spain and Holland into union with France, and caused the English, 
 with some wretched allies, to maintain one of the most tremendous 
 struggles known in history. In anticipation of this event, the 
 British navy was strengthened, and Nelson, among other adven- 
 turers, applied for an appointment. After repeated applications, he 
 was successful, and procured the command of the Agamemnon, 64 
 guns, with an entirely new company of men ; these in a short time 
 he had the address to train up to an equality with any seamen in 
 the service. 
 
 The Agamemnon left England in the squadron of Admiral 
 Hotham, to join Lord Hood in the Mediterranean. The object of 
 this expedition was to aid the French royalists who stood out against 
 the Revolution; and by that unfortunate party Toulon was sur- 
 rendered to the English and Spanish fleets, in trust for the nominal 
 sovereign of France, Louis XVII. 
 
 Previous to Lord Hood entering the port, the Agamemnon was 
 sent with dispatches for Sir William Hamilton, the ambassador at 
 Naples ; and Nelson, having executed his commission, was ordered 
 to join Commodore Linzee at Tunis. Whilst running along the coast 
 of Sardinia, he discovered five vessels supposed to be enemies, and 
 immediately gave chase. They proved to be three 44-gun frigates, 
 a corvette of 24 guns, and a brig of 12 making a total force of 168 
 guns and about 1400 men ; whilst the Agamemnon carried 70 guns, 
 and could muster only 345 men at quarters. Notwithstanding this
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 immense disparity, Nelson engaged one of the frigates (the Melpo- 
 mene), and would certainly have captured her, but for the others 
 coming up to her relief. She was so mauled, that the French made 
 no pursuit of the Agamemnon, but remained by their consort to> 
 render her assistance. Nelson would have been mad to have 
 awaited the conjoined attack of a squadron so vastly superior in 
 strength; he therefore pursued his course to Tunis, and shortly 
 afterwards was sent with a small squadron to act with the troops 
 under General Paoli in Corsica, against the domination of France. 
 Whilst cruising with his squadron off St Fiorenzo, he landed with 
 1 20 men, and destroyed a storehouse filled with flour for the French 
 garrison, which stood near their only mill This mill he burned, and 
 after throwing the flour into the sea, re-embarked without the loss 
 of a single man, though 1000 soldiers had been sent against him. 
 His constant activity afloat intercepted all supplies to the enemy; 
 and day and night he was engaged in cutting out vessels from the 
 bays and ports upon the coast, or assaulting the French forts and 
 outposts. 
 
 These attacks not only afforded sharp practice for his crew, but 
 they tended also greatly to alarm and annoy the enemy. Troops 
 were lauded under General Dundas, and on the evacuation of 
 Toulon, Lord Hood also repaired to the spot. The French quitted 
 St Fiorenzo, and retreated across the neck of land at the northern 
 extremity of the island to the strong fortress of Bastia, which the 
 British proposed to assault; but General Dundas considered it 
 impracticable. This did not exactly suit the temperament of Nelson, 
 who declared that ' with 500 men, he would have stormed the town, 
 under a full conviction that he should have carried it.' Lord Hood 
 determined upon laying siege to the place ; but neither Dundas nor 
 General D'Aubant, who succeeded to the command of the army, 
 would render any aid, and the siege was commenced, in defiance 
 of the generals, with 1 1 83 soldiers, artillerymen, and marines, and 
 250 sailors there being then five good regiments idle at St Fiorenzo. 
 
 Nelson was now greatly exhilarated; he served on shore with 
 the rank of brigadier, and not only personally superintended the 
 erecting of batteries and getting guns up the mountains, but also 
 frequently lent a hand to the more laborious part The siege was 
 carried on with vigour by this handful of men. On the ipth May 
 the enemy offered to capitulate. The five idle regiments marched 
 over from St Fiorenzo; and the next morning those who had not 
 been allowed by their commander-in-chief to share in the peril and 
 the toil, entered Bastia to reap the reward ; but not till 4000 soldiers, 
 who defended the place, had laid down their arms to about 1200 
 soldiers, marines, and seamen. The commanders of the idle troops 
 received applause ; Nelson, on whom the weight of service prin- 
 cipally devolved, was not even mentioned, except by his admiral, 
 Lord Hood, who spoke of him in the highest terms. 
 
 16
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 Calvi still held out ; and after a short cruise, in which a French 
 fleet, coming out to relieve the island, was forced to retire under the 
 security of their batteries on shore, the siege of Calvi was begun, 
 Sir Charles Stuart having command of the land forces, and Nelson 
 working with might and main at the advanced batteries. In a letter 
 to Lord Hood he remarks : 'We will fag ourselves to death before 
 any blame shall lie at our doors. I trust it will not be forgotten 
 that twenty-five pieces of heavy ordnance have been dragged to the 
 different batteries, mounted, and all but three fought by seamen, 
 except one artilleryman to point the guns.' At this time Nelson 
 suffered severely from the diseases incidental to the climate, as well 
 as from his arduous exertions and anxiety of mind ; added to these, 
 a shot striking the battery near him, forced a small piece of stone 
 into his right eye, and deprived him of the sight of it for ever. His 
 head also was much cut ; but he only lay aside for one day ; and 
 then, though suffering much from pain, returned with renewed 
 alacrity to his duty. The utmost notice he took of this misfortune 
 was in a letter to his relation, William Suckling, Esq., in which he 
 says : ' You will be surprised when I say I was wounded in the 
 head by stones from the merlon of our battery. My right eye is cut 
 entirely down, but the surgeons flatter me I shall not entirely lose 
 my sight of that eye. At present I can distinguish light from dark, 
 but no object. It confined me one day, when, thank God, I was able 
 to attend to my duty.' 
 
 On the loth August 1794, Calvi surrendered. It would most 
 probably have done so earlier had Nelson's counsel been acted 
 upon ; but there appears to have been some jealousy between the 
 chiefs of the army and navy ; and this is more evident from General 
 Stuart making scarcely any mention of Captain Nelson in his 
 dispatches, notwithstanding that it was well known the gallant 
 seaman had rendered the most important services, and was mainly 
 instrumental to the success that was achieved. Lord Hood's 
 account did very little more than refer to Nelson's exertions ; and 
 neither the general nor the admiral said one word about the loss of 
 Nelson's sight. His journal, however, in which he had noted down 
 every day's occurrence during the siege, was forwarded to the 
 Admiralty. 
 
 The taking of Calvi put the English in possession of Corsica, and 
 here Nelson found his antagonist, the Melpomene, which he states 
 to be 'the most beautiful frigate I ever saw.' In speaking of the 
 weather, he remarks : ' The climate here from July to October is 
 most unfavourable for military operations. It is now what we call 
 the dog-days ; here it is termed the Leon Sun : no person can 
 endure it : we have upwards of 1000 sick out of 2000, and the others 
 not better than so many phantoms. We have lost many men from 
 the season, very few from the enemy. I am here the reed amongst 
 the oaks ; and the prevailing disorders have attacked me, but I have
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 not strength for them to fasten. I bow before the storm, whilst the 
 sturdy oak is laid low/ 
 
 It may naturally be conjectured that, to a sanguine mind like 
 Nelson's, the marked neglect he experienced from his superiors 
 would have repressed his ardour ; but, greatly to his credit, it only 
 served to incite him to stronger efforts, as if he were to force himself 
 by his deeds alone to that pinnacle of fame which he subsequently 
 attained. In a letter to his sister, complaining of the treatment he 
 had received, he adds : ' But never mind, I will some day have a 
 gazette of my own.' This he well fulfilled ; and it must be added to 
 his praise, that when he had his own gazettes, the merits of his 
 inferior officers were never forgotten. 
 
 After the fall of Calvi, Nelson proceeded to Genoa in the Aga- 
 memnon, which ship he would not quit, though several seventy-fours 
 had been offered to him, preferring to remain with his brave Norfolk- 
 men, who had so faithfully served with him. At Genoa the doge 
 behaved to him with great courtesy. Lord Hood was ordered home, 
 and Vice-admiral Hotham. succeeding to the chief command in the 
 Mediterranean, Nelson was especially appointed to watch the French 
 fleet in Toulon, which, by the junction of ships from Gourjeau Bay, 
 consisted of sixteen sail-of-the-line, ten frigates and corvettes, whose 
 intentions, it was supposed, were the retaking of Corsica, now for- 
 mally annexed to the crown of Great Britain. There were likewise 
 seven sail-of-the-line on the stocks, and the neutral state of Genoa 
 was liberally supplying the French with materials. Admiral Hotham, 
 whilst at Leghorn, received intelligence that the Toulon fleet had 
 put to sea, and with his whole force he immediately went in search 
 of it. He had fourteen sail-of-the-line, and a Neapolitan 74 ; but 
 the English ships were scarcely more than half-manned only 7650 
 men amongst the whole. The enemy, besides the superiority in 
 vessels, had not fewer than 16,900 men. 
 
 The two fleets met. That of France had been sent out purposely 
 to fight the English ; but when in sight of the British flag they had 
 no desire to engage ; for, after manoeuvring a whole day, they took 
 to flight, and Admiral Hotham went in chase, during which the 
 Ca-Ira, 84, lost her fore and main topmasts, and the Inconstant frigate 
 being the nearest, fired at her, but was obliged to sheer off. A 
 French frigate took the 84 in tow, whilst the Sans Culottes, 120, and 
 the Jean Barras, kept pretty close on her weather-bow. Nelson's 
 eagerness to get into the fight induced him to carry sail till he had 
 distanced every ship in his own fleet by several miles. Still he 
 pressed on, purposing to reserve his fire till he was nearly touching 
 the Frenchman's stern ; but finding that her stern-chase guns were 
 admirably pointed, so that almost every shot struck the Agamemnon, 
 he yawed about from starboard to port, and from port to starboard, 
 delivering his broadsides with great precision, rending the canvas 
 of the enemy into ribbons, and carrying away her mizzen-topmast, 
 
 18
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 and cross jack-yard. This manoeuvre he practised two hours and 
 a half, till the other line-of-battle ships came to the support of the 
 Ca-Ira. The admiral made the signal for the van ships to join 
 lu'm, with which Nelson complied. Notwithstanding this sharp 
 encounter, the Agamemnon had only six men hurt the Ca-Ira lost 
 1 10 men. 
 
 At daylight the following morning, the body of the French fleet 
 was seen about five miles distant, the Ca-Ira, and the Censeur, 74, 
 that had her in tow, being about a mile and a half astern of the rest. 
 Signal was made by the English admiral to cut these ships off, and 
 again the crew of the Agamemnon not only engaged their colossal 
 opponent of the day previous, but also the Censeur, both of which 
 subsequently struck. 
 
 On securing the two prizes, Nelson hastened to Admiral Hotham, 
 and proposed that, while two of the English seventy-fours which 
 had been most crippled, and four frigates, should be left in charge 
 of the captured ships, the rest of the fleet should follow up the 
 advantage gained : but the admiral expressed himself contented ; 
 adding : ' We have done very well.' In a letter commenting on this 
 affair, Nelson says : ' Now, had we taken ten sail, and allowed the 
 eleventh to have escaped when it had been possible to have got at 
 her, I could never have called it well done. Goodall backed me ; 
 I got him to write to the admiral ; but it would not do. We should 
 have had such a day as, I believe, the annals of England never 
 produced. I wish to be an admiral, and in command of the English 
 fleet. Sure I am, had I commanded on the I4th, that either the 
 whole of the French fleet would have graced my triumph, or I 
 should have been in a dreadful scrape.' Certain it is that, with the 
 spirit manifested by the seamen, much more ought to have been 
 done. It is true that the Admiralty, with a petty parsimony, had 
 very injuriously neglected the naval force in the Mediterranean : 
 these ships were in bad condition, and the depots were nearly empty 
 of stores, nor was there a single lower mast to be obtained at 
 Gibraltar. 
 
 About this time Admiral Man arrived with a squadron of five sail- 
 of-the-line ; but even with this reinforcement the English were 
 much inferior to the French in numbers, so that the arrival of a 
 Neapolitan 74 to strengthen them was hailed with joy. Nelson 
 complained very much of this recklessness in the administration ; 
 they, however, made him a colonel of marines, a mark of distinction 
 that pleased him. He was now sent, with a squadron of eight 
 frigates under his command, to co-operate with the Austrian 
 general, De Vins. He left the English fleet at St Fiorenzo, but 
 fell in with the French fleet off Cape del Mele, who chased his 
 squadron back to St Fiorenzo ; and Admiral Hotham got under- 
 way as soon as possible to drive them off. Only a partial action 
 ensued, in which LAlcide, a French 74, struck, but aftenvards
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 caught fire and was destroyed. The Agamemnon was again 
 sharply engaged ; but Admiral Hotham called her off, and the 
 French fleet got into Frejus Bay. Nelson pursued his course with 
 his squadron ; and through his advice to the British envoy, Mr 
 Drake, put a stop to the traffic of neutrals with the French. He 
 also projected a series of conquests over the armies of Bonaparte ; 
 but the Austrian general manifested much backwardness, and 
 Admiral Hotham acted upon a cautious system detrimental to the 
 public service. The neutral port of Genoa was filled with small 
 French privateers and rowboats, that went out in the evening and 
 picked up any English merchant vessel that was unfortunate enough 
 to fall in their way. At length an Austrian commissary, with 
 10,000 in money, travelling on neutral ground between Genoa and 
 Vado, was robbed of the whole amount at Voltri by the boat's crew 
 of a French frigate then lying at Genoa ; and on the following day 
 men were publicly entered in the streets of that city for the French 
 service ; consequently all neutral disguise was at an end. Nelson,, 
 who had long suspected the faith of the Austrians, became satisfied 
 of the treachery that was practising, but possessed a force totally 
 inadequate to prevent the consequences that were likely to ensue. 
 Sir Hyde Parker, who had for the time succeeded Admiral Hotham 
 in the command, reduced his strength still more by withdrawing 
 every ship except a frigate and a brig ; yet even with these he still 
 persevered unflinchingly, till the disgraceful defeat of the Austrian 
 army ; General De Vins, under pretence of illness, having resigned 
 his command in the middle of the battle. Never was victory more 
 complete on the part of the French ; never was cowardice more 
 powerfully manifested than by the Austrians. 
 
 This defeat of our allies placed the Genoese coast, from Savona 
 to Voltri, in the hands of the French ; and Nelson, finding he could 
 no longer be of material service, went to Leghorn to refit. On 
 being hauled into dock, the Agamemnon, though strapped with 
 hawsers round the hull, could barely be held together, and her 
 masts, yards, sails, and rigging were miserably cut and rent. She 
 was, after much labour, patched up and repaired, and sailed for St 
 Fiorenzo Bay, where, to his great gratification, Nelson found Sir 
 John Jervis, who had assumed the entire command of the Mediter- 
 ranean fleet. The manner in which the admiral received Captain 
 Nelson was highly flattering and grateful to the latter, who, at Sir 
 John's request, resumed his station in the Gulf of Genoa, to act 
 against Bonaparte, who was then at the head of the army in Italy. 
 Here he acted with great promptitude and vigilance, till orders 
 arrived from the British government to evacuate Corsica ; and 
 Nelson was employed in bringing away the troops and stores. 
 Having performed this rather degrading task, he was ordered to 
 hoist a broad pennant, with the rank of commodore, on board the 
 Minerva frigate, and proceed to Porto Ferrago, with the Blanche
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 frigate under his command. On the passage they fell in with two 
 Spanish frigates, one of which the Minerva captured, after a smart 
 action. She had scarcely taken possession of her prize, when 
 another Spanish frigate came up, and a second engagement ensued. 
 This new opponent, however, after an hours fighting, hauled off; 
 and a Spanish squadron, of two ships-of-the-line and two frigates, 
 heaving in sight, Nelson was compelled to abandon his prize and 
 retire. All credit for these gallant actions Nelson attributed to his 
 captain, George Cockburn, and the excellent crew he commanded. 
 
 BATTLE OFF CAPE ST VINCENT. 
 
 Having fulfilled his orders at Porto Ferrago, he went in search 
 of the admiral ; but in the mouth of the straits he was, on the nth 
 February 1797, chased by two Spanish ships-of-the-line, and soon 
 afterwards came in sight of the whole Spanish fleet. On the I3th he 
 was enabled to communicate this to Sir John Jervis, whom he found 
 off Cape St Vincent. He was then ordered to shift his broad pen- 
 nant to the Captain, 74, Captain R. W. Miller. On the morning of 
 the 1 4th, day broke with light winds and foggy weather, and the 
 Spanish fleet was discovered through the haze much scattered, while 
 the British ships preserved close order of battle ; and by carrying a 
 press of sail, passed through the Spanish fleet, so as to cut off nine 
 ships from the main body. The Spanish admiral, who was to wind- 
 ward, attempted to join his ships to leeward, which Nelson, who was 
 in the rear, perceiving, he had no sooner passed the rear of the wind- 
 ward ships of the enemy than, notwithstanding the signal from Sir 
 John Jervis to tack in succession, he ordered the Captain to be wore 
 round, and stood towards the Spaniards, thus frustrating their union. 
 The sixth ship from the Spanish rear was the Santissima Trinidada, 
 of 136 guns upon four decks, carrying the flag of the Spanish 
 admiral. Without a moment's hesitation, Nelson, in his little 74, 
 not only engaged this truly formidable opponent, but had also to 
 contend against her seconds, ahead and astern, each of three decks. 
 
 Nelson's manoeuvre, and the purport of it, was quickly revealed to 
 the British fleet, and the most enthusiastic admiration, mingled with 
 anxiety, pervaded every breast as they saw three or four other large 
 Spanish ships gathering round' him. His old messmate, Troubridge, 
 in the Culloden 74, hastened to his support, and was followed by the 
 Blenheim, 90, Captain Frederick, who took off the heat of the fire from 
 the Captain. The brave Collingwood, in the Excellent, soon after- 
 wards joined in the fight, and one or two of the Spaniards hauled 
 down their colours. Rear-admiral Parker, with the Prince George, 
 Orion, Irresistible, and Diadem, were on the advance ; and the 
 Spanish admiral, instead of joining his ships to leeward, made signal 
 for his fleet to haul their wind on the larboard tack, and make sail. 
 
 Nelson, after quitting the Santissima Trinidada, engaged the San
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 Josef, a three-decker, carrying a rear-admiral's flag, and the San 
 Nicholas, 80, till these latter two ships got foul of each other, when 
 the commodore ordered the boarders to be called, and the helm of 
 the Captain being clapped a-starboard, her sprit-sail yard hooked in 
 the main-rigging of the San Nicholas, and that desperate rush of 
 seamen, which must be witnessed to be properly understood, ensued. 
 Lieutenant Berry boarded by the mizzen-rigging of the enemy, the 
 commodore entered by the quarter-gallery window ; but the affray 
 did not last long ; the Spanish brigadier fell whilst retreating to his 
 quarter-deck ; and the San Nicholas was soon in full possession of 
 her conquerors. 
 
 The stern windows of the San Josef were directly over the 
 weather-beam of the San Nicholas, and from these and the poop the 
 Spaniards kept up a galling fire of musketry upon the British in the 
 prize ; but Nelson was equal to this emergency, and calling for more 
 men from the Captain, he shouted : ' Westminster Abbey, or glorious 
 victory ! ' and, taking the lead, boarded the three-decker : a Spanish 
 officer looked over the quarter-deck rail and said ' they surrendered.' 
 Nelson ascended to the quarter-deck, where he received the sword 
 of the Spanish captain, who stated that the admiral was ' below 
 dying of his wounds.' The officers in succession tendered the com- 
 modore their swords, which he passed to a Norfolk-man, one of his 
 old Agamemnons, who tucked them under his left arm with the same 
 composure as if collecting sticks for a fagot. To estimate properly 
 the nature of the victory which Nelson had achieved, it may be 
 mentioned that, while the Spanish fleet consisted of twenty-seven sail- 
 of-the-line and nine frigates the whole carrying 2282 guns the 
 British fleet amounted to fifteen sail-of-the-line, four frigates, and 
 three smaller vessels, carrying an aggregate of 1232 guns. 
 
 As soon as the battle was over, Nelson went on board the admiral's 
 ship. Sir John Jervis took the commodore in his arms on the 
 quarter-deck, and declared that 'he could not sufficiently thank him.' 
 Yet in his public dispatches the admiral made no particular mention 
 of Nelson, or his gallant achievement by which the conquest was 
 gained. The commander-in-chief, who did scarcely anything, was 
 created Earl St Vincent, with a pension of .3000 a year ; and the 
 intrepid and heroic Nelson (whose rank as rear-admiral was on its 
 way to him at the time of the action) received the Order of the Bath. 
 The real facts, however, could not be long concealed from the nation ; 
 the public press teemed with the gallant exploit ; applause and con- 
 gratulations poured in from all quarters ; and though Sir John Jervis 
 got the earldom, it was Nelson who received all the honour. 
 
 Soon afterwards, Sir Horatio hoisted his flag (blue at the mizzen) 
 in the Theseus, 74, having Captain Miller under him. This ship had 
 been prominent in the mutiny in England ; but the rear-admiral 
 had not long been on board before a paper was picked up on the 
 quarter-deck with these words : ' Success attend Admiral Nelson \
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 God bless Captain Miller ! We thank them for the officers they 
 have placed over us. We are happy and comfortable, and will shed 
 every drop of blood in our veins to support them ; and the name of 
 the Theseus shall be immortalised as high as the Captairfs. 
 
 At the blockade of Cadiz, Sir Horatio had the command of the in- 
 shore squadron ; and in a boat action at night his barge got along- 
 side of a large Spanish launch of twenty-six men. Nelson had only 
 his ten bargemen, Captain Freemantle, and John Sykes, his coxswain. 
 The contest was desperate hand to hand with cutlasses. Sykes 
 twice saved the admiral's life by receiving the blows once upon 
 his own head that were intended for his chief. Eighteen of the 
 enemy were killed, and all the rest wounded, including the com- 
 mandant : the launch was captured. 
 
 About a fortnight after this encounter the rear-admiral led an 
 expedition against the island of Teneriffe ; but it utterly failed ; 
 though even in this instance the character of Englishmen was 
 respected by the Spaniards. Nelson was stepping out of his boat 
 at the landing, when a shot struck his right elbow and shattered it. 
 He had drawn his sword which was given him by his uncle Captain 
 Suckling ; the blow forced him to drop it ; but catching it with his 
 left hand, remarked that ' he had promised never to part with it 
 while he lived.' His son-in-law, Lieutenant Nisbet, got him into 
 the boat, and, whilst rowing off to the Theseus under the enemy's 
 guns, the Fox cutter was sunk by a shot, and 97 men perished in 
 her. Nelson ordered his boat to the assistance of those who were 
 swimming ; and, notwithstanding the great anguish he was suffering,, 
 personally assisted in rescuing many from death : 83 were saved. 
 On getting on board his own ship, his arm was amputated, and 
 his mind appears to have taken a rather gloomy view of his future 
 prospects. He returned to England, where distinguished honours 
 awaited him. The freedom of the cities of London and Bristol were 
 presented to him, and he was awarded a pension of 1000 a year. 
 The requisite memorial of his services stated that he had been four 
 times engaged with fleets, and no less than one hundred and twenty 
 times in action ; had assisted at the capture of seven sail-of-the-line, 
 six frigates, four corvettes, eleven privateers of different sizes, and 
 taken or destroyed nearly fifty sail of merchant vessels. On his 
 appearance at court, after being invested with the Order of the Bath, 
 the king received him most graciously, and condoled with him on 
 the loss he had sustained, which he feared might deprive the country 
 of his future services. Nelson replied : ' I can never think that a 
 loss which the performance of my duty has occasioned ; and so long 
 as I have a foot to stand on, I will combat for my king and country.' 
 
 When the rear-admiral's arm was amputated, a nerve had been 
 taken up with, or instead of, an artery, and the constant irritation 
 and anguish this caused almost wore out his already shattered frame; 
 the ligature at last came away, and he was freed from pain. On the
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 -occasion of his recovery, with that pious feeling which has been 
 already remarked as a feature of his character, he transmitted a note 
 of thanks to the minister of St George's, Hanover Square : ' An 
 officer desires to return thanks to Almighty God for his perfect 
 recovery from a severe wound, and also for the many mercies 
 bestowed on him.' 
 
 BATTLE OF THE NILE. 
 
 At the close of 1797, Sir Horatio hoisted his flag in the Vanguard, 
 74, and on the 2Qth April 1798 he joined Earl St Vincent off Cadiz. 
 The next day he was detached from the commander-in-chief with 
 two seventy-fours, two frigates, and a sloop of war, and was shortly 
 aftenvards joined by Troubridge in the Culloden, with ten more sail- 
 of-the-line, the whole intended to watch the proceedings of an 
 expedition then fitting out at Toulon, and supposed to be destined 
 for Malta and Egypt. The first news Nelson received of this arma- 
 ment was, that it had taken Malta, and he prepared to attack the 
 fleet at anchor ; but further intelligence told him that it had already 
 .sailed ; and still conjecturing they were gone to Egypt, thither did 
 Nelson follow. He arrived off Alexandria on the 28th of June; 
 but the French were not there, and he returned to Sicily without 
 obtaining any information of them. Through the secret agency 
 of Sir William Hamilton, the ambassador at Naples, he obtained 
 requisite supplies, and again renewed his search, endeavouring to 
 gain intelligence wherever he could; till at last he resolved 
 once more to visit Alexandria, where, on the forenoon of the 1st 
 August 1798, he saw the French fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay, and 
 made immediate dispositions for the attack. The English had 
 thirteen ships-of-the-line, all seventy-fours, and one 50, carrying in 
 the whole 1012 guns and 8068 men. The French had the same 
 number of line-of-battle ships, of which there was one of 120 guns 
 and three of 80 : there were, besides, four frigates. The number 
 of their men was 11,230, and the number of guns 1196. Nelson's 
 plan was to double upon the French, and anchor his ships, one 
 on the outer bow, and another on the outer quarter of each ship 
 of the enemy's as far as his force would extend. A heavy cannonade 
 commenced as the British advanced; but not a shot was returned, 
 as the crews were aloft furling sails. At length, when anchored 
 mostly by the stern, the English opened a destructive fire. The 
 Vanguard had six colours flying in different parts of the rigging; 
 and the whole of the ships being judiciously placed, the battle raged 
 with the utmost fury. Unfortunately the Culloden took the ground ; 
 and though she served as a beacon to warn others of the danger, yet 
 she could not join the fight. It was quite dark before the whole 
 of the fleet had anchored. 
 
 It was about the middle of the action, and after several French
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 ships had struck, that Nelson was severely cut on the head by either 
 a heavy splinter or langrage ; the skin of his forehead was stript 
 away, and hung down over his face. He was carried below to the 
 cockpit, and, from the great effusion of blood, it was feared the 
 wound was mortal. The surgeon hurrying to examine him, he 
 exclaimed : ' No, I will take my turn with my brave fellows ;' and 
 believing himself to be dying, he signed a post-captain's commission 
 for Thomas Hardy, who commanded the M^ltine brig. When the 
 surgeon had examined the wound, and pronounced it to be a severe 
 flesh wound that was not mortal, the utmost joy prevailed ; and as 
 soon as it was dressed, he sat down and began the official letter 
 which appeared in the Gazette. The largest of the French ships,. 
 L'Orient, carrying the flag of Admiral Brueys, took fire, and the 
 flames, amidst the darkness of night, rendered the colours of both, 
 fleets distinguishable. Nelson, with his head bandaged, and almost 
 deprived of sight, found his way to the quarter-deck of the Vanguard, 
 and despatched boats to rescue all they could from the burning pile ; 
 but about ten o'clock she blew up with an explosion that shook 
 every ship, and from the awe which the spectacle occasioned, 
 reduced every vessel on both sides to silence for several minutes. 
 The cannonading was partially continued till three in the morning, 
 when it ceased, leaving the English in possession of nine French 
 ships-of-the-line. Two were burnt ; and two, with a couple of 
 frigates, effected their escape. Of the other two frigates, one was 
 sunk ; the second, after hauling down her colours, was set fire to by 
 her captain, and destroyed. The loss of the English, in killed and 
 wounded, was 895 ; that of the French, 5225 ; the rest, including the 
 wounded, were sent on shore. 
 
 As soon as the conquest was completed, Nelson ordered on board 
 every ship a thanksgiving for the victory which had blessed his 
 Majesty's arms ; and the solemn stillness that prevailed throughout 
 the fleet during the performance of this ceremony made a deep 
 impression upon both friends and foes. Nelson had been well 
 aware that the object of the French army was to attack our posses- 
 sions in the East Indies ; and now that this was frustrated, he 
 despatched an officer to Bombay, who conveyed information to the 
 governor of the total destruction of the fleet, and thus was prevented 
 an enormous outlay for defensive operations, which had been already 
 begun. 
 
 The victory of the Nile was received by the nation with delight, 
 for it was felt to have at once frustrated the designs of Bonaparte, 
 and vastly elevated the reputation of the British navy. So highly 
 were Nelson's achievements on this occasion esteemed, that he was 
 raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Nelson of the Nile, and a 
 pension of 2000 a year was granted for his own life and two suc- 
 cessors. The parliament of Ireland also granted him a pension of 
 1000 per annum ; the East India Company presented him with 
 
 23
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 10,000 ; and various other gifts were bestowed from different bodies 
 in England : whilst from Turkey, Sicily, Naples, Sardinia, &c. rich 
 presents were forwarded. 
 
 It is delightful, amidst all Nelson's successes in the cruel business 
 of war, to find symptoms of his generous nature continually breaking 
 out. When the government was distributing its honours, he was 
 particularly anxious that his old friend Troubridge and his first- 
 lieutenant should not be overlooked. But the Culloden having been 
 stranded in the commencement of the action, it seemed quite impos- 
 sible to official judgment that her officers should be in any way 
 distinguished. Nelson pleaded earnestly against this decision. ' It 
 was Troubridge,' he said, ' who equipped the squadron so soon at 
 Syracuse ; it was Troubridge who exerted himself for me after the 
 action ; it was Troubridge who saved the Culloden, when none that 
 I know in the service would have attempted it.' It is distressing to 
 add that these disinterested solicitations did not prevail with respect 
 to Troubridge ; Nelson only obtained permission to promote the 
 lieutenant on the first vacancy. 
 
 Seventeen days after the battle, Nelson quitted Aboukir Bay for 
 Naples, where he arrived on the 22d of September, in a state of the 
 greatest weakness, in consequence of a severe illness which had 
 attacked him on the passage. The Neapolitans and their court, 
 apprised of his victory by two vessels which had preceded him, 
 received him with all possible honours. He remained at this city 
 till December, and it was on this occasion that his hitherto respect- 
 .able character was first tarnished by a disgraceful connection with 
 Lady Hamilton, which proved the bane of his future existence. It 
 is painful to see dishonour thus at length fall, in the midst of great 
 triumphs, upon one who had been entirely amiable and pure while 
 struggling with all kinds of adverse circumstances. The worst, 
 however, was not yet come. We have now to trace the career of 
 Nelson through a more historical dishonour; partly, however, the 
 result of the other. Naples was at this time overpowered by the 
 French arms, and all that Nelson could do was to carry off the 
 imbecile king and his court to Palermo. Aided by the French, a 
 small party of Neapolitans, including many of the nobility, formed a 
 republican government ; but it did not last long. A change in the 
 state of the French armies caused the withdrawal of most of the 
 troops from Naples. The opportunity was taken by the king's 
 friends to restore his sway. The handful of leading patriots could 
 only throw themselves into two forts, and capitulate for their lives 
 and property. At this crisis Nelson entered on the scene with his 
 fleet, and, full of fervour for the interests of the king, and to gratify 
 Lady Hamilton, he interfered to annul the terms of the capitulation. 
 The unfortunate republicans were handed over to the vengeance of 
 the court, which was sanguinary in the extreme. Nelson caused the 
 aged Prince Caraccioli to be tried by his enemies, and immediately 
 26
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 hanged at the yard-arm of a Neapolitan vessel. His generous 
 nature seems to have been on this occasion completely changed ; 
 and the whole series of transactions must ever remain a remarkable 
 illustration of the power of one degrading error to produce others 
 and worse. 
 
 After performing other important services, which the Neapolitan 
 king acknowledged by conferring upon him the title of Duke of 
 Bronte", with a wealthy appanage, Nelson, accompanied by Sir 
 William and Lady Hamilton, returned to England, travelling through 
 Germany to Hamburg by land. During his journey he received 
 high honours from all authorities j and on reaching Yarmouth, the 
 rejoicings were extreme. In the metropolis his lordship met with 
 the most enthusiastic reception from the sovereign as well as his 
 subjects ; and the day succeeding his arrival being Lord Mayor's 
 Day, he was invited to the civic feast, where a sword of 200 guineas' 
 value was presented to him. For several months he remained in 
 England ; but though feted and distinguished, his mind was far 
 from easy ; for, in consequence of his association with Lady 
 Hamilton, he had separated from his wife, and he desired active 
 employment to avert dismal reflection. 
 
 EXPEDITION AGAINST DENMARK. 
 
 His wish was quickly gratified ; for, government having been 
 made aware that Napoleon purposed obtaining possession of the 
 fleets of the northern powers, to make up for those captured and 
 destroyed by England, Sir Hyde Parker was sent with an adequate 
 force to Copenhagen to secure the Danish ships, and Nelson was 
 appointed to act under him. With twelve sail-of-the-line he boldly 
 attacked the Danes, whose batteries ashore, as well as afloat, were 
 extremely formidable. Sir Hyde Parker, with the rest of the fleet, 
 lay at a considerable distance ; and Nelson was deprived of the 
 support of two of his own squadron, that grounded on the shoals. 
 Nevertheless his magnanimity did not desert him for one moment. 
 The battle was one of the most determined and desperate that have 
 been fought. About the middle of it, Sir Hyde Parker, who could 
 perceive the hot fire that was kept up upon the British, hoisted the 
 signal to ' discontinue the action.' This was reported to Nelson, who, 
 placing his glass to his blind eye, declared that 'he could not see it;' 
 adding : ' Keep my flag for closer battle flying nail it to the mast.' 
 
 A characteristic instance of Nelson's coolness occurred towards 
 the close of the engagement. Desirous of sparing a further effusion 
 of blood, his lordship wrote a letter to the crown-prince : ' Vice- 
 admiral Lord Nelson has been commanded to spare Denmark when 
 she no longer resists. The line of defence which covered her shores 
 has struck to the British flag; but if the firing is continued on the 
 part of Denmark, he must set on fire all the prizes that he has taken, 
 
 27
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 without having the power of saving the men who have so nobly 
 defended them. The brave Danes are the brothers, and should 
 never be the enemies of the English.' His attendant placed a box 
 of wafers before him, but Nelson put them aside, and ordered a 
 candle to be brought, by which means he sealed the letter with wax, 
 observing, that ' this was no time to appear hurried and informal.' 
 A flag of truce conveyed the communication ashore ; it led to the 
 suspension of hostilities ; and Nelson extricated his own shattered 
 fleet from imminent peril, and brought out the prizes they had 
 captured. The English sustained a loss in killed and wounded of 
 953 ; the Danes, including prisoners, of 6000. 
 
 In order to arrange preliminaries of peace, Nelson landed, and 
 walking almost alone amidst the enemy he had been contending 
 against, was received with silent respect. He afterwards partook of 
 a repast prepared by the crown-prince. The prizes six ships-of-the- 
 line and eight praams, were safely brought out ; but only one of the 
 former was sent home, Sir Hyde Parker ordering the rest to be 
 burned where they lay, so that their fine brass guns, which sank 
 with the hulls, were afterwards recovered by the Danes. This 
 proceeding was in opposition to the wishes of Nelson, who looked 
 upon it as robbing the officers and seamen of their prize-money. 
 His lordship was also extremely discontented at the dilatoriness of 
 the commander-in-chief, for he apprehended the junction of the 
 Russian and Swedish fleets to act against the English ; and though 
 he never doubted the achieving a victory over them, yet his mind 
 was anxious to prevent the slaughter that must ensue. Sir Hyde 
 sailed with the ships fit for service, leaving Nelson to follow with 
 the rest ; but the latter, on hearing that the English and Swedish 
 fleets were near to each other, quitted his ship (the St George) in 
 an open boat, and rowed nearly thirty miles, till he got on board 
 the Elephant about midnight the wind cold and piercing and in 
 the hurry of departure his greatcoat had been left behind. The next 
 day they saw the Swedish fleet, which took shelter in Carlscrona. 
 
 On the 5th May 1801, Sir Hyde Parker was recalled: Nelson 
 received the appointment of commander-in-chief, and his title as 
 viscount. Prompt measures immediately followed ; by his active 
 exertions, aided by the death of the Emperor Paul, the northern 
 confederacy was broken up ; and though Denmark prepared to 
 resent the conduct of the English, and the crown-prince was still 
 under the dictation of Napoleon, yet they were powerless to act. 
 
 Sir Charles Maurice Pole succeeded Nelson in the command ; for 
 the latter had earnestly entreated to be recalled, as his health was 
 rapidly declining in that inclement climate ; but he would not 
 weaken the fleet by returning home in any of the large ships, 
 contenting himself with a brig ; and on his landing at Yarmouth, 
 the first place he visited was the hospital, to see the brave wounded 
 who had fought with him at Copenhagen. 
 28
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 A few weeks afterwards, on the apprehensions of invasion, he was 
 appointed to command from Orfordness to Beachy Head. He 
 attacked the French flotilla at Boulogne ; but the peace of Amiens 
 put a stop to further hostilities, and Nelson retired to an estate he 
 had purchased at Merton, in Surrey. Here he was not allowed to 
 remain long ; for war being renewed, he was appointed commander- 
 in-chief of the, Mediterranean fleet. The French put to sea from 
 Toulon ; his lordship went in pursuit during a succession of severe 
 gales, which compelled the enemy to return to port. In March 1805 
 they again sailed, and having formed a junction off Cadiz with the 
 Spaniards (against whom war had also been declared), this formidable 
 fleet quitted the Mediterranean, designing to attack the British 
 possessions in the West Indies. The combined fleet consisted of 
 twenty sail-of-the-line, seven 44-gun frigates, one of 26 guns, three 
 corvettes, and a brig. Nelson, when he at length was apprised of 
 their course, unhesitatingly pursued with ten sail-of-the-line and three 
 frigates. He followed them closely, sometimes deceived by false 
 intelligence, and at others making himself assured of falling in with 
 them; but it soon appeared that even the inferior force of Nelson 
 was sufficient to deter the French admiral, for suddenly his course 
 was altered, and he conducted his fleet back to Europe. Again Nelson 
 pursued, and on the I9th June anchored at Gibraltar. The next day, 
 he remarks in his diary : ' I went on shore for the first time since 
 June 1 6, 1803, and from having my foot out of the Victory, two years 
 wanting ten days;' in fact, from May 1803 to August 1805, he quitted 
 his ship but three times, each time upon the king's service, and his 
 absence never exceeded an hour. 
 
 At Gibraltar he obtained no news of the French. Once more he 
 went in search of them, and after traversing the Bay of Biscay and 
 other seas, on the I5th August he received orders to proceed with 
 the Victory and Siiperb to Portsmouth. On his arrival at that place, 
 he learned that the French fleet, consisting of twenty sail-of-the- 
 line, three 5o-gun ships, five frigates, and two brigs, had been 
 attacked by Sir Robert Calder with fifteen sail-of-the-line, two 
 frigates, a cutter, and a lugger, on the 22d July, sixty leagues west 
 of Cape Finisterre, and two sail of the French line captured. The 
 fleets remained in sight of each other till the 26th, when the French 
 bore away for Vigo, where, having refitted, they proceeded to Ferrol, 
 and taking another squadron from thence, succeeded in getting into 
 Cadiz. For not doing more, Sir Robert Calder was tried by court- 
 martial, and adjudged to be severely reprimanded. 
 
 LAST GREAT VICTORY AND DEATH. 
 
 Nelson again offered his services, and they were willingly accepted : 
 he hoisted his flag in the Victory, and on the 2Qth September, his 
 birthday, took his station off Cadiz, where a rigorous blockade was
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 instituted to force the enemy to sea. From this period till the 
 October, Nelson daily took an opportunity of imparting to his captains 
 the mode of attack he purposed to adopt, not merely for subduing, 
 but annihilating the enemy ; adding : ' If his signals could not be 
 seen or clearly understood, no captain can do wrong if he places his 
 ship alongside that of an enemy.' 
 
 On the i Qth, Villeneuve quitted Cadiz, and on the 2 1st, after some 
 skilful manoeuvring, he formed the combined fleet into a crescent, 
 verging to leeward, every opening in his order of battle being filled 
 up by a ship under the lee of the French. The number of the enemy 
 was fifteen Spanish and eighteen French, making thirty-three ships- 
 of-the-line. The English, with twenty-seven line-of-battle ships, 
 bore down in two divisions, the van led by Nelson, the rear by Lord 
 Collingwood, who, on account of the van steering more to the north- 
 ward, was the first in action. Whilst running down, Nelson made 
 his last celebrated telegraphic signal : 
 
 ' England expects every man will do his duty,' 
 
 which was received throughout the fleet with a burst of acclamation, 
 harmonising with the spirit which it breathed. ' Now,' said Nelson, 
 'I can do no more; we must trust to the Great Disposer of all 
 events, and the justice of our cause. I thank God for this great 
 opportunity of doing my duty.' 
 
 It appears that this hero of a hundred fights was on the present 
 occasion assured of victory, but at the same time under a presenti- 
 ment that he himself should not survive. Fully believing that his 
 last hour was at hand, he had gone into his cabin and written a 
 prayer, as also a paper bequeathing to the care of his country the 
 infamous woman who had been the only disgrace of his life. One 
 of his captains found him calm, but exhibiting none of the exhilara- 
 tion with which he had entered upon the battles of Aboukir and 
 Copenhagen. It being known that there were select musketeers 
 throughout the French ships, many of them Tyrolese, he was 
 entreated to lay aside the frock-coat bearing his various decorations, 
 as these might cause him to be singled out by some experienced 
 marksman ; but with a sort of infatuation, he refused, saying : ' In 
 honour I gained them, and in honour I will die with them.' With 
 difficulty he was induced to consent that two other vessels should 
 be allowed to go into action before his own ; but he nevertheless 
 pressed on, and thus rendered the concession practically unavailing, 
 as the two vessels were thereby prevented from passing his own. 
 The Victory, while approaching the Santissima Trinidada Nelson's 
 old adversary at Cape St Vincent was severely raked by the 
 numerous guns of that vessel ; fifty men were killed ; and Nelson's 
 secretary, Mr Scott, fell by his side. He was soon in the heat of 
 battle, with the Santissima Trinidada and Bucentaur close on one 
 side, and the Redoubtable equally close on the other so that he had 
 30
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 occasion to fire from both sides. After the action had continued for 
 about an hour, supposing the Redoubtable had surrendered for she 
 was silenced, and bore no flag he gave orders, with his usual 
 humanity, to cease firing upon her. This order had been repeated 
 more earnestly than before, when from that very vessel he received 
 his death-wound. It was at about a quarter past one that a musket- 
 ball from the rigging of the Redotibtable struck him on the left 
 shoulder, carrying part of the lace of his epaulette into his body. 
 He fell upon his face amidst the blood of his slain secretary. As 
 a sergeant of marines and two seamen raised him up, he said to- 
 his captain : ' They have done for me at last, Hardy.' 
 
 ' I hope not,' replied Captain Hardy. 
 
 'Yes,' he rejoined, ' my backbone is shot through.' 
 
 Yet he preserved so much presence of mind, that, while they 
 were conveying him down, he gave an order about the tiller-ropes,, 
 which he observed to have been injured. He was laid on a 
 mattress in the midshipmen's berth. Mr (afterwards Sir William) 
 Beatty, the surgeon, attended him, and ascertained by the symptoms 
 that the wound was mortal, the ball having lodged in the spine ; but 
 the fact of his danger was concealed from the crew. Nelson knew 
 that his end was approaching, and entreated his surgeon to leave 
 him, and attend to those to whom he might be useful Whilst lying 
 in great agony, he heard the cheers of his people as each of the 
 enemy struck, and a gleam of joy each time illumined his counten- 
 ance. He issued his orders clearly and distinctly, and conversed 
 affectionately with those around him, frequently thanking God most 
 fervently that he had done his duty. When' Hardy came down, he 
 eagerly asked how the day was going. ' Very well,' said the captain ; 
 ' ten of the enemy have struck.' Returning rather less than an hour 
 after, he took the hand of the dying admiral, and congratulated him 
 on having gained a complete victory. He expressed gratification on 
 learning that fourteen or fifteen of the enemy's vessels had sur- 
 rendered, but remarked : ' I bargained for twenty.' He recommended 
 Hardy immediately to anchor an order which, had it been followed, 
 might have made the victory over the enemy more complete. After 
 having spoken some words to his chaplain, he breathed this sentence 
 and it was his last ' I thank God I have done my duty.' He 
 expired at half-past four, three hours and a quarter after receiving 
 the fatal wound. 
 
 Ultimately, the vessels taken reached the number required by 
 Nelson; but, from the neglect of his order to anchor, a gale which 
 came on dispersed and sunk several of them. Still, the battle of 
 Trafalgar was a death-blow to the maritime power of France and 
 Spain, and proved of incalculable service to England, counterpoising 
 as it did the great land successes of Napoleon, by which it appeared 
 as if our country must have otherwise been reduced in a few years 
 to French domination. The victory was gained at great expense ;
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 since, besides the irreparable loss of Nelson, there fell 23 officers, 15 
 petty officers, and 409 seamen and marines ; while 52 officers, 57 
 petty officers, and 1177 seamen and marines were wounded. The 
 losses on the part of the enemy are scarcely calculable, but must 
 have been several thousands, on account of the severe gales that 
 followed the battle. 
 
 All that a grateful nation could bestow upon a dead hero was 
 manifested towards the devoted Nelson. His remains were landed 
 at Greenwich, and lay in gorgeous state three days. A public 
 funeral, attended by most of the male members of the royal family, 
 took place in St Paul's Cathedral. His brother was created Earl 
 Nelson, with a grant of .6000 a year : .10,000 was voted to each of 
 his sisters, and .100,000 for the purchase of an estate. Statues and 
 monuments have been erected to his memory ; but perhaps none is 
 more characteristic of quiet after the storms of life than the tomb 
 raised over his body in the crypt of St Paul's. It is a sarcophagus 
 of black marble, which was originally prepared by order of Cardinal 
 Wolsey for his own remains. On the pedestal are the words, 
 HORATIO VISCOUNT NELSON. His old friend Collingwood lies 
 under an altar-tomb on one side of Nelson's ; and on the other is 
 the body of the Earl of Northesk, another distinguished naval 
 commander. 
 
 The character of Nelson has been seen displayed in his actions. 
 He was ardent and fearless in the line of his duty to an extra- 
 ordinary extent. No labour or sacrifice seemed to him too great 
 which promised to make him better as a sailor and an officer ; no 
 danger appalled him where he saw a reasonable chance of succeeding 
 in an enterprise. There was in him a singular union of sagacity 
 with these ardent qualities ; and while unwilling to be too ready to 
 admit difficulties, yet it was observed that he generally kept a steady 
 eye at the same time to the means by which any of his objects were 
 to be realised. The originality and genius of the man are fully 
 shewn in the number of remarkable expressions which he is remem- 
 bered as using on particular occasions his last signal being the 
 chief. When we consider, in addition to these high qualities, his 
 generous and magnanimous nature his constant readiness to 
 acknowledge merit in others his invariable humanity we must 
 admit that few characters have exceeded that of Nelson in all 
 desirable gifts. It clearly appears that these qualities, without any 
 extrinsic aid whatever, bore our hero onward from the humblest 
 rank in the service that a gentleman ever accepts, to the supreme 
 command ; and his life thus becomes a valuable illustration of a 
 truth which cannot be too deeply impressed, that good character 
 and conduct form the true talisman of success. 
 
 3'
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS 1 VILLAGE. 
 
 A STORY.* 
 
 OSWALD RETURNS FROM THE WARS TO HIS NATIVE VILLAGE THE 
 MILLER TELLS HIS STORY. 
 
 [NE fine summer afternoon, a good many years ago, 
 the outdoor loiterers of Goldenthal, who were listlessly 
 spending their time beneath the shade of the bushy lime- 
 trees which overhung the village street, had their atten- 
 tion drawn to a stranger who was making his way 
 towards them. Tall, well made, and dressed in a gray coat, with 
 a knapsack on his back and a sword at his side, he was evidently 
 no ordinary wanderer. He looked so formidable, with a large scar 
 on his brow, and a black moustache under his nose, that the children 
 shrunk aside from him as he passed up the village. The shout which 
 some of them raised brought several old women to the doors, and 
 
 * This simple story is a translation from Das Goldmacher-Dorf of Heinrich Zschokke, 
 a late popular writer in Germany, whose pen was devoted to the improvement of the 
 humbler classes of society. To bring it within the compass of a sheet, the story is 
 slightly abridged ; and to adapt it to the apprehension, as well as to excite the sympathies 
 of English readers, some of the descriptions and sentiments have been necessarily altered 
 or modified. In other respects, the child-like simplicity of the original remains. ED. 
 
 18
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 these soon recognised the stranger. 'Here is Oswald again,' they 
 exclaimed, ' who went for a soldier years ago.' 
 
 A crowd was soon collected round the wayfarer, who was kindly 
 greeted by all his old friends and acquaintances, every one inquiring 
 if he had come back to reside amongst them. To these inquiries 
 Oswald announced that, tired of the life of a soldier, he had given 
 up the military profession, and intended to remain for the rest of 
 his days in the village of Goldenthal. Pleased with the intelligence, 
 and desirous of gathering an account of our hero's life, a number of 
 persons asked him to retire to a tavern with them for a little friendly 
 chat; but this invitation he respectfully declined, and asked them 
 by whom his father's house was now inhabited. The miller, who 
 had taken care of the house and land left by Oswald's father to 
 his son, now came forward and said that a few days only would be 
 required to make the house ready for its new inmate, and, in the 
 meantime, he should have pleasure in entertaining Oswald at the 
 mill. This kind invitation was accepted ; and, after spending a few 
 days with the sensible and hospitable miller, the retired soldier 
 took possession of his own house. 
 
 For some time, Oswald was so busily engaged in making a 
 number of repairs and improvements on his premises, that he had no 
 time to bestow on intercourse with his neighbours, whose amusements 
 were anything but agreeable to him. In consequence of this neglect, 
 the villagers began to cherish bad suspicions against the new settler, 
 and to make remarks on his conduct. They said they could not 
 understand the man his foreign travel had made him churlish and 
 unsocial constantly toiling or reading, he did not seem to have 
 a moment to spare for an occasional sip at the wine-flask a strange 
 thing, indeed, for an old soldier not to take a glass. 
 
 Possessing naturally much good sense, which had been greatly 
 improved by experience in the bustling life which he had led, and also 
 some choice reading, Oswald possessed opinions on various subjects 
 considerably different from those of his old village companions, 
 whose proceedings were not at all to his mind. A yearning for the 
 scenes of his infancy had brought him back to Goldenthal, which 
 he loved with all its shortcomings and errors. It grieved him, on 
 looking through the village, and learning something of its history, to 
 discover that it had been for some years declining in its prosperity, 
 and was now in an exceedingly bad condition. Formerly, it could 
 boast of not a few respectable men in good circumstances, persons 
 who could creditably take a lead in affairs; with a considerable 
 number who, though not rich, were yet industrious, and removed 
 above poverty. And what a difference now ! Except the miller, the 
 tavern-keepers, and two or three farmers, the people were generally 
 worse than poor, for they were in debt. There was likewise a 
 deterioration of manners, and things upon the whole looked desolate. 
 Many of the houses were greatly in want of repair; rubbish lay in
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 masses in different quarters ; the gutters were far from cleanly, and 
 sent up a pestiferous odour ; while the insides of the houses were cor- 
 respondingly mean and untidy. The clothes of the people, also, did 
 not seem what they used to be ; their universal shabbiness shewing 
 a want of self-respect. To complete the picture, men might be seen 
 at all hours listlessly dozing away existence with pipes in their 
 mouths, instead of working at some useful occupation. All too 
 truly told a tale ,of sloth and impoverishment. Oswald took the 
 liberty of hinting at these symptoms of general decline ; but he was 
 only abused for his pains. It is a thankless task to remind people 
 of their duties. 
 
 Distressed with all he had seen, Oswald betook himself one day 
 to the house of the miller, who could sympathise with him in his 
 feelings. 'Pray, tell me, my friend,' said he, 'what has been the 
 cause of this strange social degeneracy ? When I departed from 
 Goldenthal, it was a brisk little prosperous place ; now it is all going 
 to ruin. Surely it has not been scourged to a greater extent by war 
 than its neighbours?' 
 
 'You are right,' replied the miller; 'our village has not suffered 
 by war more than other villages which are flourishing. The 
 causes of our decay are more continually at work, and I shall try to 
 give you an insight into them. There has been gradually creeping 
 over us a disposition to take things 'easily. Two or three men, who 
 are our parish-officers, are tavern-keepers, and they manage public 
 business for their own benefit. The village common, which used to 
 be of some consequence, is thus badly managed ; in fact, the funds 
 are abused, and no little is spent in feasting and carousing. Still, 
 you would say, it must after all be people's own blame if they get 
 poor; the mere robbery of some public revenues cannot do it. 
 That is true. But, with a bad example before them, the bulk of the 
 villagers become careless, imitate bad habits, and, in short, spend a 
 large share of their earnings in the taverns, and at cards and 
 billiards. It is a curious thing, I tell you, that few men are able to 
 keep the small properties left them by their fathers and grandfathers. 
 They first get them burdened with debt, and then they are compelled 
 to sell them. It all comes from following low habits.' 
 
 'When you have known all this,' said Oswald, 'why did you not 
 expose it, so as to open the eyes of the people ?' 
 
 'Because I had no hope of a good result,' said the miller; 'for, 
 while all allow that we are in a deplorable case, and all will agree in 
 general complaints and reproaches, none will thank you for attempt- 
 ing to discover the true causes of our decline, since every one fears 
 lest he should have to bear some portion of the blame.' 
 
 'What ! is there neither conscience nor religion left in the place ? ' 
 exclaimed Oswald. 'What does the parson say to all this ?' 
 
 'Oh, he preaches on his customary round of topics, but never 
 enters particularly into the real circumstances of the people, nor 
 
 3 
 
 429451
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 makes any close and practical application of his doctrine to them, 
 He is an old man, rather reserved and haughty in his manners. 
 He seems ^to preach from habit, as the people go to church from 
 habit, and come back no better. And the young are following the 
 example of their elders.' 
 
 ' Is your schoolmaster, then, good for nothing?" Oswald asked. 
 
 'Since your father died,' said the miller, 'our school has never 
 prospered. The boys and girls learn, by compulsion, to read, write, 
 and reckon a little, and perhaps to repeat a prayer besides ; but 
 then, what is this against all that they learn from their parents at 
 home deceit and lying, swearing, quarrelling, begging and stealing, 
 idleness and intemperance, envy and slander.' 
 
 Oswald heard with pain all that the miller had to tell of the 
 parish, then shook his head with a dejected air, and went away to 
 meditate on the melancholy account. 
 
 II. 
 
 OSWALD BOLDLY ATTEMPTS THE REFORMATION OF GOLDENTHAL, 
 AND ENCOUNTERS PERSECUTION. 
 
 On the next Sunday, after service, the people, as is customary in 
 Germany, were assembled under the large lime-trees on the green. 
 A weighty matter had drawn them together ; for not only had they 
 to consider how they should raise the taxes about to be levied, but 
 also how they should make up old deficiencies of payment. The 
 head men of Goldenthal formed the inner circle, and around them 
 stood the women and children to hear the result of the consultation. 
 
 Oswald, who had been waiting for an opportunity of addressing 
 his fellow-villagers on the state of affairs, thought he might do 
 so now with advantage, and joined the assembly. When the 
 overseers and others had done speaking, he mounted a stone, and 
 after craving leave to be heard, which was not refused, he spoke as 
 follows : 
 
 ' Dear fellow-villagers I went away a boy to the field of battle, and 
 have returned to you a man. Scarcely can I recognise my native 
 village: my heart is pained by the alterations I find among you. 
 Once our village deserved indeed the name of Goldenthal. You know 
 that most of the people were once in good circumstances ; few were 
 poor, and none were beggars : we could lend money then to our neigh- 
 bours, and had none of the anxieties and vexations of debtors : our 
 land was well cultivated ; our cottages were neat and clean, inside 
 and outside. A Goldenthaler in those good days was a gentleman, 
 and could have borrowed a hundred guilders on the bare credit of 
 his word. That was the golden age of Goldenthal ! ' 
 
 4
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 Here all the assembly nodded assent, and some exclaimed : 
 ' Oswald is right for once !' 
 
 Oswald went on: "Tis not so now! The place should be no 
 longer called the Golden Valley, but rather the valley of dirt and 
 thorns and thistles. The blessing of Heaven seems to have forsaken 
 our fields ; some have too much land, others have too little ; the 
 greater number of you do not improve what you have ; you stupefy 
 your senses with incessant smoking, or, what is worse, drinking ; 
 most of you are in debts and difficulties ; and, being idle, you occupy 
 yourselves in speaking evil of your neighbours. Our village has lost 
 its good character, and is now known as one of the most intemperate 
 and badly behaved places in the whole country ; and when people 
 wish to call any one a good-for-nothing wretch, they say he is a 
 Goldenthaler!' 
 
 At these plain words there was a muttering of displeasure among 
 the hearers, and every brow looked threateningly on Oswald. 
 Elizabeth, the miller's daughter, who stood listening on the bench 
 before the house, trembled for the perilous situation of the too 
 faithful expositor. But he went on : ' Men of Goldenthal ! if there 
 is still a drop of honourable blood in your veins, join your hands 
 and say: "The village shall be mended!" Whence comes your 
 ruin ? From your taverns. There your land melts away in liquor, 
 and your cattle are lost in gambling. I ask your parish-officers 
 where is the public money, or where is your strict account of what 
 you have done with it ? Why is it that you had rather eat at the 
 public cost than drain the parish land, or mend your neck-breaking 
 roads ?' 
 
 Here two or three of the official men called out : ' Hold your 
 tongue, you vagabond ! If you thus go on speaking evil of the 
 constituted authorities, we will send you to the lock-up, with bread 
 and water for eight-and-forty hours ! ' 
 
 Oswald, however, went on : ' You can put me into your prison, no 
 doubt ; but I can also bring you before your superiors. And when 
 I tell them a little of your management, you will perhaps be less 
 comfortable than I could be with bread and water. But I turn to 
 you all, my fellow-villagers ; shew me if I have spoken falsely, or 
 slandered any person. Ask your consciences whether you have 
 done well or ill whether you have enriched or impoverished your- 
 selves whether you are notable for honesty and piety, or for 
 indolence, fraud, and selfishness. Or, if your consciences have lost 
 their tongues, look round you and behold your tumbling houses and 
 sheds, your barren fields and gardens, your empty purses and chests, 
 your ragged coats and tattered shirts, your destitute-looking children 
 these are my witnesses against you ! ' 
 
 The preacher would have said more, but he was hurled from the 
 stone by the angry crowd. Some would have proceeded to violence ^ 
 but Oswald thrust himself through the throng, and, having armed
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 himself with a weighty cudgel, threatened severe punishment to the 
 first who should dare to lay hands upon him. Loud outcries of 
 vengeance pursued him homeward, and stones were hurled, one of 
 which inflicted a wound upon his brow. But he reached his house 
 without further injury, and there washed away the blood from his 
 face, bound up the wound, and was soon composed and quiet. 
 Elizabeth, pale and alarmed, came to inquire of his wound ; but he 
 assured her it was trifling, and bade her dismiss her fear. 
 
 So ended Oswald's first attempt at reformation ; but he was not 
 to be defeated. From the day on which he delivered his address, 
 he continued to be the object of many petty persecutions. One 
 night the boys threw stones at his windows ; another night they 
 barked six young fruit-trees in his garden. When he complained 
 to the parish-officers of these offences, they only told him he had 
 brought ill-will upon himself, and that he deserved worse than he got. 
 
 Not daunted with want of success in his exhortation, and possess- 
 ing the ardour of a man convinced of the truthfulness of his cause, 
 he now determined on trying to rouse the clergyman to adopt his 
 views. Perhaps, thought he, he requires only a little coaxing ; he 
 has probably been disheartened without a proper reason. Oswald 
 accordingly waited on the pastor, and as tenderly as possible laid 
 before him the condition of the parish, waxing bolder, however, as 
 he proceeded. 
 
 Having stated what he considered his case, the old man replied : 
 ' You are quite in a mistake coming to me. I have nothing to do 
 with the concerns you mention, nor can I mix myself up in your 
 business. All the unhappiness of this village is owing to the sinful- 
 ness of the people. They disregard the word of God. They defraud 
 me of my dues in every possible way. The long-suffering of Heaven 
 cannot endure this much longer ; and there must surely come a 
 heavy judgment upon them.' 
 
 'But, reverend sir,' said Oswald, 'you can do something towards 
 the reformation of these people. Their lives are vicious, because 
 their minds are dark and ignorant. If you would encourage a better 
 regulation of the school, the young might grow up well informed and 
 with good habits, and we should doubtless reap good fruit from such 
 a labour.' 
 
 The clergyman answered : ' That is the schoolmaster's business, 
 not mine ; I have no time for it. I have enough to do to study my 
 sermons.' 
 
 Oswald still urged his petition : ' Reverend sir, I am sorry to have 
 to remind you, that as a good shepherd, you are bound to care for 
 every one of your flock. If you did but visit their abodes, and see 
 how they have habituated themselves to vice, indolence, and misery ; 
 if you could see the neglected children who are growing up in the 
 midst of so many bad examples ; if you could' 
 
 Here the old clergyman, who had been listening impatiently to the 
 
 6
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 harangue of his visitor, interrupted him by exclaiming : 'This is intoler- 
 able. You, an unlettered man, come here to lecture me on my 
 duties ! Pray, what do you take me for ? Do you think I am a 
 police-officer, to be poking about everywhere? The flock should 
 themselves attend to their temporal concerns. I am a spiritual 
 pastor, and know my place. Get along with you; and let me hear 
 no more of such impertinence !' 
 
 Oswald left the parsonage disappointed. Pretty nearly at his 
 wits' end, he bethought him of taking counsel from the magistrates 
 of the next town, who had a kind of super-visional authority over 
 Goldenthal. Having arrayed himself in his best suit, and taken 
 his walking-stick in his hand, he set out for the neighbouring town, 
 where he expected to find good advisers and helpers. On his 
 arrival, he waited on the most respectable public characters to lay 
 the condition of Goldenthal before them. But the first person he 
 applied to was giving a great dinner, and could not attend to the 
 miserable story ; another was just going to take a walk, and could 
 not stop ; a third was deeply immersed in a game of billiards, which 
 required all his thoughts ; a fourth was reckoning up his accounts, 
 and had no time for any other business ; a fifth was about to 
 conduct a lady to the dancing-room, and of course could not be 
 interrupted ; the sixth, an old gentleman with a white peruke and 
 queue, sitting in an easy-chair, looked patronisingly on Oswald; 
 without desiring him to be seated, he heard the story he had to 
 tell of the misery of Goldenthal, the bad measures of the parish- 
 officers, and the ignorance of the schoolmaster to all which he 
 shook his head very gravely. 
 
 Encouraged by the interest which he appeared to have excited, 
 Oswald next spoke of the indifference of the parson ; but here he 
 struck a wrong chord. Looking sternly at his visitor, and his neatly 
 tied queue almost bristling with indignation, the old man called on 
 him to stop his false accusations. ' You ill-mannered rascal,' said 
 he, ' do you imagine I can sit here to listen to your revilements of all 
 authorities, spiritual as well as temporal ! I suppose you are one 
 of those discontented, fault-finding wretches who are never at rest, 
 but would turn everything topsy-turvy ! Away with you and your 
 catalogue of grievances, or I will send you to the house of correc- 
 tion ! Your clergyman, so far from being what you represent him, 
 is one of the best of men, for he is my own cousin !' 
 
 After this rebuff, Oswald had not the courage to apply elsewhere 
 on the subject, and he returned sorrowfully to the village.
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 III. 
 
 A NEW SCHOOLMASTER OSWALD'S MODE OF TEACHING THE 
 SUNDAY SCHOOL THE OCCURRENCE AT THE MILL. 
 
 On arriving at Goldenthal, in the afternoon, Oswald told no one 
 of the bad result of his journey, but put on a cheerful face, and 
 spoke in a friendly way to those whom he met, even to his worst 
 enemy, Brenzel, the host of the Lion, who was majestically standing 
 with folded arms at the tavern-door. 
 
 'Good-evening, neighbour Brenzel/ said Oswald; 'you have soon 
 done your day's work.' 
 
 ' I think I deserve my day's wages at all events,' said Brenzel, 
 'if I stay at home only to drive the beggars from my door.' 
 
 Oswald was disgusted as he heard this unfeeling speech from the 
 man, and, without any further conversation, hastened homeward. 
 He was cheered when, approaching the mill, he found Elizabeth, the 
 daughter of Siegfried the miller, sitting in the shadow of the cherry- 
 tree, at the front of the house, and sewing. Though he endeavoured 
 to appear cheerful, she saw that he was sorrowful at heart, and 
 earnestly questioned him of the cause of his grief. ' You have been 
 over to the town,' said she, ' and have seen what you like better than 
 anything at Goldenthal, and now you will not be able to remain 
 with us.' 
 
 Then Oswald explained to her the cause of his sorrow. He did 
 not mean to leave Goldenthal ; but the deterioration of the place had 
 grieved him deeply, and he could find none disposed to assist him 
 in the work of reformation. As he spoke of the sad habits of the 
 villagers, Elizabeth replied: 'We have just had another instance. 
 Our old schoolmaster, who, you know, was a dissipated character, 
 is drowned. Coming home tipsy from the Eagle, he fell into the 
 pond by the roadside, and was found only after life was extinct. 
 Happily, he has left neither wife nor child.' 
 
 This news seemed to affect Oswald in no small degree. He 
 became studious after hearing it, and went home full of thought. 
 Elizabeth could not guess what great matter he was considering, 
 but she discovered it the following Sunday. After service, the 
 parishioners were called together to elect a new schoolmaster. 
 Oswald attended the meeting. The miller, at the suggestion of his 
 daughter Elizabeth, stood at the side of Oswald, ready to check 
 him whenever his indignation was in danger of uttering itself too 
 strongly. 
 
 The first of the parish authorities, Mr Brenzel, opened the meeting 
 by a speech. As the office of schoolmaster was vacant, and was 
 one of the least important in the parish (for the salary was only forty 
 
 8
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 guilders a year*), he was happy to be able to recommend to the 
 parish a suitable man, willing to fill the place. This was the tailor, 
 Mr Specht, whose trade was very dull, and who was, moreover, 
 related to him, the speaker, on the mother's side. 
 
 The host of the Eagle came forward to propose, as an amendment, 
 that his poor cousin Schluck, a lame fiddler, should fill the office; 
 for he was willing to do it, considering the poverty of the parish, for 
 a salary of only thirty-five guilders per annum. In weighing the 
 qualifications of the candidates, he hoped it would be remembered 
 that Mr Schluck had a large family. This, with the fact of the 
 saving of five guilders, would doubtless influence the votes of the 
 parishioners. 
 
 Specht the tailor, as he saw that many of the voters were very 
 much taken with this tempting offer, came forward to give the fiddler 
 a very bad character, and, further, offered to perform all the duties 
 of the office at a salary of only thirty guilders. At this the fiddler 
 was so enraged, that he called the tailor by many most disgraceful 
 names, and again offered himself at a reduced salary: twenty-five 
 guilders would be enough for him. The tailor, who could not go 
 below this, declared he would call Schluck before the magistrate 
 to answer for the libels he had uttered, and so gave up further 
 competition. 
 
 The voters were accordingly prepared to instal the fiddler in the 
 office of schoolmaster, when Oswald stood forward and spoke : 
 'What! will you give more to your cow-herd, and even to your 
 swine-herd, than to the man to whom you would confide the instruc- 
 tion of your children in piety and useful knowledge? Are you not 
 ashamed of such a sin ? I know your parish purse is empty ; and 
 the poor 'people, who can hardly gain potatoes and salt, let alone 
 bread, cannot afford to pay for schooling. I will make a third 
 offer : I will be your schoolmaster, and demand no salary. It shall 
 not cost the parish a farthing : only let me have the place.' The 
 Goldenthalers looked at each other in amazement. Some objected 
 to the proposal : they did not know what such a man would teach 
 their children ; perhaps the black art ! But the majority in the 
 meeting considered chiefly the saving of twenty-five guilders yearly, 
 and cried out that Oswald should by all means be the schoolmaster. 
 Accordingly, he was elected. 
 
 Elizabeth heard the result of the meeting, and felt as if she must 
 sink into the earth with shame and confusion. No wonder ; for, next 
 to the watchman and the swine-herd, no man in the village held an 
 office so low in estimation as that of the schoolmaster. Even the 
 sensible miller, Siegfried, shook his head, and said : ' Oswald must 
 have lost his senses ! ' But Oswald had formed his plan, and kept 
 to his determination. He formally passed an examination ; and as 
 
 * 3* 6s- 8d. sterling. 
 iS Q
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 he could write a good hand, and knew something more of accounts 
 than a peasant needed, he was considered eligible, and appointed, 
 by the authorities of the neighbouring town, schoolmaster at Golden- 
 thai. But now he had to convince his friends of the propriety of his 
 plan. 'Elizabeth,' said he, 'do not despair of my undertaking, nor 
 count it a folly. You see we can do little for the old people ; let us 
 begin with the young ones, and try what we can do with them. 
 A village schoolmaster's is indeed a despised office; but our 
 religion teaches us to remember how low the Saviour stooped to 
 teach mankind. If our rulers and great men had a better under- 
 standing, they would be more careful about the appointment of 
 country schoolmasters than of the professors in our colleges. But 
 lowly matters are too much neglected ; and the consequence is, the 
 nation seems top-heavy, and even thrones stand upon an insecure 
 foundation.' 
 
 Having formed his resolutions, Oswald was not the man to shrink 
 from what he considered his duty. It was no doubt a thankless 
 task he was undertaking ; but it is no true benevolence which looks 
 about for thanks. Conscious that he was doing good to the best of 
 his ability, he felt that his reward would consist in seeing his ends 
 accomplished. With no fear of the result, he made preparations for 
 commencing the profession of teacher, and when winter came on, 
 he opened his school. On the first day, he placed himself at the 
 door of the school-house, and received the children with kind 
 attention. Some had muddy shoes, and he bade them clean them 
 before they entered the decent school-room. He shook hands 
 with all who came in cleanly style, but turned away the dirty hands 
 to be washed. Some came with hair uncombed and matted, and 
 were sent home to use comb and brush. But all who came combed 
 and washed, received from their new teacher a kiss on the brow. 
 The boys and girls wondered : some blushed, some laughed, and 
 others cried. They had never known such treatment before. Many 
 parents complained of these over-nice regulations; but Oswald 
 insisted on them, and in the course of a little time found a good 
 result in the decency of his pupils. The reformation he produced in 
 the course of a quarter, by mild and firm management, amazed the 
 parents. Some old women broadly hinted that such wonders could 
 not be done by fair means : there must be some magic at work. 
 Others told a strange story of a rat-catcher somewhere, who enticed 
 many children to follow him, and then vanished with them all down 
 a hole in a mountain. But the most prevalent report was, that 
 Oswald was- teaching the children a new religion ; and this was so 
 seriously believed, that two official gentlemen from the town were 
 deputed to inspect the school. 
 
 The badly disposed villagers were delighted to hear of this 
 commission of inspection, and waited with anxiety to hear that 
 Oswald was to be dismissed. The commission came unexpectedly
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 one morning when Oswald was about to open his school ; but the 
 appearance of the gentlemen by no means discomposed him, for he 
 had nothing to conceal. The visitors, after explaining their object, 
 watched the children as they assembled and took their seats' in an 
 orderly manner. When all were seated, Oswald, as usual, addressed 
 his pupils. 
 
 'Dear children,' said he, 'let us, before all things, bow before 
 God our Father, and offer our thanksgivings and prayers.' As he 
 spoke, the children, in number fifty-five, folded their hands, and fell 
 upon their knees. Oswald then knelt down, and the visitors, a little 
 surprised, followed his example. The teacher then read a prayer, 
 beautiful, and yet so simple, that the child of only six years could 
 understand it ; and one of the visitors, an alderman, was so far 
 moved that tears gathered in his eyes. When the prayer was ended, 
 all the children arose, and, guided by the notes and words on a 
 suspended board, sang in harmony a morning hymn. Then the 
 school divided itself into classes, under the appointed monitors, and 
 the various tasks of the day were studied. One peculiar method 
 of teaching used by Oswald should be mentioned. The last hour 
 in the afternoon he generally occupied by telling the boys and 
 girls an amusing story, in which some useful lesson was contained. 
 The visitors saw enough of his methods during the day to be con- 
 vinced that Oswald was one of the best and worthiest teachers in 
 the country, and that all that was said against him was a scandal. 
 
 The winter passed away. In the summer, the school was closed, 
 for the elder boys and girls could then be of service to their parents 
 in the fields. But Oswald collected the little ones at his house, and 
 gave them a few lessons, or amused them in some light occupations 
 about his premises. It was part of his convictions that instruction 
 in anything without actual training is of little use ; he therefore 
 tried to train his pupils to industrial pursuits, and so lead them to a 
 practical acquaintance with what they read of in books. In this 
 way he taught them gardening and a knowledge of plants, also 
 various other things which would be useful to them through life. 
 A great point with Oswald was to form habits of order and cleanli- 
 ness in his young scholars, and this not only at school, but when 
 out of doors, enforcing his rules with persuasions suited to young 
 minds. Perhaps, however, all this was held by him of inferior 
 moment to the education of the feelings a love of the beautiful, the 
 tender, and the poetical for without these the mind remains hard 
 and intractable, and cannot be led to know the finer religious 
 emotions. How charming was it to see this benevolent man with 
 his band of scholars, happy in each other, neither sourness nor 
 severity in the master, nor fear in the pupils ! It was throughout a 
 labour of love : addressed as their dear master, Oswald was always 
 ready to encourage and explain. No one dreaded to ask him 
 a question : he was their friend not less than their instructor. The
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 happiness in these young parties drew the attention of the elder 
 scholars, and they begged Oswald not to forget them. He accord- 
 ingly arranged that they should at times visit his house, or walk 
 with him in the fields. On these occasions, he opened their under- 
 standings to many branches of knowledge among others, the 
 wonders of creation and providence, and the nature of human 
 society, of which they had formerly known very little. He took care 
 not to be dry or tedious, but mixed up all he said with stories of 
 natural history, of foreign lands and people, of wild animals, moun- 
 tains, seas, and rivers. 
 
 The young men of the village heard reports of these pleasant 
 conversations, and some of the more curious and intelligent among 
 them began to seek Oswald's society. He gathered a class of these 
 young men, and devoted some part of his leisure on Sundays to their 
 instruction, giving them subjects to study during the week, and 
 recommending to them suitable books for reading. But while he had 
 such success among the young people, many of the leading men in 
 the village remained his determined foes. Though they could not 
 understand his measures, they felt that there was something in them 
 which tended to overthrow the existing state of society in Goldenthal ; 
 consequently, Oswald found little society in the village, except at the 
 mill, where he was always welcomed by Elizabeth and her parents. 
 
 One evening, when Oswald, as was customary, went to the house 
 of the miller, he was received in a style so altered as to surprise him. 
 His old friend looked studious and reserved, his wife seemed in ill 
 humour, and Elizabeth had a sorrowful and anxious face. After a 
 while, her parents left the room, and Oswald asked Elizabeth the 
 reason for this cold reception. Her answer was for some moments 
 delayed by sobs and tears ; at last she told him that, a year ago, 
 Brenzel, the host of the Lion, and the richest man in the parish, had 
 asked for her as the wife of his eldest son, a dissipated young man. 
 She had claimed of her parents a year for consideration ; but now 
 the time had expired, and her father, who wished to see her settled 
 in life, was somewhat displeased at her unwillingness. This she told 
 with tears, and Oswald understood more than she said. He assured 
 her tenderly that long ago he had chosen her as his own bride, and 
 she received his confession with great delight. He then went to her 
 parents, and while Elizabeth was praying for a favourable result 
 of the interview, he gave such an explanation of his condition and 
 prospects, that, after a short time, the miller came into the room 
 where Elizabeth was sitting, and, joining the hands of his daughter 
 and Oswald, pronounced a blessing upon the betrothal. To 
 Elizabeth it seemed like a dream too happy to be true.
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 OSWALD IS STILL UNPOPULAR, BUT ELIZABETH IS WELL SPOKEN 
 OF THE HOST OF THE LION FALLS AND BREAKS HIS NOSE. 
 
 On the following Sunday, when Oswald and Elizabeth were named 
 from the pulpit as betrothed, the Goldenthalers stared, and there 
 was no little whispering among the women. But the host of the 
 Lion immediately went out of the church as angry as the wild beast 
 upon his sign, declaring that he would ruin the perfidious miller 
 and all his family. However, in spite of this threat, Oswald and 
 Elizabeth celebrated their marriage about three weeks afterwards. 
 
 Soon after the wedding, Oswald said to his bride : 'To insure our 
 happiness, let us make a threefold vow : first, that there shall be no 
 secrets between us ; secondly, that none, not even our parents, shall 
 be allowed to interfere between us in any of our affairs ; and thirdly, 
 that we will never speak unkindly towards each other, no, not even 
 in jest.' To these propositions Elizabeth gladly assented. 
 
 It is customary in Germany to utter the voice of congratulation 
 in song. Conformably with this ancient usage, Oswald's pupils 
 resolved on serenading their beloved master. Oswald and his wife, 
 therefore, on the morning after their marriage, were awakened by a 
 harmonious hymn of congratulation, and wishes of long life and 
 happiness, in which many voices joined. On looking out to return 
 thanks for this kindness, Oswald was delighted to see so many of 
 his scholars composing the choir. He observed, too, several persons 
 standing and pointing to his cottage ; for the children had secretly 
 covered the walls with garlands in the evening, and even the least of 
 them had brought wild-flowers from the fields and hedges to add to 
 the display of affection. At school, all the children appeared with 
 nosegays and wreaths of flowers, as if it was a great festival-day. 
 
 Notwithstanding these demonstrations, Oswald was still unpopular 
 in the village. The oldest and most experienced people found 
 reasons for grave suspicions, not only in his wonderful success as a 
 teacher, but also in his sudden marriage with the miller's daughter. 
 Such wonders, they were sure, could not be done by fair means : 
 there was something supernatural in it. The old miller heard all 
 this idle chatter, and only laughed at it ; but his wife, though a pious 
 and sensible woman, had her share of pride, and could not bear that 
 it should be said she had given her daughter to a poor vagabond 
 schoolmaster. Out of patience with the inquisitive gossip of the 
 hostess of the Eagle, she one evening could not refrain from boasting. 
 ' Hold your tongue,' said she ; 'you know nothing about it. Oswald, 
 I tell you, could buy up both your husband and the host of the Lion. 
 I have seen proof of what I say ; and, if I might speak, I could tell 
 
 13
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 you such things of him as would make the hair on your head stand 
 on end.' 
 
 No sooner had the miller's wife made this idle boast, than she 
 repented of it, and extorted from the hostess of the Eagle a promise 
 that it should be kept as a strict secret. So the hostess kept it, and 
 mentioned it to nobody, excepting her sister and her husband, and 
 these also promised secrecy. They only added a little to the story, 
 so that it was soon reported that heaps of gold and silver had been 
 seen in Oswald's cottage ; that he could buy all Goldenthal if he 
 chose ; and that such things were done in his house as, if they could 
 be known, would make the hair bristle up upon the head like porcu- 
 pines' quills. As the story went round the village, it increased like 
 a snowball : it was declared that a second Dr Faustus had settled 
 in Goldenthal ; that Oswald had sold himself to Satan for thirty 
 years ; that he could make gold as fast as he liked ; that he had 
 bewitched Elizabeth, and compelled her to marry him ; that he could 
 call up spirits ; discover treasures in the earth ; and finally, could, 
 if he liked, ride through the air on a broomstick ! 
 
 This stupid tale had one advantage for Oswald, as it protected him 
 from all other insulting treatment. The respect which they would 
 not pay simply to the man of superior wisdom and virtue, they 
 were now compelled to pay to the reputed necromancer. Many of 
 the ignorant Goldenthalers secretly crossed themselves when they 
 happened to meet the schoolmaster. 
 
 Elizabeth enjoyed a better reputation. The young people did not 
 cross themselves when they met her, but enjoyed a friendly glance 
 from her face, and secretly blessed her. She became the true friend 
 and adviser of all the young maidens in Goldenthal. On one occasion, 
 two young damsels about to be married came to ask of her the 
 important secret of preserving their beauty, and retaining the affec- 
 tions of their husbands. Elizabeth assured them that no magic was 
 required to do it. Said she : ' If wives frequently lose their attrac- 
 tion, and consequently the love of their husbands, it is often their 
 own fault. Before they were married, they were cleanly and neat, 
 with burnished brows, and hair as smooth and glossy as in a 
 painting ; now see them strolling about in the morning, with stockings 
 hanging loose, shoes down in the heels, and papers in their uncombed 
 locks, as if they thought slovenliness a proof of a good housewife. 
 Be sure that when the wife goes about in this slothful tawdry way, 
 there is little hope of happiness in the house.' 
 
 ' But all of us cannot get new clothes so well as you can,' said one 
 of the maidens. 
 
 ' I use perhaps less than some of you,' replied Elizabeth, ' because 
 I am careful and punctual in mending, whenever a garment requires 
 it.' 
 
 Then one of the young women blushed as she confessed she had 
 never learned to sew, but would be glad if any one would teach her.
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 ' I will do so gladly,' said Elizabeth : ' come both of you to me at 
 the time I shall appoint.' 
 
 When Oswald heard of this plan, he was delighted with the 
 benevolence of his wife, and proposed that she should make this a 
 beginning of a school for sewing. ' The waste of materials, and the 
 misery of families for want of good domestic knowledge in the wives 
 of the poor, cannot be properly counted. It is a shame to our 
 country that we have not in every village a sensible woman and 
 good housewife appointed to teach poor young women good, whole- 
 some, and cheap cookery, as well as plain sewing. It would prevent 
 an enormous waste of money, and make many marriages happy.' 
 
 Elizabeth took the hint ; and when her two pupils had invited, by 
 their example, a class of young women to meet at the schoolmaster's 
 house, the lessons were not confined to sewing and knitting, but the 
 kitchen was turned into a school, and the clever young wife explained 
 the modes of preparing plain and inexpensive dishes for the family 
 table. Even the aspect of her neat and orderly house, filled with 
 decent and well-cleaned furniture and utensils of every sort, had a 
 good effect upon the minds of these young disciples in domestic 
 economy. All these labours gave Oswald and Elizabeth plenty to 
 do, but still they wished to do something more. Already the chil- 
 dren had been trained to industrial occupations, and now all were 
 taught to plait straw for hats and bonnets, and besides, the girls were 
 taught to do various kinds of knitting. The long winter evenings, 
 which had formerly been spent in idleness or foolish sports, were 
 now devoted to these useful occupations. No sight was more 
 pleasing than to see happy parties of young straw-plaiters in the 
 kitchens of the village cottagers, all laughing or chatting while their 
 fingers were busy, or listening attentively to one who read to them 
 by the light of a burning fagot. 
 
 By such services, Oswald and Elizabeth won the affections of the 
 young villagers. Still, Oswald could not banish the absurd reports 
 about himself. Mr Brenzel particularly, the host of the Lion, knew 
 that the easiest way to ruin a man is to get up reports that he is 
 not orthodox in his creed, and accordingly watched for an oppor- 
 tunity of doing Oswald a serious injury. At last this determined 
 foe and spy supposed he had found out something worthy of a 
 legal scrutiny. Said he : ' I have got enough to twist the school- 
 master's neck about. I will compel his own mother-in-law to 
 appear against him. As a parish-officer, I am bound to report 
 what I have heard.' 
 
 Accordingly, one Sunday be arrayed himself in his best clothes, 
 adjusted a three-cornered hat majestically on his head, took his 
 Spanish cane tipped with silver, and set out with vast strides to 
 walk to the town. Not a word did he say to anybody of his business, 
 for he feared that, if Oswald caught a whisper of it, some serious 
 accident would befall him before he could give information of the 
 
 15
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 Goldenthal wizard. As he went along he talked to himself, muttering 
 over the speech he had prepared to recite to the magistrate, and 
 as the tone of the address rose, he quickened his pace, and beat the 
 air with his hands. In his zeal and hurry, he got his walking-stick 
 between his legs, and fell over it so heavily, that he arose with a 
 nose swollen and discoloured like a large plum. ' Oswald, surely 
 enough, did that !' he exclaimed, as he recovered his breath. 
 
 As he was wiping his face, a gentleman on horseback galloped up 
 to him, and asked : ' Have you a gentleman named Oswald in your 
 village, and where shall I find him ?' 
 
 ' Yes : what do you want with him ?' replied the host of the Lion. 
 
 1 The prince wishes to see him,' said the horseman, and rode away 
 towards Goldenthal. 
 
 The host of the Lion gaped wide with amazement. ' Wha 
 what !' he gasped; ' the prince visit Oswald !' Just then a carriage 
 rolled by, drawn by six horses. Brenzel now caught a glimpse of a 
 young man in it, dressed in a blue surtout, and with a silver star on 
 his breast. 
 
 ' O dear, dear ! ' exclaimed Brenzel. ' The prince means to go 
 to the Lion; I am not at home ; and now he will put up at the 
 Eagle/' So saying, he hurried homeward, running until he lost 
 his breath, and getting the fine cane once more between his legs, so 
 that he came down again with violence upon his already battered 
 nose. Rising up, he hastened on, notwithstanding the pain, and 
 found his part of the village quite deserted no prince at the Lion 
 no prince at the Eagle; but his kitchen-maid came breathless to 
 tell him : ' All the people are down at the schoolmaster's waiting to 
 see the prince.' And there, sure enough, he found a crowd in front 
 of Oswald's house. Presently, the door was opened, the prince 
 appeared, walking between Oswald and Elizabeth, then kindly shook 
 hands with them, stepped into his carriage, and was soon whirled 
 away, leaving the spectators more than ever convinced that Oswald 
 was a magician. 
 
 ' Even great princes come to him for money,' said one of the sages 
 of Goldenthal when the adventure was talked over. ' If I had his 
 deep knowledge, do you think I would live here and keep school as 
 he does ? No ; I would ride about like the prince, and have my 
 kitchen full of good living, and my cellar full of wine. If I sold 
 myself to Satan, it would be for something worth while.' 
 
 Poverty, like riches, corrupts the heart ; and there were some poor 
 wretches in Goldenthal who, while they talked of Oswald's supposed 
 arrangement with Satan, secretly wished that they could make as 
 good a bargain.
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 V. 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' CONFEDERACY. 
 
 The inhabitants of Goldenthal, as may be already judged, were ill 
 instructed, and full of the prejudices belonging to a rude and 
 primitive state of things. Never accustomed to observe the opera- 
 tion of natural causes, they readily traced all that was remarkable 
 to something beyond nature to magic, or the practice of unholy 
 arts. That their neighbour Oswald, a discharged soldier, with 
 means not above the common, should live in comfort, want for no 
 money, and be visited by princes, was to their minds supernatural. 
 The report spread by his mother-in-law added strength to this wild 
 notion ; and now it was a confirmed belief among many that he could 
 derive his wealth only by an intercourse with evil spirits ; perhaps, 
 as has been already hinted, he had, like Dr Faustus, sold himself 
 body and soul to the great enemy of mankind. 
 
 Worked on by necessity, a number of the poorest men in 
 Goldenthal, unknown to each other, began to cultivate Oswald's 
 friendship. Seizing on favourable opportunities, they, one after the 
 other, visited him privately, and hinted that they required his advice 
 respecting their circumstances. They had evidently a mighty secret, 
 which they longed to utter. At last one ventured to speak out, and 
 said : ' Oswald, you can make gold ; teach me to do it. I am so 
 poor, that I care for nothing, not even to see Beelzebub in proper 
 person. I am, in short, ready to strike any bargain to get out 
 of my poverty.' Oswald was amazed at the folly and impiety of this 
 confession. But for some time he hardly knew what to say to men 
 so ignorant and vicious. 
 
 Having at length, after some time for deliberation, formed a 
 scheme by which he might take advantage of the men's willingness 
 to work out any plan he might suggest, he told them all individually 
 that he was prepared to teach them the art of goldmaking, and that 
 for this purpose they must come to his house on a certain evening, 
 a short time before midnight. All, as a matter of course, gladly 
 promised to attend. 
 
 Accordingly, on the appointed night, the would-be goldmakers 
 arrived at Oswald's house, each supposing himself a solitary visitor, 
 and all were conducted into one room in entire darkness. Every 
 one shuddered as he felt others near him, and all stood together in the 
 darkness in breathless terror until the church clock struck twelve. 
 Then suddenly the door was opened, and Oswald walked in arrayed 
 in full military costume, with a feather in his cap, a sword at his side, 
 and bearing two candles in his hands. He found thirty-two visi- 
 tors present, all looking ashamed of their mutual recognition, and
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 terrified at the appearance of one whom they believed to be closely 
 allied with evil demons. But Oswald looked on them with a very 
 serious face, and began to speak : ' Look at me, unhappy men, and 
 see who I am. I follow no black art. I am a worshipper of God. 
 In God's way only is prosperity to be found. But you have been 
 far out of that way. You have been drunken lazy wretches, cruel 
 to your wives and children, and now you are in debt and misery. 
 Will you let me help you ? If you would be as rich as I am, do 
 as I do ! ' So saying, he poured upon the table a heap of gold 
 from a bag. The men all stared with dazzled eyes ; their hearts 
 beat and fluttered fearfully. Oswald continued,': ' You have come 
 to learn how to make gold. I will teach you. But you must serve 
 an apprenticeship of seven years and seven weeks. He who observes 
 my lessons for that time, shall at the end have more gold to spare 
 than you see now upon this table. But, I tell you, my rules will 
 be hard to obey, unless you turn your hearts and become new men.' 
 
 All the listeners, in anxious silence, stared on Oswald's face, as 
 if he Were their judge just about to pronounce their doom. 
 
 'Now, hear my rules for goldmaking,' said he, 'to be kept for 
 the space of seven years and seven weeks. If any of you will not 
 observe these rules, let him depart.' Not one moved from his place ; 
 so Oswald delivered the following rules for goldmaking : 
 
 ' I. You shall avoid all taverns, and regularly attend the church. 
 
 ' 2. You shall play no games with cards, dice, &c., nor gamble in 
 any way. 
 
 ' 3. You shall use no oaths, nor lying and slanderous words. 
 
 ' 4. Every day you shall have prayers in your families, and labour 
 industriously. 
 
 ' 5. You shall consume neither wine nor brandy, and be strictly 
 temperate in everything, not even smoking tobacco. 
 
 ' 6. You shall suffer no weeds to stand in your gardens, nor rubbish 
 to lie in your houses. 
 
 ' 7. You shall keep your own persons and those of your children 
 clean and decent. 
 
 ' By this last sign I shall know if you are faithful. Now, if you 
 will promise to observe these rules for the time mentioned, step 
 forward and join hands with me.' 
 
 One after another came forward and reached his arm over the 
 pile of gold on the table, and clasped Oswald's hand, and said : ' I 
 will ! ' At length all the men present made the promise. 
 
 ' Now,' said Oswald, ' go to your homes, and remember that you 
 have entered into a confederacy for well-doing. We are all, hence- 
 forth, to be as one man in the cause. Each is to support the other. 
 If any is weak, we will help him. Farewell.'* 
 
 * This conference and its objects remind us of an anecdote in Scottish social history. 
 When James I. visited Scotland in 1617, he found his old friend Thomas, first Earl of 
 18
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 In silence the men departed and sought their respective homes. 
 None of them but was surprised at the unexpected turn which affairs 
 had taken, and individually, they might have rejected the plan 
 pointed out for their acceptance ; they were, however, pledged to 
 each other, and shame, if nothing else, would keep them from 
 breaking their promise. It is at least certain that one and all acted 
 on Oswald's midnight injunction. Next morning, considerately 
 advised by Oswald, they set about divers little reforms in and about 
 their dwellings, also in their outward appearance. 
 
 'What is the matter? Is the prince coming again ?' exclaimed the 
 lame old village watchman as he went his round the next morning, 
 and saw several men dressed more decently than was usual. Besides, 
 there were other wonders in Goldenthal washing, sweeping, and 
 rubbing of windows, doorways, tables, and benches ! 
 
 And this marvel did not suddenly die away; but from week to 
 week new causes of wonder arose for all the Goldenthalers who were 
 not in the secret of the Goldmakers' confederacy. The taverns 
 
 Haddington, who at the time filled the office of President of the Court of Session, exceed- 
 ingly rich, and that there was a general belief of his having discovered the Philosopher's 
 Stone the art of goldmaking. James, who was in the habit of nicknaming all his cour- 
 tiers, had given the earl the familiar title of Tarn o" the Cowgate, from his residing in a 
 street of that name. Highly taken with the idea that Tarn had possessed himself of the 
 enviable talisman of the philosopher's Stone, he was not long in letting his friend and 
 gossip know of the story which he had heard respecting him. Whether the Lord President 
 was offended at the imputation, has not been recorded ; but it is probable that he took it 
 in good part, as he immediately invited the king and the rest of the company present to 
 come to his house in the Cowgate next day, when he would both do his best to give them a 
 good dinner, and lay open to them the whole mystery of the Philosopher's Stone. This 
 agreeable invitation was of course accepted ; and the next day accordingly saw his house 
 thronged with the gay and gorgeous figures of England's king and courtiers, all of whom 
 the President feasted to their heart's content. After dinner, the king reminded him of his 
 Philosopher's Stone, and expressed the utmost anxiety to be speedily made acquainted with 
 so rare a treasure, when the pawky lord addressed his majesty and the company in a short 
 speech, concluding with this information, that his whole secret lay in two simple and 
 familiar maxims : ' Never put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day ; nor ever trust to 
 another's hand what your own can execute.' He might have added, from the works of an 
 illustrious contemporary : 
 
 ' This only is the witchcraft I have used.' 
 
 The guests, who expected to find the earl's talisman of a more tangible character, were 
 perhaps disappointed that the whole matter turned out to be mere words ; but the king, 
 who could appreciate a good saying, took up the affair more blithely, and complimented his 
 host upon the means he had employed in the construction of his fortune, adding, that these 
 admirable apothegms should henceforth be proverbial, under the appellation of ' Tarn o' the 
 Cowgate' s Philosopher's Stone.' The king appears to have been obeyed in this by his 
 Scottish subjects with more readiness than he found in certain other of the edicts which he 
 issued upon the occasion of his visit to Scotland, for, long after the Episcopal forms of 
 worship which he then engrafted upon Presbytery had passed away and been forgotten, 
 Tarn o' the Cowgate's Philosopher's Stone was remembered with satisfaction, and it has 
 even been used as an adage within the recollection of aged persons still alive.
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 began to look deserted; the court for ninepins on Sunday echoed 
 neither to rolling balls, curses, nor laughter ; cards and dice lay 
 almost undisturbed. Those who had been the most frequent visitors 
 at the taverns, now employed their evenings with their wives and 
 children, or in looking over their fields. The host of the Eagle, 
 when he saw his benches almost empty on Sunday, nearly shed 
 tears of vexation as he exclaimed : ' Have all the people lost their 
 senses ? There must be some amendment of this such a sad state 
 of things must not be tolerated !' Brenzel, too, joined loudly in the 
 complaint. Said he : 'This is an infamous conspiracy against me !' 
 The reformation in his parish attracted the attention even of the old 
 parson, and he dated it all from the delivery of one of his longest 
 sermons. Enraged that the clergyman should acknowledge the 
 change of manners as an improvement, the two publicans almost 
 entirely left their places in the church. 
 
 VI. 
 
 ACCOUNTS ARE EXAMINED THE SAVINGS-BOX THE SOUP- 
 KITCHEN TAVERNS SHUT UP. 
 
 As the year passed on, several members of the goldmakers' party 
 came to the schoolmaster, complaining that, though they had 
 attended to all his rules of 'economy, they were encumbered with 
 old debts, and threatened with expulsion from their houses. Oswald 
 looked carefully into all their accounts. The disorderly and melan- 
 choly state in which he found them gave him great trouble ; but he 
 toiled through them. He then helped the poor people to reckon 
 up their earnings, their expenditure, and the sums they could 
 contrive to lay by for the payment of their old debts. Some 
 families he helped by finding employment for the young people in 
 the town. 
 
 Having, in the course of his reading, learned the nature of savings- 
 banks, Oswald thought there was a good opportunity of establishing 
 one in the village. He therefore collected a number of persons, 
 among the rest the members of the confederacy, and explained to 
 them how one of these banks might be set up. All agreed that it 
 might answer, if Oswald would undertake its management. This 
 he very willingly consented to do. The savings-bank was begun, 
 and the money which was collected was lent at interest to those who 
 needed it, and who could be trusted. 
 
 The getting of interest was a new thing to so many of the villagers, 
 that they became zealous in saving, and were even so economical as 
 to be disposed to rob themselves and their children of necessary
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 food. This suggested to Oswald a new means of economy. He 
 persuaded his mother-in-law, with the help of others, to prepare soup 
 for the poor families, for which they paid a very low price, and so 
 gained food at a great saving of time and expense in fuel and 
 cookery. Soon this plan was found to be so beneficial, and became 
 so popular, that the host of the Eagle opened a rival soup-kitchen. 
 This, however, did not succeed well, nor did it deserve to do, for the 
 publican thought only of his own interest. With all their poverty, 
 the Goldenthalers had been famous for their propensity to litigation, 
 and just now the host of the Eagle tavern was engaged in a lawsuit 
 about an old oak tree which, he thought, belonged to his land. It 
 had already cost him a thousand guilders ; and now he was led on 
 and on until he was compelled to sell his house and fields to pay 
 his lawyers and other creditors. This, however, brought good to 
 Goldenthal, for the Eagle was now shut up, and the Lion left alone. 
 The number of well-doers was now so greatly increased, that 
 Oswald was not exposed to the same ungracious persecutions he 
 Dnce was. Still, there was an old set, confirmed in bad habits and 
 prejudices, who shook their heads at the signs of the times, and 
 ;aid : ' 'Tis plain the village is going to ruin. There is only one 
 public-house supported. Alas ! we once had three ! ' Oswald 
 reproved their mistake, and told them that the Lion and the Eagle 
 ivere ravenous wild beasts that had fed on the substance of the 
 :ommunity too long. When Brenzel heard that the schoolmaster 
 lad called the Lion a wild beast, he was ready to burst with anger, 
 md threatened an action for damages ; but Oswald kept out of the 
 ;laws of the Lion. 
 
 VII. 
 A THUNDER-STORM THE NEW CLERGYMAN. 
 
 About this time there was a terrible storm one night. All the 
 >ky seemed as if in flames. The thunder rolled, houses shook, and 
 vindows clattered. A terrible flash of lightning burst upon the 
 jarsonage, and blazed around the building ; but happily no part 
 :aught fire. Yet so severe was the shock of alarm to the poor old 
 :lergyman, that he was very ill, and in the course of a few days he 
 lied. The ignorant Goldenthalers laid the blame upon the govern- 
 nent, for forbidding the ringing of the church-bells in thunder- 
 storms. ' We might have rung the thunder away/ said some of the 
 )ld ones. Oswald shewed them the error of their notion, and taught 
 hem the cause of thunder, and the use of the lightning-conductor. 
 Hie fitted one to his own house, and the miller followed his example.
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 This, again, displeased some, who said it was an impious folly, and 
 asked : ' Cannot the Almighty send his lightning wherever he 
 pleases?' Oswald took pains to correct this mistake, and shewed 
 them the right way of trusting in Providence, and still making use 
 of all proper means of averting danger. His doctrine was new and 
 strange ; but it happily made some converts. 
 
 To supply the place of the deceased parson, a young preacher, 
 named Roderick, was appointed to Goldenthal. ' What can such a 
 boy as that do for us ?' said some of the old people, when they saw 
 the new parson, who was about twenty-seven years of age ; and 
 when they had heard him, they added : ' Ah, we see our new parson 
 is one of the new-fangled preachers. We can understand every word 
 that he says. What is the good of that ? He is not learned enough : 
 he should go more deeply into things. Our worthy old parson was 
 a different man : he could preach for an hour and a half far beyond 
 our understandings. It was quite delightful to hear him ! ' 
 
 Fortunately, there were some in Goldenthal who could better 
 estimate the new parson, and they found him a pious, worthy, and 
 learned man, though young. He was sociable, and yet serious ; 
 humble in deportment, and yet commanding respect ; full of patience ; 
 and when he spoke reproof, it was still the voice of love. Soon 
 after his arrival in Goldenthal, he visited every family in his parish. 
 His manifest kindness infused confidence into the minds of his 
 people ; he heard their complaints, overruled their dissensions, 
 attended to all their wants, and visited most frequently the poorest 
 and the lowest of his flock. On Sunday, in the pulpit, he spoke so 
 that every hearer believed the discourse to be addressed especially 
 to himself. 
 
 Great was the delight of this good young clergyman on his first 
 visit to Oswald's school. The cleanliness, quietness, and good order 
 of the children pleasingly surprised him. As Oswald knelt down to 
 offer his prayer of thanksgiving and adoration, the visitor knelt 
 beside him, and tears fell from his eyes as Oswald prayed for the 
 children. When this devotional exercise was over, he addressed to 
 Oswald the warmest expression of thanks for the attention he had 
 paid to the young. ' Excellent man !' said he, 'you have here sown 
 good seed for eternity : may I be able to follow your example 1 If 
 ever I am discouraged in my duties, I shall come here and be a 
 scholar myself.' 
 
 And now, when the children found that the new parson so highly 
 esteemed their teacher, their love and admiration of Oswald rose 
 higher than before, and the consequence was, the school prospered 
 more rapidly than ever. Roderick was a healer of the bodies as 
 well as the souls of his people. He turned them from the error of 
 their fantastic ways of dealing with some diseases by spells, charms, 
 &c. ; and as he had studied medicine so as to know the remedies 
 for many common complaints, he wrought so many good cures,
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 that the poor people had great confidence in him. Thus he followed 
 his Master ' healing the sick, and preaching the kingdom of heaven.' 
 He was also skilful in many other useful things, for he had con- 
 sidered in his youth that no knowledge of the affairs of life ought 
 to be neglected by the country parson. Among other things, he 
 was skilled in the management of bees, and had brought some very 
 choice hives to Goldenthal ; and the result of his endeavours to 
 introduce the care of bees among the people was, that, in the course 
 of a few years, Goldenthal was famous in all the neighbouring towns 
 for its rich and luscious honey. 
 
 He knew how to divide his attention well between the souls and 
 bodies of his people ; and as he attended to their comfort in their 
 houses, he laboured to refine and elevate their minds by the services 
 at church. He determined to reform their practice of singing in 
 church, which had been coarse, violent, and noisy. Every one had 
 been accustomed to bawl with all his might, as if he would crack 
 the windows or raise the roof ; and the old people were sa attached 
 to this custom, that they thought the praise of God could be sung in 
 no other way. Oswald had made a reformation among the young, 
 and had taught them to sing with him at school harmoniously, in 
 four parts. Some of the old people admired this style of singing 
 in the school, but still they thought nothing but the old style of 
 bawling would do for the church. But the young parson determined 
 to quell the storm of discord which offended his ears, and therefore 
 he proposed that service should be opened by the children singing 
 alone. This was done ; but by degrees some of the adults were 
 tempted to join softly in the tune, which was just as Oswald and 
 Roderick desired ; and, in course of time, such a right feeling for 
 true, harmonious, and devotional singing was spread among the 
 people, that the whole congregation united their voices so softly 
 and well, that the harmony from the choir of children was heard 
 distinct from the general sound, and with a solemn and devotional 
 effect. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE GOLDENTHALERS WIN GOOD FAME A NEW OVERSEER 
 DEBTS TO BE PAID. 
 
 We pass over a space of time during which Roderick and Oswald 
 were labouring to confirm and extend the good work of reformation 
 which they had begun. And what was the result? Good credit 
 was restored to Goldenthal, and a favourable report of the village 
 was spread throughout the neighbouring country. The hemp, flax, 
 grain, vegetables, and fruit brought to market from Goldenthal were
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 all so good as to raise surprise ; the butter was exquisite and 
 abundant ; in short, the village rose so rapidly in public estimation, 
 that the surrounding townspeople jokingly styled it the GOLD- 
 MAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 Some might suppose that Oswald, who was the spring of every 
 good movement among the people, had burdened himself and his 
 good wife with too many offices ; but he knew better how to arrange 
 his affairs. He had found out among his pupils, and trained for the 
 service, a youth able to take the greater part of the labour of the 
 school. This young man's name was John Heiter, and, as a teacher, 
 he soon became almost as much beloved by the pupils as Oswald. 
 
 The confederacy of the thirty-two stood firm to their principles, 
 and made converts by their examples ; but still there were several 
 idle and miserable men in Goldenthal, who arrayed themselves 
 against every improvement ; and at the head of these poor creatures 
 stood the host of the Lion, the misguided Brenzel. Great was the 
 wrath and vexation of this stubborn man when Oswald and an 
 honest industrious man named Ulrich Stark were elected to fill two 
 vacancies in the board of guardians for the village. But he disguised 
 his anger as well as he could, and paid a visit to Oswald, congra- 
 tulating him upon his election. 
 
 But now, at the first meeting of the guardians, when Oswald and 
 Ulrich Stark proceeded to business, they first demanded a rigid 
 examination of the account-books. Here all was in the greatest 
 disorder. The parish still owed about seven thousand guilders, and 
 of this half was owing to the host of the Lion, who received five per 
 cent, interest on the capital he had lent, while he paid only four per 
 cent, for sums he had borrowed from the same funds, which was 
 clearly unjust. Great expenses had been caused by all kinds of 
 trifling visits and little affairs of business, which honourable men 
 would have done gratuitously. In short, the whole of the accounts 
 bore strong testimony against the selfishness and fraud of the late 
 managers of the parish property, and none was so seriously crimin- 
 ated as the host of the Lion. Oswald made out such a dark account 
 against this man, that the haughty and despotic Brenzel had to 
 humble himself and supplicate for mercy. But Oswald determined, 
 in justice to the poor, the widows, and the orphans, to refer the whole 
 business to the proper legal authorities, by whom the accounts of 
 Goldenthal parish were scrutinised ; and the consequence was, that 
 a warrant was issued against the host of the Lion, his goods were 
 seized, and he was condemned to imprisonment. 
 
 Oswald was now almost master of the parish ; but his position was 
 not an easy one. He had many hard journeys to perform, and much 
 opposition and misrepresentation to endure, before he could avert the 
 dangers which had threatened the ill-regulated place. His first task 
 was to diminish the burden of the debt still lying upon the people 
 above six thousand guilders. For this purpose he commenced a
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 valuation of all the land in Goldenthal, that it might be known what 
 were the real circumstances of every parishioner, and what the 
 amount of taxes he ought to pay. He next determined that a better 
 use should be made of the land which was common parish property, 
 and thus he explained his plan to his fellow-parishioners : ' You 
 know that this common land is of little service to the poor at present. 
 It is trodden down by the cattle belonging to those who are com- 
 paratively rich. This is not fair. Every man in the parish has 
 a right to a share of it ; but now those who do not keep any cattle 
 derive no benefit from it. Let us have it portioned out, and fairly 
 cultivated.' This proposition was met by murmurs and objections 
 from those interested in unfair usages ; but the majority were with 
 Oswald, and the motion was carried. The rich farmers appealed 
 to government against Oswald's innovation, but the only answer they 
 received was : ' The common belongs to the parishioners, and not to 
 the cows of Goldenthal ; and every peasant may claim his portion, 
 and make use of it as he pleases. You are not so careful to preserve 
 the ancient rights of your parish, as to defend your own selfish 
 practices.' 
 
 The following spring found a great improvement in the waste 
 land of Goldenthal. Gardens were now blooming where lately the 
 cattle had grazed upon scanty herbage. Hops, beans, hemp, flax, 
 cabbages, potatoes, clover, and corn were flourishing on the newly 
 broken ground. Even the farmers who had opposed Oswald's plan 
 confessed that its result was indeed cheering, for the poor people 
 were becoming more industrious, and paying their old debts. Next, 
 Oswald turned his attention to the forest-land belonging to 
 the parish, and called a meeting of the Goldenthalers to consider 
 another new project. He explained to them that he had observed a 
 sad waste of wood in the village. ' Other parishes,' said he, ' con- 
 sume less of this valuable article for household purposes, because 
 they have public ovens, where one fire does the work of a hundred. 
 Why cannot we follow their example ? To burn wood as we do, is 
 to burn gold.' Another of the parish-officers observed, that in some 
 villages there were also public washing-houses, which he would 
 recommend to the people of Goldenthal for their convenience and 
 economy. These propositions were approved of by the meeting ; 
 and next, Oswald led them to consider for what profitable use they 
 might employ the spare wood, so as to make it help towards the 
 payment of their debts. After some opposition, a good plan was 
 agreed upon ; and the profits realised in one year by the erection of 
 public ovens and washing-houses, as well as the economy of fuel, 
 surprised all those who had never before turned their attention to 
 such speculations. 
 
 And now, as the parish debt was melting away, and many of the 
 Goldenthalers who had once been clothed in rags shewed themselves 
 in decent apparel at the market, the townspeople imagined that not
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 a single beggar was to be found in Goldenthal. But this was toe 
 good yet to be true. Some of the old race remained, and refused to 
 be improved. There were still too many who preferred begging tc 
 any honourable labour ; and even able-bodied men and women were 
 to be found who would not only live by begging themselves, bul 
 would marry and bring up children in beggary. Such disorders 
 grieved the heart of the worthy young parson, and he had man) 
 consultations with Oswald regarding the best mode of remedy 
 1 Unless we remove this great evil,' said he, ' our prosperity will have 
 a worm at its root, and soon decay.' 
 
 The 'Spital, as the poor-house was called, was a miserable place 
 where the poor had been huddled together like cattle in a fold, withou 
 any discrimination of age, sex, character, or state of health, am 
 there kept without any proper supervision, and supplied with no usefu 
 employment. Roderick had often visited the place, and was resolvec 
 that such a nursery of idleness and vice should no longer defile anc 
 disgrace his parish. A list was prepared of all the people unable t< 
 support themselves. The 'Spital was reformed, and changed int< 
 quite another house. A large kitchen was made, where the cookin< 
 for all the inmates might be done ; separate rooms were establishec 
 for the men and women respectively, and two chambers set apar 
 for the sick; a separate sleeping-cell, too, was provided for ever 
 healthy person. Into the newly arranged house all persons who hac 
 no houses were conducted, as well as the children of such familie: 
 as had no decent accommodation at home. Children were left witl 
 their parents in all cases where this could be done without peril t( 
 the health of both their bodies and their minds. 
 
 Suitable persons were appointed to visit all the families receiving 
 from the parish relief in their own houses, and regular reports wen 
 given by these visitors to Roderick and Oswald. All the pauper: 
 who could labour were compelled to do so in support of the funds o 
 the 'Spital ; and if any one refused to do his duty, he was condemnec 
 to imprisonment, and supplied only with bread and water. Thi; 
 regulation soon exposed the distinction between the worthless anc 
 those who were willing to become useful members of society. The lane 
 attached to the 'Spital was laid out in gardens, and soon shewec 
 signs of good cultivation. Every pauper was obliged to contribute 
 a certain amount of the produce of his allotment to the commor 
 fund, but with permission to raise more for his own purposes 
 Abundant work was found for all who were strong, in mending the 
 roads, draining the boggy parts of the forest, felling trees, planting 
 clearing the water-courses, and other ways. There was indoor worl 
 too for rainy weather and for the women: they were required tc 
 keep all the furniture in the 'Spital in good order, and to keej 
 themselves employed with spinning, knitting, and sewing. By sucl 
 measures, enforced by a constant, kind, and watchful supervision 
 the 'Spital was transformed into a comfortable abode, and a nurserj 
 26
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 of industrious habits. And all this was soon done without any 
 expense to the parish. The inmates of the house were soon able to 
 prepare and cook their own food, repair their clothes, and to manu- 
 facture goods which found a sale. Their minds also improved as 
 their .physical condition was elevated by decency, industry, and 
 orderly habits. Roderick conducted divine worship in the 'Spital on 
 several evenings in the week; and the inmates were taught not 
 only to respect themselves, and do justice to their neighbours, but 
 also to be humble and devout before their Maker and Saviour. 
 
 It should be observed, that every inmate was at liberty to leave the 
 house whenever he thought proper, provided that he could shew 
 that he had a fair prospect of otherwise honourably supporting 
 himself and those belonging to him. Thus many who had been 
 burdens to themselves and to the parish, by kind and prudent means 
 well carried out, were restored to the happy condition of being 
 willing and able to support themselves, and contribute to the welfare 
 of society at Goldenthal 
 
 IX. 
 
 SOMETHING NEW AGAIN. 
 
 ' What can Oswald be scheming now ?' said some of the people 
 when the reformer began to devote his evenings to the measure- 
 ment of their farms. He was walking about with the schoolmaster, 
 John Heiter, stretching the chain, or looking over the tops of the 
 stakes he had fixed in the ground. 'What can all this mean?' 
 asked the people. 
 
 In the course of some months, Oswald had prepared a complete 
 map of all the land in the parish, with every stile, house, and path. 
 This was suspended in the parish vestry, and many went to wonder 
 at it every day, until Oswald assembled the principal land-proprietors 
 to hear an explanation of his design. 
 
 ' Here,' said he, ' is a plan of all your lands, which our school- 
 master, assisted by some of the boys, has made out for us. I will 
 now explain my purpose. When I surveyed the fields which you 
 have cultivated with hard labour, I could not but observe that some 
 of them yield less than they ought to do with good management ; 
 and, in many instances, a great part of the labour and expense of 
 cultivation might be spared. I propose to render your plans more 
 economical, by saving, in the first place, time. As you have bought 
 your several parcels of land at various times, I find that they lie 
 widely scattered, so that a man has to cross the parish sometimes 
 
 27
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 to go from one of his fields to another. Here is a great waste of 
 time. One of you has a small piece of land on the hill-side, then 
 another patch behind the wood, another near the high-road, and 
 still another patch on the other side of our rivulet. Thus a great 
 part of the day is spent in walking to and fro; and this loss of 
 time by every man employed on the land, and also by your cattle 
 drawing manure, &c., must, when summed up, appear a very serious 
 matter at the end of the year. Now, if all these scattered pieces 
 of land could be gathered into one compact allotment, would not 
 there be a great saving of time, labour, and expense ?' 
 
 All assented ; but some suggested that it was not easy to carry 
 land about. Oswald went on to explain his plan. 
 
 ' My plan has its difficulties,' said he ; ' but only be fair and 
 obliging to each other, and as you can see now how much land 
 belongs to each of you, I would suggest that you may, with mutual 
 advantage, make exchanges of land, so as to have all your farms 
 more compact. The advantage will surely be great. Throw aside 
 selfishness ; do the thing that is just ; take time for consideration, 
 and I believe you will carry the plan into effect for the good of 
 the parish.' 
 
 Some shook their heads, and said it was impossible; yet they 
 began to study it at their homes. It became the most popular 
 entertainment during the winter to discuss the proposed measure ; 
 and in the spring several good arrangements were made. Then, 
 when some of the small farmers found the profit of having their lands 
 together, others became anxious to share in the improvement : the 
 map was studied every evening, and the divisions of land were soon 
 more conveniently disposed for cultivation. Perseverance in good 
 plans carried on improvement in Goldenthal, until it indeed deserved 
 its name. It was a golden valley. The village lay in the midst of 
 fruitful gardens, orchards, meadows, and golden corn-fields. The 
 foot-paths over the fields were kept smooth and clear from weeds, 
 and the roads throughout the parish were ornamented with fruit- 
 trees. The village looked like a flourishing little town. Every 
 house had shining windows, a polished door, a roof of tiles, a little 
 flower-garden, and a hive of bees. The people were well clothed, 
 and their cheerful faces told that they lived happily together. Many 
 had brown, sunburnt faces ; but strength and health were smiling 
 from their eyes. The young men of the neighbouring villages looked 
 wistfully at the maidens of Goldenthal, and even the sons of respect- 
 able farmers thought they did well to obtain the hand of one of 
 these maidens, who supplied the want of money with genuine house- 
 hold virtues. 
 
 After service on Sunday, Goldenthal presented a scene of true 
 rural happiness : parties of friends and relatives assembled in the 
 houses, or sat in the gardens enjoying fruit, honey, milk, and other 
 pastoral luxuries. The village became a favourite place of resort
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 for the respectable people of the town ; and even in winter, skating- 
 parties would meet at Goldenthal. Under the guidance of Heiter, 
 the schoolmaster, the young choir had attained such proficiency 
 as to be able to sing choral pieces, such as could seldom be heard 
 even in the neighbouring towns. Thus the young people, supplied 
 with innocent and intellectual amusements, and shut out from many 
 temptations, were able to spend their evenings in summer and in 
 winter without feeling anything of that dulness and want of occupa- 
 tion by which many are led into intemperance and other vices. 
 
 As may be supposed, there were some who were disposed to mar 
 the good results of Oswald's labours. A number of the village 
 peasants, as they became more wealthy, were tempted to vanity; 
 some of their daughters dressed too gaily ; while some of the men 
 indulged in the wine-flask or at the billiard-table. But this conduct 
 aroused the fears of all the well-disposed inhabitants, and, taught 
 by experience, they foresaw in such vanities and indulgences the 
 first tendency to go backward. When fully aware of the evil, there 
 were grave deliberations on the subject ; and a species of union was 
 formed of persons who agreed to abide by certain regulations as to 
 dress and manners. This movement had the desired effect ; the 
 force of public opinion suppressing the tendencies to vice and 
 disorder. Every year the regulations were read aloud in the church 
 to the congregation, and such additions were made from time to 
 time as seemed necessary. After the reading, the question was put 
 to all, old and young, men, women, and children, in the assembly : 
 'Will you stand by this code of laws, which is the foundation of 
 all our prosperity, happiness, and honour?' And all the people 
 answered with one accord, with a loud voice, that they would. Thus 
 the integrity of the parish was preserved. 
 
 X. 
 
 THE BAPTISM OF OSWALD'S CHILD. 
 
 And now Oswald was truly happy, for his Elizabeth presented to 
 him a fine healthy son. He went to carry the news to his friend the 
 new host at the Lion, who was one of the faithful members of the 
 confederacy. ' Friend,' said Oswald, ' I think I have never yet 
 asked you to bestow a favour upon me ; now I must do it. My 
 wife has just given me a son and heir. I cannot leave her, and go 
 to the town ; but I require, for a certain purpose, the loan of five 
 hundred guilders only for eight days.' 
 
 ' Of course I will lend them,' said the host of the Lion; t but I 
 have not all that in gold.'
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 ' Let it be gold if you can,' said Oswald ; ' see what you can do, 
 and bring it to my house to-morrow evening exactly at eight o'clock. 
 But say nothing of it to anybody.' 
 
 In the same way Oswald called upon every one of the two-and- 
 thirty men who had made the promise to keep the seven rules : to 
 each of them he addressed the same petition, and appointed the 
 same time and place for receiving the money. All these friends met 
 at Oswald's house at the hour of dusk, and were conducted into a 
 chamber almost dark. Oswald went out to fetch candles, and in a 
 few minutes returned, arrayed in a military costume, with star, 
 sword, and feather, just as he had appeared to them in the same 
 room seven years before. 'Have you brought the money, my 
 friends?' said he. 'Please to lay it upon the table.' One after 
 another stepped forward, and laid his heap of money upon it. 
 
 Then Oswald spoke : ' Remember, my friends, that now your 
 time of probation has expired : the seven years and seven weeks 
 are gone ; and now you have placed more gold upon this table than 
 lay upon it on the night of our engagement My promise is fulfilled : 
 I have taught you the art of goldmaking. And now abide faithful 
 to God and your own vows ; so shall your welfare increase from day 
 to day. Bring up your children by the same rules, and your welfare 
 will descend to them.' Many expressions of hearty gratitude broke 
 forth as Oswald ceased speaking. He now returned the money to 
 those who were so willing to lend, assuring them that he did not 
 need it. 
 
 'Then what can we do for you to express our thankfulness?' said 
 several at once. ' Only tell us, and we are ready to go through fire 
 to serve you, for without you we should have been ruined.' 
 
 Then Oswald answered : ' I thank you for your sincere friendship, 
 but I have no need of assistance of any kind. Thanks to a worthy 
 man, my good father, who gave me a fair education. When a 
 soldier, I found all that I had learned useful, and my knowledge of 
 land -measurement, next to my good conduct, procured for me 
 promotion to the rank of captain of horse. In a skirmish, when the 
 prince was surrounded by foes, I dashed in with my squadron and 
 rescued him. I received for that service this wound on my brow, 
 and the star on my breast, with a good pension for life. The prince 
 has never forgotten me, but, as you have seen, has condescended to 
 visit me here in GoldenthaL When I returned to my native village, 
 and found it in such miserable circumstances, I thought it prudent 
 to disguise my real condition. I soon lost all desire of living in 
 Goldenthal, and should have gone away had I not seen Elizabeth, 
 my dear wife : she kept me in the place. Then I resolved to do my 
 utmost towards improving the place where I chose to dwell. To 
 carry out my plan, I hid my wealth and rank from all except my 
 wife and her parents. And now,' he added, 'let. this discovery of 
 my station in the world make no difference in your intercourse with 
 30
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 me : you are my brethren, and the title I shall be proudest of will 
 be to be called your friend /' 
 
 ' Then,' said the chief speaker of the company, ' if we can express 
 our thanks in no other way, we and our families will attend your 
 child's baptism, and make the day a festival in all our houses ! ' 
 
 Sunday came, and all the young people in Goldenthal arose early, 
 for on that day Oswald's child was to be baptised. In the morning, 
 Oswald went to the bedside and kissed the young mother and her 
 infant. ' See, Elizabeth,' said he, ' my heart is almost breaking with 
 joy and sorrow mingled. My boy makes my heart glad, and the 
 aspect of our village this morning moves me to tears. See ! who 
 dare deny the capability of goodness and gratitude in the souls of 
 men ? During the night, they have decked our house with garlands 
 and wreaths, as they did at our bridal; and not only so, but all 
 the cottages in the village are decorated with green boughs and 
 wreaths of bright flowers, as if our festival was to be a festival in 
 every family. And all the way from our house to the church, they 
 have planted stakes on each side of the road, and hung long strings 
 of flowers between them, while the road is strewn with green leaves 
 and many-coloured flowers.' 
 
 The young mother blushed with pleasure, and her eyes were 
 moistened as she heard what Oswald told. ' I have heard noises 
 of going to and fro in the night,' said she, ' and knew not what to 
 make of them.' She could not stay in bed, but must go to the 
 window to see the decorations of the cottages. And then she wept 
 silently, for nothing is more touching to a tender soul than to 
 witness the sympathy of many united by one good feeling; it is 
 an anticipation of the joy that will be felt in heaven. Elizabeth 
 returned to her infant son, and her parents arrived to prepare for 
 the baptismal ceremony. The miller's good wife could not express 
 her joy at the gay appearance of the village. ' Never,' said she 
 'never was there such a baptism in Goldenthal before no, not 
 even at the birth of a prince have we had such a festival ! ' As she 
 was speaking, a procession of boys and girls came on towards 
 Oswald's house : all were clothed in their best Sunday garments, and 
 every one carried some little present for the cradle of the infant. 
 They came in two at a time, and, kneeling down, kissed the hand 
 of the young mother, calling her 'Mother Elizabeth;' then kissed 
 the hand of Oswald, and called him ' Father Oswald !' 
 
 Then all the church bells began to ring joyously. The child was 
 dressed, and carried to the church. The grandfather and the 
 grandmother followed, and behind them walked the father, deeply 
 moved in his soul. The whole congregation, old and young, stood 
 before the church in a wide half-circle waiting for Oswald; and as 
 he came, all said, as with one soft and friendly voice, ' Good- 
 morning, Father Oswald:' then all followed him into the church. 
 After the baptism, the preacher, Roderick, delivered a sermon on
 
 THE GOLDMAKERS' VILLAGE. 
 
 the duty of the people to be grateful for good guardians. He seemed 
 to be inspired more than usual with his theme. Word after word 
 went to the hearts of the people. When he came to the closing 
 prayer, and with tremulous voice prayed for the good guardians of 
 Goldenthal when, with tears no longer to be suppressed, he lisped 
 out the name of Oswald, there was sobbing and weeping in the 
 congregation : every one thought of all that Oswald had done for 
 the parish ; and at the conclusion of the service, the hymn ' for the 
 life of the public guardians ' arose to Heaven from an assembly of 
 warm and thankful hearts. 
 
 Oswald walked to his house with his head bowed down, and yet 
 happy at heart. When he saw his wife, he could hardly speak for 
 emotion. The parson, the miller and his wife, and Oswald's fellow- 
 guardians, sat down to the christening dinner ; then it was told that 
 a festive dinner was prepared in every cottage, as if a child in every 
 family had been baptised. Oswald shook his head, and said : ' I am 
 not worthy of all this kindness.' But the general joy cheered his soul. 
 In the evening, he visited many of the cottages to express his thanks 
 for their display of affection ; and until late in the twilight, youths 
 and maidens were dancing on the green, and songs were resounding 
 from the houses, the shade of the lime-trees, and the gardens all 
 around. That day has been long talked of at Goldenthal ; and since 
 that time, Oswald has always kept the title of Father, and Elizabeth 
 has been called Mother by all the young people of the village. 
 Surely all good sown in this life shall be rewarded at last with a 
 rich harvest, for God, the loving and merciful, the rewarder of the 
 good, lives and rules over us all. 
 32
 
 The NANA SAHIB, from an original Drawing. 
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 |N the 24th of February 1857, there commenced in British 
 India the most formidable mutiny or rebellion that 
 had ever broken out in that vast country : a mutiny 
 which placed the people and the government alike in 
 great peril, taxed the utmost powers of the state to 
 quell it, and called forth brilliant examples of heroic suffering and 
 19 i
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 daring valour. It had more the form of a mutiny of the native 
 soldiery than a general rebellion of the people, although the latter 
 element was in some districts not wanting. How it happened that 
 there was a vast native army in the service and the pay of the 
 British, and commanded by British officers, cannot be understood 
 until we know something of that strange historical phenomenon 
 the rise of British India, the formation of a British empire in that 
 rich and important region of the East. 
 
 INDIA: THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Properly, India and Hindustan are the same in meaning, signifying 
 'the land of the Hindus; 'but English writers mostly confine the 
 name of Hindustan to the northern part only of India. The 
 southern part is a large peninsula; the northern is a broad belt 
 of country, extending up to the gigantic range of the Himalaya 
 Mountains, and watered by the Indus, the Ganges, and other 
 important rivers. The extreme length from north to south is about 
 1900 miles, the extreme breadth from east to west about 1600 ; 
 presenting an area a hundred and fifty times as large as Great 
 Britain. The peninsular portion of India has 4000 miles of sea- 
 coast a fact to which much of the commercial prosperity of the 
 country has been due. The flat regions bordering on the Indus 
 and the Ganges especially the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, Oude, 
 Rohilcund, the Doab, and the Punjab are for the most part very 
 fertile and densely peopled ; while Sinde, or Sindh, partakes 
 rather of the nature of a sandy desert. Central India, comprising 
 Malwah and Rajahstan, is an elevated plateau or table-land, much 
 less thickly inhabited. Southern India, or the Deccan, is the 
 peninsular portion ; containing a large extent of elevated land in 
 the centre, strips of lowland near the sea-coasts, and mountain- 
 ranges (called the Eastern and Western Ghauts) between the high- 
 lands and the lowlands. 
 
 The natives spread over this wide region are of many nations 
 and tribes, known by a great number of designations ; but they are 
 broadly distinguished (mainly by their religion) into Hindus and 
 Mohammedans. It is supposed that many scattered tribes in various 
 parts of India, less civilised than the Hindus, preceded them in 
 the occupation of the country, and that the Hindus came as con- 
 querors ; although it is not now known at what period the irruption 
 or invasion took place. In times comparatively modern the 
 Mohammedans of Turkestan penetrated into India, and became the 
 dominant race in many provinces. The vast population of nearly 
 200,000,000 souls is thus made up of many races, nationalities, and 
 tribes, differing considerably in natural character and acquired 
 influence. The ethnology of India is a difficult problem, which has 
 as yet been only imperfectly studied.
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 PROGRESS OF BRITISH POWER IN INDIA. 
 
 It was among so remarkable and numerous a people that the 
 British gradually obtained sway. Never was there a better illustra- 
 tion of the saying concerning the 'thin end of the wedge;' every 
 blow given during two centuries has driven the wedge further in. 
 It was in the year 1600 that Queen Elizabeth gave a charter to 
 a company of merchants, conceding certain privileges and mono- 
 polies in connection with trade to India or the East Indies. 
 The Company were at first traders, and traders only; but when, 
 just about two centuries ago, Charles II., by a new charter, gave 
 them the privilege of 'making war and peace with the native 
 princes,' he established a foundation for the influence which after- 
 wards became so vast and irresistible. The representatives of the 
 Company were seldom without excuses for ' making war ' or ' making 
 peace;' and the directors at home, so long as the trade returned 
 good dividends, did not always examine very closely the treatment 
 which native princes received, or the means by which the servants 
 of the Company acquired enormous fortunes. So long as the Com- 
 pany sent out bullion, lead, quicksilver, woollens, hardware, &c., to 
 India, and brought home from thence silk, calicoes (originally an 
 article of Indian manufacture), diamonds, tea, porcelain, pepper, 
 saltpetre, opium, indigo, and drugs of various kinds, they were legi- 
 timate traders; but they gradually mixed themselves up with the 
 quarrels of the native princes, and usually contrived to gain some- 
 thing out of each quarrel. In this way the Company's servants 
 acquired power in Northern India, with Calcutta as their starting- 
 point ; while Madras and Bombay became two other nuclei of 
 acquisition and conquest. Further power arose out of the war with 
 France about the middle of the last century ; for the political aid 
 of the British crown was given to the Company, in reference to 
 certain possessions which the French had in India. From that 
 time there was never wanting great military conquerors in the service 
 of the East India Company, albeit the latter were properly only a 
 trading body of British merchants. Lord Clive, by splendid victo- 
 ries over the French in the Madras presidency, and over the native 
 princes in Bengal, gained large dominions for the Company between 
 1751 and 1757; and before he finally left India, he virtually estab- 
 lished what might be called the British empire in the East. 
 
 The history of the hundred years preceding the mutiny was 
 crowded with incidents, all tending in one direction the increase of 
 British power in India,, both for the crown and for the Company. 
 Hyder Ali was brought more or less under subjection in Mysore, the 
 Nizam in the Deccan, the Mahrattas in Central India ; and Tippoo 
 Saib was supplanted at Seringapatam by a Hindu prince under 
 British protection. And so the eighteenth century wore away. A
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 governor-general for all the British possessions in India was first 
 appointed in 1773; and during the subsequent period of nearly a 
 century, this post has been occupied by a succession of eminent men. 
 Great, indeed, were the battles, great the acquisitions of territory in 
 some instances, great the sacrifice of English blood during those 
 eventful years. The successful war against the Ghoorkas ; the 
 defeat and subjection of the Pindarries ; the Burmese War ; the 
 extraordinary campaign against the Thugs, or fanatic murderers 
 of India ; the deplorable Afghan War, with its tragic termination 
 at the Khyber Pass ; the second or retributive war against the 
 Afghans ; the conquest of Sinde ; the terrible Sikh War, with its 
 battles of Moodkee, Ferozeshah, Aliwal, and Sobraon ; the second 
 Sikh War, ending with the decisive victory of Gujerat ; the second 
 Burmese War ; the annexation or absorption of the great kingdoms 
 of Punjab, Pegu, Nagpoor, and Oude all tended to make the first 
 half of the present century a very warlike one.* 
 
 BRITISH AND NATIVE ARMIES IN INDIA. 
 
 It becomes necessary to know what portion of the vast region was 
 in British hands at the time of the mutiny in 1857. We should find, 
 in tracing it out on a map, that this portion extended from the 
 Himalaya on the north to Ceylon on the south, from the Brahma- 
 putra and the Ganges on the east to the mouths of the Indus on 
 the west ; but that it was dotted here and there, in various parts, 
 with independent or semi -independent states. British India, 
 though under one governor-general and one commander-in-chief, 
 was divided into five governments, as follow : i. Presidency of 
 Bengal, with 41,000,000 inhabitants; 2. Presidency of Madras, 
 22,000,000 ; 3. Presidency of Bombay, 12,000,000 ; 4. North-west 
 Provinces, 34,000,000 ; 5. Territories under the immediate adminis- 
 tration of the governor-general in council, 23,000,000. There were 
 thus no less than 132,000,000 natives of India subject either to the 
 Queen of England or to the East India Company it was not very 
 easy to say which. The separate kingdoms, states, or provinces, 
 which by their annexation made up this large total, were very 
 numerous. Taking them in the order of acquisition, they comprised 
 at least sixty different states, acquired in exactly one hundred years. 
 It will not be necessary to give all the names here ; those most 
 familiar to English readers were Bengal, Bahar, Benares, Bombay, 
 Malabar, Tanjore, portions of the Deccan and Mysore, the Carnatic, 
 Delhi, Gujerat, Khandeish, Poonah, portions of the Mahratta 
 country, Assam, Aracan, Patna, Sinde, Pegu, Punjab, Nagpore, 
 Oude, Satara, and Berar. British India altogether, containing the 
 
 * The story of the ' British Conquest of India* will be told at greater length in a sub- 
 sequent Number ; in the meantime, the above sketch may serve as an opening to the tragic 
 episode of 1857-8. 
 
 4
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 132,00x3,000 inhabitants, covered 840,000 square miles of area ; the 
 independent and protected states, with an area of 630,000 square 
 miles, added another 48,000,000 to the population. It is only by a 
 little stretch of magniloquence that the Queen of England, as 
 ' Empress of India,' is said to have 200,000,000 souls under her 
 dominion in that land. 
 
 These wide-spreading territories were, at the time of the breaking 
 out of the mutiny, defended by 280,000 soldiers in the pay of the 
 East India Company; besides 40,000 men whom the protected states 
 were bound by treaty to furnish as contingents. Most of the troops 
 were natives, commanded by British officers ; some were Europeans, 
 raised by recruiting in England as direct soldiers of the Company ; 
 and some were regular regiments of the Queen's army, lent by the 
 home government, and paid for by the Company. The English 
 soldiers were called ' Queen's troops ' and ' Europeans,' according 
 as they belonged to the royal or to the Company's armies ; the 
 native soldiers were called ' Regulars ' and ' Irregulars,' according 
 to the mode of their organisation. The most perilous element in 
 this great military force, so far as the mutiny was concerned, was 
 also the largest ; it was the native regular infantry, comprising 155 
 complete regiments. The native cavalry was strong in Moham- 
 medans ; but an overwhelming preponderance of the native foot- 
 soldiers were Hindus ; and this was the worst of the two religions, 
 so far as concerned the causes of the outbreak. A Bengal native 
 infantry regiment, in some instances, contained no less than 400 
 Brahmins, or Hindus of the religious caste, and 200 Rajpoots, or 
 Hindus of the military caste the remaining four or five hundred 
 being lower-caste Hindus and Mohammedans. Every caste among 
 the Hindus has its own peculiar rules and customs, more rigidly 
 enforced perhaps than class distinctions in any other part of the 
 world. A Hindu cannot rise out of his caste, however wealthy he 
 may become ; and he cannot depart from the usages of his caste, 
 without being regarded as a heretic, pariah, or outcast. It is 
 extremely difficult for Europeans to become acquainted with the 
 inner life, thoughts, feelings, hopes, fears, plans of the Hindus ; and 
 the embarrassment of the government in troubled times is much 
 increased by this difficulty. 
 
 BREAKING OUT OF THE MUTINY. 
 
 Such was the country, such the people, such the army, suddenly 
 set in commotion in the early weeks of 1857. Many of the natives 
 appear to have quietly conspired to make that year memorable, as 
 the centenary of 1757 ; they hoped to put an end in the one year 
 to the British rule which Clive had virtually established in the 
 other. It is now known that the Mohammedans were the leaders 
 in this particular movement, with the hope of re-establishing a great 
 
 5
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 Moslem empire ; that the Hindus had special motives of their own, 
 connected chiefly with the subjects of religion and caste ; that a 
 written paper was circulating from hand to hand, containing some 
 sort of prediction concerning 1857, as a year in which British 
 supremacy in India was to come to an end ; that chupatties (small 
 cakes of unleavened maize-flour) were sent from village to village 
 during the second half of 1856, supposed to have been used as some 
 kind of war-signal or conspiracy-symbol ; that a lotus-flower was 
 very often brought to a military cantonment, given to the chief native 
 officer of a regiment, passed from hand to hand throughout the 
 regiment, and then carried or conveyed by the last man to the next 
 regiment or cantonment probably to effect the same work among the 
 native soldiery as the chupatties wrought among the villagers ; that the 
 Hindu soldiers were irritated and alarmed whenever their cartridges 
 were supposed to be greased with the fat of the bullock or cow, lest 
 their mo'uths should be defiled in biting off the ends, and they should 
 lose caste ; that the native soldiers of the Bengal army were more 
 discontented than those of the Madras and Bombay armies, because 
 the chance of promotion from the ranks was smaller ; and that the 
 Earl of Dalhousie's annexation of Oude in 1856 had left a deep 
 wound in the minds of many of the Mohammedan inhabitants of that 
 kingdom. All these facts are now known, with more or less dis- 
 tinctness ; and all are believed to have contributed to the sudden 
 and formidable outbreak in 1857 ; but the authorities were deplorably 
 ignorant at the time of the danger ; they either did not observe the 
 symptoms, or disregarded them as of no importance. 
 
 Quite early in the year, a rumour spread that a mutinous seizure 
 of arms at Calcutta was intended ; then a seditious proclamation 
 was found on a Mohammedan fanatic priest in Oude ; then an 
 attempt was made on the fidelity of the guard at the Calcutta Mint ; 
 then some of the non-commissioned officers of a native corps at 
 Soorie, in a strange way declined to avail themselves of an annual 
 holiday or furlough at the usual period ; and then, about the end of 
 January, insubordination was shewn at the station of Dum-dum 
 (a few miles north of Calcutta), arising out of the cartridges used for 
 the recently introduced Enfield rifle the Mohammedans fearing 
 that the lubricating grease contained the much-abhorred swine's 
 fat, the Hindus that it contained the scrupulously avoided cow's fat 
 (the swine being too vile for the one, the cow too sacred for the 
 other, to touch with their lips). But the first actual outbreak was 
 at Berhampore. Some of the native troops came to the canton- 
 ment, and appear to have excited the men by accounts of disturb- 
 ances at Dum-dum and Barrackpore ; insomuch that the ipth Native 
 Infantry rose in insurrection. The movement was soon checked, 
 and the ipth soon afterwards disbanded in disgrace; but it was a 
 grave event, which rendered many of the old officers of the Company 
 very anxious ; and it was followed by another at Barrackpore on 
 
 6
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 the 29th of March, which necessitated the disbanding of the 34th 
 Native Infantry. 
 
 But much more alarming things were at hand. During March 
 and April, the military authorities at Umballa were rendered uneasy 
 by a mutinous tendency on the part of the native troops stationed 
 there ; and as Umballa is more than a thousand miles from Calcutta, 
 with the great cities and provinces of Delhi, Meerut, Agra, Cawn- 
 pore, Lucknow, Allahabad, Benares, and Patna lying between them, 
 it shewed how wide was the area over which the spirit of insub- 
 ordination spread. 
 
 REVOLT AT MEERUT, AND LOSS OF DELHI. 
 
 On Sunday the loth of May, the real mutiny began at Meerut. 
 A large cantonment at that place, not many miles from the famous 
 city of Delhi, contained several regiments, European and native. 
 The native troops, after many days of great excitement, rose suddenly 
 in arms, wounded or drove away their officers, broke open the jail, 
 liberated 1200 malefactors, and established a temporary reign of 
 terror. English ladies and children, families of the military and 
 civil officers, were going to evening church when the tumult began ; 
 but a sad evening was in store for them. Colonel Finnis, of the 
 nth Native Infantry, fell riddled with bullets; bungalows (officers' 
 residences) and government offices were burned to the ground ; 
 ladies were murdered, and even mutilated ; and little children were 
 ruthlessly massacred. Where, it may be asked, were the British 
 troops all this time? It appears that at the military stations in 
 India, the natives and the Europeans are encamped apart, with a 
 bazaar or trading town for the accommodation of the former, and 
 officers' bungalows in various places ; the whole covering a great 
 area. The 6oth Rifles and the 6th Carabiniers, as well as a troop 
 of horse-artillery, were there ; but so far distant were they from the 
 native troops, and so utterly unprepared for such a scene on a quiet 
 Sunday evening, that they could not come to the rescue in time. 
 The native regiments (i ith and 2Oth Infantry, and 3d Cavalry), after 
 this brief season of fire and slaughter, marched off to Delhi ; the 
 natives at the two places had evidently some pre-arranged plot. 
 The English troops tried to check them, but without avail. 
 
 Delhi, a great and splendid city with seven gates, and a wide 
 frontage to the river Jumna, contained not a single British regiment 
 at that time; there were three native regiments, besides artillery ; 
 all the Europeans in the place were a mere handful. These three 
 regiments were joined, in the early morning of the nth of May, by 
 the three from Meerut. There was an old, debauched, decrepit 
 monarch there, the Mogul king of Delhi, a powerless pensioner of 
 the British ; but it very soon appeared that he and all his family 
 were among the conspirators. The mutineers entered triumphantly 
 
 7
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 and welcomely, and the gates were closed behind them, to cut off any 
 of the British who might be in pursuit. Not one single European 
 was in a position to give a connected account of that terrible day 
 at Delhi. The sepoys (native infantry) at the station assumed a 
 seeming faithfulness until those from Meerut had entered; then they 
 threw off the mask ; and the families of the English officers and 
 civilians were hunted about like wild beasts. Some took refuge in 
 the Flagstaff Tower, a building a mile and a half out of the city ; 
 some fled into the open plain, to wander they knew not whither ; 
 some sought refuge in the jungle, only to be dragged forth and 
 cruelly murdered ; some were burned in their own bungalows. The 
 narratives of suffering, collected afterwards one by one, were far 
 more terrible than those at Meerut. The scene closed by the whole 
 city of Delhi being in the hands of mutineers, with a grandson 
 of the old monarch set up as a sort of temporary king or chief. 
 How many months elapsed before the British regained possession 
 of the place, will be seen in due course. 
 
 RAPID SPREAD OF THE MUTINY. 
 
 Some slight idea of the difficulties and perils in which the English 
 were placed over the whole face of Northern India, may be gained 
 by considering their position in ordinary times. The civil servants 
 of the Company, called commissioners, judges, magistrates, col- 
 lectors, &c., mostly had their families residing with them ; and if the 
 city or town were also a military station, there were also the families 
 of the English officers (or some of them) who commanded the native 
 troops. British troops were comparatively few. At the time of the 
 breaking out of the mutiny, almost half the Queen's troops in India 
 were either near Pegu in the east, or in the Punjab and the Indus 
 provinces on the west ; while the twelve hundred miles of distance 
 between Calcutta and the Sutlej were almost denuded of them. 
 Hence, when the sepoys broke out in insurrection, the position of 
 the handful of English became very precarious, for they were literally 
 tens among thousands. With a map of India open before him, the 
 reader will see over how vast an area the hostilities spread. In the 
 first half of the month of May, three regiments mutinied at Meerut, 
 three at Delhi, and one at Lucknow. In the second half of the 
 same month, one at Murdan, one at Allyghur, one at Hattrass, 
 two at Nuseerabad, four at Lucknow, and one at Shahjehanpoor. 
 The first half of June witnessed the mutinying of one regiment at 
 Azimghur, four at Seetapoor, one at Mooradabad, two at Neemuch, 
 three at Benares, two at Jhansi, four at Cawnpore, one at Bhagput, 
 one at Allahabad, one at Hansi, one at Bhurtpore, three at Jullun- 
 door, two at Fyzabad, one at Sultanpore, one at Pershadepore, two 
 at Nowgong, one at Rohtuk, two at Ferozpore, and one at Gwalior. 
 This was a terrible fortnight ; more than thirty native regiments
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 suddenly turned their arms against their former masters. In the 
 second half of June, there was only one mutiny at Futteghur and one 
 at Mozuffernugger. The months of July, August, and September 
 witnessed the revolt of about twenty more regiments. The materials 
 for mutiny were now pretty well exhausted ; seeing that most of the 
 Bengal native regiments (in which the disaffected spirit chiefly 
 manifested itself) were by this time either disarmed or in mutiny. 
 Almost every one of these several acts of mutiny was attended 
 with misery and danger to English civilians, ladies, and children ; 
 and the tales of suffering committed to paper were often of the 
 most touching and harrowing kind. Military officers there were in 
 abundance ; for every mutiny of a native regiment deprived of 
 immediate duties, even if not of life itself, the British officers who 
 had commanded it. Many were the instances in which these officers 
 themselves formed voluntary corps, to aid the heroic endeavours 
 which were made now in this region, now in that to stay the 
 progress of revolt, and to reconquer the positions which the 
 mutineers had gained. 
 
 THE HEROIC DEFENCE OF ARRAH. 
 
 As the stirring events at Cawnpore, Lucknow, and Delhi, presently 
 to be described, extended over several months, and require to be 
 narrated in some consecutive order, we will here treat of one isolated 
 and brief episode, soon begun and soon ended. There were few 
 deeds in the whole history of the mutiny more gallant than the 
 defence of Arrah by Mr Wake and Mr Boyle. A miserable affair at 
 Dinapoor in which (for a rarity) an Indian officer was found to be 
 too old and feeble, too gentle and irresolute, for the duties intrusted 
 to him gave occasion for this heroism. 
 
 Dinapoor was a great military station, in the rich province of Bahar, 
 lying between Bengal and Oude, and about ten miles distant from 
 the great commercial city of Patna. General Lloyd, commandant 
 at Dinapoor, unfortunately credited his sepoy regiments with fidelity 
 long after most other officials had learned the stern truth. There 
 were, in July, three of those regiments in the wide cantonment 
 outside Dinapoor the 7th, 8th, and 4Oth Bengal Infantry. Portions 
 of H.M. loth and 37th Foot were in the British lines ; and General 
 Lloyd was strongly urged to employ them to disarm the sepoys, as 
 soon as the terrible news from Meerut, Delhi, and other stations 
 arrived. But he was old, infirm, kind, and indulgent totally unfitted 
 for the exigency. On the 25th of July, the whole of the sepoys 
 marched off, taking arms and ammunition with them. The 400 
 British troops could and would have prevented this departure of 
 3000 native sepoys, or would at anyrate have disarmed them ; but 
 the bewildered and paralysed commander issued no orders until too 
 late ; and the mutineers got clear off. They went to Arrah, a town 
 19 9
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 24 miles distant. The chief magistrate, the representative of British 
 power at Arrah, was Mr Wake, a man of great energy and deter- 
 mination. He had for weeks kept the government acquainted with 
 the fact that the district of Shahabad (of which Arrah was a sort of 
 capital) was in a very turbulent state ; but his appeals for military 
 aid were unsuccessful. At length the 26th of July came, and with it 
 the mutineers from Dinapoor. 
 
 Now took place the heroic and memorable defence of Arrah. 
 Mr Boyle, a civil engineer, in anticipation of the events which fol- 
 lowed, had strongly fortified his detached two-storied house, and 
 placed in it provisions, water, and a supply of ammunition. On news 
 of the outbreak at Dinapoor (where the women and children had 
 been sent for greater safety) the Europeans and others in Arrah 
 entered the building. There were thirteen of them, together with 
 one Mohammedan servant of the Company, and fifty Sikh police, 
 who remained ' true to their salt.' The house was about fifty feet 
 square, and Mr Wake resolved to defend it to the last. The Dina- 
 poor mutineers, marching into Arrah on the morning of the 27th, 
 liberated all the prisoners in the jail, sacked the treasury, and 
 laid siege to Boyle's house, bringing not only musketry but cannon 
 to bear upon it. The siege was an extraordinary one ; 64 men 
 defended the house for seven days against an army of 3000 troops 
 not undisciplined rabble, but men who had been drilled to active 
 service by British officers. As fast as the enemy increased their 
 attack, so did the little band strengthen the defence ; new batteries 
 were opposed by new barricades ; and mines were frustrated by 
 countermines. The Sikhs behaved nobly, never flinching an inch. 
 One night, when provisions were running low, they sallied out, cap- 
 tured four sheep, and brought them safe within the house ; they also 
 dug a well beneath the very floor of the house, and obtained thereby 
 a welcome supply of water. Whether it was possible for any of the 
 defenders to obtain an hour's sleep during the seven days, may 
 almost be doubted ; for they had to be on the alert night and day. 
 Poor General Lloyd, hoping to repair the disaster at Dinapoor, sent 
 British troops and 150 Sikhs after the mutineers to Arrah ; but these, 
 by gross mismanagement, met with a mortifying defeat in the very 
 suburbs of that place, on the night of the 2Qth 290 men being 
 killed or wounded out of 450. Mr Wake and his companions heard 
 the firing consequent on this encounter, but could neither receive 
 nor render assistance. The siege continued. How much longer 
 the defenders would have been able to hold out cannot be known ; 
 but aid came to them on the 2d of August. Major Vincent Eyre, 
 en route to Allahabad with some artillery, hearing of the events 
 at Arrah, resolved to turn aside from his road, and attempt a 
 rescue. He had only 270 men and 3 guns ; but, by a series of 
 brilliant manoeuvres, he thoroughly defeated 2500 mutineers out- 
 side Arrah, entered the town, and joined Mr Wake's little band.
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 Extraordinary to relate, none of the defenders were killed, and only 
 one dangerously wounded. 
 
 NANA SAHIB, AND THE MASSACRE AT CAWNPORE. 
 
 We shall next trace the circumstances which led to the slaughter 
 of British soldiers and civilians, delicate women, and little children, 
 by the miscreant Nana Sahib. 
 
 Cawnpore is a large town on the river Ganges, about 120 miles 
 above Allahabad, 650 by land from Calcutta, and 250 from Delhi. 
 A very large military cantonment lay outside the city ; the native 
 troops were numerous, the stores and treasure valuable, and the 
 position important, as commanding the highway of the Ganges. Sir 
 Hugh Wheeler, in command at that station, was very uneasy at 
 the prospect around him during the month of May ; he had few 
 English among his troops, and little hope that reinforcements could 
 reach him from other quarters. As June advanced, and telegraph 
 wires were cut by the rebels, no authentic news could come to or 
 from Cawnpore ; dark rumours and scraps of messages, reaching 
 other parts of India from time to time, told of something terrible 
 going on ; but it was not till many weeks later that the awful truth 
 came to light, and the authorities at Calcutta knew of the tragedy at 
 Cawnpore. Although having very few English soldiers, Wheeler 
 had many English civilians, political and civil officers, merchants, 
 missionaries, &c. to think for. The native troops stationed there 
 were the 1st, 53d, and 56th Bengal Infantry, and the 2d Bengal 
 Cavalry : if these should prove unfaithful, he had very few English 
 soldiers to come to his aid. He caused a square plot of ground 
 (afterwards well known as the Intrenchment) to be laid out on the 
 grand military parade, apart alike from the town and the cantonment ; 
 it was about 600 feet square, bounded by a trench and an earthen 
 parapet, and containing two barrack-hospitals, a few other buildings, 
 and a well. Into this enclosure he caused to be conveyed, by degrees, 
 a large amount of treasure, commissariat and pay-office records, 
 and enough grain, rice, salt, sugar, tea, coffee, rum, beer, &c. foi 
 30 days' consumption for 1000 persons. This was a matter of pre- 
 caution, taken about the middle of May ; but when Sir Hugh Wheeler 
 found that no help could be obtained from other quarters, and that 
 the mutinous spirit increased among the natives, he caused the 
 civilians and their families to sleep within the Intrenchment at night, 
 together with the wives and children of the few score military officers ; 
 but the officers themselves continued near their troops, in the canton- 
 ment. A miserable time it was within the Intrenchment, nearly 
 every one sleeping under canvas, and not knowing what the morrow 
 would bring forth : they little suspected the real horrors that were in 
 store. There was near Cawnpore one Nana Sahib, a Mahratta 
 prince or chieftain, who, justly or unjustly, conceived that the East
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 India Company had wronged him in regard to his inheritance of title 
 and possessions. Resolved on revenge, he took the lead of the 
 mutineers ; and his leadership was all the more terrible because 
 he simulated friendship ; even Sir Hugh Wheeler trusted him. A 
 very fiend he proved to be, when the opportunity came for shewing 
 himself in his true colours. On the $th of June, the open mutiny 
 began in earnest : bungalows were burned ; some of the native 
 troops marched off to join insurgents in other quarters ; elephants and 
 stores were seized ; and Wheeler directed all whom he could trust 
 to come into the Intrenchment. Nana Sahib openly took command 
 of the insurgents ; he brought reinforcements with him, and com- 
 menced a veritable siege of the Intrenchment. A large store of 
 ammunition lay in boats on a short canal leading to the Ganges ; 
 and these boats were unfortunately seized by Nana Sahib instead 
 of by Wheeler. To make matters worse, he imitated the tactics of 
 the mutineers at Meerut, by setting free several hundred ruffians 
 from the jail : these men joined the mutineers, and helped to wreak 
 vengeance on the unfortunate Europeans. The number of persons 
 within the Intrenchment was upwards of 900, more than one-third 
 of them English women and children ; the English soldiers were 
 somewhat over 200. There they remained day after day, week after 
 week, withstanding a siege from the mutinied regiments, and from 
 additional forces brought up by the treacherous Nana. What they 
 suffered, especially the ladies and children, can with difficulty be 
 realised. The earthen rampart was so low, that the besieged required 
 to be constantly on the alert to keep out the besiegers ; and as the 
 defenders were so weak, they were harassed with daily and nightly 
 duties. A few of Her Majesty's 32d and 84th Foot, and a few 
 artillerymen this was all. The firing began on the 6th of June ; 
 from that day, no succour of any kind could enter the Intrenchment ; 
 and in what plight the remnant of the sufferers left the place on 
 the 27th, we shall soon have to tell. During these eventful three 
 weeks, the defenders stood to their guns till ready to drop. There 
 was scarcely any shelter within the Intrenchment for the non-combat- 
 ants ; the rebels brought down more and more guns to bear on the 
 devoted place ; it became a matter of life and death to go and 
 draw water from the one well within the enclosure ; the oxen were 
 driven away or slaughtered, because there was no water for them, 
 and then the meat-rations fell off; the hundred or so of native 
 servants ran away, leaving the English to shift for themselves ; hogs- 
 heads of rum and beer were burst in by the enemy's cannon-balls : 
 and then thirst and scarcity followed in the train of fatigue, sickness, 
 and wounds. Many poor women and children died in the first week, 
 through sickness, fright, and numberless privations ; and the dead 
 bodies were thrown into a deserted well, for there was no possibility 
 of decent interment. On one particular day, red-hot shot from the 
 enemy's guns set fire to the thatch of one of the two barrack-hospitals ;
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 forty poor creatures sick, wounded, women, and children were 
 burned to death ; and nearly all the medicines and surgical instru- 
 ments were destroyed. Those who were too young or too weak to 
 fight, lived more like nomad tribes than Christian people ; for the 
 remaining barrack was too completely riddled with shot to shelter 
 them safely ; and hence women and children were to be seen 
 crouching behind any barrier that offered, or even in holes in the 
 ground. 
 
 These three weeks were a terrible time ; but the real tragedy was 
 still to come. On the 24th of June, Nana Sahib sent a messenger 
 to say that all the English might retire to Allahabad, in boats down 
 the Ganges, if they would give up the Intrenchment, treasure, guns, 
 and ammunition. Sir Hugh Wheeler, hopeless and worn down, 
 agreed to the proposal. On the 27th, the forlorn band, the remnant 
 of the 900, quitted the place. They started to embark in about 
 twenty boats ; but then Nana Sahib's villainous plan shewed itself. 
 Guns were brought down to the river-banks ; rebel soldiers rushed 
 into the water with swords, and killed most of the men of the hap- 
 less party. The women and children, denied the mercy of a speedy 
 death, were conveyed on shore, and shut up in a building at Cawn- 
 pore called the Subadar Kothee, at Nana Sahib's headquarters. 
 How many women and children went into this place, and what they 
 suffered during the next eighteen days, no credible witness has ever 
 told ; they appear, however, to have exceeded 200 in number. After 
 suffering cruel privations and shameful indignities, they were put to 
 death on or about the I5th of July. Nana Sahib wished to prosecute 
 ambitious projects of his own in other quarters ; and he determined 
 to get rid of the encumbrance of women and children. It was a 
 butchery of the most savage and barbarous kind. Not only were 
 tender women and children killed, but many of them were cut up 
 piecemeal ; and the room in which they were confined the slaughter- 
 house, indeed was strewed with women's and children's garments, 
 clotted tresses of women's hair on the walls and floor, and pools of 
 blood. The mangled and mutilated bodies and limbs were thrown 
 indiscriminately into a well near at hand. 
 
 NEILL'S ADVANCE FROM CALCUTTA. 
 
 Seldom has a government been placed in such complicated 
 difficulties as those which beset the India authorities in May and 
 June. General Anson, commander-in-chief of all the forces in India, 
 being struck down by cholera, General Reed took his place, until 
 the arrival of Sir Patrick Grant from Madras ; and the latter officer 
 held it only until the arrival of Sir Colin Campbell (afterwards Lord 
 Clyde) from England. These fluctuations in headship greatly 
 marred the progress of affairs ; unity of purpose was wanting. 
 Viscount Canning, at Calcutta, had no troops to send to the
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 imperilled districts ; and more than 1200 miles of distance separated 
 him from Sir John Lawrence, who had to hold and protect the whole 
 of the north-west of India by his own skill and energy. The 
 governor-general had much to bear, from the vituperation of the 
 Calcutta press and the adverse criticisms of English orators and 
 writers ; his best defence was pronounced when all was ended that 
 he had done well. It happened that, about that time, a little war 
 with Persia had just been concluded, and that trusty troops were 
 about to return from the Persian Gulf to India. It happened, too, 
 that an expedition was just then being sent out from England to 
 China, comprising military as well as naval forces. Viscount 
 Canning, by a prompt use of such telegraphic means as were within 
 his power, succeeded in obtaining the aid of a few choice British 
 troops from both those sources. But an immense time would 
 necessarily elapse before those troops could reach the focus of action. 
 Under the old order of things in India, many weeks were required 
 for a military force to reach Cawnpore or Lucknow from Calcutta, 
 and a still longer time to reach Delhi j and although railways were 
 constructed and opened by the year 1857, they did not render much 
 assistance in the early months of the mutiny. Fortunate was it that 
 the native soldiers in the Madras and Bombay armies were but little 
 affected by the insurrectionary spirit of the Bengal sepoys and the 
 Oude troopers ; they came to the aid of the British regiments in 
 Hindustan, though many a scorching week's march had to be 
 accomplished. 
 
 The names of two gallant men are specially associated with the 
 prompt and daring advance of small bands of soldiery through 
 hundreds of miles of territory imperilled by the mutineers. One was 
 General Neill ; the other, still more renowned, General Havelock. 
 
 Neill was, in actual army rank, only a lieutenant-colonel in the 
 month of June. He brought a few companies of Europeans from 
 Madras, and advanced rapidly with them to Benares, which city he 
 saved from imminent peril on the 4th of that month. Indeed, a 
 plot had been formed by treacherous sepoys in the barracks, under 
 the mask of fidelity to the last moment, to massacre all the Europeans 
 in the city on that very night, and to repeat once more the drama 
 of Meerut and Delhi. Neill had only a tiny force of 240 men and 
 three guns with him ; but he discomfited the rebels, and saved 
 Benares. The rebels, however, maddened by failure, wreaked their 
 vengeance on other parts of the city, in which the civilians and their 
 families were in terrible danger throughout the month of June. 
 Several of the imperilled persons took refuge in outhouses and 
 stables, on roofs, or behind parapets, or in boats moored in the 
 middle of the Ganges ; ladies, children, and ayahs were guarded by 
 a band of civilians ever on the alert, leaving the military free to 
 operate in other quarters. No sooner were the events at Benares 
 known at Allahabad a very important place at the confluence of
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 the Ganges and the Jumna, commanding the traffic on both rivers 
 than a native regiment, the 6th Bengal Infantry, suddenly mutinied 
 on the 6th of June. The officers were astonished and dismayed, 
 for the sepoys had vowed to be true to their salt, and had even 
 volunteered to march against the rebels at Delhi. The scene was 
 hideous. The sepoys, joined by jail-birds and ruffians of every 
 stamp, commenced a work of death and devastation. Europeans 
 were shot wherever they could be seen ; the few English women 
 who had not been so fortunate as to seek refuge in the fort, were 
 grossly outraged before being put to death ; the treasury was 
 plundered ; the houses of Europeans were pillaged. Tales were 
 afterwards told of so appalling a character, that we can only hope 
 that terror had exaggerated actual facts of a whole family being 
 roasted alive ; of poor creatures being killed by the slow process of 
 cutting off ears, nose, fingers, feet, &c. in succession ; of men and 
 women being chopped to pieces ; of little children being tossed on 
 bayonets before their mothers' eyes. 
 
 No sooner did Neill hear of these terrible events, than he prepared 
 to come to the rescue at once however small might be the number 
 of faithful troops at his disposal. He was a man of indomitable 
 energy and courage, just fitted for the emergency. He started on 
 the 9th, with only 44 men, and marched the distance of 75 miles 
 from Benares by the nth. On the way, he found the country 
 infested with bands of plunderers, the villages deserted, and none 
 of the authorities remaining. He succeeded in entering the fort at 
 Allahabad (situated a considerable distance from the main streets 
 of the town). Neill now assumed command of the few faithful 
 troops already in the fort, the handful which he brought with him, 
 and another small detachment which followed him from Benares. 
 By incessant activity, he kept in awe the thousands of insurgents 
 and marauders who infested Allahabad on every side. His severity 
 was terrible, and called forth much animadversion afterwards in 
 England j but the astounding duplicity of the sepoys had rendered 
 it necessary to make use of terror as one means of coercing them ; 
 kindness having utterly failed. 
 
 HAVELOCK AND NEILL AT CAWNPORE. 
 
 And now we come to the achievements of Havelock the hero of 
 the Indian mutiny wars, in the estimation of many English readers. 
 There is some little danger of injustice here ; for, though he gained 
 marvellous victories with very small means, he was not embarrassed 
 by those distressing difficulties which arose (in the case of Sir Hugh 
 Wheeler and other responsible officers) from the presence of hundreds 
 of helpless women and children. He was a noble character in all 
 respects, and could well afford to share the credit for heroism which 
 belonged to so many remarkable men during that eventful period.
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 Havelock, engaged in nearly every Indian war between 1823 and 
 1846, had been employed in 1856 in the brief expedition against 
 Persia ; and he was one of the officers of that expedition who 
 responded to the urgent demand of the governor-general for military 
 reinforcements. Steaming from the Persian Gulf to Bombay, thence 
 to Ceylon, and thence to Calcutta, Havelock was at once placed in 
 command of such a force as could be hastily got together, for the 
 relief of Cawnpore, and then for service elsewhere. It was literally 
 by fragments of companies, 20 or 50 men at a time, that troops were 
 sent from Calcutta on to Benares, Allahabad, &c. ; for it would 
 have been worse than useless to send any but men of tried fidelity ; 
 and of these there were, alas ! few besides Europeans in any part of 
 Bengal 
 
 Havelock reached Allahabad on the 1st of July, his progress so 
 far having been facilitated by the gallant Neill; and then commenced 
 the arrangements for an advance on Cawnpore. Or rather, those 
 arrangements had already been commenced by Neill, who, on this 
 very ist of July, had pushed on a few troops to aid the beleaguered 
 Sir Hugh Wheeler. What Sir Hugh's actual condition was at this 
 time, his brother-officers little knew : the terrible truth had still to 
 reach them. Neill sent on 800 men towards Cawnpore ; but, in 
 accordance with military ideas of seniority, he was superseded by 
 Havelock as chief of the expedition : Neill himself remaining in 
 command at Allahabad. Rumours of a direful kind came in from 
 Cawnpore, and Havelock resolved to push on as rapidly as possible. 
 Two of the many Indian nationalities, Sikhs and Ghoorkas, he and 
 his brother-officers felt that they could trust ; and the spirit of the 
 man is shewn in a brief and pithy telegram transmitted to Calcutta : 
 ' 1000 Europeans, 1000 Sikhs, and 1000 Ghoorkas, with 8 or 10 
 guns, will thrash everything.' In reality he had less than 2000 men 
 in all in his little army, presenting an extraordinary mixture of 
 Queen's troops, Company's Europeans, Sikhs, irregular cavalry, and 
 volunteer cavalry from Allahabad no Ghoorkas at present. His 
 advance from Allahabad to Cawnpore, 250 miles (never far removed 
 from the Ganges), was literally a fight the whole of the way. The 
 rebels infested the country in enormous numbers, and tried their 
 utmost to prevent his advance towards Cawnpore. But nothing 
 could check him and his little band. Whether initiating or bearing 
 an attack, the result was everywhere the same. He ' thrashed ' them 
 (to use his own language) at Futtehpoor on the i2th, at Aong on 
 the 1 5th, at Pandoo Nuddee on the same day, at Aherwa on the 
 i6th, and at other places in minor achievements during these 
 memorable days. The battle of Futtehpoor was so extraordinary, 
 that Havelock, in thanking his troops on the following day, said 
 that it had 'produced the strange result of a whole army driven 
 from a strong position, eleven guns captured, and their whole force 
 scattered to the winds, without the loss of a single British soldier.' 
 
 16
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 He attributed this brilliant result to the rapid and accurate fire of 
 the artillery, the power of the Enfield rifle, British pluck, and 'the 
 blessing of Almighty God on a most righteous cause.' Having 
 reason to suspect the fidelity of the few native horse with him 
 (Oude irregulars), he disarmed and dismissed them in good time. 
 On the other hand, there was hardly any limit to his trust of those 
 whom he knew might be trusted. Here was an instance : ' The 
 opportunity had arrived, for which I have long anxiously waited, of 
 developing the prowess of the 78th Highlanders. Three guns of the 
 enemy were strongly posted behind a lofty hamlet, well intrenched. 
 I directed this regiment to advance ; and never have I witnessed 
 conduct more admirable. They were led by Colonel Hamilton, and 
 followed him with surpassing steadiness and gallantry under a heavy 
 fire. As they approached the village, they cheered and charged 
 with the bayonet, the pipes sounding the pibroch. Need I add that 
 the enemy fled, the village was taken, and the guns captured?' On 
 another occasion, the general's son, Lieutenant Havelock, headed a 
 few men of the 64th Foot to capture one of the enemy's guns ; he 
 literally walked his horse directly up towards the gun, in spite ot 
 repeated firing, and succeeded in the capture an achievement 
 which won for him the Victoria Cross. What the officers as well 
 as the rank and file had to bear, in those days of long marches, 
 constant fighting, and fierce sun's heat, is well shewn in the case of 
 one young officer, a stripling volunteer horseman of eighteen. He 
 was on picket all night, with no refreshment save biscuit and water ; 
 he marched with his corps 16 miles during the next forenoon ; stood 
 sentry for an hour with the enemy hovering around him ; fought 
 during the whole afternoon ; lay down supperless to rest at nightfall, 
 holding his horse's bridle the while ; mounted night-guard from 9 
 till 1 1 o'clock ; and then had his midnight sleep broken by an alarm 
 from the enemy. 
 
 Neill and Havelock had been so much delayed in their march 
 from Calcutta to Cawnpore, that Nana Sahib's fiendish work was 
 achieved before Havelock's column arrived. The hapless women 
 and children, and all that remained of poor Wheeler's band of 
 military and civilians, were put to death by the filthy ruffian just 
 two days before Havelock entered Cawnpore. 
 
 In what direction the prowess of the gallant general next shewed 
 itself, will be seen presently. 
 
 LUCKNOW: SIR HENRY LAWRENCE'S DEATH. 
 
 The story of Lucknow is by far the most interesting of all which 
 the mutiny presented ; for there was six months' perpetual display of 
 heroism, military skill, and untiring patience, although not the tragic 
 horrors of Cawnpore. We shall best understand the events by 
 treating them in four or five brief episodes.
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 After a very stormy history, under Mohammedan sovereigns, the 
 kingdom of Oude was annexed to the British dominions in 1856, by 
 the Earl of Dalhousie. The irritating influence of this measure was 
 felt in 1857, when the mutiny broke out. On Sunday the 3d of 
 May (just one week before the outbreak at Meerut), some of the 
 native troops at Lucknow displayed insubordination, which gave 
 great uneasiness to their officers. Sir Henry Lawrence, chief com- 
 missioner or viceroy over the whole of Oude, harangued the troops 
 in their own native language, exhorting them to remain true to 
 Queen Victoria j he had temporary success ; but every day produced 
 additional symptoms that insurrection was probable. The military 
 cantonment was six miles out of the city; the British troops were 
 only a few hundreds in number, while the native were many thou- 
 sands. Just outside the city was a building which became very 
 famous the Residency. It was, in fact, a large enclosure, bounded 
 on four sides by walls, and containing the chief commissioner's 
 house and other public buildings. The English women and children, 
 the sick, a large amount of stores, and a few faithful English soldiers, 
 were prudently brought within this enclosure by Sir Henry Lawrence, 
 who watched with uneasiness the growing turbulence of the natives. 
 The month of May ended very gloomily. Of the native troops, many 
 escaped to join malcontents elsewhere ; and during the early days of 
 June, it became evident that various towns and stations in Oude 
 Seetapore, Shahjehanpore, Secrora, Beraytch, Fyzabad, Jounpore 
 were in the hands of mutineers, who meditated a combined attack 
 on Lucknow, and an expulsion of the British. The telegraphic wires 
 were cut, spies and watchers were placed on the various roads, and 
 Lawrence had the utmost difficulty in sending messages to, or 
 receiving them from, the authorities at Calcutta. The whole month 
 of June passed in this way, until the 3oth, when a powerful force of 
 rebels approached from Fyzabad. Lawrence went out to encounter 
 them, but his native troops deserted him almost to a man, and he 
 was obliged to flee back into Lucknow, with such of his officers as 
 escaped death. On the ist of July, he abandoned all the outposts, 
 blew up a vast magazine, to prevent it from falling into the hands of 
 the enemy, and shut himself up with his companions in the Resi- 
 dency, there to make a stout resistance until haply aid might come. 
 But Sir Henry Lawrence did not live to welcome this aid. On the 
 very next day, July 2, he was killed by a shot from the enemy ; and 
 many months elapsed before the authorities at Calcutta knew how 
 the little band in the Residency at Lucknow bore up under this and 
 an accumulation of other calamities. 
 
 LUCKNOW: DEFENCE OF THE RESIDENCY BY INGLIS. 
 
 The defence of the Residency, after Sir Henry Lawrence's death, 
 was a notable exemplification of undaunted courage, heroic patience, 
 
 18
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 and fertility of resources in time of extreme peril. It was on the 
 2d of July that the gallant man fell ; it was not till the 25th of 
 September that another gallant man came to the rescue ; and what 
 the British in the Residency bore up against, during these eighty- 
 five days, can with difficulty be realised. Sir John Inglis suc- 
 ceeded to the command after Sir Henry Lawrence's death, and his 
 difficulties were great. ' He occupied one corner of a great city,' it 
 has been said, ' every other part of which was swarming with deadly 
 enemies. No companion could leave him, without danger of instant 
 death at the hands of the rebel sepoys and the Lucknow rabble ; no 
 friends could succour him, seeing that anything less than a consider- 
 able military force would have been cut off ere it reached the gates 
 of the Residency ; no food or drink, no medicines or comforts, no 
 clothing, no ammunition, in addition to that which was actually 
 within the place at the beginning of July, could be brought in.' The 
 Residency was not one single structure ; it was a walled enclosure, 
 with the British commissioner's residence as the principal building. 
 Within this enclosure all were cooped up officers, soldiers, judges, 
 magistrates, collectors, chaplains, merchants, clerks, ladies, and 
 children ; together with a few faithful natives. The total number 
 appears to have been about 1200. It was hardly possible to say 
 who were fighting-men, for almost every man had to fight in turn. 
 All the buildings were fortified as well as circumstances permitted, 
 and arrangements made for hospitals, dispensaries, barracks, maga- 
 zines, store-rooms, &c. The rebels kept up a siege, a continuous 
 pouring in of shell and shot, bullet and ball, for the whole of the 
 eighty-five days ; and for not one single hour could the garrison 
 (whether military or civilian) relax their watchfulness. The sufferings 
 were very great, and of a multifarious kind. Mines, dug from the 
 street outside, exploded within the Residency ; ladies were struck by 
 cannon-balls while sitting quietly at their work ; bullocks' fodder 
 was fired by the enemy's shot, and endangered the powder-maga- 
 zines ; balls entered the mess-room where the officers took their 
 hurried meals, and on one occasion cut off both the legs of an 
 officer ; bombarding was kept up more fiercely by night than even 
 by day, to prevent the beleaguered garrison from obtaining any rest ; 
 dead bullocks had to be buried, lest their decaying carcasses should 
 pollute the air ; artillery-horses went mad for want of water ; hot 
 vapours from stagnant pools produced fever, cholera, dysentery, and 
 diarrhoea ; the poor children died rapidly, unable to bear up against 
 the accumulated sufferings ; half rations were very early adopted, as 
 a matter of precaution against absolute famine ; and what food there 
 was became almost poisoned by flies and mosquitoes. Inglis tried 
 every means of sending messengers to Cawnpore, with entreaties for 
 aid ; but very few of them escaped the alertness of the enemy. At 
 the end of July, a rumour spread that aid was coming ; but August 
 advanced, no assistance came, and the garrison were in danger of 
 
 9
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 sinking into despondency. Out of twenty letters or messages at 
 different times, only one received a direct reply from Cawnpore, and 
 that one told that the time was still far distant when a military force 
 could be sent from that town to Lucknow. The little band became 
 weakened day by day, while the enemy waxed more strongly than 
 ever. No one could pass the open ground without being shot at, by 
 rebel musketeers posted on various buildings outside. One of the 
 civilians, writing afterwards of this extraordinary scene, said : ' At 
 one time a bullet passed through my hat ; at another, I escaped 
 being shot dead by one of the enemy's best riflemen, by an unfortu- 
 nate soldier passing unexpectedly before me, and receiving the bullet 
 through the temples instead ; at another, I moved off from a place 
 where, in less than a twinkling of an eye afterwards, a musket-bullet 
 stuck in the wall ; at another, a shell burst a couple of yards away 
 from me, killing an old woman, and wounding a native boy and a 
 native cook.' So wore on the terrible month of August, at the end 
 of which another letter was stealthily brought in from Cawnpore, 
 announcing that three more weeks must elapse before aid could 
 reach Lucknow. Every kind of misery was more intense in 
 September than in the preceding months death, wounds, disease, 
 hunger, thirst, fatigue. A few poor little creatures ' siege-babies,' 
 as their mothers called them were born at this terrible time, and 
 began their existence amid the sound of cannon-balls. All the 
 suffering had to be borne, however, for there were at least 5000 
 rebels investing the place ; yet was the cry : ' No surrender.' As 
 for dress, the whole of the inmates of the garrison were a mere 
 bundle of rags ; fire, wear, and tear had done their work ; shirt, 
 trousers, and slippers were all the costume of many an officer 
 accustomed to military trappings. 
 
 At length the reward came. Some wept for joy, some laughed 
 and shouted, some sank on their knees in prayerful thankfulness, 
 when on the 2ist of September authentic news arrived that succour 
 was really at hand. It came. On the 25th, Inglis shook hands 
 with two trusty generals within the Residency. 
 
 LUCKNOW : ACHIEVEMENTS OF HAVELOCK AND OUTRAM. 
 
 General Havelock's advance from Cawnpore to Lucknow, to 
 relieve Inglis and his gallant band, was a work of great difficulty, 
 long delayed for the need of increased reinforcements. He had cut 
 his way triumphantly from Allahabad to Cawnpore ; he had now 
 greater numbers and sterner enemies to meet between Cawnpore 
 and Lucknow. Neill hastened up from Allahabad, after Havelock's 
 capture of Cawnpore on July 16 ; he assumed command there, while 
 Havelock prepared to cross the Ganges, and march towards Lucknow. 
 The prospect was somewhat appalling. Leaving his sick and 
 wounded at Cawnpore, Havelock's little army was actually limited
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 to 1500 men, with 10 badly equipped guns. He crossed the broad 
 and turbulent Ganges with his troops on the 25th ; on the 27th, he 
 defeated a large force of rebels at Onao ; on the same day, he 
 vanquished the enemy again at Busherutgunje ; and on the next 
 three days, he was marching and fighting with very little intermission. 
 But now a deep mortification was in store for him. Every fight cost 
 him some men, even if only a few. He calculated that, by the time 
 he reached Lucknow, he would only have 600 fighting-men left, 
 after allowing for killed, wounded, and sick ; he would then have two 
 miles of street-fighting, before reaching the Residency ; and the 
 result would probably be, that only 200 or 300 troops would succeed 
 in joining Sir John Inglis certainly too few to relieve and liberate 
 the gallant but weakened band at the Residency. 
 
 Havelock retreated to Mungulwar, with little more than 1000 men, 
 there to wait for such reinforcements as good fortune might send 
 him from Cawnpore ; and there soon accumulated between him and 
 Lucknow a rebel army of no less than 30,000 men and 50 guns. He 
 fought a second battle of Busherutgunje on the 4th of August, and 
 a third on the nth defeating an enormous force of the enemy on 
 each occasion. On the I3th he recrossed the Ganges to Cawnpore, 
 because every battle he fought, and victory he achieved, cut up some 
 or other of his glorious little band. The next five weeks were 
 vexing weeks to him ; he knew that the British at Lucknow were 
 suffering much, though he did not know how much ; and yet he 
 was too weak to advance to their rescue. He had perforce to wait 
 at Cawnpore until reinforcements reached him. Meanwhile, Nana 
 Sahib was collecting a large number of rebel sepoys at Bithoor, 
 ready for an attack on the British at Cawnpore. Havelock and 
 Neill resolved to anticipate him. Marching out with 1300 men (all 
 that he and Neill could muster), Havelock thoroughly defeated 
 Nana Sahib at Bithoor, and thereby earned a few days' rest for his 
 over-worked troops at Cawnpore. It was a wonderful work which 
 this brave man. achieved gaining 10 battles in 37 days, against 
 enormous odds. By the 2ist of August, his position had become 
 extraordinary ; he and Neill together had only 700 men fit for the 
 field, so largely had the sick and wounded lessened the number of 
 effectives ; while it was known that more than 35,000 rebel troops 
 menaced him on the north, south, and west. 
 
 Another name now comes upon the scene. General Sir James 
 Outram, after bringing the brief war with Persia to a conclusion, 
 was appointed to command the whole military district from Dinapoor 
 to Cawnpore, all the other officers being placed under him. This 
 gave increased unity of purpose, though it could not possibly give 
 greater heroism or fortitude. Every exertion was made to send up 
 troops, by land and by water, as fast as they could be got together 
 in small bands ; these were sent on during the first half of September, 
 on the I5th of which month Havelock and Neill had the pleasure
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 of seeing Outram himself enter Cawnpore. Havelock had before 
 superseded Neill in command, and now Outram superseded Have- 
 lock ; but all three were chivalrous men, who knew how to interpret 
 the etiquette of their profession. Outram especially behaved nobly 
 at this juncture ; he requested Havelock to retain the command 
 until Lucknow should be relieved Outram himself, although a 
 superior officer in rank, promising to act as a subordinate. This 
 generosity, and the reinforcements forthcoming, quite reanimated 
 Havelock and his gallant little band. Havelock crossed the Ganges 
 again into Oude on the iQth, at the head of a larger force than he 
 had yet had under him. He beat back the enemy day after day, 
 in their endeavour to frustrate his passage. On the 23d, he reached 
 a large building outside Lucknow, called the Alum Bagh ; and here, 
 as he knew the little band in the Residency would be able to hear 
 his guns, he purposely poured forth a thundering salvo : how this 
 sound cheered the hearts of Inglis and his companions can but 
 faintly be conceived by those who know not the agony of the 
 preceding three months. Exhausted by a deluge of rain, scanty 
 food, and slight covering, Havelock allowed his troops the whole 
 day on the 24th to rest. On the 25th, leaving his baggage and 
 tents under an escort at the Alum Bagh, he marched on towards 
 the Residency now traversing roads cut by trenches, crossed by 
 palisades, and intersected by houses held by rebel musketeers ; now 
 passing a bridge where a perfect storm of shot from a large body of 
 the enemy met them ; then through a range of streets of flat-roofed 
 and loop-holed houses, each house a fortress. At last they reached 
 the Residency, where they were received with cheers that rent the 
 skies. Havelock's loss was very severe, more than 530 killed, 
 wounded, and missing shewing how desperate the fighting had 
 been. Outram received a flesh-wound, and much more lamentable 
 the gallant Neill was struck dead by a cannon-ball. One noble 
 regiment, the y8th Highlanders, bore the brunt of the fighting ; and 
 of that corps no fewer than ten officers were killed or wounded. 
 Within the Residency, there was almost a frenzy of joy. A story 
 arose that one Jessie Brown, a corporal's wife, cheered the little band 
 at night, in the depth of their despair, by starting up and declaring 
 that she caught the faint sound of the slogan or war-cry of the 
 approaching Highlanders, particularly that of the clan Macgregor, 
 'the grandest of them a'.' No one else could hear it; but she 
 insisted. And she was right : it was the Macgregor, and all went 
 down on their knees in thankfulness. The story was touching, and 
 has been made the basis of song, drama, and romance ; but it has 
 never been traced to an authentic source, and is not accepted in the 
 best-informed quarters.
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 LUCKNOW: OUTRAM, HAVELOCK, AND INGLIS BESIEGED. 
 
 We have now to tell how Havelock, Outram, and Inglis were all 
 alike hemmed in for nearly two months longer instead of being 
 able to emerge and confront the rebels in other regions. 
 
 Havelock gave back the trust which Outram had generously 
 awarded to him; and now Outram became first in command at 
 Lucknow, Havelock second, and Inglis third. By the conquest of 
 several palatial buildings near the Residency, the area in possession 
 of the British was increased threefold ; but they soon found that 
 they had very little other hold on the city of Lucknow. They could 
 neither take the ladies and children to safe shelter at Cawnpore or 
 Allahabad, nor maintain their own position without constant watch- 
 fulness. Little did Havelock think, when he left his sick, wounded, 
 ammunition, and baggage, under an escort of 300 men, at the 
 Alum Bagh, on the 24th, that he would be cut off from communi- 
 cation with that place by a body of rebels wholly beyond his 
 present power to subdue. In short, the ' relief of Lucknow was 
 more in name than in substance ; if there were a few more hundred 
 men to fight, there were the same extra number to be fed, with very 
 little additional means for doing so. The enlarged area, with its 
 buildings, became a garrison or camp, outside which the rebels had 
 undisputed control. Throughout the month of October, the rebels 
 kept up a night-and-day attack upon the British ; while the latter 
 made frequent sallies to capture guns, blow up buildings, and dis- 
 lodge parties of the enemy. The same thing continued till beyond 
 the middle of November ; Havelock, Outram, and Inglis being 
 virtually prisoners in one corner of the great city of Lucknow. 
 
 What was doing at the Alum Bagh during these eight weeks, was 
 almost absolutely unknown to the British in the city, so completely 
 did the rebels cut off communication between the two. The Alum 
 Bagh was heroically maintained. Although nothing could be done 
 on the Lucknow side, the road was less guarded on the Cawnpore 
 side ; and a few hundred troops, with convoys of provisions, suc- 
 ceeded in reaching the place. The subordinate officers at the 
 Alum Bagh had no more idea of yielding than the three generals at 
 the Residency. 
 
 LUCKNOW: THE RESCUE, BY SIR COLIN CAMPBELL. 
 
 Sir Colin Campbell now comes upon the scene. As soon as the 
 news reached London, early in July, that General Anson was dead, 
 Sir Colin was chosen to succeed him as commander-in-chief in 
 India. Distinguished for his services on many a hard-fought field, 
 Campbell's appointment met the approval of the nation ; and his 
 Wellington-like promptness and simplicity were looked upon as a 
 
 *3
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 good augury. On Saturday the nth, the offer was made to him; on 
 Sunday the I2th, he started for India, taking little with him but the 
 clothes on his back. Taking the quickest route by Marseille and 
 Suez, he steamed to Calcutta at once. During that same month, no 
 fewer than thirty troop-laden ships left England for India, carrying 
 from 130 to 440 soldiers each ; but Sir Colin Campbell was wanted 
 at once, to do the best available with the forces then in India. 
 Arriving at Calcutta in September, he found it necessary to remain 
 there several weeks, to make a comprehensive plan for the military 
 operations in India generally ; he would gladly have advanced to 
 the relief of Lucknow at once, but he had tens of thousands of 
 mutineers to think about elsewhere. Having sent on all the troops 
 he could muster, and arranged for the destination of those who 
 were to come, he started off on the 28th of October, travelled like a 
 quiet courier, narrowly escaped capture by some rebels on the way, 
 availed himself of the railway so far as finished, and reached Cawn- 
 pore, November 3. Here, joining a column under Sir Hope Grant, 
 and other troops from various quarters, he made an advance towards 
 Lucknow. Captain William Peel's Naval Brigade was not the least 
 interesting component element in this force. Lord Elgin (engaged in 
 a sort of war with China) had placed at the disposal of the governor- 
 general the two war-steamers Shannon and Pearl; from the seamen 
 of these ships a naval brigade was formed of 400 men with ten 
 68-pounders ; and this brigade was placed under the command of 
 Captain Peel, a son of the eminent statesman. Peel and his blue- 
 jackets entered joyfully upon the work ; but it was slow work to get 
 such heavy ordnance up the Ganges. When he arrived at Allah- 
 abad, he employed himself in facilitating the passage of troops, 
 seamen, and guns up to Cawnpore. 
 
 The 1 2th of November saw Campbell, Grant, and Peel all 
 advancing from Cawnpore towards Lucknow. After all his exertions, 
 the commander had with him less than 4000 men, consisting mostly 
 of British and Punjabees. Sir Colin, knowing how severely Outram 
 and Havelock had suffered when cutting their way through the city 
 of Lucknow to the Residency, resolved to attack the suburbs and 
 outer defences one by one, clearing a path for his troops as he went. 
 This was done, against constant and determined resistance from the 
 enemy. Various palaces and large buildings had to be conquered 
 during this progress, by bombarding and street-fighting alternately, 
 greatly to the delight of Peel's seamen, who felt the excitement quite 
 a relief after a somewhat monotonous time of it in the China seas. 
 The rebels fought so well as to excite the admiration even of those 
 who were attacking them ; and the siege proved to be a most deter- 
 mined hand-to-hand contest. Sir Colin had contrived to exchange 
 secret messages with Havelock. Leaving his heavy baggage in a 
 safe position outside the city, Sir Colin was fighting hard in Lucknow 
 itself on the i$th and i6th ; and he and Havelock shook hands together
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 in the Residency on the I7th to the indescribable joy of all the 
 British then in Lucknow. The losses were severe : Sir Colin had 
 to mourn over 470 killed and wounded ; while the rebel loss is 
 supposed to have exceeded 3000. 
 
 Then ensued the exodus from Lucknow one of the most remark- 
 able events in the whole war. The British were triumphant ; but 
 there were no less than 50,000 fighting-men in the rebel ranks in and 
 near the city; Sir Colin would have found it hard to keep the place 
 against them ; and if they had succeeded in shutting him up in the 
 Residency, his plans for active work elsewhere would have been 
 frustrated. He resolved to withdraw all the British from Lucknow 
 to Cawnpore troops, seamen, civilians, women, and children and 
 leave the permanent reconquest of the city for a later period. Many 
 of the officers were disappointed, for they wished for a little jubilation 
 between old and new friends, to be followed by a further ' thrashing' 
 of the enemy; but the commander's plans were to be judged as a 
 comprehensive whole and so the thing was done. They all had to 
 pass through a city swarming with armed rebels ; and wonderful 
 precautions were taken in sending off the sick and wounded on one 
 day, the women and children on another, the Company's treasure- 
 chests, the property that was worth the trouble of taking. Sir 
 James Outram so planned that each corps and regiment, each 
 detachment and picket, should march out silently from the Residency 
 in the dead of the night, without exciting suspicion among the rebels ; 
 and yet that there should be guns and riflemen so posted as to repel 
 the enemy in case of any serious molestation. In so masterly a way 
 was all this managed, that after the whole of the British, of all ages 
 and conditions, and of both sexes, had quitted the Residency (on the 
 night of November 22 23), the rebels believed the place to be still 
 occupied, and kept up a musketry-fire against it. The ladies and 
 children had many privations to bear during this hurried departure, 
 but not a life was lost ; and the exodus from Lucknow ended as a 
 pre-eminently successful achievement. 
 
 THE PUNJAB PRESERVED BY SIR JOHN LAWRENCE. 
 
 While these extraordinary events were occurring at Allahabad, 
 Cawnpore, and Lucknow, the operations of the overtaxed troops 
 further westward were paralysed by the position of the rebels as 
 masters of the great city of Delhi. Nothing effective could be 
 achieved towards the thorough suppression of the mutiny until this 
 stronghold was recaptured. Little was it suspected, on the nth of 
 May, how long a time would elapse before this recapture could be 
 effected. 
 
 At the time when the mutiny began, Sir John Lawrence, the 
 gallant brother of the gallant Sir Henry, was chief in command in
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 the Punjab, an important country situated near the extreme north- 
 west of India, The principal inhabitants of that province are Sikhs, 
 a kind of Hindu dissenters, very brave and warlike. They sympa- 
 thised but little with the Hindus and Mohammedans of Bengal and 
 Oude ; and it was mainly owing to their good faith that Sir John 
 was able to keep that part of India under control. Not that military 
 insubordination was absent ; there was much of it at first ; but the 
 native troops most affected by it were not Sikhs. There were great 
 military stations at Lahore, Umritsir, Ferozpore, Jullundur, Phillour, 
 Peshawur, and other places in and near the Punjab ; and the British 
 authorities had to adopt a bold and decisive course at all those 
 places, as soon as the events at Meerut and Delhi became known. 
 Near Lahore was a large military cantonment called Meean Meer, 
 occupied by three native infantry regiments, one of native cavalry, 
 H.M. 8ist Foot, and some artillery ; while a smaller number (mostly 
 native) were in a fort within the city. It became afterwards known 
 that the 15th of May was the day fixed upon for a general rising in 
 the Punjab as well as in Bengal, and that the Meerut mutineers had 
 somewhat disarranged the plan by beginning five days too soon. 
 On the I2th, the news from Meerut and Delhi was known at Lahore ; 
 and on the very next day, by a most admirably conceived and 
 executed plan, 3000 native troops were disarmed by 900 British. 
 Lahore was saved, and with it the Punjab. Umritsir, another 
 important military station, was kept from insurrection by prudent 
 tactics rather than by disarming the native troops ; the religious 
 animosities between the Sikhs and the Mohammedans were made 
 use of to prevent either from joining in plots with the other. 
 Ferozpore, a small but important town on the Sutlej, owing its value 
 chiefly to its position, had a large encampment just outside it. There 
 were stationed in it two regiments of native infantry, two of native 
 cavalry, H.M. 6ist Foot, and some artillery, provided with a large 
 amount of military stores. On the arrival of the news from Meerut, 
 precautionary measures were taken, but not skilfully ; the native 
 troops succeeded in making off in a body, taking their arms with 
 them ; Ferozpore and its vast military stores were saved, but the 
 mutineers went off to join other malcontents elsewhere. Jullundur, 
 on the high-road between Umritsir and Lahore, contained, like the 
 other stations, many native troops and a few British ; but by a plan 
 similar to that adopted at Umritsir, the place was kept tranquil 
 without disarming the natives. Phillour, nearer than any other of 
 the stations to Delhi, contained few native troops, and no British, 
 but a vast magazine of warlike material. The officer in command, 
 quickly estimating the perilous character of the events at Meerut, 
 sought and obtained the aid of a few British troops from Jullundur. 
 Not a day too soon ; for it afterwards transpired that the enormous 
 military stores were to have been seized on the 15th, as a reserve 
 for the whole rebel army in that part of India. Peshawur was the 
 
 a6
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 greatest of all the military stations at the time, containing no less 
 than 14,000 troops. The city lies almost at the extreme north-west 
 of India ; and a large force was kept there to overawe the unruly 
 tribes in that region. By a series of masterly movements, a small 
 number of British troops, aided by several native corps not con- 
 taining the Bengal element, succeeded in keeping down the rebellious 
 tendency within manageable limits. 
 
 The responsible officers at the above-named places were obliged 
 to act promptly on the best of their judgment ; for there was no 
 time, just at that critical middle of May, to wait for instructions from 
 Sir John Lawrence. At several other towns between Delhi and the 
 north-west frontier, there were attempts at mutiny about the same 
 time, presenting various fluctuations of success and failure. At 
 Bhotuck, at Jelum, at Sealkote, such scenes took place ; attended in 
 a few instances with hair-breadth escapes on the part of the ladies 
 and children of officers stationed at those places. There was a 
 very touching incident at Sealkote, where a Roman Catholic nunnery 
 had been established. The mutineers, before the British could get 
 the mastery over them, attacked the building ; and the poor nuns 
 had to flee for safety, undergoing terrible privations before they 
 reached friendly succour. 
 
 DELHI: PREPARATIONS FOR RECAPTURE. 
 
 The great duty of Sir John Lawrence and his trusty lieutenants 
 was, not only to retain the Punjab, but to assist in despatching forces 
 for the recapture of Delhi. When the outbreak began, the com- 
 mander-in-chief, General Anson, was at Simla a pleasant summer 
 retreat among the hills. On receiving by telegraph the disastrous 
 news from Meerut and Delhi, he hastened down from Simla to 
 Umballa, in order to despatch a field-force to Delhi, made up of 
 such reliable troops as could be spared. On the 25th of May, 
 General Anson was stricken down by cholera, and it devolved upon 
 otheVs to carry out the plan of operations. Troops were got together 
 with great difficulty, from widely scattered places ; and it was only 
 by slow degrees that they could be assembled. An advance was 
 made from Umballa to Kurnaul, then to Paniput, then to Alipore ; 
 where a junction was made with another force under Colonel Arch- 
 dall Wilson. This last-named force had achieved a bit of gallant 
 fighting. General Hewett, after the disaster at Meerut, received 
 orders to send part of the British troops at that place to aid in the 
 siege of Delhi. All he could safely spare were 500 infantry, 200 
 cavalry, and about eight or ten guns. Colonel Wilson started with 
 this little force on May 27 ; and he had ten days' hard work before 
 him, for there were 5000 or 6000 rebel troops endeavouring to 
 dispute his march. He succeeded in reaching Bhagput on June 7, 
 where he joined the force from Umballa under Sir Henry Barnard.
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 Some of the troops in that force had marched at least 800 miles, 
 from the Afghan frontier ; and among them were a gallant band 
 which gained renown as the Punjabee Guides half-soldier, half- 
 police, but faithful from first to last. 
 
 The siege of Delhi commenced on the 8th of June ; and a much 
 more wearisome siege it proved than the commanders had antici- 
 pated. The rebels were very numerous, very determined, and 
 strongly posted within a walled city : not only walled, but provided 
 with strong forts and bastions, and defended by a broad ditch sinking 
 35 feet below the top of the wall. The camp of the besiegers was 
 fixed on the old parade-ground, a mile and a half from the city ; and 
 all the successive onslaughts were made from that starting-point. 
 The rebels shewed more skill and pluck than had been anticipated ; 
 and as the boundary was too extensive, the rebels too numerous, 
 and the besiegers too few, to permit of the garrison being starved 
 out, nothing remained but a series of bombardings and assaults. 
 It was mortifying to the British to see additional regiments of 
 rebel sepoys enter Delhi, with bands playing and colours flying, 
 triumphant and defying : they were too weak to prevent this kind 
 of augmentation to the numbers of the enemy. During the whole 
 remainder of the month of June, the besiegers were as often the 
 assailed as the assailants, owing to the frequent sallies made by 
 the enemy ; and it became at length apparent that the British force 
 was too weak. On the 5th of July, Sir Henry Barnard died ; he was 
 succeeded by General Reed ; but Reed himself broke down on the 
 1 7th, and then Sir Archdall Wilson took the command. These 
 failures at headquarters, the large amount of sickness in the camp, 
 and the increased daring of the enemy, somewhat dispirited the 
 besiegers especially as newspapers from home, reaching the camp 
 from time to time, contained many complaints and some taunts at 
 the non-success of the small band. By the end of July, there were 
 no less than 8000 men under Wilson, besieging Delhi a number 
 that would have appeared irresistible to Lawrence at Lucknow, 
 Wheeler at Cawnpore, or Colvin at Agra ; but out of the whole 
 there were 1 100 sick and wounded, and only half the effectives were 
 British troops. On the other hand, it was known that, between May 
 ii and the end of July, more than twenty rebel regiments had 
 marched into Delhi : making all allowance for losses, there were at 
 least 20,000 armed men in this strong place, aided by a formidable 
 number of guns. So far as was known to the British, the city itself 
 appears to have been a prey to plunder, anarchy, and violence 
 the -debauched old descendant of the once great Mogul emperors of 
 India trying in vain to maintain a semblance of sovereign power. 
 
 Sir John Lawrence, up in the Punjab, hearing at intervals of the 
 
 course of events at Delhi, strained every nerve to forward supplies. 
 
 Now he sent a corps of Sikhs, now of Punjabees ; then he organised 
 
 a small band of Ghoorkas and of Guides ; on one occasion, a few 
 
 28
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 British artillery were sent, in charge of siege-guns ; next, a few 
 Hindustanee cavalry in whom he believed he could trust ; and 
 very sparingly a sprinkling of those most precious of all troops, 
 infantry of the Queen's regular army. What these troops suffered, 
 during many hundred miles' march, under a burning Indian sun in 
 July, none can tell but soldiers who have actually been so engaged. 
 
 August began, and with it proof that the besieged were far 
 stronger than the besiegers in men, guns, and stores of all kinds. 
 In addition to the 20,000 rebel troops within Delhi, there were large 
 numbers swarming about the country on all sides, continually har- 
 assing Wilson's force, and endeavouring to cut off supplies and 
 convoys. 
 
 DELHI: FINAL STORMING AND CAPTURE. 
 
 Brigadier -general Nicholson a second Havelock brought 
 welcome succour. Appointed in June, by Sir John Lawrence, 
 to command a hastily collected flying column, he pursued the 
 rebels everywhere with a celerity that astounded them. Now at 
 Wuzeerabad, now at Sealkote, now at Goordaspore ; then on the 
 banks of the Chenab, then on the Sutlej distance seemed of no 
 account to him ; and wherever he encountered a body of the enemy, 
 he at once attacked and defeated them. The trusty element in his 
 column was H.M. 52d Foot a regiment which, on two intensely 
 hot Indian July days, marched sixty-two miles, fighting a short but 
 fierce battle on the way. Nicholson brought his column of 2500 
 men to Delhi on I4th August. Still, Wilson could not bombard 
 and storm the city ; he had to wait for a siege-train of heavy guns 
 from the Punjab. The second half of August presented many fierce 
 encounters by Nicholson and other gallant men with hordes of 
 rebels, in a vast area of country around Delhi. Early in September, 
 the siege-train arrived from the Punjab thirty large guns, howitzers, 
 and mortars, with men, carriages, horses, ammunition, food, and 
 camp-equipage ; it had been a work of immense difficulty to collect, 
 preserve, and forward them. 
 
 At length came the eventful I4th of September, the day of the real 
 storming of Delhi. Sir Archdall Wilson, from all sources and on 
 all sides, had collected 10,000 effective troops ; a further number of 
 3000 sick and wounded was of course an element of anxiety, and not 
 of help to him. Instead of being the assailed, which he had been 
 for many weeks, he now became the assailant. Busily from the 7th 
 to the 1 3th, were the Sappers and Miners making the advance-works 
 for the siege, protected by the cavalry and infantry, and followed by 
 the artillery with the heavy guns ; the enemy harassed them the 
 whole of the time, but without effect. The big guns opened their 
 tremendous fire on the nth, and continued till the morning of the 
 1 4th in battering down or making breaches in certain parts of the 
 
 29
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 walls and bastions. The troops advanced in four columns, against 
 four different points ; they came under a withering fire in crossing 
 the open ground between the trenches and the walls, but on they 
 rushed, down into the ditch, up the scarp, and in through the 
 breaches which had been made. The Cashmere Gate into the city 
 was blown in by a devoted little band under Lieutenants Home and 
 Salkeld, and one of the columns entered there. During a similar 
 attack upon the Lahore Gate, the gallant Nicholson fell riddled with 
 bullets to the great grief of the whole army. When the night 
 ended, the British were within the place ; the rebels having reigned 
 triumphant there from nth May to I4th September. But the 
 reconquest was far from complete, seeing that the portion of the 
 city held by the British bore but a small ratio to the whole area. 
 Wilson had to mourn over 1135 killed and wounded on this san- 
 guinary day. From the I4th to the aoth, the fighting was incessant. 
 The British had to advance literally inch by inch, through streets 
 crowded with rebel troops ; and those rebels, supplied with a seem- 
 ingly inexhaustible store of artillery, rifles, and ammunition, fought 
 throughout with desperate energy and determination. The conquest 
 was final, but it had been paid for at a high price, seeing that 
 from first to last at least 4000 men had been killed or wounded on 
 the part of the British including such valuable officers as Nicholson. 
 
 THE LEAGUER OF AGRA. 
 
 The great city of Agra, containing some of the architectural 
 glories of India, was one of the centres in which British power was 
 maintained under very trying circumstances. Situated 150 miles 
 from Delhi, 500 from Lahore, 750 from Bombay, and 800 from 
 Calcutta, and possessing, moreover, a very large and strong fort, its 
 retention was of the first importance. Mr Colvin, the chief civil 
 authority in all that part of India, trusted the sepoys too kindly and 
 too long. One regiment after another mutinied in and around 
 Agra, and Mr Colvin was obliged to disarm the remainder. When 
 the month of May ended, and June was somewhat advanced, Agra 
 was the only place for hundreds of miles around where a strong- 
 hold was undeniably in British hands ; hence it was that fugitive, 
 wounded, sick, and exhausted civilians, ladies, and children, from 
 numerous other stations, hurried thither to seek shelter. The fort 
 at Agra, a large and well-armed place, became gradually thronged 
 with people. Mr Colvin, responsible officially for the whole of that 
 part of India, was only just able to maintain his own position at 
 Agra dismissing native troops, and organising volunteer companies 
 among the clerks and civilians, to assist in the defence. On the 5th 
 of July, the British were obliged to go out and fight a battle against 
 a force of 5000 rebels, armed with ten or twelve guns ; they lost 
 one-fourth of their number during a gallant struggle, and were then 
 
 3
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 obliged to retreat into Agra, where, abandoning the city altogether, 
 they confined themselves to the fort ; for the rebels were in wild 
 triumphant licence in all the streets. On the 26th of July, Mr 
 Colvin caused a census of all the people within the fort to be taken : 
 they amounted to 5845, of whom no less than 856 were women, and 
 2028 children. This was a kind of responsibility which pressed more 
 distressingly than any other on the British officers in India during 
 the mutiny ; they would have run through any perils to save the 
 women and children, but the very presence of the defenceless 
 impeded the operations of the defenders. Nevertheless, Colvin's 
 position at Agra was incomparably better than poor Wheeler's had 
 been at Cawnpore; his supplies were relatively greater, and his 
 stronghold was both elevated and well armed. August and September 
 thus passed on ; the rebels accumulating in greater and greater 
 force around. In October, a column of 3000 men, gallantly led by 
 Colonel Greathed, arrived, and defeated an immense body of rebels ; 
 but many months elapsed before the women and children could be 
 removed from Agra. 
 
 GRADUAL SUPPRESSION OF THE MUTINY. 
 
 It does not come within the scope of this brief history to trace 
 in detail the subsequent troubles and fightings in India. They 
 lasted till November 1858, when conquest was finally achieved, and 
 British power re-established. The stirring events at Meerut, Delhi, 
 Benares, Dinapoor, Arrah, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Agra, 
 and the military stations in the Punjab, serve to illustrate the des- 
 perate attacks, the heroic resistance, the indomitable perseverance, 
 the enduring patience, the tremendous marchings, the unspeakable 
 sufferings, which marked the progress of those events. The opera- 
 tions that followed were more purely military, attended with less of 
 misery to civilians, gentle women, and tender children. Regiments 
 of trusty soldiers came in, one by one, from Pegu and other regions 
 beyond the Ganges ; from China, when the disputes with that country 
 had come to an end ; from Persia, when the war with that power 
 was also terminated ; from the presidencies of Bombay and Madras, 
 which were very little troubled with mutineers ; and from England, 
 whence every soldier that could well be spared was sent off. On the 
 other hand, many native princes, independent or semi-independent 
 in position, threw their swords into the balance against the British, 
 and brought all their available sources into the field. During 
 the second half of 1857, the Mahratta country, between Agra and 
 Bombay, became troubled by rebellious bodies of horse at Gwalior 
 and other large towns ; and these troubles continued with little inter- 
 mission for a whole year. Numerous principalities in Rajpootana 
 and Bundelcund altogether southward of the Ganges and the 
 Jumna, and belonging rather to Central India than to Hindustan
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. 
 
 were in like manner infested with warlike rebels, who marched over 
 hundreds of miles with a celerity which taxed the powers of the 
 British greatly. 
 
 The opening of the year 1858 shewed that much would have to be 
 done before the mutiny could really be put down. The strength of 
 the enemy may be judged from the fact, that 30,000 of them gave 
 battle to Sir James Outram near the Alum Bagh. In February, 
 Sir Hugh Rose was engaged against them at Saugor, Maxwell 
 at Chowra, Franks at Chundah and at Humeerpoor, Hope Grant 
 at Meeangunje, and Outram (once again) at Alum Bagh. This 
 was the month, too, in which a great convoy of women and 
 children left Agra for a place of safety, under a strong protective 
 force. The month of March found Generals Rose, Roberts, Showers, 
 Stuart, and other energetic officers, incessantly confronting the 
 rebels, chiefly in Central India ; while Sir Colin Campbell succeeded 
 at last in really conquering and re-occupying Lucknow. In April, 
 a new rebel chieftain rose up to embarrass the British, one Tanteea 
 Topee, a man so incredibly swift in his movements as commander 
 of a large rebel force, that he taxed the utmost energies of Rose, 
 Roberts, and Napier (Sir Robert, afterwards made Lord Napier for 
 his achievements in Abyssinia), to pursue, overtake, and defeat him. 
 Throughout the whole summer did Tanteea trouble Central India, 
 and trouble the British officers, who, nevertheless, could not help 
 admiring the military qualities of the man. The six months from 
 May to November (1858) were in a similar way marked by fierce 
 encounters, to re-establish British ascendency in Oude, Bahar, 
 Bundelcund, Rajpootana, Central India, Rohilcund, and the Cis- 
 Sutlej provinces. It was done, gradually though effectually ; but at 
 a heavy sacrifice of life. 
 
 The fighting ended in November. The royal families of Delhi 
 and of Oude were some killed, some punished in other ways, some 
 banished, and some pensioned off. The miscreant Nana Sahib 
 escaped to Nepaul, and has been completely lost sight of, though 
 several persons have been arrested by mistake for him. The East 
 India Company was virtually abolished by act of parliament, and 
 British India placed under the direct government of Queen Victoria. 
 The nation mourned over the deaths of such noble heroes as Law- 
 rence, Havelock, Neill, Wheeler, Nicholson, and Peel (for Captain 
 Sir William Peel, one of those who were wounded at Lucknow, after- 
 wards fell at Cawnpore), and rewarded by military honours (in some 
 cases augmented by rich booty) many of the survivors. And years 
 afterwards the same questions were asked as at the beginning : Did 
 the greased cartridges cause the mutiny? If not, what were the 
 causes ? 
 32
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 ILVIO PELLICO, the story 
 of whose wrongs created a 
 sympathising interest over 
 Europe, was horn at Saluzzo, 
 in Piedmont, a province of 
 the Italian kingdom, in 1788, 
 at which time his father, 
 Onorato Pellico, held a situ- 
 ation in the post-office. He 
 was afterwards promoted' to 
 a seat in the ministry of war 
 at Turin, to which place he 
 removed with his family. 
 Silvio was at that time six 
 years of age, and had already 
 given token of his poetical 
 feelings. Ossian was the 
 bard to whom his earliest 
 years were consecrated. In 
 his sixteenth year he accom- 
 panied his twin sister, to 
 whom he was devotedly 
 attached, to Lyon, in France, 
 where he remained until 
 g some verses of Foscolo, the 
 most eminent of modern Ita- 
 lian poets, awakened in his breast so passionate a reminiscence of 
 his native country, that he hastened towards it, and rejoined his 
 father, then settled at Milan. The latter was in the war department, 
 under the government of Napoleon as king of Italy. The restora- 
 tion of Lombardy to the emperor of Austria on the overthrow of 
 Bonaparte, displaced Onorato Pellico, who then returned to Turin, 
 accompanied by all his family, excepting Silvio, who preferred 
 remaining at Milan. 
 
 Young Silvio, with a poetic temperament and love of letters, had 
 formed an intimacy with Monti, Foscolo, and other eminent literary 
 characters residing in Milan, the whole forming a brilliant society, 
 who sighed over the abased condition of the country under a foreign 
 yoke. Silvio himself became known as the author of a tragedy, 
 'Francesco,, da Rimini, which was acted in all the theatres of Italy 
 with the highest applause, and is stated to have been translated into
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 English by Lord Byron, though not published amongst his works. 
 Pellico had become acquainted with Byron at Milan, and partaking 
 the admiration, which was felt in Italy and Germany much more 
 intensely than in Britain, for the poems of that noble personage, he 
 translated into Italian prose the poetical drama of Manfred. Upon 
 presenting it to Byron, the latter expressed his surprise that he 
 should have turned a poem into prose ; and as Pellico maintained 
 it was impossible to translate it properly into poetry, Byron pre- 
 sented to him, upon a subsequent meeting, his own tragedy in an 
 English poetical dress, as a practical refutation of his opinion. 
 
 The great acquirements of Pellico, and his amiable and pleasing 
 manners, rendered his society much sought after in Milan. The 
 Count Briche committed to his care one of his sons, and subse- 
 quently he became tutor to the sons of Count Porro Lambertenghi, 
 one of the wealthiest of the Lombard nobility, in whose house he 
 associated with persons of the first distinction. With the Count 
 Porro himself he was united in the closest friendship. 
 
 Distressed with the general want of enlightenment among the 
 people, and conceiving that the establishment of a literary and 
 scientific journal might improve the public mind, Silvio, in 1819, 
 broached the idea to Porro and some of his literary companions. 
 All were delighted with it ; Count Porro advanced the funds neces- 
 sary for the purpose, and the plan was put in execution. The journal 
 was called The Conciliator, and had for contributors men of the 
 greatest eminence in Italy. Besides those resident in Milan, were 
 Romagnosi of Venice, a celebrated jurisconsult ; Melchior Gioja, a 
 political economist ; Manzoni, at once a poet and prose-writer of 
 the first order ; Grossi, the author of Ildegonda; and Brechet. 
 Maroncelli, fated to be Pellico's future companion in captivity, was 
 also one of the contributors. 
 
 The press was under the strictest censorship. The Austrian 
 government seemed to tremble at the least symptom of liberality of 
 opinion. The Conciliator was soon exposed to the corrections of 
 the censor. Though politics were not discussed, the liberal tone of 
 some of its articles on literature was offensive. They were erased, 
 and the journal went forth with half its columns blank. It was . 
 therefore given up. 
 
 In 1820 the unfortunate revolution of Naples took place. The 
 jealous government of Austria had its fears more than ever excited. 
 A proclamation was issued, attaching the penalty of death to the 
 offence of belonging to a secret society. The party in Italy whose 
 object it was to cast off the galling yoke of foreigners, was styled 
 that of the Carbonari, for the suppression of whom every Italian 
 government diligently laboured. The emperor of Austria was not 
 in the rear :. numberless arrests were made, on the merest suspicion 
 of disaffection, throughout the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom, Two 
 distinguished citizens of Milan were exposed to the jealousy of the
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 government, owing to the enlightened efforts they had made for the 
 improvement of their country. These were the Counts Porro and 
 Confalonieri, who appropriated a great part of their possessions to 
 the truly patriotic designs of founding infant and other schools, of 
 promoting the arts, and of introducing into Italy the great dis- 
 coveries of modern times. Confalonieri visited Paris and London 
 to study the modes of instruction in the schools of France and 
 England, in order to institute them in Italy. He also sent from 
 London the necessary apparatus for the manufacture of gas, for 
 lighting the streets of Milan, the expense of which he and Porro 
 bore jointly. They also, in conjunction with Alexander Visconti, 
 constructed the first steam-boat which appeared in Italy. These 
 were the exertions that rendered them objects of hatred and sus- 
 picion to the Austrians. The contributors to The Conciliator, estab- 
 lished at the expense of Porro, were also looked upon with an evil 
 eye. Orders for the arrest of them all were issued. Porro was the 
 only person who escaped, by a timely flight into a foreign country. 
 Confalonieri was taken from a sick-bed and the arms of an affec- 
 tionate wife. Pellico and the others were all arrested. Alas ! poor 
 Pellico. Let us follow him to prison, and hear him tell the story of 
 his sufferings.* 
 
 IMPRISONMENT AT MILAN. 
 
 On Friday the I3th of October 1820, I was arrested at Milan, and 
 conducted to Santa Margherita formerly a convent, and now the 
 head office of the extensive police establishment. It was about 
 three o'clock in the afternoon, and, after an examination, I was 
 consigned to the charge of the jailer, who, having conducted me to 
 the apartment destined for me, politely invited me to deliver into his 
 hands, to be restored at the fitting time, my watch, purse, and any- 
 thing else I might have in my pockets ; which having obtained, he 
 with some ceremony wished me good-evening. 
 
 In less than half an hour my dinner arrived ; I ate a few mouth- 
 fuls, drank a glass of water, and was left alone. My room was on 
 the ground, and opened on a courtyard, with cells all around, cells 
 on the right and on the left, opposite and above me. I leaned 
 against the window, and stood some time listening to the tramp of 
 the jailers as they went to and fro, and to the dissolute songs of 
 some of the prisoners. 
 
 I fell into reflection : a century ago, this prison was a nunnery. 
 Could the holy penitents who inhabited it have ever believed that a 
 day would come when their chambers would resound no longer with 
 the prayers and lamentations of devout women, but with blasphemies 
 and detestable ribaldry, and would hold within them the refuse of 
 
 * What follows is an abridgment of Pellico's narrative, translated from the original 
 Italian.
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 society wretches destined to the hulks or the gallows ? And in 
 another century, who will breathe in these cells ? Alas for the 
 swiftness of time and the instability of things ! Should any one 
 complain that fortune ceases to smile upon him, or grieve that he is 
 cast into a prison and threatened with the gibbet ? But yesterday 
 I was one of the happiest of men ! to-day, I have lost everything 
 that conduced to the joy of my existence liberty, friends, hope ! It 
 would be absurd to delude myself. I leave this place only for a 
 dungeon more horrible, or for the hands of the executioner. Be it 
 so ! .When I am dead, it will signify little whether I yielded my last 
 sigh in a dungeon, or am borne to the tomb in all the grandeur of 
 funereal pomp. 
 
 It was thus my mind found strength in thinking of the inexorable 
 sweep of time ; but shortly the . remembrance of my father, my 
 mother, my sisters, my brothers, and of a family which I loved as 
 tenderly as if it were my own, came to assail me, and the arguments 
 of philosophy were powerless. Tenderer thoughts came over me, 
 and I wept like a child. 
 
 During the night, I slept a little. I became gradually resigned to 
 my unhappy fate. Towards morning, my agitation was calmed, and 
 I was astonished at the change. I yet thought upon my parents, 
 and .upon all those whom I loved ; but I no longer despaired of their 
 strength of mind : the recollection of those virtuous sentiments which 
 I had known sustain them in previous calamities, consoled me on 
 their behalf. 
 
 In the course of the day which followed, I was again called to an 
 examination ; and it was renewed during several successive- days, 
 without any other interval than that allowed for my meals. 
 
 Whilst the process thus continued, the days passed rapidly, owing 
 to the constant exercise in which my mind was kept, from the neces- 
 sity of answering, without intermission, the most varied questions, 
 and of collecting my energies during the intervals of the examination 
 in recalling all that had been asked of me, what answers I had given, 
 and in reflecting upon all those things upon which I would probably 
 be next interrogated. 
 
 At the end of the first week, a most cruel misfortune happened to 
 me. My poor friend Piero, equally eager with myself to establish a 
 communication between us, wrote me a letter, and sent it, not by a 
 secondino (officer of the prison), but by an unfortunate prisoner who 
 was employed in performing services in our rooms. He was a man 
 of from sixty to seventy years of age, condemned to I know not how 
 many months of imprisonment. With a needle which I had, I 
 pricked my finger, and wrote a few lines in reply with my blood, 
 which I gave to the messenger. He had the misfortune to be 
 observed, was seized with the note upon him, and, if I am not 
 mistaken, scourged. I heard frightful cries, which struck me as 
 coming from the poor old man. I never saw him afterwards. 
 
 4
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 Called to the bar, I shuddered at having presented to me my little* 
 letter covered with blood, although, thanks to Heaven, it contained 
 no dangerous matter, for there were only a few words of friendly 
 salutation. I was asked with what I had drawn blood. The needle 
 was taken from me, and the ruffians laughed in derision. But I 
 could not laugh ! I could not forget the countenance of the old 
 messenger. I would willingly have suffered any punishment to have 
 procured his pardon ; and when I heard those cries, which I believed 
 were his, my heart was dissolved in tears. 
 
 It was in vain that I repeatedly asked the jailer and his seccfndini 
 after him. They shook their heads, and said : ' He has paid dearly 
 for his fault ; he will not do the like again ; he is now somewhat 
 more quiet.' And they refused to give any further explanation. 
 Did they refer by that to the narrow prison in which the wretched 
 man was confined, or did they mean that he had died under the 
 blows inflicted upon him, or from the consequences of those blows ? 
 
 One day I thought I saw him beyond the courtyard beneath the 
 portico with a load of wood upon his shoulders, and my heart beat 
 as if I had seen a brother. When I had no longer to undergo the 
 torment of answering interrogatories, and there was nothing to 
 occupy the day, I found in all its bitterness the weight of solitude. 
 
 I was allowed to have a Bible and a copy of Dante ; the jailer 
 placed his whole library at my disposition, which contained some 
 romances by Scuderi, Piazzi, and others worse than they ; but my 
 mind was . too agitated to devote itself to reading anything. I got 
 by heart every day a canto of Dante ; but this exercise was so 
 mechanical, that, in pursuing it, I thought less of the verses than of 
 my misfortunes. It was the same when I read any other thing, 
 except at certain passages of the Bible, which deeply affected my 
 feelings, and inspired me with fortitude and resignation. To live 
 free is a thing infinitely more pleasant than to live in prison ; and 
 yet even in the gloom of a prison, when one reflects that God is 
 present, that the joys of this world are transitory, that true happiness 
 consists in a good conscience, and not in exterior objects, there is a 
 charm in living. In less than a month I resigned myself to my fate 
 with a tranquillity which, if not perfect, was at least tolerable. I was 
 aware that, being resolved not to commit the infamous action of 
 purchasing impunity by the destruction of others, my lot could be 
 no other than the gibbet or a long imprisonment. It behoved me, 
 therefore, to conform to destiny. ' I will breathe,' said I, ' as long as 
 they grant me a puff of air ; and when they take it away, I will do 
 what all others do at the last gasp I will die.' 
 
 I did all in my power to be satisfied with everything, and to let 
 my mind have all possible enjoyment. My most ordinary plan 
 consisted in making the enumeration of the advantages which had 
 brightened my existence an excellent father, an excellent mother, 
 excellent brothers and sisters, such-and-such for friends, a good 
 
 5
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 education, a love of letters, &c. ; who had had more happiness than 
 I ? Why not render thanks to God, although this happiness was 
 at present interrupted by misfortune ? Sometimes, in making this 
 enumeration, I grew tender-hearted, and wept for a moment ; but 
 my courage and my satisfaction soon returned. 
 
 During the first days, I had made a friend : it was not the jailer, 
 nor any of his secondini, nor any of those conducting my process. I 
 speak, nevertheless, of a human creature. Who was it, then ? A 
 deaf and dumb child of from five to six years old. The father and 
 the mother were felons, and the law had disposed of them. The 
 unfortunate little orphan was reared by the state with several other 
 children in the same condition. They all lived together in one room 
 opposite mine, and at certain hours their door was opened, and they 
 came out to take the air in the courtyard. 
 
 The deaf and dumb boy came under my window, smiled at me, 
 and made some gesticulations. I threw to him a lump of bread ; 
 he took it up, made a few gambols from joy, ran to his companions, 
 gave some to all, and came afterwards to eat his small portion close 
 to my window, expressing to me his gratitude with a smile from his 
 beautiful eyes. 
 
 The other children looked at me from a distance, but durst not 
 approach. The deaf and dumb one had a great sympathy for me, 
 which was sufficiently disinterested. Sometimes he did not know 
 what to do with the bread I threw to him, and he made signs to me 
 that he and his comrades had eaten enough, and could not swallow 
 any more. If he saw a secondino going into my room, he gave him 
 the bread, that he might restore it to me. 
 
 Yet, although he expected nothing from me, he continued to play 
 before my window with a grace perfectly delightful, placing his 
 happiness upon being seen by me. Once a secondino permitted him 
 to enter my prison. The boy had no sooner entered than he ran to 
 me to embrace my knees, uttering a cry of joy. I took him in my 
 arms, and I cannot describe the transports with which he caressed 
 me. How much love was there in that dear little breast ! How I 
 should have wished to educate him, and to have saved him from his 
 abject state ! 
 
 I never knew his name ; he himself did not know he had one. 
 He was always cheerful, and I never saw him weep but once, when 
 he was beaten, I know not wherefore, by the jailer. Strange ! we 
 look upon it as the height of misfortune to live in such places, and 
 yet this child found certainly as much happiness there, as could the 
 son of a prince at his age. 
 
 In the solitude of my dungeon, and with a yearning desire for 
 something to love, I looked forward with pleasure to my intercourse 
 with the poor child ; but I was doomed to disappointment. One 
 day I was removed to a cell on the opposite side of the courtyard, 
 but, alas ! no longer on the ground floor, no longer in a place where 
 
 6
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 it was possible for me to converse with my little mute. Tiaversing 
 the court, I saw the dear child seated on the ground, terrified and 
 sad. He had comprehended he was about to lose me. In a moment 
 he sprang up and ran towards me : the secondino wished to remove 
 him : I took him in my arms, and dirty as he was, embraced him 
 with affection, and separated from him shall I say it? with my 
 eyes full of tears. 
 
 In my new chamber, so gloomy and so unclean, deprived of the 
 companionship of my little mute, I was overpowered by sadness. I 
 remained several hours at the window, which opened upon a gallery, 
 and whence I could see the bottom of the courtyard and the window 
 of my former lodging. Who, then, had replaced me there ? I saw 
 a prisoner walking up and down with the rapid step of a person 
 highly agitated. Two or three days after, I saw that they had 
 given him writing materials, and then he remained all the day at 
 his table. / 
 
 At last I recognised him. He issued from his chamber in company 
 with the jailer, and went to the examination. It was Melchior 
 Gioja, an amiable man, and the most profound thinker that the 
 economical sciences have had in Italy in these latter times. My 
 heart was seized with agony. And thou, too, worthy man, art 
 here! 
 
 After spending some time in looking at him, in speculating, from 
 his movements, whether his mind was calm or agitated, in giving 
 him my best wishes, I found myself more fortified, more rich in 
 ideas, more contented with myself. This shews that the appearance 
 even of a human creature for whom one experiences a sympathy, is 
 sufficient to relieve the tedium of solitude. Such a benefit I had first 
 received from a poor dumb boy; at present I experienced it from the 
 distant view of a man of great merit. 
 
 Some secondini told him, doubtless, where I was. One morning, 
 in opening his window, he waved his handkerchief as a salutation 
 to me ; I used the same signal to reply to him. O what joy 
 filled my bosom at that moment ! It appeared that all distance was 
 annihilated that we were together : my heart beat like a lover's 
 when he meets his mistress ; we gesticulated without comprehending 
 each other, and with the same vivacity as if we were perfectly 
 conscious of each other's meaning. In reality we did understand 
 one another ; those gestures expressed all that our souls felt, and the 
 one was not ignorant of what was passing in the mind of the other. 
 
 O what consolation this intercourse seemed to promise me for 
 the future ! The future came ; but our signals were not repeated ! 
 Every time that I again saw Gioja at the window 'I waved my 
 kerchief, but in vain ! The secondino told me that he had been 
 commanded not to provoke my signals, or to reply to them. Never- 
 theless, he looked at me frequently, and I as frequently at him ; and 
 we thus knew how to say a good manythings to each other. In a
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 few weeks I was consoled in knowing that the worthy man had been 
 set at liberty. 
 
 One morning an official who had taken down my examination 
 entered my cell, and announced to me, with some mystery, that I 
 should prepare myself for a visit which would be agreeable to me ; 
 and when he thought he had sufficiently prepared me, he said : ' It 
 is your father ; be good enough to follow me.' I followed him into 
 the office, agitated with joy and tenderness, and striving to preserve 
 a serene air, to tranquillise my father. 
 
 When he learned my arrest, he hoped that it had taken place from 
 suspicions of little importance, and that I should soon regain my 
 Mberty ; but seeing that my captivity was prolonged, he solicited the 
 Austrian government for my discharge. Deplorable illusion of 
 paternal love ! My father could not conceive me rash enough to 
 expose myself to the vengeance of the laws ; and the studied con- 
 tentment with which I spoke to him, convinced him that I was under 
 no apprehension of evil. 
 
 The short conversation which was allowed us agitated me more 
 than I can tell, so much the more that I compelled myself to repress 
 every symptom of it. The most difficult task was to conceal it when 
 the moment of separation came. 
 
 In the circumstances of Italy at that period, I was convinced that 
 Austria would make examples with extraordinary rigour, and that I 
 should be doomed to death or to a long imprisonment. To conceal 
 this conviction from a father, to flatter him with the hope of my 
 approaching liberty, to refrain from tears whilst embracing him, or 
 talking of my mother, my brothers, my sisters, whom I thought at 
 least I should never see again in this world ; to beseech him, without 
 my voice being choked with sobs, to return to see me if he were able. 
 O never, never did I do myself such violence ! 
 
 He quitted me, almost consoled, and I returned to my prison with 
 my heart torn. Scarcely did I find myself alone, than I endeavoured 
 to ease my emotions by abandoning myself to tears : this relief was 
 denied me. I burst into sobs, but could not shed a tear. Not being 
 able to weep in excessive grief is the most deplorable of misfortunes, 
 and it is what I have often suffered. 
 
 I was seized with a burning fever, accompanied by a horrible head- 
 ache. I could not swallow during the whole day a mouthful of soup. 
 Next day I had recovered my fortitude, and my feelings were more 
 composed. 
 
 On New-year's Day 1821, the Count Luigi Porro obtained per- 
 mission to see me. The close and tender friendship which united 
 us, the numberless things we wished to say to each other, the obstacle 
 which the presence of an officer presented to the overflowing of our 
 minds, the short period which was allowed us to be together, the 
 gloomy presentiments which oppressed me, the mutual efforts we 
 made to appear tranquil there was in all these things enough to 
 s
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 raise in my heart a terrible tempest. Severed from a friend so dear, 
 I felt myself calm ; much affected, but still calm. Such is the 
 efficacy of precautions against strong emotions ! 
 
 IMPRISONMENT AT VENICE. 
 
 Nothing remarkable occurred until the night between the i8th 
 and i Qth of February, when I was awakened by the noise of bolts 
 and keys, and I saw several men enter with a lantern. My first 
 idea was, that they had come to murder me ; but whilst I was 
 looking at them with anxiety, I saw advancing towards me the 
 
 Count B , who politely requested me to take the trouble of 
 
 dressing myself as quickly as possible, with a view to an immediate 
 departure. 
 
 This intimation surprised me, and I was foolish enough to hope 
 that they were going to conduct me to the frontiers of Piedmont. 
 Was it possible that so threatening a storm should thus be dissi- 
 pated? that I should again enjoy the sweets of liberty? that I 
 should once more embrace my beloved parents, my brothers, and 
 my sisters ? 
 
 Such delusions agitated me a few moments. I dressed in haste, 
 and followed my companions. 'Where are we going?' said I to 
 the count, as I got into a carriage with him and an officer of 
 gendarmerie. 
 
 ' I cannot tell you until we are a mile beyond Milan,' he replied. 
 I did not speak. It was a beautiful night, and the moon shone 
 serenely. I looked upon those well-known streets, which I had 
 traversed for so many years in happiness ; upon the houses and 
 the churches. All brought back to me a thousand sweet recollec- 
 tions ! 
 
 The public gardens, where I had so often walked with Monti, 
 Ludovico di Breme, Pietro Borsieri, Porro and his sons, and with 
 others who were dear to me, conversing full of life and hope alas ! 
 as I looked upon them for the last time, as we drove rapidly past, 
 I felt that I had loved them, and loved them still ! As we went 
 out of the eastern gate, I pulled my hat over my eyes, and wept 
 unobserved. 
 
 I allowed more than a mile to be passed, when I said to the Count 
 B : ' I suppose we are going to Verona ?' . 
 
 ' A good deal farther,' answered he ; 'we are going to Venice, 
 where I have to consign you to a special commission.' 
 
 We travelled without stopping, and on the 2Oth of February we 
 reached Venice. In the month of September of the preceding year, 
 a month before my arrest, I was at Venice, and had dined with a 
 numerous and joyful company at the Hotel della Luna. It was 
 strange enough that the count and the gendarme conducted me to 
 that very same hotel. 

 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 A servant of the hotel trembled when he recognised me, and 
 perceived that I was in the hands of the police, in spite of the 
 disguise assumed by the gendarme and his satellites, who were 
 dressed as servants. I was glad at this meeting, for I was sure the 
 servant would inform several persons of my arrival. 
 
 We dined, after which I was conducted to the palace of the doge, 
 where the tribunals now sit. On arriving at the palace, the count 
 delivered me over to the jailer, and in taking leave of me, embraced 
 me with emotion. 
 
 I followed the jailer in silence. -After having traversed several 
 galleries and rooms, we reached a small stair which led us under the 
 Leads, celebrated as state prisons since the time of the Venetian 
 republic. There the jailer took a note of my name, and shut me 
 up in the chamber destined for me. The Leads are the highest part 
 of the ancient palace of the doge, which is entirely covered with 
 lead. 
 
 My room had a large window, with enormous iron bars, and 
 looked upon the roof of the church of St Mark, also covered with 
 lead. Beyond the church, I saw in the distance the extremity of the 
 Piazza, and on all sides an infinity of cupolas and steeples. The 
 gigantic steeple of St Mark was only separated from me the length 
 of the church, and I heard the people on the summit talking when 
 they at all raised their voices. I could see also, on the left of the 
 church, part of the great court of the palace, and one of the 
 entrances. In this part of the court was a public well, to which was 
 a perpetual resort for water. But at the height I was, those whom 
 I perceived below appeared like children, and I could only dis- 
 tinguish their words when they happened to shout. I thus found 
 myself yet more solitary than in the prison of Milan. 
 
 For the first few days, the anxieties of the criminal process which 
 was instituted against me by the special commission produced a 
 degree of sadness, which was . increased perhaps by the bitter 
 sensation of more complete loneliness. I was, besides, at a greater 
 distance from my family, and no longer received any tidings from 
 them. The new faces which I saw did not create in me antipathy ; 
 but there was a seriousness upon them which caused me alarm. 
 Report had exaggerated the plots of the Milanese, and the rest of 
 Italy, to achieve independence : in their eyes I was doubtless one of 
 the least worthy of pardon amongst the instigators of this frenzy. 
 My slight literary celebrity was known to the jailer, to his wife, his 
 daughter, his two sons, even to the two secondini. Who knows but 
 they looked upon a maker of tragedies as a species of magician ! 
 They were grave, distrustful, eager to learn everything connected 
 with me, but at the same time full of politeness. 
 
 After a certain period they were less reserved, and appeared good 
 enough people. The woman was the best calculated to maintain the 
 air and character of a jailer. Her visage was of a peculiarly harsh
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 expressign, bearing the marks of forty years or thereabout ; her 
 words were few ; and she gave no symptoms of benevolence but for 
 her own sons. 
 
 She was accustomed to bring my coffee in the morning and after 
 dinner, as well as water, linen, &c. She was generally accompanied 
 by her daughter, a girl of fifteen, who was not pretty, but who had 
 compassion in her looks, and by her two sons, of whom one was 
 thirteen, and the other ten. They retired, following their mother, 
 and turned their young countenances mildly towards me as the door 
 was closing. The jailer never entered my room except when he had 
 to conduct me to the hall where the commission met to interrogate 
 me. The secondini rarely came, as they had to take charge of the 
 prisons of the police, situated a story below, where there were 
 always plenty of robbers. One of these secondini was an old man 
 of seventy years of age, but still quite fit for so fatiguing a life, which 
 consists in running without relief from one cell to another, first up 
 stairs and then down ; the other was a young man, twenty- four or 
 twenty-five years old. 
 
 My examinations were now renewed. I was distracted with the 
 questions put to me, and the suspicions entertained of my motives. 
 I should have been driven mad, but for the consolations of religion. 
 
 My loneliness in the meantime increased. The two sons of the 
 jailer, who at first occasionally visited me, were sent to school, and 
 remaining afterwards only a short time at home, came to see me no 
 more. The mother and daughter, who, when the boys were there, 
 often stopped to talk with me, appeared only to bring my coffee, and 
 immediately retired. For the mother I cared little, as she did not 
 shew much compassion ; but the daughter had a softness in her 
 looks and words which was not without value to me. When she 
 brought my coffee, and said : ' I have made it myself,' I was sure to 
 find it excellent ; when she said : ' It is mamma's,' it was hot water* 
 
 Seeing human creatures so rarely, I turned my attention to some 
 ants which came upon my window, and I fed them so sumptuously, 
 that they brought a whole army of their companions, and my window 
 was soon" filled. I occupied myself likewise with a spider, which 
 spun its web on one of the walls ; I gave it gnats and flies, and it 
 became so familiar as to come upoh my bed and into my hand to 
 seize its prey. 
 
 Would that these insects had been the only ones' to visit me ! It 
 was yet spring, and the gnats increased frightfully in numbers. The 
 winter had been peculiarly mild, and after some winds in March, 
 the heat came on. It is not possible to imagine how heated the air 
 in my den became ; placed to the south under a leaden roof, with a 
 window opening to the roof of St Mark, likewise of lead, the refrac- 
 tion was terrific. I could scarcely breathe. I had no idea of a heat 
 so overpowering. To this torment, in itself so sufficient, were added 
 such swarms of gnats, that if I made the least movement, and
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 disturbed them, I was completely covered the bed, the table, the 
 chair, the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the whole room was filled with 
 them a countless multitude, which went and came through the 
 window with an intolerable buzzing. The bites of these insects are 
 very painful ; and when one is punctured with them from morning 
 to night, and from night to morning, and the attention is incessantly 
 occupied in devising means to lessen the infliction, there is enough 
 of suffering, in all conscience, for both mind and body. 
 
 When I found by experience the misery of this visitation, and 
 could not obtain a change of room, I felt arise within me once more 
 an inclination for suicide, and sometimes I feared I should become 
 mad. But, thanks to God, such frenzies did not last long, and 
 religion continued to sustain me. It convinced me that man ought 
 to suffer, and to suffer with firmness ; it made me feel in my grief a 
 certain joy, a voluptuous satisfaction in not being vanquished, in 
 rising superior to every evil. 
 
 To strengthen and occupy my mind, I conceived the idea of com- 
 mitting my thoughts to writing. The misfortune was, that the com- 
 mission, in granting me pen, ink, and paper, ordered the sheets to be 
 counted, and prohibited me from destroying any, reserving to them- 
 selves the right of examining to what use I had applied them. To 
 supply the want of paper, I had recourse to the innocent artifice of 
 polishing with a piece of glass a rough table that I had, and there I 
 recorded every day my lengthy meditations upon the duties of man- 
 kind, and especially upon my own. 
 
 I do not exaggerate when I say that the hours thus occupied 
 appeared to me delightful, in spite of the difficulty I experienced in 
 breathing, from the excessive heat, and the painful stings of the 
 gnats. To diminish the number of these, I was compelled, notwith- 
 standing the heat, to envelop my head and limbs, and to write not 
 only with gloves, but with my wrists bandaged, so as to prevent the 
 little animals from getting up the sleeves. 
 
 These meditations of mine took a biographical form. I composed 
 the history of everything that had operated for good or for evil within 
 me since my infancy. I discussed questions with myself, ascertained, 
 as far as practicable, all my knowledge and all my ideas upon every 
 matter. 
 
 When all the disposable surface of the table was covered with 
 writing, Tread and re-read, I meditated upon my own meditations; 
 and at last I resolved (often with regret) to scratch out with the glass 
 what I had written, so as to render the surface fit to receive the fresh 
 impress of my thoughts. Thus I continued my history, often inter- 
 rupted by digressions of all sorts, by an analysis of some point in 
 metaphysics, morals, politics, or religion ; and when all was full, I 
 recommenced reading, re-reading, and then effacing. 
 
 In order to avoid any impediment to my justly and freely account- 
 ing with myself for the facts which I recollected, and for my opinions,
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 as well as to avert the consequences of any inquisitorial visit, I wrote 
 in a sort of jargon; that is to say, with transpositions of letters and 
 abbreviations which were quite familiar to myself. However, no 
 such visit was ever made to me, and no one had any idea that this 
 sad period passed so tranquilly for me. When I heard the jailer or 
 any other person open the door, I covered the table with a cloth, and 
 placed upon it the inkstand and the legalised quire of paper. 
 
 This quire had also some of my hours devoted to it, frequently 
 extending to a whole day or an entire night. I wrote several literary 
 works, dramatic and poetical. 
 
 As it was not easy for me to get, as promptly as I could wish, the 
 supply of paper renewed when it was finished, I cast my first ideas 
 in composition upon the table or the waste paper in which I had 
 dried figs or other fruits brought to me. Sometimes, by giving my 
 dinner to one of the secondini, and persuading him that I had no 
 appetite, I induced him to bring me as a present a few sheets of paper. 
 I availed myself of this scheme only when the table was already 
 crammed with writing, and I could not prevail upon myself to erase it. 
 
 With these efforts at amusement the summer vanished. In the 
 latter part of September the heat diminished. October came, and 
 I rejoiced at having a room which in winter would be agreeable. 
 But one morning the jailer came, and announced to me that he had 
 received orders to change my abode. 
 
 Although I had suffered much in this chamber, I was sorry to quit 
 it, not only because it would be comfortable in cold weather, but for 
 many other reasons. I, first of all, had those ants, which I loved 
 and nourished with a solicitude which might be called paternal, -if 
 the expression were not ridiculous. A few days previously, a spider 
 which had become familiarised with me departed, I know not for 
 what reason ; but who knows, thought I, but it will remember 
 me, and return ? And now that I am going away, if it return, it will 
 find the prison empty; or if it meet with a new host, he will be, 
 perchance, an enemy to spiders, who will sweep away with his slipper 
 this goodly web, and crush the poor animal. 
 
 The room they put me in was also under the Leads, but to the 
 north and west, with a window on each side a place for perpetual 
 colds, and of horrible dullness- in the winter months. 
 
 The window fronting the west was very large, that to the north 
 small and high, and placed immediately above my bed. 
 
 I looked out at the first, and found that it opened upon the palace of 
 the patriarch. Other cells were near mine in a wing of small extent ' 
 to the right, and in a prolongation of the building in front of me. 
 In this prolongation were two prisons, one above the other. The 
 lower one had an enormous window, through which I saw a man 
 walking about in very splendid attire. It was the Signer Caporali 
 di Cesena. He saw me, made a sign to me, and we communicated 
 to each other our names. 
 
 13
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 I wished afterwards to examine where the other window looked to. 
 I put the table on the bed, and on the table a chair, on which I 
 climbed, and saw myself on a level with part of the palace roof. 
 Beyond the palace appeared a fine view of the city and the canal. 
 
 I stood enjoying this beautiful prospect, and hearing the door 
 open, I did not stir. It was the jailer, who, seeing me in so elevated 
 a position, and forgetting that I could not pass, like a magician, 
 through the bars, imagined I was about to escape, and, in the first 
 impulse of his alarm, jumped upon the bed, in spite of a sciatica 
 which tormented him, and seizing me by the legs, screeched like 
 an eagle. 
 
 ' Do you not see,' said I, ' most stupid man, that the iron bars are 
 here to prevent me escaping ? Can you not comprehend that I have 
 mounted here through curiosity ?' 
 
 ' I see, sir, I see j I understand ; but come down, I pray you, come 
 down : there is a great temptation to escape.' So I descended, laughing. 
 
 At the windows of the side prisons I recognised six others detained 
 for political causes. Thus, then, at the moment when I was pre- 
 paring for a solitude more perfect than the past, I found myself in 
 a sort of world, and was occasionally able to exchange words and 
 signs of civility and compassion. 
 
 The month of October brought round a most cruel anniversary. I 
 had been arrested on the I3th of that month the preceding year. 
 Many recollections equally sad tormented me during this month. 
 Two years before, also in October, a man of merit, whom I greatly 
 esteemed, had been unfortunately drowned in the Ticino. Six years 
 before, still in October, Odoardo Briche, a youth whom I loved as 
 if he had been my son, had shot himself involuntarily. In my early 
 youth, in an October, another heavy affliction had occurred to me. 
 Although I am not superstitious, so fatal a concourse of bitter 
 recollections springing from this month weighed upon my spirits. 
 
 I took up the pen to compose verses, or to follow some other 
 literary bent, but an irresistible force seemed to compel jne into 
 another channel. Into what ? Into writing long letters, which I 
 could not send long letters to my beloved family, in which I poured 
 out my whole heart. I wrote them on the table, and then obliterated 
 them. They were the warm expressions of my tenderness, of my 
 recollections of the felicity I had enjoyed with my indulgent and 
 affectionate parents, brothers, and sisters. The love which drew me 
 to them, inspired me with a thousand impassioned sentiments. 
 And after writing hours and hours, there were always thoughts which 
 remained for expression. 
 
 These recreations at length affected my mind, and in my dreams, 
 or rather in my delirium, I saw my father, my mother, or some other 
 of those whom I loved, lamenting my unhappy lot. I heard their 
 distressing sobs, and I was suddenly aroused, also sobbing and 
 affrighted.
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 Sometimes, during these short hallucinations, I thought I heard 
 my mother consoling the others, coming with them into my prison, 
 and addressing to me solemn exhortations to resignation ; and at 
 the moment that I was rejoicing at her fortitude, and that of the 
 others, she burst into tears, and they all wept together. No one can 
 conceive how at such times my heart was lacerated. 
 
 At night, my imagination was excited to such a pitch that I 
 seemed to hear, although wide awake, groans and stifled laughter in 
 my room. In my infancy I had never believed in witchcraft or in 
 ghosts, and yet now these groans and laughs terrified me, and I 
 could not explain the cause. I was forced to doubt whether I were 
 not the sport of some mysterious a_nd malevolent' power. 
 
 I often took the light, with a trembling hand, and looked under 
 the bed, to see if no one were concealed there ; and it frequently 
 occurred to me that I had been removed from my first chamber into 
 this, because the latter had a trap-door, or some hole in the wall, 
 by which my keepers saw all that I did, and diverted themselves 
 by frightening me. 
 
 Seated at my table, it sometimes seemed to me that I was pulled 
 by the coat, sometimes that a hidden hand pushed away my book, 
 until I saw it falling on the ground ; sometimes that some one came 
 behind me to blow out the candle. Then I started to my feet with 
 precipitation, I looked around me, I trod with apprehension, and I 
 asked myself if I were mad, or in my proper senses. 
 
 I know how absurd such aberrations of the mind appear to others, 
 but to me, who have experienced them, they were so hurtful that I 
 yet shudder at them. 
 
 In the morning they always vanished ; and so long as the light 
 of day lasted, I felt my mind so braced against these terrors, that I 
 thought it impossible they should again pursue me. But when the 
 sun set, I recommenced my trembling, and each night brought back 
 the extravagant phantoms of its predecessors. 
 
 One morning, after coffee, I was seized with diarrhoea and 
 vomitings. I thought I was poisoned, but it was only an effort of 
 nature. After the attack had passed off, I found myself well, and 
 the illusions that had haunted me disappeared. 
 
 On the 24th of November, Dr Foresti was removed from the 
 prisons of the Leads, and taken I knew not whither. The jailer, his 
 wife, and the secondini were in terror, but none of them would 
 explain to me the mystery. At length one of them told me that poor 
 Foresti had been taken to the criminal prisons. The reader may- 
 imagine the agitation I was in all that day and the following night, 
 and during several days that I could learn no further intelligence. 
 
 This uncertainty lasted a month. At length the sentences of a 
 number of persons were made public, but no names were as yet 
 given. Nine were condemned to death, but their sentence would 
 perhaps be commuted into imprisonment for twenty years ; others
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 were to be imprisoned for fifteen (and in both cases they had to 
 undergo their sentence in the fortress of Spielberg, near the city of 
 Briinn, in Moravia), and some for ten years at the least (these last 
 in the fortress of Lubiana). Was I among the number who had been 
 condemned to death? If the term of my existence is come, thought 
 I, am I not more happy that it comes in a manner to allow me 
 time to collect myself, and to purify my conscience by repentance ? 
 Judging with the vulgar, the gibbet is of all modes of death the 
 worst. But, in the opinion of the wise, is not this death prefer- 
 able to many others which ensue after long disease, in which the 
 intellect is debilitated, and the mind has not force to cast aside 
 petty thoughts ? 
 
 The justice of this reasoning was so firmly fixed in my mind, that 
 the horror of death, and of this mode of death, was entirely dissipated. 
 I meditated deeply on the sacraments, for which all the strength 
 of my mind was required at this solemn moment, and I thought 
 myself in a state to receive them in a beneficial manner. The 
 dignity and peace of mind, the placid affection for those who hated 
 me, the joy of sacrificing my life to the will of God, all which I 
 seemed now to feel -could I have preserved them if I had been 
 led forth to the last punishment ? Alas ! how many contradictions 
 in man ! Alas ! when he appears the most sanctified and firm, an 
 instant can precipitate him into weakness and crime ! God only 
 knows whether I were then fit for death : I have not confidence in 
 myself to affirm it. I had attained a degree of firmness, as I thought, 
 which would overcome the pang of dissolution, when one evening, 
 seated at my table studying, quite chilled with cold, some voices 
 near me (they were the voices of the jailer, his wife, his sons, and 
 the secondini) exclaimed: 'Fire! fire! we are lost!' The dullness 
 quitted me in a moment. I sprang to my feet in a sudden perspira- 
 tion, and looked all round to see where the flames were : they were 
 not to be seen. 
 
 The fire was, however, in the palace, in some offices adjoining the 
 prisons. One of the secondini shouted out : ' But, master, what are 
 we to do with the prisoners if the fire advances ?' 
 
 The jailer answered : ' I haven't the heart to let them be roasted. 
 However, we cannot open the prison without the consent of the com- 
 mission. Go, then, I say ; run as quick as you can to ask for leave.' 
 
 ' I will run, master ; I will run ; but the answer will not come in 
 time, recollect !' 
 
 . And where, then, was that heroic resignation that I believed myself 
 so sure of possessing, whilst thinking on death ? Why did the idea 
 of being burnt alive put me in a fever? As if there were more 
 pleasure in being suffocated by the throat than consumed by fire. 
 I made this reflection, and was ashamed at my terror. I was about 
 to cry to the jailer to open the door for the love of God, but I 
 checked myself; nevertheless I was in fear.
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 After a lengthened disturbance, the noises subsided, and I doubted 
 not that the fire had been extinguished. The following morning, I 
 learned from one of the jailers the particulars of this fire, and I 
 laughed at the terror it had excited in him, as if mine had not 
 equalled, perhaps surpassed his. 
 
 On the nth of February 1822, about nine o'clock in the morning, 
 I was informed that I was to be immediately removed to a prison in 
 the island of St Michael of Murano, not far from Venice ; but for 
 what purpose was not mentioned. A moment after, the jailer entered, 
 accompanied by the secondini, and a man whom I had never seen 
 before. The jailer appeared confused, and the new-comer took the 
 word : ' Signer, the commission orders you to follow me.' 
 
 ' I am ready,' I answered ; 'and you, who are you?' 
 
 ' I am keeper of the prison of St Michael, where you are about to 
 be transferred.' 
 
 The jailer of the Leads handed over to the latter my money which 
 he had in his hands. I asked and obtained permission to make 
 some present to the secondini ; I put my clothes in order, took the 
 Bible under my arm, and departed. 
 
 We went out at a door which opened on the canal, where a 
 gondola, with two secondini of the new jailer, awaited us. I entered 
 the gondola, a prey to a thousand inconsistent feelings. On the 
 whole, I felt happy at finding myself in the open air, after so long a 
 seclusion at seeing the sky, the waters, and the city, without the 
 sad intervention of close bars at the remembrance of the joyous 
 gondola which in a more happy time bore me on this same canal, 
 of the gondolas of the Lake of Como, of the Lake Maggiore, of the 
 light barks of the Po, the Rhone, and the Saone ! O smiling years, 
 for ever gone ! Who in the world had enjoyed a happiness equal to 
 mine ? 
 
 In the midst of these reflections I arrived at St Michael, where 
 they shut me up in a room which looked upon a court, upon the 
 canal, and the beautiful island of Murano. I sought intelligence 
 respecting Maroncelli from the jailer, his wife, and the four secondini ; 
 but they made me only short visits, and full of distrust, would tell 
 me nothing. . 
 
 I lived in ignorance of my fate till the 2ist of February. On that 
 day the jailer came for me about ten o'clock in the morning ; he led 
 me into the hall of the commission, and retired. I found upon their 
 seats the president, the inquisitor, and the two assessors, who all rose. 
 
 The president, with a tone of dignified commiseration, told me that 
 the sentence had arrived ; that it was a terrible one, but that the 
 emperor had already mitigated it. 
 
 The inquisitor read this sentence : ' Condemned to death.' Then 
 he read the imperial rescript: 'The penalty is commuted to fifteen 
 years of imprisonment in the fortress of Spielberg.' I replied : 
 ' God's will be done !'
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 I had, in truth, the disposition to receive like a Christian this 
 horrible annunciation, and neither to testify nor to cherish resentment 
 against any one. The president applauded my moderation, and 
 counselled me always to preserve it, adding that, at the end of two 
 or three years, this resignation would perhaps render me worthy of a 
 greater favour. 
 
 The other judges also addressed me with words of consolation and 
 hope. ' To-morrow/ said the inquisitor, ' we shall have the disagree- 
 able duty of announcing the sentence to you in public, but it is an 
 indispensable formality.' 
 
 ' Be it so,' I replied. 
 
 'From this moment,' he resumed, 'we allow you the society of your 
 friend.' 
 
 And having called the jailer, they consigned me into his hands, 
 and ordered him to put me with Maroncelli. 
 
 How sweet a moment was that, for my friend and myself, in which 
 we saw each other again, after a separation of a year and three 
 months, after so many afflictions ! The ecstasies of friendship made 
 us almost forget for the moment our condemnation. 
 
 I soon tore myself, however, from the arms of Maroncelli, to take 
 the pen and write to my father. I ardently desired that the news" of 
 my sad lot should reach my family through me, rather than through 
 others, in order that the grief of those beloved hearts should be 
 mitigated by the pious calmness of my language. The judges 
 promised to expedite my letter without delay. 
 
 Maroncelli talked to me afterwards of his process, and I of mine. 
 We related, by turns,- our prison adventures ; and then going to the 
 window, we saluted three of our friends who were at theirs. They 
 were Canova and Rezia, who were together, each condemned to 
 imprisonment, the first to six years, and the second to three. The 
 third was the Doctor Cesare Armari, who, during the previous 
 months, had been my neighbour in the Leads. No judgment had 
 been pronounced against him, and he was not long in being liberated 
 as guiltless. 
 
 We conversed together all the day and all the evening ; it was for 
 both an agreeable distraction. But when in bed, the light extin- 
 guished, and silence established, I felt it impossible to sleep. My 
 brain was on fire, and my heart bled on thinking of my family. 
 Could my poor old parents bear up against so great a misfortune ? 
 Would their other sons suffice to console them ? They were all as 
 much beloved as myself, and more worthy to be so ; but do a father 
 and a mother ever find, in the children who are spared to them, a 
 compensation for those who are lost ? 
 
 At nine in the morning, Maroncelli and I were made to enter a 
 gondola, to be conducted into the city. The gondola stopped at the 
 palace of the doge, and we ascended to the prisons. We were put 
 into the chamber which Signer Caporali had occupied a few days
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 before. I am ignorant of his fate. Nine or ten officers were seated 
 there to guard us, and we walked about, waiting for the moment 
 when we had to appear in the Piazza. We waited a long time. It 
 was already noon when the inquisitor came to announce that we 
 had to proceed. The physician came also, and recommended us to 
 drink a glass of mint-water ; we followed his advice, and were 
 grateful to him, not so much for this attention, as for the profound 
 pity the good old man testified for us. His name was Doctor 
 Dosmo. The head officer afterwards appeared, and put manacles 
 on us. We followed him, accompanied by the other officers. 
 
 Walking between two rows of Austrian soldiers, we arrived at the 
 scaffold, and then looking around us, saw in the immense crowd 
 nothing but expressions of terror. In the distance were other 
 soldiers, drawn up at various points. -We were told that cannons 
 were fixed, with the matches ready lighted. 
 
 The Austrian commander ordered us to turn towards the palace, 
 and raise our eyes. We obeyed, and saw an official of the court 
 upon the terrace holding a paper in his hand. It was the sentence. 
 He read it aloud. 
 
 There was a profound silence, until the expression, ' Condemned to 
 death' Then arose a general murmur of compassion. Silence was 
 restored to hear the rest, and a new murmur greeted these words : 
 ' Condemned to close imprisonment; Maroncellifor twenty years, and 
 Pellico for fifteen' 
 
 The captain made us a sign to descend : we did so, after casting 
 another glance around us. We returned to the palace, remounted 
 the staircase, and entered again the chamber from which we had 
 been taken. Having removed our manacles, we were conducted 
 back to St Michael. 
 
 Those who had been condemned before us had already departed 
 for Lubiana or Spielberg, under the conduct of a commissary of 
 police. They now waited the return of this same commissary, he 
 being intrusted also with the duty of convoying us to our destination. 
 We waited for him a month. 
 
 When he arrived, and visited us, ' I have the pleasure,' said he, 
 ' of being able to afford you some consolation. In returning from 
 Spielberg, I saw his imperial majesty, the emperor, at Vienna, who 
 told me that your days of imprisonment should be twelve hours long, 
 and not twenty-four. It is a mode of intimating to you that the 
 punishment is reduced one-half.' 
 
 This intelligence was never officially confirmed to us ; but there 
 is no probability that the commissary spoke falsely, the more 
 especially as he did not communicate it in secret, but with the 
 consent of the commission. And yet I could not rejoice at it. In 
 my mind seven years and a half in irons were not much less horrible 
 than fifteen. It seemed to me impossible that I could live so long. 
 My health had become affected. I suffered much in the chest,
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 attended with coughing, and I thought my lungs attacked. I ate 
 very little, and that little was indigestible. 
 
 IMPRISONMENT AT SPIELBERG. 
 
 Our departure from Venice took place in the night of the 25th and 
 26th March. We were permitted to embrace our friend Doctor 
 Armari. Then an officer fastened on us a chain, passing trans- 
 versely from the right hand to the left foot, so as to render flight 
 impossible. We entered a gondola, and the guards rowed us towards 
 Fusina. 
 
 At Fusina we found two carriages ready. Rezia and Canova got 
 into one, Maroncelli and I into another. In the first sat the 
 commissary, and in the second a sub-commissary, each with two 
 prisoners. Six or seven police guards completed the convoy, armed 
 with sabres and muskets ; some behind the carriages, others on the 
 drivers' seats. 
 
 Being forced to quit one's country is always a cruel calamity ; but 
 to quit it in chains, and to be carried to a horrible climate, there to 
 languish for years, surrounded by jailers, is a misfortune so dreadful 
 that I have not words to describe it. 
 
 Before passing the Alps, my country became every hour more 
 dear to me, from the sympathy which everywhere the persons we met 
 expressed for us. In every town, in every village, in every solitary 
 hamlet, we were looked for, as our condemnation had been known 
 for several weeks. In some places the commissary and the guards 
 could with difficulty remove the crowd which surrounded us. The 
 interest which was manifested on our account was surprising. 
 
 In travelling through Austria the same compassion followed us, 
 and the consolation which I derived from these marks of kindness, 
 diminished my resentment against those whom I deemed my 
 enemies. On the loth April we reached the place of our destina- 
 tion. 
 
 The town of Briinn is the capital of Moravia, and the residence of 
 the governor of the two provinces of Moravia and Silesia. It is 
 situated in a fertile valley, and has the appearance of being opulent. 
 Several cloth manufactories were then in a state of prosperity, which 
 are since fallen to decay. The population was about 30,000. Near 
 its walls, on the west, stands a hill, on which is erected that fatal 
 fortress of Spielberg, formerly the palace of the lords of Moravia, 
 and at present the most rigorous place of imprisonment in the 
 Austrian dominions. The citadel was of great strength, but the 
 French bombarded and took it at the time of the famous battle of 
 Austerlitz (the village of Austerlitz is at a short distance). Since 
 then it has not been restored so as to serve as a citadel, but they 
 have contented themselves with rebuilding a part of the outer wall, 
 which was thrown down. About three hundred condemned persons,
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 chiefly robbers and murderers, are detained there ; some subjected 
 to hard labour (carcere duro}, others to the hardest labour (carcere 
 durissimo}. 
 
 The carcere duro consists in being obliged to work, to drag a 
 chain at the feet, to sleep upon naked boards, and to be fed upon 
 the poorest imaginable nourishment. The carcere durissimo con- 
 sists in being chained in a manner yet more horrible, with an iron 
 girdle round the loins, and a chain fixed in the wall, scarcely afford- 
 ing scope . to turn round on the plank which serves for a bed. The 
 food is the same, although the law prescribes bread and water. We, 
 as prisoners of state, were condemned to the carcere duro. 
 
 On reaching the summit .of the hill, we turned our eyes behind, to 
 bid adieu to the world, ignorant whether the gulf which was about 
 to swallow us alive would ever open again to let us out. Outwardly 
 I appeared calm, but within me raged a tempest. In vain I had 
 recourse to philosophy to tranquillise my mind ; the reasonings of 
 philosophy were insufficient. 
 
 Having left Venice in bad health, the journey had been attended 
 with wretched fatigue ; my head, my whole body, was distracted 
 with pain and I burned with fever. Physical distemper contributed 
 to the irritation of my mind, which in its turn doubtless aggravated 
 my bodily ills. 
 
 We were delivered into the hands of the superintendent of the 
 fortress, who inscribed our names amongst those of the malefactors. 
 On quitting us, the imperial commissary embraced us with affection. 
 ' I recommend you to be docile,' said he to us ; ' the least infraction 
 of discipline will receive from the superintendent a severe punish- 
 ment.' The ceremony of delivery being completed, they conducted 
 Maroncelli and me into a subterranean corridor, in which two dark 
 cells were open for us, at a distance from each other. Each was 
 locked up in his den. 
 
 The bitterest of all calamities surely occurs when, after bidding 
 adieu to so many objects, and two friends equally unfortunate are 
 left alone, these friends are forcibly separated. Such a separation is 
 the bitterest of calamities. Maroncelli, on quitting me, saw me ill, 
 and wept for me as a man whom, without doubt, he should never 
 behold again. I wept for him, blooming in the vigour of health, torn, 
 perhaps for ever, from the refreshing light of the sun. And, like a 
 beautiful flower cast into darkness, how has he in reality drooped 
 and faded ! He has again emerged into light, but alas, in what a 
 state ! 
 
 When I found myself alone in this horrible cavern, and heard the 
 bolts drawn when, by the feeble light which fell from a narrow 
 window above, I perceived the naked plank which was given for a 
 bed, and an enormous chain fixed to the wall I seated myself 
 shuddering on the bed, and taking up the chain, I measured its 
 length, thinking it destined for me.
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 Half an hour afterwards I heard the keys rattle, and the door 
 opened. A jailer, whose name was Schiller, entered, and delivered 
 me a pitcher of water. He was an old man, and I could observe 
 that he felt compassion for my fate. 
 
 In this horrible dungeon I very soon became exceedingly ill, which 
 being perceived by the superintendent of the prison in his daily 
 visits of inspection, the physician of the establishment was requested 
 to see me, and report on my case. Dr Bayer found me in a fever, 
 ordered me a straw pallet, and insisted upon their removing me 
 from this subterranean vault to the story above. They could not, 
 as there was no room. But a report upon the subject having been 
 addressed to the Count Mitrovski, governor of the two provinces of 
 Moravia and Silesia, who resided at Briinn, the count replied that, 
 in consequence of the severity of the illness, the orders of the doctor 
 should be followed. 
 
 Into the chamber which they gave me a little daylight penetrated ; 
 and, creeping to the bars of the narrow window, I could see the 
 valley which the fortress commanded, a part of the town of Briinn, a 
 suburb with a multitude of small gardens, the necropolis, the small 
 lake of the charter-house, and the woody hills which separated us 
 from the celebrated field of Austerlitz. This view enchanted me. 
 O how I should have rejoiced to partake it with Maroncelli ! 
 
 They were preparing, in the meantime, our prison dresses, and at 
 the end of five days they brought me mine. These were a pair of 
 pantaloons of rough cloth, the right side gray, and the left side a 
 brown colour; a close coat of two colours disposed in the same 
 manner ; a vest similarly variegated, with the slight difference of the 
 gray colour being to the left, and the capuchin to the right. The 
 stockings were of thick wool, the shirt of unwoven flax, stinging to 
 the skin like a true haircloth ; for the neck, was a cravat of the same 
 stuff as the shirt. A pair of laced half-boots of untanned leather, 
 and a white hat, completed the wardrobe. 
 
 This livery was accompanied by irons to the feet that is to say, a 
 chain that extended from one leg to the other, the rings of which 
 were fastened by nails riveted upon an anvil. A few minutes after 
 the blacksmith had gone, I heard the hammer upon the anvil 
 sounding from below doubtless they were riveting the irons on 
 poor Maroncelli. 
 
 From the window of my new cell I found that I could converse 
 with the prisoner in an adjoining apartment, the Count Antonio 
 Oroboni. This intercourse was frequently interrupted by the senti- 
 nels; but by habituating' ourselves to speak in whispers, and at 
 certain intervals, we contrived in a great measure to elude the vigi- 
 lance of our guards. We thus became united in a tender friendship. 
 Oroboni narrated to me his life, and I mine to him ; the sorrows and 
 consolations of the one became the sorrows and consolations of the 
 other. O how greatly we comforted each other ! how many times,
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 after a sleepless night, did each of us feel his sadness alleviated, and 
 his courage fortified, by our morning salutation and interchange of 
 words ! Each of us felt himself indispensable to the other, and this 
 persuasion incited us to an emulation in amiability, and produced 
 that delicious feeling which a man experiences, even in distress, 
 when he can gladden the heart of a fellow-being. 
 
 The physician perceiving that none of us could eat the food which 
 they gave us during the first days, put us on a diet which was 
 called 'a quarter portion' that is to say, hospital regimen. It con- 
 sisted of three very light soups each day, a very small morsel of roast 
 lamb, which could be swallowed at a bite, and about three ounces of 
 white bread. As my health grew stronger every day, my appetite 
 kept increasing, and I felt this 'quarter' verily too little. I tried 
 to return to the allowance of those who were in health, but I took 
 nothing by the attempt : it disgusted me so effectually that I could 
 not eat it. I was driven back to the ' quarter.' For more than a 
 year I learned what the pangs of hunger were. Many of our com- 
 panions suffered these pangs yet more violently; for, being of 
 robuster constitutions than I, they were accustomed to a more 
 ample nourishment. I know several of them accepted bread from 
 Schiller, whose kind-heartedness was remarkable, though he had a 
 rough exterior. 
 
 Several times this good man brought me a piece of boiled meat, 
 begging me to eat it, and assuring me it cost him nothing that it 
 was left from his own dinner that he could do nothing with it 
 except to give it to others, if I would not take it. I would willingly 
 have flown to devour it ; but if I had taken it, would not Schiller 
 desire to bring me something every day ? 
 
 Twice only I yielded. One day he brought me a plate of cherries, 
 and another some pears. The sight of these fruits was irresistible. 
 I repented of having accepted them, because he did not cease to 
 offer me more. 
 
 From the first period of our confinement, it had been established 
 that each of us should have, twice a week, an hour's walking ; after- 
 wards this consolation was extended to us every other day ; and at 
 last, every day, except festivals. 
 
 We each went separately to the promenade between two guards, 
 with muskets on their shoulders. As I lodged at the extremity of 
 the corridor, I passed, in going out, the cells of all the Italian political 
 prisoners, except that of Maroncelli, who alone languished beneath. 
 
 'A pleasant walk !' murmured each of them through the loophole 
 of his door ; but I was not permitted to stop to exchange salutations 
 with any one. We descended the staircase, and traversed a court 
 which led us to a terrace with a southern aspect, whence we could 
 see the town of Briinn, and a considerable part of the surrounding 
 country. 
 
 In the court of which I speak was always a great number of
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 ordinary criminals, who went and came from their work, or walked 
 about conversing. Amongst them were several Italian robbers, who 
 saluted me with much respect, saying amongst themselves : 'This is 
 not a rogue like us, and yet his punishment is more severe than 
 ours.' They had, in fact, much more liberty than I. These words, 
 and many others, I heard, and I cordially returned their salutation. 
 
 The constraint of the irons at the feet, by preventing sleep, con- 
 tributed to ruin my health. Schiller wished me to remonstrate, 
 maintaining that it was the duty of the physician to cause their 
 removal. 
 
 For some time I did not follow his advice ; but at last I yielded, 
 and I begged the physician that he would order me to be relieved of 
 the chain, at least for a few days, so that I might procure a little 
 sleep. 
 
 The physician answered that the fever had not yet arrived to such 
 a height that he could grant my request, and that it was necessary I 
 should accustom myself to the irons. I was vexed with having made 
 the request. 
 
 I was still able, however, to take my usual walk, and one morning, 
 on returning from my promenade, I observed that the door of 
 Oroboni's cell was open. Schiller, who was within, had not heard me 
 coming. My guards wished to advance apace to close the door; 
 but I got before them, sprang into the room, and was instantly in 
 the arms of Oroboni. 
 
 Schiller stood in astonishment ; he raised his ringer in a menacing 
 attitude ; but his eyes were filled with tears, and with sobs he cried : 
 ' O my God ! shew mercy to these poor young men, and to me, and 
 to all the unfortunates who have been wretched on this earth !' 
 
 The two guards wept also. The sentinel in the corridor, attracted 
 from his post, was also in tears. Oroboni said : ' Silvio, Silvio, this is 
 one of the happiest days of my life ! ' I did not know what to reply : 
 I was beside myself with joy and emotion. 
 
 When Schiller conjured us to part, alleging the necessity of 
 obedience, Oroboni burst into a flood of tears, and faltered out : 
 'Shall we never see each other again in this world?' 
 
 We did not see each other again. Some months after, his cell was 
 vacant, and Oroboni lay in the cemetery which I had before my eyes. 
 
 I was able to move about up till the nth January 1823. On that 
 morning I arose with a slight headache, and a disposition to faint. 
 My limbs trembled, and I could scarcely draw breath. 
 
 Oroboni also, for the last two or three days, had been ill, and did 
 not rise. 
 
 They brought me the soup : I scarcely took a spoonful, when I fell, 
 deprived of sensation. The sentinel of the corridor looked by chance 
 through the wicket of the door a few moments after, and seeing me 
 extended on the floor, with the pot upside down lying near me, he 
 judged me dead, and called Schiller.
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 The superintendent came also ; the physician was likewise called, 
 and I was put to bed. It was with difficulty I recovered. The 
 physician declared my life in danger, and caused my chains to be 
 removed. He ordered me some sort of a cordial, but my stomach 
 would retain nothing. The headache grew to an intolerable height. 
 A report to the governor was immediately made as to my condition, 
 and he despatched a courier to Vienna to ask how I should be 
 treated. He was ordered in reply not to send me to the infirmary, 
 but to cause me to be attended to in the prison with the same care 
 as if I had been in the infirmary. Farther, the superintendent was 
 authorised to furnish me with soups and pottages from his own 
 kitchen as long as the malady should continue serious. 
 
 This last precaution was quite useless to me at first. Neither 
 meat nor drink passed my lips. For a whole week I got worse and 
 worse ; I was delirious day and night. 
 
 Krai and Kubitzky were given me as attendants, and they served 
 me with affection. Each time that I resumed a little consciousness, 
 Krai repeated to me : ' Have confidence in God, sir ; God alone is 
 good.' 
 
 ' Pray to Him for me,' said I to him ; ' not that He will cure me, 
 but that my misfortunes and my death may be received in expiation 
 of my sins.' 
 
 He suggested to me the idea of calling for the sacraments. 
 
 ' If I have not demanded them already,' I answered, ' attribute it 
 to the weakness of my head, but it will be a great consolation for me 
 to receive them.' 
 
 He reported my words to the superintendent, who brought the 
 chaplain of the prison. I was pleased with this priest ; his name 
 was Sturm. The reflections which he delivered to me upon the 
 justice of God, the injustice of mankind, the duty of forgiveness, 
 the vanity of all the things of this world, were not commonplaces ; 
 they bore the stamp of a high and cultivated intellect, and of a 
 lively sentiment of the love due to God and our neighbour. 
 
 The effort which I was called upon to make in receiving the sacra- 
 ments, seemed at first to exhaust the slight remains of life ; but it 
 afterwards served to assist me, by plunging me into a lethargy, which 
 produced some hours of repose. 
 
 I awoke a little relieved, and seeing Krai and Schiller near me, I 
 took their hands in mine, and thanked them for all their care. 
 
 Towards the end of the second week, a crisis occurred in the 
 malady, and all danger vanished. 
 
 I was about to rise one morning, when my door opened, and the 
 superintendent, Schiller, and the physician entered with smiling 
 countenances. The first of them ran to me and said : ' We have 
 received permission to give you Maroncelli for a companion, and to 
 allow you to write to your parents.' Maroncelli was conducted to 
 my arms.
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 O what a moment was that ! ' Thou yet livest, my friend, my 
 brother!' we each exclaimed. 'How happy a day we have been 
 reserved to see ! Praise be to God!' 
 
 But our joy, great as it was, was soon damped by mutual com- 
 passion. Maroncelli was necessarily less struck at finding me so 
 wasted, knowing from how severe an illness I had just escaped. But 
 I, with all my knowledge of what he had undergone, could not have 
 imagined so great a difference from what he was before I scarcely 
 recognised him. His beautiful countenance, so radiant with health, 
 was withered from grief, from hunger, from the bad air of his gloomy 
 prison. 
 
 However, it was a source of consolation to see and hear each other, 
 to be assured we should not again be separated. It was likewise 
 consolatory to write to my parents, which I now did, and the letter 
 was duly forwarded. 
 
 The dispositions of Maroncelli and myself harmonised perfectly 
 together. The courage of the one sustained the courage of the other. 
 If either of us was seized with melancholy, or excited to anger by the 
 hardships of our condition, the other restored his friend's equanimity 
 by some pleasantries or appropriate reasonings. A smile generally 
 tempered our sorrows. 
 
 As long as we had books, though we had read them often enough 
 to know them by heart, we possessed an agreeable means of mental 
 cultivation, because they were a perpetual excitation to fresh exam- 
 inations, comparisons, criticisms, and corrections. We read, or 
 meditated in silence, the greatest part of the day, and we gave to 
 conversation the times of dinner and of the promenade, and all the 
 evening. 
 
 Maroncelli, in his dungeon, had composed a great many verses of 
 superior beauty. He recited them to me, and composed others ; 
 while I also composed some which I recited to him, and -our memo- 
 ries were exercised in retaining all this. We acquired by these 
 means a wonderful facility in the composition, from memory, of long 
 . poems, a power of polishing and improving them at repeated inter- 
 vals, and of bringing them to as high a state of perfection as we 
 could have done by writing them. Maroncelli thus composed by 
 degrees, and delivered to memory, several thousands of lyric and epic 
 verses. As for me, I composed the tragedy of Leoniero da Derlona^ 
 and various other pieces. 
 
 At the commencement of 1824, a number of additional prisoners 
 were brought to Spielberg, among whom were some of our unfor- 
 tunate acquaintances ; and the rigours of our confinement were 
 increased. How did we pass all the years 1824, 1825, 1826, and 
 1827 ! We were refused the use of our books, which the governor 
 had granted provisionally. The prison became for us a real tomb, 
 in which, however, we were not allowed even the tranquillity of the 
 tomb. Each month, on an indeterminate day, the director of the 
 26
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 police, accompanied by a lieutenant and his guards, came to make 
 a severe inspection. They stripped us naked, examined all the 
 seams of our clothes, and, in the fear that any paper or other thing 
 was concealed therein, they opened our mattresses to search the 
 insides. Although it was impossible they could find anything clan- 
 destine with 'us, this visit, made in so hostile a manner, so suddenly, 
 and so often repeated, irritated me to a great extent, and always 
 threw me into a fever. 
 
 The preceding years had appeared to me so sad, and now I 
 looked back with regret upon those years, as to a time of enjoyment ! 
 
 By making the punishment commence, not at the epoch of my 
 arrest, but at that of my condemnation, the seven years and a half 
 finished in 1829, in the first days of July, if they were dated from the 
 signature of the emperor, or on the 22d of August, if dated from 
 the publication of the sentence. But this term passed like the 
 others, and all hope was extinguished. 
 
 Up to that time, Maroncelli and I sometimes imagined that it 
 might yet be possible we should once more see the world, our 
 beloved Italy, and our relations; and it was for us a subject of 
 conversation replete with anxiety, emotion, and love. 
 
 But when we saw August pass, then September, then that whole 
 year, we accustomed ourselves to hope nothing more on this earth 
 except the unvarying continuance of our mutual friendship, and the 
 aid of God to perform worthily what remained to accomplish of our 
 long sacrifice. 
 
 Ah ! friendship and religion are two inestimable benefits ! They 
 embellish even the hours of prisoners for whom all hope of mercy 
 has expired. God is indeed with the unfortunate with the unfor- 
 tunate who love Him ! 
 
 The 1st day of August 1830 appeared. It was not far from ten 
 years since I had lost my liberty, and eight and a half since I had 
 been subjected to the car cere duro. 
 
 It was a Sunday. We went, as on other holidays, to the usual 
 enclosure, and looked again, from the low wall running round it, 
 upon the valley and the graveyard in which Oroboni and Villa lay, 
 talking to each other of the repose which our bones would one day 
 find in the same place. 
 
 This day, after returning from the chapel, and when preparing 
 to eat our wretched dinner, the sub-intendant entered the cell. ' I 
 am very sorry to disturb your dinner/ said he, ' but have the goodness 
 to follow me ; the director of the police is here.' 
 
 As this latter personage never came but for disagreeable purposes, 
 such as searches or inquiries, we followed the sub-intendant, in very 
 bad humour, to the room of audience. 
 
 We found there the director of police and the superintendent ; the 
 former moved to us more graciously than usual. 
 
 He took a paper in his hand, and, in disconnected words, as if he
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO.- 
 
 were afraid of producing upon us too great a sensation of surprise by 
 a more rapid delivery, said to us : ' Gentlemen, I have the pleasure 
 I have the honour to inform you that his majesty the emperor 
 has performed another act of mercy ' 
 
 And he hesitated to inform us in what the mercy consisted. We 
 thought that it referred to some mitigation of our punishment, such 
 as exempting us from the tiresomeness of labour, permitting us some 
 more books, or granting us less disgusting food. ' Do you not under- 
 stand?' added the director. 
 
 'No, sir; have the goodness to explain to us what sort of mercy 
 is meant.' 
 
 ' It is liberty for you both, and for a third, whom you are about 
 to embrace.' 
 
 Apparently our joy should have broken forth in loud jubilee. But 
 our thoughts immediately ran upon our parents, of whom we had 
 had no intelligence for so long a time. Should we still find them 
 on earth ? This doubt occurred to us in such force, that it certainly 
 destroyed the pleasure the news of our freedom should have given us. 
 
 ' You remain mute,' said the police-director. ' I expected to have 
 seen you jump for joy.' 
 
 ' I beseech you,' answered I, ' to be good enough to transmit our 
 gratitude to the emperor. But if no account is given us of our 
 families, it is impossible not to fear that some very dear individuals 
 are now lost to us. This uncertainty overpowers us, even in the 
 moment which should be that of supreme joy.' 
 
 He then gave to Maroncelli a letter from his brother, which con- 
 soled him. He told me there was none from my family, and that 
 redoubled my fear that some misfortune had happened. 
 
 ' Return into your chamber,' resumed the director, ' and before long 
 I will shew you the other prisoner who has also received pardon.' 
 
 We retired, and waited for this third person with anxiety. We 
 would have taken with us all the others, but there could only be one. 
 Might it be the poor Mtinari ? or such a one ? or such another ? It was 
 not one of those for whom we offered our prayers. At last the door 
 opened, and we saw that our companion was the Signor Andrea 
 Tonelli da Brescia. We embraced. We could eat no dinner. We 
 conversed until the evening, compassionating the lot of those dear 
 friends who remained behind us. 
 
 At nightfall the director of police returned to take us from this 
 place of misfortune. Our hearts were lacerated as we passed before 
 the cells of so many beloved beings, without being able to take them- 
 with us ! Who knows how long they must still languish there ! 
 How many of them would become the slow victims of death ! 
 
 They cast on the shoulders of each of us a soldier's greatcoat, and 
 a cap on our heads ; and thus, in the clothing of galley-slaves, with 
 the exception of chains, we descended that disastrous hill, and 
 were conducted into the city to the prisons of the police. It was a
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 beautiful moonlight night. The streets, the houses, the persons 
 whom we met, all appeared to me so strange and pleasant, after 
 the many years I had passed without beholding a similar scene ! 
 
 We waited in the prisons of the police for an imperial commissar}', 
 who was to come from Vienna to accompany us to the frontier. In 
 the meantime, as our trunks had been sold, we provided ourselves 
 with linen and clothes, and laid aside the prison livery. 
 
 At the end of five days the commissary arrived, and the director of 
 police delivered us into his hands. He handed over to him at the 
 same time the money that we had brought to Spielberg, and that 
 which resulted from the sale of our portmanteaus and books, all of 
 which was restored to us at the frontier. The expense of our 
 journey was defrayed by the emperor, and nothing was spared. I 
 was far from well, and when we arrived at Vienna, I was in a fever ; 
 for eight days I was under medical treatment, and at length I 
 recovered. Being now comparatively well, I was anxious to depart, 
 the more especially as the news of the three days of Paris had 
 just reached us. 
 
 The emperor had signed the decree for our liberty the very day 
 that revolution broke out. He assuredly would not now revoke it ; 
 but it was very probable that, as the crisis was becoming critical for 
 all Europe, and as popular movements were feared also in Italy, 
 Austria would not at such a moment allow us to return to our 
 country. We were well convinced they would not take us back to 
 Spielberg, but we were afraid it migl}t be suggested to the emperor 
 to consign us to some town of the empire far removed from the 
 peninsula. 
 
 At last we left Vienna, and I was able to get as far as Brash; 
 there I again became ill; but at the end of two days I insisted 
 upon resuming the journey. We traversed Austria and Styria, and 
 reached Carinthia without accident ; but when we arrived at a 
 village called Feldkirchen, a short distance from Klagenfurt, there 
 came a counter-order. We were commanded to halt in this place 
 until further directions. 
 
 I leave it to be imagined how disagreeable this event was to us. I 
 had, in addition, the unpleasant reflection of being the cause of so 
 great a calamity to my two companions. My fatal malady was the 
 reason they were debarred from returning to their country. We 
 remained five days at Feldkirchen, and during that time the 
 commissary did all in his power to amuse us. There was a small 
 theatre of poor players, and he took us to it. Another day he pro- 
 cured for us the diversion of a hunt. Our host, and several young 
 people of the country, with the proprietor of a fine forest, were the 
 hunters, and we, placed in a favourable position, enjoyed the sport 
 as spectators. 
 
 At length a courier arrived from Vienna with orders for the com- 
 missary to conduct us to our destination. This good news filled me
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 with joy, as well as my companions ; but at the same time I trembled 
 to see approaching the hour of a fatal discovery the hour which 
 would unfold to me that I had no longer either father or mother, nor 
 several other connections, I knew not how many ! Thus my melan- 
 choly increased as we advanced towards Italy. 
 
 From this side the approach to Italy is not agreeable, and the 
 sterile aspect of the country contributed to increase my sadness. To 
 see again our own sky, to meet human faces having no longer the 
 northern expression, to hear on all lips the words of our language, 
 affected me much ; but the emotion produced tears rather than 
 smiles. How often I covered my face with my hands, feigning to 
 sleep, but shedding tears ! How many nights I passed unable to 
 close an eye, and burning with fever, sometimes bestowing the 
 most impassioned benedictions upon my sweet Italy, and thanking 
 Heaven for having restored me to it ; sometimes tormenting myself 
 with the absence of intelligence concerning my family, and con- 
 juring up imaginary ills ; sometimes in reflecting that I should 
 shortly have to separate, perhaps for ever, from a friend who had 
 passed through so many sufferings with me, and had given me such 
 proofs of a fraternal affection ! 
 
 At Mantua it was necessary to bid farewell to Maroncelli, for here 
 we were to separate. It was a parting of the most tender kind, not 
 unaccompanied with tears. At Brescia I left behind my other 
 companion in misfortune, Andrea Tonelli. On the 9th of Septem- 
 ber, two days after, I arrived at Milan, where I was detained for 
 several days, and then set out for Piedmont in charge of a brigadier 
 of gendarmerie. 
 
 The state of my feelings may be judged on once more finding 
 myself on the Piedmontese soil. Ah ! much as I love all nations, 
 God knows that Italy is dearest to me ! and much as I dote upon 
 Italy, God knows how infinitely sweeter to me than the name of 
 every other country in Italy is the name .of Piedmont, the land of 
 my fathers ! 
 
 I was still not free. The brigadier, on leaving me, handed me 
 over to the Piedmontese carabiniers. After a short delay, a gentle- 
 man appeared, who begged me to permit him to accompany me to 
 Novara. He had missed another opportunity, and now there was 
 no carriage but mine ; he was much obliged that I allowed him to 
 take advantage of it 
 
 This disguised carabinier was of a jovial turn, and kept me good 
 company as far as Novara. When we arrived at that town, pre- 
 tending to conduct me to a hotel, he directed the carriage to the 
 barracks of the carabiniers, and there I was told there was a bed 
 for me in the apartment of a brigadier, where I was to wait for 
 higher orders. 
 
 Expecting to resume my journey on the following day, I went to 
 bed, and after conversing a moment with my host, I sank into a 
 30
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 profound sleep. I had not slept so well for a long time. I awoke 
 towards morning, immediately arose, and got through some very 
 long hours. I breakfasted, chatted, walked about the room and on 
 the terrace, and cast a look on my host's books. At last a letter 
 arrived from my father. 
 
 what joy to see again those much-loved characters ! What 
 joy to learn that my mother, my dearest mother, still lived ! that 
 my two brothers and my eldest sister were also still alive ! Alas ! 
 the youngest, the Marietta, who had entered the convent of the 
 Visitation, as I had clandestinely learned in prison, had ceased to 
 breathe riine months ago ! It is sweet to think that I owe my 
 liberty to those who loved me, who never ceased to intercede for 
 me. 
 
 Days passed, and permission to leave Novara did not come. On 
 the morning of the loth September this permission was at last given 
 me, and then I was freed from the tutelage of the carabiniers. O 
 how many years it was since I had been able to go where I pleased, 
 without the encumbrance of guards ! 
 
 1 obtained some money, received the greetings of a few persons, 
 acquaintances of my father, and about three in the afternoon I 
 departed. I had as companions on the journey a lady, a merchant, 
 a sculptor, and two young painters, one of whom was deaf and 
 dumb. We passed the night at Vercelli. The fortunate sun of the 
 1 7th of September arose. We continued our journey, and did not 
 reach Turin until the evening. 
 
 Who, who could describe the emotion of my heart, of the hearts 
 of those so endeared to me, when I beheld, when I embraced my 
 father, my mother, my brothers ! My sister, my dear Josephine, 
 was not present, as her duties detained her at Chieri ; but at the 
 first news of my return, she hastened home to pass a few days in 
 the bosom of the family. Restored to these five objects of my 
 tenderest affection, I was, I am the most enviable of mortals ! 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 After his restoration to his native country, Silvio Pellico lived for 
 some time in the bosom of his family. In his later years he became 
 secretary and librarian to the Marchioness of Barolo in Turin, in 
 whose house he died in 1854. The narrative of his ten years' 
 captivity (Le mie Prigioni\ published in 1831, had an immense 
 popularity, and was translated into all the languages of Europe. 
 It is written with great simplicity and apparent truthfulness, and 
 breathes a spirit of the most entire Christian resignation. It 
 produced two effects : it incited the Austrian government to intro- 
 duce considerable reforms into their intolerable prison discipline ; 
 and it fixed the attention of Europe on the miserable condition of 
 Italy, personified, as it were, in the prisoner of Spielberg. Silvio
 
 STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. 
 
 Pellico did not suffer in vain ; the clank of his chains served to 
 loosen those of his country. 
 
 Of Pellico's other writings, a dramatic piece called Ester cTEn- 
 gaddi, one of those composed under the Leads in Venice, was 
 acted. in Turin in 1831 with the highest applause, as well as another 
 piece entitled Gismondaj but both were immediately suppressed by 
 the jealousy of Italian despotism. He composed besides, other three 
 dramas, one of them entitled Tommaso Moro. In 1837 appeared 
 two volumes of Opere Inedite, consisting of mystical hymns, para- 
 phrases of the Imitation of Thomas a Kempis, and other pieces. 
 Among his latest productions was a kind of catechism on human 
 duties (Dei Doveri degli Uomint). Long confinement and privation 
 had completely undermined his originally feeble constitution, and 
 induced on a mind more remarkable for sensitive goodness than 
 strength, a tendency to mystic pietism ; so that his views are better 
 calculated to inspire passive resignation than to invigorate for action. 
 
 The Count Arrivabene, who is mentioned by Silvio Pellico as 
 having been discharged from the prison of St Michael as innocent, 
 found himself, shortly after, exposed to the suspicions of the govern- 
 ment, and judged it expedient to flee. His only crime was having 
 received Porro, Pellico, and some others at his country-house near 
 Mantua, as they returned from a trip in Porro's steam-boat from- 
 Pavia to Venice. He fled from Mantua to Brescia, where he 
 imparted his and their danger to his friends Ugoni and Scalvini, 
 who joined him in his endeavour to escape into Switzerland. 
 Gendarmes had been despatched on all the routes to arrest Arriva- 
 bene as soon as his departure was known. He and his friends 
 effected their retreat into Switzerland, disguised as ' cattle-drovers, 
 but were very nearly caught. They had to pass an inn in which 
 three gendarmes, lying in wait for them, were asleep ; and at the 
 moment they reached the Swiss frontier, they were so exhausted, 
 from having had no interval of repose for sixty hours, that they fell 
 upon the ground in the presence of the Austrian soldiers, who were 
 close upon their heels when they crossed the line which separated 
 tyranny from freedom. They were, however, safe. Count Porro 
 also effected his escape from Italy. The gendarmes entered his 
 house at one door as he left it by another. Confalonieri was pre- 
 vented from executing the same manoeuvre by finding a door locked, 
 the key of which had been altered by his intendant without his 
 knowledge.
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 pURROUNDED by some of the most powerful nations 
 of Europe, Switzerland, a comparatively small country, 
 has for ages maintained a singular degree of freedom 
 and independence, and been distinguished for the civil 
 
 liberty which its people generally enjoy. For these 
 
 enviable distinctions, it is allowed to have been greatly indebted 
 to its physical character. Composed of ranges of lofty mountains, 
 extensive lakes, almost inapproachable valleys, craggy steeps and 
 pisses, which may be easily defended, it has afforded a ready 
 retreat from oppression, and its inhabitants have at various times 
 defeated the largest armies brought by neighbouring powers for 
 their subjugation. How this intrepid people originally gained 
 their liberty, forms an exceedingly interesting page in European 
 history. 
 
 About six hundred years ago, a large portion of Switzerland 
 belonged to the German Empire ; but this was little more than a 
 nominal subjection to a supreme authority. Socially, it consisted 
 of districts which were for the greater part the hereditary posses- 
 sions of dukes, counts, and other nobles, who viewed the people 
 on their properties as little better than serfs, and made free with 
 
 21 I
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 their lives, their industry, and their chattels. In some instances, 
 certain cities had formed alliances for mutual protection against 
 the rapacity of these robbers, and demolished many castles from 
 which they exercised their oppression upon the peaceful husband- 
 men and merchants. 
 
 Things were in this state, when, in 1273, Rodolphe of Hapsburg, 
 one of the most powerful of the noble proprietors, was chosen 
 Emperor of Germany, an event which added greatly to his means 
 of oppressing his Swiss vassals. Rodolphe, however, was a humane 
 master, and did not abuse his power. Albert, his son, who suc- 
 ceeded to the imperial dynasty in 1298, was a person of a different 
 character. He was a grasping prince, eager to extend his family 
 possessions, and wished to unite certain free Swiss towns, with their 
 surrounding districts, called the Waldstadte, or Forest-towns, with 
 his hereditary estates, proposing to them to renounce their direct 
 connection with the German Empire, and to submit themselves to 
 him as Duke of Austria. They rejected his advances, and hence 
 commenced the first of the memorable struggles for civil liberty in 
 Switzerland. 
 
 As the result of a direct attempt at subjugation might be doubtful, 
 Albert resolved to proceed cautiously and by stealth. The Forest- 
 towns had hitherto administered their laws and collected the imperial 
 taxes themselves ; and were only visited on stated emergencies by 
 an imperial commissioner or governor. The first encroachment, 
 then, was to send a governor or bailiff to take up his residence in 
 the country. According to the usual account, the first permanent 
 imperial bailiff in the Waldstadte was Hermann Gessler, who built 
 a fortress for himself at Kiissnacht in Uri, not far from the head of 
 the Lake of Lucerne, on which the Waldstadte bordered. Once 
 firmly established, Gessler, who was a fit instrument for the purposes 
 of a tyrant, assumed an insolent bearing, and scrupled not to 
 commit the most severe acts of oppression. Every great crisis in 
 national disasters brings forth its great man : as Scotland, under the 
 oppression of the Edwards, produced its William Wallace ; as 
 America its Washington, when its liberty was threatened ; so did 
 Switzerland, under the viceregal domination of Gessler, produce its 
 WILLIAM TELL.* 
 
 * The story of Tell, as given in the text, has long passed current as history ; that it is 
 essentially a fable, however, may now be considered as a settled point. The earlier Swiss 
 chroniclers, in narrating the rising of the Forest-towns, make no mention of Tell. The rude 
 embryo of the story appears first in the Chronicle of Melchior Reuss, in the second half of 
 the fifteenth century, and in a popular ballad of the same period. Successive versions 
 added details and embellishments, until, in the sixteenth century, Tschudi and others gave 
 the full-grown narrative, which Schiller has embalmed in his drama. As early, however, 
 as the end of the sixteenth century, doubts began to be expressed as to its authenticity ; 
 and attention was called to the existence of similar legends of earlier date existing in other 
 countries. Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish chronicler of the twelfth century, tells of a bowman 
 named Palnatoke, who was compelled by the Danish king, Harald Blue-tooth, to shoot 
 at an apple on his son's head, and who afterwards sent an arrow through Harald' s own
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 William Tell, according to the received accounts, was born at 
 Biirglen, a secluded hamlet in the canton of Uri, near the Lake of 
 Lucerne, about the year 1275, and, like his forefathers, was the 
 proprietor of a cottage, a few small fields, a vineyard, and an orchard. 
 When William had reached the age of twenty, his father is said to 
 have died, bequeathing to him these humble possessions. Endowed 
 by nature with a lofty and energetic mind, Tell was distinguished 
 also by great physical strength and manly beauty. He was taller 
 by a head than most of his companions ; he loved to climb the 
 rugged rocks of his native mountains in pursuit of the chamois, and 
 to steer his boat across the lake in time of storm and of danger. 
 The load of wood which he could bear upon his shoulders was double 
 that which any ordinary man could support. 
 
 In all outdoor sports Tell likewise excelled. During holidays, 
 when the young archers were trying their skill, according to ancient 
 Swiss custom, Tell, who had no equal in the practice of the bow, 
 was obliged to remain an idle spectator, in order to give others a 
 chance for the prize. With such varied qualifications, and being 
 also characterised by a courteous disposition, Tell was a general 
 favourite among his countrymen, and an acceptable guest at every 
 fireside. As a wife he chose Emma, the daughter of Walter Furst, 
 who was considered the best and fairest maiden of the whole canton 
 of Uri. The birth of a son, who was named Walter, in honour of 
 his grandfather, added to the felicity of the pair. Until the age of 
 six, Walter was left to his mother's care, but at that period the 
 father undertook his education, and made him his constant 
 companion. Other children subsequently added to the ties of 
 family. 
 
 With other sources of happiness, Tell combined that of possess- 
 ing an intimate friend, who dwelt amid the rocky heights separating 
 Uri from Unterwalden. Arnold Anderhalden of Melchthal was this 
 associate. Although similar in many salient points of character, 
 
 heart On this saga, Oehlenschlager, the Danish poet, has founded a tragedy. The 
 Icelandic sagas attribute the feat to various personages, some earlier, some later, than 
 Palnatoke. Perhaps the oldest form of the arrow-shooting legend is that in the Vilkinasaga, 
 in which it is told of the hero Eigil, brother of Weyland the Smith. As was natural, these 
 suggestions of doubt were distasteful to Swiss patriotism, and a book on the subject was 
 burned by the public hangman of Uri ; so that Swiss historians have been cautious in speak- 
 ing of the subject. Tell's Chapel, said to have been erected in 1388, only eighty years after 
 the_ death of Gessler, and_ other monuments commemorative of incidents in the story and 
 claiming the same antiquity, are usually held to be proofs of the reality of the events. The 
 date of these monuments, however, is far from certain ; and, at best, the most that could 
 be inferred from them is, that, on the rising of the Forest-towns, an obscure peasant shot 
 an Austrian bailiff on the banks of the Lake of Lucerne, and that this became, in the 
 popular memory, the central incident of the struggle, and gradually gathered round it the 
 widespread mythical embellishments of the tyrant, the bowman, and the apple. For one 
 thing, the tyrant Gessler is conclusively proved to be mythical. In a work, containing a 
 series of documents concerning early Swiss history, published in 1835 by M. Kopp of 
 Lucerne, it is satisfactorily shewn that, although a continuous series of charters exists 
 relative to the bailiffs of Kussnacht in the fourteenth century, there is no Gessler among 
 them.
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 there was still an essential difference between the two men. Arnold 
 of Melchthal, while he loved his country with an ardour equal to 
 that of Tell, and was capable of very great actions, was not pre- 
 pared for much patient suffering or long endurance of wrong. Tell, 
 whose temperament was more calm, and whose passions were more 
 influenced by reason than impulse, only succeeded in restraining 
 his friend's impulsive character by the stern force of example. 
 Meantime the two friends passed their days in the enjoyment of 
 one another's society, visiting at intervals each other's humble 
 residence. Arnold had a daughter, Clair by name, and Walter, 
 the son of Tell, learned as he grew up to love and cherish her. 
 Thus, in simple and tranquil pleasures, in the industrious prosecu- 
 tion of their several occupations, these two families dwelt in 
 tranquillity and mutual happiness. 
 
 The introduction to power of Hermann Gessler broke in upon 
 the happiness of every citizen of Uri. Besides the allowance of the 
 utmost licence to his soldiers, the tolls were raised, the most slight 
 and trivial offences punished by imprisonment and heavy fines, 
 and the inhabitants treated with insolence and contempt. Gessler, 
 passing on horseback before a house built by Werner Stauffacher in 
 the village of Steinen, near Schwytz, cried : 'What ! shall it be borne 
 that these contemptible peasants should build such an edifice as 
 this? If they are to be thus lodged, what are we to do?' Tradition 
 records the indignant remonstrance of the wife of Stauffacher 
 upon this occasion. ' How long,' exclaimed she, ' shall we behold 
 the oppressor triumphant, and the oppressed weep? How long 
 shall the insolent stranger possess our lands, and bestow our 
 inheritances upon his heirs? What avails it that our mountains 
 and valleys are inhabited by men, if we, the mothers of Helvetia, 
 are to suckle the children of slavery, and see our daughters swelling 
 the train of our oppressors ?' The energetic language of his wife 
 was not thrown away upon Werner, but took root in his heart, and 
 in due time brought forth fruit. 
 
 Meanwhile some of the instruments of oppression were punished 
 when they were least prepared for retribution. As an example, 
 we may instance the governor of Schwanau, a castle on the Lake 
 of Lowerz, who, having brought dishonour upon a family of dis- 
 tinction, perished by the hand of the eldest son. As a parallel 
 instance, we may mention that a friend of Berenger of Landenberg, 
 the young lord of Wolfenchiess, in Unterwalden, having seen the 
 beautiful wife of Conrad of Baumgarten, at Alzallen, and finding 
 that her husband was absent, desired, in the most peremptory terms, 
 that she should prepare him a bath ; but the lady having called 
 Conrad from the fields, and revealed to him the repeated indig- 
 nities to which she had been exposed, his resentment was so 
 inflamed at the recital, that, rushing into the bath-chamber, he 
 sacrificed the young noble on the spot. In a state of society but
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 just emerging from barbarism, and which as yet knew but little 
 of law or justice, continual instances were of daily occurrence 
 in which private individuals thus took the law into their own 
 hands. The result, however chivalric the custom may look in the 
 abstract, was most fearful and terrible, and is but one of the many 
 proofs how great a blessing civilisation has really been to mankind. 
 
 Tell foresaw, on the arrival of Gessler, many of the misfortunes 
 which must inevitably follow his iron rule, and without explaining 
 his views even to Arnold of Melchthal, without needlessly alarming 
 his family, endeavoured to devise some means, not of bearing the 
 yoke demurely, but of delivering his country from the galling 
 oppression which Albert had brought upon it. The hero felt satis- 
 fied that the evil deeds of the governor would sooner or later bring 
 just retribution upon him ; for this, and many other reasons, there- 
 fore, despite his own secret wishes, when Arnold poured out his 
 fiery wrath in the ear of his friend, he listened calmly, and, to avoid 
 inflaming him more, avowed none of his own views or even feelings 
 in return. 
 
 One evening, however, William Tell and his wife sat in the front 
 of their cottage, watching their son amusing himself amid the flocks, 
 when the former grew more thoughtful and sad than usual Pre- 
 sently Tell spoke, and for the first time imparted to his wife some of 
 his most secret designs. While the conversation was still proceed- 
 ing, the parents saw their son rush towards them crying for help, 
 and shouting the name of old MelchthaL As he spoke, Arnold's 
 father appeared in view, led by Clair, and feeling his way with a 
 stick. Tell and his wife hastened forward, and discovered, to their 
 inconceivable horror, that their friend was blind, his eyes having 
 been put out with hot irons. The hero of Biirglen, burning with just 
 indignation, called on the old man to explain the fearful sight, and 
 also the cause of Arnold's absence. The unfortunate Melchthal 
 seated himself, surrounded by his agonised friends, and immediately 
 satisfied the impatient curiosity of TelL 
 
 It appeared that that very morning the father, son, and grand- 
 daughter were in the fields loading a couple of oxen with produce for 
 the market-town, when an Austrian soldier presented himself, and 
 having examined the animals, which appeared to suit his fancy, 
 ordered their owner to unyoke the beasts preparatory to his driving 
 them off. Adding insolence to tyranny, he further remarked that 
 such clodpoles might very well draw their own ploughs and carts. 
 Arnold, furious at the man's daring impertinence, was only restrained 
 by his father's earnest entreaties from sacrificing the robber on the 
 spot ; nothing, however, could prevent him from aiming a blow at 
 him, which broke two of his fingers. The enraged soldier then 
 retreated ; but old Melchthal, who well knew the character of 
 Gessler, immediately forced Arnold, much against his inclination, to 
 go and conceal himself for some days in the Righi. This mountain
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 rises in a somewhat isolated position a rare circumstance with the 
 Swiss Alps and is one of the most conspicuous hills of Switzerland. 
 In form a truncated cone, with its base watered by three lakes 
 Lucerne, Zug, and Zurich this gigantic hill is pierced by deep 
 caverns, of which two are famous the Bruder-balm, and the hole of 
 Kessis-Boden. Scarcely had Arnold departed in this direction, 
 when a detachment of guards from Altorf surrounded their humble 
 tenement, and dragged old Melchthal before Gessler, who ordered 
 him to give up his son. Furious at the refusal which ensued, the 
 tyrant commanded the old man's eyes to be put out, and then sent 
 him forth blind to deplore his misfortunes. 
 
 Tell heard the story of Melchthal in silence, and when he had 
 finished, inquired the exact place of his son's concealment The 
 father replied that it was in a particular cavern of Mount Righi, the 
 desert rocks of which place were unknown to the emissaries of the 
 governor, and there he had promised to remain until he received his 
 parent's permission to come forth. This Tell requested might be 
 granted immediately ; and turning to his son, ordered him to start at 
 once for the Righi with a message to Arnold. Walter gladly obeyed, 
 and providing himself with food, and receiving private instructions 
 from his father, went on his journey under cover of the night 
 
 Tell himself then threw around his own person a cloak of wolf- 
 skin, seized his quiver full of sharp arrows, and taking his terrible 
 bow, which few could bend, in hand, bade adieu to his wife for a few 
 days, and took his departure in an opposite direction from that 
 pursued by his son. It was quite dawn when Walter reached the 
 Righi, and a slight column of blue smoke speedily directed him to 
 the spot where Arnold lay concealed. The intrusion at first startled 
 the fugitive ; but recognising Tell's son, he listened eagerly to his 
 dismal story, the conclusion of which roused in him so much fury, 
 that he would have rushed forth at once to assassinate Gessler, had 
 not Walter restrained him. Schooled by Tell, he informed him that 
 his father was engaged in preparing vengeance for the tyrant's crime, 
 being at that moment with Werner Stauffacher concerting proper 
 measures of resistance. ' Go,' said my father, ' and tell Arnold of 
 this new villainy of the governor's, and say that it is not rage which 
 can give us just revenge, but the utmost exertion of courage and 
 prudence. I leave for Schwytz to bid Werner arm his canton ; let 
 Melchthal go to Stantz, and prepare the young men of Unterwalden 
 for the outbreak ; having done this, let him meet me, with Furst and 
 Werner, in the field of Grutli.' * 
 
 Arnold, scarcely taking time slightly to refresh himself with 
 food, sent Walter on his homeward journey, while he started for 
 Stantz. Walter, when alone, turned his steps towards Altorf, where 
 
 A lonely sequestered strip of meadow, called indifferently Rutli and Grutli, upon an 
 angle of the Lake of Lucerne, surrounded by thickets, at the foot of the rock of Seelisberg, 
 and opposite the village of Brunnen. 
 
 B
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 unfortunately, and unknown to himself, he came into the presence of 
 Gessler, to whom he uttered somewhat hard things about the state of 
 the country, being led to commit himself by the artful questions of 
 the tyrant, who immediately ordered the lad into confinement, with 
 strict injunctions to his guards to seize whomsoever should claim 
 him. 
 
 Meanwhile certain doubts and fears, from he knew not what cause, 
 arose in the mind of Gessler, and struck him with a presentiment 
 that all was not right. He imagined that the people wore in their 
 looks less abject submission to his authority ; and the better to 
 satisfy himself of the correctness or erroneousness of this view, he 
 commanded Berenger to erect at dawn of day, in the market-place of 
 Altorf, a pole, on the point of which he was to place the ducal cap of 
 Austria. An order was further promulgated, to the effect that every 
 one passing near or within sight of it should make obeisance, in proof 
 of his homage and fealty to the duke. 
 
 Numerous soldiers under arms were directed to surround the 
 place, to keep the avenues, and compel the passers-by to bend 
 with proper respect to the emblem of the governing power of 
 the three cantons. Gessler likewise determined that, whoever 
 should disobey the mandate, and pass the ducal badge without 
 the requisite sign of fealty, or who should exhibit by his bear- 
 ing a feeling of independence, should be accused of disaffection, 
 and be treated accordingly a measure which promised both to 
 discover the discontented, and furnish a sufficient ground for 
 their punishment. Numerous detachments of troops, among whom 
 money had been previously distributed, were then placed around 
 to see that his commands were scrupulously obeyed. History 
 scarcely records another instance of tyranny so galling and humiliat- 
 ing to the oppressed, and so insolent on the part of its author. 
 
 The proceedings of Tell in the interval were of the deepest con- 
 cern to the country. Having arrived within the territory of Schwytz, 
 and at the village of Steinen, he called at the house of Werner, and 
 being admitted, threw at his feet a heavy bundle of lances, arrows, 
 cross-bows, and swords. ' Werner Stauffacher,' cried Tell, ' the 
 time is come for action ;' and without a moment's delay he informed 
 his friend of all that had passed, dwelling minutely on every detail ; 
 and when he had at length finished, the cautious Werner could 
 restrain his wrath no longer, but exclaimed, clasping the hero's 
 hand : ' Friend, let us begin ; I am ready.' After further brief con- 
 ference, they, by separate ways, carried round arms to their friends 
 in the town and the neighbouring villages. Many hours were thus 
 consumed, and when their weapons were at last distributed, they 
 both returned to Stauffacher's house, snatched some slight refresh- 
 ment, and then sped on their way to Grutli, accompanied by ten of 
 their most tried adherents. 
 
 The Lake of Lucerne was soon reached, and a boat procured. 
 
 7
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Werner, perceiving the water to be agitated by a furious tempest, 
 inquired of Tell if his skill would enable him to struggle against the 
 storm. ' Arnold awaits us,' cried William, ' and the fate of our 
 country depends on this interview.' With these words he leaped 
 into the boat, Werner jumped after him, and the rest followed. Tell 
 cast loose the agitated vessel, seized the tiller, and hoisting sail, the 
 little craft flew along the waves. 
 
 Presently, it is said, the wind moderated, and ere they reached the 
 opposite side, had ceased altogether a phenomenon common in 
 these mountain-lakes. The boat was now made fast, and the con- 
 spirators hastened to the field of Grutli, where, at the mouth of a 
 cavern of the same name, Arnold and Walter Furst awaited them, 
 each with ten other companions. Tell allowed no consideration of 
 natural feeling to silence the calls of duty, but at once came to the 
 point. He first gave a brief sketch of the state of the country under 
 the Austrian bailiffs, and having shewn to the satisfaction of his 
 companions the necessity for immediate and combined action, is 
 related to have added : ' We may have our plans frustrated by delay, 
 and the time has come for action. I ask only a few days for pre- 
 paration. Unterwalden and Schwytz are armed. Three hundred 
 and fifty warriors are, I am assured, ready. I leave you to assign 
 them a secluded valley as a place of rendezvous, which they may 
 gain in small parties by different paths. I will return to Uri, and 
 collect my contingent of a hundred men ; Furst will aid me, and 
 seek them in the Moderan and Urseren, even in the high hills 
 whence flow the Aar, the Tessin, the Rhine, and the Rhone. I will 
 remain in Altorf, and as soon as I receive tidings from Furst, will 
 fire a huge pile of wood near my house. At this signal let all march 
 to the rendezvous, and, when united, we will pour down upon Altorf, 
 where I will then strive to rouse the people.' 
 
 This plan of the campaign was, after some deliberation, agreed to, 
 and it was further resolved unanimously, that, in the enterprise upon 
 which they were now embarked, no one should be guided by his own 
 private opinion, nor ever forsake his friends ; that they should jointly 
 live or jointly die in defence of their common cause ; that each 
 should, in his own vicinity, promote the object in view, trusting that 
 the whole nation would one day have cause to bless their friendly 
 union ; that the Count of Hapsburg should be deprived of none of 
 his lands, vassals, or prerogatives ; that the blood of his servants 
 and bailiffs should not be spilt ; but that the freedom which they had 
 inherited from their fathers they were determined to assert, and to 
 hand down to their children untainted and undiminished. Then 
 StaufFacher, Furst, and Melchthal, and the other conspirators, 
 stepped forward, and raising their hands, swore that they would die 
 in defence of that freedom. 
 
 After this solemn oath, and after an agreement that New- Year's 
 Day should be chosen for the outbreak, unless, in the meantime, a
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 signal-fire should arouse the inhabitants on some sudden emergency, 
 the heroes separated. Arnold returned to Stantz, Werner to 
 Schwytz, while Tell and Furst took their way to Altorf. The sun 
 already shone brightly as Tell entered the town, and he at once 
 advanced into the public place, where the first object which caught 
 his eye was a handsome cap embroidered with gold, stuck upon the 
 end of a long pole. Soldiers walked around it in respectful silence, 
 and the people of Altorf, as they passed, bowed their heads pro- 
 foundly to the symbol of power. 
 
 Tell was much surprised at this new and strange manifestation of 
 servility, and leaning on his cross-bow, gazed contemptuously both 
 on the people and the soldiers. Berenger, captain of the guard, at 
 length observed this man, who alone, amid a cringing populace, 
 carried his head erect He went to him, and fiercely asked why 
 he neglected to pay obedience to the orders of Hermann Gessler. 
 Tell mildly replied that he was not aware of them, neither could he 
 have thought that the intoxication of power could carry a man so 
 far ; though the cowardice of the people almost justified his conduct. 
 This bold language somewhat surprised Berenger, who ordered Tell 
 to be disarmed, and then, surrounded by guards, he was carried 
 before the governor. 
 
 ' Wherefore,' demanded the incensed bailiff, ' hast thou disobeyed 
 my orders, and failed in thy respect to the emperor ? Why hast thou 
 dared to pass before the sacred badge of thy sovereign without the 
 evidence of homage required of thee ?' 
 
 ' Verily,' answered Tell, with mock humility, ' how this happened 
 I know not ; 'tis an accident, and no mark of contempt ; suffer me, 
 therefore, in thy clemency, to depart.' 
 
 Gessler was both surprised and irritated at this reply, feeling 
 assured that there was something beneath the tranquil and bitter 
 smile of the prisoner which he could not fathom. Suddenly he was 
 struck by the resemblance which existed between him and the boy 
 Walter, whom he had met the previous day, and immediately ordered 
 him to be brought forward. Gessler now inquired the prisoner's 
 name, which he no sooner heard than he recognised him as the 
 archer so celebrated throughout the canton, and at once con- 
 ceived the mode of punishment which he afterwards put in practice, 
 and which was perhaps the most refined act of torture which man 
 ever imagined. As soon as the youth arrived, the governor turned 
 to Tell, and told him that he had heard of his extraordinary dex- 
 terity, and was accordingly determined to put it to the proof. ' While 
 beholding justice done, the people of Altorf shall also admire thy 
 skill. Thy son shall be placed a hundred yards distant, with an 
 apple on his head. If thou hast the good-fortune to carry off the 
 apple in triumph with one of thy arrows, I pardon both, and restore 
 your liberty. If thou refusest this trial, thy son shall die before 
 thine eyes.' 
 
 21 9
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Tell, horror-stricken, implored Gessler to spare him so cruel an 
 experiment, though his son Walter encouraged his father to trust to 
 his usual good-fortune ; and finding the governor inexorable, the 
 hero accepted the trial. He was immediately conducted into the 
 public place, where the required distance was measured by Berenger, 
 a double row of soldiers shutting up three sides of the square. The 
 people, awe-stricken and trembling, pressed behind. Walter stood 
 with his back to a linden-tree, patiently awaiting the exciting 
 moment. Hermann Gessler, some distance behind, watched every 
 motion. His cross-bow and one bolt were handed to Tell ; he tried 
 the point, broke the weapon, and demanded his quiver. It was 
 brought to him, and emptied at his feet. William stooped down, 
 and taking a long time to choose one, managed to hide a second in 
 his girdle ; the other he held in his hand, and proceeded to string 
 his bow, while Berenger cleared away the remaining arrows. 
 
 After hesitating a long time his whole soul beaming in his face, 
 his paternal affection rendering him almost powerless he at length 
 roused himself, drew the bow aimed shot and the apple, struck 
 through the core, was carried away by the arrow ! 
 
 The market-place of Altorf was filled by loud cries of admiration. 
 Walter flew to embrace his father, who, overcome by the excess of 
 his emotions, fell insensible to the ground, thus exposing the second 
 arrow to view. Gessler stood over him, awaiting his recovery, which 
 speedily taking place, Tell rose and turned away from the governor 
 with horror, who, however, scarcely yet believing his senses, thus 
 addressed him : ' Incomparable archer, I will keep my promise ; but,' 
 added he, ' tell me what needed you with that second arrow which 
 you have, I see, secreted in your girdle ? One was surely enough.' 
 Tell replied with some slight evidence of embarrassment, ' that it 
 was customary among the bowmen of Uri to have always one arrow 
 in reserve;' an explanation which only served to confirm the sus- 
 picions of Gessler. 'Nay, nay,' said he; 'tell me thy real motive, 
 and whatever it may have been, speak frankly, and thy life is 
 spared.' ' The second shaft,' replied Tell, ' was to pierce thy heart, 
 tyrant, if I had chanced to harm my son.' At these words, the 
 terrified governor retired behind his guards, revoked his promise of 
 pardon, commanding him further to be placed in irons, and to be 
 reconducted to the fort. He was obeyed, and as slight murmurs 
 rose amongst the people, double patrols of Austrian soldiers paraded 
 the streets, and forced the. citizens to retire to their houses. Walter, 
 released, fled to join Arnold of Melchthal, according to a whispered 
 order from his father. 
 
 Gessler, reflecting on the aspect of the people, and fearful that 
 some plot was in progress, which his accidental shortness of provi- 
 sions rendered more unfortunate, determined to rid his citadel of 
 the object which might induce an attack. With these views he 
 summoned Berenger, and addressed him in these words : ' I am
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 about to quit Altorf, and you shall command during my absence. I 
 leave my brave soldiers, who will readily obey your voice ; and, soon 
 returning with supplies and reinforcements, we will crush this vile 
 people, and punish them for their insolent murmurings. Prepare 
 me a large boat, in which thirty men, picked from my guard, may 
 depart with me. As soon as night draws in, you can load this 
 audacious Tell with chains, and send him on board. I will myself 
 take him where he may expiate his offences.' 
 
 Tell was forthwith immediately conducted to Fluelen, the little 
 port of Altorf, about a league distant, at the foot of Mount Rorstock. 
 Gessler followed, and entered the bark which had been prepared 
 with the utmost despatch, ordering the bow and quiver of the famous 
 archer to be carefully put on board at the same time ; with the 
 intention, it is supposed, of either keeping them under safe custody, 
 or hanging them up, according to religious custom, as an offering 
 for his personal safety. Having started with the prisoner, under the 
 safe-conduct of his armed dependents, Gessler ordered them to row 
 as far as Brunnen, a distance of three leagues and a half ; intending, 
 it is said, to land at that point, and, passing through the territory 
 of Schwytz, lodge the redoubted bowman in the dungeon of Kuss- 
 nacht, there to undergo the rigour of his sentence. 
 
 The evening was fine and promising ; the boat danced along the 
 placid waters. The air was pure, the waves tranquil, the stars 
 shone brightly in the sky. A light southern breeze aided the efforts 
 of the oarsmen, and tempered the rigour of the cold, which night 
 in that season rendered almost insupportable so near the glaciers. 
 All appeared in Gessler's favour. The extent of the first section ot 
 the lake was soon passed, and the boat headed for Brunnen. Tell, 
 meantime, loaded with irons, gazed with eager eye, shaded by 
 melancholy, on the desert rocks of Grutli, where, the day before, he 
 had planned with his friends the deliverance of his country. While 
 painful thoughts crossed his mind, his looks were attracted to the 
 neighbourhood of Altorf by a dim light which burst forth near his 
 own house. Presently this light increased, and before long, a 
 tremendous blaze arose visible all over Uri. The heart of the prisoner 
 beat joyously within him, for he felt that efforts were making to 
 rescue him. Gessler and his satellites observed the flame, which in 
 reality was a signal-fire to rouse the cantons ; upon which, however, 
 the Austrians gazed with indifference, supposing it some Swiss 
 peasant's house accidentally on fire. 
 
 Suddenly, however, between Fluelen and Sissigen, when in deep 
 water, intermingled with shoals, the south wind ceased to blow, and 
 one of those storms which are common on the lake commenced. 
 A north wind, occasionally shifting to the westward, burst upon 
 them. The wind, which usually marked the approach of a dangerous 
 tempest, raised the waves to a great height, bore them one against 
 another, and dashed them over the gunwale of the boat, which,
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 giving way to the fury of the storm, turned and returned, and despite 
 the efforts of the oarsmen, which were further damped by an unskilful 
 pilot being at the helm, flew towards the shore, that, rocky and pre- 
 cipitous, menaced their lives ; a bleak wind, also, brought frost, snow, 
 and clouds, which, obscuring the heavens, spread darkness over the 
 water, and covered the hands and face of the rowers with sharp 
 icicles. The soldiers, inert and horror-stricken, prayed for life; 
 while Gessler, but ill prepared for death, was profuse in his offers 
 of money and other rewards if they would rouse themselves to save 
 him. 
 
 In this emergency, the Austrian bailiff was reminded by one of 
 his attendants that the prisoner Tell was no less skilful in the 
 management of a boat than in the exercise of the bow. ' And see, 
 my lord,' said one of the men, representing to Gessler the imminent 
 peril they were all incurring 'all are paralysed with terror, and 
 even the pilot totally unfit to manage the helm. Why then not 
 avail thyself, in desperate circumstances, of one who, though a 
 prisoner, is robust, well skilled in such stormy scenes, and who even 
 now appears calm and collected?' Gessler's fear of Tell induced 
 him at first to hesitate ; but the prayers of the soldiers becoming 
 pressing, he addressed the prisoner, and told him that if he thought 
 himself capable of promoting the general safety, he should be forth- 
 with unbound. Tell, having replied that by the grace of God he 
 could still save them, was instantly freed from his shackles, and 
 placed at the helm, when the boat answering to a master hand, kept 
 its course steadily through the bellowing surge, as if conscious of 
 the free spirit which had now taken the command. 
 
 Guiding the obedient tiller at his will, Tell pointed the head of 
 the boat in the direction whence they came, which he knew to be 
 the only safe course, and encouraging and cheering the rowers, 
 made rapid and steady progress through the water. The darkness 
 which now wrapped them round prevented Gessler from discovering 
 that he had turned his back on his destination. Tell continued on 
 his way nearly the whole night, the dying light of the signal-fire on 
 the mountain serving as a beacon in enabling him to approach the 
 shores of Schwytz, and to avoid the shoals. 
 
 Between Sissigen and Fluelen are two mountains, the greater and 
 the lesser Achsenberg, whose sides, hemmed in and rising perpen- 
 dicularly from the bed of the lake, offer not a single platform where 
 human foot can stand. When near this place, dawn broke in the 
 eastern sky, and Gessler, the danger appearing to decrease, scowled 
 upon William Tell in sullen silence. As the prow of the vessel was 
 driven inland, Tell perceived a solitary table rock, and called to the 
 rowers to redouble their efforts till they should have passed the 
 precipice ahead, observing with ominous truth that it was the most 
 dangerous point on the whole lake. 
 
 The soldiers here recognised their position, and pointed it out to
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Gessler, who demanded of Tell what he meant by taking them back 
 to Altorf. William, without answering him, brought the boat 
 suddenly close upon the rock, seized his bow, and with an effort 
 which sent the unguided craft back into the lake, sprang on shore, 
 scaled the rocks, and took the direction of Schwytz. 
 
 Having thus escaped the clutches of the governor, he made for 
 the main road between Art and Kussnacht, and there hid himself 
 until such time as the bailiff should pass that way. Gessler and his 
 attendants having with great difficulty effected a landing at Brunnen, 
 proceeded towards Kussnacht. In the spot still known as 'the 
 hollow way,' and marked by a chapel, Tell overheard the threats 
 pronounced against himself should he be once more caught, and, in 
 default of his apprehension, vengeance was vowed against his family. 
 Tell felt that the safety of himself and his wife and children, to say 
 nothing of the duty he owed to his country, required the tyrant's 
 death, and seizing an opportune moment, he pierced Gessler to the 
 heart with an arrow. 
 
 This bold deed accomplished, the hero effected his escape to 
 Steinen, where he found Werner Stauffacher preparing to march. 
 Immediate action was now unnecessary, but the original decision of 
 the conspirators remained unchanged. Accordingly, on the morning 
 of New-year's Day 1308, the castle of Rossberg, in Obwalden, was 
 taken possession of, its keeper, Berenger of Landenberg, made 
 prisoner, and compelled to promise that he never again would set 
 foot within the territory of the three cantons ; after which he was 
 allowed to retire to Lucerne. Stauffacher, the same morning, at 
 the head of the men of Schwytz, destroyed the fortress of Schwanau ; 
 while Tell and the men of Uri took possession of Altorf. On the 
 following Sunday the deputies of Uri, Schwytz, and Unterwalden 
 met and renewed that fraternal league which has endured even 
 unto this day.* 
 
 In 1315, Leopold, second son of Albert, determined to punish the 
 confederate cantons for their revolt, and accordingly marched against 
 them at the head of a considerable army, accompanied by a numerous 
 retinue of nobles. Count Otho of Strassberg, one of his ablest 
 
 * Although popular history, naturally enough, associates the beginning of the Swiss 
 Confederacy with Tell and his mythical associates, it is now known that a formal league had 
 been entered into among the three cantons as early as 1291. The original parchment of 
 this Magna Charta of Switzerland, it appears, is still extant ; and it purports to be only a 
 renewal of a still older league. The contents of' this compact and of other documents of 
 the same kind, the examination of which has only recently been entered upon, reveal a 
 state of matters very different from what has usually been believed. The battle of Mor- 
 garten is a historical fact, but the exact nature of the struggle between the cantons and the 
 House of Austria, which preceded it, it will require further research to make clear. The 
 real history of this period has yet to be written. A valuable contribution has recently 
 appeared in Les Ongines de la Confederation Suisse, Histoire et Legtndc, par Albert 
 Rilliet, Geneve, 1868. See Edinburgh. Review for January 1869. In the meantime, the 
 popular story has its charm, and also its use. The belief of it influenced the character and 
 actions of the people, and a knowledge of it is necessary to the right understanding of the 
 subsequent real history. Much of modem literature would be dark to a person who had 
 never heard of Tell and the other conspirators of Rutlu
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 generals, crossed the Brunig with a body of four thousand men, 
 intending to attack Upper Unterwalden. The bailiffs of Willisau, of 
 Wollhausen, and of Lucerne, meantime armed a fourth of that 
 number to make a descent on the lower division of the same canton ; 
 while the emperor in person, at the head of his army of reserve, 
 poured down from Egerson on Morgarten, in the country of Schwytz, 
 ostentatiously displaying an extensive supply of rope wherewith to 
 hang the chiefs of the rebels a hasty reckoning of victory, which 
 reminds us of similar conduct and similar results when Wallace 
 repulsed the invaders of Scotland. 
 
 The confederates, in whose ranks were William Tell and Furst, in 
 order to oppose this formidable invasion, occupied a position in the 
 mountains bordering on the convent of our Lady of the Hermits. 
 Four hundred men of Uri, and three hundred of Unterwalden, had 
 effected a junction with the warriors of Schwytz, who formed the 
 principal numerical force of this little army. Fifty men, banished 
 from this latter canton, offered themselves to combat beneath their 
 native banner, intending to efface, by their valour and conduct, the 
 remembrance of their past faults. Early on the morning of the I5th 
 of November 1315, some thousands of well-armed Austrian knights 
 slowly ascended the hill on which the Swiss were posted, with the 
 hope of dislodging them ; the latter, however, advanced to meet their 
 enemies, uttering the most terrific cries. The band of banished men, 
 having precipitated huge stones and fragments of rocks from the 
 hillsides, and from overhanging cliffs, rushed from behind the 
 sheltering influence of a thick fog, and threw the advancing host 
 into confusion. The Austrians immediately broke their ranks, and 
 presently a complete rout, with terrible slaughter, ensued. The 
 confederates marched boldly on, cheered by the voice and example 
 of Henry of Ospenthal, and of the sons of old Redding of Biberegg. 
 
 The flower of the Austrian chivalry perished on the field of 
 Morgarten, beneath the halberts, arrows, and iron-headed clubs of 
 the shepherds. Leopold himself, though he succeeded in gaining 
 the shattered remnant of his forces, had a narrow escape ; while the 
 Swiss, animated by victory, hastened to Unterwalden, where they 
 defeated a body of Lucernois and Austrians. In this instance 
 Count Otho had as narrow an escape as the emperor. After these 
 two well-fought fields, the confederates hastened to renew their ancient 
 alliance, which was solemnly sworn to in an assembly held at 
 Brunnen on the 8th day of December. 
 
 In these first struggles for liberty, the men of the town and district 
 of Schwytz had played such a prominent part, that the whole of the 
 confederates became known as Schwytzer or Swiss, and the name 
 was extended to all the cantons that afterwards joined them. 
 
 Tradition makes little mention of Tell after the death of Gessler, 
 and the first rising in 1307 ; nor are the accounts consistent. He is 
 represented as fighting on the field of Morgarten, and as being 
 M
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 present at a general meeting of the commune of Uri in 1337. 
 According to one account, he perished in 1350, while trying to rescue 
 a child from an inundation that destroyed the village of Biirglen, his 
 birthplace. Another version of the story makes him, after the battle 
 of Morgarten, become administrator of the affairs of the church of 
 Beringer, and die there in 1354. 
 
 To pursue, however, the history of Swiss independence. Lucerne 
 shortly after (1332) threw off the yoke of Austria, and joined the 
 forest cantons : the Bernese, under Rodolphe of Erlach, with the 
 assistance of the other Swiss, defeated in battle such of the nobles 
 as oppressed them, and earned their freedom : about the same time 
 Zurich overthrew its aristocratic government, and, aided by one of 
 the nobles, gained a free constitution. In May 1351, Albert of 
 Austria again threatening the land, Zurich demanded admittance 
 into the confederation ; a furious and bloody war ensued, which 
 terminated in the utter defeat of the Austrians, and the further 
 reception, at their own earnest request, of Zug and Claris into the 
 number of the cantons. 
 
 The nobility, however, supported by the power of Austria, con- 
 tinued to oppress the Swiss wherever they were able ; and the 
 emperor, by imposing heavy transit duties, increased their exaspera- 
 tion. Everything tended to another open rupture, and in 1386 a new 
 war was entered on with the Austrians, and Archduke Leopold 
 vowed this time to take vengeance on the confederates, who had so 
 often insulted his power. Near the Lake of Sempach, with 9000 
 men-at-arms, on foot and in close array with levelled spears, he 
 assailed the 1400 confederates that had come to oppose him. The 
 Swiss were falling fast before the bristling wall of iron, when Arnold 
 of Winkelried, in Unterwalden, grasping an armsful of the projecting 
 spears, buried them in his body, and sank with them to the earth ; 
 through the breach thus made his companions burst, and the Austrian 
 host was almost annihilated, Leopold himself being in the number 
 of the slain. Another encounter ensued in 1388, equally successful 
 on the part of the confederated cantons, with whom the Archduke 
 of Austria was fain to conclude a treaty of peace for seven years. 
 
 On the loth of June 1393, the Swiss drew up a mutual military 
 obligation, which was called the Convention of Sempach. At the 
 request of Austria, a further peace of twenty years' duration was 
 then agreed on, and solemnly observed. The imposing appearance 
 presented by this hardy people, thus gradually advancing towards 
 nationality and freedom, had its due weight also with their other 
 neighbours, who for some years left them in peace. This period of 
 repose was used to advantage, the Swiss improving their internal 
 condition, pursuing their agricultural labours, and gradually pro- 
 gressing towards civilisation. In a word, they enjoyed during a 
 short time the incalculable advantages, and reaped the glorious 
 results, of peaceful industry.
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 We, however, must quit the agreeable prospect of a happy, quiet, 
 and contented people, and pursue the stormy history of Swiss 
 independence. The canton of Appenzell, taking courage by the 
 example of their neighbours, threw off the severe yoke of the abbots 
 of St Gall, and was recognised by Schwytz and Claris : war ensued, 
 in which this new confederate for military glory gained two most 
 brilliant victories over the Austrians, and finished by formally join- 
 ing the confederation, which was soon further strengthened by the 
 addition of Argovie. Switzerland now assumed a somewhat lofty 
 position, dictating implicit obedience to all its neighbours : the 
 Orisons, too, about this time began to hold their heads erect, and to 
 defy the Austrian power. 
 
 Frederick of Austria, however, having come to the throne, pro- 
 claimed his intention of retaking all the places gained by the Swiss, 
 and in 1442 secretly formed an alliance with Zurich most disgrace- 
 ful to that canton : the indignant Swiss immediately declared war 
 against their late ally, whom, in an encounter which soon after took 
 place, they utterly defeated. 
 
 The Emperor Frederick, perceiving that he had little chance of 
 quelling the insurrectionary spirit of the Swiss without the assistance 
 of a foreign power, in 1444 concluded a treaty with Charles VII., 
 king of France, who engaged to assist him in the subjugation of the 
 revolted Swiss cantons. A French force, under the command of the 
 dauphin, afterwards Louis XL, was accordingly despatched into 
 Switzerland, and advanced upon the populous and wealthy city of 
 Basle. Suddenly called together to repel this new invader, the 
 small Swiss army hastened to Basle, and in the morning of the 28th 
 of August (1444) came up to the attack. The battle which now 
 ensued is one of the most memorable in the Swiss annals, and not 
 less so because the French, by their overpowering force, gained the 
 victory. The gallant resistance of the Swiss, however, was favour- 
 able to the cause of freedom. Basle, on surrendering, obtained 
 favourable terms from the dauphin, who was so much pleased with 
 the bravery of the Swiss soldiers, that when he became king of 
 France, his first care was to engage a Swiss battalion in his service ; 
 and thus the practice of employing Swiss was introduced into the 
 policy of the French monarchs. The engagement before the walls 
 of Basle, usually styled the battle of St Jacques, is till this day com- 
 memorated every two years by a public festival 
 
 The cession of Basle proved only temporary. Other battles 
 ensued, in which the confederated Swiss were generally victorious. 
 Indeed never, in the whole history of the world, has a more striking 
 example been presented of the great moral force which right gives to 
 a people than that presented by Switzerland. Strong in the love of 
 liberty, and in the justness of their cause, they met and overcame the 
 vast mercenary hordes of the conqueror, whose only claim was the 
 sword, and whose aggressions were founded on no one principle of 
 
 16
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 legality or justice. The cession of Friburg to Savoy by Austria, 
 when unable to preserve it herself, which occurred about this time, 
 was one of those acts of arbitrary power which characterised the 
 whole Austrian system of policy. The internal quarrels and dissen- 
 sions in Switzerland could alone have rendered them blind to the 
 necessity of preventing this transfer. At the same time, never were 
 concord and unity of purpose more necessary ; for Charles, Duke of 
 Burgundy, surnamed the Bold, an ambitious prince, whose sole 
 delight was in conquest, determined (1476) to add to his laurels by 
 subjugating Switzerland. Fourteen years of desolating wars and 
 internal dissensions had but ill prepared its people for new struggles ; 
 industry and commerce were expiring in the towns, and the culture 
 of the fields was wholly neglected. The mad project of Zurich, in 
 allying herself with Austria, cost that canton one million and seventy 
 thousand florins, and obliged them to withdraw all their loans. War 
 was never more pitiless in its course, or more pernicious in its results ; 
 it had already created an uneasy and savage spirit in the citizens ; 
 the humbler classes learned to prefer fighting and pillage to follow- 
 ing the plough, feeding their flocks, and pursuing an honourable 
 though laborious calling ; and the townsmen were equally unsettled 
 and restless. 
 
 Louis XI. of France, who held the Duke of Burgundy in utter 
 detestation, had, by the exertion of much political intrigue, accom- 
 panied by valuable presents to the leading Swiss, engaged the con- 
 federation in a league against his formidable rival, the consequence 
 of which was an irruption into his country. The Swiss were every- 
 where successful, severely punishing the people of Vaud for their 
 devotion to Charles, taking Morat, and marching to the very gates 
 of Geneva, then in alliance with Burgundy. Grandson, on the Lake 
 of Neufchatel, was also captured and garrisoned by the Swiss. 
 Suddenly both France and Germany made peace with the duke, 
 and, despite all their pledges, abandoned the confederation to its 
 own resources, even facilitating the passage of troops through their 
 territory to attack the Swiss. These latter, utterly unprepared for 
 this act of perfidy, endeavoured to come to terms with Charles ; but 
 their overtures were angrily rejected, and an army of sixty thousand 
 men marched upon Grandson. Crossing the Jura, the duke found 
 Yverdun in the possession of his troops, it having been treacherously 
 betrayed into his hands, though the citadel held out bravely, as well 
 as that of Grandson. Irritated that his progress should thus be 
 stayed by a mere handful of men, the duke publicly announced his 
 intention of hanging every Swiss within the walls in case of a pro- 
 longed defence. Unfortunately this menace terrified many, and a 
 Burgundian, who could speak German, having gained admittance 
 into the citadel, fanned the erroneous feeling, persuading them that 
 Charles sympathised with their courage, and would, did they abandon 
 a useless contest, allow them to retire home. The Swiss gave credit
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 to this statement, even rewarding the negotiator, and surrendered at 
 discretion. However, as they marched out of the citadel, they were 
 seized by order of the duke, stripped, and inhumanly murdered, to 
 the number of 450, some being hung, while others were bound and 
 cast into the lake. 
 
 Indignant at these horrors, the confederates hastened towards 
 Grandson, having 20,000 men to oppose an army three times as 
 numerous. In the first place the unprovoked invasion of Burgundy 
 by the Swiss had imparted to the duke's enterprise some shadow of 
 justice, but the barbarous action above described withdrew at once 
 the sympathy of mankind from his proceedings, and never in the 
 whole annals of human strife was an invader so justly punished. 
 
 On the 3d of March, at dawn of day, the advanced-guard of the 
 Swiss appeared on the neighbouring heights, and the struggle at 
 once commenced. The Burgundians almost immediately gave way, 
 losing a thousand men, besides the garrison of Grandson, whom the 
 Swiss hung up alongside their own relatives and friends an act of 
 reprisal only to be excused in consideration of the rudeness and 
 semi-barbarism of the times. Charles escaped with difficulty, 
 attended by a few followers, leaving behind a treasure valued at 
 a million of florins, as also his camp equipage. Arrived at Nozeroy, 
 and writhing under the humiliation of his overthrow, the duke 
 speedily gathered together a more numerous army than he had 
 before commanded, and marched to avenge his defeat. He entered 
 Switzerland on this occasion by way of Lausanne, in the month of 
 April, and reviewed his troops in the neighbourhood of that town. 
 Thence he advanced to the Lake of Neufchatel, and took up a posi- 
 tion on a plain sloping upwards from the north bank of the Lake of 
 Moral one of the worst which any general would have selected, for 
 the lake in the rear cut off the means of retreat. 
 
 The immediate object of the duke was less to fight a regular battle 
 than to capture the town of Morat. This town, however, was ably 
 defended by Adrian de Bubenberg, at the head of 1600 Swiss soldiers, 
 aided by the citizens of the town. Adrian's design was to hold out at 
 all hazards till the confederated Swiss could reassemble their forces. 
 This was not by any means of easy accomplishment. Morat was 
 hard pushed ; breaches were effected, and towers undermined. But 
 the courage of Bubenberg withstood every effort ; both he and the 
 heroes he commanded holding out firmly until the confederates 
 poured in, aided by their allies from Alsace, Basle, St Gall, and 
 Schaffhausen. They were likewise promptly joined, despite the 
 inclement weather, by the contingents from Zurich, Argovie, Thur- 
 govia, and Sargens. John Waldmann, commander of the Zurichers, 
 reached Berne on the night preceding the battle, and found the 
 town illuminated, and tables spread before every house, loaded with 
 refreshments for the patriot soldiery. Waldmann allowed his men 
 but a few hours for repose ; at ten at night the bugle was sounded for 
 
 18
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 departure, and on the following morning they reached the federal 
 army at Morat, fatigued and exhausted, having continued their march 
 all night under an incessant and heavy rain. The roads were con- 
 sequently in a very bad state, so that they had been compelled to 
 leave about 600 of their companions in the woods quite exhausted. 
 After a very short rest, however, these latter also arrived and drew 
 up with their friends. 
 
 Day appeared. It was Saturday, the 22d June 1476. The 
 weather was threatening, the sky overcast, and rain fell in torrents. 
 The Burgundians displayed a long line of battle, while the Swiss 
 scarcely numbered 34,000. A vanguard was formed, commanded 
 by John Hallwyl, who knelt and besought a blessing from on high. 
 While they yet prayed, the sun broke through the clouds, upon which 
 the Swiss commander rose, sword in hand, crying : ' Up, up, Heaven 
 smiles on our coming victory ! ' The artillery thundered forth as he 
 spoke, and the whole plain, from the lake to the rocky heights, 
 became one vast battle-field. Towards the main body of the 
 Burgundians, the Swiss army poured down with irresistible force 
 and courage ; and clearing all difficulties, they reached the lines of 
 the enemy. A fearful slaughter now ensued. The Burgundians 
 were utterly vanquished. The haughty duke, pale and dispirited, 
 fled with a few followers, and never stopped till he reached the banks 
 of Lake Leman. The rout was so complete among the Burgundian 
 army, that many, in terror and despair, threw themselves into the 
 Lake of Morat, the banks of which were strewed with the bodies of 
 the slain. From 10,000 to 15,000 men perished on the field. The 
 sun of Charles the Bold of Burgundy set on the plain of Morat. In 
 about half a year after, in an equally futile attempt on Lorraine, he 
 perished ingloriously at the battle of Nancy (January 7, 1477). His 
 body was found a few days afterwards sunk amidst ice and mud in 
 a ditch, and so disfigured, that he was only recognised by the length 
 of his beard and nails, which he had allowed to grow since the period 
 of his defeat at Morat. The page of history presents few more strik- 
 ing instances of the retributive punishment of inordinate pride, 
 ferocity, and ambition. 
 
 The battle of Morat vies in history with the victories of Marathon 
 and Bannockburn. As the deed which for ever freed a people from 
 a grasping foreign tyrant, it was a matter of universal rejoicing, and 
 till the present day is the subject of national traditions. According 
 to one of these, a young native of Friburg, who had been engaged in 
 the battle, keenly desirous of being the first to carry home tidings of 
 the victory, ran the whole way, a distance of ten or twelve miles, and 
 with such over-haste, that, on his arrival at the market-place, he 
 dropped with fatigue, and, barely able to shout that the Swiss were 
 victorious, immediately expired. A twig of lime-tree, which he 
 carried in his hand, was planted on the spot in commemoration of 
 the event ; and till the present day are seen, in the market-place of 
 
 19
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Friburg, the aged and propped-up remains of the venerable tree 
 which grew from this interesting twig.* 
 
 Some years after the battle of Morat, the citizens of that town dug 
 up and collected the bones of the Burgundians, as a warning to those 
 who might in future attempt the conquest of Switzerland. Subse- 
 quently, they were entombed beneath a monumental chapel ; but 
 again they were disinterred, and long remained as scattered fragments 
 on the margin of the lake, and became a marketable commodity. In 
 the course of his travels, Lord Byron visited the spot, which he 
 commemorates in his Childe Harold: 
 
 ' There is a spot should not be passed in vain 
 Morat ! the proud, the patriot field ! where men 
 May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain, 
 Nor blush for those who conquered on that plain ; 
 Here Burgundy bequeathed his tombless host, 
 A bony heap, through ages to remain, 
 Themselves their monument' * * 
 
 On visiting the field of Morat in 1841, we found that the bones of 
 the Burgundians had been once more collected and entombed by the 
 side of the lake, at a central spot in the plain where the victory was 
 achieved. Over the remains a handsome obelisk, commemorative of 
 the battle, has been erected by the cantonal authorities of Friburg. 
 
 To return to the history of Switzerland. By the victory of Morat 
 a number of the cantons were free to form an independent confedera- 
 tion, and the way was prepared for a general union. In 1481 
 Friburg and Soleure, and in 1501 Basle and Schaffhausen, were 
 numbered among the free cantons. In 1512 Tessin was gained from 
 Milan, and in 1513 Appenzell was admitted into the confederacy. 
 Two important parts of modern Switzerland still remained under a 
 foreign, or at least despotic yoke. These were Geneva and the Pays 
 de Vaud, the latter a fine district of country lying on the north side 
 of Lake Leman. The progress of the Reformation under Zuinglius 
 and Calvin helped to emancipate these cantons. In 1535, the power 
 of the Bishop of Geneva, by whom the town and canton had been 
 governed, was set at naught, the Roman Catholic faith abolished by 
 law, and the Genevese declared themselves the masters of a free 
 republic. The Duke of Savoy, who latterly held sway over the Pays 
 de Vaud, interfered to suppress the revolt of the Genevese ; but this 
 brought Berne into the field, and with a large army that canton 
 expelled the troops of the duke, along with the Bishop of Lausanne, 
 took the castle of Chillon, and, in short, became the conquerors of 
 the Pays de Vaud. Chillon here spoken of is a strongly-fortified 
 castle near the eastern extremity of Lake Leman, partly within whose 
 
 * In most of the towns and villages of Switzerland a 'Tree of Liberty' will be found, 
 representing this ancient lime. An annual procession of the youths of the place (who, from 
 the age of seven, are trained to arms), is marched in military costume and rank around this 
 symbol of liberty, and there made to swear allegiance to their country's cause.
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 waters it stands. On the occasion of its capture the Genevese 
 assisted with their galleys, while the army from Berne attacked it by 
 land. On being captured, many prisoners were liberated ; among 
 others, Frangois de Bonnivard, who had been imprisoned on account 
 of his liberal principles and the sympathy he had manifested in the 
 cause of the Genevese. 
 
 By the peace of Lausanne, in 1564, Savoy renounced her claims 
 on the Pays de Vaud, and was thus driven from Switzerland as 
 Austria had been before. Vaud henceforth became a portion of 
 Berne, but has latterly been declared an independent canton. By 
 the events narrated, the Swiss were not altogether free of occasional 
 invasions from without ; nor were they without intestine divisions, 
 caused chiefly by religious differences ; yet, on the whole, they 
 maintained their integrity, and extended their boundaries by the 
 absorption of districts hitherto under the oppressive dominion of 
 feudal barons. By the peace of Westphalia, Switzerland was 
 recognised by Europe as an independent republic. 
 
 SWITZERLAND AS AN INDEPENDENT COUNTRY. 
 
 From having been a country universally oppressed by native 
 barons or foreign powers, Switzerland, after a struggle, as we have 
 seen, of five hundred years, attained in 1648 its political independ- 
 ence. For nearly a century and a half after this event, the country, 
 though occasionally vexed by internal dissensions, enjoyed a state of 
 comparative repose. Commerce, agriculture, and manufactures 
 prospered, and the arts and sciences were cultivated. The people 
 generally enjoyed civil freedom and numerous municipal rights ; 
 certain towns, corporations, and families, however, inherited and 
 maintained peculiar privileges, which were the source of occasional 
 dispeace. From the reform of these abuses the nation was suddenly 
 diverted by the French Revolution in 1790. The French took 
 possession of Switzerland, and converted the confederacy into the 
 Helvetic republic Helvetia being the ancient Roman name of the 
 country. 
 
 The oppressions of the French intruders at length roused the 
 Swiss to attempt a relief from this new foreign yoke. A civil war 
 ensued; and Napoleon Bonaparte, by way of conciliation, restored 
 the cantonal system, and gave freedom to districts hitherto subor- 
 dinate to the Swiss confederacy, so as to increase the number of the 
 cantons. In 1814, with the sanction of the congress of Vienna, the 
 old federal compact was established; and, November 20, 1815, the 
 eight leading powers in Europe Austria, Russia, France, England, 
 Prussia, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden proclaimed, by a separate 
 act, the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland, and the inviolability of 
 its soil. The re-established confederation was divided into twenty- 
 two cantons, each of which was represented in a Diet, which was
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 appointed to hold its annual meetings alternately at Berne, Zurich, 
 and Lucerne. The old abuses which had crept into the constitutions 
 of the cantons were revived, and representation in most of them 
 became based on property qualifications. Officials, the aristocracy, 
 and the clergy joined to oppose innovations, and succeeded in doing 
 so until 1830, when the French Revolution broke out. Armed 
 demonstrations were made against the towns, and universal suffrage 
 was generally conceded. The consequences were not what had been 
 expected by the liberals, who found that they had not yet the means 
 of remedying the chief defect of the constitution namely, the want 
 of any efficient central power, either to control the action of the 
 separate cantons or to unite them in the common defence. Then 
 ensued a period of civil strife and confusion which lasted for more 
 than a dozen years, and into the details of which we cannot enter. 
 The struggle was at bottom one between liberalism and Protes- 
 tantism on the one hand, and the reactionary and Ultramontane 
 parties on the other. In Valais, where universal suffrage had put 
 power into the hands of the reactionary party, a war took place, in 
 which the latter were victorious. They then ruled with a strong 
 hand, and actually forbade the celebration of Protestant worship 
 within the canton. In Lucerne, the headquarters of the Jesuits, 
 the Ultramontane party acted even more extravagantly ; they so 
 persecuted their political opponents, that the latter were com- 
 pelled to leave the canton. These measures caused the greatest 
 discontent. In 1844, a proposal was made in the Diet to expel the 
 Jesuits ; but that body declined to act. The radical party then 
 determined to resort to force : they organised bodies of armed 
 men, called Free Corps, which invaded the Catholic cantons ; but 
 they were defeated. Changes favourable to them took place in 
 some of the cantons. The Catholic cantons then formed a league, 
 named the Sonderbund, for defence against the Free Corps. This 
 was a virtual secession from the confederation, and there was a 
 general clamour for its suppression ; but in the Diet the measure 
 could not at first be carried. At last a majority in the Diet, in 1846, 
 declared the illegality of the Sonderbund, and decreed the expulsion 
 of the Jesuits. In the war which ensued between the federal army 
 and the forces of the seven cantons constituting the Sonderbund, 
 about 200,000 men, counting both sides, took the field. In two 
 actions, at Friburg and Lucerne, the federals were victorious. The 
 leagued cantons were made liable in all the expenses of the war, 
 the Jesuits were expelled, and the monasteries were suppressed. 
 An attempt was made by diplomatic notes to intimidate the Swiss 
 government, but the revolution of 1848 broke out, and prevented 
 further interference. In the same year, the radical party, convinced 
 of the necessity of a more powerful central government, carried the 
 new constitution, which is briefly described below. 
 
 The greatest danger that has since threatened Switzerland arose
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 regarding the canton of NeufchateL This canton, although a mem- 
 ber of the Swiss federation, was a monarchical principality, belonging 
 by hereditary right to the king of Prussia. The events of 1830 48 
 had assimilated the constitution of Neufchatel to the rest of Switzer- 
 land, and the authority of Prussia had become almost nominal, 
 when, in 1856, the royalist party rose in insurrection, and took pos- 
 session of the government. The rising was immediately suppressed 
 by armed force ; but Prussia interfered, and demanded that those 
 concerned, who were about to be tried, should be set free. The 
 threat of war called forth an extraordinary burst of Swiss patriotism, 
 and the whole trained population stood to arms. This energetic 
 bearing led, through the intervention of the other powers, to a com- 
 promise by which the king of Prussia gave up all his rights, retaining 
 merely the title of Prince of Neufchatel. 
 
 Constitution. Switzerland is now composed of twenty-five cantons, 
 having a united area of nearly sixteen thousand square miles, with a 
 population of two millions and a half. The names of the cantons 
 are : Zurich, Berne, Lucerne, Uri, Schwytz, Unterwalden (Upper), 
 Unterwalden (Lower), Glarus, Zug, Friburg, Soleure, Basle (Town), 
 Basle (District), Schaffhausen, Appenzell (Exterior), Appenzell 
 (Interior), St Gall, Grisons, Aargau, Thurgau, Tessin or Ticino, 
 Vaud, Valais, Neufchatel, and Geneva. 
 
 Owing to the nature of the country and the circumstances of its 
 history, these cantons continue to this day to be in a great measure 
 separate states, each managing its own internal affairs, and having its 
 own form of constitution. The cantonal constitutions are divided 
 into two classes, absolute democracies and representative demo- 
 cracies. In the former, the chief power belongs to the Landes- 
 gemeinde, an assembly of the whole adult male population, which 
 meets once a year, to pass laws, and to regulate the taxes and 
 expenditure of the canton. Uri, the Unterwaldens, Appenzell, and 
 Glarus have constitutions of this kind. In the Grisons and the 
 Valais, the people may be said to possess similar powers, as all 
 measures must be approved of by them. In the other, the representa- 
 tive cantons, a great council is elected by the people, and to it are 
 deputed most of the powers of the Landesgemeinde. These local 
 assemblies produce a remarkable effect on the Swiss people. Their 
 debates have an importance far beyond that of an English town- 
 council, or even of a colonial parliament, for their power is much 
 greater, and the population are more immediately interested in them. 
 To the interest they excite is, no doubt, to be attributed, in a great 
 degree, the intelligence and public spirit of the Swiss. The greatest 
 disadvantage lay in the power the cantons formerly had to levy war 
 against each other, and to resist the general government in conducting 
 the foreign policy of the country. But these defects have been to a 
 great extent remedied by the new constitution, which came into opera- 
 tion in 1848. It handed over the control of the army, the conduct of
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 foreign affairs, the settlement of disputes between the cantons, and 
 the management of the police and post-office, to a Federal Assembly 
 {Bundes Versammlung) representing all the cantons. The Federal 
 Assembly consists of two chambers, first, the State Council (Stande 
 rath) ; second, the National Council (National rath). The former is 
 composed of 44 members, two representing each canton ; the latter, 
 of 1 20 members, elected by the cantons, in the proportion of one to 
 20,000 inhabitants. These bodies depute the executive authority to 
 the Federal Council (Bundes rath\ consisting of seven members, 
 and holding office for three years. The president is merely one of 
 the council, and he has none of the quasi-royal privileges of the 
 American president, whose functions are discharged by the whole 
 council Different systems of law still prevail in the different 
 cantons, which to some extent resemble each other, the most of 
 them having grown out of the old German codes. In recent times, 
 trial by jury has been introduced, but in the Catholic cantons the 
 codes of law carry us back to the middle ages : they still prescribe 
 for certain offences various degrees of corporal punishment, exposure 
 on the pillory, and public penance in the churches. In Switzerland, 
 property is much subdivided, and this has exercised a very marked 
 effect on the population. Of 485,000 heads of families, no less than 
 465,000 possess landed property. In the absence of great landed 
 estates, there is no powerful aristocratic class. There are no titles 
 of Swiss origin, families possessing such distinctions deriving them 
 from abroad. 
 
 There is no standing army in Switzerland, but every citizen is 
 obliged to serve as a soldier, and military drill is taught at all the 
 schools. 
 
 Language and Religion. In the sequestered valleys of the Grisons, 
 two-thirds of the population still speak a Latin dialect known as the 
 Romaunsh; Italian dialects have penetrated up the valleys of Ticino; 
 French prevails in Western Switzerland ; in the rest of the country 
 the dialects are German. Of every 1000 Swiss, 702 speak German, 
 226 French, 55 Italian, and 17 Romaunsh. The Swiss Reformation 
 spread chiefly from Basle, Berne, and Geneva, and the chief Pro- 
 testant districts are the countries communicating with these towns. 
 The Alpine region is almost entirely Roman Catholic, the seven 
 Catholic cantons being Lucerne, Zug, Schwytz, Uri, Unterwalden, 
 Valais, and Ticino. Out of looo Swiss, 41 1 are Roman Catholics, 
 587 Protestants, and 2 Jews. 
 
 Education. In no country is elementary instruction more widely 
 diffused. Parents are compelled to send their children to school 
 from five to eight, but not above that age. There are universities 
 on the German model at Basle, Berne, and Zurich, and academies 
 on the French plan at Geneva and Lausanne. The number of 
 clubs for scientific and literary, musical and social purposes, is most 
 remarkable. There are no pursuits to which a class of men can 
 34
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 devote themselves which are not represented by societies in Switzer- 
 land. The local political assemblies and other public meetings give 
 ample employment to the newspaper and periodical press. In 
 Switzerland there are accordingly 188 political journals, and 167 
 periodicals devoted to literature and science. There are 40 daily 
 papers. This active intellectual life is, however, chiefly confined 
 to the Protestant cantons. 
 
 Productions. In Switzerland, where good coal is not to be had, 
 and where the houses are built of wood, the forests, which cover one- 
 sixth of the whole surface, acquire very great importance. Wood- 
 cutting is one of the chief employments of the people. The trees 
 cut down in the highlands are deprived of their branches, and shot 
 with inconceivable rapidity over the slopes to the valleys below, 
 whence they are removed by rafts, not only to different parts of 
 Switzerland, but to France and Germany. It is, however, the 
 mountain-pastures and the meadows, forming two-fifths of the whole 
 surface of the country, that supply the chief occupations of the people 
 those of herdsmen and shepherds. During the summer, the cattle 
 are driven into the mountains, and tended by herdsmen, who take 
 up their abode in the rude wooden huts known as chalets, and there 
 the butter and cheese are made. In summer, it is estimated that 
 there are in Switzerland upwards of a million of horned cattle, one- 
 fourth of which consists of milch cows. The produce of the dairy 
 annually is valued at between one and two millions sterling. The 
 best cheese is made at Emmen, Saanen, Simmenthal, Gruyeres, and 
 Ursern. The sheep of Switzerland are of inferior breed, and their 
 wool is short and coarse ; but the goats are numerous and fine. 
 The plain is a fertile agricultural country ; yet Switzerland, as a 
 whole, produces only about two-thirds of the grain required for 
 consumption. In Vaud and Neufchatel, the cultivation of the vine 
 is the chief occupation of the people ; and in other parts, more 
 particularly on the shores of the Lake of Constance, there are 
 extensive orchards, in which are prepared cider and kirschwasser, 
 the latter being a liquor largely consumed in Switzerland. It will 
 give some idea of the extent to which Switzerland is cultivated, to 
 state, that out of every hundred square miles of surface, thirty are 
 occupied by rocks, glaciers, and water ; twenty by hill-pastures ; 
 seventeen by forests ; eleven by arable lands ; twenty by meadows ; 
 and one by vineyards. 
 
 Manufactures. The manufacturing districts are not scattered 
 over the whole surface of the country ; they are met with chiefly on 
 the northern frontier. The chief manufactures are at Zurich, silk- 
 stuffs to the value of 1,600,000 annually, and cottons ; at St Gall 
 and Appenzell, cottons ; in Aargau and Glarus, cottons, linens, silks, 
 and hosiery ; at Basle, silk-stuffs to the value of 1,400,000, leather, 
 paper, and tobacco ; in Aargau and Lucerne, straw-plaiting ; in 
 Neufchatel, watch-making and cotton-printing ; in Geneva, watch-
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 making and jewellery. Internal communication has long been 
 facilitated in Switzerland by excellent roads, and every advantage 
 has been taken of the lakes to introduce steam-navigation. The 
 plain is now overspread from one end to the other with a network 
 of railways, which in many directions send ramifications into the 
 Alpine valleys, thus connecting closely all parts of the country. 
 
 Although Switzerland is inland, its commerce in proportion to 
 population has long exceeded that of any other country of Europe. 
 According to a calculation made in 1856, the value of the trade of 
 Switzerland gave for each individual of the population 406 francs ; 
 while the rate in England was only 268, in France 101, in the 
 German customs-union 83, and in Belgium 296. This remarkable 
 result is owing partly to the system of free-trade early adopted and 
 consistently followed, partly to the cheapness of the administration ; 
 and especially to the circumstance that there is no standing army to 
 withdraw, as in other continental countries, an ever-increasing pro- 
 portion of the population from productive industry. 
 
 The early establishment of freedom in trade is partly attributable 
 to the contending interests of the different cantons. Some cantons 
 are agricultural, and others contain large seats of manufacture. But 
 the agricultural cantons would feel it very hard to be obliged to buy 
 manufactured goods from a neighbouring canton at a dearer rate 
 than they could buy them from somewhere abroad ; the peasantry of 
 Vaud have no idea of emptying their pockets to benefit the manu- 
 facturers of Basle or Zurich. The free system which thus grew up 
 spontaneously, as it were, was all along consistently upheld by the 
 central authorities, and was preserved essentially intact in the new 
 constitution of 1848; for although it was necessary to raise a revenue 
 for the maintenance of the central government, the duties imposed 
 were very light, and were strictly financial and not protective. 
 At the same time, all internal obstructions to commerce, in the 
 shape of duties between the several cantons, and road and bridge 
 tolls, were done away with, the confederation undertaking to pay a 
 yearly sum as indemnity to the cantons concerned. 
 
 The Watch Manufacture. Geneva and Neufchatel are the seat 
 of the watch manufacture, a large proportion of the watches being 
 made in hamlets and villages throughout the two cantons. In the 
 long valley called the Val Travers, stretching from the neighbourhood 
 of Neufchatel to the borders of France, and at Locle, in the same 
 quarter, are numerous small factories of these elegant articles. The 
 existence of a great manufacture in cottages scattered over fifty 
 miles of mountains, covered some months in the year with snows so 
 deep as to imprison the inhabitants in their dwellings, is a singular 
 fact in social economy well worthy of notice. One of the most 
 intelligent of the village watchmakers presented Dr Bowring with 
 an interesting account of the origin and progress of this remarkable 
 trade, from which we draw the following passages : 
 26
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 'As early as the seventeenth century, some workmen had con- 
 structed wooden clocks with weights, after the model of the parish 
 clock which was placed in the church of Locle in the year 1630. 
 But no idea had as yet been conceived of making clocks with 
 springs. It was only about the latter end of the same century that 
 an inhabitant of these mountains, having returned from a long 
 voyage, brought back with him a watch, an object which was till 
 that time unknown in the country. Being obliged to have his watch 
 repaired, he carried it to a mechanic named Richard, who had the 
 reputation of being a skilful workman. 
 
 ' Richard succeeded in repairing the watch, and having attentively 
 examined its mechanism, conceived the idea of constructing a 
 similar article. By dint of labour and perseverance, he at length 
 succeeded, though not without having had great difficulties to 
 surmount ; and he was compelled to construct all the different 
 movements of the watch, and even to manufacture some ill-finished 
 tools in order to assist him in his labours. When this undertaking 
 was completed, it created a great sensation in the country, and 
 excited the emulation of several men of genius to imitate the example 
 of their fellow-citizen ; and thus, very fortunately, watchmaking was 
 gradually introduced among our mountains, the inhabitants of which 
 had hitherto exercised no other trade or profession than those which 
 were strictly necessary to their daily wants, their time being princi- 
 pally employed in cultivating an ungrateful and unproductive soiL 
 
 ' For a number of years, those who betook themselves to watch- 
 making were placed at a great disadvantage, by having to import 
 their tools ; but these they in time learned to make and greatly to 
 improve upon. In proportion as men embraced the profession of 
 watchmaking, the art became more developed j several returned 
 from Paris, where they had gone to perfect themselves, and con- 
 tributed by their knowledge to advance the general skilL It is 
 now little more than a century since a few merchants began to 
 collect together small parcels of watches, in order to sell them in 
 foreign markets. The success which attended these speculations 
 induced and encouraged the population of these countries to devote 
 themselves still more to the production of articles of ready sale ; so 
 much so, that very nearly the whole population has, with a very 
 few exceptions, embraced the watchmaking trade. Meanwhile the 
 population has increased threefold, independently of the great num- 
 ber of workmen who are established in almost all the towns of 
 Europe, in the United States of America, and even in the East 
 Indies and China. Latterly, the export of watches has been very 
 considerable, and the small and delicate watches of Switzerland are 
 known in almost every country in the world.'
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 Switzerland is celebrated for its picturesque beauty, and is a 
 favourite resort of tourists from England. Its lakes are the most 
 beautiful of their kind, for they are surrounded with lofty hills, the lower 
 parts of which are green, and the higher rocky and grand. The many 
 pretty cottages on the hills are also a striking feature in the scene. 
 The finest of the lakes is that of Lucerne, extending southwards from 
 that town from 20 to 30 miles, and which, for the accommodation 
 of travellers, is now traversed by steam-boats several times a day. 
 
 What imparts to the Lake of Lucerne a character beyond that of 
 mere physical beauty, is its connection with the history of Helvetic 
 independence. It is Tell's lake its shores, as we have seen, are 
 the scene of his exploits and hence they bear that kind of moral 
 charm which consecrates the ground on which heroic actions have 
 been evoked. 
 
 The lake, which is most irregular in its outline, bending into 
 divers forms, is sometimes named the Lake of the Four Cantons, 
 
 Tell's ChapeL 
 
 from having Lucerne, Unterwalden. Uri, and Schwytz as its bound 
 aries. On the west side rises Mount Pilatus, and on the east the 
 28
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Righi. Beyond this to the south, the shores are precipitous, and 
 clothed with green shrubs. The ground in such places does not 
 admit of roads ; the only means of access from knoll to knoll being 
 by boats or precarious pathways among the cliffs. Here the tourist 
 arrives in front of what is called Tell's Chapel, which is situated 
 on the eastern side of the lake, at the foot of the Achsenberg, a 
 mountain rising to a height of 6732 feet, to which may be added 
 a depth of 600 feet below the surface of the water. The chapel, 
 which is a very small edifice, of a pavilion form, open in front, 
 and distinguished by a small spire on its roof, is erected on a shelf 
 of rock jutting out from the almost precipitous bank, and close upon 
 the edge of the lake. The only means of access is by boats. Here, 
 according to tradition, Tell leaped ashore, and escaped from the 
 boat in which he was in the course of being conveyed to the dun- 
 geons of Kussnacht. The chapel, we are told, was erected in 1380, 
 or thirty-one years after the death of the hero, by order of the 
 assembled citizens of Uri, in commemoration of the event. The 
 chapel is fitted up with an altar, and its walls ornamented with a 
 few daubs of pictures ; its general appearance is wild and desolate ; 
 and only once a year, on a particular festival, is any religious ser- 
 vice performed within it. A few miles further on is Fluelen, the 
 port of the canton of Uri ; and here the lake terminates. Altorf, 
 where Tell shot the apple, is a few miles distant, up the vale of 
 the Reuss. 
 
 Passing southwards from Lucerne, the tourist generally visits a 
 
 region of lofty mountains, called the Bernese Alps alp being a 
 word signifying a height. The principal of these alps are the 
 Wetterhorn, the Schreckhorn, the Finisterarhorn, the Eiger, the 
 Mcench, and the Jungfrau. We here present a sketch of these 
 snow-clad mountains, as seen at a distance of thirty to forty 
 
 29
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 miles. The loftiest is the Jungfrau, which rises to a height of 12,000 
 feet. They are covered summer and winter with snow and ice, and 
 have a dazzling white appearance on the horizon. 
 
 Having visited these interesting mountains, the traveller usually 
 proceeds on his journey southwards till he reaches the Valais, a long 
 and romantic glen, stretching in an easterly direction from Lake 
 Leman, or Lake of Geneva, as it is sometimes called. This secluded 
 valley is noted for the number of old and young persons called 
 Cretins. These are a species of idiots, poor, miserable in appearance, 
 and generally unable to attend to their own wants. Cretins occur in 
 families in many parts of Switzerland, but most frequently in low and 
 damp situations, and in cottages where there is a want of ventilation 
 and cleanliness. In this and other parts of Switzerland are likewise 
 seen individuals afflicted with swellings in the front of the neck, 
 termed goitres. Females have more frequently goitres than males ; 
 and the cause of this singular swelling has never been correctly 
 ascertained. 
 
 Through the lower part of the Valais flows the Rhone, here a small 
 river, which afterwards expands, and forms the large and beautiful 
 sheet of water, Lake Leman. This lake, which is from fifty to sixty 
 miles in length, by from two to six or seven miles across, possesses 
 a singular peculiarity. Its waters, though pure and colourless to the 
 eye when taken up in a glass, are in their entire mass of a blue 
 colour, as brilliant as if poured from a dyer's vat. This peculiarity in 
 the waters of the lake, which has never been satisfactorily accounted 
 for, does not exist in the lower part of the Rhone, which is of a dirty 
 whitish appearance. At the outlet of Lake Leman on the west, 
 stands the ancient city of Geneva, partly occupying a lofty height, 
 and partly the low ground beneath, with several bridges connecting 
 the two sides of the river, just issued from the lake. Geneva, in 
 1798, was incorporated with France, and it remained in this state 
 till the restoration of its independence in 1814; since which period 
 it has, along with a few miles of territory around, formed a distinct 
 canton in the Swiss confederation. It remains, however, a French 
 town as respects language, and partly manners and sentiments, but 
 endowed with that heedful regard for industrial pursuits and rational 
 advancement, which gives the place a distinguished name among 
 continental cities. Among the foremost to embrace the Reformation, 
 the inhabitants have ever readily afforded an asylum to the oppressed 
 from all nations : at present it is a place of resort and settlement for 
 intelligent strangers from all quarters. Latterly, Geneva has been 
 greatly improved in appearance, and now possesses many fine streets 
 and handsome buildings. 
 
 The environs of Geneva are beautiful, but so is the whole district 
 
 bordering on Lake Leman. On its southern side lies Savoy, a 
 
 ^generally high lying tract, over the top of which, and at the distance 
 
 of sixty miles, is seen the white top of Mont Blanc, reposing in the 
 
 30
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 midst of a tumultuary sea of black hills. On the north side of the 
 lake stretches the canton of Vaud, which in its whole extent is 
 unexampled for rural beauty. About the centre of Vaud, overlooking 
 the lake, is seen the pretty town of Lausanne, situated on a low hill, 
 amidst vineyards and gardens. At the small port of Ouchy, below 
 Lausanne, steam-boats take up passengers for various places on the 
 lake. One of the most pleasant excursions is to Chillon, near the 
 eastern extremity of the lake, on its north side. This interesting old 
 castle is placed partly within the margin of the lake, at a part of the 
 shore overhung by a precipitous mountain, and was built in 1238 by 
 Amadeus IV., count of Savoy, as a bulwark for defence of his posses- 
 sions, or a den whence he could conveniently make inroads on his 
 neighbours. Since it fell into the possession of the Swiss, it has 
 been used as a de*pot for military stores, and within its walls 
 prisoners committed for political offences are confined. It consists 
 of several open courts, environed by tall, rough-cast structures, of 
 immense strength, and shews on all sides the character of a 
 feudal fortress on a large scale. The chief building, as may be 
 seen in the engraving, next page, is a heavy square edifice over- 
 hanging the lake. The most interesting part of this structure is a 
 suite of gloomy arched vaults, which, from incontestable appearances, 
 had been, what tradition affirms they were, the prison dungeons of 
 Chillon. The last is the largest dungeon in the series, and is un- 
 doubtedly the prison in which Bonnivard was confined. 
 
 No one who has read the Prisoner of Chillon of Byron, can enter 
 the low-arched doorway of this dreary tomb of living men without 
 emotion. It consists of two aisles, separated by a row of seven 
 massive pillars of stone ; the aisle on the right, as we enter, being 
 hewn out of the rock, and that on the left being of arched masonry. 
 The floor is altogether of rock, and worn into various hollows. The 
 only light admitted is by a small window, so high up the wall that 
 no one could see out except by climbing ; hence it could have afforded 
 little solacement to the prisoners, more especially as the custom 
 seems to have been to chain them to the pillars. On measuring the 
 vault by pacing, it is found to be fifty-two steps in length, and it 
 was at about two-thirds of this distance from the doorway that Bonni- 
 vard, one of the last victims of the Duke of Savoy, was confined. On 
 the side of one of the pillars a strong ring is still attached, and the 
 surface of the stone floor beneath is trodden into uneven forms by the 
 action of footsteps. No poetic licence has therefore been taken 
 in the forcible lines : 
 
 ' Chillon ! thy prison is a holy place, 
 
 And thy sad floor an altar ; for 'twas trod 
 
 Until his very steps have left a trace 
 Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod 
 
 By Bonnivard ! May none these marks efface ! 
 For they appeal from tyranny to God ! '
 
 WILLIAM TELL AND SWITZERLAND. 
 
 The pillar thus connected with Bonnivard's imprisonment has 
 been an object of curiosity to hundreds of visitors, both before and 
 since the place was consecrated by the genius of the poet. It is 
 carved all over with names, chiefly French and English ; and among 
 these Dryden, Richardson, Peel, Victor Hugo, and Byron may be 
 observed. Bonnivard, as has been mentioned in our previous 
 historical sketch, was imprisoned here on account of the sentiments 
 of civil and religious liberty which he entertained. In the dungeon 
 we have just noticed he was immured for several years, without hope 
 of release ; and it must have been to him a joyful sound to hear the 
 attacks of the Bernese forces by land, and of the Genevese galleys by 
 water, which at length reduced this stronghold of tyranny, and gave 
 liberty to its forlorn captive.
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 THE H.ERRING. 
 
 j|HIS tiny fish is perhaps the greatest treasure of the sea. 
 It is almost universally liked as an article of food ; it is 
 very abundant, and readily caught in great numbers ; 
 and being capable of being cured with comparatively 
 
 little injury to its nutritive qualities, it can be sent to 
 
 countries at any distance from the shores it frequents. Owing to 
 these circumstances, it contributes more to the food-supplies of the 
 human race than perhaps any other single fish. In the United 
 Kingdom, around the shores of which it is particularly abundant, it 
 constitutes a great industrial and commercial interest. Few persons 
 not conversant with the statistics of trade have any idea of the 
 quantities of pickled and smoked herrings that are annually sent 
 to foreign markets. The gathering of this great sea-harvest, again, 
 gives employment to vast numbers of the coast population, and 
 involves, in the wages of fishermen and other labourers, in the 
 building of boats and the making of nets and barrels, an expenditure 
 of hundreds of thousands of pounds. 
 
 The herring-fishery has from early times been deemed worthy of
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 the fostering care of kings and governments. It is recorded that 
 the Emperor Charles V. made a pilgrimage to the tomb of William 
 Beukelsen, of Biervlet, near Sluis (died in 1397), who is said by one 
 or two Dutch writers to have discovered the mode of curing herrings 
 now in use. Edward III. of England encouraged the herring- 
 fishery of Yarmouth; and Charles II., with the same intention, 
 visited that port along with the Duke of York, and as a memorial of 
 the occasion, was presented with four golden herrings. Several of 
 the kings of Scotland, and notably James V. and VI., were zealous 
 in aiding the Scottish fisheries. Repeated parliamentary inquiries 
 and numerous acts of parliament testify to the importance that con- 
 tinues to be attached by the British nation to this branch of industry. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE HERRING-FISHERY. 
 
 The Scots must have been fishers from an early age, for we find 
 notices, in Anderson's History of Commerce and in other works, of 
 the Netherlanders trading with Scotland for herrings as early as the 
 year 836. The Danes, we are told by Arnoldus de Liibeck, rose to 
 wealth and distinction at an early period of history by means of their 
 herring-fishery ; they clothed themselves with scarlet or purple, and 
 other nations carried to them abundance of gold and silver, being 
 contented with herrings in exchange. This was about the eleventh 
 century. In the year 1124, the value of herrings in Pomerania was 
 a horse-load for a coin less in value than our penny. In 1138, the 
 privilege of fishing for herrings at Renfrew was conceded by King 
 David to the Abbey of Holyrood. In 1240, an act was passed by the 
 Scottish parliament imposing a burgage duty of fourpence on every 
 last of herrings. Yarmouth became very early a place of importance 
 in connection with the herring-fishery. In the year 1270, a herring- 
 fair was held there which lasted for a period of forty days. In 
 the fifteenth century, the Scottish herring-fishery had grown to be 
 an enterprise of great moment to the country, a considerable export 
 trade having been originated both to Holland and the Mediter- 
 ranean. Up till the time of the Union, the Scottish herring-fishery 
 was becoming annually of greater importance, directly fostered as it 
 was by the king and the nobles of the country. After the Union, 
 the fishery declined ; but in 1 726 a reaction set in, and as greater 
 attention was after that period paid to commerce and manufactures, 
 the fisheries shared in this general revival, and have prospered ever 
 since. 
 
 The herring-fishery was first developed into a systematic industry 
 by the Dutch people. It is a common saying that Amsterdam is 
 founded on herring-bones. The greatest possible attention was 
 paid in Holland, at an early period, not only to the capture of the 
 fish, but also to the best method of curing them. Even yet, the 
 arrival of the steamboat with the firstlings of the season is anxiously
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 looked for, and the early fish are sold at a very high price, as much 
 as two shillings of our money being charged for a single herring. 
 As a rule, they are all pickled ; fresh herring, as that delicacy is 
 understood in Britain, being little known elsewhere. If the herring- 
 cure of Holland was borrowed, as has been asserted, from Scotland, 
 the Dutch have surpassed their masters. In Holland, and in Prussia 
 and other parts of Germany, the pickled herring is eaten raw, being 
 served at table as a whet, or as the bonne bouche of the banquet ; 
 and the flavour of these carefully pickled fish is really delicious. 
 At one time, when the Dutch herring-fishery was in the heyday of 
 its prosperity, a few of the earliest cured fish that arrived from the 
 ; great fishery ' were presented, with great ceremony, to the king, 
 who always gave a liberal reward to the bearers of the precious kit 
 containing the first-fruits of the representative industry of the king- 
 dom. Every incident of the herring-fishery of Holland was at one 
 time regulated by the Dutch legislature with great care : the time at 
 which the fishery must begin, the size of the nets, the kind of wood 
 of which the barrels must be constructed, the quality and quantity 
 of the salt used in the pickling, and the exact mode of eviscerating 
 the fish, were all laid down in great detail in the ' placarts,' and all 
 captains and chief officers of ' busses ' and ' boars' were sworn to see 
 the laws rigidly carried into execution. As other sources of commer- 
 cial wealth were opened up by the Dutch, they ceased to prosecute 
 the herring-fishery with the same industry ; indeed, they found the 
 fish becoming scarce ; and now the herring-fishery of Holland is 
 not nearly such a source of wealth to the country as it was at one 
 time. An attempt is, however, being made to revive it. 
 
 As the herring-fishery of Holland declined, that of Scotland rose 
 into greater importance ; but its growth was slow and fitful. At one 
 time, no person would have ventured to prophesy that in the year 
 1868 there would be upwards of twelve thousand boats fishing under 
 the surveillance of the Scottish Board of Fisheries. Great efforts 
 were from time to time made to extend the enterprise, and bounties 
 began to be granted in 1749 to those fitting out herring-busses, as 
 well as premiums for the quantity of herrings captured. The plan of 
 giving bounties and other advantages to those who engaged in this 
 industry had ultimately to be abandoned, as the crown was sup- 
 posed to have been defrauded by persons who had fitted out ships, 
 not to capture the fish, but to catch the bounty. A remnant of this 
 government patronage still remains ; a staff of men being kept up, 
 partly at the national expense, to certify the proper cure of the 
 herrings, by putting a brand on each barrel that is cured to the 
 satisfaction of the fishery officer. But the question of the brand will 
 be afterwards spoken of. 
 
 The chief seat of the herring-fishery in Scotland is Wick in 
 Caithness-shire, where there may be found fishing during the 
 season a fleet of one thousand two hundred boats. A century
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 .ago there were only two small herring-sloops at this port. What 
 cotton is to Manchester or steel to Sheffield, the herring assuredly 
 is to Wick and other towns on the north-east coast of Scotland. 
 It has been calculated that at least sixty millions of herrings are 
 annually brought into the conjoined harbours of Wick and Pulteney- 
 town ; and it is no exaggeration to say, that during an average fishing 
 season as many as nine hundred millions of herrings are taken 
 from the seas surrounding Scotland. Next to Wick, the chief 
 stations are in various parts of Aberdeen, Sutherland, Elgin, and 
 Banff shires. Fraserburgh sends out a fleet of 500 boats ; Peterhead 
 has 430 boats; and from Port Gordon, Buckie, and other places 
 on the Moray Firth, an active fishery is carried on. There are also 
 'four herring-fishing stations in the Orkney Islands, and there is 
 a considerable fishery at Shetland. There are in all 21 herring- 
 fishery 'districts' in Scotland, and these districts embrace 565 ports 
 or places. The total number of boats engaged in what is called the 
 north-east coast-fishery in 1868 was 3449, a number rather above 
 the average of former years. Important fisheries for the herring are 
 also carried on at various places on both sides of the Firth of Forth, 
 the fish being chiefly sold as 'fresh herrings.' The Loch Fyne 
 herring has acquired a celebrity of its own (see page 13). 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HERRING. 
 
 The common herring is the type of a family called by naturalists 
 the Clupeidce, and divided by them into several genera. The species 
 are not very numerous, but some of them have a very wide geo- 
 graphical range. The chief species known on the British coasts 
 are the common herring (Clupea harengus\ the pilchard (Clupea 
 
 Sprat and Herring : I, sprat ; 2, herring. 
 
 pilchardus), and the sprat (Clupea sprattus). The sardine (Clupea 
 Sordino), the anchovy (Engraulis enchrasicholus), and the shad 
 (Alausa) are also members of the family; and the whitebait is now 
 t>elieved by some to be the young of the herring.
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 The herring is, in the opinion of some, the most beautiful fish 
 that inhabits the British seas : the drawing of the nets in the 
 early morning, just as the sun rises above the waters, is a sight 
 not soon to be forgotten. Even the smallest sprats are beautiful 
 when they first emerge from the water ; and the glowing colours of 
 a mass of pilchards might furnish an artist with a lasting stock of 
 beautiful tints. The natural history of the herring is in many points 
 as obscure as is the history of the trade of capturing it. Not many 
 years ago, naturalists supposed they knew all about it. The herring, 
 we were told, was an inhabitant of the inaccessible seas of the high 
 northern latitudes. Pennant, who first gave publicity to this idea, is 
 supposed to have founded it on information derived from fishermen. 
 It was believed that these fish existed in the arctic seas in incon- 
 ceivable numbers, and that, at the proper season, by some com- 
 manding impulse, they gathered themselves together and migrated 
 southward. It was described with the particularity of an observed 
 fact, how the great ' heer,' or army, as it was called, made its appear- 
 ance off Iceland in March, occupying a space in the sea equal to 
 the extent of the whole British Islands ; how, when this army 
 approached these islands, it divided itself into two columns, of which 
 the one advanced along the west coast, the other along the German 
 Ocean, throwing off battalions into every bay and firth. It is now 
 known that all this is utterly without foundation. The herring is 
 a native fish, and so far as can be ascertained, does not migrate to 
 or from any distant place. Fishermen and dealers can easily distin- 
 guish the herrings of different localities; a coast-of- Caithness herring 
 differs in many respects from a Loch Fyne herring, and both are 
 different from a herring of the Firth of Forth in appearance and 
 in flavour. 
 
 Geographically, the herring is widely distributed. It is found in 
 all the seas which surround our own islands : it is abundant in the 
 White Sea ; and is also found in the Baltic, in the Zuider Zee, and 
 in the Black and Caspian Seas. The fish taken at Bakoe are very 
 highly prized, being called by the Persians the royal fish. Herrings 
 are likewise taken in large numbers on the coast of Kamtchatka. 
 On the American coast, especially off Carolina and Virginia, herrings 
 appear very early, and continue for a month or two depositing their 
 spawn. Everybody has heard of the Nova Scotia sprat, which is 
 taken in great abundance. It is a very fat and rich fish, and is cured 
 by smoking ; as many as 100,000 boxes of 200 each are sent away 
 in one season. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have herring- 
 fisheries of considerable value. Herrings are occasionally seen at 
 Iceland, but they are small in size and of inferior quality. There 
 is no doubt, however, that herrings are more abundant on the coasts 
 of Great Britain and Ireland than anywhere else. 
 
 Although the herring is thus familiarly known to multitudes in all 
 parts of the northern hemisphere, we have yet much to learn about it.
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 That it is prolific, we know : a herring of a few ounces in weight will 
 yield from 20,000 to 35,000 ova. An ingenious naturalist has calcu- 
 lated that if the progeny of one pair of herrings were to be allowed 
 to multiply without molestation for ten years, the result would be a 
 bulk of herrings equal in size to the globe on which we live ! It is 
 not known how long a period elapses between the deposit of the ova 
 and the birth of the herring. In the case of the salmon, we know 
 it is a long time occasionally upwards of one hundred days. Much 
 depends on the temperature of the water ; in very cold seasons, fish- 
 eggs take longer to hatch than when the weather is more genial 
 and open. Herring ova deposited in July or August, of course have 
 the advantage of the summer warmth ; but that the young fish 
 are hatched in so short a period as ten days or a fortnight, as 
 was stated in a parliamentary inquiry, is hardly credible. There is 
 reliable evidence, however, of the young herring making their 
 appearance in about seven weeks after the fishery had commenced. 
 At that time, they are naturally very diminutive ; but as to the rate 
 at which they increase in size, the greatest diversity of opinion 
 exists. There is at least weighty evidence to shew that a herring 
 does not become reproductive till the third year of its age. Some 
 naturalists have thrown out the idea that herrings spawn twice a 
 year, which is not of course an impossibility, but is nevertheless 
 exceedingly improbable. Herrings, however, spawn at all times of 
 the year ; there are shoals of herring that spawn in January, as 
 well as others that do so in June and August. From this it is 
 obvious that herrings come to maturity in distinct races or shoals. 
 The winter fish are in many instances lean and flavourless, whilst 
 the summer shoals, again, are fat and highly palatable. 
 
 It has long been a question among naturalists : ' What is white- 
 bait?' The researches of Dr Gunther of the British Museum 
 have led him to the conclusion that it is the young of the common 
 herring ; and in this conclusion the best authorities are disposed 
 to concur. 
 
 Another question often asked is : ' Where do the herrings go 
 after they spawn ? ' But that is one of the numerous mysteries of 
 the sea. It is perfectly certain that herrings may be taken on our 
 coasts all the year round, and there is a herring-fishery of greater or 
 less magnitude constantly going on. It has been suggested that 
 the herrings aggregate and segregate in other words, that they do 
 not, constantly live in shoals, but instinctively come together at 
 certain seasons. It is at anyrate curious that bodies of herring are 
 found at particular places only during the spawning season, and that 
 after that time it is needless to look for them. On the other hand, 
 we know that herrings are found together when they are very young 
 fish. As whitebait (and it is as whitebait, according to Dr Gunther, 
 that we first know the herring), they are generally found in small 
 shoals ; and at a later period of the year, when large quantities of 
 
 6
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 sprats are taken, it is a curious circumstance that young herrings 
 are mixed with them to the extent of a third of the total quantity. 
 If the herrings keep together till they grow into sprat-sized fish, it 
 is not likely that they will then separate. 
 
 As to the food of herrings, they will eat almost anything that 
 inhabits the seas in which they live. It is obvious that a shoal 
 of herrings must consume a large amount of food of some kind ; 
 and the poor flavour and lean condition of the herring of particular 
 districts are generally accounted for by the want of sufficient food, 
 as the fat condition and fine flavour of some other shoals are 
 due, no doubt, to the excellence of their feeding-grounds. Herrings 
 feed on all kinds of minute crustaceans, on sand-eels, on their own 
 roe, and on the young of their own kind. The Loch Fyne herrings, 
 having access to excellent feeding-grounds, are very plump and 
 palatable ; other herrings, in waters which are bounded by rocky 
 shores, are frequently lean and lank. 
 
 A shoal of herrings is an immense body : it may extend for miles, 
 and be composed of millions of fish. Herrings are said to be very 
 capricious in their movements, deserting, apparently without cause, 
 places where they had been known to congregate for many years. 
 The fishermen always find some cause for a capricious movement of 
 this kind. The herrings were believed to be driven from one coast 
 by the firing of guns during a battle ; and when steamboats were 
 introduced upon some of our sea-lochs, the fish fled from them ! 
 It was affirmed by the fishermen of St Monance, in Fife, that the 
 ringing of the church-bell used to scare away the herrings, and the 
 bell was therefore removed during the time of the fishery. But the 
 best anecdote about the herring is an Irish one : a clergyman of 
 that country having intimated his intention of taking his tithe of 
 lish, the herrings, disgusted at his greed, at once left that part of the 
 coast, and have never come back ! 
 
 Although many hundred millions of herrings may be taken 
 annually from the sea as food for man, it is no exaggeration to say 
 that an equal, or indeed a far greater number, fall a prey to other 
 enemies. Some species of the whale, and many kinds of sea-birds, 
 prey upon the herring. A missionary who lived, at the end of last 
 century, upon the lone island of St Kilda, being an eye-witness of 
 the ravages committed by solan geese, took the trouble to make the 
 following calculation : ' Taking it for granted that there are 100,000 
 solan geese on the rocks of St Kilda, and that these birds sojourn 
 on the island during seven months of every year, I shall assume that 
 each of them eats, or at anyrate destroys, five herrings in a day, 
 being 500,000 for the whole flock, or, roundly calculated, a total 
 number of 105,000,000 per annum!' The dog-fish is likewise a 
 persistent enemy of the herring, and is hated by the fishermen not 
 only because a shoal of these ravenous animals will eat a large 
 quantity of the fish while fast in the nets, but because they tear and 
 
 7
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 destroy the nets as well. On some occasions, more than two-thirds 
 of the herring taken on a particular night have been eaten out of 
 the meshes of the nets by the dog-fish ; and at times considerable 
 numbers of the dogs are captured in the hauling in of the drifts. 
 The dog is a coarse, oily fish, and although occasionally eaten, it is 
 usually sold for manure. 
 
 HOW THE HERRING IS CAUGHT. 
 
 The primary difficulty in catching herrings is to discover their 
 whereabouts. There may be millions of herrings in the sea not 
 very far off; but as they move in shoals, there must be miles on 
 miles without a single fish, and only in certain confined areas can 
 any success be looked for. There are indeed certain localities 
 which the shoals are known to frequent oftener than others ; but 
 the chance of finding them there on any particular night is uncertain. 
 When a great 'haul' has been got one night, many boats return 
 next evening to the same place, very likely to find the shoal gone. 
 Accordingly, when the ' drave,' as the herring-fleet is styled in some 
 places, leaves the harbour, some of the boats may be seen turning 
 to the right, and some to the left, each captain and crew thinking 
 that they may be lucky enough at once to light upon the right spot. 
 
 It is curious to note the difference of fortune that attends different 
 fishers in this respect. Some few skippers will secure their contract 
 quantity early in the season ; while others, although fishing diligently 
 all the time the fishery lasts, will not have half of it. As regards a 
 single night, one man may so exactly hit the fish as to get from forty 
 to seventy crans of herrings at the first casting of his nets, whilst his 
 neighbours, fishing right and left of him, may not have as many 
 dozens. This is called ' luck,' and the fisher-folk are great believers 
 in 'luck;' but although chance plays a part on single occasions, 
 the fact of a habitually large catch only shews that one man is a 
 greater adept at his business than another. Clever fishers gather, 
 from a variety of indications, a tolerable idea where the shoal 
 is. They can note by the appearance of an oily gleam upon the 
 water whether they are over the fish ; by observing the gulls also, 
 they can judge whether the herrings are inshore or out at sea. The 
 shrewd skippers who always get fish have, of course, a body of 
 followers, who do as they do who shoot their nets alongside of the 
 lucky boats, and by means of such tactics, frequently obtain herrings 
 when more adventurous fishers get none. 
 
 A brief description of a single night's operations will give the best 
 idea of the business of herring-catching. The boats leave the 
 harbour at a pretty early hour in the afternoon, as they never know 
 at starting how far they may have to sail before they can begin 
 fishing. Arrived at a place which the skipper considers favourable, 
 the sails are lowered, and preparations made for 'shooting' the nets. 
 
 8
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 In the north of Scotland, the ' drift '-net is used. It consists of 
 a series of oblong pieces, each 50 yards long, and from 20 to 31 
 feet deep. These are attached at one edge to a 'back-rope,' which 
 holds them all together, and at the several junctions of the parts 
 there are inflated bladders or dog-skins, to keep the whole afloat ; 
 while the opposite edges have weights attached, to make them hang 
 perpendicularly in the water. The whole suite or drift may extend 
 three-quarters of a mile, forming an immense perforated wall or 
 fence in the sea. The nets used to be hand-woven, of fine hempen 
 cord, and impregnated with bark, to keep them from rotting; but 
 undyed machine-made cotton nets are now frequently in use, as 
 they are much cheaper and finer. The meshes are generally an inch 
 or an inch and a quarter wide just enough to admit the slender 
 head of the herring, but not its body. When a shoal of herrings 
 happens to come against this wall, it is of course arrested ; but if 
 the head of a fish has fully entered a mesh, retreat is as impossible 
 as advance, for the cords of the mesh catch the gills and hold it 
 fast : the gills act as barbs, as it were. 
 
 This formidable apparatus had lain all day spread out on a grass 
 field to dry, and before starting had been placed in the boat in 
 careful coils, so as to come off without entanglement. In shooting 
 the nets, two of the crew row the boat slowly forward, while others 
 attend to the paying-out of the nets. The captain is of course at the 
 helm, and overlooking the whole. The train of nets is fastened to 
 the vessel by a long rope, and by means of the floating bladders 
 the captain can see at a glance the track in which they lie, and is 
 thus able to watch them so as to prevent accidents from their being 
 fouled by other boats. When the nets are paid out, the men are able 
 to sleep, or at least rest for a little ; and do not fail to take a refresh- 
 ment of oat-cakes and cheese, or of whatever else may be in the 
 locker, with, perhaps, a top-dressing of whisky. Whilst all is quiet 
 on board, and the boat is floating away to wherever the tide may 
 carry it, a portion of the great shoal may silently strike upon the nets 
 and bring fortune to the crew ; or it may be moving at too great a 
 depth ; and thus the boat and its train may pass over myriads of fish, 
 and not land a cran. After a time, the skipper, anxious about the 
 result of his night's work, will eagerly scan the long line of floating 
 bladders, to see if any of them have sunk down in the wafer, which is 
 a token of a great catch ; or he will slily ' pree ' a corner of his neigh- 
 bour's net to see what luck he may have had. Indeed, some cautious 
 skippers do not shoot their own nets till they see from what their 
 neighbours have done whether or not they are in a favourable spot. 
 It is considered a hardship when the men have to haul in the nets and 
 shoot them again the same night, although this is frequently done. 
 Night is the proper time of capture, as the darkness makes the fish 
 less likely to perceive the net before running against it. With the 
 early morning begins the operation of hauling in, which, when the 
 
 22 9
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 take is heavy, is no easy matter. As portion after portion is drawn 
 on board, the fish are shaken out into the bottom of the boat, and 
 the empty net coiled aside. Cases have occurred when such a mass 
 of fish was enmeshed as to sink the whole drift, and make it necessary 
 to cut the boat clear, lest it should be drawn down along with it. A 
 storm, too, sometimes makes it necessary to cut the nets adrift, and 
 lose them and their contents. 
 
 The herring-fishery, as carried on in Scotland, is what .may be 
 called a shore-fishery, the boats being undecked, and going out 
 and returning once in every twenty-four hours. A controversy has 
 been carried on for a number of years as to the kind of boats 
 best adapted for the fishery; and many advocate decked boats 
 and the use of steam-power. The Dutch, who have to make long 
 voyages to the best fishing-places, cure their herrings on board ; 
 but the necessity of curing on board limits the quantity of fish that 
 can be taken, as the men act both as sailors and curers. By the 
 Scottish system, there seems hardly a limit to the quantity that might 
 be disposed of. On some days, as many as twenty thousand crans 
 of herrings are brought into Wick and Pulteneytown, and are all 
 gutted and cured right off hand. As to the use of steam-power, 
 which is much canvassed at Wick, there is certainly one way in 
 which it could be made useful, and that is by the employment of 
 two or three powerful steam-tugs to take out and bring home the 
 boats from the fishing-grounds. On some occasions, when there is 
 little or no wind, it is a work of great labour and time to get the boats 
 home, especially if they are heavily laden. A steam-tug could bring 
 home fifty or a hundred boats with great rapidity ; and as the fish 
 are frequently not found till a great distance has been reached, the 
 aid of a tug would be very advantageous. 
 
 HOW THE HERRINGS ARE CURED. 
 
 The process of curing begins the moment the herrings are brought 
 on shore : they are generally received by the curer in one or more 
 large vats ; and a clerk or foreman of the yard keeps an account 
 of the quantity received. They are counted out to the curer by the 
 boat-owners in 'crans,' the cran being a measure capable of con- 
 taining 45 gallons ; and after being cured, they are sold in barrels. 
 A barrel measures about 37 gallons, and according to the size of the 
 fish, and the greater or less quantity of salt used, holds from 700 to 
 800 herrings. For home consumption, the fish in a barrel, free of 
 salt and brine, should weigh 235 pounds ; for the continental market, 
 224 pounds; and for places out of Europe, 212 pounds. Herrings 
 for the last-mentioned destinations, after an interval of a fortnight, 
 are taken out of the barrels, washed, and repacked with fresh salt. 
 
 Immediately upon being brought to the curing-yard and thrown 
 into the vat, the fish, being plentifully sprinkled with salt, are then
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 handed over to the gutters to be eviscerated. These persons carry 
 on their necessary but rather filthy operations with great dexterity 
 and rapidity, a gang of four women having been known to eviscerate, 
 ' rouse ' in salt, and pack a barrel of herrings within ten minutes. 
 Precise instructions as to the details of curing have been laid down 
 by the Board of Fisheries, but the curers do not strictly adhere to 
 them. More or less salt is used, according to the experience and 
 knowledge of the curer. The herrings, on being brought from the 
 gutting-trough, are ' roused ' or shaken about in a tub full of salt ; 
 they are then laid into the barrels with great precision, 'tails in- 
 wards.' When the cure has been completed, a period of fifteen 
 days is allowed to elapse before they can be branded. It is an 
 imperative rule that all herrings be cured on the same day they 
 are brought on shore, otherwise the officer will not certify them ; 
 and therefore, when a heavy 'take' occurs, it is no unusual cir- 
 cumstance for the whole staff of a curing-yard to work on till mid- 
 night, sometimes by torchlight. An enterprising curer requires 
 to retain a large staff of persons, chiefly females, to gut and 
 pack the herrings. A curer may have from thirty to sixty boats 
 fishing for him at one station, and if these boats come in every 
 morning with an average of even ten crans of fish, a good spell of 
 work ensues. The head-cooper usually has full charge of the 
 process of curing and packing ; and the officers of the Fishery Board 
 are constantly going about to see that the rules and regulations of 
 the fishery are complied with. 
 
 The 'brand question' has long been a source of controversy. 
 *Why should herrings be branded,' it is asked, 'any more than 
 cotton, cheese, or steel?' 'The case of such goods is different from 
 that of herrings,' say the advocates of the brand, ' as the latter are 
 exported to great distances packed in close barrels, and the foreign 
 buyers must have some guarantee of their quality, or they would 
 not buy.' It is thought by many that if curers were allowed to 
 stand or fall on the merits of their individual cure, the pickling of 
 herrings might be greatly improved, instead of being, as they are 
 under the present system, all of one uniform quality. As a com- 
 promise of the question, a fee of fourpence per barrel is now charged 
 for branding or certifying the herring; and it is quite optional on 
 the part of the curer whether to pay this small charge and obtain 
 the necessary certificate, or to stand on the merit of his own name. 
 Only a few thousand barrels are as yet sent away without the brand ; 
 but there can be no doubt that ultimately the most enterprising 
 curers will give up the government system, and greatly improve 
 on the present style of curing, which, to say the least of it, is
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 performed in a very perfunctory way; a Scottish pickled herring 
 being very inferior to one that is cured in Holland. 
 
 A HERRING FISHING-PORT IN THE SEASON. 
 
 There is great bustle and animation at a fishing-place during the 
 herring-season. The little town becomes all at once alive and 
 cheerful; compared with its aspect for the other ten months, when 
 only a few local boats pursue the white-fishery. As the season for 
 the gathering in of the herring-harvest approaches, strange boats 
 arrive crowds of gutters come to the place in search of work, and 
 the tradesmen busk their shops with all the attractions they can 
 muster When a great 'take' of herrings occurs, excited curers 
 and coopers bustle about, the knives of the gutters move with 
 the rapidity of lightning, and glad smiles light up the counte- 
 nances of all concerned. For the herring-fishery is the industry 
 of the year, and its success or failure is to them what a good or 
 bad crop is to the farmer. The quays of Wick and Pulteneytown 
 harbours present upon such occasions a most animated spectacle 
 A thousand boats have come in from the sea, each more or 
 less laden some have a dozen crans, some a score, and a f 
 may have fifty, and one or two more. From dawn of day ti 
 past noon, the fleet comes pouring in ; the quays are crowded, 
 .carts are driving off the nets to distant drying-grounds, the crews 
 of boats are employed in carrying the fish to the gutting-trougns 
 and the gutters are busily at work, while the 'cadgers who deal 
 in fresh herrings are busy purchasing their day's supply. After a 
 while the bustle dies away, the wearied fishermen go home to rest, 
 or are again away to the fishing-ground ; but for an hour or two 
 longer the process of curing is continued ; and at the end of a 
 fetHuiog day all are gladdened at the thought that the fishery of 
 the year has become a success. For the success or failure of t 
 season usually turns on one or two great nights; as in 1858, whe 
 on two successive evenings in August an average of twenty crans 
 was secured by the 1040 boats then engaged in the fishing at Wick. 
 
 COMMERCIAL ARRANGEMENTS OF THE FISHERY. 
 The Scottish herring-fishery is managed financially in a peculiar 
 way ; the fish are mostly sold long before they are caught. At the 
 close of each season, the engagements are made for the next. J 
 curers are the actors in these arrangements ; they engage the boats, 
 and provide all the apparatus of cure, such as salt, barrels, dye-stuffs, 
 The curer engages to. take all the fish that the proprietor 
 of a boat shall catch, at the rate, say, of twenty shillings a c 
 besides advancing him a sum of perhaps 20, and providing drying- 
 ground for his nets. Of course different kinds of bargains are made.
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 Some boat-owners will not bind themselves to any particular curer, 
 but prefer to wait and take the market-price, which, if fish are scarce, 
 may be considerably higher than could have been obtained by a 
 previous engagement. The contract is generally for two hundred 
 crans of herrings. It is not often, however, that the boats are 
 able to obtain that quantity, but the curer takes as many crans 
 as he can get. An extensive curer must necessarily be able to 
 command considerable capital, as he requires to have always on 
 hand a large quantity of barrels, either made up or in the wood, 
 besides salt and other stores. Then he requires to keep a staff 
 of coopers and an army of gutters who are paid according to 
 the work they do likewise a clerk or two, and he has to 
 provide a considerable amount for incidental expenses. The 
 skipper who contracts to fish for any particular curer provides 
 his own crew, and pays them as he may arrange. Very often the 
 proprietor of a boat follows some other trade as well as that of 
 fisherman ; he may be a stone-mason or a shoemaker, and only go 
 to sea during the herring-season. He and one or two of his friends 
 may possess a boat among them, and do all the work themselves ; 
 or, if the boat be the property of only one person, then a crew of 
 hired men has to be engaged to aid in the fishing. The crew of a 
 herring-boat usually consists of four persons besides the skipper, that 
 is, two to row the boat and two to shoot the nets, the owner acting 
 both as helmsman and captain. The Scottish clinker-built herring- 
 boats, for the building of which Leith is famous, are of great strength- 
 and durability. They vary considerably in size and value, the 
 largest being about 35 feet keel. The cost of a boat with all its 
 fixings, including a suite of nets, will vary from .100 to 250. 
 
 THE LOCH FYNE HERRING-FISHERY. 
 
 The Loch Fyne herring is considered the most delicate of its kind. 
 Large quantities of the herrings taken both in Loch Fyne and on 
 other parts of the west coast of Scotland reach Glasgow at an early 
 hour every day by the Clyde steamboats, and are eagerly bought up. 
 The Loch Fyne herring is also salted to the extent of fifteen millions 
 yearly. The value of the fishery in this loch and about Cantire 
 is estimated at .25.000 or 30,000 a year. These west-country her- 
 rings are also capable of being smoked into ' reds.' They are first 
 laid in a strong pickle for twenty-four hours, after which they are 
 spitted, and hung up in the smok'e of brushwood and turf. A large 
 proportion of the Loch Fyne herrings are taken by means of the 
 seine-net, in the same way as pilchards. This mode of fishing is 
 locally called 'trawling,' which is a misnomer. In 1851, the seine- 
 net was made illegal, from the belief that it was exterminating the 
 fish ; but much dissatisfaction having arisen from the restriction, 
 a commission of inquiry was ultimately sent, by order of parliament,.
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 to sit upon the question ; and after a prolonged and minute inquiry 
 into the two systems, the commissioners came to the conclusion 
 that the one was quite as good (or as bad) as the other; and in 
 consequence, the act of 1851, which made trawling, or rather seining, 
 illegal, was repealed. 
 
 SMOKED HERRINGS THE FISHERY AT YARMOUTH. 
 
 . Yarmouth is also the headquarters of a very considerable herring- 
 fishery, and the 'bloater' which is prepared at that place is a much 
 esteemed breakfast delicacy throughout England. The system of 
 fishing adapted off Yarmouth is different from that carried on at 
 Wick, as the boats are much larger, many being thirty-four tons 
 register, and so fitted that they can remain at sea for some days ; 
 and they admit of the cure being, to a certain extent, performed on 
 board. Each vessel is provided with two large suites of nets, one 
 being in use whilst the other is drying on shore. In the very large 
 herring-busses, boats are kept from which the men fish ; but from the 
 more modern luggers the nets are cast directly over the side across 
 the tide, and, as in the case of the Wick boats, they drift with the 
 lugger. Great improvements have been effected of late years in the 
 Yarmouth fishing-vessels, which, as a matter of course, are of 
 much greater value than the open boats used on the Scottish 
 coast. The cost of a modern Yarmouth lugger (which is about 
 55 feet in length), with from 100 to 140 nets each net being 48 
 feet long and 30 feet deep ranges from ,700 to 1000. These 
 vessels carry a crew of from 10 to 15 men, who are paid accord- 
 ing to the 'take' of herrings, and can remain at sea till they 
 obtain a good cargo ; they require to carry salt, barrels, and all 
 other necessaries of their business. The train of nets used by the 
 Yarmouth boats is not so long as that of the Scottish fishing-boats, 
 and is consequently much more manageable, so that the men can 
 shoot and re-shoot their nets with great ease, and when they find 
 they are not likely to capture fish at one place, they can more 
 readily change their ground. The nets of each vessel are carefully 
 marked by buoys, which are formed of small barrels, having the 
 name of the ship and the port it sails from painted upon it A 
 light is hoisted upon a pole, which at night is placed at the bow of 
 the vessel, and this serves to prevent the boats fouling each other ; 
 indeed, the utmost precaution is necessary to prevent the nets of 
 different vessels from being mixed. ' The great fishery, of which Yar- 
 mouth is the headquarters, lasts two months, commencing about the 
 end of September, or early in October. The Yarmouth fishery gives 
 employment to a fleet of about 500 vessels of the kind described. The 
 fish caught by the Yarmouth fleet are most of them cured in some way, 
 except in the early part of the season, when there is a great demand 
 for fresh herrings ; and for about a fortnight or so after the fishery
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 has begun, the smaller luggers hurry into port with the newly-caught 
 fish, which are at once sent on by train to the London and other 
 markets. Enormous quantities of fresh herrings can be disposed of 
 whenever there happens to be speedy railway communication from 
 the fishing-port to inland towns with considerable populations. But, 
 as has been stated, the herrings taken by the Yarmouth boats are 
 mostly sold as cured fish ; that is, as ' bloaters,' ' straitsmen,' ' reds,' 
 and ' blacks.' For home use and a quick sale, the bloaters are only 
 very slightly smoked ; in fact, the Yarmouth curers all cure to suit 
 some particular market. The fish are smoked, in houses erected for 
 the purpose, by means of small billets of oak-wood. In order to be 
 hung in these smokeries, the herrings have to be spitted : the spitting 
 is accomplished with great dexterity, the women who run the spits 
 through the gills of the fish being quite as rapid as the eviscerators 
 of Wick. A Yarmouth woman accustomed to the business will 
 spit a last in a day that is, according to Cocker,' 13,000 herrings. 
 It may be explained that the word 'bloater' originated from the 
 herring swelling or bloating during the process of cure. 
 
 THE PILCHARD-FISHERY. 
 
 An account of the herring-harvest naturally embraces the pilchard 
 and sprat fisheries. The pilchard is very like the common herring, 
 
 Pilchard (Clupea pilchardus). 
 
 being nearly of the same size, only rather thicker ; it has the lines 
 of the back and belly straighter, the scales larger and fewer, and the 
 dorsal fin rather further forward. The great field of the pilchard- 
 harvest in Britain is around Land's End. What the common 
 herring is to the people of the north-east coast of Scotland, the 
 pilchard is to the fishers of Cornwall. Of late years, however, the 
 takes have fallen off, owing to the diminution of the shoals. It is 
 on record that as many as 10,000 hogsheads, each containing 2700 
 fish, have been enclosed in the seines of St Ives in one day. A haul
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 of three or four thousand fish in one net is not uncommon. The 
 principal pilchard-fishery is in August and September, and as the 
 season approaches, there is much bustle and preparation. Men 
 called ' huers ' walk the cliffs to watch for the approach of the shoal, 
 which is known by the rippling of the water and other signs. When 
 a spot of fish is descried, the huer signals its whereabouts to the 
 fishermen, who lose no time in making for it. Pilchards are mostly 
 caught by the process called seining ; for this, two nets are required. 
 The chief or stop-seine is from 160 to 220 fathoms long, and from 
 eight to ten fathoms deep, and has corks attached to one edge, and 
 leaden weights to the other. The boat containing the seine rows 
 rapidly round the shoal, throwing out the net as it proceeds ; and 
 when the fish are thus enclosed as in a park, the net is moored by 
 anchors at several points, to keep it in its place, and allow the fish to 
 be taken out at leisure. Before anchoring the seine, it may even be 
 floated, with its contents, inshore to a more convenient place. The 
 other net, the 'tuck-seine' as it is called, is carried round the fish inside 
 the stop-seine ; it is of a bellied shape, and by drawing it together, 
 the fish are gathered in a body to the edge, and are then lifted with 
 baskets into boats. On one occasion, when fifty millions of fish were 
 enclosed, it took a fortnight to empty the seine. Besides the two 
 large boats containing the nets, the master-seiner attends in a small 
 boat called the ' lurcher,' or watcher, to direct operations and see 
 that the fish do not escape. A ' concern,' as the whole apparatus of 
 boats and nets is called, requires about sixteen men to work it ; it is 
 usually a joint-stock affair among the fishermen themselves, and 
 costs probably a thousand pounds. Drift-nets are sometimes used 
 in the catching of pilchards, and a take of 50,000 by this means is 
 not uncommon. 
 
 The method of curing the pilchard is as follows : the fish, when 
 boated ashore from the seine, are carried by the wives and daughters 
 to the curing-houses, where they are 'bulked' or piled up in heaps 
 against the walls, first a layer of fish and then a layer of salt ; this is 
 done for the purpose of obtaining the oil with which the fish is 
 largely impregnated, and which forms an article of commerce like 
 the pilchard itself. At the end of thirty days, bulk is broken, the 
 great mass of fish is disturbed, and the salt used is carefully collected 
 by a process of sifting, in order that it may be again made use of. 
 After the work of sifting out the salt has been gone through, the fish 
 are carefully washed, and then packed in great barrels, in which 
 holes have been made. The fish are pressed into the barrels by 
 means of heavy weights, which serve the double purpose of com- 
 pressing the pilchards, so as to get as many into the barrel as 
 possible, and of squeezing out still more oil than has been obtained 
 by the first process of bulking the fish. The pilchards are ex- 
 ported in great quantities to Spain and Italy, but none of them are 
 smoked, although they are still called 'fumades.' Pilchard-oil is 
 
 16
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 in considerable demand for various purposes, and as much as nine 
 gallons has been at times extracted from one hogshead of fish. The 
 prices obtained for the pilchard and the common herring are very 
 similar varying, of course, as the fish are plentiful or scarce. 
 
 THE SPRAT-HARVEST. 
 
 The sprat is another well-known and very popular member of the 
 herring family ; it is caught in large quantities in the upper reaches 
 of the Firth of Forth, and off the coasts of Kent and Essex during 
 November and December, and the sums derived from the proceeds 
 of the fishery add largely to the grand total of the wealth which this 
 country derives from the sea. The sprat is taken in various ways, 
 on the whole much as the common herring and pilchards are taken, 
 and also by means of very fine bag-nets. Large quantities of the 
 sprats taken in the British seas are cured as sardines, and it is 
 within the mark to say that the annual value of the sprat-fishery is 
 a million sterling. In Scotland, sprats are called 'garvies,' from 
 the place in the Firth of Forth where great numbers of them are 
 taken. In France, again, the sprat is called a sardine ; the real 
 sardine is rare. A great sprat or sardine fishery is carried on from 
 Concarneau, on the coast of Brittany, 2500 boats and 11,000 fisher- 
 men being engaged in that particular sea-industry. As many as 80,000 
 barrels of sprats, each barrel containing 3000 of these fish, have been 
 cured in various ways in one year at Concarneau, besides the large 
 quantities sold fresh, and the countless thousands which, boiled in 
 oil, are sent out as sardines. The ground is baited for the sprats 
 with vast quantities of cod-roe, brought from Norway. It is an 
 old idea that the Lord Mayor of London's inaugural banquet is 
 never complete without a dish of sprats. An enormous number of 
 sprats is used in the great metropolis. Mr Mayhew, in his work on 
 London Labour and the London Poor, calculated that as many as 
 4,000,000 pounds' weight of these fish were annually vended by the 
 costermongers. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS FACTS AND FIGURES. 
 
 It is impossible to do more than estimate roughly the quantity of 
 herrings caught yearly in the British seas. The Fishery Board takes 
 cognizance only of those that are cured. Speaking roundly, the 
 number of barrels annually cured in the British Islands is a million, 
 each barrel containing 700 herrings. Now, it is not an unreasonable 
 assumption, that an equal quantity is consumed fresh and in other 
 forms not coming within the official returns, and thus we have our 
 seas yielding us the inconceivable number of 1400 millions of one 
 fish ; which, at eightpence a dozen, represents a value of nearly four 
 millions of pounds ! Notwithstanding this enormous supply, herrings
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 are yearly becoming dearer. In the good old times not so long ago 
 cither 'four a penny' was a common price; at present (1868-69), 
 the cost rules at about three for twopence ; so that the herring is no 
 longer the poor man's fish. Indeed, the poor man has no fish now, 
 for even sprats have become scarce, and consequently dear. The 
 increase in price might be partly accounted for by the extended 
 range of consumption, owing to the facilities afforded by railways 
 for sending the fish in a fresh state to distant towns. But there 
 is more in it than this ; the fish are becoming scarce, or more 
 difficult to catch. The fleet of boats engaged in the herring-fishery 
 is twice as great as it was fifty years ago, and the netting of each 
 boat has been doubled ; but the capture is far from keeping pace 
 with this increase of apparatus and labour. In the year 1820, the 
 Wick fleet numbered 004, and each boat had on an average 148 
 crans ; in 1868, there were 983 boats, and the average was only 44^ 
 crans. 
 
 Opinions are divided as to the cause of this falling-off in the pro- 
 ductiveness of the herring-fields. One set of economists attribute it to 
 4 over-fishing,' which is actually, they think, exhausting and breaking 
 up the shoals. Others laugh at this as a mere baseless theory, and 
 an absurd one too. They hold that the shoals are so vast, that it is 
 impossible for man to make any impression on them though he were 
 to multiply his machinery of capture tenfold, and maintain that 
 herrings are as plentiful in the sea as ever, only that they are more 
 difficult to find. The other side reply, that the admitted fact of the 
 fish becoming more and more difficult to find, is a proof that man is 
 making an impression of some kind on the shoals ; and that to hold 
 that the fish are not diminished in numbers is a gratuitous assump- 
 tion. It is an indisputable fact, that certain shoals have been 
 destroyed : the July fishery at Wick, which at one time yielded from 
 twenty to thirty thousand barrels, has dwindled away to a tenth of 
 that quantity, which undoubtedly shews that that particular shoal 
 is becoming exhausted. 
 
 THE WHALE-FISHERY. 
 
 THE whale-fishery at one time bulked largely in the proceeds of the 
 sea-harvest of Britain ; but although the return of the whaling-ships 
 is still announced with interest in the local newspapers, it is no 
 longer felt to mean, as it once did, the success or failure of a great 
 national industry. Forty years ago, as many as 1 60 vessels of large 
 tonnage left British ports for this pursuit ; owing to long-continued 
 want of success, the number is now reduced to less than a third. 
 Luckily for the world, several substitutes for whale-oil have come 
 
 18
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 into extensive use namely, gas for lighting, and petroleum in its 
 various modifications both for lighting and lubrication. There 
 are, however, two or three manufactures, notably the preparation 
 of jute, for which fish-oil is essential ; so that the article is still 
 valuable, and would pay well if the fish were as readily found as they 
 once were. It is chiefly from the ports of Peterhead and Dundee 
 that the British whale-fishery continues to be prosecuted. 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE WHALE. 
 
 The name whale is popularly applied to a good many of the 
 larger kinds of the order of animals called by naturalists Cetaceans 
 or Cetacea. These cetaceans, although living in water and having 
 a fish-like form, are not fishes proper ; they belong to the class 
 Mammalia, for they have warm blood, breathe by lungs and not 
 by gills, and bring forth their young alive and suckle them. One 
 section of this order are herbivorous, and are not allowed by some 
 naturalists to be cetaceans proper. Setting them aside, the ordinary 
 or true cetaceans are divided into three families : I. The Delphinidce, 
 containing the Dolphin, the Porpoise, the Bottlenose or Bottlehead, 
 the Narwhal, &c. 2. The Physeterida or Catodontidce. Of this 
 family only one member seems to be known namely, the Cacholot 
 or Spermaceti Whale. 3. The BalcEnidtz, containing the Greenland 
 Whale, the Rorqual, &c. 
 
 These creatures all feed on animal food, some of them pursuing 
 and devouring fishes ; others, and these the largest, subsisting chiefly 
 on smaller prey, molluscs, small crustaceans, and even zoophytes, 
 which they strain out of the water by a peculiar apparatus in their 
 mouths. None of the true cetacea have molar teeth or grinders ; 
 all the teeth which any of them have are conical, but some of 
 the largest are entirely destitute of teeth. The fore-limbs of 
 the true cetacea are mere fins. The resemblance to fishes 
 is increased in many of them by the presence of a dorsal 
 fin. There is a wonderful provision to enable them to spend 
 some time under water, before returning again to the surface to 
 breathe an arterial plexus or prodigious intertwining of branches 
 of arteries, under the pleura and between the ribs, on each side of 
 the spine. This being filled with oxygenated blood after the animal 
 has spent some time at the surface breathing, the wants of the 
 system are supplied from it whilst breathing is suspended, so that 
 some whales can remain below even for an hour. The position of 
 the nostrils is remarkable, almost on the very top of the head, so 
 that the animal can breathe as soon as the head comes to the 
 surface of the water ; and the nostrils are furnished with a valve of 
 singular but very perfect construction, a sort of conical stopper of 
 fibrous substance, preventing the ingress of water even under the 
 pressure of the greatest depths. The nostrils appear to be little 
 
 19
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 used for the purpose of smelling, the sense of smell being one which 
 these animals either do not possess at all, or in a very imperfect 
 degree. They are generally called blow-holes, from the violent way 
 in which the animal breathes through them. In expiring, a column 
 of mingled air and spray is thrown to a great height into the air, 
 and this spouting of the whale, as it is not very correctly called, is 
 one of those wonders of the ocean never to be forgotten by those 
 who have seen it. 
 
 A peculiarity in the skin of the true cetacea adapts them for their 
 manner of life. The skin is extremely thick, the inner part of it 
 consisting of elastic fibres interlacing each other in every direction, 
 the interstices of which are filled with oil, forming the substance 
 usually called blubber. The oil deposited in this unusual situation, 
 not only serves the ordinary purposes of fat, but that also of keeping 
 the body warm, which to a warm-blooded animal, continually sur- 
 rounded with water, is of great importance ; whilst the elasticity of 
 this extraordinary skin affords protection in the great depths to 
 which some of the whales descend, and in which the pressure must 
 sometimes be enormous. 
 
 It is chiefly, however, with two members of the order that we have 
 at present to do, as they alone have been the object of systematic 
 pursuit namely, the Greenland or ' Right ' Whale (Balana myslicetus), 
 and the Cacholot or Spermaceti Whale (Physeter or Catodon macro- 
 cephalus'). 
 
 The species of the genus Balana, to which the Greenland whale 
 belongs, are entirely destitute of teeth, instead of which the palate 
 is furnished with an apparatus of baleen or whalebone, for the 
 purpose of straining out of the water the small crustaceans and 
 jelly-fish which form the food of these whales. The plates of 
 whalebone in the mouth of a single whale amount to several 
 hundreds on each side of the mouth, and weigh sometimes as much 
 as two tons. They are suspended from the roof of the mouth ; 
 none proceed from the lower jaw. They extend on each side 
 from the middle line of the palate, like the barbs of a feather ; 
 the base of each plate is embedded in the substance of the mem- 
 brane that covers the palate, whilst its edge forms a loose fringe, 
 composed of fibres or pliant bristles. The vast mouth being opened, 
 water is taken in ; and the small animals which enter with it being 
 retained for food, the water is allowed to escape by the sides of the 
 mouth. 
 
 The tongue is a soft thick mass, not extending beyond the back 
 of the mouth. The gullet of these whales is very narrow ; it is said 
 not to be more than an inch and a half in diameter even in a large 
 whale, so that only very small animals can pass through it. The 
 head occupies from a third to a fourth of the whole length. The 
 skull is unsymmetrical, the right side being larger than the left. The 
 flesh is red, firm, and coarse. The skin is naked, with the exception of
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 a few bristles about the jaws, and its surface is moistened by an oily 
 fluid. The lower surface of the true skin extends into a thick layer 
 of blubber. The blubber is from a foot to two feet in thickness, the 
 whole mass in a large whale sometimes weighing more than thirty 
 tons. 
 
 It has been attempted to calculate the age of whales from the 
 transverse lines on the plates of baleen, and in this way it has been 
 computed that they attain the age of 800 or 900 years, each trans- 
 verse line being assumed to indicate an annual check of growth ; 
 but it is evident that there is no good ground for the assumption on 
 which such calculation proceeds. 
 
 The Greenland or ' right ' whale, which is the most important 
 species of the genus, and indeed the most important of 'all 
 whales, abounds chiefly in the frozen regions of the north ; and 
 although it is sometimes seen on the coasts of Britain, and even 
 farther south, the warm seas of the tropics are to it as a wall 
 of fire which it never crosses. The whale which is captured on 
 the coasts of South Africa, New Zealand, and other parts of the 
 southern hemisphere, is a distinct species, distinguished as the 
 Cape Whale (Balcena A^^stral^s\ although resembling the whale 
 of the north both in size and appearance. The size of the 
 Greenland whale was at one time greatly exaggerated, its length 
 being described as from loo to 120 feet. It is seldom, however, 
 that it exceeds sixty feet. The tail is five or six feet long, and 
 from twenty to twenty-five feet broad. The mouth is fifteen or 
 sixteen feet long. The eyes are not larger than those of an ox, but 
 the sight is acute. The upper parts of the body are black, the under 
 white. The ' cow '-whale produces only one ' calf Or young one at 
 a time, which is from ten to fourteen feet long when born ; but 
 the period of gestation is uncertain. The mother displays great 
 affection for her offspring, of which whale-fishers sometimes take 
 undue advantage, harpooning the young one itself of little value 
 in order to secure the mother. Suckling is performed at the surface 
 of the water, and the mother rolls from side to side, that she and 
 the young one may be able to breathe in turn. The usual rate of 
 progress in swimming is about four or five miles an hour, and whales 
 often swim not far beneath the surface of the water, with the mouth 
 wide open to take in water from which to sift food. The whale is 
 capable, however, of swimming with much greater rapidity, and 
 when harpooned, it often descends to a great depth in a few seconds. 
 Its tail is extremely powerful, and a single blow of it is sufficient to 
 destroy a large boat, or toss it and its crew into the air, so that the 
 whale-fishery is attended with no little danger. Whales usually 
 come to the surface to breathe at intervals of eight or ten minutes, 
 but they are capable of remaining under water for half an hour or 
 more. When they come up to breathe, they generally remain on 
 the surface about two minutes, during which they blow eight or nine
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 times, and then descend. The noise which they make in blowing 
 is very loud, and the spout of vapour ejected ascends a great height 
 into the air, appearing at a distance like a puff of smoke. They 
 often assume, as if in sport, a vertical position, with the head down, 
 and flap the surface of the water with the tail, making a sound 
 which is heard two or three miles off. The Greenland whale is not 
 properly gregarious, being generally found alone or in pairs, except 
 when numbers are attracted to particular feeding-grounds, as is 
 sometimes the case in the bays and inlets of northern coasts. 
 
 The Cacholot or sperm whale may be said to inhabit all seas, 
 although it is most abundant in the southern hemisphere ; it is 
 occasionally stranded on the coasts of Britain. The sperm whale 
 sometimes reaches the length of seventy or eighty feet. The head 
 is enormously large, forming about one-half of the entire bulk of 
 the animal, and occupying more than one-third of the entire length. 
 The general colour is very dark gray, nearly black on the upper 
 parts, lighter beneath. Old males, or, in the language of the South 
 Sea whalers, old bull-whales, usually have a large gray spot on the 
 front of the head. The muzzle is very obtuse, almost as if suddenly 
 cut off in front, the breadth of it almost equalling the thickness of 
 the body. In a protuberance on the upper part of it, is the blow- 
 hole, which is single, situated a little on the left side, and in form 
 not unlike the letter S elongated. The mouth is very large and 
 wide ; and the throat, unlike that of the Greenland whale, is very 
 wide, sufficiently so to admit the body of a man. The upper jaw 
 projects some feet beyond the lower, and is destitute both of teeth 
 and whalebone ; the lower jaw has from 20 to 25 teeth on each 
 side, according to the age of the animal. Just above the eyes, 
 the dorsal line rises considerably ; the dorsal fin is also repre- 
 sented by a protuberance about half-way between the neck and the 
 tail : and these parts are seen above water in the ordinary swim- 
 ming of the animal, which is at the rate of from three to seven miles 
 an hour, and just under the surface of the water, although when 
 alarmed it swims with greater velocity, striking the water upwards 
 and downwards with its tail with great force. 
 
 The enormous head of the cacholot is in great part occupied by 
 a cavity in front of and above the skull, called by whalers the case, 
 which is a receptacle for spermaceti. This substance being light, 
 it is not wonderful that the animal in swimming raises its head 
 above the surface of the water, which it also often does even when 
 at rest, 'like a black rock in the ocean.' The case frequently 
 holds as much as ten large barrels of spermaceti. The substance 
 which it contains is in a semi-fluid state, but hardens on cooling : 
 it consists of spermaceti and oil ; the oil is separated by draining 
 and squeezing, and the spermaceti is further purified, till, instead of 
 being a yellow unctuous mass, in which state it is brought home by the 
 whalers, it assumes a beautiful pearly white, flaky, almost crystalline
 
 ' THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 appearance. It is chiefly used in making the finer kinds of candles - r 
 it is also an ingredient in various ointments. We learn from Shak- 
 speare that in his time it was believed to be of sovereign efficacy 'for 
 an inward bruise.' The spermaceti was at one time imagined to 
 be the brain of the whale ; what purpose it serves in the animal 
 economy, is not well known, except that already alluded to of giving 
 buoyancy to the fore-part of the huge body. Cavities filled with 
 spermaceti are distributed over the body, and even ramify through 
 the external fat or blubber, although the principal mass is in the 
 head. The blubber of the cacholot is not nearly equal in thickness 
 to that of the Greenland whale, being only about fourteen inches- 
 thick on the breast of a large whale, and from eight to eleven inches 
 on other parts of the body. It is called by whalers the blanket. 
 The junk, a thick elastic mass, which occupies the fore-part of the 
 head, immediately under the case, yields also a considerable quantity 
 of sperm-oil. 
 
 The cacholot feeds upon fishes and cephalopodous molluscs. 
 Squids and cuttle-fishes appear to be its chief food. It is gregarious 
 in its habits, and the herds are called schools by whalers. Five 
 hundred or more have been seen in a single herd. Large herds 
 generally consist of females, with only A few males ; herds of young 
 males also occur ; when solitary individuals are met with, they are 
 nlmost always old males. Terrible conflicts often take place among 
 the males, and it is not unusual to find the lower jaw deformed in 
 consequence of having been dislocated or broken in these battles. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE WHALE-FISHERY. 
 
 Norse legends make mention of ships sent to Greenland to catch 
 whales in the ninth century. The Northmen were accustomed to 
 the pursuit on their own coasts ; and when they settled in the north 
 of France, they carried on the fishery in the Bay of Biscay, which 
 was frequented by whales in considerable numbers, until the eager 
 persecution they were subjected to made them disappear about the 
 fifteenth century. As early as 1315 and 1324, there are acts of the 
 English parliament in reference to the whale, decreeing, among 
 other things, that any of those animals that might be cast ashore 
 or captured in the territorial sea should belong to the crown. The 
 whale is thus a royal fish. In 1594, English vessels were sent to 
 the northern whale-fishery off Cape Breton, and one of them lighted 
 on the wreck of two Biscayan whalers, from which she took on 
 board a large quantity of whalebone. About the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century, the seas around Spitzbergen were the chief 
 scene of the fishery. The British Muscovy Company obtained a royal 
 charter, giving them a monopoly of the whale-fishery off the coasts 
 of Spitzbergen, on the pretence of its having been discovered by 
 Sir Hugh Willoughby, although, in fact, it was discovered by the
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 Dutch navigator Barentz. Other nations were not disposed to 
 acknowledge the claims of the English ; the Dutch in particular 
 sent out a strong fleet, between which and the ships of the Muscovy 
 Company an engagement took place in 1618, and the English were 
 defeated. The Spitzbergen bays and seas were afterwards divided 
 into fishing-stations, allocated to the whalers of the rival nations. 
 No nation now asserts a claim to the exclusive right of whale-fishing 
 in any quarter. 
 
 The English for some time prosecuted the whale-fishery sluggishly 
 and with incompetent means ; the Dutch carried it on with great 
 vigour and success. During the latter half of the seventeenth 
 century, the Dutch furnished almost all Europe with oil. In 1680, 
 they had 260 ships and about 14,000 men employed in the whale- 
 fishery ; but from that time the Dutch fishery began to decline. In 
 1732, Great Britain attempted to encourage the whale-fishery by a 
 bounty of 303. a ton to every ship of 200 tons engaged in it, which 
 was raised in 1749 to 403., reduced to 303. in 1777, and again raised 
 to 403. in 1781. The object of the bounty was not only to encourage 
 the trade, but to make it a nursery for seamen. Ships, however, 
 were fitted out rather for the bounty than for the capture of whales, 
 and during the next five years after the reduction of the bounty in 
 1 777, the number of ships employed in the trade was reduced from 
 105 to 39. After 1781, it rapidly increased, and continued to 
 increase although the bounty was reduced. The bounty was finally 
 altogether withdrawn in 1824. In 1815, when the British whale- 
 fishery was in its most flourishing condition, only 164 ships were 
 engaged in it. The Dutch whale-fishery had in the meantime 
 almost entirely ceased, owing to the national calamities consequent 
 on the French Revolution. 
 
 In Britain, the whale-fishery enjoyed almost uninterrupted success 
 from 1795 to 1830. In 1814, for instance, the total catch of the 
 British ships engaged in the fishery was over 20,000 tuns of oil ; 
 and in the following year the Hull vessels alone obtained 8000 
 tuns! The fishery began to decline about the year 1830, when 
 Dundee lost two out of her fleet of nine ships, and obtained only 
 eleven fish. In 1835, Hull lost five vessels out of a fleet of twenty- 
 three whalers, and got very few fish. The year 1836 was also 
 most disastrous for the whaling interest. The ships sent out 
 were comparatively few, and about thirty of them returned empty. 
 The three following years were equally bad ; and in 1840, Hull had 
 only two ships bound for the whale-fishing, instead of sixty, as in 
 the days of yore ; the average of late years from this port has been 
 three ships. 
 
 The New England colonies embarked in this fishery at an early 
 period. At first they fished in boats from their own shores, which 
 were then frequently visited by whales. But about 1740, when the 
 fish ceased to come to be caught, they began to go in ships in search
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 of them, both in the northern and southern seas. In the latter half 
 of the eighteenth century, Massachusetts alone employed 304 whale- 
 ships, more than half of which went to the southern seas. Burke in 
 one of his famous orations alluded to the wealth which the Americans 
 derived in his day (1774) from their whale-fisheries. 'We learn,' he 
 says, ' that while some of them draw the line or strike the harpoon 
 on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude, [and pursue their 
 gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexed 
 with their fisheries no climate that is not witness of their toils. 
 Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor 
 the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried 
 this most perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it 
 has been pursued by this recent people a people who are still in the 
 gristle, and not hardened into manhood.' Nantucket in Massa- 
 chusetts was at one time the chief centre of the industry, but New 
 Bedford afterwards attained that position, and is now the greatest 
 whaling-port in the world ; although the fishery has of late years 
 materially declined there as well as in Europe. 
 
 It was with the capture of the 'right' whale that the New Eng- 
 landers began ; but in 1712, one Christopher Hussey of Nantucket, 
 being driven off shore, fell in with and killed a sperm whale, and from 
 that time the Americans have made the cacholot-fishery in a manner 
 their own. Burke's speech was thought to have incited the fitting- 
 out, in the year 1775, of several British ships for the spermaceti 
 whale-fishery. They were not, however, very successful in their 
 venture ; and government in the following year offered bounties to 
 the most successful ship. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, 
 France began to take a successful part in the sperm-oil fishery, and 
 in 1 790, we are told the French had at least forty ships engaged in it. 
 
 The field of this industry was prodigiously widened when (in 
 1788) an English ship, stimulated perhaps by the government 
 bounty, which was raised to 700 for the fullest ships, led the way in 
 rounding Cape Horn and pursuing the cacholot in the Pacific. One 
 English vessel, the Syren, after an absence of two years and eight 
 months on the coast of Japan, returned with the enormous quantity 
 of 356 tuns of sperm-oil ! At one time, no less than ninety British 
 ships were engaged in the South Sea fishery; at present there is 
 not one. 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF THE WHALE. 
 
 In whaling-ships destined for the northern seas, strength is of 
 more importance than speed ; they are therefore fortified with addi- 
 tional planks, iron plates, ice-knees, and many timbers and stanchions 
 in the interior. Steam, with the screw propeller, has been recently 
 introduced, and has many obvious advantages. Each ship has a crew 
 of from forty to sixty, and carries from six to eight boats, twenty-five
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 feet long, and strongly built British whalers for the north seas are 
 usually provisioned only for a few months ; but for the distant fish- 
 eries of the Pacific, the American whalers lay in a stock of provisions 
 to last them for two or three years. When the oil is tryed-out on 
 board, as in the South Sea whalers, a supply of casks for storing it is 
 also required ; the Scottish whalers usually bring home the blubber 
 in tanks. An assortment of harpoons and lances is also an essential 
 part of the equipment of a whaler. The harpoon in its simplest form 
 is a barbed spear about five feet long, having a long line attached, and 
 is hurled or plunged by the hand into the animal's side. The gun- 
 harpoon is a short bolt of iron, with the barb at one end, and a ring 
 and chain for the attachment of the line ; this is fired from a small 
 swivel cannon attached to the boat. The hand-harpoon is still pre- 
 ferred by the fishermen. It is a matter of great difficulty and hazard 
 to secure a fish even after it is struck ; and therefore many contri- 
 vances have been suggested to make its death more speedy and sure. 
 One of the best was that of Dr Christison of Edinburgh ; which con- 
 sisted in so placing glass tubes containing prussic acid in the shaft 
 of the harpoon, that when the line was pulled tight they should be 
 broken in the animal's body, and cause instant death. The plan was 
 tried with great success ; but the whale-fishers have a prejudice 
 against so deadly a weapon, and decline to use it : they seem to 
 dread to touch the carcass of a whale that has been killed by such a 
 powerful poison. 
 
 If we describe the proceedings of a whale-ship from Dundee or 
 Peterhead to Davis Strait, we shall have described the business of 
 northern whaling generally. The vessels proceeding from those 
 ports are now screw-steamers of 400 to 600 tons, costing each, when 
 fully equipped and provisioned, about ,16,000. .It is usual for whalers 
 to make a voyage in early spring to the seal-fishing (see page 28). 
 Returning from this, they start again for the whaling-ground ; and 
 they usually anchor for a few days on their way in Bressay Sound, 
 off Lerwick, for the purpose of completing their crews, which are 
 in a great measure composed of Shetlanders. Everybody on board 
 a whaler, from the master to the boys, is paid partly by fixed wages, 
 partly by a certain regulated interest in the proceeds of the voyage. 
 The earnings of a common sailor may average about 40. Har- 
 pooners and other functionaries rate higher. If the state of the ice 
 and other circumstances allow a ship to reach the usual haunts of 
 the whale by the beginning of July, there is every chance of success. 
 A constant outlook is now kept from the mast-head ; and as Soon 
 as a whale is descried the word is given, and every man rushes to 
 his post, those that happen to be in their hammocks tumbling on 
 deck, it may be, with part of their clothes in their hands. In an 
 incredibly short time, each boat is manned with its appointed crew ; 
 and now begins an exciting contest which boat shall reach the 
 whale first. It may be that another ship has sighted the same fish, 
 26
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 and sent out her boats in pursuit, and then the rivalry reaches its 
 climax. In the bow sits the harpooner, with his weapon ready, 
 and the line, about one hundred fathoms long, coiled up in a tub 
 beside him. When the boat comes close to the whale, he stands 
 up with two or three coils of the line in one hand, and with the 
 other plunges the harpoon with all his might into the most vital 
 part he can reach. At the same time he gives the word ' Stern all;' 
 and the crew instantly back the boat, to escape the dangerous move- 
 ment of the whale as it plunges below the surface. It usually dives 
 downward, and, if the harpoon holds fast, the line is run out with 
 such velocity that water must be poured upon it, to prevent the 
 side of the boat from taking fire. The fact of the harpoon ' griping ' 
 is announced by hoisting a flag ; and the other boats hasten up to 
 assist, and to furnish, if need be, additional line. Two lengths of line 
 are frequently required ; and a fish has been known to run out ten 
 lines. As soon as the animal comes again to the surface to breathe, 
 which is usually in from twenty to sixty minutes, additional harpoons 
 are thrust into it, and each additional boat hoists its signal as it gets 
 fast. Again the fish sinks in the water, or darts away rapidly to a 
 great distance, pulling sometimes the boats along behind it. When 
 it becomes exhausted, endeavours are made to thrust lances into it, 
 which, however, has to be done with caution, as a stroke with the 
 tail or fin of the whale is sufficient to stave in the boat. A whale- 
 hunt often fails ; the harpoon may not keep its hold, or the line may 
 get foul, and have to be cut ; or the line of the first boat may run 
 out before the second boat comes up to help it W r hen such mis- 
 chances occur, the lowering of the flag tells the unwelcome news 
 to the captain, who has been watching the efforts of his crew with 
 the greatest possible anxiety. An hour and a half on an average 
 suffices to kill a fish, though it sometimes takes twice as long. When 
 harpooned or lanced in a vital part, it sometimes dies suddenly and 
 quietly ; but oftener it dies hard, lashing the water with its tail into 
 bloody foam with a noise that may be heard miles off. 
 
 When dead, the whale is towed to the ship no easy matter when 
 the distance is great and made fast to the side. The blubber is 
 cut off with cutting-spades in broad strips of twenty or thirty feet 
 long, and hoisted on deck by tackle, the body being turned over 
 until the whole is stripped. In the meantime others have removed 
 the whalebone from the mouth. This done, the carcass is cast oft", 
 a prey to sharks, bears, and vultures. The blubber being cut into 
 smaller pieces, and having the outer skin peeled off, is stowed away 
 in casks or tanks. 
 
 The process of fishing the sperm whale is not much different from 
 that just described, but it is attended with rather more danger. 
 The cacholot has a tail as formidable as that of the right whale, 
 while, in addition, it can stave in the side of a ship with its snout, 
 or crush a boat in its mouth. Its speed and endurance in running
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 are also greater, and it can continue longer under water. When 
 secured, however, it is a more valuable prize. Sperm-oil, of which a 
 large fish will yield eighty barrels, is purer than the oil of the right 
 whale, and brings a higher price ; the spermaceti contained in the 
 head is also valuable. In the intestines, too, there are sometimes 
 found large masses of ambergris, which brings a high price, as much 
 as forty shillings an ounce. When a sperm whale is brought along- 
 side, besides cutting off the blubber, the spermaceti has to be 
 taken out of the head, which is done by lowering buckets into the 
 cavern and scooping out the half-liquid mass. Instead of bringing 
 home the blubber itself, it is boiled down at once ; this is called 
 1 trying-out ' the oil, and is a very dirty business. The cracknels 
 that is, the cellular tissue out of which the oil has been squeezed are 
 used as fuel to heat the pots ; and to avoid the smoke and soot in 
 the ship, this operation is performed on shore, wherever it is possible. 
 The blubber of the right whale is sometimes boiled down at sea, 
 when the voyage is long or there is a scarcity of stowage. 
 
 In the year 1868, the United States had a whaling-fleet of 338 
 ships, of which 133 came into port that year, bringing 48,000 barrels 
 of sperm-oil, 68,000 barrels of whale-oil, and 870,000 pounds of whale- 
 bone. In the Okhotsk Sea, the average catch in 1867, for the eight 
 vessels engaged there, was 644 barrels. A tun of oil, it may be stated, 
 is 258 gallons. The American barrels are not of any regular size; at 
 one time they were called lagers, which were of the size of about 
 half a tun ; now their barrels are much smaller, and are called 
 druins; but there is no standard. The prices of the two kinds of 
 oil vary according to the supply ; sperm-oil is always dearest. 
 ' Whale-oil,' as the produce of the Greenland whale is called, is only 
 about a third of the price of sperm-oil ; the one may be three 
 shillings per gallon, while the other is eight shillings and sixpence. 
 About two thousand tuns of whale and seal oil are used every year in 
 Dundee in the jute manufacture ; and as the price may be averaged 
 at about ^40 per tun, a large sum of money is involved. It may be 
 stated here, as one of the curiosities of the whaling trade, that about 
 the beginning of the crinoline mania, whalebone was sold as high as 
 .500 per ton ! The old law that treats of the whale as a royal fish, 
 assigns the tail as a perquisite to the queen, in order to furnish her 
 Majesty's wardrobe with whalebone ! We may judge from this how 
 much was then known of this branch of natural history. 
 
 THE SEAL-FISHERY. 
 
 The capture of the seal divides the attention of the northern whalers 
 with that of the whale itself ; and some voyages are undertaken for 
 the seal alone. It is valuable both for its oil and its skin. The oil, 
 being nearly colourless and inodorous, is preferred to whale-oil. 
 
 The seal is not a cetacean ; it belongs to a distinct family of 
 38
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 marine mammalia called the Pkocidce, in which the transition is seen 
 from the usual mammalian structure to the more marked fish form 
 of the whale group. Seals live chiefly in water, but spend part of 
 their time on shore, basking on rocks, beaches, or ice-fields ; and 
 they usually bring forth their young on the ice. They are carnivorous 
 animals, living chiefly on fishes. The common seal on the British 
 coasts shews a high appreciation of salmon watching the salmon 
 nets, and getting hold of the fish when entrapped. Seals are divided 
 into several genera and species. The species that form the object 
 of pursuit in the arctic fisheries are of the genus Phoca. The best 
 known is the Common Seal (Phoca vitulina), which is from three 
 
 Common Seal (Phoca vitulina), attitude when swimming. 
 
 to five feet long. Other species are much larger, as the Harp Seal, 
 which is from six to eight feet ; and the Great or Bearded Seal, 
 which reaches ten feet and more. The skin of the seal is covered 
 with smooth hair ; but in none of the northern species is it fine 
 enough to be prized as fur. The fur-seals are all natives of the 
 southern seas, and are so scarce that only a fraction of the sealskin 
 jackets for which ladies pay such prices are genuine ; the greater 
 part are made of dexterously manipulated beaver, rabbit, and other 
 skins. 
 
 Many points in the natural history of seals are yet obscure. It 
 is not well known, for instance, what species, or how many species, 
 yield the valuable seal fur of the southern seas. At the meeting of 
 the British Association at Dundee in 1867, it was brought out that 
 the young seals killed in spring are mostly if not altogether males. 
 One experienced master asserted that he had never been able to 
 find a young female, although he had offered a reward to the man 
 who should bring him one. The testimony of the surgeon of the 
 ship was to the same effect. From this some infer that seals must 
 breed twice a year. They produce one or two at a birth.
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 The seal-fishery begins early in April, at the 'pupping' season, 
 when the seals are on the ice. We shall suppose a ship arriving at 
 that time off the ice-fields, say near the island of Jan Mayen. The 
 moment a herd of seals is discovered, the crew rush to the scene, 
 and the butchery begins. As many of the old ones as possible are 
 shot before they can escape into the water ; the young ones fall a 
 helpless prey, and are ruthlessly clubbed to death. The ice is 
 sometimes covered with seals as far as the eye can reach ; and a 
 usual day's work of a ship's crew is to kill from five hundred to 
 eight hundred old seals, along with two thousand young ones. In 
 the year 1866, one ship, the Camperdown, 'bagged' the astounding 
 number of twenty-two thousand seals in nine days. To save useless 
 labour, the seals are skinned on the ice ; care being taken to bring 
 off the blubber or fat, which is two to three inches thick, along with 
 the skin. A seal sixteen days old will weigh, in its skin, from forty 
 to fifty pounds ; this may be divided into blubber, say thirty 
 pounds ; skin, six or eight pounds ; and ' kran,' or carcass, ten or 
 twelve pounds. Old seals weigh twice or thrice as much. The 
 labour of dragging the skins to the ship, especially if at any distance, 
 is serious ; one old skin, or three young, is all that one man can 
 drag at a time. When the skins are brought on board, the blubber 
 is carefully pared off and put into casks or tanks, and the skins 
 stowed away in the hold. The skins are used for a variety of 
 purposes : some are cured with the hair on, and made into carriage 
 rugs, hall mats, sealskin caps, &c. ; others are tanned into leather, 
 and used by boot and shoe makers, coach-builders, upholsterers, &c. 
 
 PERILS OF THE WHALE-FISHERY. 
 
 The annals of the whale-fishery are full of disasters, sufferings, 
 and hairbreadth escapes. Scarcely a year passes that we do not 
 read of some ship having been frozen in, and the crew having had 
 to make their way over the ice or by their boats until they fell in 
 with another vessel, or perhaps having been obliged to winter in 
 those inhospitable regions, but poorly provisioned and equipped. A 
 still more frequent fate is for a ship, in making her way through a 
 lane in the ice, to be crunched up like an egg-shell by the coming 
 together of the floes. A few years ago the Princess Charlotte, a 
 Dundee whaler, was so suddenly overtaken in this way, that the 
 men had barely time to escape with their lives when she was reduced 
 to a shapeless mass of splinters : everything was lost, even to the 
 clothes of the crew. Some years are signalised by an unusual 
 number of disaster* In 1830, Dundee lost two out of a very small 
 fleet; and in 1835, of the twenty-three whalers sailing from Hull, 
 no fewer than five were destroyed. The very element of destruction 
 itself affords the means of escaping with life, often attended, how- 
 ever, with great peril and privation. A Dutch captain, named Bille, 
 30
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 in 1675, lost a richly-laden ship, almost in an instant, and the 
 captain and crew sailed about in their boats for fourteen days before 
 being rescued. Thirteen other ships were wrecked during the same 
 year in the Spitzbergen seas. The powers of endurance often dis- 
 played, and the wonderful escapes often made, are well exemplified 
 in the adventure of George Martin, mate of the Intrepid, in 1853. 
 Martin was with a party at a considerable distance from the ship, 
 and on the way back happened to be some way behind the rest. 
 They, coming to a lane of water in the ice, made a detour to avoid 
 it ; and when Martin came up, he missed the track they had taken, 
 and became completely bewildered. In this condition night came 
 down upon him. He dared not think of rest or sleep, for the numb- 
 ness of death would soon have stolen over him. Besides, bears 
 were prowling about and trying to approach him. So he had to 
 keep constantly moving and watching. The hope that, with day- 
 light, he would get a sight of the ship, kept him from despair ; but 
 when morning came, there was no ship to be seen ; and after wan- 
 dering and looking for a long, long day, he found himself again in 
 darkness, and among the bears. The second night was passed like 
 the first, and the second morning brought still no sign of the ship. 
 All the while there was nothing to eat but raw seal ' kran.' It was 
 not till the third morning that a distant glimpse of the long-looked- 
 for ship gladdened his eyes. Wearied and worn-out, he at last 
 reached it, to the amazement of his shipmates, who, after searching 
 in vain for him in every direction, had concluded that he had fallen 
 a prey to the bears or the cold. 
 
 A remarkable tale of the sufferings of a whaling crew, as narrated 
 by the survivors, went the round of the newspapers in the spring of 
 1867, and thrilled the hearts of all readers. The Diana, a steam- 
 whaler belonging to Hull, after the usual halt at Lerwick, sailed 
 from that place for the whaling-ground on the Qth of May, with a 
 crew of fifty men. From June to September the crew were busy at 
 work, although not very successfully. In the beginning of the latter 
 month, the Diana was beset with ice, but got free only, however, 
 to be again hemmed in, to the south of Coutt's Inlet. By the end of 
 September, the crew were subsisting on half-allowance of provisions, 
 and the helpless ship was drifting southwards in the solid ice-bed at 
 the rate of ten miles a day. When off Exeter Sound, they hung a 
 burning mass of tow and oil at the yard-arm, to attract attention, but 
 the weather was so foggy that no one could see them. To add to 
 their alarm, the vessel sustained some heavy ice-nips, and, as if to 
 cap the misery of the crew, she also sprung a leak. An attempt was 
 first made to live upon the ice in tents ; but, after a brief trial, the cold 
 made it necessary to return to the ship. Captain Gravell, the com- 
 mander, died on the 26th of December, having previously given the 
 crew instructions how to act. Gradually the fuel of the ship became 
 used up ; the spare wood that was stowed on board was burned ; the
 
 THE HERRING AND THE WHALE. 
 
 whaling-boats, too, had ultimately to be consumed. Casks of oil 
 were used, one after the other, for cooking. But Frost was at that 
 time king of the arctic regions ; the breath of the men froze around 
 them, and, to add to their misery, their stores, notwithstanding their 
 great economy, began to fail even to the tobacco. Scurvy at last 
 attacked the crew, and two of them died ; before they got out of the 
 ice, all the rest were more or less prostrate. ' Take away the dead 
 man from me,' said one of the crew who awoke one morning and 
 found his bed-fellow dead. On March the I7th, the ship at length 
 drove out of the solid ice between Resolution Islands. Getting into 
 the open, the Diana made at once for Shetland, meeting with various 
 misfortunes : three of the watch dropped down at the pumps the 
 night before the Diana anchored in St Rona's Voe ; and just as the 
 ship came into port, another man died. All who survived were 
 weary and worn some in bed, others crawling about their duty 
 faint and weak ; the poor boys of the ship looking like weird and 
 withered old men. All the crew of the ship that had left about 
 twelve months before were on board, from the captain to the youngest 
 boy ; but the captain and nine of his gallant men were dead they 
 lay stark and grim on the bridge of the ship as she sailed into the 
 haven.
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 GRIZEL COCHRANE. 
 
 [HE age which this noble woman adorned with her life 
 and heroic actions, was that gloomy one extending 
 between the Restoration and Revolution (from 1660 
 to 1688), when the Scottish nation suffered under a cruel 
 oppression, on account of their conscientious scruples 
 respecting the existing forms of church and state. Three insur- 
 rections, more bold than wise, marked the impatience of the Scotch 
 under this bloody rule ; but it was with the last solely that Grizel 
 Cochrane was connected. 
 
 Sir John Cochrane of OchilU;ee, the father of our heroine, was the 
 second son of the first Earl of Dundonald, and the ancestor of the 
 present line of that noble and ingenious family. He was a distin- 
 guished friend of Sidney, Russell, and other illustrious men, who 
 signalised themselves in England by their opposition to the court ; 
 and he had so long endeavoured in vain to procure some improve- 
 ment in the national affairs, that he at length began to despair of 
 his country altogether, and formed the design of emigrating to 
 America. Having gone to London in 1683, with a view to a 
 colonising expedition to South Carolina, he became involved in the 
 deliberations of the Whig party, which at that time tended towards 
 a general insurrection in England and Scotland, for the purpose 
 of forcing an alteration of the royal councils, and the exclusion of 
 the Duke of York from the throne. In furtherance of this plan, Sir 
 John pledged himself to assist the Earl of Argyll in raising the 
 23
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 malcontents in Scotland. This earl was', if not the acknowledged 
 head of the party in that kingdom, at least the man of highest 
 rank who espoused its interests. 
 
 By the treachery of some of the subordinate agents, this design 
 was detected prematurely ; and while some were unfortunately taken 
 and executed, among whom were Sidney and Lord Russell, the -rest 
 fled from the kingdom. Of the latter number were the Earl of 
 Argyll, Sir John Cochrane, and Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth 
 the last a patriot rivalling Cochrane in talent and purity of motives, 
 and also, like him, destined to experience the devotedness of a 
 daughter's love. The fugitives found safety in Holland, where they 
 remained in peace till the death of Charles II., in February 1685, 
 when the Duke of York, the object, politically, of their greatest 
 detestation, became king. It was then determined to invade Scot- 
 land with a small force, to embody the Highland adherents of Argyll 
 with the west-country Presbyterians, and, marching into England, 
 to raise the people as they moved along, and not rest till they had 
 produced the desired melioration of the state. The expedition sailed 
 in May ; but the government was enabled to take such precautions 
 as, from the very first, proved a complete frustration to their designs. 
 Argyll lingered timidly in his own country, and finally, against 
 the advice of Cochrane and Hume, who were his chief officers, 
 made some unfortunate movements, which ended in the entire dis- 
 solution of his army, and his own capture and death. While this 
 well-meaning but weak nobleman committed himself to a low dis- 
 guise, in the vain hope of effecting his escape, Sir John Cochrane 
 and Sir Patrick Hume headed a body of 200 men, formed out of 
 the relics of the army, and bravely resolved, even with that small 
 force, to attempt the accomplishment of their original intention 
 namely, a march into England. They accordingly crossed the Clyde 
 into Renfrewshire, where they calculated on obtaining some rein- 
 forcement. The boats on this occasion being insufficient to trans- 
 port the whole at once, the first party, headed by the two patriots, 
 was obliged to contend, on the opposite bank of the river, with a 
 large squadron of militia, while the boats returned for the remainder ; 
 after which the united force caused their opponents to retreat. The 
 militia returned, however, in greater force, and renewed the assault 
 at a place called Muirdykes, in the parish of-Lochwinnoch. 
 
 They were now commanded by Lord Ross and Captain Clellan, 
 and amounted to two troops, while Sir John Cochrane's men had 
 decreased to seventy in number. In this predicament, they were 
 called on by the royal troops to lay down their arms, and surrender 
 themselves prisoners. Preferring the risk of death on the field to 
 the tender mercies of a vindictive foe, they rejected the terms with 
 disdain, and entering a sheepfold, used its frail sod-walls as a 
 defence against the furious attack of the enemy, whom, after a keen 
 conflict, in which every man fought hand to hand with his opponents,
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 they at length succeeded in beating off, with the loss of their captain 
 and some other men, while Lord Ross was wounded. Cochrane 
 however, soon after learned that the enemy was returning with a 
 great reinforcement, and fearing that he could not much longer 
 defend himself on the field, retired with his troops to a neighbouring 
 wilderness or morass, where he dismissed them, with the request 
 that each man would provide the best way he could for his own 
 safety. For himself, having received two severe contusions in the 
 body during the engagement, and being worn out with fatigue, he 
 sought refuge in the house of his uncle, Mr Gavin Cochrane of 
 Craigmuir, who lived at no great distance from the place of encounter. 
 This gentleman, however, as it unfortunately happened, had married 
 a sister of the Captain Clellan killed in the late battle, and filled 
 with revenge for the death of her brother, this lady secretly informed 
 against her guest, who was immediately seized, and- removed to 
 Edinburgh, where, after being paraded through the streets, bound 
 and bareheaded, and conducted by the common executioner, he was 
 lodged in the Tolbooth, on the 3d of July 1685, there to await his 
 trial as a traitor. The day of trial came, and he was condemned to 
 death, in spite of the most strenuous exertions of his aged father, the 
 Earl of Dundonald, who, having received his title from the hands of 
 Charles II., had, from motives of honour, never conspired against him. 
 
 Where is the tongue that can express all the secret and varied 
 anguish that penetrates the yearning heart, when about to leave for 
 ever the warm precincts of mortality, to quit the loving charities of 
 life, and to have all the cords which bound it to existence suddenly 
 torn asunder? Natural strength of mind may suffice to conceal 
 much of this mortal conflict, or even to hide it altogether from the 
 eye of the careless observer, but still it is at work within, and 
 grapples in deadly struggle with the spirit. 
 
 Such was the state of Sir John Cochrane's mind on the night of 
 his condemnation, when left once more to the gloomy solitude of his 
 prison. It was not the parting stroke of death he feared, however 
 sharp. He was a father, loving and beloved ; and the thoughts of 
 the sorrow his children were doomed to suffer on his account, wrung 
 his heart; and burning tears, which his own fate could not have 
 called forth, were shed for them. No friend or relative had been 
 permitted to see him from the time of his apprehension ; but it was 
 now signified to him that any of his family he desired to communi- 
 cate with might be allowed to visit him. Anxious, however, to 
 deprive his enemies of an opportunity of an accusation against his 
 sons, he immediately conveyed to them his earnest entreaties, and 
 indeed commands, that they should refrain from availing themselves 
 of this leave till the night before his execution. This was a sacrifice 
 which it required his utmost fortitude to make ; and it had left him 
 to a sense of the most desolate loneliness, insomuch that, when, late 
 in the evening, he heard his prison-door unlocked, he lifted not his 
 
 3
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 eyes towards it, imagining that the person who entered could only 
 be the jailer, who was particularly repulsive in his countenance and 
 manner. What, then, was his surprise and momentary delight when 
 he beheld before him his only daughter, and felt her arms entwining 
 his neck ! Yet, when he looked on her face, and saw the expression 
 it bore of mute despairing agony, more fearful than the most frantic 
 manifestations of misery, and marked her pale cheeks, which no 
 longer bloomed with the tints of health and happiness, and felt the 
 cold dampness of her brow, he thought himself wrong for having 
 given way for an instant to the joy her presence had created, and 
 every other sensation fled before his fear of what might be the 
 consequence to her of this interview. 
 
 Sir John had no sooner, however, expressed his feelings on this 
 subject, than his daughter became sensible that, in order to palliate 
 his misery, she must put a strong curb upon her own, and in a short 
 time was calm enough to enter into conversation wtih her father 
 upon the dismal subject of his present situation, and to deliver a 
 message from the old earl, her grandfather, by which he was informed 
 that an appeal had been made from him to the king, and means 
 taken to propitiate Father Peters, his majesty's confessor, who, it 
 was well known, often dictated to him in matters of state. It 
 appeared evident, however, by the turn which their discourse 
 presently took, that neither father nor daughter was at all sanguine 
 in their hopes from this negotiation. The Earl of Argyll had been 
 executed but a few days before, as had also several of his principal 
 adherents, though men of less consequence than Sir John Cochrane; 
 and it was therefore improbable that he, who had been so conspicu- 
 ously active in the insurrection, should be allowed to escape the 
 punishment which his enemies had it now in their power to inflict. 
 Besides all this, the treaty to be entered into with Father Peters 
 would require some time to adjust, and meanwhile the arrival of the 
 warrant for execution must every day be looked for. 
 
 Under these circumstances, several days passed, each of which 
 found Miss Grizel Cochrane an inmate of her father's prison for as 
 many hours as she was permitted. During these interviews of the 
 father and daughter, while heart clung unto heart, they reaped all 
 the consolation which an undisguised knowledge of the piety and 
 courage of each could bestow. Still, after such intercourse, the 
 parting scene which they anticipated seemed more and more dreadful 
 to think of; and as the daughter looked on the pale and dejected 
 countenance of her parent, her bosom was penetrated with the 
 sharpest pangs. The love of her father might be termed a com- 
 ponent part of her nature. She had cherished this filial love ever 
 since she possessed a consciousness of thought, and it was now 
 strong and absorbing, in proportion to the danger in which he stood. 
 Grizel Cochrane was only at that period eighteen years old; but 
 it is the effect of such perilous times as those in which she lived
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 to sober the reckless spirit of youth, and make men and women 
 of children. She had, however, a natural strength of character, 
 that would on all extraordinary occasions have displayed itself 
 without such a tuition, and which, being now joined with what she 
 conceived the necessity of the case, rendered her capable of a deed 
 which has caused her history to vie with that of the most distin- 
 guished of heroines. 
 
 Ever since her father's condemnation, her daily and nightly 
 thoughts had dwelt on the fear of her grandfather's eommunication 
 with the king's confessor being rendered unavailable, for want of the 
 time necessary for enabling the friends in London, to whom it was 
 trusted, to make their application, and she boldly determined to 
 execute a plan whereby the arrival of the death-warrant would be 
 retarded. A short time, therefore, before it was expected by the 
 council in Edinburgh, she thought it necessary, in her visit to her 
 father, to mention that some urgent affair would prevent her from 
 seeing him again for a few days. Alarmed at this, and penetrating 
 her design of effecting somewhat in his favour, he warned her 
 against attempting impossibilities. 
 
 ' Nothing is impossible to a determined mind,' said she, ' and fear 
 nothing for me.' 
 
 ' But the inexperience of youth, my child,' he replied, ' may 
 involve you in danger and in blame ; and did you but know the 
 characters of those you must encounter, while vainly pleading for your 
 father's life, you would fear, as I do, the sullying of your fair fame.' 
 
 ' I am a Cochrane, my father,' said the heroic girl an answer 
 how brief, but to him how expressive ! He could say no more : he 
 beheld in his child, so young, so beautiful, and so self-devoted, all the 
 virtues of her race combined ; and he felt for the moment that the 
 courage she had prayed for would be granted, to carry her through 
 the undertaking she meditated, whatever 'that might be. She felt 
 grateful to her father that he did not urge her further ; but she trembled 
 as she turned, at her departure, to catch another look of those loved 
 and venerated features, for his eye appeared to be following her with 
 a parting expression, which seemed to say it was the last fond look. 
 
 At that time, horses were used as a mode of conveyance so much 
 more than cafriages, that almost every gentlewoman had her own 
 steed ; and Miss Cochrane, being a skilful rider, was possessed of a 
 well-managed palfrey, on whose speed and other good qualities she 
 had been accustomed to depend. On the morning after she had bid 
 her father farewell, long ere the inhabitants of Edinburgh were astir, 
 she found herself many miles on the road to the Borders. She had 
 taken care to attire herself in a manner which corresponded with the 
 design of passing herself off for a young serving-woman journeying 
 on a borrowed horse to the house of her mother, in a distant part of 
 the country; and by only resting at solitary cottages, where she 
 generally found the family out at work, save perhaps an old woman
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 or some children, she had the good-fortune, on the second day after 
 leaving Edinburgh, to reach in safety the abode of her old nurse, 
 who lived on the English side of the Tweed, four miles beyond the 
 town of Berwick In this woman she knew she could place implicit 
 confidence, and to her, therefore, she revealed her secret. She had 
 resolved, she said, to make an attempt to save her father's life, by 
 stopping the postman, an equestrian like herself, and forcing him to 
 deliver up his bags, in which she expected to find the fatal warrant. 
 Singular as such a determination may appear in a delicate young 
 woman, especially if we consider that she was aware of the arms 
 always carried by the man to whose charge the mail was committed, 
 it is nevertheless an undoubted fact that such was her resolve. In 
 pursuance of this design, she had brought with her a brace of small 
 pistols, together with a horseman's cloak, tied up in a bundle, and 
 hung on the crutch of her saddle ; and now borrowed from her nurse 
 the attire of her foster-brother, which, as he was a slight-made lad, 
 fitted her reasonably well. 
 
 At that period, all those appliances which at this day accelerate 
 the progress of the traveller were unknown, and the mail from 
 London, which now arrives in twelve hours, took eight days in 
 reaching the Scottish capital. Miss Cochrane thus calculated on a 
 delay of sixteen or seventeen days in the execution of her father's 
 sentence a space of time which she deemed amply sufficient to give 
 a fair trial to the treaty set on foot for his liberation. She had, by 
 means which it is unnecessary here to detail, possessed herself of the 
 most minute information with regard to the places at which the 
 postmen rested on their journey, one of which was a small public- 
 house, kept by a widow, on the outskirts of the little town of 
 Belford. There the man who received the bag at Durham was 
 accustomed to arrive about six o'clock in the morning, and take a 
 few hours' repose before proceeding farther on his journey. In pur- 
 suance of the plan laid down by Miss Cochrane, she arrived at this 
 inn about an hour after the man had composed himself to sleep, in 
 the hope of being able, by the exercise of her wit and dexterity, to 
 ease him of his charge. 
 
 Having put her horse into the stable which was a duty that 
 devolved on the guests at this little public-house, from its mistress 
 having no hostler she entered the only apartment which the house 
 afforded, and demanded some refreshment. ' Sit down at the end 
 of that table,' said the old woman, ' for the best I have to give you is 
 there already; and be pleased, my bonny man, to make as little 
 noise as you can, for there 's ane asleep in that bed that I like ill to 
 disturb.' Miss Cochrane promised fairly; and after attempting to 
 eat some of the viands, which were the remains of the sleeping 
 man's meal, she asked for some cold water. 
 
 ' What ! ' said the old dame, as she handed it to her, ' ye are a 
 water-drinker, are ye ? It 's but an ill custom for a change-house.' 
 
 6
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 ' I am aware of that,' replied her guest, ' and therefore, when in a 
 public-house, always pay for it the price of the stronger potation, 
 which I cannot take.' 
 
 ' Indeed well, that is but just,' responded the dame ; ' and I think 
 the more of you for such reasonable conduct.' 
 
 'Is the well where you get this water near at hand?' said the 
 young lady ; ' for if you will take the trouble to bring me some from 
 it, as this is rather warm, it shall be considered in the reckoning.' 
 
 ' It is a good bit off,' said the woman ; ' but I cannot refuse to 
 fetch some for such a civil discreet lad, and will be as quick as I 
 can. But, for any sake, take care and don't meddle with these 
 pistols,' she continued, pointing to a pair of pistols on the table, ' for 
 they are loaded, and I am always terrified for them.' 
 
 Saying this, she disappeared ; and Miss Cochrane, who would 
 have contrived some other errand for her, had the well been near, no 
 sooner saw the door shut than she passed, with trembling eagerness, 
 and a cautious but rapid step, across the floor to the place where the 
 man lay soundly sleeping, in one of those close wooden bedsteads 
 common in the houses of the poor, the door of which was left half 
 open to admit the air, and which she opened still wider, in the hope 
 of seeing the mail-bag, and being able to seize upon it. But what 
 was her dismay when she beheld only a part of the integument which 
 contained what she would have sacrificed her life a thousand times 
 to obtain, just peeping out from below the shaggy head and brawny 
 shoulders of its keeper, who lay in such a position upon it as to give 
 not the smallest hope of its extraction without his being aroused 
 from his nap ! A few bitter moments of observation served to con- 
 vince her that, if she obtained possession of this treasure, it must 
 be in some other way ; and again closing the door of the bed, she 
 approached the pistols, and having taken them one by one from the 
 holsters, she as quickly as possible drew out their loading, which 
 having secreted, she returned them to their cases, and resumed her 
 seat at the foot of the table. Here she had barely time to recover 
 from the agitation into which the fear of the man's awaking during 
 her recent occupation had thrown her, when the old woman returned 
 with the water ; and having taken ' a draught, of which she stood 
 much in need, she settled her account much to her landlady's con- 
 tent, by paying for the water the price of a pot of beer. Having 
 then carelessly asked and ascertained how much longer the other 
 guest was likely to continue his sleep, she left the house, and 
 mounting her horse, set off at a trot in a different direction from 
 that in which she had arrived. 
 
 Making a circuit of two or three miles, she once more fell 
 into the high-road between Belford and Berwick, where she walked 
 her horse gently on, awaiting the. coming up of the postman. Though 
 all her faculties were now absorbed in one aim, and the thought of 
 her father's deliverance still reigned supreme in her mind, she could 
 
 7
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 not help occasionally figuring to herself the possibility of her tam- 
 pering with the pistols being discovered, and their loading replaced, 
 in which case it was more than likely that her life would be the forfeit 
 of the act she meditated. A woman's fears would still intrude, not- 
 withstanding all her heroism, and the glorious issue which promised 
 to attend the success of her enterprise. When she at length saw 
 and heard the postman advancing behind her, the strong necessity 
 of the case gave her renewed courage ; and it was with perfect cool- 
 ness that, on his coming close up, she civilly saluted him, put her 
 horse into the same pace with his, and rode on for some way in his 
 company. He was a strong thick-set fellow, with a good-humoured 
 countenance, which did not seem to Miss Cochrane, as she looked 
 anxiously upon it, to savour much of hardy daring. He rode with 
 the mail-bags strapped firmly to his saddle in front, close to the 
 holsters (for there were two), one containing the letters direct from 
 London, and the other those taken up at the different post-offices on 
 the road. After riding a short distance together, Miss Cochrane 
 deemed it time, as they were nearly half-way between Belford and 
 Berwick, to commence her operations. She therefore rode nearly 
 close to her companion, and said, in a tone of determination : ' Friend, 
 I have taken a fancy for those mail-bags of yours, and I must have 
 them ; therefore, take my advice, and deliver them up quietly, for I 
 am provided for all hazards. I am mdunted, as you see, on a fleet 
 steed; I carry firearms; and, moreover, am allied with those who 
 are stronger, though not bolder than myself. You see yonder wood,' 
 she continued, pointing to one at the distance of about a mile, with 
 an accent and air meant to carry intimidation. ' Again, I say, take 
 my advice ; give me the bags, and speed back the road you came for 
 the present, nor dare to approach that wood for at least two or three 
 hours to come.' 
 
 There was in such language from a stripling something so sur- 
 prising, that the man looked on Miss Cochrane for an instant in 
 silent and unfeigned amazement. ' If,' said he, as soon as he found 
 his tongue, ' you mean, my young master, to make yourself merry at 
 my expense, you are welcome. I am no sour churl to take offence 
 at the idle words of a foolish boy. But if,' he said, taking one of his 
 pistols from the holster, and turning its muzzle towards her, ' you are 
 mad enough to harbour one serious thought of such a matter, I am 
 ready for you. But, methinks, my lad, you seem at an age when 
 robbing a garden or an old woman's fruit-stall would befit you better, 
 if you must turn thief, than taking his majesty's mails from a stout 
 man such as I am upon his highway. Be thankful, however, that 
 you have met with one who will not shed blood if he can help it, and 
 sheer off before you provoke me to fire.' 
 
 ' Nay,' said his young antagonist, / I am not fonder of bloodshed 
 than you are ; but if you will not be persuaded, what can I do ? For 
 I have told you a truth that mail I must and will have. So now
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 choose,' she continued as she drew one of the small pistols from 
 under her cloak, and deliberately cocking it, presented it in his face. 
 ' Nay, then, your blood be on your own head,' said the fellow, as 
 he raised his hand and fired his pistol, which, however, only flashed 
 in the pan. Dashing the weapon to the ground, he lost not a 
 moment in pulling out the other, which he also aimed at his assailant, 
 and fired with the same result. In a transport of rage and disap- 
 pointment, the man sprang from his horse, and made an attempt to 
 seize her ; but, by an adroit use of her spurs, she eluded his grasp, 
 and placed herself out of his reach. Meanwhile, his horse had moved 
 forward some yards, and to see and seize the advantage presented 
 by this circumstance was one and the same to the heroic girl, who, 
 darting toward it, caught the bridle, and having led her prize off 
 about a hundred yards, stopped while she called to the thunderstruck 
 postman to remind him of her advice about the wood. She then 
 
 Eut both horses to their speed, and on turning to look at the man she 
 ad robbed, had the pleasure of perceiving that her mysterious threat 
 had taken effect, and he was now pursuing his way back to Belford. 
 Miss Cochrane speedily entered the wood to which she had alluded, 
 and tying the strange horse to a tree, out of all observation from the 
 road, proceeded to unfasten the straps of the mail. By means of a 
 sharp penknife, which set at defiance the appended locks, she was 
 soon mistress of the contents, and with an eager hand broke open 
 the government dispatches, which were unerringly pointed out to her 
 by their address to the Council in Edinburgh, and their imposing 
 weight and broad seals of office. Here she found not only the fatal 
 warrant for her father's death, but also many other sentences inflicting 
 different degrees of punishment on various delinquents. These, 
 however, it may readily be supposed, she did not then stop to 
 examine : she contented herself with tearing them into small frag- 
 ments, and placing them carefully in her bosom. 
 
 The intrepid girl now mounted her steed, and rode off, leaving all 
 the private papers where she had found them, imagining (what 
 eventually proved the case) that they would be discovered ere long, 
 from the hints she had thrown out about the wood, and thus reach 
 their proper places of destination. She now made all haste to reach 
 the cottage of her nurse, where, having not only committed to the 
 flames the fragments of the dreaded warrant, but also the other 
 obnoxious papers, she quickly resumed her female garments, and 
 was again, after this manly and daring action, the simple and unas- 
 suming Miss Grizel Cochrane. Leaving the cloak and pistols behind 
 her, to be concealed by her nurse, she again mounted her horse, and 
 directed her flight towards Edinburgh, and, by avoiding as much as 
 
 Eossible the high-road, and resting at sequestered cottages, as she 
 ad done before, and that only twice for a couple of hours each time, 
 she reached town early in the morning of the next day. 
 
 It must now suffice to say, that the time gained by the heroic act 
 23 9
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 related above was productive of the end for which it was undertaken, 
 and that Sir John Cochrane was pardoned, at the instigation of the 
 king's favourite counsellor, who interceded for him in consequence 
 of receiving a bribe of five thousand pounds from the Earl of Dun- 
 donald. Of the feelings which on this occasion filled the heart of 
 his courageous and devoted daughter, we cannot speak in adequate 
 terms ; and it is perhaps best, at anyrate, to leave them to the 
 imagination of the reader. The state of the times was not such for 
 several years as to make it prudent that her adventure should be 
 publicly known ; but after the Revolution, when the country was at 
 length relieved from persecution and danger, and every man was at 
 liberty to speak of the trials he had undergone, and the expedients 
 by which he had mastered them, her heroism was neither unknown 
 nor unapproved. Miss Cochrane afterwards married Mr Ker of 
 Morriston, in the county of Berwick ; and there can be little doubt 
 that she proved equally affectionate and amiable as a wife, as she 
 had already been dutiful and devoted as a daughter. 
 
 BRUNTFIELD. 
 
 AMONG the many family quarrels which arose out of the civil con- 
 tentions in Scotland during the reign of Queen Mary, there was one- 
 of a melancholy and remarkable nature which sprung up between 
 Stephen Bruntfield of Craighouse and Robert Moubray of Barnbougle. 
 Bruntfield was an adherent of the queen ; Moubray attached himself 
 to the more prosperous cause of the Regent Murray, who rewarded 
 him with a gift of his deceased elder brother's estate, to the exclusion 
 of his niece, Catherine Moubray. The cause of Moubray's enmity 
 to Bruntfield is uncertain ; it is only known that, having succeeded 
 (December 1572) in taking Craighouse for the regent, after a siege 
 of two months, he barbarously slew its unfortunate proprietor while 
 conducting him, under a promise of protection, to Edinburgh. The 
 scene of this bloody deed is still pointed out at the upper part of 
 a common in the southern environs of the city, called, from the 
 circumstance, Bruntfield Links.* 
 
 Bruntfield left a widow and three infant sons. His widow, the 
 lady of Craighouse, had been an intimate of Queen Mary from her 
 early years ; was educated with her in France in the Catholic faith ; 
 and had left her court to become the wife of Bruntfield. It was a 
 time calculated to change the natures of women as well as of men. 
 The severity with which her religion was treated in Scotland, the 
 wrongs of her royal mistress, and finally the murder of her husband, 
 acting upon a mind naturally enthusiastic, all conspired to alter the 
 character of Marie Carmichael, and substitute for the rosy hues of 
 
 * In Scotland, open downs are usually called Links.
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 her early years the gloom of the sepulchre and the penitentiary. 
 She continued, after the restoration of peace, to reside in the house 
 of her late husband ; but though it was within two miles of the city, 
 she did not for many years reappear in public. With no society but 
 that of her children, and the persons necessary to attend upon them, 
 she mourned in secret over past events, seldom stirring from a 
 particular apartment, which, in accordance with a fashion by no 
 means uncommon, she had caused to be hung with black, and which 
 was solely illuminated by a lamp. In the most rigorous observances 
 of her faith she was assisted by a priest, whose occasional visits 
 formed almost the only intercourse which she maintained with the 
 external world. 
 
 One strong passion gradually acquired a complete sway over the 
 mind of the lady of Craighouse REVENGE a passion which the 
 practice of the age had invested with a conventional respectability, 
 and which no kind of religious feeling then known was able either 
 to check or soften. So entirely was she absorbed by this fatal 
 passion, that her very children at length ceased to have interest or 
 merit in her eyes, except in so far as they appeared likely to be 
 the means of gratifying it. One after another, as they reached 
 the age of fourteen, she sent them to France, in order to be educated ; 
 but the accomplishment to which they were enjoined to direct their 
 principal attention was that of martial exercises. The eldest, Stephen, 
 returned at eighteen a strong and active youth, with a mind of little 
 polish or literary information, but considered a perfect adept at 
 sword-play. As his mother surveyed his noble form, a smile stole 
 into the desert of her wan and widowed face, as a winter sunbeam 
 wanders over a waste of snows; but it was a smile of more than 
 motherly pride : she was estimating the power which that frame 
 would have in contending with the murderous Moubray. She was 
 not alone pleased with the handsome figure of her first-born child ; 
 but she thought with a fiercer and faster joy upon the appearance 
 which it would make in the single combat against the slayer of his 
 father. Young Bruntfield, who, having been from his earliest years 
 trained to the purpose now contemplated by his mother, rejoiced 
 in the prospect, now lost no time in preferring before the king 
 (James VI.) a charge of murder against the Laird of Barnbougle, 
 whom he at the same time challenged, according to a custom 
 then not altogether abrogated, to prove his innocence in single 
 combat. The king having granted the necessary licence, the fight 
 took place in the royal park, near the palace ; and, to the surprise 
 of all assembled, young Bruntfield fell under the powerful sword 
 of his adversary. 
 
 The intelligence of this sad event was communicated to his mother 
 at Craighouse, where she was found in her darkened chamber 
 prostrate before an image of the Virgin. The priest who had been 
 commissioned to break the news, opened his discourse in a tone
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 intended to prepare her for the worst ; but she cut him short at the 
 very beginning with a frantic exclamation : ' I know what you would 
 tell the murderer's sword has prevailed, and there are now but two, 
 instead of three, to redress their father's wrongs ! ' The melancholy 
 incident, after the first burst of feeling, seemed only to have concen- 
 trated and increased that passion by which she had been engrossed 
 for so many years. She appeared to feel that the death of her eldest 
 son only formed an addition to that debt which it was the sole 
 object of her existence to see discharged. ' Roger,' she said, ' will 
 have the death of his brother as well as that of his father to 
 avenge. Animated by such a double object, his arm can hardly fail 
 to be successful.' 
 
 Roger .returned about two years after, a still handsomer, more 
 athletic, and more accomplished youth than his brother. Instead 
 of being daunted by the fate of Stephen, he burned but the more 
 eagerly to wipe out the injuries of his house with the blood of 
 Moubray. On his application for a licence being presented to the 
 court, it was objected by the crown lawyers that the case had been 
 already closed by mal fortune of the former challenger. But while 
 this was the subject of their deliberation, the applicant caused so 
 much annoyance and fear in the court circle by the threats which 
 he gave out against the enemy of his house, that the king, whose 
 inability to procure respect either for himself or for the law is well 
 known, thought it best to decide in favour of his claim. Roger 
 Bruntfield, therefore, was permitted to fight in barras with Moubray ; 
 but the same fortune attended him as that which had already 
 deprived the widow of her first child. Slipping his foot in the midst 
 of the combat, he reeled to the ground, embarrassed by his cumbrous 
 armour. Moubray, according to the barbarous practice of the age, 
 immediately sprang upon and despatched him. ' Heaven's will be 
 done ! ' said the widow, when she heard of the fatal incident ; ' but, 
 thank God ! there still remains another chance.' 
 
 Henry Bruntfield, the third and last surviving son, had all along 
 been the favourite of his mother. Though apparently cast in a softer 
 mould than his two elder brothers, and bearing all the marks of a 
 gentler and more amiable disposition, he in reality cherished the 
 hope of avenging his father's death more deeply in the recesses of 
 his heart, and longed more ardently to accomplish that deed than 
 any of his brothers. His mind, naturally susceptible of the softest 
 and tenderest impressions, had contracted the enthusiasm of his 
 mother's wish in its strongest shape; as the fairest garments are 
 capable of the deepest stain. The intelligence, which reached him 
 in France, of the death of his brothers, instead of bringing to his 
 heart the alarm and horror which might have been expected, only 
 "braced him to the adventure which he now knew to be before him. 
 From this period, he forsook the elegant learning which he had 
 heretofore delighted to cultivate. His nights were spent in poring
 
 . SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 over the memoirs of distinguished knights his days were consumed 
 in the tilt-yard of the sword-player. In due time he entered the 
 French army, in order to add to mere science that practical hardi- 
 hood, the want of which he conceived to be the cause of the death 
 of his brothers. Though the sun of chivalry was now declining, 
 it was not yet altogether set : Montmorency, Constable of France, 
 was but lately dead; as was also Bayard, the knight of all others who 
 has merited the motto, sans peur et sans reproche. Of the lives and 
 actions of such men, Henry Bruntfield was a devout admirer and 
 imitator. No young knight kept a firmer seat upon his horse none 
 complained less of the severities of campaigning none cherished 
 lady s love with a fonder, purer, or more devout sensation. On 
 first being introduced at the court of Henry III., he had signalised, 
 as a 'matter of course, Catherine Moubray, the disinherited niece of 
 his father's murderer, who had been educated in a French convent 
 by her other relatives, and was now provided for in the household 
 of the queen. The connection of this young lady with the tale of 
 his own family, and the circumstance of her being a sufferer in 
 common with himself by the wickedness of one individual, would 
 have been enough to create a deep interest respecting her in his 
 breast. But when, in addition to these circumstances, we consider 
 that she was beautiful, was highly accomplished, and in many other 
 respects qualified to engage his affections, we can scarcely be 
 surprised that that was the result of their acquaintance. Upon 
 one point alone did these two interesting persons ever think 
 differently. Catherine, though inspired by her friends from infancy 
 with an entire hatred of her cruel relative, contemplated, with fear 
 and aversion, the prospect of her lover being placed against him 
 in deadly combat, and did all in her power to dissuade him from 
 his purpose. Love, however, was of little avail against the still more 
 deeply rooted passion which had previously occupied his breast. 
 Flowers thrown upon a river might have been as effectual in staying 
 its course towards the cataract, as the gentle entreaties of Catherine 
 Moubray in withholding Henry Bruntfield from the enterprise for 
 which his mother had reared him for which his brothers had died 
 for which he had all along moved and breathed. 
 
 At length, accomplished with all the skill which could then be 
 acquired in arms, glowing with all the earnest feelings of youth, 
 Henry returned to Scotland. On reaching his mother's dwelling, 
 she clasped him, in a transport of varied feeling, to her breast, and 
 for a long time could only gaze upon his elegant person. ' My last 
 and dearest,' she at length said ; ' and thou too art to be adventured 
 upon this perilous course ! Much have I bethought me of the 
 purpose which now remains to be accomplished. I have not been 
 without a sense of dread lest I be only doing that which is to sink 
 my soul in flames at the day of reckoning ; but yet there has 
 been that which comforts me also. Only yesternight, I dreamed
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 that your father appeared before me. In his hand he held a bow 
 and three goodly shafts at a distance appeared the fierce and 
 sanguinary Moubray. He desired me to shoot the arrows at that 
 arch-traitor, and I gladly obeyed. A first and a second he caught 
 in his hand, broke, and trampled on with contempt. But the third 
 shaft, which was the fairest and goodliest of all, pierced his guilty 
 bosom, and he immediately expired. The revered shade at this 
 gave me an encouraging smile, and withdrew. My Henry, thou art 
 that third arrow which is at length to avail against the shedder of 
 our blood. The dream seems a revelation, given especially that I 
 may have comfort in this enterprise, otherwise so revolting to a 
 mother's feelings.' 
 
 Young Bruntfield saw that his mother's wishes had only imposed 
 upon her reason, but he made no attempt to break the charm by 
 which she was actuated, being glad, upon any terms, to obtain her 
 sanction for that adventure to which he was himself impelled by 
 feelings considerably different. He therefore began, in the most 
 deliberate manner, to take measures for bringing on the combat 
 with Moubray. The same legal objections which had stood against 
 the second duel were maintained against the third ; but public 
 feeling was too favourable to the object to be easily withstood. The 
 Laird of Barnbougle, though somewhat past the bloom of life, was 
 still a powerful and active man, and instead of expressing any fear 
 to meet this third and more redoubted warrior, rather longed for a 
 combat; which promised, if successful, to make him one of the most 
 renowned swordsmen of his time. He had also heard of the attach- 
 ment which subsisted between Bruntfield and his niece ; and, in the 
 contemplation of an alliance which might give some force to the 
 claims of that lady upon his estate, found a deeper and more selfish 
 reason for accepting the challenge of his youthful enemy. King 
 James himself protested against stretching the law as to duelling so 
 far ; but, sensible that there would be no peace between either the 
 parties or their adherents till it should be decided in a fair combat, 
 he was fain to grant the required licence. 
 
 The fight was appointed to take place on Cramond Inch, a low 
 grassy island in the Firth of Forth, opposite the castle of Barnbougle. 
 All the preparations were made in the most approved manner by the 
 young Duke of Lennox, who had been the friend of Bruntfield in 
 France. Oh a level spot, close to the northern beach of the islet, 
 a space was marked off, and strongly secured by a paling. The 
 spectators, who were almost exclusively gentlemen, sat upon a rising- 
 ground beside the enclosure, while the space toward the sea was 
 quite clear. At one end, surrounded by his friends, stood the Laird 
 of Barnbougle, a huge and ungainly figure, whose features displayed 
 a mixture of ferocity and hypocrisy in the highest degree unpleasing. 
 At the other, also attended by a host of family allies and friends, 
 stood the gallant Henry Bruntfield, who, if divested of his armour,
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 might have realised the idea of a winged Mercury. A seat was 
 erected close beside the barras for the Duke of Lennox and other 
 courtiers who were 'to act as judges ; and at a little distance upon 
 the sea lay a small decked vessel, with a single female figure on 
 board. After all the proper ceremonies which attended this strange 
 legal custom had been gone through, the combatants advanced into 
 the centre, and planting foot to foot, each with his heavy sword in 
 his hand, awaited the command which should let them loose against 
 each other, in a combat which both knew would only be closed with 
 the death of one or the other. 
 
 The word being given, the fight commenced. Moubray, almost 
 at the first pass, gave his adversary a cut in the right limb, from 
 which the blood was seen to flow profusely. But Bruntfield was 
 enabled, by this mishap, to perceive the trick upon which his 
 antagonist chiefly depended, and by taking care to avoid it, put 
 Moubray to his mettle. The fight then proceeded for a few minutes 
 without either gaining the least advantage over the other. Moubray 
 was able to defend himself pretty successfully from the cuts and 
 thrusts of his antagonist, but he could make no impression in return. 
 The question then became one of time. It was evident that, if no 
 lucky stroke should take effect beforehand, he who first became 
 fatigued with the exertion would be the victim. Moubray felt his 
 disadvantage as the elder and bulkier man, and began to fight most 
 desperately, and with less caution. One tremendous blow, for 
 which he seemed to have gathered his last strength, took effect upon 
 Bruntfield, and brought him upon his knee in a half-stupefied state ; 
 but the elder combatant had no strength to follow up the effort. 
 He reeled towards his youthful and sinking enemy, and stood for a 
 few moments over him, vainly endeavouring to raise his weapon for 
 another and final blow. Ere he could accomplish his wish, Brunt- 
 field recovered sufficient strength to draw his dagger, and stab 
 beneath the breastplate his exhausted foe. The murderer of his 
 race instantly lay dead beside him, and a shout of joy from the 
 spectators hailed him as the victor. At the same instant, a scream 
 of more than earthly note arose from the vessel anchored near the 
 island; a lady descended from its side into a boat, and rowing to- 
 the land, rushed up to the bloody scene, where she fell upon the 
 neck of the conqueror, and pressed him with the most frantic eager- 
 ness to her bosom. The widow of Stephen Bruntfield at length 
 found the yearnings of twenty years fulfilled she saw the murderer 
 of her husband, the slayer of her two sons, dead on the sward before 
 her, while there still survived to her as noble a child as ever blessed 
 a mother's arms. But the revulsion of feeling produced by the 
 event was too much for her strength ; or rather Providence, in its 
 righteous judgment, had resolved that so unholy a sentiment as 
 that of revenge should not be too signally gratified. Overcome by 
 her feelings, she almost immediately expired in the arms of her son.
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 The remainder of the tale of Bruntfield may be easily told. After 
 a decent interval, the young Laird of Craighouse married Catherine 
 Moubray ; and as the king saw it right to restore that young lady to 
 a property originally forfeited for service to his mother, the happiness 
 of the parties might be considered as complete. A long life of pros- 
 perity and peace was granted to them ; and at their death they had 
 the satisfaction of enjoying that greatest of all earthly blessings, the 
 love and respect of a numerous and virtuous family. 
 
 KING ROBERT'S BOWL. 
 
 ABOUT the year 1309, Robert Bruce, though invested three years 
 before with the crown of Scotland, was only able to maintain a kind 
 of outlaw's independence against the officers of the English king, 
 and frequently roamed, with a small band of attendants, through the 
 wilds of Galloway. In that remote corner of . the kingdom, on the 
 banks of the Urr, lived Mark Sprotte, a shepherd and a husband- 
 man, but also, when occasion required, a warrior. It was the good- 
 fortune of this obscure peasant to be united to a woman possessing 
 an affectionate character, and no small share of good sense and 
 activity. One morning, Bruce, in the course of his wanderings, was 
 attacked near Mark's cottage by one of the English intruders Sir 
 Walter Selby. 
 
 Bruce was not the man to yield to one or even more opponents. 
 The contest was fierce and dubious ; the followers on each side were 
 diminished to three, and these three were sorely wounded. Many a 
 battle has been begun by a woman this was ended by one. The 
 clashing of swords, a sound not unusual in those unsettled times, 
 reached the ear of the wife of Sprotte, as, busied at the hearth-fire, 
 she prepared her husband's breakfast. She ran down to the banks 
 of the Urr, and there saw several warriors lying wounded and 
 bleeding on the grass, and two knights, with their visors closed, and 
 with swords in their hands, contending for death or life. They were 
 both bold and stalwart men ; but she in vain sought for a mark by 
 which she might know the kindly Scot from the southron. The fire 
 sparkled from their shields and helmets, and the grass was dropped 
 here and there with blood. At length one received a stroke upon 
 the helmet, which made him stagger. Uttering a deep imprecation, 
 he sprang upon his equally powerful and more deliberate adversary, 
 and the combat grew fiercer than ever. 'Ah, thou false swearing 
 southron!' exclaimed the wife of Mark Sprotte, 'I know ye now 
 I know ye now;' and seizing Sir Walter Selby by a single lock of his 
 hair which escaped from his helmet, she pulled him backward to the 
 ground, when he had no alternative but to yield himself a prisoner. 
 
 The two knights washed their hands in the Urr and bloody 
 hands they were uttered short soldier-like acknowledgments to 
 
 16
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 their saints for having protected them, and entering the cottage, 
 seated themselves by the side of their humble hostess. 
 
 ' Food,' said the Scottish knight, ' have I not tasted for two days, 
 else Sir Walter Selby, renowned in arms as he is, had not resisted 
 Robert de Bruce so long.' 
 
 ' And have I then had the glory,' said the Englishman, ' of 
 exchanging blows with the noble leader of the men of Scotland?' 
 
 ' Leader of the men of Scotland !' exclaimed Dame Sprotte : 'he 
 shall ne'er be less than king in this house, and king, too, shall ye 
 call him, sir, or else I will cast this boiling brose in your English 
 face, weel-favoured though it be.' 
 
 King Robert smiled, and said : ' My kind and loyal dame, waste 
 not thy valuable food on our unfortunate enemy, but allow the 
 poor king of Scotland to taste of thy good-cheer. And Sir Walter 
 Selby, too, would gladly, I see, do honour to the humility of a 
 Scottish breakfast-table. So spoons to each, my heroine. I have 
 still a golden coin in my pocket for such a ready and effectual ally as 
 thou art. And thou shalt also take thy seat beside me : this is not 
 the first time I have had the helping-hand of a kindly Sprotte.' 
 
 The dame refused to be seated ; said it was bad manners to sit 
 beside a king, and such a king too bless his merciful and noble face ! 
 ' Soon may he enjoy his rightful inheritance, and long may he bruik it ! ' 
 
 So saying, she placed a small oaken table before him, filled a large 
 wooden bowl with the favourite breakfast of Caledonia, rich, hot, 
 and savoury; then laying a silver spoon beside it, she retired to 
 such a distance from the king as awe and admiration might be 
 supposed to measure to a peasant. 
 
 'But, my fair and kind subject,' said the king, 'let this gentle 
 knight partake with me.' 
 
 ' I should be no true subject,' answered she, ' if I feasted our 
 mortal foe. Were I a man, hemp to his hands, the keep of Thrieve 
 Castle for his mansion, and bread and water for his food, should be 
 his doom; as a woman, I can only say I have vowed a vow that 
 no southron shall feast within my door in my presence ; and shall 
 I be hospitable to the man who lately laid his steel sword with 
 such right good-will to my king's helmet ?' 
 
 ' I commend thy loyalty,' said De -Bruce, ' and thus shall I reward it. 
 This land, thou knowest, is mine ; the hill behind thy house is green 
 and fair; the vale before thy house is green and fertile ; I make thee 
 lady of as much as thou canst run round while I take my breakfast. 
 The food is hot, the vessel large, so kilt thy coats, and flee.' 
 
 With right good-will she shortened her skirts as desired, bound 
 up her hair, and stood ready for flight on the threshold of her door. 
 She looked back upon her guests with a. comic expression, returned 
 and locked fast all spoons save the one for the king, and then 
 resumed her station at the door. 
 
 'Now,' said Robert, 'a woman's speed of foot against a king's 
 
 17
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 hunger. Away !' And as he raised the spoon to his lips, she 
 vanished from the door. The King's Mount, so green and beautiful 
 now, was then rough with wild juniper and briers, and the path 
 round the base was interrupted by shivered stones and thorn-bushes. 
 But the wife of Mark Sprotte loved her husband, and wished to 
 become lady of the land. She had already compassed one-third 
 of the hill, when she saw a fox running along with a goose she 
 had fattened. 'May the huntsman find ye yet, for coming across 
 me at this unsonsie time ! ' said the dame ; ' but a rood of land is 
 better than a fat goose;' and she augmented her speed till she 
 approached the mill. The miller, wearied with grinding all night, 
 lay sleeping on the Sheeling Hill, while the fire that dried his 
 oats seized the ribs of the kiln, ran up the roof, and flashed red 
 from between the rafters. ' Burn away ! ' said she. ' If I awake thee, 
 thou wilt demand help, and a minute's work or explanation will 
 scoup the green holm of Urr out of the inheritance which I hope 
 to encompass before our king gains the bottom of the bowl.' So 
 the flame increased, the miller slept,- and she reached the place 
 where the hill sloped into the vale. A small wicket in the gable 
 of her house had a board suspended by a leather hinge ; she flew 
 for a moment to this rude casement, lifted it warily up, and there 
 she beheld the monarch and his enemy seated side by side, their 
 helmets on the floor, their swords laid aside, and with one spoon 
 between them, smiling in each other's face as they took alternate 
 spoonfuls of the hot and homely fare. She cried : ' Fair-play, my 
 liege, fair-play,' and recommenced her race with renewed agility. 
 
 'I like the fare not amiss,' said Selby, ' and still better the hale 
 and hearty dame who prepared it. I shall never forget with what 
 right good-will she twisted her hand into my hair, and pulled me to 
 the ground. I '11 tell thee what, De Bruce ; if half the men in Scotland 
 had hearts as heroic as hers, we might turn our bridles southward.' 
 
 ' I am losing my land listening to thy eulogium,' said the king 
 with a smile. ' See the brook beside the willows, where we fought 
 so long, and where so many of thy comrades and mine lie stark and 
 bloody, she has passed it at one bound. The helmet of Lord 
 Howard, whom with my own hand I slew there, is ornamented with 
 silver and gold; she sees it glittering on the ground, but stoops 
 not to unlace' it. She knows she can strip the slain at her leisure, 
 when she cannot win land. Seven English horses graze masterless 
 among her corn ; she stays not to touch their bridles, though they 
 have silver housings, and belts of silver and gold, and though she 
 never mounted a fairer steed than an untrained Galloway. On 
 my royal word, this is a prudent woman !' 
 
 She had now nearly run round the hill, nearly encompassed the 
 holm; and when she approached her own threshold, it was thus 
 the king and Selby heard her commune with her own spirit as 
 she ran : ' I shall be called the lady of the Mount, and my husband
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 shall be called the lord on't. We shall nae doubt be called the 
 Sprottes of the Mount of Urr, while Dalbeattie Wood grows, and 
 while Urr runs. Our sons and our daughters will be given in 
 marriage to the mighty ones of the land, and to wed one of the 
 Sprottes of Urr may be the toast of barons. We shall grow 
 honoured and great, and the tenure by which our heritage shall 
 be held will be the presenting of butter brose in a lordly dish to 
 the kings of Scotland when they happen to pass the Urr.' 
 
 ' On thy own terms,' said King Robert, ' so loyally and character- 
 istically spoken, my heroic dame of Galloway, shall the Sprottes of 
 Urr hold this heritage. This mount shall be called the King's 
 Mount ; and when the kings of Scotland pass the Urr, they shall 
 partake of brose from King Robert Bruce's bowl, and from no other 
 presented by the fair and loyal hands of a Sprotte. Be wise, be 
 valiant, be loyal and faithful, and possess this land, free of paying 
 plack or penny, till the name of Bruce perish in tale, in song, and in 
 history : and so I render it to thee.' And thus, in one short morning, 
 did the ancestress of the Sprottes of Urr win the lands which 
 have given sustenance and dignity to her descendants for more than 
 five hundred years. King Robert's Bowl, as it is called, is still 
 preserved in the family. 
 
 THE 'BONNIE EARL OF MORAY.' 
 
 THE Earl of Moray whose personal qualifications acquired for him 
 the appellation of the ' Bonnie Earl,' was a son of Lord Doune, 
 but succeeded to the title of Moray by marrying Elizabeth, eldest 
 daughter of the celebrated Regent, brother to Queen Mary. As son- 
 in-law to a person so distinguished, and inheritor of his estates, the 
 young Earl of Moray naturally possessed a high degree of consider- 
 ation in the state, and particularly with the Presbyterian party, of 
 which the Regent had been so long the leader. The earl's character, 
 indeed, was such as to win him universal esteem : to the attractive 
 beauty of his countenance and form, he added a most amiable dis- 
 position, and perfect skill in all the chivalric accomplishments of the 
 age. It is scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, that he should have 
 been one of the most popular noblemen of the day, especially as the 
 nation in general had by that time irrevocably attached itself to the 
 religious party of which he was a leading member. To the Presby- 
 terian party, the king, James VI., also belonged, though he was under 
 the necessity, from the number and power of the nobles who still 
 remained Catholics, of holding the balance of his favour evenly 
 between the professors of the old and the new persuasions. Of these 
 Catholic peers, the Earl of Huntly was the chief, a man who bore 
 rather a good character, but was at heart ambitious and vindic- 
 tive. It was owing to a feud between Huntly and Moray that the
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 circumstances which we are about to relate occurred, and which 
 ended in the tragic and untimely death of the ' bonnie Earl of Moray.' 
 
 The real grounds of this feud consisted in the claims of the Gordon 
 family to the possession of the earldom of Moray, of which they 
 had been deprived when it was bestowed by Queen Mary upon the 
 Regent. This deep-seated cause of dissension had been long gathering 
 strength from the minor animosities which arose out of it, and in 
 particular was aggravated by an act of the Earl of Moray, which it is 
 impossible to justify. In his capacity as sheriff, the Earl of Huntly 
 endeavoured to bring to justice a person accused of violating the 
 laws of the land. This felon was taken into protection by Moray, 
 for some reason which is not recorded. Huntly, it may well 'be 
 supposed, was highly displeased at this, and with a party of men 
 proceeded to Moray's castle of Darnaway, for the purpose of getting 
 possession of the felon's person. This expedition unfortunately 
 terminated in widening the breach between the noblemen. John 
 Gordon, a brother of Gordon of Cluny, and then in attendance on 
 Huntly, was killed by a shot from the Earl of Moray's castle. 
 Whether Moray was personally blamed for this act, does not appear ; 
 certain it is, however, that the hostility between the two families 
 assumed from that hour a more decided character than it had ever 
 worn before. 
 
 This event took place a short time previous to the year 1591, and 
 was not immediately followed by any further exhibition of animosity. 
 In the meantime, Campbell of Calder, a friend of Moray, became an 
 object of hostility to certain of the principal men of the Campbell 
 family, on account of his being preferred as tutor of the young Earl 
 of Argyll. Uniting in purpose with these men, Huntly formed a 
 concerted scheme, in which, strange to say, the Chancellor of the 
 kingdom, Lord Thirlstain, concurred, for taking off Moray and 
 Campbell of Calder by one sweep of vengeance. The late Mr 
 Donald Gregory, in his work on the Highlands, for the first time 
 exposed the particulars of this double plot, than which nothing 
 could be more strikingly illustrative of the character of a time when 
 the highest men in the kingdom, so far from setting an example for 
 the observance of the laws which they made, thought themselves at 
 liberty on all occasions to violate them at their pleasure. By per- 
 suading the king that Moray had been concerned in the conspiracy 
 of the turbulent Earl of Bothwell, Huntly obtained a commission to 
 apprehend Moray, and bring him to Edinburgh for trial. 
 
 On the afternoon of the 8th of February 1591-2, Huntly, attended 
 by a strong body of horse, set out from the house of the provost of 
 Edinburgh, where the king then lodged for security. The object of 
 the journey, Huntly gave out, was to attend upon a horse-race at 
 Leith ; instead of which, he turned to the westward, and directed 
 his course across the Queensferry to Dunnibrissle House, where he 
 understood the Earl of Moray to have taken up his residence for
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 a time with his mother. About midnight, Huntly reached his 
 destination. He surrounded the house with his men, and summoned 
 Moray to surrender. Even had this been complied with imme- 
 diately, the same consequences, it is clear, would have ensued, 
 Huntly's determination being fixed. The enemy of himself and his 
 House knocking at his gates at the dead of night encompassing the 
 walls with armed and vindictive retainers such a summons as this 
 was not one from which the young earl could expect moderation or 
 justice to follow. He resolved to defend the house to the death. A 
 gun, fired from within, mortally wounded one of the Gordons, and 
 the passions of the assailants and their leader were excited to the 
 highest pitch. To force an entrance, they set fire to the doors, 
 and the house seemed to be on the point of being enveloped in 
 flames. In this emergency, Moray took counsel with his friend 
 Dunbar, sheriff of the county, who chanced to be with him on that 
 night. ' Let us not stay,' said Dunbar, ' to be burned in the flaming 
 house : I will go out foremost, and the Gordons, taking me for your 
 lordship, will kill me, while you escape in the confusion.' After 
 giving utterance to this noble offer, the generous Dunbar did not 
 hesitate an instant, but threw himself among the assailants, and fell 
 immediately, as he had anticipated, beneath their swords. At first, 
 it seemed as if this act of heroic devotion would have accomplished 
 its purpose. The young earl had passed out immediately after his 
 friend, and had the fortune to escape through the ranks of the 
 Gordons. He directed his flight to the rocks of the neighbouring 
 beach, and most probably would have got off in the darkness, had 
 not his path been pointed out to his foes by the silken tassels of his 
 helmet, which had caught fire as he passed out through the flames 
 of the house. A headstrong and revengeful cadet of the Huntly 
 family, Gordon of Buckie, was the first, it is said, who overtook the 
 fleeing earl, and wounded him mortally. While Moray lay in the 
 throes of death at the feet of his ruthless murderer, Huntly himself 
 came up to the spot, when Buckie exclaiming : ' By Heaven, my lord, 
 you shall be as deep in as I,' forced his chief to strike the dying 
 man. 'Huntly,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'with a wavering hand, 
 struck the expiring earl in the face. Mindful of his superior beauty 
 even in that moment of parting life, Moray stammered out the dying 
 words : " You have spoiled a better face than your own."' 
 
 The perpetrators of this barbarous deed hurried from the scene, 
 leaving the corpse of the earl lying on the beach, and the house of 
 Dunnibrissle in flames. Though ' but little afraid of any conse- 
 quences that might ensue, Huntly did not choose to return to 
 Edinburgh to be the narrator of what had passed. The messenger, 
 he chose for this purpose, strange to say, was no other than the 
 person on whom the deepest share of guilt lay Gordon of Buckie. 
 This bold man hesitated not to fulfil his chief's commands. He rode 
 post to the king's presence, and informed his majesty of all that
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 had occurred. Finding, however, that the night's work was not 
 likely to acquire its doers any credit, he left the city as hastily as he 
 had entered it. By some, it is supposed that Gordon could not have 
 seen the king, who had gone out at an early hour to hunt. It is 
 known at least that, with apparent unconsciousness of the deed that 
 had been perpetrated, James pursued his sport for several hours in 
 the early part of that day. On his return to the city, his majesty 
 found the streets filled with lamentations for the murder of Moray, 
 and strong suspicions entertained that he himself had authorised 
 Huntly to perpetrate the deed. Dunnibrissle House being visible 
 from the grounds of Inverleith and Wardie, it was alleged that the 
 king must have seen the smoking ruins in his hunting ; nay, that he 
 had chosen that quarter for his sport, on purpose to gratify his eye 
 with the spectacle. 
 
 The popularity of the late earl, on account of his personal qualities, 
 and as a leading Presbyterian, rendered the people blindly severe 
 for the moment to James, whom there is no real cause for supposing 
 accessory to the guilt of the Gordons. The fact of the conspiracy 
 which we have already mentioned at length, is almost a positive 
 exculpation of the king. In a fine old ballad, it is said that Moray 
 ' was the queen's luve.' A traditionary anecdote is the only support 
 which the ballad receives for a circumstance utterly discredited by 
 history. James, says the story, found the Earl of Moray sleeping 
 one day in an arbour with a ribbon about his neck which his 
 majesty had given to the queen. On seeking her majesty's pres- 
 ence, the king found the ribbon on her neck, and was convinced 
 that he had mistaken one ribbon for another. But, continues the 
 story, the ribbon worn by Moray was in truth the queen's, and had 
 been only restored to her in time to blind his majesty, by the 
 agency of some one who had noticed the king's jealous observation 
 of Moray asleep. 
 
 To return, however, from tradition to history. The ferment 
 caused in Edinburgh by the news of Moray's death was aggravated 
 tenfold when, on the same day, Lady Doune, mother of the ill-fated 
 nobleman, arrived at Leith in a boat, carrying with her the bodies 
 of her son and his devoted friend Dunbar. The mourning lady took 
 this step in order to stimulate the vengeance of the laws against the 
 murderers of her son. When the news reached the king that Lady 
 Doune was about to expose the' mangled bodies to the gaze of the 
 multitude, he forbade the bodies to be brought into the city, con- 
 ceiving justly that the spectacle was not only an unseemly one, but 
 that the populace were excited enough already. Defeated in her 
 first wish, Lady Doune caused a picture to be drawn of her son's 
 remains, and enclosing it in a piece of lawn cloth, she brought it to 
 the king, uncovered it before him, and with vehement lamentations 
 cried for justice on the slayers of ' her beautiful ! her brave!' She 
 then took out three bullets found in Moray's body, one of which she
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 gave to the king, another to one of his nobles, and the third she 
 reserved to herself, 'to be bestowed on him who should hinder 
 justice !' 
 
 As far as he could, James fulfilled the demands of 'justice, though 
 the times would not permit him to punish the leaders. Two servants 
 of Huntly were executed for the deed; but the earl himself had fled 
 to the north, where he was much more powerful than James, king of 
 Scotland as the latter was. After some time, however, to recover 
 the royal favour which, to his credit, James obstinately withheld 
 till some atonement was made Huntly surrendered himself, and 
 was confined for a time in Blackness Castle. He was not brought 
 to any trial, and was liberated on bail. Gordon of Buckie, the true 
 murderer, lived for nearly fifty years after Moray's death, and in his 
 latter days expressed great contrition for the act of which he had 
 been guilty. From punishment by the hand of man, the unsettled 
 state of society and of the laws succeeded in screening him. 
 
 Nearly at the same time with Moray's death, Campbell of Calder 
 fell by the hand of an assassin. The young Earl of Argyll fortunately 
 escaped the snares of the conspirators. 
 
 Such is the story of one of the numberless feudal quarrels and 
 deeds of violence which disfigure the history of Scotland, and to 
 which it is instructive, though painful, to look back from these 
 comparatively peaceful and happy times. 
 
 AN INCIDENT IN THE QUEENSBERRY FAMILY. 
 
 MORE than a century ago flourished the famous Kitty Hyde, Duchess 
 of Queensberry, ' charming, gay, and young,' the friend of Gay, and 
 the same of whom he said : 
 
 ' Yonder I see the cheerful duchess stand, 
 For friendship, zeal, and blithesome humours known.' 
 
 This lady is well remembered by all who have read aught of song 
 and story, and that class is happily a wide one nowadays. The 
 majority of the anecdotes told of the eccentric duchess are of a 
 humorous character; but all are not of this order. She was con- 
 cerned, at one period of her life, in a most melancholy tragedy, and 
 this is the matter which we wish at present to speak about. 
 
 ' Don't speak to me of the Mackays !' said the duchess one day 
 to her husband in very peremptory tones : ' a poor commoner's 
 daughter to sit in my shoes, and wed the heir of the House of 
 Queensberry, one of the first matches in the land ! I will have no 
 Mackays.' 
 
 ' Ay, my dear,' returned the duke, ' but Drumlanrig is no child, 
 and you may find it difficult to bring him round to your opinions on 
 this subject/
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 ' Pooh, pooh ! my lord duke ; I think I have managed more diffi- 
 cult concerns in my day,' returned the opinionative duchess, who 
 had seldom known what it was to be thwarted in anything she took 
 into her head. ' Just let your Grace promise not to interfere with my 
 proceedings, and I promise you that this silly heir of ours shall 
 marry the lady whom / have chosen for him, and of whom you 
 approve.' 
 
 ' Well, my dear, I shall not meddle in the matter,' replied the meek 
 husband, ' as I certainly would prefer his union with Lady Elizabeth 
 Hope ; but not at the expense of his happiness. Act fairly, my 
 lady ; convince and convert him, if you can ; but all by fair means, 
 and fair means only.' 
 
 ' Fair means !' muttered the duchess, as her husband walked 
 away : ' all means are fair where the end in view is. to cure a foolish 
 boy of an unworthy fancy. Mackay, truly ! ' 
 
 The conversation here related took place at Drumlanrig Castle, 
 the magnificent seat of the Queensberry family in Dumfriesshire. 
 As may be understood, the eldest son of the self-willed duchess, 
 Henry, Lord Drumlanrig, had fixed his affections on a Miss Mackay, 
 a lady of respectable though not elevated station, and of great beauty 
 and accomplishments. She returned, with equal ardour, the passion 
 of the young nobleman, and a correspondence was carried on 
 between them of a very affectionate nature. But when Lord Drum- 
 lanrig informed his parents of his attachment, one of them, as we 
 have seen, was anything but pleased to hear of the circumstance. 
 The duchess had already settled decisively in her own mind that 
 Lady Elizabeth Hope, eldest daughter of the Earl of Hopetoun, and 
 no one else, should wed her son. What steps she took to bring this 
 match about must now be told. 
 
 Lord Drumlanrig was at home with his parents. Miss Mackay 
 was resident at a great distance from him, but her letters formed a 
 cherished source of consolation. That consolation, however, was 
 not destined to be lasting. The letters of the lady were discontinued, 
 and no entreaty that he could use in his own had the effect of causing 
 a renewal of her communications. The poor young nobleman was 
 almost distracted with this loss of favour, for the obstinate silence of 
 Miss Mackay seemed to him attributable to no other cause. Yet 
 on this point his sentiments underwent many changes. Remem- 
 bering how sincere seemed to be her attachment, he at one moment 
 entertained hopes that all would be cleared up, and that some acci- 
 dent had caused the temporary cessation of her letters. At another 
 period, he saw no way of explaining the matter, excepting by sup- 
 posing her faithless. This was the ultimate conviction which he 
 reached ; and it brought great anguish along with it. If there 
 remained a glimmer of hope in his mind, it was dispelled by tidings 
 received from the duchess his mother. She came to him one day 
 with a letter in her hand. ' Stupid boy !' said she, in tones that
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 seemed at once to express sympathy and reproof, ' still moping for 
 one who never cared one whistle about you ! See here can you 
 bear to learn the truth ?' 
 
 ' I can,' said the son eagerly ; ' anything rather than this suspense !' 
 
 4 Then know that your Miss Mackay is married,' returned the 
 duchess. 
 
 ' Married ! impossible !' cried the young lord. 
 
 ' It is rather unmannerly, my Lord Drumlanrig, to contradict me 
 thus, especially when I can so readily prove my words to be true. 
 Your Miss Mackay was wedded a fortnight since, and here is 
 evidence of it. This letter is from a friend of mine, whose word 
 cannot surely be doubted by you especially as she could have no 
 possible interest in telling a falsehood.' The duchess then gave the 
 letter to her son. He read it, and sank back on his seat in a state 
 of speechless distress. All doubt was now at an end. 
 
 The duchess looked at him for some time in silence. ' Well,' said 
 she at last, ' I might, I think, have looked for more spirit in a son 
 of mine. Have you one drop of my blood in your veins ? If you had, 
 contempt would be the feeling uppermost in your mind at this 
 moment contempt for one who has so clearly shewn, what you were 
 long ago told, that she never was worthy of you !' The duchess 
 pursued this vein for some time, and at last was so far successful in 
 rousing the young man's pride. She followed up her advantage by 
 working on his filial affection, of which he was gifted with a large 
 share, and prevailed on him to consent to visit Lady Elizabeth Hope, 
 with the view of soliciting her hand. 
 
 Lord Drumlanrig proved but a cold wooer, but the duchess stood 
 always at his elbow, to urge him on and supply all deficiencies. 
 Besides, the young lady was too favourably disposed towards him 
 not to overlook any little neglects of form on his part. Hence it was 
 that the match was arranged very speedily, the duchess having but 
 too good reasons for allowing no time to elapse unnecessarily ere all 
 was settled. On the loth of July 1754, Lord Drumlanrig was united 
 to Lady Elizabeth, to the great joy of his mother at least. As for the 
 young nobleman, he had attained to seeming composure of mind ; and 
 no doubt all who looked on during the nuptial ceremony imagined 
 that felicity could not fail to attend a union where the parties were so 
 highly endowed with rank, fortune, and many other worldly advantages. 
 
 But the clever and unscrupulous Kitty was not permitted to 
 plume herself long upon the success of her scheme. While Lord 
 Drumlanrig and his bride remained in Scotland, under the eye of 
 the duchess, all went on smoothly. Her Grace took care to allow 
 nothing to become known to her son but what she chose. The case 
 was altered ere long. In October of the year 1754, about three 
 months after his marriage, Lord Drumlanrig set out for London with 
 his lady. They travelled in their own carriage, and had reached the 
 town of on the igth of October. Here they rested for a short
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 time, and Lord Drumlanrig walked out alone, for the sake of a half 
 hour of more active exercise than his carriage permitted to him. He 
 was listlessly inattentive to everything around him, when a well- 
 known figure met his eye, and sent the blood from his heart in more 
 rapid tides. His first glance told him that the being who now stood 
 before him had once been the object of his every thought and wish, 
 and was still too often the subject of his meditations. It was Miss 
 Mackay or she who had once borne that beloved name. The lady 
 saw her former lover almost as soon as he observed her, and, from 
 the pallor that flashed instantly over her cheek, it was plain that the 
 recognition was a matter of no common interest to her as well as to 
 him. For a moment they seemed to hesitate how to act whether 
 to pass one another, or to speak ; and both seemed to resolve on the 
 latter course at the same moment. In truth, they had the very same 
 motives for doing so a question sprang to the lips of both, which 
 called imperatively for an answer. After an agitated salutation, the 
 lady was able faintly to pronounce the words : ' My lord, it is not 
 for us to meet or speak now ; but there is one question to which I 
 would fain have a reply, as the matter is important to my peace 
 of mind. Was your conduct caused by any report or belief of 
 unworthiness in me?' 
 
 ' Madam, it is I who should put that question to you, and it is one 
 you have this instant anticipated me in asking.' 
 
 ' My lord, you mock me,' said the lady : ' are you not wedded?' 
 
 Lord Drumlanrig started, and hurriedly asked : ' Are not you, 
 madam, also wedded?' 
 
 ' I am not, my lord ! ' was the lady's answer. 
 
 Lord Drumlanrig struck his forehead wildly, as he cried ! ' Then 
 may God forgive those who have deceived us, and ruined the earthly 
 peace of at least one of us ! ' 
 
 Further explanations passed between the unfortunate pair ; and 
 Lord Drumlanrig discovered that his mother must have systematic- 
 ally intercepted all his own letters, as well as those of Miss Mackay, 
 and finally caused one to be written to herself with the false state- 
 ment of the lady's marriage. She, like himself, had only ceased to 
 write in consequence of the obstinate silence of her correspondent. 
 The poor young lady had remained faithful to the last, and had even 
 so far resisted the natural promptings of womanly pride as once and 
 again to ask and offer explanations. The tidings of her lover's 
 marriage closed all doubts. When these most harassing disclosures 
 were made, the pair asked forgiveness from one another, and tore 
 themselves asunder never to meet again in that world which, but 
 for the machinations of a proud and jealous woman, might have 
 been to them a scene of unalloyed happiness ! 
 
 The effect of this discovery upon Lord Drumlanrig was deplorable. 
 He felt as if he could no longer bear the burden of existence. His 
 poor young wife, though not charged by him with any share in the
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 contrivances of the duchess, had become an object on which his eye 
 could no longer rest with composure. In brief, the mind of the 
 ill-fated young nobleman was so completely unhinged, that on the 
 following day he shot himself in his carriage, by the side of his 
 horror-stricken lady. 
 
 Books of heraldry mention that Henry, Earl of Drumlanrig, was 
 killed by the accidental going off of his pistol ; but the case is well 
 known to have been very different. Lady Drumlanrig never recovered 
 from the shock occasioned by her husband's death. She survived 
 him only about a year and a half, dying in April 1756. Thus the 
 notable scheme of Kitty, ' charming, gay, and young,' destroyed the 
 happiness of at least three unfortunate human beings, and caused 
 the premature death of two of them, the one her own son. 
 
 STORY OF SIR ROBERT INNES. 
 
 EARLY in the eighteenth century, a young gentleman, Robert Innes, 
 fell heir to the baronetcy of Orton, a title of some standing in his 
 name and family. By a concurrence of adverse circumstances, not 
 one rood of land, nor any property whatever, followed the destina- 
 tion of the titular honours. This ;was particularly hard in his 
 case, as he had received a liberal education, and such a general 
 training, in short, as is usually bestowed on heirs presumptive or 
 apparent to titles that have a substantial amount of acres appended 
 to them. After this statement, it is scarcely necessary to say that 
 Robert Innes was brought up to no useful art or profession by which 
 a livelihood might be won. 
 
 Few situations could be more painful than that in which the 
 young baronet found himself when he acquired the right to place 
 before his name the important monosyllable which entitled him 
 to hold a prominent place in society, while at the samp time he 
 was totally devoid of the means of maintaining that place with 
 fitting credit and respectability. It is true that, having enjoyed 
 various opportunities of viewing the ways of high life, he knew very 
 well that mahy needy fashionables, and even men of title, contrive 
 to pass their lives in apparent ease and splendour, by clinging 
 tenaciously to the skirts of wealthy relatives and friends, or by 
 preying on strangers not sufficiently experienced or sage to be 
 secure against the toils of the high-bred sharper or jockey. Sir 
 Robert Innes knew that men in the like circumstances with himself 
 lived, nay, flourished, after this manner and fashion ; but he was 
 endowed with a spirit too honourable and manly not to revolt at 
 the thought of eating the bread either of swindling or of servility. 
 He therefore felt his position to be one of extreme difficulty, and 
 was for a time altogether at a loss how to procure his maintenance 
 in a manner consistent with the preservation, not of his rank and
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 dignity, but simply of honesty and independence of character. It 
 may well be believed that he envied the craftmanship even of the 
 humblest artisan, who had learned to look to his hands, and his 
 hands alone, for subsistence. But all trades, arts, and professions 
 seemed in a measure closed against Sir Robert, since he possessed 
 not the necessary means to train himself for any particular employ- 
 ment, even if that could have been effectively done at the com- 
 paratively advanced period of life which he had attained. One 
 profession only, if it may be properly so called, remained open to 
 him, namely, the profession of arms, and to this the young baronet 
 naturally turned his attention. Had he besieged the doors of those 
 who had known his family in better days, he might possibly have 
 at once entered the military service in a station corresponding 
 with his social rank ; but the risk of encountering scornful refusals, 
 and other such-like fears and feelings, caused the indigent baronet 
 to shrink from becoming a petitioner, desirable as it would have 
 been to attain the object in question. He therefore preserved the 
 independence which he loved, by entering the British army in the 
 
 capacity of a private soldier. The dragoons was the body in 
 
 which he enrolled himself, retaining his own name, but dropping 
 of course the title which had descended to him from his ancestors. 
 
 In this condition Sir Robert Innes remained for a considerable- 
 time, fulfilling regularly and peacefully the duties imposed upon 
 him, and giving no expression to the regrets which could not but 
 occasionally arise in the breast of one moving in a sphere so far 
 below that to which he was suited by birth and education. The 
 monotonous tenor of his life was at length broken in upon in an 
 unexpected and remarkable way. While standing sentry one evening 
 at the quarters of Colonel Winram, the commander of the regiment, 
 he was accosted by a stranger, apparently an officer of another 
 regiment, who inquired if the colonel was at that moment engaged. 
 The sentinel courteously answered that he believed he was, but prob- 
 ably would soon be at leisure ; and then recommenced his short 
 perambulations. The stranger followed, and continued the conversa- 
 tion, in order, ostensibly, to while away the time until the colonel 
 should be at liberty to receive him, but in reality to satisfy himself 
 on a point of cuFiosity which had sprung up in his mind. We shall 
 not say more respecting this conversation than that it served, by 
 its tenor, as far as correct expression and judicious remark on the 
 part of the young soldier were concerned, to confirm the stranger 
 in the suspicion to which some glimmering recollection of features 
 had given rise. When the gentleman who had been in conference 
 with Colonel Winram was seen to depart, the stranger took leave 
 of the sentinel, and entered the commandant's quarters. 
 
 ' Colonel,' said the officer, after paying his respects on entrance, 
 ' you are at present more highly honoured in one point than many 
 crowned heads, though you may not be aware of it. 
 28
 
 .SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 * How may this be, my good friend ? ' asked the veteran. 
 
 'In respect of your attendant sentry,' said the officer. 'Few 
 princes can beast of a more honourable guard than the one now 
 pacing backward and forward in front of your quarters.' 
 
 The old colonel was surprised at the grave assertion of his 
 visitor. 'What mean you?' said he. 'You seem serious; and yet 
 there can be nobody now on duty as sentry but one of the 
 common soldiers of the corps, who have all been here ten times 
 over already.' 
 
 ' This may be,' returned the visitor ; ' but I still assure you that 
 you have a rare and remarkable guard of honour at present, in as 
 far as you have a Scottish knight-baronet, of old creation, standing 
 sentry at your threshold.' 
 
 ' Bless my heart, do you really say so !' exclaimed Colonel Winram, 
 who, though a worthy man, and an approved soldier, carried his 
 veneration for titles and family honours somewhat to excess. 'A 
 man of title doing duty in the ranks of my corps ! ' continued the 
 veteran. ' How, in the name of wonder, came this about, and how 
 did you discover it ?' 
 
 ' I had seen Sir Robert Innes several years ago, before he came 
 to the title, and while its late possessor still retained enough of 
 the family property to keep himself and his heir in tolerable condi- 
 tion, as far as appearances went. When it was discovered, on the 
 accession of this young gentleman, that his ancestral possessions had 
 long been in the deceptive condition of a husk with the kernel gone, 
 many individuals who had known Robert Innes, and had admired 
 his manly and virtuous character, were anxious to aid and befriend 
 him; but the youth disappeared suddenly from society, and the 
 rumour went that he had entered the army. Having heard of this 
 report, I was much struck to-night by the look and bearing of the 
 sentry whom I saw at your porch, and a closer examination satisfied 
 me that the soldier was indeed no other than Sir Robert Innes 
 of Orton.' 
 
 ' Can this be true?' exclaimed the veteran, and moved hastily to a 
 window, from which he could command a view of his titled sentinel. 
 Being over and over again assured by his friend that the young 
 soldier was no other than the person who had been described, he 
 immediately gave orders to have another private brought on duty, 
 and the hero of our tale ushered into his presence. When the young 
 man appeared before his commander, the latter plainly and candidly 
 stated what had been communicated to him, and asked if it was true 
 that he really addressed Sir Robert Innes. The youth, after colouring 
 a little from surprise, and partly perhaps from other feelings, 
 owned that the information given to the colonel was correct, and 
 that he .was really Sir Robert Innes. Colonel Winram was silent for 
 a few moments, and then said : ' Believe me, young gentleman, when 
 I ask you to inform me personally of the true motives which induced 
 
 29
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 you to enter the ranks, I have a sincere wish^to serve you, and am 
 not actuated by mere curiosity.' 
 
 Sir Robert answered his commander by simply stating, that, finding 
 himself possessed of a title without any of the requisite means 
 for supporting it creditably, he had been under the necessity of 
 quitting the society of his equals in station, but superiors in point of 
 fortune. ' I chose,' said he, not without a degree of honourable 
 pride, 'to enter on the humble yet independent condition of a 
 common soldier, rather than make any attempt at gaining a main- 
 tenance in my own degree by drawing on the bounty of others, and 
 eating what must have been, at best, the bread of dependence.' 
 
 A tear trickled down the brown cheek of the old colonel as he 
 listened to the explanation. ' I admire your candour, sir,' said the 
 veteran, ' and I honour your sentiments. You must be replaced in 
 your proper station in that station to which you were born, Sir 
 Robert, and to which you will be a credit and an ornament. Thank 
 Heaven, I have interest enough, I think, to procure you a cornetcy ; 
 and a cornetcy of British horse is a fitting station for any one for 
 the first noble in the land.' The poor young soldier, in whose for- 
 tunes a great change was thus unexpectedly promised, could scarcely 
 find language to thank his warm-hearted benefactor and commander. 
 But the colonel did not give himself time to listen to thanks. ' I 
 think I am sure of the cornetcy on application,' continued he ; ' but, 
 at the worst, I can procure your discharge, and do something for 
 you in other ways.' Pursuing his kindly intentions farther, the 
 colonel gave our hero a temporary release from regimental duty, and 
 invited him to dinner on the following day, offering him for this 
 purpose the use of a spare suit of plain clothes from his own ward- 
 robe. Sir Robert joyfully accepted the invitation, but declined the 
 use of the colonel's wardrobe, as he had chanced to retain a suit of 
 his own, which was still capable of making a respectable appearance. 
 
 The young baronet dined with his commanding-officer, not once, 
 but again and again } for the cornetcy of horse was obtained for Sir 
 Robert Innes, and he became daily a greater and greater favourite 
 with Colonel Winram, who found his protdg^ fulfil all the high pro- 
 mise that had appeared in him at their first interview. Handsome, 
 well bred, and accomplished in all the qualifications of a gentleman, 
 Sir Robert was indeed very generally esteemed by his brother- 
 officers, and all who met him in society. It was barely possible, 
 however, for any one to view him with the measureless partiality of 
 the old colonel, and of this the following conclusive occurrence will 
 give ample proof. After the new cornet had held his station for 
 some months, the veteran asked his youthful friend to join him in 
 an excursion to the country. The request was of course cheerfully 
 complied with, and the pair set out in the colonel's carriage. After 
 they had gone a considerable way, the colonel told Sir Robert that 
 his daughter and only child was then, for the completion of her 
 3
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 education, residing at a neighbouring boarding-school, and that 
 he was going to visit her. The boarding-school was accordingly 
 reached, and Sir Robert in due time had the honour of being intro- 
 duced to the only child of his benefactor. She was a young lady in 
 the very spring of womanhood, and beautiful in countenance, though 
 the full graces of her person were scarcely yet developed. The 
 Scottish baronet thought to himself that he had scarcely ever seen 
 filial affection under a more captivating aspect than when Miss 
 Winram, unconscious of a stranger's presence, ran into the room to 
 welcome her father, whose carriage she had seen at a little distance. 
 In short, Sir Robert Innes thought the daughter of his old friend the 
 most charming girl he had yet seen, and the impression was not 
 decreased by her modest, yet lively and intelligent conversation. 
 When the visit drew to an end, he was even a little discomposed, 
 while the veteran exhibited a more open degree of parting sadness. 
 The young lady also looked regretful, but that of course was 
 accounted for as relating to the departure of her father. 
 
 The colonel and his young friend were not very communicative 
 for some space. At length the conversation turned on the young 
 lady, on whom her father expatiated with the fondness of a parent ; 
 and his observations being assented to somewhat warmly, the 
 colonel, to the surprise of Sir Robert, hinted that his daughter 
 might do worse than take him for a husband. The young man 
 was completely stunned for the moment by this most unlooked-for 
 overture. He could not believe that the veteran meant to sport 
 with his feelings, yet some such notion suggested in part the answer 
 which he gave to the colonel, after a pretty lengthened pause. 
 ' Colonel Winram,' said he, ' I am poor penniless and you are 
 wealthy. All I have I owe to you ; but ' 
 
 The veteran somewhat impatiently interrupted the baronet. ' Well, 
 well, that is exactly what I am thinking' of. Margery happens to 
 have a small fortune of her own, the bequest of a deceased aunt ; 
 and you have a title : a fair equivalent. I have always honoured 
 ancestral dignities, at least when borne by such as yourself, whom I 
 already love as a son. My girl has been a good daughter, and will 
 be a good wife.' 
 
 While the words were yet on his lips, fortune suddenly gave an 
 unexpected turn to affairs, by sending a troop of yearling cattle 
 scampering into the highway from the open gate of a park. The 
 horses of the colonel's carriage were startled, and, by their sudden 
 bound aside, the reins were twitched from the coachman's hands. 
 Feeling no control, the alarmed animals sprang forward at full speed; 
 but they went no great way ere their divergence from the mid-line 
 caused a violent overturn of the vehicle into a shallow side-ditch. 
 The inmates, who had travelled in barouche fashion, were thrown 
 clear out upon one side of the road, which, fortunately, was a grass 
 common. The coachman and Sir Robert Innes, being both of light 
 
 31
 
 SCOTTISH TRADITIONARY STORIES. 
 
 frames, were very little injured, but the poor veteran's fall was a 
 heavy and severe one. He lay at first perfectly insensible, with his 
 usually ruddy complexion changed to an ashy whiteness. In a few 
 minutes, however, he regained his consciousness, and in some 
 degree his bodily strength, but complained much of pain in his 
 chest and shoulder. Sir Robert, as may be supposed, was greatly 
 agitated, and at a loss how to get his kind friend within reach of 
 immediate advice and assistance. But the coachman was able, 
 happily, to get the horses quieted and the coach raised with the 
 baronet's assistance, and it was resolved to move slowly back to 
 the boarding-school, from which they were only a mile and a half 
 distant. 
 
 The distress of Miss Winram on seeing her kind-hearted father 
 return so unexpectedly, and in such a condition, was extreme, and 
 her solicitude was fully shared by her instructress, Mrs Batty, who 
 instantly despatched a messenger for the surgeon of the district. 
 This functionary soon arrived, and relieved a material portion of the 
 pain suffered by the veteran, who, however, continued to be very 
 feeble, and was besides discovered to have fractured one of his ribs. 
 He occupied a sick-bed for several weeks. In that time, he had 
 such a nurse in his daughter as often made him weep tears of 
 gratitude to Heaven for its kindness in giving her to him. Our 
 readers may well imagine that such a spectacle as this was a 
 dangerous one for our Scottish knight, who had also continued in 
 attendance. In truth, this young gentleman surrendered his whole 
 heart to the veteran's daughter, and did it willingly and consciously, 
 having no alloy in his hopes for the future, excepting in as far 
 as the state of the young lady's affections was unknown to him. 
 But, in his capacity of occasional attendant on the veteran, the 
 young baronet appeared in almost as favourable a light to Miss 
 Winram as she did to him, and the state of each others affections 
 was soon made manifest by the kindly interference of Colonel 
 Winram. 
 
 Our story draws to a close. Sir Robert proposed, and was 
 accepted. The marriage took place as soon as the veteran could 
 leave his couch ; and the career of the young Scottish knight, whom 
 our narrative took up in so unpromising a condition, was, by the 
 remarkable incidents detailed, rendered one of much happiness 
 throughout the whole of its after-duration. His beautiful lady 
 brought him one sole child and daughter, whose personal charms 
 in time attracted the admiration of the noblest in the land. One 
 suitor for her hand was a gentleman who afterwards acceded to the 
 title of Duke of Roxburghe ; but eventually Miss Innes of Orton 
 became the wife of the sixteenth Lord Forbes. Her grandson is the 
 present possessor of that ancient title ; and of her daughters, one 
 became Duchess of Athol, and another the wife of Sir John Hay of 
 Hayston.
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 INDIAN NAMES. 
 
 ' How can the red men be forgotten, while so many of our states and territories, bays, 
 lakes, and rivers, are indelibly stamped by names of their giving ? ' 
 
 E say they all have passed away, 
 
 That noble race and brave ; 
 That their light canoes have vanished 
 
 From off the crested wave ; 
 That, 'mid the forests where they roamed, 
 
 There rings no hunter's shout ; 
 But their name is on your waters, 
 
 Ye may not wash it out. 
 
 'Tis where Ontario's billow 
 
 Like ocean's surge is curled, 
 Where strong Niagara's thunders wake 
 
 The echo of the world, 
 Where red Missouri bringeth 
 
 Rich tribute from the west, 
 And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps 
 
 On green Virginia's breast.
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 Ye say their cone-like cabins, 
 
 That clustered o'er the vale, 
 Have disappeared, as withered leaves 
 
 Before the autumn's gale ; 
 But their memory liveth on your hills, 
 
 Their baptism on your shore, 
 Your everlasting- rivers speak 
 
 Their dialect of yore. 
 
 Old Massachusetts wears it 
 
 Within her lordly crown, 
 And broad Ohio bears it 
 
 Amid his young renown. 
 Connecticut hath wreathed it 
 
 Where her quiet foliage waves, 
 And bold Kentucky breathes it hoarse 
 
 Through all her ancient caves. 
 
 Wachusett hides its lingering voice 
 
 Within its rocky heart, 
 And Alleghany graves its tone 
 
 Throughout his lofty chart. 
 Monadnock, on his forehead hoar, 
 
 Doth seal the sacred trust, 
 Your mountains build their monument. 
 
 Though ye destroy their dust. 
 
 LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. 
 
 THE BUCCANEER. 
 
 THE ISLE. 
 
 THE island lies nine leagues away. 
 
 Along its solitary shore, 
 Of craggy rock and sandy bay, 
 
 No sound but ocean's roar, 
 
 Save where the bold, wild sea-bird makes her home^ 
 Her shrill cry coming through the sparkling foam. 
 
 But when the light winds lie at rest, 
 
 And on the glassy, heaving sea, 
 The black duck, with her glossy breast, 
 
 Sits swinging silently ; 
 How beautiful ! no ripples break the reach, 
 And silvery waves go noiseless up the beach. 
 
 And inland rests the green, warm dell ; 
 
 The brook comes tinkling down its side ; 
 From out the trees the Sabbath bell 
 
 Rings cheerful, far and wide,
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 Mingling its sound with bleatings of the flocks, 
 That feed about the vale among the rocks. 
 
 Nor holy bell nor pastoral bleat 
 
 In former days within the vale ; 
 Flapped in the bay the pirate's sheet ; 
 
 Curses were on the gale ; 
 
 Rich goods lay on the sand, and murdered men ; 
 Pirate and wrecker kept their revels then. 
 
 But calm, low voices, words of grace, 
 
 Now slowly fall upon the ear ; 
 A quiet look is in each face, 
 
 Subdued and holy fear : 
 Each motion gentle ; all is kindly done 
 Come, listen, how from crime this isle was won. 
 
 RICHARD H. DANA. 
 
 THANATOPSIS. 
 
 To him who in the love of nature holds 
 
 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
 
 A various language ; for his gayer hours 
 
 She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
 
 And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides 
 
 Into his darker musings, with a mild 
 
 And healing sympathy, that steals away 
 
 Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 
 
 Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
 
 Over thy spirit, and sad images 
 
 Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 
 
 And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 
 
 Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart 
 
 Go forth, under the open sky, and list 
 
 To Nature's teachings, while from all around 
 
 Earth and her waters, and the depths of air 
 
 Comes a still voice Yet a few days, and thee 
 
 The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
 
 In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 
 
 Where thy pale form is laid with many tears, 
 
 Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
 
 Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 
 
 Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again 
 
 And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
 
 Thine individual being, shall thou go 
 
 To mix for ever with the elements 
 
 To be a brother to the insensible rock,
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 
 Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 
 Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 
 
 Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 
 Shalt thou retire alone nor couldst thou wish 
 Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
 With patriarchs of the infant world with kings, 
 The powerful of the earth the wise, the good, 
 Fair forms, and hoary seers, of ages past, 
 All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills 
 Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun the vales 
 Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
 The venerable woods rivers that move 
 In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
 That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, 
 Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste 
 Are but the solemn decorations all 
 Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 
 The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 
 Are shining on the sad abodes of death, 
 Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
 The globe, are but a handful to the tribes 
 That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings 
 Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce, 
 Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
 Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 
 Save his own dashings yet the dead are there ; 
 And millions in those solitudes, since first 
 The flight of years began, have laid them down 
 In their last sleep the dead there reign alone. 
 
 So shalt thou rest and what if thou withdraw 
 Unheeded by the living and no friend 
 Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 
 Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
 When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
 Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase 
 His favourite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 
 Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 
 And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
 Of ages glide away, the sons of men, 
 The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 
 In. the full strength of years, matron, and maid, 
 And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man 
 Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, 
 By those who, in their turn, shall follow them. 
 
 So live, that, when thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan, that moves 
 
 4
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 Thou go not, like the quarry-slave, at night, 
 Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 
 Like one that draws the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 
 
 W. C. BRYANTV 
 
 TO A WATERFOWL. 
 
 WHITHER, 'midst falling dew, 
 While glow the heavens with the las't steps of day, 
 Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 
 
 Thy solitary way ? 
 
 Vainly the fowler's eye 
 
 Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
 As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, 
 
 Thy figure floats along. 
 
 Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
 Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 
 Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 
 
 On the chafed ocean side ? 
 
 There is a power whose care 
 Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, 
 The desert and illimitable air 
 
 Lone wandering, but not lost. 
 
 All day thy wings have fanned, 
 At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
 Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 
 
 Though the dark night is near. 
 
 And soon that toil shall end ; 
 Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 
 And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend, 
 
 Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. 
 
 Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven 
 Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet, on my heart 
 Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, 
 
 And shall not soon depart. 
 
 He who, from zone to zone, 
 
 Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
 In the long way that I must tread alone, 
 
 Will lead my steps aright. 
 
 W. C. BRYANT. 
 
 5
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 THE PROBLEM. 
 
 I LIKE a church ; I like a cowl; 
 
 I love a prophet of the soul ; 
 
 And on my heart monastic aisles 
 
 Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles ; 
 
 Yet not for all his faith can see 
 
 Would I that cowled churchman be. 
 
 Why should the vest on him allure, 
 Which I could not on me endure ? 
 
 Not from a vain or shallow thought 
 
 His awful Jove young Phidias brought ; 
 
 Never from lips of cunning fell 
 
 The thrilling Delphic oracle ; 
 
 Out from the heart of nature rolled 
 
 The burdens of the Bible old ; 
 
 The litanies of nations came, 
 
 Like the volcano's tongue of flame, 
 
 Up from the burning core below 
 
 The canticles of love and woe ; 
 
 The hand that rounded Peter's dome, 
 
 And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 
 
 Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 
 
 Himself from God he could not free ; 
 
 He builded better than he knew ; 
 
 The conscious stone to beauty grew. 
 
 Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest 
 
 Of leaves, and feathers from her breast ? 
 
 Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, 
 
 Painting with morn each annual cell ? 
 
 Or how the sacred pine-tree adds 
 
 To her old leaves new myriads ? 
 
 Such and so grew these holy piles, 
 
 Whilst love and terror laid the tiles, 
 
 Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, 
 
 As the best gem upon her zone ; 
 
 And Morning opes with haste her lids, 
 
 To gaze upon the Pyramids ; 
 
 O'er England's abbeys bends the sky, 
 
 As on its friends, with kindred eye ; 
 
 For, out of Thought's interior sphere, 
 
 These wonders rose to upper air ; 
 
 And Nature gladly gave them place, 
 
 Adopted them into her race,
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 And granted them an equal date 
 With Andes and with Ararat. 
 
 These temples grew as grows the grass ; 
 
 Art might obey, but not surpass. 
 
 The passive Master lent his hand 
 
 To the vast soul that o'er him planned ; 
 
 And the same power that reared the shrine, 
 
 Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. 
 
 Ever the fiery Pentecost 
 
 Girds with one flame the countless host, 
 
 Trances the heart through chanting choirs, 
 
 And through the priest the mind inspires. 
 
 The word unto the prophet spoken 
 Was writ on tables yet unbroken ; 
 The word by seers or sibyls told, 
 In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, 
 Still floats upon the morning wind, 
 Still whispers to the willing mind. 
 One accent of the Holy Ghost 
 The heedless world hath never lost. 
 I know what say the fathers wise 
 The Book itself before me lies, 
 Old Chrysostom, best Augustine, 
 And he who blent both in his line, 
 The younger Golden Lips or mines, 
 Taylor, the Shakspeare of divines. 
 His words are music in my ear, 
 I see his cowled portrait dear ; 
 And yet, for all his faith could see, 
 I would not the good bishop be. 
 
 R. W. EMERSON. 
 
 THE HUMBLE-BEE. 
 
 BURLY, dozing humble-bee, 
 Where thou art is clime for me. 
 Let them sail for Porto Rique, 
 Far-off heats through seas to seek ; 
 I will follow thee alone, 
 Thou animated torrid zone ! 
 Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, 
 Let me chase thy waving lines : . 
 Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, 
 Singing over shrubs and vines.
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 Insect lover of the sun, 
 Joy of thy dominion ! 
 Sailor of the atmosphere ; 
 Swimmer through the waves of air ; 
 Voyager of light and noon ; . 
 Epicurean of June ; 
 Wait, I prithee, till I come 
 Within earshot of thy hum 
 All without is martyrdom. 
 
 When the south wind, in May days, 
 With a net of shining haze 
 Silvers the horizon wall, 
 And, with softness touching all, 
 Tints the human countenance 
 With a colour of romance, 
 And, infusing subtle heats, 
 Turns the sod to violets, 
 Thou, in sunny solitudes, 
 Rover of the underwoods, 
 The green silence dost displace 
 With thy mellow, breezy bass. 
 
 Hot midsummer's petted crone, 
 Sweet to me thy drowsy tone. 
 Tells of countless sunny hours, 
 Long days, and solid banks of flowers, 
 Of gulfs of sweetness without bound 
 In Indian wildernesses found ; 
 Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure, 
 Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure. 
 
 Aught unsavoury or unclean 
 Hath my insect never seen ; 
 But violets and bilberry bells, 
 Maple-sap, and daffodels, 
 Grass with green flag half-mast high, 
 Succory to match the sky, 
 Columbine with horn of honey, 
 Scented fern, and agrimony, 
 Clover, catchfly, adder's tongue, 
 And brier-roses, dwelt among ; 
 All beside was unknown waste, 
 All was picture as he passed. 
 
 Wiser far than human seer, 
 Yellow-breeched philosopher !
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 Seeing only what is fair, 
 Sipping only what is sweet, 
 Thou dost mock at fate and care, 
 Leave the chaff and take the wheat. 
 When the fierce north-western blast 
 Cools sea and land so far and fast, 
 Thou already slumberest deep ; 
 Woe and want thou canst outsleep ; 
 Want and woe, which torture us, 
 Thy sleep makes ridiculous. 
 
 R. W. EMERSON. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF MINT JULEPS. 
 
 ' And first behold this cordial Julep here, 
 That flames and dances in its crystal bounds, 
 With spirits of balm and fragrant syrups mixed ; 
 Not that Nepenthes which the wife of Thome 
 In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena, 
 Is of such power to stir up Joy as this, 
 To life so friendly, or so cool to thirst.' 
 
 MILTON Cotnits. 
 
 'TIS said that the gods, on Olympus of old 
 
 (And who the bright legend profanes with a doubt ?), 
 
 One night, 'mid their revels, by Bacchus were told 
 That his last butt of nectar had somehow run out ! 
 
 But, determined to send round the goblet once more, 
 They sued to the fairer immortals for aid 
 
 In composing a draught, which, till drinking were o'er, 
 Should cast every wine ever drank in the shade. 
 
 Grave Ceres herself blithely yielded her corn, 
 
 And the spirit that lives in each amber-hued grain, 
 
 And which first had its birth from the dews of the morn, 
 Was taught to steal out in bright dew-drops again. 
 
 Pomona, whose choicest of fruits on the board 
 Were scattered profusely in every one's reach, 
 
 When called on a tribute to cull from the hoard, 
 Expressed the mild juice of the delicate peach. 
 
 The liquids were mingled, while Venus looked on, 
 With glances so fraught with sweet magical power, 
 
 That the honey of Hybla, e'en when they Were gone, 
 Has never been missed in the draught from that hour. 
 24 <.
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 Flora then, from her bosom of fragrancy, shook, 
 And with roseate fingers pressed down in the bowl, 
 
 All dripping and fresh as it came from the brook, 
 The herb whose aroma should flavour the whole. 
 
 The draught was delicious, each god did exclaim, 
 Though something yet wanting they all did bewail ; 
 
 But juleps the drink of immortals became, 
 When Jove himself added a handful of hail. 
 
 C. F. HOFFMAN. 
 
 A PSALM OF LIFE. 
 
 WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST. 
 
 TELL me not, in mournful numbers, 
 
 Life is but an empty dream ! 
 For the soul is dead that slumbers, 
 
 And things are not what they seem. 
 
 Life is real ! Life is earnest ! 
 
 And the grave is not its goal ; 
 Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 
 
 Was not spoken of the soul. 
 
 Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 
 
 Is our destined end or way ; 
 But to act, that each to-morrow 
 
 Finds us farther than to-day. 
 
 Art is long, and time is fleeting, 
 
 And our hearts, though stout and brave, 
 
 Still, like muffled drums, are beating 
 Funeral marches to the grave. 
 
 In the world's broad field of battle, 
 
 In the bivouac of Life, 
 Be not like dumb, driven cattle ! 
 
 Be a hero in the strife ! 
 
 Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant ! 
 
 Let the dead Past bury its dead ! 
 Act act in the living Present ! 
 
 Heart within, and God o'erhead ! 
 
 Lives of great men all remind us 
 
 We can make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 
 Footprints on the sands of time ;
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 Footprints, that perhaps another, 
 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
 A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 
 
 Seeing, shall take heart again. 
 
 Let us, then, be up and doing, 
 
 With a heart for any fate ; 
 Still achieving, still pursuing, 
 
 Learn to labour and to wait. 
 
 H. W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH. 
 
 UNDER a spreading chestnut tree 
 
 The village smithy stands ; 
 The smith, a mighty man is he, 
 
 With large and sinewy hands ; 
 And the muscles of his brawny arms 
 
 Are strong as iron bands. 
 
 His hair is crisp, and black, and long, 
 
 His face is like the tan ; 
 His brow is wet with honest sweat, 
 
 He earns whate'er he can, 
 And looks the whole world in the face, 
 
 For he owes not any man. 
 
 Week in, week out, from morn till night, 
 You can hear his bellows blow ; 
 
 You can hear him swing his heavy sledge, 
 With measured beat and slow, 
 
 Like a sexton ringing the village bell, 
 When the evening sun is low. 
 
 And children coming home from school 
 
 Look in at the open door ; 
 They love to see the flaming forge, 
 
 And hear the bellows roar, 
 And catch the burning sparks that fly 
 
 Like chaff from a thrashing-floor. 
 
 He goes on Sunday to the church, 
 
 And sits among his boys ; 
 He hears the parson pray and preach, 
 
 He hears his daughter's voice 
 Singing in the village choir, 
 
 And it makes his heart rejoice.
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 It sounds to him like her mother's voice, 
 
 Singing in Paradise ! 
 He needs must think of her once more 
 
 How in the grave she lies ; 
 And with his hard, rough hand he wipes 
 
 A tear out of his eyes. 
 
 Toiling rejoicing sorrowing, 
 
 Onward through life he goes ; 
 Each morning sees some task begun, 
 
 Each evening sees it close ; 
 Something attempted, something done, 
 
 Has earned a night's repose. 
 
 Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, 
 
 For the lesson thou hast taught ! 
 Thus at the flaming forge of life 
 
 Our fortunes must be wrought ; 
 Thus on its sounding anvil shaped 
 
 Each burning deed and thought ! 
 
 H. W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 NUREMBERG. 
 
 IN the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow lands 
 Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, 
 stands. 
 
 Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song, 
 Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them 
 throng : 
 
 Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold, 
 Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old ; 
 
 And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme, 
 That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every 
 clime. 
 
 In the courtyard of the castle, bound with many an iron band, 
 Stands the mighty linden, planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand ; 
 
 On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days 
 Sat the poet Melchior, singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise. 
 
 Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art 
 Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common 
 mart :
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 And above cathedral doorways, saints and bishops carved in stone; 
 By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own. 
 
 In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust, 
 And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their/ 
 trust ; 
 
 In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare, 
 Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air. 
 
 Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,. 
 Lived and laboured Albrecht Diirer, the Evangelist of Art ; 
 
 Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand, 
 Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land. 
 
 Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies ; 
 Dead he is not but departed for the artist never dies. 
 
 Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair, 
 That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its - 
 air ! 
 
 Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and 
 
 dismal lanes, 
 Walked of yore the Master-singers, chanting rude poetic strains. 
 
 From remote and sunless suburbs, came they to the friendly guild, 
 Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows 
 build. 
 
 As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme, 
 And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime ; 
 
 Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy 
 
 bloom 
 In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom. 
 
 Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler poet, laureate of the gentle craft, 
 Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed. 
 
 But his house is now an alehouse, with a nicely sanded floor, 
 And a garland in the window, and his face above the door ; 
 
 Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song, 
 As the old man gray and dove-like, with his great beard white and 
 long. 
 
 And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care, 
 Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master's antique chair. 
 
 13
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 Vanished is the ancient splendour, and before my dreamy eye 
 Wave these mingling shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry. 
 
 Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard ; 
 But thy painter, Albrecht Diirer, and Hans Sachs, thy cobbler bard. 
 
 Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer, from a region far away, 
 As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his 
 careless lay : 
 
 Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil, 
 The nobility of labour the long pedigree of toil. 
 
 H. W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 FROM EVANGELINE. 
 
 IT was the month of May. Far down the Beautiful River, 
 
 Past the Ohio shore, and past the mouth of the Wabash, 
 
 Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mississippi, 
 
 Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian boatmen. 
 
 It was a band of exiles ; a raft, as it were, from the shipwrecked 
 
 Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating together, 
 
 Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a common misfortune ; 
 
 Men and women and children, who, guided by hope or by hearsay, 
 
 Sought for their kith and their kin among the few-acred farmers 
 
 On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Opelousas. 
 
 With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the Father Felician. 
 
 Onward, o'er sunken sands, through a wilderness sombre with 
 
 forests, 
 
 Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river ; 
 Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on its borders. 
 Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, where plume-like 
 Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept with the 
 
 current, 
 
 Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sand-bars 
 Lay in the stream, and along the wimpling waves of their margin, 
 Shining with snow-white plumes, large flocks of pelicans waded. 
 Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the river, 
 Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gardens, 
 Stood the houses of planters, with negro cabins and dovecots. 
 They were approaching the region where reigns perpetual summer, 
 Where, through the golden coast, and groves of orange and citron, 
 Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the eastward. 
 They, too, swerved from their course ; and, entering the Bayou of 
 
 Plaquemine, 
 
 Soon were they lost in a maze of sluggish and devious waters, 
 Which, like a network of steel, extended in every direction.
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs of the cypress 
 Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in mid air 
 Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient cathedrals. 
 Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by the herons 
 Home to their roosts in the cedar-trees returning at sunset, 
 Or by the owl as he greeted the moon with demoniac laughter. 
 Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed on the water, 
 Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sustaining the arches, 
 Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through chinks in a 
 
 ruin. 
 
 Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were all things around them. 
 
 H. W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 LAND of the forest and the rock 
 
 Of dark-blue lake and mighty river 
 Of mountains reared aloft to mock 
 The storm's career, the lightning's shock 
 
 My own green land for ever ! 
 Land of the beautiful and brave 
 The freeman's home the martyr's grave 
 The nursery of giant men, 
 Whose deeds have linked with every glen, 
 And every hill, and every stream, 
 The romance of some warrior-dream ! 
 Oh, never may a son of thine, 
 Where'er his wandering steps incline., 
 Forget the sky which bent above 
 His childhood like a dream of love, 
 The stream beneath the green hill flowing, 
 The broad-armed trees above it growing, 
 The clear breeze through the foliage blowing ; 
 Or hear, unmoved, the taunt of scorn 
 Breathed o'er the brave New England born ; 
 Or mark the stranger's jaguar-hand 
 
 Disturb the ashes of thy dead, 
 The buried glory of a land 
 
 Whose soil with noble blood is red, 
 And sanctified in every part 
 
 Nor feel resentment, like a brand, 
 Unsheathing from his fiery heart ! 
 
 Oh, greener hills may catch the sun 
 Beneath the glorious heaven of France ; 
 
 And streams, rejoicing as they run 
 
 Like life beneath the day-beam's glance, 
 
 is
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 May wander where the orange bough 
 With golden fruit is bending low ; 
 And there may bend a brighter sky 
 O'er green and classic Italy 
 And pillared fane and ancient grave 
 
 Bear record of another time, 
 And over shaft and architrave 
 
 The green, luxuriant ivy climb ; 
 And far toward the rising sun 
 
 The palm may shake its leaves on high, 
 Where flowers are opening, one by one, 
 
 Like stars upon the twilight sky ; 
 And breezes soft as sighs of love 
 
 Above the broad banana stray, 
 And through the Brahmin's sacred grove 
 
 A thousand bright-hued pinions play ! 
 Yet unto thee, New England, still 
 
 Thy wandering sons shall stretch their arms, 
 And thy rude chart of rock and hill 
 
 Seem dearer than the land of palms ; 
 Thy massy oak and mountain-pine 
 
 More welcome than the banyan's shade ; 
 And every free, blue stream of thine 
 
 Seem richer than the golden bed 
 Of oriental waves, which glow 
 And sparkle with the wealth below ! 
 
 J. G. WIIITTIER, 
 
 THE STAR AND THE WATER-LILY. 
 
 THE Sun stepped down from his golden throne, 
 
 And lay in the silent sea, 
 And the Lily had folded her satin leaves, 
 
 For a sleepy thing was she ; 
 What is the Lily dreaming of? 
 
 Why crisp the waters blue ? 
 See, see, she is lifting her varnished lid ! 
 
 Her white leaves are glistening through ! 
 
 The Rose is cooling his burning cheek 
 
 In the lap of the breathless tide ; 
 The Lily hath sisters fresh and fair, 
 
 That would lie by the Rose's side ; 
 He would love her better than all the rest, 
 
 And he would be fond and true ; 
 But the Lily unfolded her weary lids, 
 
 And looked at the sky so blue.
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 Remember, remember, thou silly one, 
 
 How fast will thy summer glide, 
 And wilt thou wither a virgin pale, 
 
 Or flourish a blooming bride ? 
 * Oh, the Rose is old, and thorny, and cold, 
 
 And he lives on earth,' said she ; 
 * But the Star is fair, and he lives in the air, 
 
 And he shall my bridegroom be.' 
 
 But what if the stormy cloud should come, 
 
 And ruffle the silver sea ? 
 Would he turn his eye from the distant sky, 
 
 To smile on a thing like thee ? 
 O no, fair Lily, he will not send 
 
 One ray from his far-off throne ; 
 The winds shall blow and the waves shall flow, 
 
 And thou wilt be left alone. 
 
 There is not a leaf on the mountain-top, 
 
 Nor a drop of evening dew, 
 Nor a golden sand on the sparkling shore, 
 
 Nor a pearl in the waters blue, 
 That he has not cheered with his fickle smile, 
 
 And warmed with his faithless beam 
 And will he be true to a pallid flower, 
 
 That floats on the quiet stream ? 
 
 Alas, for the Lily ! she would not heed, 
 
 But turned to the skies afar, 
 And bared her breast to the trembling ray 
 
 That shot from the rising star ; 
 The cloud came over the darkened sky, 
 
 And over the waters wide ; 
 She looked in vain through the beating rain, 
 
 And sank in the stormy tide. 
 
 O. W. HOLMES. 
 
 THE RAVEN. 
 
 ONCE upon a midnight dreaiy, while I pondered, weak and weary 
 Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore 
 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 
 As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. 
 * 'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, ' tapping at my chamber door 
 
 Only this, and nothing more.' 
 
 17
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, 
 And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. 
 Eagerly I wished the morrow vainly I had sought to borrow 
 From my books surcease of sorrow sorrow for the lost Lenore 
 For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore 
 
 Nameless here for evermore. 
 
 And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain 
 Thrilled me filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before ; 
 So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating : 
 ' 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door 
 Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door ; 
 
 This it is, and nothing more.' 
 
 Presently my soul grew stronger ; hesitating then no longer, 
 ' Sir,' said I, ' or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore ; 
 But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, 
 And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, 
 That I scarce was sure I heard you' here I opened wide the 
 
 door 
 
 Darkness there, and nothing more. 
 
 Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, 
 
 fearing, 
 
 Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before ; 
 But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, 
 And the only word there spoken was the whispered word ' Lenore ! ' 
 This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word 
 
 ' Lenore ! ' 
 
 Merely this, and nothing more. 
 
 Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, 
 Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before. 
 ' Surely,' said I, ' surely that is something at my window lattice ; 
 Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore 
 Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore : 
 
 'Tis the wind, and nothing more.' 
 
 Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, 
 
 In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. 
 
 Not the least obeisance made he ; not a minute stopped or stayed 
 
 he; 
 
 But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door 
 Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door 
 
 Perched, and sat, and nothing more. 
 
 18
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, 
 
 By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, 
 
 ' Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, ' art sure no 
 
 craven, 
 
 Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore 
 Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore !' 
 
 Quoth the Raven : ' Nevermore.' 
 
 Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, 
 Though its answer little meaning little relevancy bore ; 
 For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being 
 Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door- 
 Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, 
 
 With such name as ' Nevermore.' 
 
 But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only 
 That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. 
 Nothing farther then he uttered ; not a feather then he fluttered 
 Till I scarcely more than muttered : ' Other friends have flown 
 
 before 
 
 On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.' 
 
 Then the bird said ' Nevermore.' 
 
 Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, 
 'Doubtless,' said I, 'what it utters is its only stock and store, 
 Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster 
 Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore 
 Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore 
 
 Of " Never nevermore."' 
 
 But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, 
 
 Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and 
 
 door; 
 
 Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking 
 Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore 
 What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore 
 
 Meant in croaking ' Nevermore.' 
 
 This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing 
 To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned -into my bosom's core ; 
 This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining 
 On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er, 
 But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er 
 
 She shall press, ah, nevermore 1 
 
 Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen 
 
 censer 
 
 Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. 
 
 19
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 I 
 
 * Wretch,' I cried, ' thy God hath lent thee by these angels he hath 
 
 sent thee 
 
 Respite respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore ! 
 Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore !' 
 
 Quoth the Raven : ' Nevermore.' 
 
 ' Prophet ! ' said I, ' thing of evil ! prophet still, if bird or devil ! 
 Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, 
 Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted 
 On this home by Horror haunted tell me truly, I implore 
 Is there is there balm in Gilead? tell me tell me, I implore !' 
 
 Quoth the Raven : ' Nevermore.' 
 
 ' Prophet !' said I, ' thing of evil prophet still, if bird or devil ! 
 By that heaven that bends above us by that God we both adore 
 Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn, 
 It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore 
 Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.' 
 
 Quoth the Raven : ' Nevermore.' 
 
 * Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend ! ' I shrieked, up- 
 
 starting 
 
 ' Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore ! 
 Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken ! 
 Leave my loneliness unbroken ! quit the bust above my door ! 
 Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my 
 
 door!' 
 
 Quoth the Raven : ' Nevermore.' 
 
 And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting 
 
 On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door ; 
 
 And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, 
 
 And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the 
 
 floor ; 
 
 And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor 
 
 Shall be lifted nevermore ! 
 
 E. A. POE. 
 
 ANNABEL LEE. 
 
 IT was many and many a year ago, 
 
 In a kingdom by the sea, 
 That a maiden there lived whom you may know 
 
 By the name of Annabel Lee ; 
 And this maiden she lived with no other thought 
 
 Than to love and be loved by me.
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 /was a child and she was a child, 
 
 In this kingdom by the sea : 
 But we loved with a love that was more than love 
 
 I and my Annabel Lee ; 
 With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven 
 
 Coveted her and me. 
 
 And this was the reason that, long ago, 
 
 In this kingdom by the sea, 
 A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 
 
 My beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
 So that her highborn kinsman came 
 
 And bore her away from me, 
 To shut her up in a sepulchre 
 
 In this kingdom by the sea. 
 
 The angels, not half so happy in heaven, 
 
 Went envying her and me 
 Yes ! that was the reason (as all men know, 
 
 In this kingdom by the sea) 
 That the wind came out of the cloud by night, 
 
 Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. 
 
 But our love it was stronger by far than the love 
 
 Of those who were older than we 
 
 Of many far wiser than we 
 And neither the angels in heaven above, 
 
 Nor the demons down under the sea, 
 Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 
 
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee : 
 
 For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams 
 
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
 And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes 
 
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
 And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 
 Of my darling my darling my life and my bride, 
 
 In the sepulchre there by the sea. 
 
 In her tomb by the sounding sea. 
 
 E. A. POE. 
 
 THE PIOUS EDITOR'S CREED. 
 
 I DU believe in Freedom's cause, 
 
 Ez fur away ez Paris is ; 
 I love to see her stick her claws 
 
 In them infarnal Pharisees ;
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 It 's wal enough agin a king 
 To dror resolves an' triggers 
 
 But libbaty's a kind o' thing 
 Thet don't agree with niggers. 
 
 I du believe the people want 
 
 A tax on teas an' coffees, 
 Thet nothin' ain't extravygunt 
 
 Purvidin' I 'm in office ; 
 Fer I hev loved my country sence 
 
 My eye-teeth filled their sockets, 
 An' Uncle Sam I reverence, 
 
 Partic'larly his pockets. 
 
 I du believe in any plan 
 
 O' levyin' the taxes, 
 Ez long ez, like a lumberman, 
 
 I git jest wut I axes : 
 I go free-trade thru thick an' thin, 
 
 Because it kind o' rouses 
 The folks to vote an' keeps us in 
 
 Our quiet custom-houses. 
 
 I du believe it 's wise an' good 
 
 To sen' out furrin missions, 
 Thet is, on sartin understood 
 
 An' orthydox conditions : 
 I mean nine thousan' dolls, per ann., 
 
 Nine thousan' more fer outfit, 
 An' me to recommend a man 
 
 The place 'ould jest about fit 
 
 I du believe in special ways 
 
 O' prayin' an' convartin' ; 
 The bread comes back in many days, 
 
 An' buttered, tu, fer sartin ; 
 I mean in preyin' till one busts 
 
 On wut the party chooses, 
 An' in convartin' public trusts 
 
 To very privit uses. 
 
 I du believe hard coin the stuff 
 Fer 'lectioneers to spout on ; 
 
 The people 's oilers soft enough 
 To make hard money out on ; 
 
 Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his, 
 An' gives a good-sized junk to all ;
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 I don't care how hard money is, 
 Ez long ez mine ; s paid punctooal. 
 
 I du believe with all my soul 
 
 In the gret Press's freedom, 
 To pint the people to the goal 
 
 An' in the traces lead 'em ; 
 Palsied the arm thet forges yokes 
 
 At my fat contracts squintin', 
 An' withered be the nose thet pokes 
 
 Inter the gov'ment printin' ! 
 
 I du believe thet I should give 
 
 Wut's his'n unto Caesar, 
 Fer it 's by him I move an' live, 
 
 From him my bread an' cheese air ; 
 I du believe thet all o' me 
 
 Doth bear his souperscription 
 Will, conscience, honour, honesty, 
 
 An' things o' thet description. 
 
 I du believe in prayer an' praise 
 
 To him thet hez the grantin' 
 O' jobs in every thin' thet pays, 
 
 But most of all in Cantin' ; 
 This doth my cup with marcies fill, 
 
 This lays all thought o' sin to rest : 
 I dorit believe in princerple, 
 
 But, oh ! I du in interest. 
 
 I du believe in bein' this 
 
 Or thet, ez it may happen 
 One way or t' other hendiest is 
 
 To ketch the people nappin' ; 
 It ain't by princerples nor men 
 
 My preudunt course is steadied ; 
 I scent wich pays the best, an' then 
 
 Go into it baldheaded. 
 
 I du believe thet holdin' slaves 
 
 Comes nat'ral tu a Presidunt, 
 Let 'lone the rowdedow it saves 
 
 To hev a wal-broke precedunt ; 
 Fer any office, small or gret, 
 
 I couldn't ax with no face, 
 Without I 'd ben, thru dry an' wet, 
 
 Th' unrizzest kind o' doughface. 
 
 33
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 I du believe wutever trash 
 
 '11 keep the people in blindness ; 
 Thet we the Mexicuns can thrash 
 
 Right inter brotherly kindness ; 
 Thet bombshells, grape, an' powder 'n' ball 
 
 Air good-will's strongest magnets, 
 Thet peace, to make it stick at all, 
 
 Must be druv in with bagnets. 
 
 In short, I firmly du believe 
 
 In Humbug generally, 
 Fer it 's a thing thet I perceive 
 
 To hev a solid vally ; 
 This heth my faithful shepherd ben, 
 
 In pasturs sweet heth led me, 
 An' this '11 keep the people green 
 
 To feed ez they hev fed me. 
 
 J. R. LOWELL. 
 
 WHAT MR ROBINSON THINKS. 
 
 GUVENER B. is a sensible man ; 
 
 He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks ; 
 He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can, 
 An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes : 
 But John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. 
 
 My ! ain't it terrible ? Wut shall we du ? 
 
 We can't never choose him, o' course thet 's flat ; 
 Guess we shall hev to come round (don't you ?), 
 An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that ; 
 Fer John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. 
 
 Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man : 
 
 He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf; 
 But consistency still wuz a part of his plan ; 
 He 's ben true to one party an' thet is himself. 
 So John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. 
 
 Gineral C. he goes in fer the war ; 
 
 He don't vally principle more 'n an old cud ; 
 
 4
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer, 
 But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood ? 
 So John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. 
 
 We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village, 
 
 With good old idees o' wut 's right an' wut ain't, 
 We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage, 
 An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint ; 
 But John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee. 
 
 The side of our country must oilers be took, 
 
 An' Presidunt Polk, you know, he is our country ; 
 An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book 
 Puts the debit to him, an' to us the per contryj 
 An' John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T. 
 
 Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies ; 
 
 Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest fee, fa-w^fiim; 
 An' thet all this big talk of our destinies 
 
 Is half on it ignorance, an' t' other half rum ; 
 But John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez it ain't no sech thing ; an', of course, so must we. 
 
 Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life 
 
 Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats 
 An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, 
 To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes ; 
 But John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee. 
 
 Wai, it 's a maVcy we Ve gut folks to tell us 
 
 The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow 
 God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers, 
 To drive the world's team wen it gits in a slough ; 
 Fer John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez the world '11 go right, ef he hollers out Gee ! 
 
 J. R. LOWELL. 
 25
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 MR BIGLOW ON THE CIVIL WAR (1862). 
 
 * * * * 
 
 IT 's war we 're in, not politics ; 
 
 It 's systems wrastlin' now, not parties ; 
 An' victory in the eend '11 fix 
 
 Where longest will an' truest heart is. 
 An' wut 's the Guv'ment folks about ? 
 
 Tryin' to hope ther' 's nothin' doin', 
 An' look ez though they didn't doubt 
 
 Sunthin' pertickler wuz a-brewin'. 
 
 Ther' 's critters yit thet talk an' act 
 
 Fer wut they call Conciliation ; 
 They'd hand a buff'lo-drove a tract 
 
 When they wuz madder than all Bashan. 
 Conciliate ? it jest means be kicked, 
 
 No metter how they phrase an' tone it ; 
 It means thet we 're to set down licked, 
 
 Thet we 're poor shotes an' glad to own it ! 
 
 A war on tick 's ez dear 'z the deuce, 
 
 But it wun't leave no lastin' traces, 
 Ez 'twould to make a sneakin' truce 
 
 Without no moral specie-basis : 
 Ef green-backs ain't nut jest the cheese, 
 
 I guess ther 5 's evils thet's extremer : 
 Fer instance shinplaster idees 
 
 Like them put out by Gov'nor Seymour. 
 
 Last year, the Nation, at a word, 
 
 When tremblin' Freedom cried to shield her, 
 Flamed weldin' into one keen sword 
 
 Waitin' an' longin' fer a wielder : 
 A splendid flash ! an' how 'd the grasp 
 
 With sech a chance ez thet wuz tally ? 
 Ther* warn't no meanin' in our clasp 
 
 Half this, half thet, all shilly-shally. 
 
 More men ? More Man ! It 's there we fail ; 
 
 Weak plans grow weaker yit by lengthenin' : 
 Wut use in addin' to the tail, 
 
 When it's the head's in need o' strengthenin'? 
 We wanted one thet felt all Chief 
 
 From roots o' hair to sole o' stockin', 
 Square-sot with thousan'-ton belief 
 
 In him an' us, ef earth went rockin' I
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 Ole Hick'ry wouldn't ha' stood see-saw 
 
 'Bout doin' things till they wuz done with ; 
 He 'd smashed the tables o' the Law 
 
 In time o' need to load his gun with ; 
 He couldn't see but jest one side 
 
 Ef his, 'twuz God's, an' thet wuz plenty ; 
 An' so his ' Forrards ! ' multiplied 
 
 An army's fightin' weight by twenty. 
 
 But this 'ere histin', creak, creak, creak, 
 
 Your cappen's heart up with a derrick, 
 This tryin' to coax a lightnin'-streak 
 
 Out of a half-discouraged hay-rick, 
 This hangin' on mont' arter mont' 
 
 Fer one sharp purpose 'mongst the twitter 
 I tell ye, it doos kind o' stunt 
 
 The peth an' sperit of a critter. 
 
 In six months where '11 the People be, 
 
 Ef leaders look on revolution 
 Ez though it wuz a cup o' tea 
 
 Jest social el'ments in solution ? 
 This weighin' things doos wal enough 
 
 When war cools down, an' comes to writin' ; 
 But while it 's makin', the true stuff 
 
 Is pison-mad, pig-headed fightin'. 
 
 Democ'acy gives every man 
 
 A right to be his own oppressor ; 
 But a loose Gov'ment ain t the plan, 
 
 Helpless ez spilled beans on a dresser : 
 I tell ye one thing we might larn 
 
 From them smart critters, the Seceders 
 Ef bein' right's the fust consarn, 
 
 The 'fore-the-fust 's cast-iron leaders. 
 
 But 'pears to me I see some signs 
 
 Thet we 're a-goin' to use our senses : 
 Jeff druv us into these hard lines, 
 
 An' ough' to bear his half th' expenses ; 
 Slavery 's Secession's heart an' will, 
 
 South, North, East, West, where'er you find it, 
 An' ef it drors in the War's mill, 
 
 D'ye say them thunder-stones sha'n't grind it? 
 
 D' ye s'pose, ef Jeff giv him a lick, 
 Ole Hick'ry 'd tried his head to sof'n 
 
 So 's 'twouldn't hurt thet ebony stick 
 Thet 's made our side see stars so of 'n ?
 
 SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN POETRY. 
 
 ' No !' he'd ha' thundered, ' on your knees, 
 
 An' own one flag, one road to glory ! 
 Soft-heartedness, in times like these, 
 
 Shews sof 'ness in the upper story ! ' 
 
 An' why should we kick-up a muss 
 
 About the Pres'dunt's proclamation ? 
 It ain't a-goin' to lib'rate us, 
 
 Ef we don't like emancipation : 
 The right to be a cussed fool 
 
 Is safe from all devices human, 
 It 's common (ez a gin'l rule) 
 
 To every critter born o' woman. 
 
 So ive're all right, an' I, fer one, 
 
 Don't think our cause '11 lose in valiy 
 By rammin' Scriptur' in our gun, 
 
 An' gittin' Natur' fer an ally : 
 Thank God, say I, fer even a plan 
 
 To lift one human bein's level, 
 Give one more chance to make a man, 
 
 Or, anyhow, to spile a devil ! 
 * * * 
 
 An' come wut will, I think it 's grand 
 
 Abe 's gut his will et last bloom-furnaced 
 In trial-flames till it '11 stand 
 
 The strain o' bein' in deadly earnest : 
 Thet 's wut we want we want to know 
 
 The folks on our side hez the bravery 
 To b'lieve ez hard, come weal, come woe, 
 
 In Freedom ez Jeff doos in Slavery. 
 
 Set the two forces foot to foot, 
 
 An' every man knows who '11 be winner, 
 Whose faith in God hez ary root 
 
 Thet goes down deeper than his dinner : 
 Then 'twill be felt from pole to pole, 
 
 Without no need o' proclamation, 
 Earth's Biggest Country 's gut her soul 
 
 An' risen up Earth's Greatest Nation ! 
 
 J. R. LOWELL, 
 
 a8
 
 IOBERT BRUCE AND WILLIAM WALLACE are 
 two names intimately associated with one of the most 
 heroic struggles for national independence which occurs 
 in any history. From an exceedingly remote period, 
 Scotland enjoyed the character of an unconquered coun- 
 try. Consisting for the greater part of mountains, and intersected 
 by arms of the sea, it naturally presents considerable difficulties to 
 the encroachments of a foreign enemy. Every successive attempt 
 at invasion and conquest, therefore, was less or more fruitless. The 
 Romans held possession of the more accessible part of it in the south 
 for some time, and the same tract of country afterwards became a 
 settlement of Anglo-Saxons. No foreign power was ever able to 
 obtain an entire or permanent possession of the country. Even 
 when England suffered a conquest from Norman intruders, Scotland 
 was unmolested, and continued to enioy its ancient freedom. In 
 25
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 the eleventh century, when regular history commences, the various 
 tribes and people Celts, Picts, and Scots who had settled in the 
 country were united in one monarchy ; and from this time Scotland 
 took its place in Europe as an independent kingdom. This consoli- 
 dation of power was afterwards promoted by the absorption of an 
 Anglo-Saxon district in the reign of Malcolm Canmore. After this, 
 many Normans, invited by the Scottish kings, settled in the country, 
 and the people in process of time acquired the language, the arts, 
 and many of the customs of their English neighbours. Not satisfied 
 with cultivating this friendly relationship, it was the misfortune of 
 the English sovereigns to become afflicted with a fierce desire to 
 conquer and hold Scotland in subjection, at a time when it was 
 labouring under a severe domestic calamity, and least able to repel 
 aggression. There now ensued between the two countries a pro- 
 tracted and disastrous war, in which every evil and every noble 
 passion was evoked on the one hand, a villainous thirst of ambition, 
 which stopped at no means for its gratification ; and on the other, a 
 spirit of heroic independence, which would brook no such unjustifi- 
 able oppression. We propose to relate the story of this great war of 
 independence, which, till the present day, is spoken of with much 
 excusable pride by the Scottish people ; and in doing so, we shall 
 have occasion to expatiate on the deeds of the two heroes whose 
 names, have been mentioned William Wallace, by whom the war 
 was begun, and Robert Bruce, who brought it to a successful issue. 
 
 The wish to conquer and possess Scotland, and so subdue the 
 entire island of Great Britain, had been a favourite project of the 
 Anglo-Norman sovereigns ever since they had fixed themselves in 
 England by the victory of Hastings (1066). A pretext was at length 
 found for at least making the attempt. The kings of Scotland had 
 family possessions in Northumberland, in virtue of which they 
 enjoyed the rank of English earls, and so far they were vassals of 
 the English monarchy. Henry II. was desirous that the acknow- 
 ledgment of vassalage should extend to the whole of Scotland ; but 
 this he had no means of enforcing except by stratagem. In one of 
 the warlike expeditions of the English into Northumberland in 1174, 
 they had the address to take captive the Scottish king, William the 
 Lion ; and making the most of this lucky accident, they would not 
 release the royal prisoner till he had given a formal acknowledgment 
 of vassalage to England for his entire kingdom ; and in the same 
 deed of submission there was included an article implying the supe- 
 riority of the English over the Scottish ecclesiastics. The thought 
 of what had been done rankled in all Scottish hearts ; and from 
 that period the Scottish king and the Scottish clergy took every 
 opportunity of resenting the indignity to which they had been forced 
 to submit, and of declaring to the world that they did not consider 
 the agreement binding. 
 
 Henry II., the author of this inglorious stratagem, died in 1189;
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 and Richard Cceur de Lion, his son, too generous to profit by his 
 father's mean action, and perhaps also influenced by necessity, sold 
 back to the Scottish king, for ten thousand merks, all the rights 
 which Henry had extorted. By this tranquillising measure, matters 
 between the two kingdoms were restored to precisely the footing on 
 which they had been before the capture of William. Passing over 
 various attempts which the successors of Richard made to renew 
 their unjustifiable claim, we arrive at the year 1252, when Henry III. 
 was king of England, and Alexander III., then but a boy of ten 
 years of age, king of Scotland. Alexander had been betrothed in 
 infancy to Henry's daughter, Margaret ; and in that year he went to 
 York, to have the marriage-ceremony performed. While in England, 
 the crafty Henry tried to extort from him an acknowledgment of 
 vassalage for the kingdom of Scotland; but the boy had been well 
 instructed ere he left home, and his reply to his father-in-law's 
 demand was, that in a ' matter of such consequence he could not 
 decide without the advice of his parliament.' Eight years after- 
 wards, when Margaret his queen, about to give birth to an heir, 
 wished the event to take place at her father's court, and her husband 
 accompanied her in her journey, the jealousy of the Scotch in this 
 long-contested matter was shewn by their insisting on an agreement 
 being made, that during the royal stay in England, no affairs of state 
 should be discussed or transacted. But Alexander was a king after 
 their own heart, worthy to be intrusted even singly with the high 
 charge of defending his country's liberty. Nobly and manfully, 
 while he reigned in Scotland, did he repel the claims and encroach- 
 ments of his able and profound brother-in-law, Edward I., the 
 successor of Henry. Alexander III. seems to have been one of the 
 best and wisest kings that ever sat on the Scottish throne. He is 
 known to this day as the good king Alexander. In his reign, Scot- 
 land rose to be a kingdom of some importance ; foreign ships laden 
 with costly commodities visited its shores ; the din of the anvil was 
 heard in the village streets ; the shuttle of the weaver plied its busy 
 labours ; the cattle lowed on the hills ; and plenty abounded in the 
 land. It was also a period of profound tranquillity ; and this happy 
 condition of affairs was so exceedingly remarkable, that till this day 
 it is referred to in all charters of the Scottish chancery as ' the time 
 of peace.' 
 
 This national tranquillity and prosperity suddenly came to an end. 
 The good king Alexander III., on the i6th of March 1286, was 
 killed by a fall from his horse while hunting at Kinghorn, in Fife, 
 and the intelligence of the event spread a foreboding gloom over the 
 whole kingdom. The heir to the Scottish throne was Alexander's 
 grand-daughter, Margaret, daughter of Eric of Norway, a child two 
 years of age. Edward I. had resolved on the marriage of this little 
 Norway maiden to his son Edward, as a peaceful means of carrying 
 into effect the family project of incorporating the two kingdoms ; 
 
 3
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 ''but in this he was disappointed. On the ist of September 1290, 
 the young queen died at the Orkney Islands, on her voyage from 
 Norway. In her the royal line of William the Lion was extinct, 
 and an empty throne was now to be contended for. 
 
 Competitors flocked in from every quarter. All over Scotland, 
 there was a ransacking of genealogies ; and whosoever could find 
 that an intermarriage with the royal line had ever taken place in his 
 family, came and claimed to be made king. Altogether, there were 
 >no fewer than eleven competitors. Out of these, the two who had 
 the preferable title were Robert Bruce and John Baliol. Baliol was 
 the grandson of the eldest daughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon, 
 brother of William the Lion. Bruce was the son of the second 
 daughter of the same David, Earl of Huntingdon. In the dispute 
 between these two, therefore, an important principle of succession 
 had to be settled. It had to be decided whether the grandson of an 
 elder daughter, or the son of a younger, had the better title. This 
 question has been settled now by precedents ; but at that time it 
 was perplexing to lawyers and legislators. For some reason, not 
 distinctly stated in historical annals, the whole matter was referred 
 to the arbitration of Edward L, who, to his everlasting dishonour, 
 declared neither for Baliol nor Bruce, but for himself as sovereign, 
 recognising Baliol, however, as his vassal-king ; and accordingly 
 he had that weak-minded man crowned at Scone, November 30, 
 1292. 
 
 The vassal monarchy of Baliol was everywhere in Scotland con- 
 sidered to be a mockery. Edward was observed to be the king, as 
 far as power was concerned, for he filled the towns and forts with 
 -garrisons of English soldiers, and had received the allegiance of the 
 ^Scottish nobles. Edward's design was clearly to incorporate Scot- 
 land with England. On the most insignificant pretexts, Baliol was 
 made to trudge to the Eiiglish court, there to appear as a chief 
 retainer or vassal of the English crown. An appeal was opened in 
 Scotch lawsuits to the English courts at Westminster. The Scotch 
 nobles were occasionally required to repeat the humbling ceremony 
 of taking the oath of fealty. Such ancient historical papers as fell 
 into the hands of the English were made away with. English eccle- 
 siastics were preferred to abbeys and other high offices in the Scotch 
 church ; and, in the end, the conqueror marked, by two very impres- 
 sive pieces of ceremonial, that Scotland was now to be considered 
 a mere province of England : the great seal of the kingdom was 
 broken in pieces, the fragments being deposited in the English 
 treasury; and the famous stone on which the kings of Scotland had 
 been crowned for upwards of eight hundred years was carried away 
 from Scone, and placed in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 These humiliating inflictions, which occurred between the years 
 1291 and 1297, stung the Scotch bitterly, and they only gave a 
 temporary and grumbling submission. On this as on all other
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 occasions of aggression, the English were utterly regardless of 
 the feelings of the people among whom they intruded themselves. 
 Suffering under accumulated outrages, the Scotch at length made 
 an attempt, with Baliol at their head, to drive out the English, 
 and restore native usages; but it failed. The battle of Dunbar, 
 fought in the spring of 1296, served still more to strengthen the 
 power of Edward. Baliol was taken prisoner, and sent off to 
 London; and thenceforth all the accessible parts of the country 
 were placed under the government of English officials. 
 
 WALLACE. 
 
 It was in 1297, the period at which we are now arrived, that 
 William Wallace burst into public view. This young and ardent 
 patriot was born at I Elderslie, near Paisley. His father was Sir 
 Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie, and his mother was the daughter 
 of Sir Hugh Crawford, sheriff of Ayr. Although descended from 
 a Norman family, Wallace, like his father, was a true Scotchman. 
 While he was a boy, his father and elder brother were killed fighting 
 against the English intruders, and this sad event threw him entirely 
 on the care of his mother, with whom he resided for a time in 
 different parts of the country. As he advanced in years, he was 
 committed to the charge of his uncle, a priest at Dunipace, in 
 Stirlingshire, and from him he received the rudiments of a liberal 
 education. From Dunipace he removed to Dundee, where, becoming 
 morbidly alive to his family's and his country's wrongs, he slew 
 one of the English garrison who had unceremoniously insulted him. 
 He now retired into Ayrshire, and, according to the traditions of 
 the country, scrupled not to encounter and punish any English 
 soldiery who made themselves amenable to his irregular discipline. 
 Of large stature and fair proportions, his strength now and after- 
 wards is described as having been considerably beyond that of other 
 men, while, though rash and incautious, his temper is said to have 
 been exceedingly mild, and his disposition generous. Sympathising 
 with the common people in their sufferings, and often succouring 
 them in their necessities, he became endeared to them in an extra- 
 ordinary degree ; and, till the present day, no man in Scotland has 
 ever ranked so high in popular esteem as ' Wallace Wight ' the 
 name by which our hero has been fondly remembered by the 
 peasantry. 
 
 While rendering himself notorious by his exploits throughout the 
 shires of Ayr, Renfrew, and Lanark, Wallace does not appear to 
 have signalised himself as a public champion till after the battle 
 of Dunbar, when about twenty-six years of age. He now, in con- 
 nection with a chosen band of patriots, equally reckless, led the 
 life of a guerrilla chief in the recesses of Clydesdale, occasionally 
 issuing forth and taking signal vengeance on the English garrisons
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 which incautiously exposed themselves to attack. Among the most 
 noted of his associates in these hazardous operations were Sir 
 Andrew Murray, Sir William Douglas, Robert Boyd, David Barclay 
 of Towie, Hugh Dundas, Alexander Scrymgeour, and John Blair, 
 a priest. A body of from ten to thirty always remaining together 
 in the forest," the sound of Wallace's bugle could increase it on 
 special occasions, by summoning recruits from the villages and 
 hamlets round about. Thus he continued for several months, daily 
 gaining new adherents, and extending the range of his operations, 
 till at last there was not an English garrison in all that district in 
 which stories were not told by the soldiers to each other of the 
 formidable doings of the turbulent robber of Clydesdale. Many 
 monuments remain in that district to the present day, such as 
 upright stones, secret caves, and half-obliterated forts, to attest 
 the traditionary accounts of these engagements with the English, 
 as well as the many hairbreadth escapes of Wallace, when some 
 extraordinary military errand led him to quit the forest without 
 any followers. 
 
 Wallace was now become exceedingly formidable to the English 
 intruders, whom it was his object to exterminate without mercy ; 
 and many Scottish nobles began to think that if matters continued 
 to proceed as successfully, it would be safe for them ere long to 
 forswear their allegiance to Edward. On the other hand, attempts 
 seem to have been made by the English officials to tamper with 
 Wallace through his mother's relations. But it is the proudest 
 fact in the patriot's history, that never once during his whole life 
 did he make a single acknowledgment of Edward's right to govern 
 Scotland. While others went and came, took the vows when they 
 were in extremity, and broke them when hope revived; while the 
 Corny ns and the Bruces and other great nobles were living in 
 ignoble security at Edward's court, watching a safe opportunity of 
 being patriotic; nay, while even the fair fame of Douglas himself 
 was tarnished in the end, Wallace, hunted with sleuth-hounds 
 through the woods, or hiding in the hollows of trees, never once did 
 a false or mean thing, but lived and died, in the midst of slaves, a 
 true Scottish freeman. 
 
 But, alas ! what neither promises nor threats, nor hunger nor 
 danger, could effect, a power greater than any of them took on hand. 
 Wallace fell in love an incident important enough in any man's life, 
 but, as it appears to us, unusually so in that of Wallace. Going 
 to the kirk of Lanark one day, Wallace saw Marion Bradfute, the 
 orphan daughter of Sir Hugh Bradfute of Lamington. Father, 
 mother, and brother dead, the orphan girl lived a retired life in 
 Lanark, purchasing protection from insult by paying a sum of money 
 to Hazelrig, the English governor, who, it is said, intended to marry 
 her and her estate to his son. She was now eighteen, and an 
 ancient minstrel gives this interesting description of her : 
 
 6.
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 ' All suffered she, and richt lowly her bare, 
 Amiable, so benign, and wise, 
 Courteous and sweet, full-filled of gentleness, 
 Well ruled of tongue;' &c. 
 
 For a time, Wallace struggled between love and duty between 
 Scotland and Marion Bradfute. He endeavoured to reconcile both 
 sentiments by marrying the gentle Marion. For some time after 
 this event, which was kept a profound secret, his enterprises were 
 confined to the neighbourhood of Lanark, and the English had a 
 respite. But Wallace was to be restored to his country. 
 
 Returning home from one of his forays, our hero was recognised 
 by some English soldiers, and attacked in the streets of Lanark. 
 He was nearly being overpowered, when a well-known door opened, 
 a hand beckoned him, and dashing in, he escaped into the woods 
 behind. It was the house of Wallace's wife, the heiress of Lamington. 
 The secret was now divulged, and, by Hazelrig's orders, the poor 
 girl was hanged. All Lanark was horror-struck; and intelligence 
 of the event reaching the distracted husband, he returned with his 
 party at night, slew the wretch Hazelrig, and drove the English from 
 the town. Nothing now stood between Wallace and his duty to his 
 country. 
 
 After this tragic circumstance, Wallace carried on his operations 
 on a more extended scale. With a party greatly increased in 
 numbers, he found himself strong enough to lay siege to some of the 
 most important garrisoned towns. The most signal of these achieve- 
 ments was his taking of Glasgow, which was occupied by a strong 
 body of soldiers under Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham, and his 
 extirpating a colony which Edward had planted in Argyleshire, 
 under an Irish chief called M'Fadyan. These successes, followed 
 up by a number of other sieges and engagements, made the final 
 deliverance of the whole country appear possible. 
 
 One of Wallace's most noted exploits about this time was the 
 burning of what were called the Barns of Ayr. It appears that the 
 English governor of Ayr had invited a large number of the Scottish 
 nobility and gentry to meet him at these barns or buildings, for the 
 purpose, as he said, of friendly conference on the affairs of Scotland. 
 His design, however, was base and treacherous. It was his object 
 to put the whole assembly of gentlemen to death, by causing soldiers 
 in attendance to run nooses over their heads, and then hang them 
 to the beams of the roof. Unsuspicious of any such plot, a large 
 number came on the appointed day, and, as they were admitted into 
 the house, nooses were thrown over their heads, and they were 
 immediately drawn up to the beams overhead and hanged. Sir 
 Reginald Crawford, sheriff of Ayrshire, and uncle to Wallace, was 
 among the sufferers in this infamous tragedy. As soon as Wallace 
 heard of this outrage on some of the best men in Scotland, he was 
 
 7
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 dreadfully enraged ; and collecting his men, proceeded to revenge 
 his country on the contrivers and executioners of the crime. He 
 proceeded very cautiously in this enterprise, his plan being to take 
 the English unawares. One night, accordingly, when he learned 
 that they had laid themselves down to sleep, after feasting and 
 drinking, in the same large barns in which the Scottish gentlemen 
 had been murdered, he led his men to the attack. A woman who 
 knew the place, friendly to Wallace, obligingly marked the doors of 
 the houses in which the English lay, and these outlets were imme- 
 diately fastened with ropes. Thus secured, the doors were set on fire 
 with burning straw. Roused from their slumbers by the noise and 
 smell of the burning, the English endeavoured to escape ; but they 
 were driven back into their burning houses, or put to death on the 
 spot. Thus perished, either by fire or the sword, the principal 
 perpetrators of an unjustifiable crime ; the deed still more spreading 
 abroad the fame of Wallace's heroism.* 
 
 In addition to the few men of note who had gathered round him 
 at the outset of his career, others of the Scottish nobles now joined 
 him. Among these were the Stewart and his brother, Robert 
 Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, Alexander Lindsay, Sir Richard 
 Lundin, and lastly, young Robert Bruce, afterwards King Robert, 
 who, long fretting in his ignoble servitude at the court of Edward, 
 had taken an opportunity of escaping, breaking the oath which he 
 had sworn to the conqueror on the sword of Thomas a Becket. A 
 revolt made so alarming by these accessions, Edward determined 
 decisively to crush. Urged by his commands, Warenne, the governor, 
 sent Sir Henry Percy and Sir Robert Clifford with a large force 
 against the associated Scottish leaders. The latter were encamped 
 near the town of Irvine, and, becoming alarmed for their safety, all, 
 with the exception of Wallace and Sir Andrew Murray, gave up 
 thoughts of fighting, and signed a treaty drawn up by the Bishop of 
 Glasgow, submitting themselves, and expressing contrition for having 
 ' risen in arms against our Lord Edward, and against his peace in 
 his territories of Scotland and Galloway.' Wallace and Murray, 
 indignant at this pusillanimity, retired into the north, there to wait 
 a time for retrieving what had been lost by the cowardice of their 
 associates. Before going northward, however, Wallace went straight 
 to Glasgow, and, as a mark of his opinion of Wishart's conduct in 
 drawing up the treaty, demolished his house, carrying off his horses 
 and furniture. 
 
 Wallace was not idle while in the north, for we find him at Forfar, 
 Brechin, Montrose, Dunnottar, and Aberdeen, beating the English 
 
 *This, like most other anecdotes of Wallace, is gathered from The Adventures of 
 Sir William Wallace, a work written in verse from popular tradition about the year 1460, 
 by a wandering poet usually called Blind Harry, and which has long been a favourite volume 
 amongst the Scottish peasantry. It was the study of this book which had so great an effect 
 in kindling the genius oT Burns. 
 8
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 out of them all. He had come southward again, and was engaged 
 in besieging Dundee, when he was informed that a powerful English 
 army, with Warenne at its head, was marching northward. Leaving 
 strict injunctions to the townsmen to continue the siege of the 
 garrison of Dundee, he hastened southward, and encamped at 
 Cambuskenneth, near Stirling Bridge. Warenne having been super- 
 seded in the governorship, wished to avoid an engagement till his 
 successor, Brian Fitzallen, should arrive to take the responsibility. 
 He therefore sent two friars to attempt a truce with Wallace ; but 
 they were sent back with a defiance, and the battle commenced. 
 The military sagacity of Sir Richard Lundin, and Warenne's own 
 prudence, were overborne by the zeal of the hot-headed Cressingham, 
 who insisted on crossing the bridge, in order to fall directly upon 
 the Scotch. The result was a total defeat of the English army. 
 The Scotch rushed down upon them as they were crossing, slaught- 
 ered them in masses on the bridge, drove hundreds into the river, 
 and made havoc of the fugitives. Cressingham was killed ; and 
 so obnoxious had this official made himself to the Scotch, that, 
 animated by the barbarous feelings of the period, they made sword- 
 belts of his skin. In this battle the Scotch lost but few men. The 
 brave Sir Andrew Murray, however, a colleague worthy of Wallace, 
 was mortally wounded. The remains of the English army fled in 
 confusion to Berwick. 
 
 Not long after this battle, in the end of 1297 or the beginning of 
 1298, we find Wallace using the title of 'Guardian of Scotland in 
 the name of King John, and by the consent of the Scottish nation.' 
 The manner of his assuming such a title has been made a subject of 
 debate, some insisting that it was regularly conferred at a meeting 
 at which certain of the Scotch nobles were present ; others, that no 
 such meeting was held ; and others, that Baliol had sent Wallace a 
 private commission appointing him regent. However this might be, 
 it was a regency in the sovereign's name, with the approbation of 
 the nation ; and although the title roused many invidious feelings 
 among the Scottish nobility, Wallace used his power with great 
 discretion, and never aimed at being anything more than a servant 
 of the state. A person in his circumstances, animated by vulgar 
 ambition, would have aimed at becoming king. 
 
 Wallace's regency did not last a year ; but during this brief period 
 lie manifested his ability for governing with a judicious and strict 
 hand. The only obstacle he had to encounter was the mean jealousy 
 of certain Scottish nobles, who resented his assumption of power ; 
 though there was evidently no other person able to preserve order, 
 or quell the enemies of the country. It may be remarked that, 
 throughout the whole struggle for independence, comparatively few 
 of the Scottish aristocracy afforded any assistance. Inclining either 
 to the side of Edward, at whose court they looked for advancement, 
 or holding coldly aloof, they left the main difficulties to be achieved 
 25 ' 9
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 by men of inferior rank. Wallace, a man of the people, and of a 
 sagacious mind, perceived that the feudal power of the barons was 
 inconsistent with civil freedom, and he had the boldness to contrive 
 a plan by which it should be relinquished, and the people at large 
 be left their own masters, and at the disposal of the state. He did 
 not remain sufficiently long in power to accomplish this design ; but 
 during his short guardianship he adopted measures for encouraging 
 foreign trade. A letter has lately been discovered in the archives 
 of Hamburg, written at Haddington, nth October 1297, by 'Andrew- 
 Murray and William Wallace, commanders of the army of the 
 kingdom,' and addressed to the mayor and citizens of Liibeck and 
 Hamburg. The purport of this interesting document is expressed 
 in the request that ' the mayor and citizens will cause it to be made 
 known among the merchants, that Scotland being now, by God's 
 blessing, delivered out of the hands of the English, they may now 
 have free access to all the Scottish ports with their goods and 
 commodities.' 
 
 The period of national tranquillity was short. At the time of the 
 battle of Stirling, Edward was in Flanders, and when he returned to 
 England in the spring of 1298, he immediately turned his attention 
 to Scotland. He first summoned the Scottish nobles to meet him 
 at York ; and, when the fear of Wallace's vengeance prevented them 
 from going thither, he collected an immense army, and marched 
 northward at the head of it, to redeem the defeats of former com- 
 manders by his own military genius. The detention of the fleet, to 
 which he trusted for provisions, and the mutinous conduct of his 
 army, owing to the number of Welsh in it, involved Edward in such 
 difficulties, that he had almost determined on a retreat into England, 
 when he received intelligence that the Scotch were willing to risk a 
 battle, and were drawn up near Falkirk. He immediately marched 
 thither. Wallace, who commanded the Scotch infantry or spear- 
 men, had drawn them up in four circular bodies. In the spaces 
 between these bodies of spearmen were posted the archers, under 
 Sir John Stewart. There were but a thousand horse, and these 
 were in the rear, commanded by Comyn. The English infantry 
 were drawn up in three divisions ; but Edward relied principally 
 on his cavalry. A morass lay between the two armies. ' I have 
 brought you to the ring,' said Wallace to his men, before the battle 
 commenced, in jocular allusion to some now obsolete game ; ' hop 
 gif ye can. 1 The fight was long and desperate. The Scottish spear- 
 men stood like stone walls. But at length the impetus of the 
 English cavalry, assisted by showers of stones and arrows from the 
 infantry, thinned and broke them. A total defeat ensued, and an 
 immense number was left dead or taken prisoners. The defeat is 
 easily enough to be accounted for by the great superiority of the 
 English in numbers, and especially in cavalry ; but tradition will 
 not accept this explanation, and insists that the defeat was owing to
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 the refusal of the two aristocratic leaders to co-operate with Wallace,, 
 and to a positive act of treachery on Comyn's part during the battle. 
 Sir John Stewart was among the killed. Wallace, with the remains 
 of his infantry, retreated to Stirling, which he set on fire. Edward 
 withdrew into England, leaving Scotland crushed for the meantime 
 in military strength, but still unconquered. 
 
 Little was done in 1299. Wallace resigned the guardianship, 
 which he could no longer hold except by force ; and John Comyn 
 the younger, the elder Bruce, and Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews, 
 were appointed his joint-successors. The real power was that of 
 Comyn, a name exceedingly disliked in popular Scotch history. 
 Wallace retired into private life, ready to resume military command 
 on any emergency ; but he had hardly any opportunity of doing so ; 
 for, owing to a difference with his nobility, Edward could not carry 
 immediately into effect his design of invading Scotland. This year, 
 however, Baliol, who had been a prisoner in London since 1296, was 
 released, and sent to France. After this, he is not mentioned in history. 
 It was not till 1303 that anything occurred to call Wallace again 
 into active life. The reason of this is, that two or three years were 
 occupied by a controversy between Edward and Pope Boniface VIII. 
 respecting the sovereignty of Scotland, the pope claiming Scotland 
 as a territory of the church, and Edward maintaining that it was 
 his. This dispute gave Scotland a breathing-time, which, under an 
 efficient government, might have been improved, so as permanently to 
 secure her independence. During this period of tranquillity, Wallace 
 visited France. 
 
 Edward's blow was only suspended. With a zeal and vigour more 
 than sufficient to compensate for the loss of time, the English monarch, 
 in 1303, recommenced the war. As most open to attack, the country 
 round Edinburgh was invaded, and here several engagements took 
 place between the troops of Edward and the Scottish chiefs. One 
 of these was the battle of Roslin, fought by Comyn, the Guardian of 
 Scotland, and Simon Frazer of Tweeddale, on the one side, and 
 Segrave on the other. The English suffered a defeat on this occa- 
 sion ; but in other quarters they were more successful, and ravaged 
 the country as far as Caithness. All that Wallace could do in such 
 a strait was to attack marching-parties, and storm weakly garrisoned 
 fortresses, as he did when he was a mere outlaw chief, winding his 
 bugle through the forest of Clydesdale. 
 
 From Caithness to Galloway, Scotland was now in the possession 
 of the English ; the Highlands, however, presenting too many diffi- 
 culties for attack. On the 9th of February 1304, the Comyn govern- 
 ment gave in its resignation. A treaty was drawn up, in which the 
 Scottish nobles stipulated for their lives, their liberties, and their 
 estates, subject to such fines as Edward should see fit to impose upon 
 them by way of punishment. From the benefits of this amnesty there 
 were excepted by name the following eight persons : David Graham,
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 Alexander Lindsay, Sir John Soulis, the Stewart, Wishart, Bishop of 
 Glasgow, Simon Frazer, Thomas Boys, and William Wallace. We 
 have arranged the names in the order corresponding to the severity 
 of the punishment to be inflicted on them. Graham and Lindsay 
 were to leave Scotland for six months ; Soulis, the Stewart, and the 
 Bishop of Glasgow, were to be banished for two years ; Frazer and 
 Boys were to be banished for three years ; and during that time they 
 were to reside neither in England nor France. ' As for William 
 Wallace,' says the treaty, ' it is agreed that he shall render himself 
 up at the will and mercy of our sovereign lord the king.' 
 
 As Wallace had no disposition to render himself up in accordance 
 with this arrangement, means were adopted to capture him j but, in 
 spite of every attempt, he continued for several months to wander 
 abouf, accompanied by a few of his outlaw followers. Tradition also 
 mentions that at this time Wallace and young Robert Bruce were in 
 secret communication with each other, and that Wallace was medi- 
 tating a new insurrection against Edward, for the purpose of placing 
 Bruce on the throne. In this last effort he was not doomed to be 
 successful. On the 5th of August 1305, he was treacherously delivered 
 up by Sir John Menteith to the English, by whom he was taken, 
 under a strong guard, to London. The rest is soon told. Wallace 
 was tried, on a charge of high treason, in Westminster Hall, and, as 
 a matter of course, condemned. In a few days thereafter, this gallant 
 and unfortunate patriot was ignominiously and cruelly put to death 
 on a scaffold at Smithfield ; to the last protesting against the injustice 
 of his sentence, and declaring that all he had done he would do over 
 again, and more, for his beloved and much- abused country. 
 
 BRUCE. 
 
 The death of the noble-minded Wallace sent a pang through 
 Scotland, and from that moment there was a still fiercer desire to 
 shake the country free of its oppressor. Young Bruce, as we have 
 seen, had already formed some resolutions on the subject, which this 
 new atrocity did not by any means weaken. As the one patriot 
 sinks, therefore, the other rises, and becomes prominent in the page 
 of history. Bruce, like Wallace, was a descendant of a Norman 
 settler in Scotland. His ancestor was Robert de Bruce, who received 
 a grant of lands in Annandale from David I. in the early part of 
 the twelfth century. The great-great-grandson of this first of the 
 Scottish Bruces was the Robert Bruce who competed with Baliol for 
 the crown, at which time he was considerably advanced in life. The 
 son of this Robert the competitor, also called Robert, married the 
 Countess of Carrick, and by her he had a large family ; his eldest 
 son, likewise named Robert, being born on the 2ist of March 1274. 
 At the time of good King Alexander's death, in 1286, when the 
 troubles of Scotland began, there were three generations of Bruces
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 alive father, son, and grandson ; on the last of whom, as it will 
 appear, fell the task of achieving his country's freedom. 
 
 Young Bruce spent his early years at Turnberry Castle, in Ayr- 
 shire, and at about the age of sixteen, on the death of his mother, he 
 succeeded to the earldom of Carrick. Old Bruce the grandfather 
 died in 1295 ; Bruce his son died in 1304; and young Bruce, Earl 
 of Carrick, was now the sole representative of the House. The Earl 
 of Carrick was upwards of thirty years of age before he assumed the 
 character of a patriot. His father had lived chiefly in England, with 
 little inclination to put forward any claims on the Scottish crown ; 
 and, bred up with a wish to conciliate Edward's favour, he himself 
 was inclined to remain a peaceful subject of England, and on one 
 occasion took oaths of fealty to him. The heroism and the fate of 
 Wallace at length stimulated him to view matters differently. His 
 conduct for some years was marked by great prudence, if not dissimu- 
 lation. He became desirous of attempting to free Scotland from 
 English intrusion, provided it could be done with a good chance 
 of success. The disappearance of Baliol in 1304, by opening up a 
 prospect of gaining the crown, no doubt contributed to fix his 
 wavering resolutions. Yet there was a rival to his aspirations after 
 kingly honours : this was a personage usually known by the title of 
 the Red Comyn, and against whom he had a grudge, on account of 
 Comyn having perfidiously made known to Edward that Bruce was 
 wavering in his allegiance. Happening to visit Dumfries, on the occa- 
 sion of a meeting of a court of justice, at which many of the feudal 
 chiefs attended, Bruce there met the Red Comyn in the church. 
 of the Minorite Friars (February 4, 1305-6). The result of such an 
 interview in such an age of strife might almost be anticipated. 
 Pacing backward and forward in the aisles of the church, con- 
 versing together on matters of import, these two fiery spirits came to- 
 high words, Bruce reproaching Comyn with his treachery. At last, 
 when near the altar, something which Comyn said provoked Bruce 
 so much that he drew his dagger and stabbed him. Comyn fell, 
 the blood flowing from him on the pavement of the sanctuary. 
 Shocked at his rash act, Bruce rushed out of the church, and his 
 friends, Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, and Sir Christopher Seton, meeting 
 him at the door, asked what he had done. He said : ' I doubt I have 
 killed the Comyn.' ' Doubt ! ' cried Kirkpatrick ; ' I'll mak sicker* (I 
 will make sure) ; and running into the church, he finished the Comyn. 
 with one or two stabs. Seton at the same time killed an uncle of 
 Comyn, who had rushed in to assist him. This deed of blood scan- 
 dalised all religious feeling, and Bruce ever aftenvards looked on it 
 as the sin of his life ; not, however, the act of assassinating his rival 
 for in these days killing was recognised as a mode of action which 
 it was quite legitimate to adopt but because the assassination of 
 Comyn had been effected in a church. This was considered a 
 sacrilege only to be atoned for by a long life of toil, penitence, and
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 good deeds. Whatever were the feelings of Bruce afterwards, he 
 now seems to have considered that, by the riddance of his rival, the 
 time was come for throwing off his ill-disguised, and, as he styled 
 it, compulsory allegiance to the king of England. Collecting his 
 followers, therefore, he immediately took possession of the town of 
 Dumfries. The English justiciaries shut themselves up in the place 
 where they were holding their sittings ; but Bruce threatening to set 
 it on fire, they surrendered, and were suffered to leave the country in 
 safety. Bruce then traversed the south of Scotland, seizing and 
 fortifying towns, and expelling the English who happened to be in 
 his path. 
 
 Although thus far successful, Bruce had yet the kingdom to win 
 no easy task with only a handful of adherents. Among these, besides 
 his own brothers, were Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews, Wishart, 
 Bishop of Glasgow, David Murray, Bishop of Moray, the Abbot of 
 Scone, Thomas Randolph or Randall, of Strathdon (Bruce's nephew), 
 Christopher or ChristaH Seton (Bruce's brother-in-law), Malcolm, 
 Earl of Lennox, John, Earl of Athole and Lord of Strathbogie, 
 Gilbert Hay, Earl of Errol, young Sir James Douglas, and nine or 
 ten other persons of consequence. But these were but a fraction of 
 the Scottish aristocracy ; and many of the rest were pledged on the 
 English side. Nevertheless, Bruce and his party resolved on a bold 
 and decided step. Spending about three weeks in riding hither and 
 thither through the country, to rouse as strong a feeling as possible, 
 they met at Scone on Friday the ayth of March 1306, and there Bruce 
 was crowned king, a small circlet of gold having been made to 
 serve in lieu of the old Scottish crown which Edward had carried 
 away. Now, the honour of placing the crown on a new king's head 
 belonged by ancient right to the family of Macduff, Earl of Fife. 
 But the present representative of the family, Duncan, Earl of Fife, 
 being on the English side, it appeared at first that this essential 
 requisite in the ceremony could not be complied with. Hearing, 
 however, that Bruce was to be crowned, Isabella, the sister of the 
 earl, and wife of Comyn, Earl of Buchan, stole her husband's 
 horses, and posted off to Scone, resolved that, in spite of brother and 
 husband, Bruce should be crowned by a Macduff. As she did not 
 reach Scone till after the 27th, the act of crowning was performed 
 over again on the 2pth, the thin gold circlet being placed on the 
 brow of the new king by his fair adherent. 
 
 In the meantime, all was bustle and excitement in London. 
 Edward was now an old man, scarcely able to bestride his war-horse ; 
 and that the great scheme of the annexation of Scotland, to which 
 he had devoted so many years of his life, should now be in danger of 
 failing at the last, was a grief and a canker to his aged spirit. There 
 is no sorer affliction for an old man whose life has been spent in toil, 
 enterprise, and energetic action, than to see his schemes failing, and 
 all that he has struggled for cast out and rejected by the world, at a 
 14
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 time when he is beginning to feel that death is coming, and that he 
 can do no more. The spirit of the warrior-king flickered up bravely 
 under the disappointment, and he swore, in the hearing of his counsel- 
 lors and nobles, that he would take the field once more against Scot- 
 land, deal with Bruce as he had dealt with Wallace, and then turn his 
 thoughts to holier subjects, and prepare to die in peace. Forthwith 
 there was a going to and fro of messengers, a writing and sealing of 
 dispatches, a buzz of eager anticipation among the young men, and 
 a noise everywhere of steel clanging under the armourer's hammer. 
 To meet the present emergency, and oppose Bruce at the outset, 
 Aymer de Valance, Earl of Pembroke, hurried away northward with 
 what force he could gather. To crush the spirit of the Scotch under 
 a fear stronger than that of invasion, Edward wrote to the pope to 
 procure an anathema against Bruce and his cause for the act of 
 sacrilege committed in the church of the Minorite Friars at Dumfries. 
 He levied a large army, ' and for the purpose of giving more e*clat to 
 his expedition, knighted his eldest son. Immediately after receiving 
 that honour, the Prince of Wales went in procession to Westminster 
 Abbey, ascended the high-altar, and knighted three hundred nobles, 
 who were all apparelled in embroidered robes of gold. At the con- 
 clusion of this ceremony, two swans, adorned with trappings and bells 
 of gold, were brought by minstrels, in nets of the same metal, with 
 great pomp into the church, and the king took a solemn oath, by the 
 God of heaven and by these swans, that he would march into Scot- 
 land, and never return till he had punished the rebels, and avenged 
 the death of John Comyn.' * Giving the command of the army to the 
 Prince of Wales, and exacting an oath from him that he would not 
 rest two nights in one place before reaching Scotland, Edward him- 
 self followed more leisurely with his queen. Poor old monarch ! he 
 never reached the land against which he had vowed vengeance. 
 Becoming ill near Carlisle, he was detained there, and obliged to 
 leave the management of the invasion to others. 
 
 At first, the Scotch suffered a considerable reverse of fortune. 
 Having penetrated as far north as Perth, the English forces there 
 surprised Bruce by a sudden attack. Many of the Scotch were killed, 
 and others were made prisoners, and hanged. Among these was 
 Sir Simon Frazer or Frizell, who was carried to London, and there 
 ignominiously put to death, his head being set upon a spear on 
 Westminster Bridge, near that of his co-patriot Wallace. This 
 defeat was a heavy blow and great discouragement to Bruce, who, 
 with his followers, retired into the north, a fugitive in the kingdom 
 whose crown he had assumed. He halted for a time at Aberdeen, 
 whither his wife, and the wives of all his noble adherents, had 
 resorted to wait his arrival. From Aberdeen, the band of patriots, 
 ladies and all, retreated to the mountain country inland, and 
 
 * Clarke's Vestigia Anglitana. 
 
 IS
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 although pinched occasionally for food, held together during the 
 summer of 1306. 
 
 In the course of Bruce's wanderings, he attempted to force his 
 way into Lorn, a district of Argyleshire ; but here he encountered 
 the M'Dougals, a powerful family, then called Lords of Lorn, and 
 friendly to the English; besides, John of Lorn, the chief of the 
 M'Dougals, hated Bruce on account of his having slain his kinsman 
 the Red Comyn. At the first encounter, Bruce was defeated ; but 
 he shewed amidst his misfortunes the greatness of his strength and 
 courage. According to the lively account given by Sir Walter Scott 
 of Bruce's movements after this defeat ' He directed his men to 
 retreat through a narrow pass, and placing himself last of the party, 
 he fought with and slew such of the enemy as attempted to press 
 hard upon them. Three followers of M'Dougal, a father and two 
 sons, all very strong men, when they saw Bruce thus protecting the 
 retreat of his followers, made a vow that they would either kill this 
 redoubted champion, or make him prisoner. The whole three 
 rushed on the king at once. Bruce was on horseback, in the strait 
 pass between a precipitous rock and a deep lake. He struck the 
 first man who came up and seized his horse's rein such a blow 
 with his sword as cut off his hand and freed the bridle. The 
 man bled to death. The other brother had grasped Bruce in the 
 meantime by the leg, and was attempting to throw him from horse- 
 back. The king, setting spurs to his horse, made the animal 
 suddenly spring forward, so that the Highlander fell under the 
 horse's feet ; and as he was endeavouring to rise again, Bruce cleft 
 his head in two with his sword. The father, seeing his two sons 
 thus slain, flew desperately at the king, and grasped him by the 
 mantle so close to his body that he had not room to wield his long 
 sword. But with the heavy pommel of that weapon, or, as others 
 say, with an iron hammer, which hung at his saddlebow, the king 
 struck his third assailant so dreadful a blow that he dashed out his 
 brains. Still, however, the Highlander kept his dying grasp on 
 the king's mantle, so that, to be free of the dead body, Bruce was 
 obliged to undo the brooch or clasp by which it was fastened, and 
 leave that and the mantle itself behind him.' The brooch which fell 
 thus into the possession of M'Dougal of Lorn, is still preserved in 
 that ancient family, as a memorial that the celebrated Robert Bruce 
 once narrowly escaped falling into the hands of their ancestor. 
 Robert greatly resented this attack upon him ; and when he was 
 in happier circumstances, did not fail to take his revenge on 
 M'Dougal, or, as he is usually called, John of Lorn.* On the ruins 
 of the family rose the Campbells and other great clans.
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 After this defeat in Argyleshire, with the English pressing north- 
 ward, the chieftain of Lorn dogging their footsteps, and the cold 
 weather coming on, the wanderers found it impossible any longer 
 to live, as they had been doing, among the hills, with their garments 
 worn out, their shoes torn and patched, and with scarcely the means 
 of procuring food. Briice therefore divided his little band into two 
 parties. One of these, under the command of Nigel Bruce, his 
 youngest brother, was to convey the ladies to Kildrummie Castle, on 
 the river Don, in Aberdeenshire, where, though in danger of being 
 besieged, they would at all events be safer than if they remained 
 where they were. When the party had gone away, taking with it 
 all the horses, there remained with the king about two hundred men, 
 uncertain whither they should go, or how they should pass the winter. 
 To remain in Scotland seemed impossible ; they therefore came to 
 the resolution of crossing over to the north of Ireland, where they 
 might possibly obtain assistance from the Earl of Ulster, or where at 
 least they might remain through the winter, looking eagerly acioss 
 the Channel, and watching for an opportunity of returning to renew 
 the enterprise. Accordingly, they pushed their way across Argyle- 
 shire to Cantire, whence they passed over to Rathlin, a small island 
 on the coast of Ulster, within sight of the Scottish shore. At first, 
 the wild inhabitants shewed a disposition to question the right of 
 two hundred strangers to come and quarter so unceremoniously in 
 their island ; but a little intercourse conciliated them ; and through 
 the winter of 1306-7, the fugitive king and his men made Rathlin 
 their place of refuge. 
 
 In the spring of 1307, the fugitives began to think of revisiting 
 their native land, where their mysterious disappearance had caused 
 some sensation. Accordingly, Douglas and Boyd, with a few fol- 
 lowers, went over to the Isle of Arran, and attacked the English : 
 and ten days after, Bruce and the rest of the Scotch left Rathlin, and 
 joined them. They were now near the Scottish mainland opposite 
 Bruce's own district of Carrick and his castle of Turnberry; but 
 before actually committing themselves by a landing in Ayrshire, it 
 was resolved to send a spy, named Cuthbert, to learn the true state 
 of affairs. If appearances were favourable, Cuthbert was to kindle 
 a bonfire on Turnberry nook, the blaze of which, seen in the night- 
 time from the coast of Arran, would be a signal for Bruce and his 
 little band to embark in their boats and row across the Channel. 
 After the messenger was gone, Bruce walked up and down the beach, 
 his eyes in the direction of Turnberry nook, watching eagerly for 
 the expected signal. All night he watched, and all next morning ; 
 and just as it was growing late in the day, he thought he saw the 
 flickering of the bonfire. As it grew dark, all doubt was at an end ; 
 there was the bonfire blazing ruddily in the horizon ; so with joyful 
 hearts they began to busy themselves in getting ready the boats. 
 Just as Bruce was stepping on board, a woman of the island, ' than 
 
 7
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 whom none in all the land had so much wit of things to come,' came 
 and prophesied to him that ere long he would be king, and over- 
 come all his enemies ; but before that time he should have much 
 to endure : in token of her own confidence in her prophecy, she gave 
 him her two sons to be his followers. With the words of this wise 
 woman in their ears, the brave band, increased now to three hundred 
 men, shot out their galleys into the water, and steered through the 
 darkness for the light on Turnberry nook. 
 
 After hard rowing, they drew near the Carrick shore, discerning 
 through the gloom the dark figure of a man walking to and fro 
 on the beach. It was Cuthberb come to tell them that there was no 
 hope of effecting a rising in Carrick ; that the bonfire on Turnberry 
 nook had not been kindled by him; but that, seeing it blazing, he 
 had come to warn them away. What were they to do ? Remain in 
 Scotland, now that they were in it, or re-embark and seek refuge 
 for a year or two longer in the island of Rathlin ? Thus they stood 
 inquiring of each other with sinking hearts in the gray of the early 
 morning, where the tide was rushing up among the sands. Out 
 spoke Edward Bruce, the king's brother, a wild impetuous young 
 man : ' I tell you, no peril, be it ever so great, shall drive me back 
 to the sea again : by God's help, I am here, and here will I take 
 my venture for better or worse.' This resolution recommended 
 itself to the prudence of the rest ; and now that they were in their 
 native land once more, they made up their minds never to leave 
 it again, but to wander through the country until they should all 
 be cut off, or there should be a general rising against the English. 
 They determined to make a beginning immediately; and hearing 
 that there was a party of soldiers belonging to Percy, the English 
 governor of the district, in the town of Turnberry, they attacked 
 and routed it. Little, however, could be done in the Carrick district, 
 where the inhabitants, though friendly to Bruce, were afraid openly 
 to take his part. One lady, however, a relation of his own, came 
 with a reinforcement of forty men. 
 
 Now for the first time Bruce learned what had taken place in 
 Scotland during his absence. The news was melancholy enough. 
 Shortly after the defeat of Bruce at Methven, Edward, then in 
 the north of England, had issued, through the Earl of Pembroke, 
 a proclamation to the effect ' that all the people of Scotland should 
 search for and pursue every person who had been in arms against 
 the English government, and who had not surrendered themselves 
 to mercy ; and should also apprehend, dead or alive, all who had 
 been guilty of other crimes.' In consequence of this proclamation, 
 and the efforts made to enforce it, many of Bruce's most eminent 
 adherents, some of them the co-patriots of Wallace, fell into the 
 hands of the English, and suffered death. Besides Sir Simon 
 Frazer, to whose fate we have already referred, Sir Christopher 
 Seton, Thomas Boys, Sir Simon Frazer's esquire, and one of 
 
 ZO
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 Wallace's friends, Sir Herbert de Morham, Sir Walter Logan, and 
 several others, were sent to London, and there hanged and quartered. 
 The fate of Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews, Wishart, Bishop 
 of Glasgow, and the Abbot of Scone, would probably have been 
 the same, had they not been ecclesiastics. As it was, they were 
 imprisoned, and Edward made every effort to induce the pope to 
 depose them ; in which, however, his Holiness did not gratify him. 
 After all these culprits had been disposed of, there still remained 
 the ladies and those of Bruce's adherents who were shut up in 
 the castle of Kildrummie. The Earls of Lancaster and Hereford 
 marched north to besiege the castle ; but before they reached it, 
 the queen, her daughter, the Countess of Buchan, who had put the 
 crown on Bruce's head, and the rest of the ladies, fled to Ross-shire 
 with an escort, and took refuge in the sanctuary of St Duthac, near 
 Tain. Here, in violation of the religious usage of the times, they 
 were seized; and being sent prisoners into England, they lived 
 there in dignified captivity, until the victory of Bannockburn released 
 them, seven or eight years afterwards. The punishment of the 
 Countess of Buchan was more marked than that of the other lady- 
 captives, inasmuch as the crime of crowning Bruce was peculiarly 
 heinous. Her husband, the Earl of Buchan, one of the Comyn 
 family, was urgent that she should be put to death; but Edward 
 would not consent to so desirable a measure, and ordered her to 
 be confined in a circular prison, constructed in the form of a cage, 
 in the castle of Berwick, where she might be seen by the passers- 
 by. The general impression handed down by tradition is, that the 
 poor lady was hung out in a cage on the castle wall ; and it is at 
 least certain that she was immured in an ignominious manner within 
 the fortress of Berwick. Nigel Bruce, the Earl of Athole, and the 
 rest who remained in Kildrummie after the ladies were gone, 
 defended the castle bravely for a time ; but at last their magazine 
 of provisions being set on fire by a traitor of the name of Osborne, 
 they were obliged to surrender. Nigel Bruce, the youngest of the 
 king's brothers, and of great comeliness, was carried to Berwick, and 
 there beheaded; the Earl of Athole was sent to London and hanged. 
 Such had been the miserable fate of the adherents Bruce had left 
 in Scotland. Edward, ill and dying at Carlisle, and unable to reach 
 the land the subjugation of which had been the most anxious thought 
 of his life, felt it a pleasure to wreak his vengeance on so many of 
 those who had thwarted him, before he left the world. Stretched in 
 pain on his bed, he said to those around him that knowing that the 
 Earl of Athole was hanged made the pain almost lightsome. His 
 dying acts were all directed towards Scotland. He assigned estates 
 in it to his favourite nobles, impressed on his son's mind the duty 
 of punctually fulfilling the great design he was to bequeath to him, 
 and summoning a parliament at Carlisle, he and all his nobles heard 
 the dread sentence of the church's excommunication pronounced 
 
 19
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 against Bruce and his adherents by Peter d'Espaigne, cardinal 
 legate from the pope. Leaving the dying monarch at Carlisle, we 
 return to the operations of the heroic Bruce. 
 
 The condition of Bruce after his disheartening defeat in Ayrshire 
 was most afflicting, and was aggravated by the intelligence of the 
 capture of his brothers Thomas and Alexander, and their execution 
 at Carlisle. Still, he was not utterly deserted or deprived of friends ; 
 his brother Edward proceeded into Galloway, while Douglas went 
 into Lanarkshire, to raise men in these quarters. Until assistance 
 should be raised, he wandered about the wild hills of Carrick, con- 
 stantly shifting from spot to spot, in order to escape the vigilant 
 pursuit of his enemies. On one occasion, separated from the few 
 men who had kept him company, he reached, about midnight, a 
 poor hut, under whose thatched roof he might rest till morning. 
 Throwing himself down on a heap of straw, he lay upon his back 
 with his hands placed under his head, unable to sleep, but gazing 
 vacantly upwards at the rafters of the hut, disfigured with cobwebs. 
 From thoughts long and dreary about the hopelessness of the enter- 
 prise in which he was engaged, and the misfortunes he had already 
 encountered, he was roused to feel a degree of interest in the efforts 
 of a poor and industrious spider over his head. The object of the 
 animal was to swing itself by its thread from one rafter to another ; 
 but in this attempt it repeatedly failed, each time vibrating back to 
 the point where it had made the effort. Twelve times did the little 
 creature try to reach the desired spot, and as many times was it 
 unsuccessful. Not disheartened with its failure, it made the attempt 
 once more, and lo ! the rafter was gained. ' The thirteenth time,' 
 said Bruce, springing to his feet. ' I accept it as a lesson not to 
 despond under difficulties, and shall once more venture my life in 
 the struggle for the independence of my beloved country.' 
 
 Rallying his drooping spirits, Bruce hastened to assemble such as 
 were disposed to risk all for the sake of the cause he had at heart. 
 With a courageous little army, he met the English under Pembroke 
 at Loudon Hill (May 10, 1307), and gained the first of that series of 
 victories which ultimately made Scotland a free kingdom. Pem- 
 broke's defeat roused the dying Edward at Carlisle, and, although 
 unable to endure the fatigue of a journey, he mounted his war-horse, 
 and made the attempt to reach Scotland, for the purpose of crushing 
 the rebellion in person. Vain effort ! Having reached, with extreme 
 difficulty, Burgh-on-Sands, from which the blue hills of Scotland 
 could be seen, he there sunk and died. It was his dying request 
 that his bones should be carried at the head of the army into Scot- 
 land ; but this injunction was not complied with. His son, Edward 
 II., caused the body to be buried at Westminster, with this inscrip- 
 tion on his tomb : ' Edward I., the Hammer of the Scotch.' 
 
 Edward II., to whom the duty of subjugating Scotland had been 
 bequeathed, was of inferior abilities to his father, and failed to
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 inspire his followers with confidence or his enemies with fear. He 
 proceeded into Scotland, in obedience to his father's injunction, but 
 being disheartened with some reverses, he led his army back to 
 England. Picking up courage, Bruce ventured now on bold mea- 
 sures, and, with a considerably augmented force, swept through the 
 country as far as Inverness, rooting out garrisons of English, 
 destroying castles, and skirmishing with parties sent out to keep 
 him in check. While thus engaged, Edward Bruce, his brother, 
 expelled the English from Galloway ; and Douglas was roving about 
 the hills of Tweeddale, doing good service. Here, at a house on 
 Lyne Water, Douglas had the good-fortune to take prisoner Thomas 
 Randolph, Bruce's nephew, who had latterly attached himself to the 
 cause of the English usurper. Apparently ashamed of this recreancy, 
 Randolph afterwards became one of his uncle's warmest adherents. 
 Many other influential persons, who had hitherto kept aloof, now 
 joined Bruce's standard. Argyleshire, the country of the Lords of 
 Lorn, still holding out, he invaded it, took the castle of Dunstaffnage, 
 and drove Lorn and his son refugees into England. The whole of 
 Scotland might now be said to have been in Bruce's hands, except 
 that several of the great towns were still in the possession of English 
 garrisons, and that Edward II. was every now and then threatening 
 an invasion. An invasion in the then weak state of Bruce's govern- 
 ment might have proved fatal ; but this danger was warded off, 
 partly by Edward's own fickle and unsteady temper, partly by the 
 disgust of his nobles at his unkingly conduct, and partly also by the 
 earnest endeavours made during the years 1308 and 1309 by Philip, 
 king of France, to bring about a peace between Scotland and Eng- 
 land. A truce between the two countries was indeed agreed to ; 
 but it was broken almost as soon as made. In 1310, Edward II. 
 conducted an invading army into Scotland; but, as on a former 
 occasion, he retired again into England. 
 
 The years 1311, 1312, and 1313 were spent by Bruce in consoli- 
 dating the power he had acquired ; expelling garrisons, and acquiring 
 the allegiance of some of the principal towns. The citizens of Aber- 
 deen had already expelled the English garrison from that town. 
 Forfar and several other important stations had been wrested out of 
 the English keeping ; and during the three years to which we are at 
 present directing our attention, many other towns or castles were 
 won either by Bruce in person or by his adherents. The principal 
 of these were the town of Perth, and the castles of Linlithgow, 
 Buittle, Dumfries, Dalswinton, Roxburgh, Edinburgh, Rutherglen, 
 and Dundee. The seizures of the castles of Linlithgow and Edin- 
 burgh deserve particular mention, from their romantic character. 
 The castle of Linlithgow was taken by the stratagem of a poor 
 peasant named William Binnock, who was in the way of conveying 
 hay and other provender into the castle. Having agreed to deliver 
 a load of hay at a particular day, Binnock placed eight men in his
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 cart, covered them well over with hay, and then walked by the side 
 of the cart, a stout man going before driving. When the cart was 
 within the posts of the gate, so that it could not be shut, Binnock 
 gave the preconcerted signal by crying out : ' Call all ! call all ! ' and 
 gave the porter a blow which split his skull ; while the man driving 
 cut the rope by which the oxen were yoked to the cart, so as to 
 leave it fixed in the gateway. The men then leaped out, and the 
 castle was taken. 
 
 Edinburgh Castle, which occupies the top of a lofty and huge 
 rock, precipitous on all sides but one, could not be taken without 
 encountering very serious risks of destruction. Randolph engaged 
 to gain possession of it by stratagem and personal activity. Guided 
 by a person named Frank, who had once been in the garrison in the 
 castle, and had become acquainted with the nature of the precipice, 
 Randolph and a party of thirty men proceeded one dark night to 
 scale the black and jagged sides of the rock. Up they climbed, 
 slowly and painfully, with scathed knees and bleeding fingers, by a 
 zigzag path, where a single false step would have caused them to 
 be dashed to atoms, or the scraping of their arms against the rock 
 would have discovered them to the watch above. The darkness of 
 the night, however, favoured them, and at last they all reached a 
 shelving part of the rock half-way up, where they could rest for a 
 little. While crouching together here, they heard the sentries pacing 
 above and challenging each other. Proceeding upward, they at 
 length reached the wall, to which they applied a ladder they had 
 contrived to bring along with them. Frank climbed up first, then 
 Sir Andrew Gray, then Randolph himself. Seeing these three on 
 the top of the wall, the others climbed up after them. The noise 
 alarmed the sentries, who raised the cry of 'Treason! Treason!' 
 Some of them fled ; some of them were so terrified that they leaped 
 over the wall ; the rest of the garrison mustered and fought, but were 
 soon overpowered, leaving Randolph master of the castle. 
 
 These and similar exploits not only secured Bruce's possession of 
 the country, but increased the number of his partisans, by causing 
 many powerful Scotch gentlemen, who had hitherto taken the side 
 of the English, to join him. In the year 1313, only a few vestiges of 
 English intrusion remained, in the shape of an unreduced garrison 
 here and there. Nor had Bruce's exertions been confined to 
 Scotland itself. Imitating the conduct of Wallace after the battle 
 of Stirling, he had made two several forays into the north of 
 England, devastating and spoiling the country; and he had also 
 seized the Isle of Man. All this while, Edward II. was engaged in 
 enjoying himself at his own court, or in quarrelling with his nobles ; 
 sometimes resolving upon an expedition into Scotland, but never 
 carrying it into effect. At last, after repeated complaints from the 
 people of Cumberland, whose territories Bruce had ravaged, and 
 from the small party of Scottish nobles who still adhered to the
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 English interest, Edward, on his return from a short visit to France 
 in the end of 1313, began to make preparations in earnest, and an 
 army greater than any that had ever followed his victorious father 
 was ordered to be raised. 
 
 The immediate cause of this sudden preparation for a new invasion 
 of Scotland was this : Edward Bruce, the king's brave and hot- 
 headed brother, after subduing the garrisons of Rutherglen and 
 Dundee, attacked that of Stirling. The English commander, Philip 
 de Mowbray, offered to surrender the castle if not relieved before the 
 24th of June next year ; and this offer Edward Bruce thoughtlessly 
 accepted, without his brother's knowledge. The effect of this treaty 
 was to allow the English time to assemble an army, which of course 
 they would do as soon as they heard of it, and to commit the fate of 
 Scotland to the issue of a great general battle, such as it appeared 
 most prudent in the meantime to avoid. It was impossible, however, 
 for Bruce to retract the engagement which his brother had made, 
 and he therefore began to busy himself with preparations to meet 
 the English army, which he knew would be approaching Stirling 
 before the appointed 24th of June. The first hah" of the year 1314 
 was spent by each kingdom in gathering all its strength for this great 
 day. This was to be no chance engagement no Scotch army falling 
 on an English army unawares ; it was a deliberate battle, concerted 
 months before it took place, and the full issues of which, in the case 
 either of victory or defeat, must have all that time been present to 
 the minds of both parties. Poor Scotland, thy chance is the hardest ! 
 If England lose the day, it is but the loss of a kingdom which does 
 not belong to her ; but if Scotland lose, she is inthralled for ever ! 
 
 When the appointed day for this decisive battle drew near, Edward 
 entered Scotland by way of Berwick and the Lothians, at the head 
 of an army of 100,000 men, 40,000 of whom were cavalry. Bruce 
 now caused his whole available forces to be summoned to meet at 
 Torwood, near Stirling ; and when they were all assembled at the 
 place appointed, they numbered no more than 30,000 fighting-men, 
 and about 15,000 camp-followers. To make up for the inferiority of 
 his army in point of numbers, Bruce chose his ground warily, on the 
 face of a hill which gently slopes toward the Forth, near Stirling. 
 What he feared most was the English cavalry. The locality where, 
 from the nature of the ground, cavalry would have the greatest diffi- 
 culty in acting, was a field called the New Park, having the town of 
 Stirling, with woods between, on the left, and the small brook or burn 
 of Bannock on the right. Here, therefore, he resolved to draw up 
 and wait the approach of the English. Still more to improve the 
 advantage which his choice of the ground gave him, he caused pits 
 two or three feet deep to be dug in all those parts of the field to which 
 the English horse could have access. These pits were covered neatly 
 over with brushwood and turf, so that they might not be perceived 
 by the English cavalry till the feet of the horses actually sunk down
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 into them. Besides these, pointed barbs of iron, called calthrops, 
 were strewn over parts of the field, to lame the horses. Giving the 
 command of the centre to Douglas, and Walter, the Steward of 
 Scotland ; of the right to his brother, Edward Bruce ; and of the left 
 to Randolph, Bruce himself commanded a reserve composed of 
 picked men. During the battle, the band of camp-followers, boys, 
 and baggage-carriers were to keep in the valley on the other side of 
 a rising-ground, where they might be out of the way. All these 
 arrangements having been made, the Scotch lay looking eagerly for 
 the first appearance of armed men on the horizon ; and on the 
 morning of Sunday the 23d of June, the English army was seen 
 approaching from the direction of Falkirk, where they had slept 
 the evening before. Whether they should attack the Scotch imme- 
 diately, or whether they should wait till to-morrow, was the question 
 in the English army when they came to the field ; and the latter 
 alternative was at length resolved on. In the meantime, however, 
 it would be a great advantage if they could throw a body of men 
 into Stirling Castle to succour the garrison. Randolph, in com- 
 mand of the Scotch left, had received strict injunctions to be on 
 the watch to frustrate any such attempt ; but the attempt was 
 nevertheless made ; and had it not been for the vigilance of Bruce 
 himself, it would have succeeded. Eight hundred horse, under Sir 
 Robert Clifford, were stealing along toward the castle, and had 
 almost gained it, when Bruce pointed them out to Randolph, saying 
 rudely: 'There's a rose fallen from your chaplet, Randolph.' Off 
 dashed Randolph to repair his fault, and drive the English horse 
 back. Seeing him hard pressed and likely to be beaten, Douglas 
 wished to go to his rescue. 'You shall not stir an inch,' said 
 the king ; ' let Randolph extricate himself as he may ; I am not 
 going to alter my order of battle for him.' ' By my troth, but with 
 your leave, I must go,' said Douglas ; 'I cannot stand by and see 
 Randolph perish.' Bruce then giving his assent, Douglas flew to 
 assist his friend. Before he could reach him, however, Randolph 
 had turned the day, and was throwing the English into confusion ; 
 and Douglas seeing this, cried out : ' Halt ! Let Randolph have all 
 the glory himself;' and then stood to look on. 
 
 This attempt to throw a party into Stirling Castle was made by 
 the advanced-guard of the English ; but before the evening of the 
 23d, the whole army had come up and taken its position. Bruce was 
 riding along in front of his army on a small Highland pony, with much 
 good-humour, marshalling the men with a battle-axe in his hand. On 
 his basinet he wore a small crown, distinguishing him from his 
 knights. When the main body of the English came up, seeing the 
 Scottish king riding along in this manner, and thinking to signalise 
 himself by killing him, an English knight, Sir Harry de Bohun, 
 armed at all points, set spurs to his horse, and with his spear 
 couched, galloped against him. Bruce perceiving him approach,
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 instead of withdrawing among his own men, prepared for the encours- 
 ter ; and reining in his pony, so as to cause the knight to miss him 
 when he came on, he stood up in the stirrups, and dealt such a blow 
 with his battle-axe, that the skull, down almost to the neck, was cleft 
 through the helmet. This feat being seen by both armies, encour- 
 aged the one as much as it dispirited the other. Bruce, when 
 reproached by his lords for exposing himself so unnecessarily, did 
 nothing but grumble that he had broken the shaft of his battle-axe. 
 
 It was a sleepless night on both sides. The Scotch, as being 
 the weaker, spent it in prayers and devotion ; the English, as 
 being the stronger, in rioting and carousing. In the gray of the 
 morning, the two armies stood looking at each other. The Abbot of 
 Inchaffray, after celebrating mass, walked along barefoot, holding a 
 crucifix, in front of the Scotch, who all knelt. Seeing this, the 
 English cried out : ' They ask mercy.' ' Yes,' said Sir Ingram de 
 Umfraville, a Scottish knight in the English army, ' but it is from 
 Heaven.' The same knight advised the king to feign a retreat, so as 
 to draw the Scotch out of their well-chosen position ; but his advice 
 was not taken. The signal was given, and the English van moved 
 on to the attack. 
 
 ' Now 's the day, and now 's the hour ; 
 See the front o' battle lour ; 
 See approach proud Edward's power 
 Chains and slavery ! ' 
 
 Immovably firm, the Lion standard floating proudly on a rising- 
 ground, fixed in a large earthfast stone, which Scotchmen now go 
 many miles to see, the Scottish battalions waited the onset. Edward 
 Bruce's wing was the first attacked ; but in a short time all the three 
 bodies were engaged, and there were three battles going on together. 
 Seeing his men severely galled by the English archers, Bruce 
 detached a body of five hundred cavalry, under Sir Robert Keith, to 
 ride in among these and disperse them, while he himself plunged into 
 the fight with his reserve. The battle was now a hand-to-hand fight 
 of 100,000 and 30,000 men. It was an agitating moment. Fortune 
 turned in favour of the weaker party. The English having got into 
 a state of confusion in the contest, they were seized with a panic 
 fear, and their confusion was turned into a flight. It appears that 
 the motley group of Scottish baggage-carriers and camp-followers, 
 placed for safety behind the brow of the hill, became anxious to learn 
 the fate of the battle, and crawled to the top of the eminence, 
 whence they could look down on the field beneath. The moment 
 they saw that their countrymen were gaining the day, they set up a 
 prolonged shout, and waved their cloaks, which giving an impression 
 to the English that there was a new army coming to the attack, they 
 turned their backs and fled. Many crowded to the rocks near 
 Stirling, and many were drowned in the Forth. Edward, led off the 
 
 as
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 field by the Earl of Pembroke, fled in the direction of Linlithgow, 
 but being pursued by Douglas and sixty horsemen, he did not rest till 
 he arrived at Dunbar, a distance of sixty miles from the field of 
 battle, and there he took shipping for England. 
 
 Such was the famous battle of Bannockburn, fought on the 24th 
 of June 1314. While the fame of the victory humbled the pride and 
 arrogance of the English, and more particularly of Edward and his 
 immediate advisers, it raised the Scotch from the depths of despair. 
 It procured them not only glory, arms, and all the apparatus of war, 
 but the release of many prisoners, and vast sums as ransom for 
 captives taken in the battle. Stirling, according to agreement, was 
 delivered up, and a few other places of strength were secured. The 
 victory, in short, placed Scotland once more in the hands of the 
 Scotch, and relieved the country from the military, who, for such a 
 length of time, had occupied and tyrannised over it. Bruce was 
 now at liberty to recognise the ancient institutions of the country, 
 to consolidate the peace which had been achieved, and, with the 
 assistance of his parliament, to appoint a successor to the crown. 
 
 While so employed, he was called away from the country by the 
 condition of affairs in Ireland, with which, indeed, except on the 
 score of humanity, he had no title to interfere. More successful in 
 their attempts on Ireland than Scotland, the English had already 
 fastened themselves on that unfortunate country, although almost 
 constantly exposed to resistance from the native chiefs. Looking 
 for sympathy towards Scotland, the Irish chiefs invited Robert Bruce 
 to come to their assistance, and, like a true knight at the call of 
 distress, he went across to Ireland along with his brother Edward, 
 and such a force as they could collect (1315-16). Bruce himself could 
 not remain long in the country, but left Edward to carry on the war. 
 At first, he was successful, and the Irish looked forward to having 
 him for king ; but his brilliant career was suddenly cut short. He 
 was slain in battle, October 5, 1318. 
 
 From this period the Scottish king devoted himself to the con- 
 solidation of his power, and the tranquillising of his long distracted 
 country. Yet, amidst these cares, it appears that he considered it a 
 measure of safe policy to carry war into England, for the purpose of 
 weakening and annoyipg an enemy which he expected would return 
 to vex the country. Perhaps, in carrying this project into effect, he 
 was desirous of taking advantage of the internal disorders of the 
 neighbouring kingdom. In that country, there had been treason, 
 civil war, and famine. Edward II. was barbarously murdered by 
 Mortimer, and Edward III., a youth, ascended the throne (1327). 
 Being in a feeble state of health, and unable to mount his war-horse, 
 Bruce intrusted the expedition against the English to the two most 
 eminent men of their day, the good Lord James Douglas, and 
 Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray. These commanders accordingly 
 proceeded with 20,000 men into Northumberland and Durham, 
 26
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 burning and slaying, and everywhere laying the unfortunate border 
 country waste. Accustomed to endure fatigue, to live sparingly, and 
 to move rapidly in their marches, the Scotch on this occasion 
 proved more than a match for the heavy cavalry and less hardy 
 infantry of England. Edward tried to bring the two forces into 
 collision ; but in vain. The Scotch avoided a regular battle, and 
 only retired after having kept the English king and his army 
 tramping backward and forward for weeks through morasses and 
 across mountains, in a manner most amusing to the Scottish leaders. 
 
 This was the last of Bruce's warlike efforts. Both nations now 
 desired a breathing-time, and the terms of peace were soon con- 
 cluded (1328). By this treaty, Edward renounced all pretensions 
 to the sovereignty of Scotland, and, by way of attaching its 
 friendship, gave his sister Joanna to be wife to Robert Bruce's son 
 David. 
 
 Having thus settled the affairs of his kingdom, and, as he thought, 
 effected a peace with his neighbours, Robert the Bruce retired to 
 Cardross, a pleasant residence on the north bank of the Clyde, there 
 to die in tranquillity; for he was now broken by age, toil, and 
 disease. The last moments of the pious monarch are affectingly 
 described by Froissart : 
 
 'When King Robert of Scotland felt that his end drew near, he 
 sent for those barons and lords of his realm in whose loyalty he had 
 the greatest confidence, and affectionately enjoined them, on their 
 fealty, that they should faithfully keep his kingdom for David, his 
 son, promising to obey him, and place the crown upon his head 
 when he attained the full age : after which, he beckoned that brave 
 and gentle knight, Sir James Douglas, to come near, and thus 
 addressed him in presence of the rest of his courtiers : " Sir James, 
 my dear friend, few know better than yourself the great toil and 
 suffering which, in my day, I have undergone for the maintenance 
 of the rights of this kingdom ; and when all went hardest against 
 me, I made a vow, which it now deeply grieves me not to have 
 accomplished : I then vowed to God that, if it were his sovereign 
 pleasure to permit me to see an end of my wars, and to establish me 
 in peace and security in the government of this realm, I would then 
 proceed to the Holy Land, and carry on war against the enemies of 
 my Lord and Saviour, to the best and utmost of my power. Never 
 hath my heart ceased to bend earnestly to this purpose ; but it hath 
 pleased our Lord to deny me my wishes, for I have had my hands 
 full in my days, and, at the last, you see me taken with this grievous 
 sickness, so that I have nothing to do but to die. Since, therefore, 
 this poor frail body cannot go thither and accomplish that which my 
 heart hath so much desired, I have resolved to send my heart there, 
 in place of my body, to fulfil my vow ; and because, in my whole 
 kingdom, I know not any knight more hardy than yourself, or more 
 thoroughly furnished with all those knightly qualities requisite for 
 
 ay
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCK. 
 
 the accomplishment of this vow, it is my earnest request to thee, 
 my beloved and tried friend, that, for the love you bear me, you will, 
 instead of myself, undertake this voyage, and acquit my soul of its 
 debt to my Saviour ; for, believe me, I hold this opinion of your 
 truth and nobleness, that whatever you once undertake, you will not 
 rest till you successfully accomplish ; and thus shall I die in peace, 
 if you will do all that I shall enjoin you. It is my desire, then, that 
 as soon as I am dead, you take the heart out of my body, and cauae 
 it to be embalmed, and spare not to take as much of my treasure as 
 appears sufficient to defray the expenses of your journey, both for 
 yourself and your companions ; and that you carry my heart along 
 with you, and deposit it in the holy sepulchre of our Lord, since this 
 poor body cannot go thither. And I do moreover command, that 
 in the course of your journey you keep up that royal state and 
 maintenance, both for yourself and your companions, that into what- 
 ever lands or cities you may come, all may know you have in charge 
 to bear beyond seas the heart of King Robert of Scotland." At 
 these words, all who stood by began to weep ; and when Sir James 
 himself was able to reply, he said : " Ah, most gentle and noble king, 
 a thousand times do I thank you for the great honour you have done 
 me in permitting me to be the keeper and bearer of so great and 
 precious a treasure. Most willingly, and, to the best of my power, 
 most faithfully shall I obey your commands, although I do truly 
 think myself little worthy to achieve so high an enterprise.'' " My 
 dear friend," said the king, " I heartily thank you, provided you 
 promise to do my bidding, on the word of a true and loyal 
 knight." " Undoubtedly, my liege, I do promise so," replied Douglas, 
 "by the faith which I owe to God, and to the order to which I 
 belong." " Now, praise be to God," said the king, " I shall die in 
 peace, since I am assured that the best and most valiant knight in 
 my kingdom hath promised to achieve for me that which I myself 
 never could accomplish :" and not long after, this noble monarch 
 departed this life.' He died June 7, 1329, in the fifty-fifth year of 
 his age. His dying injunctions were so far complied with. Douglas 
 set out on this solemn expedition with the heart of the deceased 
 sovereign in a silver casket ; but, being killed in Spain fighting with 
 the' Moors, the casket never reached its destination, and was brought 
 back to Scotland, and buried at Melrose. The body of the royal 
 Bruce, after being embalmed, was buried in the Abbey Church of 
 Dunfermline.* 
 
 * A knowledge of Bruce's life and character has been greatly promoted by the poem 
 called The Bruce, a lengthy epic, by John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, written 
 about the year 1376. As a poetical production, it is greatly superior to the humble work of 
 Blind Harry : many passages abound in dignified and pathetic sentiment ; among others, 
 the Apostrophe to Freedom, which has been frequently quoted. In the Cyclopadia of 
 English Literature, specimens are presented of this ancient and interesting work. 
 38
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 BRUCE'S SUCCESSORS. 
 
 Robert Bruce, the greatest of the Scottish sovereigns, was suc- 
 ceeded by his son David, a boy, who was crowned in 1329, under 
 the title of David II. The management of the kingdom was com- 
 mitted to Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, who reduced it to a 
 state of greater security than it had enjoyed for some time. But his 
 efforts to preserve order were soon interrupted. Scotland was 
 exposed to a fresh invasion from the south. Considering this a 
 favourable opportunity for pushing claims long dormant, Edward 
 Baliol, the son of John Baliol, procured the assistance of a large 
 body of English nobles, with their retainers, and made a descent 
 on the coast of Scotland. Most unfortunately, at this juncture of 
 affairs, the Earl of Moray died rather suddenly, the report being 
 that he was poisoned, at Musselburgh (1331), and was succeeded 
 as regent by Donald, Earl of Mar, a person of very inferior abilities. 
 Having effected "a landing in Fife, the English forces, led by Baliol, 
 proceeded towards Perth ; and coming up with the Scottish army, a 
 fierce battle ensued at Dupplin, in which the Scotch were vanquished, 
 with a loss of 3000 men. Overjoyed with his good-fortune, Baliol 
 adjourned to the neighbouring Abbey of Scone, and was crowned 
 king of Scotland, August 23, 1332. Although the power of David 
 Bruce was grievously wounded by this blow, his adherents were 
 far from being disheartened. The young king and his wife were 
 sent to France, to be out of danger, and Sir Andrew Moray, nephew 
 of Robert Bruce, was appointed regent in room of the Earl of Mar. 
 There now ensued a series of contests between the two powers for 
 thorough mastery of the kingdom, which tore Scotland in pieces ; and 
 for some years the country endured greater horrors than it had 
 experienced in the reign of the renowned ' Hammer of the Scotch.' 
 A victory achieved by Edward at Halidon Hill in 1333, was followed 
 by the surrender of Berwick. Four years later, after numerous 
 engagements, the English laid siege to the castle of Dunbar, a strong 
 fortalice placed on some rocky heights overlooking the German 
 ocean, and approachable by land only at one point. At the time, 
 the castle was held by the Countess of March, whose lord had 
 embraced the cause of David Bruce. The countess was the daughter 
 of Randolph, Earl of Moray, and a high-spirited and courageous 
 woman. From her complexion, she was usually known by the 
 familiar title of Black Agnes. The castle, of which Agnes was now 
 mistress, had been well fortified ; and in her hands it held out bravely 
 against Montague, Earl of Salisbury, with all the power he could 
 direct against it. Cannon not having been yet invented, it was 
 customary to attack forts of this kind with engines constructed to 
 throw huge stones, and accordingly the English general employed 
 this species of force to attack the castle. Agnes, confident of with-
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 standing such attempts, is said to have treated them with contempt. 
 While the English engineers were throwing stones into the fort, 
 she went about with her maidens, and, in sight of the enemy, wiped 
 with a clean towel the spots where the masses of stone had fallen. 
 Enraged at this apparent unconcern, the earl commanded his men 
 to bring forward a large engine, called the sow. This was a strong 
 shed, rolled on wheels, underneath which the walls could be safely 
 undermined with pickaxes. When Black Agnes observed this move- 
 ment, she leaned over the castle wall, and derisively addressed the 
 earl in the following rhyme : 
 
 'Beware, Montagow, 
 For farrow shall thy sow.' 
 
 On uttering this admonitory hint, she caused a huge fragment of 
 rock to be hurled down on the back of the sow. which crushed it 
 in pieces, killing the men beneath, and scattering all who were 
 near it. 'Said I not so? Behold the litter of English pigs!' was the 
 ready jibe of the brave commandress of the castle. The siege was 
 ultimately abandoned, after being invested for nineteen weeks. Of 
 Black Agnes, many other traditionary stories are related, and the 
 following rhyme is still preserved in commemoration of her prowess : 
 
 ' She kept a stir in tower and trench, 
 That brawling boisterous Scottish wench; 
 Came I early, came I late, 
 I found Agnes at the gate.' 
 
 Having enjoyed a respite from active measures, in consequence 
 of Edward being embroiled with France, the Scotch rallied under 
 manifold disasters, took a number of castles which had been wrested 
 from them, chased Edward Baliol out of the country, and, in 1341, 
 recalled David Bruce and his consort. Encouraged by the apparently 
 defenceless state of England, a Scottish army carried a retaliatory 
 war into the enemy's kingdom. This proved a disastrous campaign. 
 The Scotch suffered a severe defeat at Neville's Cross, near Durham, 
 October 17, 1346, their king being taken prisoner, and led off to 
 captivity in London. Again there were incursions of devastating 
 armies into Scotland; but it would seem that about this time the 
 English monarch became satisfied, that however much he could 
 harass and impoverish Scotland, its conquest was hopeless. David 
 was liberated on payment of a heavy ransom, after a captivity of 
 eleven years; and he died at Edinburgh, February 22, 1371. 
 
 David died childless, and the crown, according to previous 
 arrangement, went to Robert, son of Walter, the Lord High Steward 
 of Scotland, and of Marjory, eldest daughter of Robert Bruce; and 
 he ascended the throne under the title of Robert II. From the 
 dignity of Steward, which had been held by his ancestors, Robert 
 adopted a surname, and was the first of the royal linfc of Stewarts. 
 30
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 After this event, the English under Edward III., and his successor, 
 Richard II., made several attacks on Scotland, but with various 
 success. The effort at subjugation was nearly worn out ; and 
 finally, towards the close of the fourteenth century, it expired, the 
 Scotch being left to govern their own country without further 
 molestation. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 From the death of Alexander III. in 1286, Scotland may be said 
 to have been kept in a state of almost constant war and civil 
 distraction for a century. During this period of disorder, the country 
 was greatly impoverished ; its agriculture and trade were ruined, 
 its people barbarised, and every tendency to social improvement 
 checked. Many of its towns had been several times burned ; and 
 in certain districts, where cultivation had ceased, the people died 
 in great numbers of famine and other miseries. Arts which had 
 flourished previous to this unhappy period were, at its conclusion, 
 lost, and some hundreds of years elapsed before they were generally 
 recovered.* To add to this catalogue of misfortunes, the long 
 defensive war carried on by Scotland against England led to a spirit 
 of enmity between the two nations, which has vanished only in 
 recent times. And all this, as has been seen, arose out of one of 
 the most unjust and unprovoked acts of aggression recorded in 
 history. Yet the struggle which has been described led to lasting 
 benefits. In the present day, it would indeed be impossible to 
 measure the value of the independence achieved by Wallace, Bruce, 
 and their successors ; for to it may be traced the peace and the 
 prosperity which Scotland now enjoys. With the highest respect for 
 the English character, we feel impressed with the conviction that it 
 is ill suited for allaying the prejudices, or acquiring the friendship, 
 of a conquered people. Straightforward and well meaning, it will 
 accommodate itself in no respect to the character of the nation into 
 which it is intruded. It has been shewn that Edward meditated the 
 entire eradication of Scottish institutions, without the slightest regard 
 to their value, or the veneration in which they were held, and of 
 planting on their ruins the institutions of England. No one can 
 doubt that if he had effected this design, the Scotch, till the present 
 time, would have been giving an unwilling submission to what they 
 considered a foreign power, and taking every means to thwart and 
 overthrow it. 
 
 Such a misfortune, not only for Scotland but for England also, 
 was fortunately averted. When the proper time arrived, the two 
 
 * Wheeled carriages were common in the rural parts of the country in the reign of 
 Alexander III. After going completely out of use, they were reintroduced only in the 
 course of the eighteenth century.
 
 WALLACE AND BRUCE. 
 
 kingdoms were united on terms calculated to preserve the inde- 
 pendence and self-respect of each, and to insure mutual assistance 
 and good-will. Speaking of the accession of the House of Stewart to 
 the proud sceptre of the Tudors, a preliminary to the union a century 
 later, a historian (Tytler) observes : ' In this memorable consum- 
 mation, it was perhaps not unallowable, certainly it was not unnatural, 
 that the lesser kingdom, which now gave a monarch to the greater, 
 should feel some emotions of national pride : for Scotland had 
 defended her liberty against innumerable assaults ; had been reduced 
 in the long struggle to the very verge of despair ; had been betrayed 
 by more than one of her kings, and by multitudes of her nobles ; 
 had been weakened by internal faction, distracted by fanatic rage ; 
 but had never been overcome, because never deserted by a brave, 
 though rude and simple people. Looking back to her still remoter 
 annals, it could be said, with perfect historical truth, that this small 
 kingdom had successfully resisted the Roman arms and the terrible 
 invasions of the Danish sea-kings ; had maintained her freedom 
 within her mountains during the ages of the Saxon Heptarchy, and 
 stemmed the tide of Norman conquest ; had shaken off the chains 
 attempted to be fixed upon her by the two great Plantagenets, the 
 first and third Edwards, and at a later period by the tyranny of 
 the Tudors ; and if now destined, in the legitimate course of royal 
 succession, to lose her station as a separate and independent king- 
 dom, she yielded neither to hostile force nor to fraud, but willingly 
 consented to link her future destinies with those of her mighty 
 neighbour : like a bride who, in the dawning prospect of a happy 
 union, is contented to resign, but not to forget, the house and name 
 of her fathers.' 
 
 The two countries, now inextricably associated, and enjoying the 
 blessings of international tranquillity, where is the Englishman, as 
 well as the Scotchman, who does not sympathise in the struggles of 
 the heroic William Wallace and Robert the Bruce ?
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 A STORY FROM THE GERMAN OF ZSCHOKKE. 
 
 I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 AM, as you know, my young friends, the Surveyor of 
 Woods and Forests, and in this capacity I was obliged, 
 some years ago, to make a journey to Amsterdam 
 respecting some timber with which we had supplied the 
 Dutch for ship-building, and about the payment for 
 which they made great difficulties. I succeeded beyond expectation 
 in my mission, and was returning in high spirits to Germany, when 
 an accident happened which led to the adventure I am about to 
 relate to you. With my servant Kruz, I had been travelling day 
 and night, when one evening we were overturned at a little distance 
 from a small town, the name of which I have entirely forgotten. 
 Kruz was thrown from the carriage-box ; and I fell from my seat, and 
 knocked against the postilion with such violence that he fell to the 
 ground between the horses. The fore axle-tree of the chaise was 
 broken, Kruz's arm was much hurt, and the postilion's nose cut. 
 I suffered only from fright ; and happily the horses did not attempt 
 to run away. With much effort we reached the town ; and I went 
 immediately to the inn, and inquired for a wheelwright to repair my 
 carriage. Both the landlord and postilion assured me that I must 
 26 i
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 travel two miles farther, to Hard, where the best artisans of every 
 kind resided. I was not much inclined to do this, particularly as 
 Kruz was very ill. I examined his arm, and found that it was put 
 out of joint. The doctor, for whom I had despatched a messenger, 
 came, lamenting that the surgeon had died the preceding week, and 
 that the arm could not be set. 
 
 ' You had better take your servant to Hard,' said he ; ' there is a 
 very clever surgeon there.' 
 
 ' What ! where is Hard ?' asked I impatiently. 
 
 *A small village about two miles off.' 
 
 ' But how is it,' said I, ' that the surgeon and artisans live in a 
 village instead of in the town ?' 
 
 ' The mayor of Hard is a whimsical fellow ; he manages every- 
 thing there, and wishes to make the village into a large town. He 
 is a millionaire, but very miserly. I know him well, but have 
 nothing to do with him ; for, between ourselves, he is an odd sort of 
 character.' 
 
 ' Is there an inn at Hard?' 
 
 ' Certainly ; and a better one than this. The mayor established 
 a bath there many years ago, and it is much frequented ; but the 
 doctor at Hard is an ignoramus a charlatan. The mayor took him 
 there : he is an amiable man, but interferes in everything.' 
 
 I resolved to send my carriage and servant to Hard ; and the 
 next morning, having bound the broken parts of the carriage 
 together with a rope, I placed Kruz inside, preferring, as it was a 
 fine morning, to walk to Hard. 
 
 II. 
 THE VILLAGE OF HARD. 
 
 About a mile from the town the road suddenly became better. 
 On both sides were rows of fruit-trees, the fields were rich with 
 abundant crops, and there was scarcely a weed to be seen. The 
 village lay before me. Instead of the houses being crowded together, 
 as is usual in that part of the country, they were scattered about, 
 each under shady trees, and surrounded by a garden. The church 
 stood upon a hill in the centre of the village. 
 
 ' You live in a paradise,' said I to an old peasant : ' this is the 
 most fruitful soil I have seen in this country. 7 
 
 ' Thank God, our crops never fail,' answered he. 
 
 'How is it,' said I, 'that your village is so scattered about?' 
 
 * It was burned down fifteen years ago, and the government 
 obliged us to rebuild it as you see. There is nothing very disadvan- 
 tageous in it. I have a long way to walk to church every Sunday ; 
 some have a greater distance. This is certainly unpleasant for old 
 people and children, particularly in bad weather. But it was a
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 frightful fire : only five farms, which happily lay at a little distance, 
 were spared.' 
 
 ' How did the fire originate?' 
 
 ' I do not know. Some say the mayor did it on purpose ; but I 
 do not quite believe that.' 
 
 ' That would have been very shameful in the mayor.' 
 
 ' Yes, indeed. He is a very strange man that every one knows : 
 he has played me tricks enough. He was first our schoolmaster ; 
 and then the government ordered that he should be mayor, and we 
 were obliged to have him so.' 
 
 ' But he must be rich ?' 
 
 ' Yes ; a mighty rich man. He never spends a kreuzer, and lives 
 more simply than a common day-labourer. His head is not quite 
 right ; and when his silly fits are upon him, he throws money away 
 on all sides : he will soon be ruined. He has no pleasure except in 
 tyrannising over us with his money.' 
 
 As the old man said this he turned off into a footpath which led 
 through the meadows. The landscape was so pleasing, that I sat 
 down on a stone under a nut-tree, in order to rest and to enjoy the 
 scenery. ' How happy might the people of this village be,' thought 
 I ; ' but the government sends a man here who plays the king, and 
 then all happiness is gone.' Just then an old woman came up the 
 hill, and I stopped her, and inquired if there were an inn in the 
 village, and where it was. 
 
 ' In the street to the left of the church, sir. I am the landlady.' 
 
 ' I am glad of it. Can you accommodate my carriage and 
 servants for a few days ?' 
 
 ' My inn is not suited for gentlemen ; you must go to the great 
 hotel. A broken carriage arrived there about half an hour ago ; 
 perhaps it is yours.' 
 
 ' I am sorry that you cannot lodge me. Where is the other 
 hotel?' 
 
 ' Do you see the little white house with the green window-shutters 
 on the hill ? That is the mayor's house, and the hotel is next to it.' 
 
 ' Does the inn belong to the mayor ?' 
 
 ' No, and yes. Everything belongs, and still does not belong, to 
 him. He had it built.' 
 
 1 That is not advantageous to you.' 
 
 ' Certainly not : the mayor does no good to any one. Since he 
 came into the village my business has become very bad. God 
 pardon him ; he has much to answer for at the last day. But I 
 have enough to live on without depending on him.' 
 
 Whilst she was speaking I heard violent disputing in a peasant's 
 house near. The old woman nodded her head, and said half aloud : 
 'Ah, so, so; it serves Gretchen right!' Saying this she pointed 
 to a path by which I might reach the hotel, and then left me. Just 
 then a portly-looking personage, dressed in the blouse of a peasant,
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 but clean and neat, came out of the house, followed by a weeping 
 old woman and a young boy. The two latter took leave of the man ; 
 and as the boy shook hands with him, he said : ' You are quite 
 right, Mr Mayor ; I have warned my mother of it often enough.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes,' answered the mayor, who appeared to be a man about 
 forty years of age ; ' but this once I will be indulgent.' The old 
 woman assured him that he should in future be satisfied with her. 
 The village despot turned and walked away. 
 
 He went along the same path which the old woman had told me 
 led to the hotel. This induced me to leave my seat and follow him, 
 for I much wished to be acquainted with a man of whom I had in 
 the last two days heard so much. But then, again, I had heard 
 nothing but complaints of him ; and had even witnessed his harsh 
 conduct towards others, and I hesitated to follow him. He walked 
 very quickly, and I did not overtake him. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE MAYOR. 
 
 Presently I saw some peasants stop to speak to this strange man, 
 and just as they left him I approached. He greeted me with 
 politeness, and we talked of the weather and the crops. He answered 
 all I asked in such well-chosen language, and at the same time so 
 modestly, that I saw directly that he was a man of cultivated mind. 
 He said that the soil was not better than that of the surrounding 
 country, but that it was better tilled. I expressed my astonishment 
 at that. 
 
 ' Every owner dwells here in the middle of his own possessions,' 
 said he, ' and therefore can easily inspect his labourers.' 
 
 'But,' said I, 'these beautiful meadows?' 
 
 'You have not perhaps noticed,' answered he, 'that all the 
 meadows lie together, and that they are well watered. We have 
 also good marl in the neighbourhood. In other places, as well as 
 this, these things are to be had more or less ; but people are often 
 idle or ignorant. Nature is a good mother to all ; but men do not 
 always give themselves the trouble to understand her, but prefer 
 following their own conceits.' 
 
 This remark was too philosophical for a village mayor or school- 
 master. I stood still, and looked at his coarse gray frock and round 
 black straw hat. There was something distinguished, I might 
 almost say noble, in his face. 
 
 He looked at me for a moment with a searching look, and then 
 said : ' Are you Mr Rodern ?' 
 
 'I am !' exclaimed I, surprised, and looking at him more closely. 
 
 He took my hand, and laughingly said : ' You were formerly a 
 slender young man the delight of all the belles.'
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 I tried to draw away my hand, for I thought that one of his 
 strange fits, of which so many had spoken, was come over him ; but 
 he held it fast, and continued : 'What a stout man you are grown ! 
 What good genius led you to Hard ?' and he embraced me, adding : 
 ' Welcome here ! Do you not know me ?' 
 
 I was now really perplexed, and yet it struck me I had seen him 
 before ; suddenly I remembered who it was. ' Engelbert ! ' I 
 exclaimed. 
 
 He answered in the affirmative, and the sound of his voice recalled 
 to my mind my college life. I embraced. him with emotion, forget- 
 ting all the evil I had heard of him. 
 
 He called to a little boy who was working in the next field, and 
 said : ' Run to my wife, and tell her I have found an old friend, who 
 will breakfast with me. Let her set the table under the lime-tree, 
 with wine, fresh butter, white bread, and raspberry vinegar.' 
 
 I now related to him my history since I left college ; I told him 
 what had brought me to Hard ; and we conversed long upon many 
 of our college companions. 'And you,' said I, 'what is your 
 history?' 
 
 'And I,' answered Engelbert smiling 'look at me. You see 
 what I am a countryman, and the mayor of the village in which 
 I live.' 
 
 ' How very remarkable ! ' said I. ' How is it that you hide your 
 noble talents in this unknown corner of the earth? Was it your 
 free choice ?' 
 
 ' My free choice.' 
 
 ' Have you been long here?' 
 
 * Nineteen happy years.' 
 
 ' Tell me all everything,' said I impatiently. 
 
 ' Another time. I see my wife under the lime-tree. You will see 
 my family all together. Come and breakfast with us.' 
 
 We followed the path up the hill, and presently came to the lime- 
 tree, under whose shadow sat an amiable-looking young woman, 
 about thirty years of age, very slender, with pretty features, and clad 
 quite simply. A child, scarcely six months old, lay upon her knee ; 
 another child sat at her feet, receiving some flowers from a red- 
 cheeked, golden-haired boy of about four years of age. Two elder 
 boys the one seven, the other ten were standing behind their 
 mother, each with a book in his hand : they were dressed in coarse 
 stuff, and were barefooted. The rest of the party wore linen dresses. 
 
 The mayor introduced me to his wife, over whose face spread, at 
 my salutation, a beautiful blush ; he then knelt down before her, 
 and very humbly and playfully asked her forgiveness for being so 
 late at breakfast, pointing to me as his excuse. I soon became 
 friendly with this charming family. The children seated themselves 
 on the grass, round a wooden basin filled with fresh milk, which 
 they ate with black bread. They placed before me white bread, 
 
 5
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 fresh delicious butter, water, raspberry vinegar, and a flask of old 
 Burgundy. 
 
 ' See,' said Engelbert ; ' I have not forgotten your old dislike to 
 milk.' 
 
 All this appeared to me like a dream. The truly picturesque 
 group before me the unexpected meeting with Engelbert the 
 finding him living like a peasant among peasants a man who, at 
 the university, had been distinguished for his talents and for his 
 knowledge all this seemed too strange for reality. He was certainly 
 odd in some things when at college, but his companions thought 
 him only whimsical, like many other youths. Who could have 
 imagined that he, whose talents qualified him for the most glorious, 
 the most shining career, would have ended by being a village mayor 
 and schoolmaster ! 
 
 His Augusta (for so he called his wife) and his children loved him 
 with inexpressible affection ; and he fully returned their love. How 
 could this man be so selfish, so unjust, so hard-hearted, as he had 
 been represented to me ? They said in the town that he was a 
 millionaire. I doubted this ; for I knew that his parents had been, 
 during his early life, in only moderate circumstances ; and the 
 clothing and food of himself and his family were remarkably plain. 
 I wished to examine this strange character more closely. 
 
 After breakfast we walked up the hill 
 
 ' I am sorry I have not sufficient room to lodge you under my 
 straw roof,' said he ; ' but in the hotel you will find everything con- 
 venient. I have established a bath there, which is much frequented ; 
 but as the bathing season does not commence until next month, 
 you can have the best rooms in the hotel' 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD. 
 
 The wheelwright had already taken my carriage into his hands, 
 and promised that it should be ready in ten or twelve days ; but the 
 mayor requested him to lay aside all other work until this was 
 finished. The surgeon had set Kruz's arm ; but it still remained 
 much swollen, and there was no hope of removing him for another 
 week. This involuntary delay was very welcome to me ; for really 
 Engelbert and his lovely family so pleased me, that I considered 
 myself fully compensated for the accident which led me thither. I 
 became more and more interested about this strange man, and was 
 daily more convinced that few men were so happy as he. His house 
 resembled that of any other peasant's, except that it stood in the 
 midst of a well-kept vegetable and flower garden : within the 
 house there was the greatest cleanliness and simplicity. Not only 
 
 6
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 Engelbert, but even his wife and children, slept upon couches of 
 leaves and moss : the linen was coarse, but dazzlingly white, and 
 always clean : they used at meals either wooden plates, or else those 
 made of the commonest earthenware : their usual drink was water, 
 milk, or weak beer. I went in one day at dinner-time. My friend 
 received me with smiles, and I joined in their repast. The food was 
 good. We had first a nutritious soup, then delicate vegetables, 
 baked beef, black bread, and small-beer. This was all ; but it 
 seemed to me that I had never enjoyed a dinner more. The amiable 
 mother sitting opposite to me, surrounded by her five red-cheeked 
 children, Engelbert joking merrily with them, the droll prattle and 
 the beaming eyes of the little ones, the peace and content which 
 reigned over all, made it seem to me a dinner in paradise. 
 
 The best apartment was used as justice-room and study. Here 
 my friend, seated in his easy-chair, summarily dispensed justice, and 
 settled disputes among his neighbours. This room contained the 
 only luxuries which the family possessed. A writing-table stood at 
 the window, there was a small but choice collection of books, maps 
 both of the earth and of the heavens, an electrifying-machine, an 
 air-pump, a galvanic and a magnetic apparatus, and various philo- 
 sophical and geometrical instruments. The study might also be 
 called the drawing-room of the establishment ; for here stood 
 madame's piano, and in an empty mineral cabinet lay her best 
 apparel. 
 
 ' This is charming,' said I ; ' but this room will soon be too small 
 for all your family, dear Engelbert. You must enlarge it.' 
 
 ' Not for ten years,' he answered. ' The temple of our happiness 
 is small, but the happiness therein is great. We have more than 
 we want.' 
 
 ' And are you really so very happy thus, Engelbert ? ' 
 
 ' Look here,' said he, pointing to his wife and children : ' see what 
 blooming faces ! A noble soul animates these little creatures. Here 
 is my kingdom my all ! Mine is a life of reality, and not of 
 appearance, like that led by those in magnificent cities. I have 
 enough for my bodily wants, and a sphere of action for my mind. 
 I certainly live separated from European refinements ; but see there,' 
 added he, pointing to his books, ' I have the best, the immortal ones 
 of mankind around me ! Nature, the wonderful works of God, the 
 promises of eternity, all belong to me. What more can I desire ? ' 
 
 I pressed his hand, and knew not how to answer him. I might 
 have called him a dreamer, but I felt he was right in all he said. 
 The further I became acquainted with him, the more I admired his 
 unceasing industry. His business as mayor occupied much of his 
 time ; but beside this, he cultivated the meadows and fields round 
 his house, although only so far as was necessary for his household 
 wants ; he read and wrote two or three hours every day, and instructed 
 his two eldest children. These already knew a great deal, as they
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 were well taught. They were acquainted with the scientific names 
 and the properties of the trees, shrubs, herbs, and vegetables within 
 their reach ; they understood the geology of the mountains around 
 them ; they played with the philosophical instruments in the house, 
 and had some knowledge of the stars and planets ; even the little 
 boy of seven years old told me that the sun was a more beautiful 
 world than this ; and though he could not yet understand the 
 mountains of the moon, he enjoyed looking at them through the 
 telescope. Augusta managed her household affairs, of which she 
 was uncontrolled mistress, in the same spirit as her husband per- 
 formed his business. She attended not only to the smallest trifle 
 in the kitchen, but also to the fowls, the flax, the hemp, and the corn, 
 and the various animals which belong to a farm. 
 
 'But,' asked I again, 'what brought you to this place? You 
 should have devoted your noble talents to the service of your country, 
 instead of being only a village mayor in a foreign land.' 
 
 Early on the morning of the following Sunday, which he had 
 promised to devote to me, he joined me in the garden of the hotel. 
 My breakfast (a cup of strong coffee) was placed in a vine-covered 
 arbour, from which was an extended and beautiful view of the sur- 
 rounding country. Engelbert ordered milk and black bread to be 
 brought there for him. ' I will now tell you,' said he, ' what fate 
 drove me hither. Augusta and the children will call us, and when 
 they are ready, we will all take a walk ; then we will go to church : 
 the curd and other good friends dine with us ; and in the afternoon 
 the young people of the village give a concert. There is a ball in 
 the evening, and you must dance with us. Now, hearken with 
 reverence. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE SUPERFLUITIES OF LIFE. 
 
 ' I left the university half a year after you did. My guardian had 
 ordered me to remain there another year; but I put thirty louis-d'ors 
 in my pocket, and set forth on my travels. I journeyed through 
 Germany and Switzerland, from the Alps to Paris; then through 
 France to Provence, whence I went by sea to Naples, then to Rome, 
 and home by Vienna. I brought back two louis-d'ors in my pocket. 
 I travelled generally on foot, taking only bread and water, now and 
 then wine, and sleeping in barns and stables. 
 
 ' I returned from my journey just as my friends were going to 
 advertise me in the newspapers. My guardian was very angry ; but 
 I found that a visit to foreign countries did me more good than a 
 year's attendance at the professors' lectures. I was examined, and 
 obtained great credit for my knowledge ; and I was placed, at first 
 without salary, in a government office, in order to initiate me in 
 s
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 business. I applied the next year for a place as justiciary ; but 
 received for answer that my capability was not doubted, but, being 
 only three-and-twenty, I was too young. Very well, thought I, that 
 fault will mend every day. The next year I applied for another 
 situation. The president of the government answered : " You have 
 some fortune ; why do you not dress better ? Why do you wear such 
 coarse stuff you cannot appear anywhere thus ?" " The state, your 
 Excellency," answered I, " requires honest service from me, and not 
 fine clothes." The president was offended, and after giving me a 
 slight bow, left me. 
 
 ' There was at that time a quarrel between our court and a neigh- 
 bouring one concerning the right of possession of some abbey lands. 
 The law appeared to give the right to our opponents ; but I had 
 accidentally found in the land-office some deeds relating to the affair, 
 and which would decide it in our favour. I wrote a defence of our 
 claims, had it printed, together with these deeds, dedicated it to the 
 king, and sent it to the minister. This paper brought me great 
 honour. I received the order of Merit namely, a yard of ribbon to 
 hang at my button-hole ; and, as I afterwards learned, the govern- 
 ment intended to do great things for me. Unfortunately, I knew 
 there was nothing to be got by the ribbon, and I sent it back, assuring 
 the minister that I had not written from vanity or interestedness, 
 but from love of justice. I could not have worn the ribbon without 
 blushing. Thfs was interpreted to my hurt by every one, but 
 especially by the court. The president told me I was a fool, and 
 quite out of favour : I .must not now expect a situation. Just at this 
 time happened the death of my guardian, who had hanged himself on 
 my account, for I was now declared of age. He had spent not only 
 his own property, but mine also. I was sorry for him. Had he 
 told me what he had done, I should have pardoned him. All that 
 belonged to him was sold, and nothing was left of my inheritance 
 except eight thousand gulden' [not quite seven hundred pounds]. 
 * His little daughter was placed in the orphan asylum. I pitied her 
 much. " That poor child has much more need of help than I," 
 thought I ; " for I am old, and can earn my bread." I placed my 
 eight thousand gulden in safe hands for her use, desiring that the 
 interest should be appropriated to her education, and that it should 
 all be given to her whenever she should marry. I was determined 
 that she should not remain in the asylum if I could prevent it. 
 
 'Now came the question What shall I do myself? The state 
 did not require my services. I had wished for advancement and 
 employment not so much to gain money, as to have a sphere of 
 action. I wished to be usefitl; so much so, that I would have 
 taken a place without salary, if people would have allowed me to 
 live and dress after my own fashion. But I had been laughed at 
 for this ; so I shook the dust from my feet, and left my native 
 country, hoping to be better appreciated elsewhere. I had property 
 26 9
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 enough with me to be able to live a year in idleness namely, above 
 forty louis-d'ors. When I was a boy, and went to school, I read in 
 a book a treatise entitled "The Superfluities of Life." It was a 
 very ingenious exposition of St Paul's words : " Having food and 
 raiment, let us therewith be content." This made an extraordinary 
 impression upon me. I had often wondered at the many superfluities 
 which mankind make necessary to themselves, and for which they 
 are content to become slaves. The fewer wants and wishes men 
 have, the fewer cares and fears, the fewer vexations. He is the freest 
 man who depends the least upon circumstances, conveniences, and 
 customs. The treatise ended with these words : " Regard only what 
 is substantial, and leave to fools the burdensome pleasure of attending 
 to appearances." 
 
 * I began as a schoolboy to follow this advice. I performed my 
 duties, but denied myself all praise. I slept at night upon two 
 chairs near my bed. I took neither tea nor coffee, neither beer nor 
 wine my drink was only water. I did not use the tenth part of 
 my pocket-money for myself, but bought with it books and maps for 
 the poorer scholars. I rejoiced when the time came for me to go 
 to the university, for then I should be my own master. I lived 
 simply. People thought that I was poor ; but I had money in 
 abundance enough to help others. Those who were richer than I 
 were loaded with debt. This simple mode of life displeased many 
 in my native city. My friends wanted me to live better, but I was 
 content with the cheapest food. My dress was clean, and in the 
 fashion, but very coarse. This was called unbecoming. I did my 
 duty to all, but I paid no court to my superiors. I wished to be 
 myself worthy of honour, and not to obtain it through fine clothes, 
 flattery, and outward show. I did not smoke ; I never played at 
 cards ; and therefore every one thought me strange. I always acted 
 in accordance with my opinions ; was content with little ; helped 
 others with my superabundance ; was always happy ; and never ilL 
 I wanted nothing but a sphere of action. This I had not, because 
 I was not like other people. Miserable those who expect their 
 happiness from others \ 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 ' I roamed about Germany for nearly three months, but did not 
 succeed in finding any employment : everywhere there was a " but." 
 How foolish people are, thought I, to think ill of a man merely 
 because he desires nothing but the opportunity of making his know- 
 ledge useful to others ! I thought I should be doing the world and 
 science a great service, if I went to London and offered to go on a 
 voyage of discovery to Senegal ; and if the English refused my offer,
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 I resolved to go at my own expense. With this determination I 
 bent my course to the north-west. 
 
 ' One evening I arrived very tired at the inn of a little town, and 
 while I ate my frugal supper, I amused myself by reading the news- 
 paper. There I found an advertisement for a schoolmaster in a dis- 
 tant village. The salary was fifty gulden a year ' [about four pounds 
 English money], ' a house and firing free, and the produce of three 
 acres of land. This was just the situation for me. Schoolmaster ! 
 what a weighty calling ! Might I not be the means of reformation 
 to a whole village the saviour of thousands ? Might I not open 
 the way to their improvement in husbandry, in morality, and in 
 religion ? And the pay it was certainly small, but enough for me. 
 Could virtue ever be rewarded by money ? The salaries given by 
 the state are in proportion to the knowledge required. A village 
 schoolmaster requires but little knowledge, and has but little work ; 
 therefore the pay is small : but a court chamberlain, a court fool, a 
 public singer or dancer, has need of much talent ; therefore either 
 of these is paid more than all the schoolmasters in the country put 
 together. 
 
 ' I applied for the situation ; my certificates were examined ; and I 
 was believed to be a boisterous, runaway student. This I let pass. 
 There was nothing said against my knowledge of arithmetic and 
 singing ; nevertheless, difficulties arose ; and I could not blame 
 the gentleman whose duty it was to choose a schoolmaster, for I 
 knew quite well that it was not usual for a man who spoke six or 
 seven languages to apply for so inferior a situation. I believe I 
 should not have been chosen had any other candidate appeared than 
 an old deaf tailor, who was of course rejected. 
 
 " Listen," said the president of the school commission to me ; " the 
 place shall be yours if, after a year's trial, we are satisfied with your 
 conduct." I then received the paper appointing me schoolmaster 
 provisionally, and also a letter of introduction to Mr Pflock, the cure" 
 of Hard, who was ordered to introduce me in the village. 
 
 ' I was as happy as a king if kings ever are happy and I 
 hastened to Hard. I found my abode a dilapidated hut, and dirty 
 as a stable ; every window half pasted up with paper, and my sitting- 
 room very dark, and without a stove in it. The only stove was in 
 the schoolroom, in which apartment sixty-five children assembled 
 daily. The garden was full of rubbish, and the three acres of land 
 were overgrown with weeds. The cure" received me with an austere 
 face ; gave me some wholesome precepts ; and introduced me on the 
 following Sunday afternoon to his congregation, with many admoni- 
 tions to the school children. This curd was a zealous and orthodox 
 man, who thundered every Sunday with a powerful voice against all 
 unbelievers. On week days and in common life, he troubled him- 
 self but little about the welfare of his flock, and was content if his 
 kitchen were well attended to, and if he were invited to all marriage
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 .and baptismal feasts. The villagers were poor, and almost savage ; 
 there was no lack of quarrelling, fighting, and lawsuits ; every peasant 
 was deep in debt ; the soil was hardly cultivated ; and the cattle 
 very miserably managed. The mayor was the richest person in the 
 village, for he was also the landlord of the only inn ; and he who did 
 not drink enough of beer was sure to be punished in some way or 
 another. The external appearance of the village, the rows of miser- 
 able huts, the interiors of which were dirty and disgusting, the 
 coarse manners of the peasants and their wives, the rudeness of the 
 children, and their ragged dirty clothing all told me that this was 
 such a calling as I had desired ; that here I had the opportunity of 
 doing good ; and I danced in my little room for joy till the whole 
 house shook. 
 
 ' The school funds were, as may be supposed, very low, and I set 
 about repairing the schoolhouse at my own cost. I had the windows 
 mended, the rooms whitewashed, the floors cleaned, and the tables, 
 benches, and doors well scoured. I bought linen for my bed, and 
 had a mattress made of moss. I dug my garden, divided it into 
 beds, planted vegetables, and sowed my three acres with corn. I 
 kept a goat, which gave milk enough for my wants, and which grazed 
 on the common during the day, and at night was lodged in the 
 stable. I was soon quite comfortable in my new abode. Even the 
 curb's house was not so clean as mine. The people all wondered 
 at my being so neat, and yet so poor ; and I wondered at their 
 dirtiness and ignorance. 
 
 VII. 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION. 
 
 ' As soon as I had settled myself comfortably in my now pretty 
 abode, I turned my attention to the school children. These were 
 more like a herd of swine than like rational creatures. I began by 
 accustoming them to shake hands with me when they entered the 
 schoolroom ; and whoever came unwashed, was sent to the brook ; 
 for I insisted upon their feet, as well as their hands and face, being 
 clean, and also upon their hair being combed. They laughed at 
 me ; but I begged the curd to stand by me, and I asked him to 
 preach a sermon on the advantages of cleanliness. " That does not 
 belong to religion, Mr Schoolmaster," said he; "go and attend to 
 your business. However, by dint of perseverance, I succeeded in 
 my efforts. 
 
 'The clothing was next to be attended to. The children were 
 dressed in ragged garments : this I could not change, but I was 
 determined that they should be clean ; and I promised a reward to 
 those whose clothes were the cleanest at- the end of the week. I
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 distributed needles, pins, pocket-knives, scissors, and other trifles, 
 which I bought wholesale at the yearly fair in the neighbouring town, 
 and each received some reward for being tidy and clean. The cur 
 and mayor, and in fact all the villagers, laughed at me ; but I 
 resolutely prosecuted my plans. We must first civilise the habits of 
 men before we can succeed in educating them. With the help of 
 these rewards I succeeded ; and before a year passed, the children 
 were cleaner than their parents. Then the elder people began to be 
 ashamed, for their children's neatness was a reproach to them. 
 When I went through the village, the young ones would leave their 
 games in order to greet me.- All loved me. They feared my 
 censure, liked my gifts to them, and, above all, were pleased with 
 the stories I related for their amusement. 
 
 ' All the village talked of my generosity ; and certainly I had 
 spent much more than my fifty gulden during my first year at Hard. 
 Two of the poorest little children were clothed at my expense ; and 
 all this was thought by the people to be done by unnatural means. 
 A schoolmaster in the country was generally the poorest amongst 
 many poor : no man with any property would have become a school- 
 master. 
 
 ' My predecessors had received presents and money from the 
 parents : I gave more away than all the parents put together. They 
 knew not what to make of me. They said that I was a thief, who 
 had come to live here upon stolen money. Meanwhile the curd 
 gave the president the highest certificate of me, annexing some 
 remarks on my presents to the scholars ; but as to give is not 
 forbidden in the ten commandments, nothing was said, and I was at 
 last elected schoolmaster for life. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 
 
 ' Now that I was settled in office, my work became lighter to me. 
 I divided my pupils into classes, and made the elder ones teachers 
 to the younger ; and thus all improved quickly. I bought yarn and 
 knitting-needles for the little girls, taught them to knit, and gave 
 them whatever they made for themselves. The parents were pleased 
 with us ; and I paid a poor woman in the village half my salary for 
 instructing the girls in all kinds of female work. Before another 
 year had passed, rags had disappeared from the schoolroom ; though 
 in some of the children the love of dirtiness, inherited from their 
 parents, seemed unconquerable. 
 
 'Meanwhile the young men rapidly improved. I read aloud to 
 them, and related stories ; and an hour spent in this way was the 
 reward for all who had been diligent. It is incredible with what
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 curiosity they all pressed round me when, on a Sunday afternoon, I 
 appointed them to meet me at my house, in the wood, or in the 
 meadows : all quitted their games ; and even those who had long 
 ago left school, repaired thither. I gave them a moral enveloped in 
 a story; and while they thought they were simply amusing them- 
 selves, I undermined their prejudices, wakened their moral feelings, 
 and increased their knowledge of the world. 
 
 ' The singing lessons did not cause less enjoyment. There were 
 many of my pupils who had good voices. The singing-master in 
 the next town assisted me, and they speedily improved. But I could 
 do nothing with regard to the singing at church, for all the elders 
 of the congregation delighted in singing as loud as possible. I 
 begged the curd to tell his flock that it would be much more agree- 
 able if they did not roar at church. 
 
 "What does that mean?" said he. "I allow every one to cry 
 to God as loud as he likes : lukewarm singing makes lukewarm 
 religion." 
 
 ' He told the peasants and their wives of my unchristian request, 
 and they sang louder than ever. I now felt that I must be more 
 circumspect, for I saw plainly that I was not liked ; and that the 
 washing, sewing, knitting, and singing were looked upon as pernicious 
 innovations ; and that the curd and mayor fostered the dislike of the 
 people the former because I was not sufficiently submissive to his 
 will; and the latter because I never spent a groschen at his inn, 
 and because I amused the young men on a Sunday, instead of 
 letting them drink at his alehouse. Perhaps I should have been 
 even more disliked, had not the youths, maidens, and children 
 shewn great affection for me ; these hindered many from injuring 
 me, and from them I received warning when anything was designed 
 against me. 
 
 ' A rumour was now spread by the women of Hard, which every- 
 where found credence, and which caused me to be feared by all. 
 They said that I was a sorcerer, or something of that kind. When 
 a cow gave blue milk, or when anything was stolen or lost, people 
 came to me, and begged me to tell them, by means of the cards, who 
 or what had caused these events. They attributed the good condition 
 of my three acres to supernatural means, though they saw me 
 weeding and digging the land. I saw that the old people were not 
 to be disabused of this idea : my only hope rested in the children, 
 who had begun to value the trouble I had taken with them. About 
 five years after I came to Hard, the curd, who had always opposed 
 me in everything, came to me one morning, and, after flattering me, 
 offered me his cook in marriage. I refused, perhaps too indignantly; 
 and he, in revenge, wrote to the president, accusing me of practices 
 of the worst kind. I defended myself, and with such success, that 
 the curd's conduct was inquired into, and he was found guilty of the 
 very crimes he had imputed to me. He was dismissed, and another
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 cure", of the name of Bode, took his place. He was quite a different 
 man to his predecessor; pious, gentle, and charitable. He supported 
 me in all my efforts, and tried to improve his flock ; but his sermons 
 were not liked. The people said he was not of the true religion ; for 
 he did not preach incomprehensibilities, as the cure Pflock had done. 
 They praised the latter, lamented his loss, and said that there would 
 never be such another man in Hard. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE COLONY. 
 
 'Just at this time a certain Baron Zebra, arrived at Hard. He 
 had just come into possession of a large and beautiful wood, con- 
 sisting of beech, oak, and birch trees, which lay in the parish of 
 Hard, and which he wished to sell, because he lived at a great 
 distance. The government refused to buy it, because no wdod was 
 required in that neighbourhood, and there was no navigable river 
 near by which timber could be conveyed to a distance. The baron 
 offered it to the people of Hard, as the wood lay very conveniently 
 for them ; but they were very poor, and had wood enough ; besides, 
 if by any chance their stock failed, they made no scruple of stealing 
 it from the baron. They therefore refused to buy it, unless he would 
 lower the price from nine to five thousand gulden. 
 
 'The baron wished for advice on the subject; and the curd 
 recommended him to speak to me, as I understood the affairs of the 
 village better than any one else. He came to me ; and it suddenly 
 occurred to me to buy it myself. My plan was ready directly. The 
 baron said he would take six thousand gulden for it, if I could 
 procure purchasers. I explained to him that I wished to buy the 
 wood upon speculation, and that I would pay him half the sum 
 down, if he would allow the other half to remain, for which I would 
 pay interest. He looked round my school-room, and then stared at 
 me with surprise : he, however, agreed to my proposition, and the 
 terms of purchase were legally drawn up. I took the eight thousand 
 gulden from the bank, the interest of which the orphan daughter of 
 my guardian had hitherto received, paid for her education out of my 
 income, and gave the baron the sum agreed upon. 
 
 'The people talked loudly enough now. No one doubted my 
 being in possession of unheard-of riches ; but the old people laughed 
 at my speculation. I let them laugh. I procured the necessary 
 implements, built a large kiln, had the wood cut down, and every 
 piece converted into ashes. I had meditated great designs. 
 
 ' My best friend in Hard was a young and poor peasant named 
 Lebrecht, whom I had often assisted in the management of his 
 children, and I handed over my school to him. He was confirmed
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 in the situation by the school commission ; and I, only reserving to 
 myself the privilege of relating stories as formerly, left the school- 
 house, and built myself a hut in the wood, in order to be near my 
 workmen. They also built huts there ; and we lived very much like 
 American backwoodsmen. The peasants shook their heads at my 
 foolish undertaking. One acre after another of wood was changed 
 into ashes ; and in a twelvemonth some hundred acres were laid 
 bare. The potash thus procured found a ready sale, and was sent 
 far and wide. From the produce of half the forest I gained enough 
 to pay the remainder of the purchase-money ; and besides possessing 
 the land, I had now a large capital in my hands. 
 
 ' I built a small house upon my land, with stabling and barns, 
 bought cattle, laid the ground out in fields and meadows, and carried 
 on farming as well as my potash manufactory. I discovered not far 
 from my house a mineral spring ; and as there were no baths near 
 Hard, I built an inn, and published in all the newspapers the 
 medicinal properties of the waters, the beauty of the neighbourhood, 
 and the accommodation for visitors. Many people came ; and in a 
 year or two I was obliged to add a wing to the hotel. 
 
 ' I gave the management of the baths to an honest and diligent 
 family. My capital increased rapidly. I divided three hundred 
 acres into several parts, and built dwellings ; for I had wood and 
 limestone in abundance; and as soon as a house was ready, I 
 placed a farmer therein. I chose those who were skilful in their 
 business, and made the leases as advantageous to my tenants as 
 possible. I became, in fact, the lawgiver to my colonists. These 
 found so much advantage in settling on my land, that they would 
 not willingly disobey me ; and my unyielding severity towards 
 certain faults soon banished them from my empire, for all feared my 
 displeasure. Look there, dear Rodern ; all those buildings behind 
 us on the hill, fourteen in number, are the extent of my colony. 
 
 X. 
 
 ELEVATION OF RANK. 
 
 ' Among the strangers who yearly visited the baths were many of 
 high rank, with whom I became acquainted. Had I been dressed 
 as they were, my knowledge would not have attracted any attention ; 
 but in my peasant's frock, I appeared to them a very clever and 
 admirable man. I was supposed to be enormously rich ; and after 
 the death of the old village mayor, was named his successor. In 
 fact my elevation of rank gave me as much joy as being chosen 
 governor or minister of state would have done in former days. Now 
 I had attained my purpose, and my wishes were accomplished. I 
 knew the ingratitude of the inhabitants of Hard. What else could 
 
 16
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 be expected from such idle, mean-spirited, ignorant people ? I must 
 have made them human, before I could expect noble feelings from 
 them. 
 
 ' I carried on my design, assisted by the curd Bode and the school- 
 master Lebrecht. I continued my conversations with the youths of 
 the village. I knew, from eight years' experience, all the sources of 
 evil in the place, and I tried to stay them. One of the most important 
 was the love of going to law. I made myself their attorney. I 
 examined all the claims of the peasants, put an end to their quarrels 
 by means of friendly advice, and from that time all the law-loving 
 peasants came to me as judge. I was now so placed as to adjust 
 all matters, and to frustrate all the endeavours of the country lawyers 
 to produce quarrels. This was an unspeakably great advantage to 
 the village. But, in the midst of all this, something happened of 
 which I had often thought but had never yet experienced some- 
 thing which for some time turned my brain, and put all plans of 
 reformation out of my head. 
 
 ' I was going one day with a load of potash to Berg, a market- 
 town about six miles distant, and where my agent lived. I had laid 
 a sack of beans on the top of the load, and just as I entered Berg, 
 it fell off. A boy who was passing saw the sack lying in the road, 
 told me of my loss, and I took it upon my back, in order to carry 
 it to the wagon. Just at this moment a pretty town-clad maiden 
 passed me, and as I looked at her, a strange feeling came over me. 
 My hat had fallen off, and having the sack on my back, I could not 
 stoop to pick it up. She saw my dilemma, and kindly taking it up, 
 gave it me. Whether I thanked her or not, I do not even now 
 know, but I followed my wagon into the town as if in a dream : I 
 could not forget her smile. 
 
 ' I had a little bedroom at my agent's house always ready for me, 
 for I was often obliged to remain all night at Berg. This day, 
 however, I had finished my business early, and had intended to 
 return home ; but I could not resist remaining at Berg, in the hope 
 of seeing the maiden again. I could not quit the window, and stood 
 gazing into the street, until I was called to dinner. To my surprise, 
 on joining the family at table, I found the maiden there. I sat in 
 the place of honour, as usual, and she was opposite me. I could 
 not eat. I saw only her black eyes instead of my food. " Who is 
 your visitor?" said I to my friend after she was gone. " It is a poor 
 girl that my sister, the curb's wife, has educated," replied my agent's 
 wife. " My brother-in-law is just dead, and as my sister is going 
 to leave the vicarage, she sent this girl to me for a short time." 
 This answer pleased me much ; but no part of it more than the 
 word poor. " Then I may hope/' thought I. I was not poor, nor 
 very ugly, and only two-and-thirty years old ; but I was a potash 
 manufacturer, and she an elegant city maiden. My spirit was 
 troubled. 
 
 17
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 * Soon after, in passing by the kitchen, I saw the maiden busy at 
 the fire. Her kitchen apron made her more lovely than ever. My 
 courage returned. In the evening I heard the sound of music as I 
 sat in my own room : it was she playing on a miserable pianoforte. 
 I entered the room whence the sounds came : she was alone, and 
 her face became crimson when she saw me. I begged leave to 
 tune the piano for her ; and after I had done this, she played to 
 me. Never had music so delighted me. She shewed great taste 
 and capability, and I felt as if in heaven. She was surprised that 
 I knew anything of music, and that my language was not that of a 
 common countryman. " Are all the peasants in your neighbourhood 
 as well educated as yourself, sir?" asked she smilingly; at which I 
 smiled in return. I proposed a walk, and she consented. She 
 looked more beautiful now ; for the air changed the paleness and 
 sorrowful expression of her features into cheerfulness, and almost 
 merriment. We sat together at supper, and afterwards spent an 
 hour pleasantly at the piano. 
 
 ' I could not close my eyes that night. I remained the next day 
 at Berg. I felt confused and embarrassed : my heart ached : and 
 the third day, when I returned to Hard, I was really ill. 
 
 XL 
 
 THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE WORK. 
 
 ' All my business was now at a stand ; at least my zeal was gone, 
 for I thought of nothing but adorning my house. I bought an 
 excellent piano, and made many additions to my furniture. The 
 next week, when I went with my potash to Berg, I dressed myself 
 more carefully ; and when I saw the church spire of the town, my 
 heart beat violently. My agent and his wife received me kindly, as 
 usual, and the maiden greeted me as an old acquaintance : from her 
 blushes, I thought she was glad to see me. The piano was opened, 
 and I whispered to her that I had bought an excellent one, and 
 should like much to hear her play upon it. I dared not say more. 
 We walked together, and talked on every subject but one. I passed 
 another sleepless night, staid the next day, and when I bade her 
 adieu, she said : "Shall we see you again next week?" I promised 
 to visit Berg the following Thursday, and left, reproaching myself 
 that I had not had courage to say more. I wandered through my 
 colony at Hard ; I considered all I had done ; but nothing pleased 
 me. I could not contentedly say that all I had done was good : 
 there was something wanting the consecration of my work by 
 beauty and love. 
 
 * I went to Berg as I had promised, and the kindness of my 
 reception gave me courage. During our walk, I told her how long 
 
 18
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 the time had appeared since my last visit, and how much I had 
 longed to see her again. She answered innocently that she was 
 always glad to see me ; that she was lonely there ; and found no 
 sympathy from those around her. I drew her arm within mine, and 
 there was a long silence, for I had overstepped the boundaries of 
 custom. She withdrew her arm ; and I said tremblingly : " How 
 can people be unsympathising towards you ?" I could say no more : 
 we returned to the house ; and I invited my agent and his family to 
 pass a day at Hard. " Mademoiselle Augusta must also go with 
 us," said he ; " she goes back next week to my sister-in-law." He 
 shewed me the letter, in which the day for her return was fixed. My 
 happiness was gone. 
 
 ' In the evening, as I sat by her at the piano, I said : " Do you 
 really leave us ?" Her hands fell from the keys as she answered in 
 the affirmative. I was gloomy and miserable ; and when I bade 
 her good-night, I kissed her hand, and the tears came into my eyes. 
 I remained at Berg till Saturday, when the whole family accom- 
 panied me back to Hard. When the beautiful girl sprang from the 
 coach, and trod my land, then a change came over me, and I felt 
 that my work was sanctified by beauty and love. The strength and 
 energy of man can do much in the world. Woman sanctifies all his 
 efforts by love. She wakes in him the sense of the beautiful, and 
 crowns him with the victor's wreath of domestic happiness. 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE GREAT DAY OF REJOICING. 
 
 ' My guests took up their abode in the new hotel, and I gave 
 orders that they should be made as comfortable as possible. The 
 agent's wife made many comments on my house, and wanted to 
 know why I did not live more luxuriously. " I could do so as well 
 as others," said I, not without a little vanity ; " but I do not want 
 luxuries to make me happy. I will do without them, in order to 
 have enough to give to those who are in want." My agent shook 
 his head, and said : " You are a wonderful man ! " The maiden 
 looked at me with sympathising eyes, and was the only one who 
 defended me. " Who wants luxuries where perfect neatness reigns ?" 
 said she. " Does the possession of mahogany tables, china cups, 
 or silver spoons add one mite to our happiness ?" I led my defender 
 to the piano ; I shewed her various valuable little trifles ; and at 
 last conducted her into my garden. She looked round with delight, 
 and exclaimed : " How beautiful it is here !" " And will you leave 
 all this ?" said I. " Do you think it will be as beautiful when you 
 are gone ?" She was silent. " Stay here," continued I ; " you are 
 loved here more than you will be anywhere else." Tears filled her
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 eyes : she looked at me. " Stay," repeated I ; " for without you I 
 cannot be happy." She saw my agitation, and answered : " I 
 would willingly remain here. Here is true happiness !" " Share it 
 then with me," cried I. " You are an orphan, and there is no one 
 to oppose your giving your hand and heart to me." " Truly I have 
 no parents ; I am very poor ; but what I have promised I will fulfil. 
 I will take no important step without the consent of my kind foster- 
 mother, and also of one man whom I honour above all on the earth." 
 " Who is that man ?" asked I anxiously. " The noblest in the world. 
 My father died miserably, and had, by his indiscretion, made this 
 man unhappy. I was forsaken by all, but this young man took pity 
 on me. He chose me a guardian, and spent the little he had upon 
 my education. I honour him as a father. He kept his residence 
 secret from me, but my guardian knew where he was. I wrote two 
 letters to thank him for all he had done, but I have received no 
 answer. I will do nothing without his consent." " What is his 
 name ? I will seek him, even if he be in America." " Engelbert !" 
 she replied. I lost my speech ; but at last I stammered : " Are you 
 Augusta Lenz?" "Yes," she replied with much surprise. I took 
 her hand, led her to my desk, and shewed her her two letters. 
 " How did you obtain these letters ?" she asked. " I am Engelbert, 
 and your father was my guardian," I replied. She sank on her 
 knees at my feet, kissed my hand, and would not let me raise her 
 up. " Let me lie here," said she ; " I have often wished to thank 
 my benefactor." " Will you leave me?" said I. " Nobody but you 
 has a right to control me," she replied. " What you command is 
 my will." " And if I command nothing if I were not Engelbert, 
 and if Engelbert opposed us, would you leave me ?" She turned hei 
 face to mine. It was the happiest moment of my life, for we were 
 now betrothed. 
 
 ' The agent and his wife were astonished when they heard all this. 
 " There is more than one Engelbert in the world," said they : " we 
 should never have dreamed of this." " If I had heard your name at 
 Berg," said Augusta, " I should have discovered you long ago ; but 
 you were only called ' Mayor ' there." 
 
 ' I took her through my colony, I related the history of my life, 
 explained to her all my intentions, and confided to her ail my 
 thoughts. I declared she should not again leave Hard ; and the 
 curd Bode published the bans in the church next day. Augusta 
 wrote to the curd's widow who had brought her up ; and I added a 
 few lines to her letter, saying that the sum should be paid as usual 
 till her death. Augusta remained at the hotel. There was much to 
 be done in my house, and she arranged everything according to her 
 own taste. The following Sunday she entered my room, dressed in 
 peasant's clothing. She had laid aside her city elegancies, and 
 appeared in the costume of a country maiden. A fortnight after, 
 the curd joined our hands at the altar.
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 XIII. 
 A FORTUNATE MISFORTUNE. 
 
 * Augusta now relieved me of my household cares, and I devoted 
 my time to the business of the village. We had been married about 
 two years, when one night, arising from carelessness in a house, the 
 whole village fell a prey to the flames. All help was vain. The 
 peasants stood looking on, stupefied and unable to move, while 
 people from the neighbouring villages hastened to our aid. 
 
 ' Only a few buildings remained. It was a great misfortune. The 
 government hardly helped us at all; but still I hoped that good 
 would arise out of this evil. I wrote to the government respecting 
 the rebuilding of the village, and represented the possibility of 
 avoiding such misfortunes in future by obliging each landowner to 
 build his house in the centre of his property. This could easily be 
 done ; and it was decided that the owners should exchange their 
 land one with another, till that of each lay compact. 
 
 'The government sent commissioners to examine the case, and 
 my proposition met with their approbation. But these exchanges 
 were not made without trouble ; and after all was arranged, wood 
 for building was wanting. There was none to be had for many 
 miles ; and now every one grumbled at not having bought the 
 baron's wood ten years ago. I let what wood remained be cut down, 
 and sold it at a very low price. I did not require ready money, but 
 allowed two years' credit. I advanced a certain sum upon every 
 house ; the government did the same ; and I collected subscriptions 
 from the bathing visitors for the poorest of the peasants. 
 
 ' In a twelvemonth the village was rebuilt, the houses apart from 
 each other as you see : the bakehouses were separated from the 
 dwellings ; and close to every house is a well. I had a canal dug, 
 and turned the waters of the various brooks therein, and thereby 
 watered the waste lands and meadows, and thus increased the 
 pasturage. The gardens and fields were well manured and attended 
 to ; for the owners were always on the spot, and did not need going 
 here and there to look after their labourers. All were obliged to be 
 economical, and the village inn was but little frequented. I forbade 
 the landlord of my hotel to let the peasants have either wine or beer. 
 The widow of the mayor, who still kept the old alehouse, was more 
 angry with me than ever ; but I attained my end. Had she followed 
 my advice, she might have done well in the world ; for my hotel 
 was generally so full that many guests had to seek rooms elsewhere ; 
 and I would have assisted her, had she not continued violent in her 
 wrath against me. 
 
 'Now, certainly, a great number of the inhabitants are in debt to 
 me, but still they have paid off many of their old debts to each
 
 THE VILLAGE MAYOR. 
 
 other. Our village is now the most flourishing in the whole country. 
 We have no more lawsuits. Many of my former pupils are now 
 fathers and mothers, and order and neatness reign in every house. 
 I assemble all the peasants yearly ; and those who have kept their 
 houses, stables, clothes, &c. in the greatest order, and who have 
 been most diligent in their husbandry, and most correct in their 
 conduct, I release from the interest of the money I lent them. The 
 first three peasants who could pay their debt to me I excused 
 entirely.' 
 
 XIV. 
 SUNDAY IN HARD. 
 
 Augusta interrupted us just here. She was blooming as a rose, 
 her baby lay on her arm, another little one held her hand, and the 
 elder ones followed her. The church bells sounded through the 
 valley ; we went together to the service of God ; the gentle soft 
 singing of the congregation was uncommonly pleasing to me, and 
 the emotion which it caused was increased by the silver-haired cure* 
 who prayed at the altar, and afterwards, with a true knowledge of 
 mankind, preached on the relation of this life to that hereafter. 
 
 After service was over, the people collected under the lime-trees. 
 The mayor spoke kindly to all, and, standing upon a bench, read 
 and explained some government decrees, and obviated the objections 
 which some raised to them. He then laid his hand upon me, and 
 said : ' An old and dear friend of my youth is come to visit me ; and 
 as I wish to give him pleasure, and to shew him those young people 
 who have particularly distinguished themselves by their good con- 
 duct, I invite them to a dance and supper at my house this evening.' 
 He then read a long list of names from a sheet of paper. 
 
 A general smile appeared on the faces of the villagers as they 
 went away. The cure", a kind, good-tempered, lively man, the 
 schoolmaster Lebrecht, and his wife, and the physician, accompanied 
 us to the hotel, where dinner was prepared for us. I enjoyed myself 
 amongst these excellent people ; and I can never forget this dinner, 
 nor the concert which followed it. Twenty-four men, women, and 
 children sang the choruses of Haydn, Handel, and Grann with as 
 much taste and correctness as I had ever heard at any concert in 
 the city. Engelbert, Augusta, and their elder boys joined the 
 singers. The bath-house garden was the concert-room ; and no 
 spot could have been better chosen, for the distant wall of rocks sent 
 back a magic sound, and the evening sun shed its golden rays over 
 all. I was touched, and my tears flowed. 
 
 'And one man has done all this!' thought I; 'and this man, 
 surrounded by a world of his own creation, stands there as humble 
 and unassuming as the peasants around him.' I could not resist,
 
 STORY OF FRITZ. 
 
 when the concert was over, pressing him to my bosom, and exclaim- 
 ing : ' Thou art one of the greatest on the earth, even in thy labourer's 
 frock ! ' I now accompanied the party to the bath-house, and danced 
 with Augusta, and afterwards with many of the Hard maidens. 
 Augusta had been the dancing-mistress to the whole village ; and 
 the good curd walked amongst the company like a father amongst 
 his children. We sat down to supper as chance directed : a young 
 peasant-girl was my neighbour, and interested me more than many 
 a city belle with her conversation. 
 
 As soon as Kruz was recovered, and my carriage repaired, I left 
 Hard. Engelbert would not let me pay at the hotel ; he said I had 
 been living in his house ; and I consented at last to be his debtor. 
 With what feelings I left Hard, I must leave to your imagination. 
 I can never forget the impression made upon me by my visit to 
 that happy village. 
 
 THE STORY OF FRITZ. 
 
 FRITZ KORNER was the son of a tailor at Brunswick, and his 
 father, who was tolerably well to do in the world, proposed bringing 
 Fritz up to his own business. But when the boy was about eight 
 years of age, Korner, whose first wife was dead, took it into his head 
 to marry another ; and from the time the second Mrs Korner was 
 placed at the head of the establishment, poor Fritz's comfort was 
 at an end. She hated him ; and, as she soon had a son of her own, 
 she was jealous of him. Opportunities were not wanting to shew 
 her spite, and though the father wished to protect him, he could 
 not ; so, when he saw that the child's life would be rendered miser- 
 able, and his disposition be spoiled by injustice and severity, and 
 by the contests and dissensions of which he was the subject and 
 the witness, he resolved to send him from home, and let him learn 
 his trade elsewhere. 
 
 He happened to have a distant relation in the same line of business 
 at Bremen ; and to this person he committed the child, with an 
 injunction to treat him well, and make a good tailor of him. But 
 Fritz had no aptitude for tailorship; nor, indeed, to speak the 
 truth, did he appear to have an aptitude for anything at least for 
 anything that was useful, or likely to be advantageous to himself. 
 Not that he was altogether stupid, but that, either from indolence, 
 or from not having found his vocation, his energies never seemed 
 awakened ; and he made no progress in his business, and very little 
 in his learning. 
 
 The man with whom he was placed at Bremen was a violent and
 
 STORY OF FRITZ. 
 
 unreflecting person, who, without seeking to ascertain the cause of 
 the boy's deficiencies, had recourse to the scourge ; and when he 
 found flogging did nothing towards the development of Fritz's genius, 
 he tried starving ; and that not answering any better, he pronounced 
 him a hopeless and incorrigible little blackguard, and reduced him 
 to the capacity of errand-boy an office much more to Fritz's fancy, 
 and one, indeed, with which he would have been well contented, 
 could it have lasted ; but he knew too well that this declension was 
 only a preliminary to his final dismissal, and that, in short, the 
 only thing his master waited for was to find some one travelling 
 to Brunswick on whom he could rely to conduct him safely to his 
 father. All he wanted, he said, was to get rid of him, and wash 
 his hands of the responsibility. 
 
 Affairs were in this position, when one day Fritz was sent to the 
 other end of the city to fetch some cloth, which, being immediately 
 wanted, he was urged to bring with all possible speed. He per- 
 formed half his errand without delay; but on his way back, he 
 happened to fall in with a troop of cuirassiers, whose brilliant attire, 
 fine horses, and martial air, not to mention the attraction of the 
 music by which they were accompanied, were all too much for Fritz's 
 discretion ; and, forgetful of the charge he had received, and the 
 expectant tailors at home, he fell into the rear of the soldiers, 
 and followed them in a direction exactly opposite to the one he 
 should have taken. But,' alas ! at the corner of a street, when he 
 least thought of it, who should he run against but his master ! Fritz, 
 whose eyes and ears were wholly engrossed by the brilliant cortege 
 before him, was not at first aware that he had run foul of his enemy, 
 till a sharp tug at one of his ears awakened his mind to the fact ; 
 but no sooner had he raised his eyes to the face of his dreaded 
 master, than, seized with terror, he broke away, and taking to his 
 heels, ran blindly forward, without considering Avhither he was going, 
 till he reached the quay. But here his career was impeded. 
 
 Some vessels were just putting to sea, and there was such a con- 
 course of people, and such a barricade of carts and wagons, that 
 the road was almost blocked up. Concluding that his master was 
 close at his heels, and that if he slackened his pace he should inevit- 
 ably be overtaken, Fritz looked about for an expedient ; and saw none 
 but to leap into the nearest vessel and conceal himself, till he thought 
 his pursuer had passed. What he was to do afterwards remained 
 for future consideration. In he leaped, therefore, amongst several 
 other persons, whom, had he paused to think, he might, from the 
 similarity of their movements, have supposed to be also eluding 
 the pursuit of a ferocious tailor. But Fritz thought not of them, 
 he thought only of himself; and down he dived into the first hole 
 "he saw, and concealed himself behind a barrel. 
 
 When the poor boy had lain there for about half an hour, he heard 
 a great hubbub over his head, which led him to believe that his 
 24
 
 STORY OF FRITZ. 
 
 master had discovered his retreat, and was insisting on his being 
 hunted up a suspicion in which he was confirmed by frequently 
 distinguishing, amidst the din, a voice that ever and anon cried 
 ' Fritz ! ' He therefore only lay the closer ; and whenever any one 
 approached the place of his concealment, he scarcely ventured to 
 breathe, lest he should be discovered. Presently, however, there was 
 a new feature in the dilemma : the vessel began to move, and Fritz 
 to suspect that, if he staid where he was, he should be in for a 
 voyage. This was more than he had reckoned upon, and he was 
 just preparing to emerge, when his courage was quelled by the sound 
 of ' Fritz ! Fritz !' which appeared to issue from the mouths of half- 
 a-dozen people at once ; so he slunk back in his hole, and suffered 
 himself to be carried to sea. 
 
 The motion of the vessel, together with the darkness which sur- 
 rounded him, and his previous fatigue and agitation, presently sent 
 him to sleep ; and thus for some hours he lay, oblivious of all his 
 troubles. But at length an inward monitor awoke him not his 
 conscience, but his appetite. He found himself ravenous, but how 
 to set about satisfying his hunger he could not tell. He listened ; 
 he heard the ropes and the spars straining, the water splashing 
 against the sides of the vessel, and a heavy foot pacing the deck 
 over his head, but no voice calling ' Fritz.' 
 
 He began to hope his master had given up the search, and quitted 
 the vessel ; so, urged by his stomach, he resolved to creep out, and 
 see if he could lay his hands on something eatable. He found it 
 more difficult to get out of his hole than he had done to get into it ; 
 however, he contrived to reach the deck, where he discovered it 
 was night. There was a person pacing it from end to end, another 
 at the helm, and two or three more in different directions ; but their 
 eyes being all directed seawards, Fritz had no difficulty in eluding 
 their observation ; so he crawled on to where he saw a light glim- 
 mering from a cabin below, where he found the means of allaying 
 his hunger, after which he threw himself into an empty berth, and 
 fell asleep. 
 
 'Fritz! Fritz!' 
 
 ' Here I am, sir,' cried Fritz, starting from his pillow, and 
 jumping clean out of the berth into the middle of the floor, on 
 hearing himself called, before he had time to recollect where he 
 was. 
 
 ' Here I am, sir!' echoed a man who was passing the door at the 
 moment, and popped in his head to see from whom the announce- 
 ment proceeded. ' And pray, who are you, now you are here ? ' 
 
 Fritz rubbed his eyes, and stared about him with such a bewildered 
 air, that he looked very much as if he did not know who he was 
 himself. 
 
 'Who are you?' said the man, seizing the boy by the arm; 'and 
 what brought you here?' 
 
 25
 
 STORY OF FRITZ. 
 
 * I came aboard myself, sir,' replied Fritz. 
 
 'What !' said the man. ' I suppose, if the truth was known, you 
 are some young thief escaped from justice ?' 
 
 * I am not a thief, sir,' answered Fritz ; ' I only ran away from my 
 master, who was going to beat me;' and on being further inter- 
 rogated, he related his history ; whereupon the man to whom he was 
 speaking, who happened to be the steward, took him to the captain, 
 and communicated the whole affair. ' We can't get rid of the young 
 rogue now,' said the captain ; ' so we must fain take him with us to 
 the West Indies ; but we J ll keep a close eye upon him, and when 
 we return, we '11 bring him back to his master. In the meantime, 
 make him work out his passage.' So Fritz was sent before the mast, 
 and made to swab the decks, help his namesake the steward, and 
 put his hand to everything ; in short, he had no sinecure. Still, bad 
 as it was, he liked it better than a sedentary profession ; and he 
 would have been tolerably contented, had it not been for the appre- 
 hension of being restored to his master. However, like many 
 anticipated evils, his fears on this score were never realised. The 
 period in question was a season of war ; and when they had been 
 about a week at sea, Fritz was called out of his berth one morning 
 to help to clear the decks for a fight ; they were chased by an 
 English ship. 
 
 A sharp battle ensued ; and for two hours Fritz heard the balls 
 whistling round his head, as he ran about the deck at the command 
 of the gunner, at whose orders, on that occasion, he was placed ; at 
 the end of which period the Jungfrau struck her colours to the 
 Chanticleer, and Fritz presently found himself transferred to the 
 deck of the English ship. Here he was only looked upon as one of 
 the crew of the prize, and consequently attracted no notice whatever 
 amongst his captors ; whilst the captain and such of the crew of the 
 Jungfrau as survived were too much occupied with their own 
 misfortune to trouble themselves about him. 
 
 When the ship reached Hull, to which port she was destined, 
 either from being overlooked, or from being thought of too little 
 importance to detain, Fritz was suffered to step ashore, and walk 
 away whithersoever he pleased. He strolled into the town, and for 
 some time was amused enough in looking about him ; but when he 
 grew hungry and tired, and recollected that he had not a farthing in 
 his pocket to purchase food or lodging, and that, moreover, he could 
 not speak a word of English, the forlornness and desolation of his 
 situation struck him with dismay, and sitting down on the step of a 
 door, he began sobbing and crying in a manner that attracted the 
 eyes of the passers-by, some of whom inquired what he was crying 
 for. But Fritz, aware that he could not make himself understood, 
 only cried on with redoubled vigour, and made them no answer. 
 As night approached, his case grew worse, and he rose from the 
 step to look about for some sort of shelter. As he wandered through 
 iff
 
 STORY OF FRITZ. 
 
 the streets, a party of officers passed on horseback, one of whom 
 happened to drop his whip. Fritz stepped forward, picked it up, 
 and handed it to him. A good turn is never lost : the poor half- 
 starved boy was thanked and kindly spoken to by the officer (Colonel 
 Webster), who, rinding from his language that he was a German, 
 and a seemingly forlorn stranger, ordered his servant to conduct him 
 to the barracks ; and ' Kempster,' said he, ' shall find out his history 
 for us.' 
 
 Kempster, who was the master of the band, being a German, had 
 little difficulty in extracting the whole of Fritz's adventures ; and 
 feeling a natural interest in his little compatriot, he offered to teach 
 him music, and, with Colonel Webster's permission, attach him to 
 the band. This was willingly granted. Fritz was committed to the 
 care of Kempster, and soon appeared on parade in a little uniform, 
 with a triangle in his hand. This was his first instrument ; but he 
 was soon qualified to handle more difficult ones ; for though he 
 could not learn tailoring, he learned music fast enough so fast, that 
 a few years afterwards, when his friend Kempster died, he was 
 raised to the dignity of master of the band. 
 
 It might have been supposed that Fritz had now reached his 
 ultimatum ; he thought so himself, and, perfectly contented with his 
 lot, never looked beyond it. But Fortune, who seemed to have taken 
 him into her own peculiar charge, had not done with him yet. 
 
 In the course of service, the regiment to which Fritz was attached 
 was sent to Gibraltar ; and there it fell to his lot one day to relieve 
 two ladies from the attack of a ferocious dog. One was the wife, 
 and the other the daughter, of a rich Spanish merchant ; and Fritz, 
 who was now a handsome young fellow, could not help fancying that, 
 whilst the old lady expressed her gratitude for the service with great 
 volubility, the eyes of the younger expressed hers in a much more 
 eloquent and emphatic language ; in short, gratitude made her feel 
 an affection for our hero, who, however, was too modest, and too 
 deeply aware of the inferiority of his condition, to avow an attach- 
 ment in return. 
 
 Matters had stood thus for some time, when the English forces 
 having attacked and taken Minorca, one of the German regiments 
 that had garrisoned that island volunteered into the British service, 
 and was removed to Gibraltar ; but, to the great inconvenience of 
 all parties, there was scarcely a man in it who could speak a word of 
 English. In this dilemma the services of Fritz were put in requi- 
 sition; and he was found so useful as an interpreter, that it was 
 thought advisable to give him a commission, and attach him to the 
 German regiment 
 
 Here, then, was our hero a commissioned officer in his majesty's 
 service, and entitled to take his place in the society his mistress 
 frequented on an equal footing. He had thus the advantage of 
 speaking to her frequently, and it was not long before they had 
 
 27
 
 THE BIRD-CATCHER AND HIS CANARY. 
 
 avowed to each other their mutual passion. But, alas ! she was 
 rich, and Fritz had nothing but his pay ; and the father would not 
 hear of the alliance. In this dilemma they might perhaps have 
 proposed an elopement ; but Fritz, besides being above doing any- 
 thing clandestinely, could not think of leaving his post all which 
 shewed his good sense. At this juncture his regiment was relieved, 
 and summoned to England, by which the lovers were separated. 
 
 Strange adventures still followed our hero. Shortly after his 
 arrival in England, the exiled Duke of Brunswick was appointed to 
 the command of a British regiment, and in looking about for an aide- 
 de-camp, who should he fix upon but Fritz ! A field-officer, and the 
 aide-de-camp of the Duke of Brunswick, Fritz was now in a position 
 to make proposals for the young lady to whom he was attached. A 
 favourable answer was returned ; and soon after, the lady, accom- 
 panied by her friends, arrived in England, and gave her hand to the 
 happy Fritz. It might have been reasonably supposed that Fortune 
 by this time, tired of shewing one side of her face, would have 
 inclined to give Fritz a peep at the other ; but no such thing. The 
 course of events having decreed that the great question was to be 
 decided on the plains of Belgium, Fritz accompanied the Duke of 
 Brunswick thither ; and when that gallant potentate fell on the field 
 of Waterloo, Fritz found himself in command of his regiment ; a 
 situation in which he acquitted himself so honourably, that, on the 
 restoration of the legitimate rulers of Brunswick, he was appointed 
 the commander-in-chief of their forces a post which he continued to 
 occupy for many years, with infinite credit to himself and advantage 
 to his sovereign. 
 
 Such were the extraordinary adventures of the once poor little 
 Fritz Korner a singular combination of fortunate circumstances, 
 with the ability to take advantage of them. Many years ago, when 
 we learned the particulars which we have narrated, Fritz was still 
 alive, retired from active live, and enjoying the reward of his good 
 conduct. 
 
 THE BIRD-CATCHER AND HIS CANARY.* 
 
 IN the town of Cleves, an English gentleman was residing with a 
 Prussian family during the time of the fair, which we shall pass over, 
 having nothing remarkable to distinguish it from other annual meet- 
 ings where people assemble to stare at, cheat each other, and divert 
 themselves, and to spend the year's savings in buying those bargains 
 
 From Pratt's Gleanings a. work now rarely seen. 
 98
 
 THE BIRD-CATCHER AND HIS CANARY. 
 
 which would have been probably better bought at home. One day 
 after dinner, as the dessert was just brought on the table, the travel- 
 ling German musicians, who commonly ply the houses at these times, 
 presented themselves, and were suffered to play ; and just as they 
 were making their bows for the money they received for their 
 harmony, a bird-catcher, who had rendered himself famous for 
 educating and calling forth the talents of the feathered race, made 
 his appearance, and was well received by the party, which was 
 numerous and benevolent. 
 
 The musicians, who had heard of this bird-catcher's fame, asked 
 permission to stay; and the master of the house, who had a great 
 share of good nature, indulged their curiosity a curiosity, indeed, 
 in which every one participated ; for all that we have heard or seen 
 of learned pigs, asses, dogs, and horses, was said to be extinguished 
 in the wonderful wisdom which blazed in the genius of this bird- 
 catcher's canary. 
 
 The canary was produced, and the owner harangued him in the 
 following manner, placing him upon his forefinger : ' Bijou, jewel, 
 you are now in the presence of persons of great sagacity and honour ; 
 take heed you do not deceive the expectations they have conceived 
 of you from the world's report. You have got laurels ; beware, 
 then, of erring. In a word, deport yourself like the bijou the jewel 
 of the canary-birds, as you certainly are.' 
 
 All this time the bird seemed to listen, and indeed placed himself 
 in the true attitude of attention, by sloping his head to the ear of the 
 man, and then distinctly nodding twice when his master left off 
 speaking ; and if ever nods were intelligible and promissory, these 
 were two of them. 
 
 'That's good,' said the master, pulling off his hat to the bird. 
 ' Now, then, let us see if you are a canary of honour. Give us a 
 tune.' The canary sang. 
 
 ' Pshaw ! that ; s too harsh ; 'tis the note of a raven, with a hoarse- 
 ness upon him : something pathetic.' The canary whistled as if his 
 little throat was changed to a lute. 
 
 ' Faster,' says the man ' slower very well what a plague is this 
 foot about and this little head? No wonder you are out, Mr Bijou, 
 when you forget your time. That 's a jewel bravo ! bravo ! my 
 little man ! ' 
 
 All that he was ordered or reminded of did he do to admiration. 
 His head and foot beat time humoured the variations both of tone 
 and movement ; and ' the sound was a just echo of the sense,' 
 according to the strictest laws of poetical, and (as it ought to be) of 
 musical composition. 
 
 'Bravo! bravo!' re-echoed from all parts of the dining-room. 
 The musicians declared the canary was a greater master of music 
 than any of their band. 
 
 'And do you not shew your sense of this civility, sir?' cried the 
 
 29
 
 THE BIRD-CATCHER AND HIS CANARY. 
 
 bird-catcher with an angry air. The canary bowed most respectfully, 
 to the great delight of the company. 
 
 His next achievement was going through the martial exercise with 
 a straw gun, after which, ' My poor Bijou,' says the owner, ' thou 
 hast had hard work, and must be a little weary : a few performances 
 more, and thou shalt repose. Shew the ladies how to make a 
 courtesy.' The bird here crossed his taper legs, and sank and rose 
 with an ease and grace that would have put half our subscription 
 assembly belles to the blush. 
 
 ' That will do, my bird ! And now a bow, head and foot corre- 
 sponding.' Here the striplings for ten miles round London might 
 have blushed also. 
 
 ' Let us finish with a hornpipe, my brave little fellow. That 's it : 
 keep it up, keep it up.' 
 
 The activity, glee, spirit, and accuracy with which this last order 
 was obeyed, wound up the applause (in which all the musicians 
 joined, as well with their instruments as with their clappings) to the 
 highest pitch of admiration. Bijou himself seemed to feel the sacred 
 thirst of fame, and shook his little plumes, and carolled an lo ptean, 
 that sounded like the conscious notes of victory. 
 
 ' Thou hast done all my biddings bravely,' said the master, 
 caressing his feathered servant : ' now, then, take a nap, while I take 
 thy place.' 
 
 Hereupon the canary went into a counterfeit slumber, so like the 
 effect of the poppied god, first shutting one eye, then the other, then 
 nodding, then dropping so much on one side, that the hands of 
 several of the company were stretched out to save him from falling ; 
 and just as those hands approached his feathers, suddenly recover- 
 ing and dropping as much on the other. At length sleep seemed to 
 fix him in a steady posture ; whereupon the owner took him from his 
 finger, and laid him flat on the table, where the man assured us he 
 would remain in a good sound sleep while he himself had the 
 honour to do his best to fill up the interval. Accordingly, after 
 drinking a glass of wine, in the progress of taking which he was 
 interrupted by the canary-bird springing suddenly up to assert his 
 right to a share, really putting his little bill into the glass, and then 
 laying himself down to sleep again, the owner called him a saucy 
 fellow, and began to shew off his own independent powers of 
 entertaining. The fort of these lay chiefly in balancing with a 
 tobacco-pipe, while he smoked with another; and several of the 
 positions were so difficult to be preserved, yet maintained with such 
 dexterity, that the general attention was fixed upon hrm. 
 
 While the little bird was thus exhibiting, a huge black cat, which 
 had been no doubt on the watch from some unobserved corner, 
 sprang upon the table, seized the poor canary in its mouth, and 
 rushed out of the window in despite of all opposition. Though the 
 dining-room was emptied in an instant, it was a vain pursuit ; the 
 30
 
 THE BIRD-CATCHER AND HIS CANARY. 
 
 life of the bird was gone, and its mangled body was brought in by 
 the unfortunate owner in such dismay, accompanied by such looks 
 and language as must have awakened pity in a misanthrope. He 
 spread himself half-length over the table, and mourned his canary- 
 bird with the most undissembled sorrow. 
 
 ' Well may I grieve for thee, my poor little thing ! well may I 
 grieve ! More than four years hast thou fed from my hand, drunk 
 from my lip, and slept in my bosom ! I owe to thee my support, 
 my health, my strength, and my happiness ! Without thee, what 
 will become of me ? Thou it was that didst insure my welcome in 
 the best companies ! It was thy genius only made me welcome ! 
 Thy death is a just punishment for my vanity : had I relied on thy 
 happy powers, all had been well, and thou hadst been perched on 
 my finger, or lulled on my breast, at this moment ! But trusting 
 to my own talents, and glorifying myself in them, a judgment has 
 fallen upon me, and thou art dead and mangled on this table ! 
 Accursed be the hour I entered this house ! and more accursed the 
 detestable monster that killed thee ! Accursed be myself, for I 
 contributed ! I ought not to have taken away my eyes when thine 
 were closed in frolic! Oh, Bijou ! my dearest, only Bijou ! would I 
 were dead also ! ' 
 
 As near as the spirit of his disordered mind can be transfused, 
 such was the language and sentiment of the forlorn bird-catcher, 
 whose despairing motion and frantic air no words can paint. He 
 took from his pocket a little green bag of faded velvet, and drawing 
 from out of it some wool and cotton, that were the wrapping of 
 whistles, bird-calls, and other instruments of his trade, all of which 
 he threw on the table, ' as in scorn,' and making a couch, placed the 
 mutilated limbs and ravaged feathers of his canary upon it, and 
 renewed his lamentations. These were now much softened, as is 
 ever the case when the rage of grief yields to its tenderness when 
 it is too much overpowered by the effect to advert to the cause. 
 
 It is needless to observe that every one of the company sympa- 
 thised with him ; but none more so than the band of musicians, 
 who, being engaged in a profession that naturally keeps the sensi- 
 bilities more or less in exercise, felt the distress of the poor bird- 
 man with peculiar force. It was really a banquet to see these people 
 gathering themselves into a knot, and, after whispering, wiping 
 their eyes, and blowing their noses, depute one from amongst them 
 to be the medium of conveying into the pocket of the bird-man 
 the very contribution they had just before received for their own 
 efforts. 
 
 Having wrapped up their contribution, they contrived to put it 
 into the poor man's pocket. As soon as he became aware of what 
 they had done, he took from his pocket the little parcel they had 
 rolled up, and brought with it, by an unlucky accident, another 
 little bag, at the sight of which he was extremely agitated, for it 
 
 31
 
 THE BIRD-CATCHER AND HIS CANARY. 
 
 contained the canary-seed, the food of the ' dear lost companion cf 
 his heart.' 
 
 There is no giving language to the effect of this trifling circum- 
 stance upon the poor fellow ; he threw down the contribution-money 
 that he brought from his pocket along with it, not with an ungrateful, 
 but a desperate hand. He opened the bag, which was fastened with 
 red tape, and taking out some of the seed, put it to the very bill of 
 the lifeless bird, exclaiming : ' No, poor Bijou ! no ; thou canst not 
 peck any more out of this hand that has been thy feeding-place so 
 many years thou canst not remember how happy we both were 
 when I bought this bag full for thee ! Had it been filled with gold, 
 thou hadst deserved it ! ' 
 
 ' It shall be filled and with gold,' said the master of the house, 
 * if I could afford it.' 
 
 The good man rose from his seat, which had been long uneasy to 
 him, and gently taking the bag, put into it some silver, saying, as he 
 handed it to his nearest neighbour : ' Who will refuse to follow my 
 example ? It is not a subscription for mere charity ; it is a tribute 
 to one of the rarest things in the whole world ; namely, to real 
 feeling, in this sophistical, pretending, parading age. If ever the 
 passion of love and gratitude was in the heart of man, it is in the 
 heart of that unhappy fellow ; and whether the object that calls out 
 such feelings be bird, beast, fish, or man, it is alike virtue, and 
 ought to be rewarded.'
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 [NSIGNIFICANT as the ant may seem, there is no 
 other insect, the honey-bee excepted, whose character 
 and economy have excited so much curiosity and 
 research. Nor does this arise from any benefit which 
 it confers, or serious ravage which it commits, at least in 
 this country, for, generally speaking, its effects are unimportant. 
 It is the ceaseless activity of the little creature, its industry, its 
 care for its young, and, above all, its social economy, which have 
 so long attracted attention, and made one of the tiniest insects the 
 permanent emblem of some of the highest virtues. The sluggard 
 has been sent to the ant to consider her ways, the prodigal to 
 imitate her thrift ; the young are told that she gathereth her meat in 
 summer, and the unruly and turbulent have a powerful monitor in 
 the harmony of her busy communities. It is to the more remarkable 
 of these traits that we intend at present to direct attention. 
 
 GENERAL CHARACTER AND ECONOMY. 
 
 The form of the ant, or emmet, must be so familiar to every one, 
 that anything like a description seems quite unnecessary. Ento- 
 mologists arrange it under the order Hymenoptera j* that is, insects 
 
 * In systems of natural history, ants form the seventh family of Hymenopterous insects, 
 under the title Formicidtz, from the Latin word formica, an ant. The genera and species 
 are not well denned, in consequence of the little attention which has yet been paid to this 
 department of animated nature. 
 
 27 t
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 having membranous wings, in which the nervures are small and 
 scarcely conspicuous. This may startle those who are accustomed 
 to consider ants as wingless creatures that burrow in little hill- 
 ocks and under stones ; but the discrepancy will disappear when 
 it is stated that, like some other social insects, ants are of three 
 sexes males, females, and neuters and that it is only the perfect 
 sexes which are furnished with wings. The males and females 
 form but a very small portion of established communities, and 
 abound only for a short while before the swarming season in 
 summer. At that time they go forth into the air, for the purposes 
 of reproduction the males dying in a few days, and the females 
 falling to the ground, where they either return to the original nest, 
 or are surrounded by stray neuters, and become the foundresses 
 of new communities. They then throw off their wings as useless 
 appendages, and become queens and mothers, in which state they 
 never leave the nest, but are tended and fed by the neuters or 
 workers. It is for this reason that the population of an ant-hill is so 
 generally wingless, it being the neuters which form more than nine- 
 tenths of the number, and on which the labours and economy of the 
 community entirely depend. They not only construct the nest, but 
 most carefully tend the young grubs ; supplying them with food, 
 moving them on fine days to the outer 
 surface of the nest, to give them heat, 
 carrying them back again on the ap- 
 proach of night or bad weather, and 
 defending them when attacked by ene- 
 mies. The sexes are of different sizes, 
 the females being largest, the neuters 
 next, and then the males, which are 
 sometimes of very tiny proportions, 
 i. Male; 2. Female; 3. Neuter. Some of the neuters have longer bodies 
 and larger heads than the others ; and, 
 
 as will be afterwards seen, these have peculiar functions assigned 
 them in the labours of the community. Most of the species are 
 stingless, but all of them bite fiercely with their mandibles, and have 
 the property of ejecting a very acrid secretion, which inflames and 
 irritates the skin like the sting of a nettle. 
 
 There are many species of ants, distinguished by their size and 
 colour, but chiefly by their habits some burrowing in the ground, 
 others piling up little mounds or hillocks ; some hewing out their 
 cells and passages in decayed timber, others constructing a nest of 
 great neatness among the boughs and branches of the trees on which 
 they feed. They are omnivorous in their habits devouring almost 
 any kind of vegetable or animal substance that lies within their 
 reach ; but are particularly fond of fruits, gums, and saccharine 
 matter, and not less of flesh, as may be seen by placing some small 
 animal in their nests, when, after a few days, its skeleton will be
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 found as thoroughly cleaned as it could have been by the most skilful 
 anatomist. The providence of the ants has been long proverbial ; 
 they are believed to store up provision of grain in summer for their 
 use during winter. The idea originated in southern countries, and was 
 taken up in Europe from the Proverbs of Solomon, and from classic 
 writers. But when northern naturalists began to observe accurately 
 the habits of the species that came under their notice, they found no 
 evidence of such a practice, and hence they rashly concluded that 
 the idea was altogether erroneous, and the result of inaccurate 
 observation. It is now, however, beyond doubt that in India and 
 other tropical countries many species of ants do store grain and 
 other seeds in large quantities ; and the recent accurate observa- 
 tions of Mr J. T. Moggridge have established the existence of several 
 species of harvesting ants in the south of Europe, near Mentone. It 
 thus appears that the storing of provisions is a characteristic of many 
 ants in southern countries, although it is not so in northern Europe, 
 where ants become dormant or torpid, and do not require food. 
 
 The eggs produced by the queen-mother are at first so small that 
 they are hardly discernible to the naked eye ; but when viewed 
 through a microscope, they appear smooth, polished, and glossy. 
 These minute granules are objects of great solicitude to the workers, 
 which remove them, as soon as laid, to proper receptacles, and there 
 nurse and tend them, moistening them with a peculiar liquid, and 
 turning them by degrees, till they assume the larva form. In the 
 larva and pupa state,* they are nursed with still greater care. In 
 cold weather, they are carried to the lowest retreats of the habitation, 
 to secure them from the cold ; and in fine weather, they are exposed 
 to the genial influences of the sun. If an ant-hill be molested, 
 the first care of the workers is to protect the young ; and they may 
 be seen running about in a state of distraction, each carrying a 
 young one, frequently as big as itself. After remaining for some 
 weeks as pupae, the young burst the surrounding integument. They 
 are at first nearly white, but in two or three days become of the 
 usual colour. The old ones, it is said, generally assist the young 
 animal in freeing itself from confinement, by tearing with their 
 mandibles the covering in which it is wrapped, as without such 
 aid the young would frequently be unable to set itself at liberty. 
 The pupas are of a yellowish white, and look like grains of corn, and 
 this was thought to have given rise to the mistake so deemed at 
 one time of the early observers who attributed to the ant the habit 
 of storing up grain. Similarly, the habit of the insect of nibbling 
 the envelope to set free the young, was held to account for the belief 
 that ants bite off the growing end of the grain to prevent it from 
 
 * The terms larva and fitpa are employed by naturalists to designate the intermediate 
 states of existence in the insect, on its passage from the egg to its becoming a perfect 
 animal, endowed with all the powers of its race the former being commonly known under 
 the appellation of Grub or Caterpillar, the latter of Chrysalis or Aurelia. 
 
 3
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 sprouting. But this does not require explanation ; for Mr Mogg- 
 ridge has proved that they do nip off the rootlets of seeds that sprout 
 in the nest. Ants swarm once or twice a summer, when the young 
 ones build new habitations for themselves, and live together in the 
 same social and orderly manner as their progenitors. 
 
 These communities, as already stated, consist of males, females, 
 and neuters. The females are the queen-mothers ; but whether 
 there is only one queen, as among bees, or several, is still a matter 
 of doubt. Some naturalists affirm there is only one fertile female, 
 and this may be the case in comparatively young swarms ; but in 
 old-established colonies, it is more than likely that there always exist 
 a number of females of various ages. Be this as it may, the queens 
 have not the same omnipotent sway as among bees : ant-hives are 
 strictly republics, in which every member performs with honest 
 cordiality the duty assigned him. The males are found in the nests 
 only previous to swarming in summer, and are then equally if not 
 more numerous than the neuters. It is the latter which are the true 
 republican workers : on them depend the erection of the habitation 
 and its constant repair, the nursing and rearing of the young, the 
 defence of the hive, and the collection of food. If nature has 
 assigned to them the greater share of labour, she has also bequeathed 
 .a longer lease of enjoyment; for, after the winged males and females 
 have left the hive in summer, a few days of aerial dalliance limit 
 ftheir existence. According to Gould, the ant remains in the larva 
 state nearly a twelvemonth, in the state of pupa about six weeks, 
 and as a perfect insect sixteen months. The time, however, they 
 remain as larvae and pupae is no doubt considerably influenced by 
 variations of temperature and other causes. Thus, by exposure 
 to sufficient warmth, the common white butterfly may be disclosed 
 from its chrysalis in June, or it may be retarded till August by 
 merely keeping it in a dark and colder situation. The lengthened 
 period of perfect existence here spoken of refers strictly to the 
 workers ; the lives of the parent sexes are of very different 
 duration. 
 
 Previous to the swarming season, the nests become crowded with 
 young brood ; the whole community is in a state of agitation the 
 winged males and females running and bustling among the wingless 
 neuters. The wings of the former, which are exceedingly thin and 
 fragile, soon attain their full size ; and on the first favourable oppor- 
 tunity they take their departure from the parent hive. They do not 
 seem to swarm simultaneously, but continue to make their egress 
 by degrees, ancl as sunny weather presents itself. Once in the open 
 air, the males do not return, like the drones or males of the honey- 
 bee ; and thus ants are not called upon to act the part of parricides 
 and fratricides, like bees, which invariably destroy their males in 
 autumn. Though rarely or ever seen in the nests, at the swarming 
 season winged ants sometimes appear in incredible numbers. ' In
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 September 1814,' says Dr Bromley, 'being on the deck of the hulk 
 to the Clorinde (then in the river Medway), my attention was drawn 
 to the water by the first-lieutenant observing there was something 
 black floating down with the tide. On looking with a glass, I 
 discovered they were insects. The boat was sent, and brought a 
 bucketful of them on board. They proved to be a large species of 
 ant, and extended from the upper part of Salt-pan Reach out towards 
 the Great More, a distance of five or six miles. The column appeared 
 to be in breadth eight or ten feet, and in height about six inches,, 
 which, I suppose, must have been from their resting one upon 
 another.' Purchas seems to have witnessed a similar phenomenon 
 on shore. ' Other sorts of ants,' says he, ' there are many, of which 
 some become winged, and fill the air with swarms, which sometimes 
 happens in England. On Bartholomew 1613, I was in the island 
 of Foulness, on our Essex shore, where were such clouds of these 
 flying pismires that we could nowhere flee from them but they 
 filled our clothes ; yea, the floors of some houses where they fell 
 were in a manner covered with a black carpet of creeping ants^. 
 which they say drown themselves about that time of the year in 
 the sea.' Many such clouds or swarms are noticed by other writers ; 
 and, allowing for a little exaggeration, it is quite impossible to 
 conceive from whence they could have originated. Were all the 
 ants of a district males, females, and neuters to be suddenly 
 invested with wings, they could scarcely constitute such numbers ; 
 and one is almost tempted to the opinion, that at certain seasons 
 all the sexes do in reality assume the winged form. 
 
 Thus much for the general characteristics of the family ; we shall 
 now advert to the habits of our native species, borrowing our 
 information chiefly from Gould, the younger Huber, and Latreille. 
 
 NATIVE SPECIES. 
 
 Our native ants are usually distinguished by their colours and 
 habits.* Thus, we have red, brown, and black ants ; turf-ants, hill- 
 ants, and wood-ants each species differing somewhat in size, 
 colour, mode of obtaining food, and kind of habitation. The nest 
 of the turf-ant, which is one of the most common of our native 
 species, is at once simple and ingenious. Sometimes it is formed 
 under a flat stone, and consists simply of hollow cells and communi- 
 cating galleries, all of which are excavated with great neatness, care 
 being taken to remove the loose material to a distance from the 
 nest. At other times it takes advantage of a tuft of grass, and piles 
 around and amid the stems a considerable mound, the interior of 
 which serves for a habitation the stems giving it strength and 
 coherence. The turf-ant also delights in old earthen fences and 
 
 * There are said to be as many as thirty-two species of ants inhabiting this country, but 
 they are not all generally distributed. 
 
 S
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 hedge-banks which have a southern exposure. In these they 
 excavate chamber upon chamber, and gallery after gallery : it is in 
 such situations that we have found the most numerous colonies. 
 
 Other species, as the ash-coloured, brown, and yellow ants, 
 construct little conical mounds, generally known as 'ant-hills;' and 
 this indeed is the most frequent kind of structure. These mounds 
 are composed of pellets of moist earth found on the spot, and piled 
 together with great architectural ingenuity, so as to form arched 
 galleries, domes, pillars, and partitions, the whole being under one 
 roof of compacted particles of earth and chips of grass and straw. 
 'To form,' says M. Huber, 'a correct judgment of the interior 
 arrangement or distribution of an ant-hill, it is necessary to select 
 such as have not been accidentally spoiled, or whose form has not 
 been too much altered by local circumstances ; a slight attention 
 will then suffice to shew that the habitations of the different' species 
 are not all constructed after the same system. Thus, the hillock 
 raised by the ash-coloured ants will always present thick walls, 
 fabricated with coarse earth, well-marked stories, and large 
 chambers, with vaulted ceilings, resting upon a solid base. We 
 never observe roads or galleries, properly so called, but large 
 passages of an oval form, and all around considerable cavities and 
 extensive embankments of earth. We further notice that the little 
 architects observe a certain proportion between the large arched 
 ceilings and the pillars that are to support them.' 
 
 The brown ant, one of the smallest of our native species, is 
 particularly remarkable for the extreme finish of its work. ' It 
 forms its nest of stories four or five lines in height ; the partitions 
 are not more than half a line in thickness ; and the substance of 
 which they are composed is so finely grained, that the inner walls 
 present one smooth unbroken surface. These stories are not 
 horizontal ; they follow the slope of the ant-hill, and lie one upon 
 another to the ground-floor, which communicates with the subter- 
 ranean lodges. They are not always, however, arranged with the 
 same regularity, for these ants do not follow an invariable plan ; it 
 appears, on the contrary, that nature has allowed them a certain 
 latitude in this respect, and that they can, according to circum- 
 stances, modify them to their wish ; but however fantastical their 
 habitations may appear, we always observe they have been formed 
 by concentrical stories. On examining each story separately, we 
 observe a number of cavities or halls, lodges of narrower dimensions, 
 and long galleries, which serve for general communication. The 
 arched ceilings covering the most spacious places are supported 
 either by little columns, slender walls, or by regular buttresses. We 
 also notice chambers that have but one entrance, communicating 
 with the lower story, and large open spaces, serving as a kind of 
 cross-road, in which all the streets terminate. 
 
 ' Such is the manner in which the habitations of these ants are 
 
 6
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 constructed. Upon opening them, we commonly find the apartments, 
 as well as the large open spaces, filled with adult ants ; and always 
 observed their pupae collected in the apartments more or less near 
 the surface. This, however, seems regulated by the hour of the 
 day and the temperature ; for in this respect these ants are endowed 
 with great sensibility, and know the degree of heat best adapted for 
 their young. The ant-hill contains sometimes more than twenty 
 stories in its upper portion, and at least as many under the surface 
 of the ground. By this arrangement, the ants are enabled, with the 
 greatest facility, to regulate the heat. When a too burning sun 
 overheats their upper apartments, they withdraw their little ones 
 to the bottom of the ant-hill. The ground-floor becoming, in its 
 turn, uninhabitable during the rainy season, the ants of this 
 species transport what most interests them to the higher stories ; 
 and it is there we find them more usually assembled, with 
 their eggs and pupae, when the subterranean apartments are 
 submerged.' 
 
 In the laborious duty of rearing a habitation, all the workers take 
 part ; and as these nests are liable to be destroyed by rain, by the 
 accidental tread of cattle, and also require to be enlarged as the 
 colony increases, the labour of building can never be said to be at 
 an end. At this species of work they toil by night as well as by 
 day, take advantage of a gentle shower or dewy morning, when the 
 earth is slightly moistened, and are only interrupted by cold weather 
 or heavy rains. Their cells have none of that geometrical regularity 
 so much admired in the combs of the honey-bee ; but this is 
 rendered unnecessary by the circumstance, that, unlike the larva 
 of the bee, which is confined to a single cell, the young of the ant 
 is carried hither and thither as its wants may require. Having no 
 symmetrical structure to erect, they do not act in concert like the 
 bee, but are occasionally found working at cross-purposes. Such 
 an occurrence does not, however, much embarrass them ; for a 
 worker, on discovering his mistake, immediately undoes what he 
 has erected, and follows instinctively that portion of the plan which 
 was more advanced than his own. On this point, M. Huber's arti- 
 ficial formicaries enabled him to make the following interesting 
 observations : ' A wall had been erected, with the view of sustaining 
 a vaulted ceiling, still incomplete, that had been projected towards 
 the wall of the opposite chamber. The workman who began con- 
 structing it had given it too little elevation to meet the opposite 
 partition, upon which it was to rest. Had it been continued on the 
 original plan, it must infallibly have met the wall at about one half 
 of its height ; and this it was necessary to avoid. This state of 
 things very forcibly claimed my attention ; when one of the ants 
 arriving at the place, and visiting the works, appeared to be struck 
 by the difficulty which presented itself ; but this it as soon obviated, 
 by taking down the ceiling, and raising the wall upon which it
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 reposed. It then, in my presence, constructed a new ceiling with 
 the fragments of the former one. 
 
 ' When the ants commence any undertaking, one would suppose 
 that they worked after some preconceived idea, which, indeed, 
 would seem verified by the execution. Thus, should any ant 
 discover upon the nest two stalks of plants which lie crossways, 
 a disposition favourable to the construction of a lodge, or some 
 little beams that may be useful in forming its angles and sides, it 
 examines the several parts with attention ; then distributes, with 
 much sagacity and address, parcels of earth in the spaces, and 
 along the stems, taking from every quarter materials adapted to its 
 object, sometimes not caring to destroy the work that others had 
 commenced ; so much are its motions regulated by the idea it has 
 conceived, and upon which it acts, with little attention to all else 
 around it. It goes and returns, until the plan is sufficiently under- 
 stood by its companions.' 
 
 The wood-ant, or pismire, constructs a habitation somewhat 
 similar in shape, but differing very widely in its materials, from that 
 of the hill-building species. This nest is usually about the size of 
 a large mole-heap, of a conical form, and composed exteriorly of 
 small twigs, chips of bark and leaves, pieces of straw, grass, and 
 such-like material. The whole is gradually tapered to the summit, 
 so that the rain is carried off as from the roof of a well-thatched 
 cottage. This thatching or coping forms, however, but a small 
 portion of the nest, for all the galleries and cells are either scooped 
 out of the soil beneath, or built in the usual manner with earth and 
 clay by the little architects. The pismire differs in its economy 
 from the other species already noticed, inasmuch as a section of the 
 workers are continually on the outside, enlarging and patching the 
 framework, and do not seek to shun the sun and wind by retreating 
 to the interior. They are also bolder in their manner, and will tug 
 and tumble away with straws and twigs in our presence, turning 
 round with erected head and open jaws if teased with the finger. 
 Their habitation is thus interestingly described by the authority 
 formerly quoted : ' To have an idea how the straw or stubble roof 
 is formed, let us take a view of the ant-hill at its origin, when it is 
 simply a cavity in the earth. Some of its future inhabitants are 
 seen wandering about in search of materials fit for the exterior work, 
 with which, though rather irregularly, they cover up the entrance ; 
 whilst others are employed in mixing the earth, thrown up in 
 hollowing the interior, with fragments of wood and leaves, which 
 are every moment brought in by their fellow-assistants ; and this 
 gives a certain consistence to the edifice, which increases in size 
 daily. Our little architects leave here and there cavities, where 
 they intend constructing the galleries which are to lead to the 
 exterior, and as they remove in the morning the barriers placed at 
 the entrance of their nest the preceding evening, the passages are 
 
 8
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 kept open during the time of its construction. I soon observed the 
 roof to become convex ; but we should be greatly deceived did we 
 consider it solid. This roof is destined to include many apartments 
 or stories. Having observed the motions of these little builders 
 through a pane of glass, adjusted against one of their habitations, 
 I am thence enabled to speak with some degree of certainty upon 
 the manner in which they are constructed. I ascertained that it 
 is by excavating, or mining the under portion of their edifice, that 
 they form their spacious halls, low, indeed, and of heavy construction, 
 yet sufficiently convenient for the use to which they are appropriated 
 that of receiving, at certain hours of the day, the larvae and 
 pupae. 
 
 ' These halls have a free communication by galleries, made in the 
 same manner. If the materials of which the ant-hill is composed 
 were only interlaced, they would fall into a confused heap every time 
 the ants attempted to bring them into regular order. This, however, 
 is obviated by their tempering the earth with rain-water, which, 
 afterwards hardened in the sun, so completely and effectually binds 
 together the several substances, as to permit the lemoval of certain 
 fragments from the ant-hill, without any injury to the rest ; it, more- 
 over, strongly opposes the introduction of the rain. I never found, 
 even after long and violent rains, the interior of the nest wetted to 
 more than a quarter of an inch from the surface, provided it had 
 not been previously out of repair, or deserted by its inhabitants. 
 
 'The ants are extremely well sheltered in their chambers, the 
 largest of which is placed nearly in the centre of the building ; it 
 is much loftier than the rest, and traversed only by the beams that 
 support the ceiling : it is in this spot 
 that all the galleries terminate, and 
 this forms, for the most part, their 
 usual residence.' As to the under- 
 ground portion, it consists of a range 
 of horizontal apartments, excavated 
 in the usual manner. 
 
 Another peculiar feature in the 
 wood-ants is their night opera- 
 tions. These proceedings are de- 
 tailed by M. Huber, who, transferring 
 a complete nest to one of his glass- 
 cases, had ample opportunities of 
 watching all their movements. Not 
 constructing a covert-way or concealed 
 passage to the interior of their nests, 
 but leaving all the avenues open for 
 ready egress and ingress, it is neces- 
 sary that, during night, when their labour ceases, these avenues should 
 be closed up, not only for protection from enemies, but for shelter from 
 27 9
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 cold. This operation they perform with all the skill and caution of 
 a trusty warder : no cottager ever shut his windows and barred his 
 door more effectually. ' I remarked,' says our historian, ' that their 
 habitations changed in appearance hourly, and that the diameter of 
 those spacious avenues, where so many ants could freely pass each 
 other during the day, was, as night approached, gradually lessened. 
 The aperture at length totally disappeared, the dome was closed on 
 all sides, and the ants retired to the bottom of their nest. 
 
 ' In further noticing the apertures of these ant-hills, I fully ascer- 
 tained the nature of the labour of its inhabitants, of which I could 
 not before even guess the purport; for the surface of the nest 
 presented such a constant scene of agitation, and so many insects 
 were occupied in carrying materials in every direction, that the 
 movement offered no other image than that of confusion. 
 
 ' I saw then clearly that they were engaged in stopping up pass- 
 ages ; and for this purpose they at first brought forward little pieces 
 of wood, which they deposited near the entrance of those avenues 
 they wished to close ; they placed them in the stubble ; they then 
 went to seek other twigs and fragments of wood, which they disposed 
 above the first, but in a different direction, and appeared to choose 
 pieces of less size in proportion as the work advanced. They at 
 length brought in a number of dried leaves, and other materials 
 of an enlarged form, with which they covered the roof an exact 
 miniature of the art of our builders, when they form the covering 
 of any building ! Nature, indeed, seems everywhere to have antici- 
 pated the inventions of which we boast, and this is doubtless one 
 of the most simple. 
 
 'Our little insects, now in safety in their nest, retire gradually 
 to the interior before the last passages are closed ; one or two only 
 remain without, or concealed behind the doors on guard, while the 
 rest either take their repose, or engage in different occupations in 
 the most perfect security. I was impatient to know what took place 
 in the morning upon these ant-hills, and therefore visited them at 
 an early hour. I found them in the same state in which I had left 
 them in the preceding evening. A few ants were wandering about 
 on the surface of the nest, some others issued from time to time 
 from under the margin of their little roofs formed at the entrance 
 of the galleries : others afterwards came forth, who began removing 
 the wooden bars that blockaded the entrance, in which they readily 
 succeeded. This labour occupied them several hours. The passages 
 were at length free, and the materials with which they had been 
 closed scattered here and there over the ant-hill. Every day, morning 
 and evening, during the fine weather, I was a witness to similar 
 proceedings. On days of rain, the doors of all the ant-hills remained 
 closed. When the sky was cloudy in the morning, or rain was 
 indicated, the ants, which seemed to be aware of it, opened but in part 
 their several avenues, and immediately closed them when the rain
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 commenced.' Could the most enlightened reason, which ascribes 
 
 such procedure to mere animal instinct, have done more ? 
 There are some European species, such as the jet-ant, which 
 
 neither excavate burrows nor build hills, but which hew out chambers 
 
 and galleries in the trunks of decayed trees. For this purpose, their 
 
 hard mandibles are well adapted, and though the work must be 
 
 necessarily very tedious, yet their indomitable perseverance and 
 
 daily increasing numbers soon prepare 
 
 a suite of apartments of astonishing 
 
 magnitude. We once discovered such 
 
 a nest in a prostrate trunk, of which the 
 
 bark and a few papery floors and parti- 
 tions were the only portions left the 
 
 whole interior having been hewn away 
 
 by those busy carpenters; and, what 
 
 was curious, scarcely a handful of frag- 
 ments could have been gathered in the 
 
 vicinity. Whether the portions nibbled 
 
 away may serve as food, be carried to 
 
 a distance by the ants, anxious to avoid 
 
 detection, or be borne off by the wind, 
 
 is yet unknown. The carpenter-ants 
 
 are perhaps the shyest and most secret 
 
 of the family ; always conducting their 
 
 operations in the interior of trees, as if desirous of being screened 
 
 from observation. 
 
 Such is the economy of the more remarkable of our native species 
 in the construction and management of their habitations. In other 
 respects, as the rearing of their larvae, their food, hibernation, &c. 
 they present less difference. None of them bite with great severity; 
 though they are sufficiently troublesome to any one who may 
 thoughtlessly seat himself for half an hour on the little grassy 
 hillock which holds their colony. It is only the wood-ant that is 
 possessed of a veritable sting. They are not destructive in any 
 appreciable degree to the products of the farmer or gardener ; their 
 only injury, indeed, is to lawns and pastures, in which their nests are 
 numerous ; where, besides destroying the turf, cattle have a special 
 aversion to browse in their vicinity. 
 
 The small red house-ant is perhaps the only species in this 
 country directly antagonistic to man's interests. As there have been 
 numerous complaints about them lately in the daily papers, it would 
 appear as if they were on the increase, and therefore a few words 
 concerning them may not be uninteresting. In some parts ot 
 London, they are very troublesome, making sad depredations in the 
 larders ; so much so, indeed, that in some instances houses have been 
 vacated on account of the difficulty experienced, and the constant 
 care required, in preventing the ravages of this little pest. It is the
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 smallest of the ants found in Great Britain, not more than half the 
 size of the common garden-ant, and has most probably been intro- 
 duced from abroad in luggage, merchandise, or some other manner, 
 and may be looked upon as one of the evils attendant upon the free 
 intercommunication of nations and the exchange of commodities. 
 In houses where they abound, the dishes containing meat, fruit, and 
 other eatables have to be isolated by means of water, as is practised 
 abroad, to prevent these attacks. What they lack in size they make 
 up in numbers, and it is almost incredible the depredations they 
 commit in a comparatively short space of time. 
 
 FOREIGN SPECIES. 
 
 The species of ants inhabiting foreign countries differ chiefly from 
 those of Europe in their habits and economy colour and size being 
 as variable among the latter as among the former. Those of tropical 
 regions never hibernate ; theirs is a life of uninterrupted activity 
 building, feasting, storing. They generally appear in vast numbers, 
 and commit incredible havoc on the surrounding vegetation ; nor 
 are some species less formidable to man from the severity of their 
 stings. Dampier, speaking of the natural productions of the Spanish 
 settlements in South America, mentions several species which 
 infested that country : ' The great black ant stings, or bites, almost 
 as bad as a scorpion ; and next to this, the small yellow ant's bite is 
 most painful, for their sting is like a spark of fire. They are so 
 thick among the boughs in some places that the traveller is covered 
 with them before he is aware. They construct their nests between 
 the limbs of great trees, some of these nests being as large as a 
 hogshead. This is their winter habitation, for in the wet season 
 they all repair to these their cities, where they preserve their eggs 
 and larvae. In the dry season, when they leave their nests, they 
 swarm all over the forests, for they never trouble the savannahs. 
 Great paths, three or four inches broad, made by them, may be seen 
 in the woods. They go out light, but bring home heavy loads on 
 their backs, all of the same substance, and nearly of the same size. 
 I never observed anything besides pieces of green leaves, so big that 
 I could scarcely see the insect for his burden ; yet they would 
 march stoutly; and so many were pressing forward, that it was a 
 very pretty sight, for the path looked perfectly green with them.' 
 
 The sugar-ant, which took its name from the ravages that its 
 swarms at one time committed on the sugar-cane, first made its 
 appearance in the West Indies about the middle of last century. 
 This pest was chiefly confined to the island of Grenada, in one 
 district of which, according to an account in the Philosophical 
 Transactions, it continued for several years, laying waste every 
 sugar-plantation for a radius of twelve miles, and threatening even- 
 tually to overrun the whole island. Every attempt made by the
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 planters to put a stop to these destructive insects proved ineffectual ;. 
 and such was the general consternation at their ravages, that a 
 reward of twenty thousand pounds was offered by the government to 
 the individual who should discover an effectual remedy for the evil. 
 So liberal an offer induced many to try their utmost to destroy the 
 ants ; and though all succeeded partially, yet none gained the prize 
 since the destruction of a few myriads availed little, their place 
 being immediately supplied by others. Ranges of burning charcoal 
 proved veiy destructive, as they blindly pressed forward in their 
 march, and were roasted to death ; but their numbers were so exces- 
 sive, that they soon extinguished it, and the rear of the swarms 
 passed scathless over the obstruction. The roads were literally 
 covered with them for miles together ; so that the print of a horse's 
 foot, in passing through them, was covered in an instant by the 
 surrounding multitudes. The inhabitants of the island were ulti- 
 mately relieved from this calamity by the great hurricane of 1780, 
 which, though it tore up their plantations by the roots, and swept 
 many of their houses to ruin, yet so exposed the ants' nests, that the 
 swarms perished in the deluge of rain which succeeded. The sugar- 
 ant makes its nest at the root of the sugar-cane, thereby preventing 
 the proper circulation of the sap, and rendering the plant sickly and 
 useless. It is also destructive to the lime, lemon, orange, and other 
 species of vegetation. It is of a middle size, and of a dark-red 
 colour, and is one of the most prolific of the race. 
 
 In Cape Colony and in the South of Africa generally, ants are 
 perhaps more numerous, both as regards individuals and species, 
 than they are in any other part of the world. There they are found 
 varying in size, from the red nigar, scarcely visible to the naked 
 eye, to the black ant, measuring nearly an inch in length. Their 
 habitations are as various as their species. The smaller tribes 
 excavate the ground, removing the particles of soil, and piling them 
 up as a rampart round the entrance, to keep off the water. The 
 large black ants content themselves with enlarging such cavities as 
 they find ready formed under flat stones, thus providing themselves 
 with an impenetrable roof. A smaller species of the same colour 
 constructs its nest on the top of a bush, enclosing such portions of 
 the branches as come within the sphere of the external covering, 
 which is as thin as paper, yet proof against the heaviest rain. 
 
 In Hawksworth's account of Cook's first voyage, there is a 
 description of several species found in New South Wales, the habits 
 of which are very peculiar. We transcribe this account, with some 
 slight abridgment : ' Some are green as a leaf, and live upon trees, 
 where they build their nests of various sizes, between that of a man's 
 head and his fist. These nests are of a very curious structure ; they 
 are formed by bending down several of the leaves, each of which is 
 as broad as a man's hand, and gluing the points of them together, 
 so as to form a sort of purse. The viscous matter used for this 
 
 13
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 purpose seemed to be of their own secretion, though it is not 
 improbable that it was a gummy matter collected from the bark and 
 leaves of the trees they inhabit. Their method of first bending 
 down the leaves, we had no opportunity of observing ; but we saw 
 thousands uniting all their strength to hold them in this position, 
 while other busy multitudes were employed within in applying this 
 gluten that was to prevent their returning back. To satisfy our- 
 selves that the leaves were bent and held down by the efforts of 
 these diminutive artificers, we disturbed them in their work ; and 
 as soon as they were driven from their station, the leaves on which 
 they were employed sprang up with a force much greater than we 
 could have thought these insects able to conquer by any combination 
 of their strength. But though we gratified our curiosity at their 
 expense, the injury did not go unrevenged, for thousands imme- 
 diately threw themselves upon us, and gave us intolerable pain with 
 their stings, especially those which took possession of our necks and 
 hair, from whence they were not easily driven. Their sting was 
 scarcely less painful than that of the bee ; but except it was repeated, 
 the pain did not last more than a minute. 
 
 'Another sort are quite black, and their operations and manner 
 of life are not less extraordinary. Theic habitations are the inside 
 of the branches of a tree, which they contrive to excavate by 
 working out the pith almost to the extremity of the slenderest twig ; 
 the tree at the same time flourishing as if it had no such inmate. 
 When we first found the tree, we gathered some of the branches, 
 and were scarcely less astonished than we should have been to find 
 that we had profaned a consecrated grove, where every tree, upon 
 being wounded, gave signs of life, for we were instantly covered 
 with legions of these animals, swarming from every bough, and 
 inflicting their stings with incessant violence.' One cannot read 
 this account without recalling to mind the ant-tree of Guiana, 
 described by Sir Robert Schomburgk, and questioning whether the 
 tree here referred to is not naturally hollow, for it is impossible that 
 any solid-wooded plant could have survived under such extensive 
 excavation. The trunk and branches of the ant-tree are hollow, like 
 those of the cecropia, or trumpet-tree, and provided at intervals with 
 partitions, which answer to the position of the leaves on the outside. 
 These hollows are inhabited by a light brownish ant (hence the 
 name), about two or three tenths of an inch long, which inflicts the 
 most painful bites. In biting, these creatures emit a whitish fluid, 
 and the wound swells and itches for several days ; when captured, 
 they attack and kill each other like scorpions. Sir Robert's descrip- 
 tion and that of Cook's naturalists are indeed so similar, that we 
 cannot help believing that both refer to the same tree and ant, 
 though found in very distant localities. 
 
 A third kind were found by Cook's party nested in the root of a 
 plant which grows on the bark of trees in the manner of mistletoe,
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 and which the insect had perforated for that use. The root is 
 commonly as large as a turnip, and sometimes much larger ; when 
 cut, it was found intersected by innumerable winding passages, all 
 filled by these animals ; by which, however, the vegetation of the 
 plant did not appear to have suffered any injury. They never cut 
 one of these roots that was not inhabited, though some were not 
 larger than a hazel-nut. The animals themselves are very small, 
 not more than half as big as the common red ant in England. 
 They were furnished with stings, but had scarcely force enough 
 to produce any effect with them beyond that of an unpleasant 
 titillation. 
 
 A very curious, and, so far as man is concerned, a very useful 
 species, is found in Peru, where, at certain seasons, its swarms 
 destroy vast numbers of reptiles and troublesome insects. It is 
 noticed in Dr Poeppig's Travels under the native name of guagna- 
 miague, which signifies, 'makes the eyes to water ;' from the circum- 
 stance of its bite having that effect on the individual who is unfor- 
 tunate enough to excite the anger of a swarm. ' It is not known,' says 
 the doctor, ' where this courageous insect lives, for it comes in end- 
 less swarms from the wilderness, where it again vanishes. It is gener- 
 ally seen only in the rainy season, and it can scarcely be guessed 
 in what direction it will come ; but it is not unwelcome, because it 
 does no injury to the plantations, and destroys innumerable per- 
 nicious insects of other kinds, and even amphibious animals and 
 small quadrupeds. The broad columns go forward, disregarding 
 every obstacle ; the millions march close together in a swarm, that 
 takes hours in passing; while on both sides, the warriors, dis- 
 tinguished by their size and colour, move busily backward and 
 forward, ready for defence, and likewise employed in looking for 
 and attacking animals which are so unfortunate as to be unable to 
 escape, either by force or by rapid flight. If they approach a house, 
 the owner readily opens every part, and goes out of their way; for 
 all noxious vermin that may have taken up their abode in the roof 
 of palm-leaves, the insects and larvae, which do much more damage 
 than one is aware of, are all destroyed, or compelled to seek safety 
 in flight. The most secret recesses of the hut do not escape their 
 search, and the animal that waits for their arrival is infallibly lost. 
 They even, as the natives affirm, overpower large snakes, for the 
 warriors quickly form a circle round the reptile while basking in the 
 sun, which, on perceiving its enemies, endeavours to escape, but 
 in vain, for a number of the enemy have fixed themselves upon it, 
 and, while the tortured animal endeavours to relieve itself by a 
 single turn, the number of its foes is increased by a hundredfold. 
 Thousands of the smaller ants from the main column hasten up, 
 and, in spite of the writhings of the snake, wound it in innumer- 
 able places, and in a few hours nothing remains of it but a clean 
 skeleton.' This is apparently the same ant which Mr Darwin met
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 in countless swarms at Bahia, and before which he saw spiders, 
 cockroaches, and other insects, and some lizards rushing in the 
 greatest agitation. 
 
 The species of ants found in warm countries are indeed so 
 numerous that volumes might be compiled relative to their character 
 and habits, which in most instances are marked by the finest 
 displays of instinctive sagacity. Here, however, we must close our 
 list, conveying some idea of their numbers and distribution by the 
 following extract from the same interesting narrative : ' After some 
 observation, I was confounded at the great number of the species of 
 the ant ; for there is no part of the level country of Maynas where 
 they are so numerous as in the Lower Andes ; and even the north 
 of Brazil, though filled with them, is a paradise in this respect when 
 compared with the mountains of Cuchero. From the size of an inch 
 to half a line in length, of all colours between yellow and black, 
 infinitely differing in their activity, places of abode, and manners, 
 the ants of this country alone would engage the attention of the 
 most enthusiastic entomologist for years together. Merely in the 
 huts, we distinguish, without any difficulty, seven different species 
 as the most troublesome inmates animals that are seldom met 
 in the forest, far from the abodes of man, but, on the contrary, 
 indefatigably pursue and accompany him in his works, like certain 
 equally mischievous plants which suddenly appear in a newly 
 planted field in the midst of the wilderness, and hinder the culti- 
 vation, though they had never been seen there before. How many 
 species there may be in the forest, is a question which any one who 
 has visited a tropical country will not be bold enough to answer. 
 If I state here, that, after a very careful enumeration, six-and-twenty 
 species of ants are found in the woods about Pampayaco, I will by 
 no means affirm that the estimate is complete. Every group of 
 plants has particular species, and many trees are even the exclusive 
 abode of a kind that does not occur anywhere else.' Other travellers 
 fully corroborate this statement ; and when we remember that only 
 a small district of South America is here referred to, and that 
 North America, Africa, Asia, and Europe are respectively peopled 
 with widely different genera and species, we cannot fail to admit 
 that ants are amongst the most numerous forms of existence on 
 the globe. 
 
 INSTANCES OF ANT SAGACITY. 
 
 With poets and moralists, the ant has long been a standard 
 emblem of foresight, industry, and perseverance. Though this 
 reputed foresight, as far as our European species are concerned, 
 has been shewn to be entirely *a fiction, yet there is much in the 
 general economy of the insect that might be imitated with advantage. 
 Nothing can exceed the harmony of their social union, the cordial 
 
 16
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 willingness with which they seemingly engage in their labour, the 
 increasing care and fatigue they undergo for their young. It need 
 not in the least affect our admiration whether these actions be the 
 result of unreasoning instinct or of indubitable sagacity. Both 
 proceed from the same great source ; the mechanism is the same 
 in either case, and the laws by which it is governed are decreed 
 by the same authority. It is true that the organisation of insects 
 differs widely from that of the higher animals, and it would be erring 
 against all sound philosophy to ascribe the same operations to 
 organs so very dissimilar ; yet what we call instinct, is as essentially 
 dependent upon organisation as are the highest efforts of reason. 
 We know little of the cause of either ; we are yet the imperfect 
 observers of their results. Leaving, therefore, a subject upon which 
 there is much difference and uncertainty, we shall transcribe some 
 of those instances which have been related as evidences of sagacity, 
 courage, industry, and the like, on the part of ants and ant com- 
 munities. 
 
 Of their ingenuity in removing obstacles, the following anecdote 
 is a very appropriate illustration : A gentleman of Cambridge one 
 day observed an ant dragging along what, with respect to the 
 creature's strength, might be denominated a log of timber. Others 
 were severally employed, each in its own way. Presently the ant in 
 question came to an ascent, where the weight of the wood' seemed for 
 awhile to overpower him : he did not remain long perplexed with it ; 
 for three or four others, observing his dilemma, came behind and 
 pushed it up. As soon, however, as he had got it on level ground, they 
 left it to his care, and went to their own work. The piece he was 
 drawing happened to be considerably thicker at one end than the 
 other ; this soon threw him into a fresh difficulty : he unluckily 
 dragged it between two bits of wood. After several fruitless efforts, 
 rinding it would not go through, he adopted the only mode that even 
 a man in similar circumstances would have taken : he came behind 
 it, pulled it back again, and turned it on its edge ; when, running 
 again to the other end, it passed through without the least difficulty. 
 
 Dr J. R. Johnson relates an equally entertaining anecdote of the 
 strength as well as address occasionally displayed by ants. At the 
 entrance of a nest of red ants, he placed a large house-fly ; several 
 ants came out from time to time to examine it. To his surprise, 
 a solitary ant attempted the removal of so large a body : it caught 
 hold of one of the wings forcibly by its pincers, and exerted all 
 its strength to drag it along. This it did with apparent ease, where 
 the ground was not uneven ; but on meeting any obstruction, and 
 finding the dragging system useless, it quitted its post for the opposite 
 station, and overcame the resistance by pushing. In this way it 
 removed the fly to a considerable distance. A difficulty at length 
 presented itself which seemed insuperable ; the ant, however, did 
 not relax in its exertions. After attempting to drag it for some time,
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 it endeavoured to push it forward, going alternately to the several 
 parts of the body. All these efforts were useless : at last it seized 
 the fly in its mouth, and by a sudden jerk lifted it from the ground, 
 and thus overcame the impediment. 
 
 More ingenious still is their mode of forming bridges and rafts of 
 their own bodies, for the purpose of enabling the community to pass 
 over water from one object to another. Ants are not in any degree 
 swimmers, and unless by some contrivance of this kind, the smallest 
 pool would form an impassable barrier. Madame Merian, in speaking 
 of the large-headed ants of Surinam, affirms that if they wish to emi- 
 grate, they will construct a living bridge in this manner : One indi- 
 vidual first fixes itself to a piece of wood by means of its jaws, and 
 remains stationary'; with this a second connects itself; a third takes 
 hold of the second, and a fourth the third, and so on, till a long con- 
 nected chain is formed, and fastened at one extremity, which floats 
 exposed to the wind or current, till the other end is wafted over, so 
 as to fix itself to the opposite side of the stream, when the rest of the 
 colony pass over it as over a bridge. Azara also tells us, that in the 
 South-American plains, which are exposed to inundations, conical 
 hills of earth may be observed, about three feet high, and very near 
 to each other, which are inhabited by a little black ant. When an 
 inundation takes place, the ants leave the submerged nest, and- 
 collect themselves into a circular cluster, about a foot in diameter, 
 and four fingers deep. Thus they remain floating upon the water 
 until it subsides. One of the sides of the cluster which they form 
 is attached to some sprig of grass or shrub ; and when the waters 
 have retired, they return to their habitation. When they wish to pass 
 from one plank to another, they may often be seen formed into a 
 bridge, of two palms' length, and of the breadth of a finger, which 
 has no other support than that of its two extremities. One would 
 suppose that their own weight would sink them ; but it is certain that 
 the masses remain floating during the inundation, which lasts some 
 days. 
 
 Some Indian species, according to an anecdote related by Colonel 
 Sykes, exhibit feats of dexterity which one can scarcely ascribe to 
 mere instinctive sagacity. He was accustomed to have his dessert 
 placed on a sideboard near a wall, and left all night, the legs of the 
 sideboard being immersed in water ; notwithstanding which precau- 
 tion, the sideboard was found in the morning covered with ants, and 
 the sweets were plundered most severely. On seeking the mode in 
 which the intrusion was effected, he found that they got one after 
 another into the water, till a floating living bridge was stretched 
 across it, and then the legs were readily mounted. This mode of 
 access was effectually stopped by a rim of turpentine round each of 
 the legs just above where they entered the water ; but the evil was 
 not cured ; for, on the following morning, the ants were on the table, 
 and the good things plundered as before. He found that the ants 
 
 18
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 had crawled up the wall in great numbers, and crowded to the part 
 level with the edge of the sideboard, which was not more than an 
 inch from the wall, and so stretched across and obtained a footing, 
 thus running the risk of a fall, which many of them received. The 
 sideboard was now moved quite away from the wall, and for a while 
 the sweets remained untouched ; but soon the usual visitants were 
 again observed, and for several days it appeared impossible to 
 account for the intrusion ; when at last, as the colonel was standing 
 near the table, he observed a solitary ant climbing quietly up the 
 wall of the room : when it had mounted to rather more than a foot 
 above the level of the sideboard, it took a spring, and came down 
 among the sweets. This seemed altogether so extraordinary a pro- 
 ceeding, that he thought it must be the effect of chance ; but very 
 soon he saw many other ants make their appearance and mount 
 the wall like their forerunner, until they reached a certain elevation 
 above the sideboard, when they one and all, without exception, leaped 
 from the wall seriatim, and alighted safely among the sweets. Thus 
 their continued appearance was accounted for. 
 
 A gentleman who has given some attention to ants, relates that, 
 soon after establishing an artificial formicary, he found that numbers 
 of the inmates died. These were all collected together in one place, 
 and the bodies piled one upon another. After remaining so for 
 three or four days, one morning he discovered that they had been 
 all removed. They had been carried up the inside of the glass in 
 which they were placed, then down the outside across a small 
 wooden platform, and deposited in the water by which their little 
 dwelling was surrounded. From that time, as soon as one died, it 
 was carried off by one of its companions, and got rid of in the same 
 manner. We might almost argue from this circumstance that, in 
 the first place, finding the bodies offensive, they removed them as 
 far off as possible ; and, secondly, that they must have had some 
 memory or recollection, as no other bodies were accumulated in the 
 same way, but disposed of at once as related. 
 
 Sagacious as ants generally are, we are not without instances of 
 their folly and want of concert. The following amusing example is 
 given by Dr Badham, who regards insects as endowed with no 
 higher faculties than sensation and impulsive instinct : ' A wise and 
 laborious ant was toiling up the bark of a chestnut-tree, and pulling 
 after him an entire snail-shell, the size of a hazel-nut. He halted 
 occasionally, as well he might, but he never lost hold of the shell, 
 though the mere weight of it, one should have thought, would have 
 pulled his mandibles out of joint. In a few minutes he had raised it 
 upwards of three feet, and all was going on prosperously, when it so 
 chanced that three or four idlers of the ant kind, and presently as 
 many more, met him on his way. Our labourer had almost done his 
 work ; his hind-legs were already within the hole into which it was 
 his plain purpose to introduce the shell, when the new-comers (which,
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 as we have seen, are always ready to help one another) proceeded to 
 do just the reverse ! They got upon the shell, they entered it, they 
 persisted in sticking to it : he could not carry it ; and then the shell 
 swerved to one side or the other, according to the disposal of his 
 friends within, which had not even the sense to trim the boat ; still, 
 by great exertion, he held fast, and might perhaps have accomplished 
 his task, when two more strangers thought proper to contribute their 
 weight, and brought on the catastrophe. The weary but persevering 
 insect was obliged to " let go," and the shell, freighted with three 
 " insides " and half-a-dozen " outs," fell to the ground ! They left 
 the conveyance in apparent alarm, and scampered off in all direc- 
 tions, while he remained for some time fixed to the spot of his 
 discomfiture. The shell being subsequently examined, was found 
 exactly to fit the hole in the direction in which the ant was dragging 
 it, and in no other.' 
 
 If watched closely, several may often be seen to be tugging at the 
 same bit of stick or stone in opposite directions ; or when one has 
 almost succeeded in dragging to the surface a little pebble which it 
 has loosened in one of the galleries, another seizing hold of it, will 
 drag it back again. Also, in excavating their passages, it is not 
 uncommon to find an ant block itself in with the de"bris it has 
 removed from the front ; it then has to set to work to dig itself out 
 again. 
 
 MODES OF COMMUNICATION. 
 
 It would seem that in these exercises of ingenuity they have some 
 mode of communicating their intentions to one another, otherwise it 
 is difficult to perceive how they could act so harmoniously as they 
 generally do. Many animals express their wishes by sounds, which, 
 though unintelligible to us, are perfectly understood by their own 
 kind ; some communicate partly by gesture and partly by sound ; 
 and others simply by gesture or by contact. The latter appears to 
 be that employed by ants the antennas and mandibles being the 
 organs chiefly employed to excite one another to concert in conduct ; 
 sometimes persuasively, at others perforce. M. Huber relates a 
 very amusing instance in which gentle persuasion was succeeded by 
 more forcible measures. The legs of one of his artificial formicaries 
 were plunged into pans of water, to prevent the escape of the ants ; 
 this proved a source of great enjoyment to these little beings, as 
 they are fond of water, which they lap after the manner of the dog. 
 One day, when he observed many of them tippling very merrily, he 
 was so cruel as to disturb them, which sent most of the ants in a 
 fright to the nest, but some, more thirsty than the rest, continued 
 their potations. Upon this, one of those that had retreated returns 
 to inform his thoughtless companions of their danger ; one he 
 pushes with his jaws ; another he strikes first upon the belly, and 
 then upon the breast, and so obliges three of them to leave off their
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 carousing, and march homeward; but the fourth, more resolute to 
 drink it out, is not to be discomfited, and pays not the least regard 
 to the kind blows with which his compeer, solicitous for his safety, 
 repeatedly belabours him. At length, determined to have his way, 
 he seizes him by one of his hind-legs, and gives him a violent pull : 
 upon this, leaving his liquor, the loiterer turns round, and opening 
 his threatening jaws with every appearance of anger, goes very 
 coolly to drinking again ; but his monitor, without further ceremony, 
 rushing before him, seizes him by his jaws, and at last drags him 
 off" in triumph to the formicary. 
 
 The intercommunication of these little insects, however, is not 
 confined merely to giving notice of the approach of danger; it is 
 commensurate with their whole economy of building, rearing the 
 young, obtaining food, and uniting in force against a common 
 enemy. If you scatter the ruins of an ant's nest in your apartment, 
 you will be furnished with another proof of their language. The 
 ants will take a thousand different paths, each going by itself, to 
 increase the chance of discovery ; they will meet and cross each 
 other in all directions, and perhaps will wander long before they can 
 find a spot convenient for their reunion. No sooner does any one 
 discover a little chink in the floor, through which it can pass below, 
 than it returns to its companions, and, by means of certain motions 
 of its antennas, makes some of them comprehend what route they arc 
 to pursue to find it, sometimes even accompanying them to the spot ; 
 these in their turn become the guides of others, till all know which 
 way to direct their steps. 
 
 It is also well known that they give information to each other 
 when a store of provision or any tid-bit has been discovered. Of 
 this the following is a remarkable instance, related by Dr Franklin : 
 ' Believing that these little creatures had some means of communi- 
 cating their thoughts or desires to one another, he tried several 
 experiments with them, all of which tended to confirm his opinion : 
 but one seemed more conclusive than the rest. He put a little 
 earthen pot, containing some treacle, into a closet, into which a 
 number of ants collected, and devoured the treacle very quickly. 
 But on observing this, he shook them out, and tied the pot with 
 a thin string to a nail which he had fastened into the ceiling, 
 so that it hung down by the string. A single ant by chance 
 remained in the pot. This ant ate till jt was satisfied ; but when 
 it wanted to get off, it could not for some time find a way out. It 
 ran about the bottom of the pot, but in vain. At last it found, after 
 many attempts, the way to the ceiling, by going along the string. 
 After it was come there, it ran to the wall, and from thence to the 
 ground. It had scarcely been away half an hour, when a great 
 swarm of ants came out, got up to the ceiling, and crept along the 
 string into the pot, and began to eat again. This they continued 
 till the treacle was all eaten ; in the meantime, one swarm running
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 down the string, and the other up.' In such instances, the ants may 
 have been led by the scent or trace of treacle likely to have been 
 left by the solitary prisoner. Bradley relates a case which seems to 
 favour this opinion : ' A nest of ants in a nobleman's garden dis- 
 covered a closet, many yards within the house, in which conserves 
 were kept, which they constantly attended till the nest was destroyed. 
 Some, in their rambles, must have first discovered this dp6t of 
 sweets, and informed the rest of it. It is remarkable that they 
 always went to it by the same track, scarcely varying an inch from 
 it, though they had to pass through two apartments j nor could the 
 sweeping and cleaning of the rooms discomfit them, or cause them 
 to pursue a different route.' Here the insects perseveringly followed 
 the same track, a fact which leads one to suspect that they leave 
 some scent or trace perceptible to one another. 
 
 This idea is in part supported by the fact, that roadways are found 
 diverging from their nests, which they invariably adhere to, so that 
 they are in a short time beaten smooth by their incessant marchings. 
 From these roads, they carefully remove chips and leaves, and even 
 nibble off blades of grass which may happen to spring across. In 
 this feature they remind one of hares, beavers, sheep, and other 
 higher quadrupeds, which instinctively follow a beaten track, even 
 when their safety would lie in departing from it. Nor are these 
 roads formed merely by the tread of these creatures ; they are often 
 hollowed out and smoothed by the greatest labour. One of the 
 first things which strike a traveller on entering a tropical forest 
 is these well-beaten paths, branching off in every direction, and on 
 which armies of never-failing foragers are seen, some going forth, 
 and others returning, burdened with pieces of leaves often larger 
 than their own bodies. 
 
 The ingenuity and sagacity displayed in all their actions, whether 
 single or combined, are indeed so surprising, that the Mohammedans 
 have even assigned them a place in their heaven. On the relation 
 of Thevenot (as mentioned by Kirby and Spence), one of the animals 
 in Paradise is Solomon's ant, which, when all the creatures, in 
 obedience to him, brought him presents, dragged before him a locust, 
 and was therefore preferred before all others, because it had brought 
 a creature so much bigger than itself. The tradition is exceedingly 
 appropriate, as illustrating the contrast between the tiny insect and 
 the feats which it can accomplish. Size for size of agency, the 
 Pyramids are insignificant compared with the ant-hills of Africa ; and 
 the ant presenting a locust, is as if a child would drag an elephant. 
 
 THEIR SPORTS AND ATTACHMENTS. 
 
 We have described ants as ceaselessly active labouring in con- 
 structing their nests, and toiling for the young, which they nurse 
 long after they have arrived at maturity ; but it must not be imagined
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 that their life is one wholly of toil, and no amusement. On a fine 
 sunny day, they may often be seen basking outside their hills in 
 dreamy listlessness ; at other times, they frisk about in wanton 
 enjoyment. ' You may frequently perceive/ says Gould, ' an ant 
 run to and fro with a fellow-labourer in his forceps, of the same 
 species and colony. It appeared first in the light of provisions ; but 
 I was soon undeceived by observing that, after being carried for 
 some time, it was let go in a friendly manner, and received no 
 personal injury. This amusement, or whatever title you please to 
 give it, is often repeated, particularly amongst the hill-ants, which 
 are very fond of this sportive exercise.' A nest of ants which Bonnet 
 found in the head of a teasel, when enjoying the full sun, which 
 seems the acme of formic felicity, amused themselves with carrying 
 each other on their backs, the rider holding with his mandibles the 
 neck of his horse, and embracing it closely with his legs. But the 
 most circumstantial account of their sports is given by Huber. ' I 
 approached one day,' says he, ' one of their formicaries' [he is speaking 
 of the brown ant], ' exposed to the sun, and sheltered from the north. 
 The ants were neaped together in great numbers, and seemed to 
 enjoy the temperature which they experienced at the surface of 
 the nest. None of them were working : this multitude of accumu- 
 lated insects exhibited the appearance of a boiling fluid, upon which 
 at first the eye could scarce fix itself without difficulty. But when 
 I set myself to follow each ant separately, I saw them approach each 
 other, moving their antennas with astonishing rapidity: with their 
 fore-feet they patted lightly the cheeks of other ants : after these 
 first gestures, which resembled caresses, they reared upon their hind- 
 legs by pairs, they wrestled together, they seized one another by a 
 mandible, by a leg or antennas, they then let go their hold to renew 
 the attack ; they fixed themselves to each other's trunk or abdomen, 
 they embraced, they turned each other over, or lifted each other up by 
 turns : they soon quitted the ants they had seized, and endeavoured 
 to catch others. I have seen some which engaged in these exercises 
 with such eagerness as to pursue successively several workers ; and 
 the combat did not terminate till the least animated, having thrown 
 his antagonist, accomplished his escape by concealing himself in 
 some gallery.' 
 
 The idea of amusement carries along with it a sense of affection 
 and attachment. It has been said that no man is hopelessly bad 
 who can laugh ; the proposition may be further generalised by 
 affirming that no creature capable of indulging in harmless sport 
 can be wanting in love towards others of its kind. We may there- 
 fore expect among ants not only expressions of affection, but acts of 
 generosity, if we may be allowed thus far to humanise their conduct. 
 ' Whether ants,' says Mr Kirby, ' with man and some of the larger 
 animals, experience anything like attachment to individuals, is not 
 easily ascertained ; but that they feel the full force of the sentiment
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 which we term patriotism, or the love of the community to which 
 they belong, is evident from the whole series of their proceedings, 
 which all tend to promote the general good. Distress or difficulty 
 falling upon any member of their society generally excites their 
 sympathy, and they do their utmost to relieve it. M. Latreille once 
 cut off the antennas of an ant ; and its companions, evidently 
 pitying its sufferings, anointed the wounded part with a drop of 
 transparent fluid from their mouth ; and whoever attends to what 
 is going forward in the neighbourhood of one of their nests, will be 
 pleased to observe the readiness with which they seem disposed to 
 assist each other in difficulties. When a burden is too heavy for 
 one, another will soon come to ease it of part of the weight ; and 
 if one is threatened with an attack, all hasten to the spot to join in 
 repelling it. 
 
 'The satisfaction they express at meeting after absence is very 
 striking, and gives some degree of individuality to their attachment. 
 M. Huber witnessed the gesticulations of some ants, originally 
 belonging to the same nest, that, having been entirely separated 
 from each other four months, were afterwards brought together. 
 Though this was equal to one-fourth of their existence as perfect 
 insects, they immediately recognised each other, saluted mutually 
 with their antennae, and united once more to form one family.' 
 
 This rule, however, does not always hold good. On several 
 occasions, on introducing into a formicary of turf-ants an indi- 
 vidual or two from the original nest, after a few weeks had elapsed, 
 the new-comers were invariably attacked and hunted about most 
 unmercifully, and one was killed whilst the process was being 
 watched. 
 
 They are also ever intent to promote each other's welfare, and 
 ready to share with their absent companions any good thing they 
 may meet with. Those that go abroad feed those which remain in the 
 nest ; and if they discover any stock of favourite food, they inform 
 the whole community, as we have seen above, and teach them the 
 way to it. Huber, for a particular reason, having produced heat, by 
 means of a flambeau, in a certain part of an artificial formicary, the 
 ants which happened to be in that quarter, after enjoying it for a 
 time, hastened to convey the welcome intelligence to their com- 
 patriots, which they even carried suspended upon their jaws (their 
 usual mode of transporting each other) to the spot, till hundreds 
 might be seen thus laden with their friends. ' These observations,' 
 he continues, ' and many others, which I shall not now mention, by 
 shewing what interest the ants take in the welfare of their com- 
 panions, bring to mind those ideal republics in which all wealth 
 should be general, public interest serving as a rule of conduct for the 
 citizens. It belonged only to Nature to realise this chimera, and it 
 is only among insects, exempt from our passions, that she thought 
 she could establish this order of things.'
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 THEIR WARS AND SLAVERY. 
 
 But if they warmly love, so can they fiercely hate : their hatred 
 generally terminating in the death of either combatant. The 
 members of different communities often fall out and attack each 
 other, tearing off legs and antennae with their powerful jaws, and 
 ejecting their poison, which seems to be as painful to their own kind 
 as to other animals. A combat between two hostile communities is 
 thus graphically described by the same authority : ' Figure to your- 
 self two of these cities equal in size and population, and situated 
 about a hundred paces from each other ; observe their countless 
 numbers, equal to the population of two mighty empires. The 
 whole space which separates them, for the breadth of twenty-four 
 inches, appears alive with prodigious crowds of their inhabitants. 
 The armies meet midway between their respective habitations, and 
 there join battle. Thousands of champions, mounted on more 
 elevated spots, engage in single combat, and seize each other with 
 their powerful jaws ; a still greater number are engaged on both 
 sides in taking prisoners, which make vain efforts to escape, 
 conscious of the cruel fate which awaits them when arrived at the 
 hostile formicary. The spot where the battle most rages is about 
 two or three square feet in dimensions ; a penetrating odour exhales 
 on all sides ; numbers of ants are here lying dead, covered with 
 venom ; others, composing groups and chains, are hooked together 
 by their legs or jaws, and drag each other alternately in contrary 
 directions. These groups are formed gradually. At first, a pair of 
 combatants seize each other, and, rearing upon their hind-legs, 
 mutually spirt their acid, then closing, they fall and wrestle in the 
 dust. Again recovering their feet, each endeavours to drag off his 
 antagonist. If their strength be equal, they remain immovable, till 
 the arrival of a third gives one the advantage. Both, however, are 
 often succoured at the same time, and the battle still continues 
 undecided ; others take part on each side, till chains are formed of 
 six, eight, or sometimes ten, all hooked together, and struggling 
 pertinaciously for the mastery. The equilibrium remains unbroken, 
 till a number of champions from the same nest arriving at once, 
 compel them to let go their hold, and the single combats recom- 
 mence. At the approach of night, each party gradually retreats to 
 its own city ; but before the following dawn, the combat is renewed 
 with redoubled fury, and occupies a greater extent of ground. These 
 daily fights continue till, violent rains separating the combatants, 
 they forget their quarrel, and peace is restored.' 
 
 After such combats, the slain are generally devoured, just as the 
 strong often devour the sickly and dying of their own community. 
 As to their taking captives for the purpose of enslaving them, we 
 greatly doubt ; indeed, from what we ourselves have witnessed, the
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 captives are merely dragged away like any other insect of which 
 they intend to make a meal. To the subject of ant-slavery, M. 
 Huber devotes a considerable portion of his treatise, agreeing with 
 us that adult ants are never made slaves of, but that the slaves are 
 the produce of larvae which have been pilfered from other nests. As 
 he is the only author who has made this subject his special care, we 
 are not in a position to contravert his statements ; though we have 
 reason to believe that, when the ants of one nest carry off the larvae 
 of another, it is not for the object of securing a stock of slaves, but 
 merely for the present gratification of that instinct which teaches 
 them to bear unconquerable love to their young. That in this 
 manner mixed communities of ants arise, there can be no doubt ; 
 but whether the black ants, for example, found in the nests of the 
 Amazons, act as the slaves of the latter building, nursing, and 
 foraging for them rests entirely upon Huber's assertion. We are 
 inclined to regard such mixed communities as accidental ; he con- 
 siders them as the result of design on the part of one class to 
 enslave another. ' The ash-coloured and mining ants,' says he, ' are 
 to be considered, then, as the negroes of the Amazons : it is from 
 among them the latter procure slaves ; they kidnap them at an age 
 when their instinct is not developed ; and these insects, on being 
 brought up by the Amazons, divide with them the fruit of their 
 industry. Can we sufficiently admire the prudence and wisdom 
 these insects display in the establishment of such an institution ! 
 We here trace neither servitude nor oppression ; nor do the ants 
 themselves, taken from perhaps twenty different dwellings, entertain 
 the slightest suspicion of their being in a foreign nest : they live 
 under the same roof in brotherly and sisterly union, and if they 
 regard the Amazons, it is but to shew them greater attention. 
 Nature, profound in her combinations, seems fully aware that old 
 ants would never live sociably with those of another species ; but 
 that young ants may, especially if they have been accustomed in 
 early life to see and receive from them some attention. She seems 
 also aware that no aversion is excited in the breasts of those which 
 witness their birth. It is in this way she has instituted mixed or 
 compound ant-hills; it is on this account the Amazons in their 
 expeditions never carry off adult ants, only larvae and pupae ; for the 
 same reason they never seek the destruction of their enemies, their 
 only aim being to steal from them their little ones.' If this be true, 
 the most practised slave-dealer could not do more : it is instinct as 
 acute as human intelligence. 
 
 Equally wonderful with their slave-making propensities is the 
 statement, that they make milk-kine, as it were, of the aphides 
 those little insects which deposit the honey-dew on the leaves of 
 trees in summer and autumn. Ants are, it is true, excessively fond 
 of sweets, and the honey-dew on the thorn, beech, and other trees 
 is greedily sought after. But for the assertion that they guard, or 
 26
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 enclose, or tend the aphides as kine, we have never been able to find 
 the slightest foundation. If a leaf be covered with plenty of honey- 
 dew, an ant will regale itself without the least notice of the passing 
 aphides ; it will even walk over them in search of the delicious 
 morsel. If, on the other hand, the honey-dew be scanty, and a 
 stray aphis come in the way of an ant, the latter will touch it with 
 its antennae ; and the former, on being disturbed, generally drops 
 some of its liquid. This, however, it does as readily when touched 
 with a piece of twig ; so that when it drops its sweets on being 
 palped by the ant, it is merely following a natural habit. Huber, 
 on the contrary, is of opinion that the aphides understand the wishes 
 of the ants, dropping their fluid, in fact, as a cow yields the con- 
 tents of her udder to the milkmaid. More, than this : he maintains 
 that they guard and enclose them on certain plants ; that they 
 collect them as their domestic animals in their nests ; and that they 
 even cherish their eggs as they would their own larvae. All this 
 is so incredible, so human-like in conduct, that we believe Huber's 
 enthusiasm has led him to give a wrong interpretation to a very 
 common phenomenon. Here, however, are some of his singular 
 statements : ' The ants know full well the value of these little 
 animals, which, it would appear, had been created for them ; they 
 constitute their sole wealth, an ant-hill being more or less rich as 
 it is more or less provided with aphides ; they are, in fact, their 
 cattle, their cows, their goats, &c. Who could have imagined that 
 the ants were a pastoral tribe ! But a question here presents itself 
 of some interest. Do the pucerons (aphides), which I have con- 
 stantly found in nests of this species, come of their own free-will 
 to reside there, or are they brought thither by the ants ? The latter 
 appears to me most probable, for the ants are in the habit of 
 carrying them continually from place to place, and are the individ- 
 uals which receive all the advantages attending this relation. I am 
 strongly inclined to believe that the yellow ants, and all those which 
 are endowed with the same industry, go in search of these insects 
 through the subterranean galleries they have formed between the 
 roots ; that they find them scattered among the grass, and bring 
 them to the nest. I cannot conceive, if this be not the case, why 
 there should be so many of these insects in ant-hills, for they are 
 not equally common elsewhere. I have seldom discovered them 
 under the grass but they were surrounded by yellow ants, which 
 arrive at their haunts by subterranean passages, and which prob- 
 ably convey them to their nest in the autumn. They often seized 
 upon them in my presence, and withdrew with them by some 
 obscure path, which proves that these insects are at their complete 
 disposal. 
 
 'Four or five species of ants keep pucerons in their abode, but 
 less constantly, and in much smaller number, than the yellow ants, 
 as they obtain a portion of their subsistence from those inhabiting
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 trees. There are some which reach the branches, loaded with these 
 insects, under a covered-way of earth, leading directly from their 
 nest. Here the ants are as well furnished with food as if they kept 
 the pucerons in their own dwelling ; and as often as they wish to 
 bring these insects to their nests, they can accomplish it without the 
 knowledge of other ants, and without incurring any risk. The red, 
 the brown, the turf ant, and another species, excessively small, are 
 always, during autumn, winter, and spring, in the possession of 
 pucerons. The pucerons, then, are the domestic animals of the 
 ants ; the latter collect these insects around them, as we collect 
 those animals which administer to our wants near the habitation in 
 which we reside. The animals which are subject to our control 
 know the voice of man ; the pucerons understand, as it should seem, 
 the language of ants, and furnish them with their aliment uncon- 
 strained.' Nay, what is even more startling, it is affirmed that the 
 ants construct paddocks for these insects, to which they convey 
 them when the weather is favourable ! 
 
 Such is a hasty picture of ant-life in all its phases of toil, industry, 
 perseverance, sagacity, courage, love, hatred, harmony, and amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 TERMITES, OR WHITE ANTS. 
 
 Though vulgarly known by the title of ' ants,' these insects belong 
 to an entirely different family.* They are neuropteroiis insects ; 
 that is, have four wings, in which the nervures or veins are boldly 
 marked, giving to them, when viewed under the microscope, the 
 appearance of the most beautiful network. They have received their 
 common appellation from the similarity which exists between their 
 economy and that of the true ants, or Formicid<z; namely, their 
 living in communities, constructing hills or turrets, carefully tending 
 their young, and being composed of males, females, and neuters. 
 We have various passing notices by travellers of these insects, but 
 none so complete as that of Smeathman's, of which our account may 
 be considered as an abridgment. The termites are found in both 
 the Indies, in Africa, and in South America, where they do vast 
 damage, in consequence of their eating and perforating wooden 
 buildings, utensils, furniture, and indeed all kinds of household 
 stuff, which are utterly destroyed by them if not timely prevented. 
 Though thus partial to vegetable food, they are, like the ants, omni- 
 vorous ; and are equally capable of inflicting with their jaws very 
 painful wounds. With the exception of their head and pincers, the 
 termites are soft, and covered with a thin delicate skin ; and in this 
 respect also they differ from ants, which have a tough and strong 
 integument throughout. 
 
 * The Termitidet constitute the third family of the Neuroftera, and only resemble the 
 Formicidce in their habit of living in societies. The species, which are very numerous, 
 chiefly inhabit tropical countries, there being only one or two small tree species found in the 
 south of Europe, under the name of wood-lice. 
 28
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 King ; 2. Queen ; 3. Soldier ; 4. Worker. 
 
 The termite communities consist of three orders : first, the 
 working neuters or young ; secondly, the soldiers or full-grown 
 neuters ; and thirdly, the perfect males and females, which at 
 certain seasons are furnished with wings. The workers are by far 
 the most numerous ; and, in their perfect state, are about a quarter 
 of an inch in length. On them depend the labours of the com- 
 munity, the building, 
 foraging, and nursing. 
 The soldiers, or fight- 
 ers, are few in com- 
 parison, perhaps as 
 one to a hundred of 
 the labourers ; but 
 they are many times 
 larger, and armed 
 with sharper and 
 more formidable jaws. 
 Their duties are con- 
 fined chiefly to watch- 
 ing the approaches of 
 the hill, and defending 
 them against the 
 approach of insect 
 enemies. The perfect 
 
 sexes are much larger than either, and are furnished with four large 
 brown transparent wings, by which they are enabled, at the proper 
 season, to engage in those aerial excursions necessary to the 
 propagation of their kind. They are described as being about three- 
 quarters of an inch in length, and bulky in proportion. Instead of 
 active, industrious, and rapacious little animals, the perfect sexes 
 are innocent, helpless, and dastardly. At the breeding season, their 
 numbers are sometimes prodigious ; but their enemies are still more 
 numerous. They are devoured by birds, by reptiles, by the ant- 
 eaters, and even by the inhabitants of many parts of Africa. None, 
 perhaps, of the males survive their aerial life, and few comparatively 
 of the females, which, on falling to the ground, are found by some 
 of the labouring insects that are continually running about, and thus 
 made queens and mothers of new communities. Before laying her 
 eggs, which amount to some hundred thousands, the queen-mother 
 becomes enormously distended, and is sometimes found to measure 
 three or four inches in length, the abdomen being then of an oblong 
 irregular form. In times of scarcity, the Hottentots feast upon these 
 eggs, which they call Rice, on account of their resemblance to that 
 grain. They usually wash them, and cook them with a small 
 quantity of water, declaring that they are savoury and nourishing. 
 ' If the people,'" says Mr Backhouse in his Travels, ' find out a place 
 where the nests are numerous, they soon become fat upon the eggs, 
 
 29
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 even when previously much reduced by hunger. Sometimes they 
 will get half a bushel out of a single nest.' 
 
 There are many known species of termite, differing from each 
 other as widely as the ants do, both in their natures and habits. 
 Some build irregular conical hills of eight, ten, or twelve feet in 
 height; others erect a sort of cylindrical turret with a pointed roof; 
 and many live on trees, in the clefts of which they construct habita- 
 tions as large as a hogshead. One of the best known species is the 
 war-like termite (Terines bellicosus), found all over Africa, whose 
 economy may be taken as a type of that of the whole family. The 
 hills of this species are composed of an exterior and an interior part. 
 The exterior cover is a large clay shell, shaped like a dome, of 
 strength and magnitude sufficient to enclose and protect the interior 
 building from the injuries of the weather, and to defend its numerous 
 inhabitants from the attacks of natural or accidental enemies. These 
 hills make their first appearance in the form of conical turrets about 
 a foot high. In a short time the insects erect at a little distance 
 other turrets, and go on increasing their number and widening their 
 bases, till their underworks are entirely covered with these turrets, 
 which the animals always raise highest in the middle of the hill ; and, 
 by filling up the intervals between each, they collect them at last into 
 one great dome. (See engraving at the head of the present article.) 
 
 The royal chamber, as Mr Smeathman calls it, is always situated 
 as near the centre of the building as possible, and is generally on a 
 level with the common surface of the ground. It is nearly in the 
 shape of half an egg, or an obtuse oval, within, and may be supposed 
 to represent a long oven. In the infant state of the colony, it is not 
 above an inch in length ; but in time it becomes increased to six or 
 eight inches, or more, being always in proportion to the size of the 
 queen, which, increasing in bulk as in age, at length requires a 
 chamber of such dimensions. 
 
 As the entrances into this royal chamber admit no animals larger 
 than the labourers or soldiers, of course the king and queen can never 
 possibly get out. This chamber is surrounded by an innumerable 
 quantity of others, of different sizes, figures, and dimensions ; all of 
 them arched either in a circular or an elliptical form. These 
 chambers either open into each other, or have communicating 
 passages, which, being always clear, are evidently intended for the 
 convenience of the soldiers and attendants, of whom great numbers 
 are necessary. The latter apartments are joined by the magazines 
 and nurseries. 
 
 The magazines are chambers of clay, and are at all times well 
 stored with provisions, which, to the naked eye, seem to consist of 
 the raspings of wood and plants ; but, when examined by the micro- 
 scope, they are found to consist chiefly of the gums or inspissated 
 juices of plants, thrown together in small irregular masses. The 
 nurseries are always intermixed with the magazines, and are buildings 
 3
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 totally different from the rest of the apartment. These are com- 
 posed entirely of wooden materials, which seem to be cemented with 
 gums. They are invariably occupied by the eggs, and the young, 
 which first appear in the shape of labourers. These buildings are 
 exceedingly compact, and are divided into a number of small irregular- 
 shaped chambers, not one of which is half an inch wide. They are 
 placed all round, and as near as possible to the royal apartments. 
 When a nest is in an infant state, the nurseries are close to the royal 
 apartment. But as in process of time the body of the queen enlarges, 
 it becomes necessary, for her accommodation, to augment the dimen- 
 sions of her chamber. She then likewise lays a greater number of 
 eggs, and requires more attendants ; of course it is necessary that 
 both the number and dimensions of the adjacent apartments should 
 be augmented. For this purpose, the small first-built nurseries are 
 taken to pieces, rebuilt a little further off, and made a size larger, 
 and their number at the same time is increased. Thus the animals 
 are continually employed in pulling down, repairing, or rebuilding 
 their apartments ; and these operations they perform with wonderful 
 sagacity, regularity, and foresight. 
 
 In and around these habitations, the workers and soldiers are 
 continually bustling ; but, what is remarkable, they seldom expose 
 themselves to the open air, but travel under-ground, or within such 
 trees or substances as they destroy. It is this habit which renders 
 them so destructive in any inhabited district, as they eat their way 
 into every post, pillar, and rafter, leaving nothing but a frail film 
 outside, which in time breaks down under the slightest pressure. 
 They are not less expeditious in destroying the shelves, wainscoting, 
 and other fixtures of a house, than the house itself. They are ever 
 piercing and boring in all directions, and sometimes go out of the 
 broadside of one post into that of another joining to it ; but they 
 prefer, and always destroy, the softer substances first, and are par- 
 ticularly fond of pine and fir boards, which they excavate, and carry 
 away with wonderful dispatch and cunning. When they attack trees 
 and branches in the open air, they sometimes vary their manner of 
 doing it. If a stake in a hedge has not taken root and vegetated, 
 it becomes their business to destroy it ; if it has a good sound bark 
 round it, they will enter at the bottom, and eat all but the bark, 
 which will remain, and exhibit the appearance of a solid post ; but 
 if they cannot trust the bark, they cover the whole stick with their 
 mortar, to give it stability. Under this covering they work, leaving 
 no more of the stick and bark than is barely sufficient to support 
 it, and frequently not the smallest particle ; so that, upon a very 
 slight tap with your walking-stick, the whole stake, though it looked 
 sound and strong, will crumble into a thousand fragments. 
 
 Unlike the ants, they do not wage war upon each other ; but they 
 are frequently, if found above ground, engaged in combats with these 
 insects. Though possessing very powerful mandibles, they are not
 
 ANECDOTES OF ANTS. 
 
 a match for the ants, which soon pierce their soft bodies, and carry 
 them off as venison to their hills. The great annoyance which they 
 give to travellers is undoubtedly exaggerated. If their habitations 
 are attacked, they will certainly rush out, and defend them by biting 
 everything that comes in their way ; but they act purely on the 
 defensive, and avoid the open day as much as possible. Their bite 
 is sufficient to draw blood, but it has none of the irritating qualities 
 of the ant's bite, as the termites do not secrete any poisonous liquid. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 We have thus given, as fully as the limits of our sheet will permit, 
 a sketch of the ant and termite families ; and brief as the sketch 
 necessarily is, it may assist in giving more correct notions of these 
 insects than are generally entertained. The reader will not now 
 confound the one family with the other ; he will not ascribe to the 
 ants of northern Europe, at least, the foresight of laying up stores 
 for winter, nor the sagacity of nibbling off the points of the fancied 
 grain to prevent it from sprouting ; and he will not be over-credulous 
 of stories told of their wisdom a wisdom which, according to such 
 stories, is equal to domesticating other insects for their use, or 
 enslaving them for their pleasure. 
 
 As to the utility of ants and termites in the scheme of creation, their 
 vast numbers and wide distribution are ample evidences, though of 
 an indirect kind. They act as scavengers, in clearing away much 
 waste vegetable and animal matter ; and furnish in return abund- 
 ance of food to other creatures. The ant-eater, a small quadruped 
 of Southern Africa, derives its food solely from this source ; many 
 birds, as the woodpecker, devour them with avidity ; and that 
 curious insect, the ant-lion, has derived its name from the manner in 
 which it lies in wait for its prey. That ants, in their turn, are highly 
 destructive of other insects, is shewn by the ingenious device of the 
 Swiss, who clear fruit-trees of caterpillars and vermin by emptying 
 a bag of ants on the branches, and retaining them there, encir- 
 cling the trunk with a ring of wet clay, so as to prevent their escape 
 to the ground. That they are not in any degree prejudicial to the 
 products of human industry, has already been stated. Their larvae 
 are sometimes gathered as favourite food for caged birds ; and 
 formic acid, at one time used in medicine, is a product formerly 
 obtainable from them, but now produced by the chemist in various 
 ways. The termites, however, are not so harmless, and may be 
 considered as one of those obstacles in the way of the human race 
 which nature has left for their ingenuity and industry to remove. 
 But whatever the advantages or disadvantages which may arise to 
 the comfort of man from these insect families, it has not lessened the 
 interest with which he has ever regarded the activity, regularity, 
 industry, and harmony of their tiny communities.
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 [HE colony of Senegal, on the western coast of Africa, 
 was captured from the French by the English in the 
 year 1809, but was ceded to its former masters at the 
 peace of 1815. As soon after this event as the state of 
 affairs would admit, the French government fitted out 
 an expedition, consisting of the newly appointed governor, M. 
 Schmaltz, and other functionaries, civil and military, to take posses- 
 sion of and colonise the restored settlement. The squadron fitted 
 out on this occasion consisted of four vessels the Medusa, a frigate 
 of forty-four guns, the Loire store-ship, the Argus brig, and the 
 Echo corvette the whole carrying upwards of six hundred indi- 
 viduals, of whom two hundred and fifty were soldiers. On board 
 the Medusa, the chief vessel in the squadron, commanded by 
 Captain Lachaumareys, were the governor and other principal 
 functionaries, along with a considerable number of the soldiers, and 
 a number of women and children ; the entire number of individuals 
 on board being four hundred. 
 
 Among this large body on board the Medusa, was a family to 
 whom we shall have to advert more particularly in the sequel. It 
 consisted of M. Picard, his wife, two grown-up daughters by a 
 previous marriage, both accomplished young women, and several 
 younger children, with a girl their cousin the whole nine in number, 
 the youngest of whom was an infant at the breast. M. Picard was 
 by profession an attorney; he had been resident in Senegal previous 
 28 i
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 to 1809, and now, on the resumption of French authority, he was 
 returning, for the purpose of occupying a situation connected with 
 the government of the colony. Provided with a small cabin on the 
 main-deck of the Medusa, and with some valuable goods on board, 
 the family formed a happy group, full of bright anticipations of the 
 future, and having every reason to expect a prosperous voyage to 
 the shores of Africa. 
 
 Setting out from the port of Rochefort, in the west of France, all 
 the vessels of the expedition were under sail on the iyth of June 
 1816, and remained for several days together ; at length, from the 
 changeableness of the wind, they were separated, each pursuing its 
 course alone, and the Echo only keeping in sight of the Medusa, 
 as if to guide it on its route. Some fine weather which ensued 
 served to confirm hopes of happiness in the Picards, and on the 
 28th of June they felt interested in contemplating the lofty peak of 
 Teneriffe, which rose on the horizon. The satisfaction which the 
 passengers now generally felt and expressed, was doomed to be of 
 no long duration. Captain Lachaumareys was apparently so unfit 
 for the trust reposed in him, not only from his ignorance of seaman- 
 ship and general management, but as regards temper and humanity, 
 that it is impossible to understand how he should have obtained the 
 command of the vessel. One day, when the frigate was going before 
 a fine breeze at the rate of nine knots an hour, a sailor-boy fell over- 
 board. Several persons were at the moment standing on the poop, 
 witnessing the gambols of seals, but no effective measures were 
 taken to save the poor boy's life. For some time the unfortunate 
 lad kept hold of a rope which he had caught in his fall, but the 
 vessel was making such way, that he soon lost his hold. A sailor 
 now seized him by the arm, but for the same reason he was forced 
 to let go. To communicate this accident to the Echo, a gun was 
 ordered to be fired, but not a single piece was found charged ; it 
 required also a long time to lower the sails, when the more simple 
 method would have been to put the helm about. It was at last 
 thought of letting down a six-oared boat ; into which, in the con- 
 fusion and hurry, only three men entered. Every effort was unavail- 
 ing ; the boat returned, after rowing a short distance, without having 
 even found the cork buoy which had been thrown overboard when 
 the accident was first announced. The same want of foresight, 
 promptitude, and regularity on the part of the captain and lieu- 
 tenants, afterwards led to greater disasters. 
 
 On the ist of July the Medusa entered the tropics, the seamen 
 on the occasion performing the ceremonies which ordinarily take 
 place in crossing the equinoctial line. In the midst of this fatal 
 merriment the vessel was surrounded by dangers, of which those in 
 command were insensible. For some days the captain had 
 abandoned the entire guidance of the frigate to a person named 
 Richfort, who pretended to a great knowledge of this part of the
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 Atlantic. In vain the passengers remonstrated on this imprudent 
 confidence in a stranger ; the commander obstinately persisted in 
 allowing him to steer the vessel in whatever direction he thought 
 proper. Richfort appears to have been a fool as well as an impostor, 
 for, while risking the lives of others, he also risked his own ; and in 
 the face of multiplying dangers, he continued his perilous course. 
 In thus abandoning the ship to Richfort's direction, the captain 
 transgressed the written instructions, which enjoined him to steer 
 due west for sixty-six miles after making Cape Blanco, in order to 
 clear the sand-bank of Arguin ; instead of which, after proceeding 
 about half that distance, the vessel's head was set to the southward. 
 During the night which followed, the Echo hung out lanterns to warn 
 her consort of her danger ; but they were unavailing ; the Medusa 
 was kept on her course, and in the morning the Echo was out of 
 sight. 
 
 On the morning of this memorable day, July 2, the sea assumed a 
 sandy colour, and the more reflective passengers and naval officers 
 became seriously alarmed ; strong representations of the danger the 
 frigate was in were again made to the captain, but with no better 
 success than formerly. Such was his infatuation, that the vessel was 
 at the time actually standing directly for the low sandy shore which 
 it was his duty to avoid. At noon, the officer of the watch asserted 
 that the vessel was getting near the edge of the bank ; but no change 
 was permitted in her course. This obstinacy caused a mournful pre- 
 sentiment among the passengers. A species of stupor, approaching 
 to despair, overspread all their spirits. M. Picard, seated in the 
 midst of his family, gave all up for lost ; yet he durst not remonstrate; 
 for already one of the officers had been put under arrest for daring 
 to condemn the fallacy of Richfort's proceedings. In the meanwhile, 
 the wind, blowing with violence, impelled the vessel nearer the 
 danger which menaced it. Between two and three o'clock in the 
 afternoon, the lead shewed that the frigate was in eighteen fathoms 
 water. This startling intelligence for the first time roused the cap- 
 tain. He gave orders to change the ship's course, by coming closer 
 to the wind. It was too late. The lead was again cast, and shewed 
 only six fathoms. The captain, now thoroughly terrified/gave orders 
 to haul the wind as close as possible. It was useless. The frigate 
 had touched the sandy bottom, and almost immediately struck with 
 a strong concussion. This disastrous event took place at a quarter 
 past three o'clock afternoon, in 19 30' N. lat., and 19 45' W. long. 
 The vessel now lay at the mercy of the winds and waves, in less than 
 four fathoms, and this was during high- water ; when the tide ebbed, 
 the depth would become less. 
 
 When the concussion of striking was felt through the vessel, terror 
 and consternation were immediately depicted on every countenance. 
 The crew stood motionless ; the passengers gave themselves up to 
 despair. In the midst of this general panic, cries of vengeance were 
 
 3
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 heard against the principal author of the misfortune, the greater 
 number wishing to throw him overboard ; but some, more generously 
 disposed, endeavoured to calm the excitement, and pointed out how 
 much more fitting it would be to adopt means of safety, than spend 
 time in vengeful and useless criminations. To ease the pressure on 
 the ship, the sails were hastily lowered, the topgallant-mast and top- 
 mast taken down, and some other means tried to get her off the bank. 
 They were all, however, only half-measures ; they did little good ; 
 and when night came on, the efforts were suspended. 
 
 At dawn of day, July 3, new attempts were made to move the 
 vessel. Anchors were carried, with vast trouble, in boats to a 
 distance, and being dropped into the sea, cables from them were 
 pulled at the capstan ; but the anchors presented no sufficient resist- 
 ance, and the effort proved fruitless. Masts, yards, and booms were 
 now thrown overboard, and a number of casks of water emptied ; 
 still the frigate continued fixed. Many wished the cannon also to 
 be tossed overboard ; but this the captain refused to do, on the plea 
 that they belonged to the king ! There was a large stock of pro- 
 vision in barrels, which the frigate was carrying to Senegal ; and these 
 barrels, the governor, with equal pertinacity, would not allow to be 
 thrown overboard, on the ground that the colony was in want of 
 provisions. 
 
 What was now to be done ? All was clamour and confusion ; in 
 the midst of which the poor Picards shrunk into their little cabin, 
 consumed with grief and apprehensions of a miserable death on 
 the wreck. The superior officers felt the necessity for providing 
 means of escape, in case all attempts to get off the ship should 
 prove unavailing. A council was called. The lives of four hundred 
 persons were to be saved ; and there were only six boats, into which 
 it would have been impossible to stow so many. In this dilemma 
 M. Schmaltz, the governor, proposed to save a large portion of the 
 passengers on a raft, of which he exhibited a plan. The raft was 
 to be capable of carrying two hundred men, with provisions for all. 
 The boats were to tow the raft, to which their crews were to come 
 at meal-times for their rations. The whole crew were to land in 
 a body on the sandy shore of the desert, and, provided with arms 
 and ammunition, which were to be taken from the vessel, were to 
 form a caravan, and proceed to the town of St Louis in Senegal. 
 All this, as events afterwards proved, was practicable ; for the land, 
 though not visible from the frigate, was only about forty-five miles 
 distant ; yet the plan, in the manner proposed, was not carried into 
 execution. 
 
 Next day, the 4th, there was a glimpse of hope. At the hour 
 of high-water, the frigate, being considerably lightened, was found 
 nearly afloat ; and it is believed that if the guns had now been 
 thrown overboard, the Medusa would have been saved. Even 
 a tow-line would have brought her round ; but it was not thought
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 of. When the tide ebbed, the unfortunate vessel again sank firmly 
 into the sand, and the hope of getting her off was abandoned. 
 
 A raft was now begun to be constructed by means of masts, spars, 
 planks, and cordage, which were thrown into the sea for the purpose : 
 the whole being lashed together, formed a kind of platform, of about 
 a foot and a half in thickness, buoyed up by empty barrels placed 
 beneath the corners. Its length was sixty-five feet ; its breadth 
 above twenty. Each end terminated in a point ; and these ends 
 were very fragile. The only safe part was in the centre ; but even 
 that was sometimes under water. 
 
 Night came on while the raft was constructing, and the work 
 ceased till next day. It was a night productive of dire anticipations. 
 The sky became cloudy, the wind blew strong, and came from the 
 sea, causing a great swell of the waves. The vessel now began to 
 heel with violence, and it was every moment expected to see her 
 planks start. This catastrophe at length to a certain extent ensued. 
 The lower timbers bulged ; the keel broke in two ; the rudder was 
 also unshipped, but still holding to the stern by the chains, it was 
 dashed by the waves against the vessel. From this cause the 
 captain's cabin was beaten in, and the water entered in an alarming 
 manner. In this emergency the captain could preserve neither 
 order nor discipline ; and indeed his incompetency and inhumanity 
 rendered disobedience a duty. The general feeling throughout the 
 ship was, every man for himself a scramble for life. Towards 
 midnight a large part of the crew and more active passengers were 
 preparing to leave the vessel secretly in the boats. This selfish and 
 perfidious conduct was, however, checked by the soldiers, who firmly 
 declared they would fire upon whosoever attempted to quit the 
 frigate clandestinely. The threats of these brave men alarmed the 
 governor, who had already formed a scheme for himself. He there- 
 fore judged it proper to assemble a council, at which he endeavoured 
 to allay the general distrust. He solemnly swore that, according to 
 the plan which would be adopted, the boats would not abandon the 
 raft, but would tow it to the shore of the desert, where all would 
 travel in a body to Senegal. It was agreed that the embarkation 
 should take place at six o'clock in the morning. 
 
 The treacherous promises of the governor, supported by Captain 
 Lachaumareys, served to allay the apprehensions of the more timid 
 passengers, including the unfortunate Picards. A number began to 
 secure their more valuable articles about their persons, while part 
 of the crew and soldiers broke into the cabins and storerooms, 
 appropriating the articles which struck their fancy, and drinking 
 the wine and spirits, till they fell exhausted and insensible. Amidst 
 an uproar of singing, shouting, groans, and imprecations, day broke, 
 and all prepared to depart. A list had been made out, assigning 
 each his proper place in the boats and raft ; but this arrangement 
 was now disregarded, and every one pursued the plan he deemed 
 
 s
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 best for his own preservation. Few were inclined to go upon the 
 raft, which heaved uneasily on the turbid waves. To compel 
 obedience, an officer, armed with two pistols, stood by the bulwarks, 
 and with furious language threatened to fire on whoever would not 
 go upon it ; and thus a miscellaneous crowd of persons were forced 
 to place themselves on this floating tomb. To accommodate so 
 large a number, and keep the raft from sinking, several barrels of 
 provisions which had been placed on it the day before were thrown 
 into the sea. The only provisions left for the support of the large 
 number on it consisted of a bag of twenty-five pounds of soaked 
 biscuit, which, having been tossed from the vessel, fell into the sea, 
 and was with difficulty recovered. There were also several casks 
 of wine and of water. On the raft there were no charts, sails, oars, 
 nor compass, everything proper being forgotten in the confusion. In 
 all, there were upon the raft one hundred and fifty persons, twenty- 
 nine of whom were sailors ; there was one woman, and all the 
 remainder were soldiers. These latter were not allowed to take 
 their muskets ; but they retained their swords ; besides which the 
 officers saved their fowling-pieces and pistols. 
 
 The command of the raft had been assigned to M. Coudin, mid- 
 shipman. This was not the least of the cruelties perpetrated by 
 Lachaumareys. Coudin had received a severe bruise on his leg 
 before the expedition had sailed from Rochefort, and he was now 
 suffering so severely, that he was incapable of moving. Determined, 
 however, not to flinch from a post which had been assigned to him 
 on the ground of his being the senior midshipman in the vessel, he 
 refused to allow one of his companions to take his place, and 
 accordingly proceeded to the raft. The exertion, however, was 
 almost too much for him : the pain of his wound, aggravated by the 
 heaving of the raft, and the salt water which dashed upon him, 
 rendered him nearly insensible. Information of his condition being 
 communicated to the captain, a promise was made that he should 
 be relieved, and taken into one of the boats ; but this, like all other 
 promises, was not fulfilled. The unfortunate Coudin was left on the 
 raft. 
 
 The boats were in the meanwhile receiving their lading. The 
 barge, which was commanded by a lieutenant, took the governor, 
 with his wife, daughters, and friends, making in all thirty-five 
 persons ; it also received several trunks, and a stock of choice 
 provisions and liquors. The captain's boat received twenty-eight 
 persons, most of whom were sailors, good rowers. The shallop 
 took forty-two passengers ; the long-boat, eighty-three ; the pinnace, 
 thirty ; and the yawl (commanded by M. Espiau, ensign of the 
 frigate), the smallest of all the boats, fifteen. Such was the final 
 arrangement ; but before it was effected, there was much struggling 
 and fighting, some gaining a place only by threatening the lives of 
 the commanders. The boats were to all appearance filled, and 
 
 6
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 putting to sea, without any one casting a thought on the poor 
 Picards, who, less able to enforce attention than others, were about 
 to be abandoned on the wreck. A place had been promised them 
 in the pinnace ; but that boat had put off, and its commander would 
 not return to take the helpless family. Roused by the horrors of 
 his situation, M. Picard lifted a musket from the deck, and hailing 
 the yawl, which was near at hand, declared that he would shoot 
 every one on board, if they would not carry himself and family to 
 the pinnace. The sailors, murmuring, assented, and by this means 
 the Picards reached the pinnace, on which they were, with affected 
 politeness, taken on board. 
 
 When all had left the vessel who would go, there remained 
 seventeen persons, some of whom were intoxicated, and incapable 
 of providing for their safety. 
 
 For some time after quitting the wreck, five of the boats united 
 in a line, towing the raft behind them by a rope ; and as the wind 
 was fortunately favourable, there can be no reasonable doubt that, 
 had they continued to pull, the whole fleet would have reached the 
 shore in from thirty to forty hours. To the everlasting disgrace of 
 the French navy, the commanders of the boats changed altogether 
 the plan to which they had engaged themselves to adhere, and, one 
 and all dropping the tow-line, left their brethren on the raft to their 
 fate. The immediate cause of this most dishonest and inhuman 
 procedure was an appeal made to them by M. Espiau in the yawl. 
 This gentleman, the only officer who seemed to pity the unfortunates 
 on the Medusa, was the last to quit the wreck, and, in compassion 
 for those left behind, had taken more on board than his boat could 
 well contain. Hastening after the boats in advance, he earnestly 
 besought their commanders to relieve him of part of his crew; 
 but all refused to assist him. In the desperation to which they 
 were put, some of the crew in the yawl proposed swimming after 
 the boats, and, if possible, working on the compassion of their 
 commanders. One sailor put this proposal in practice. Plunging 
 into the sea, he swam towards one of the leading and least-burdened 
 boats ; but on reaching, and endeavouring to climb into it, the 
 officer in command pushed him back, and drawing his sword, 
 threatened to cut off his hands if he did not let go. The poor 
 wretch being thus compelled to desist from the attempt, next tried 
 the pinnace ; but here he met with no better success. Some of the 
 party on board entreated the officer, M. Lape"rere, to receive him ; 
 but he refused the request, and the man was left to his fate. M. 
 Lape"rere, it appears, got rid of the unhappy applicant for admission 
 not only by refusing to take him in, but by hastening away from 
 him. To put the boat beyond his reach, he caused the tug-line to 
 be dropped, and so made off with all speed from the spot. The 
 commanders of the other boats imitated this execrable example. 
 Wishing to get beyond the reach of the unfortunate being who was
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 floundering amidst the waves, and of the yawl from which he had 
 precipitated himself, all dropped the towing-rope, and each boat 
 made off precipitately from the dismal scene. 
 
 The raft was thus abandoned by all who had sworn to assist 
 in towing it to land. A hundred and fifty fellow-creatures were 
 unscrupulously left in the midst of the ocean to perish. We 
 question if the whole annals of shipwreck present a case of greater 
 iniquity than this ; it must for ever stand unparalleled for heartless 
 inhumanity. At first, when the unfortunate individuals on the raft 
 saw the boats break loose from the line they had been pursuing, 
 they imagined that the towing-rope had snapped, and they raised 
 their voices to make their companions aware of the fact. 'The 
 rope is broken the rope is broken !' burst from them with increasing 
 intensity of agony. To their surprise, no attention was paid to their 
 cries, and for a moment they imagined that some new tactics advan- 
 tageous to all were to be practised. Englishmen in such circumstances 
 would most likely have awaited the result in silence. The French, 
 with characteristic vivacity, raised the national flag on the raft, 
 and united in the cry of Vive le Roi; trusting, perhaps, to awaken a 
 sympathising feeling in the bosoms of their retreating companions, 
 and so bring them back to a sense of humanity and duty. If such 
 were their meaning, it signally failed. The commanders of the 
 boats bombastically returned the cry ; and Captain Lachaumareys, 
 assuming a martial attitude, politely waved his hat in the air, as 
 a parting testimony of regard. The wretched crew of the raft now 
 too surely saw what was to be their doom. They perceived that, 
 after being treacherously decoyed upon their floating prison, they 
 were left with indifference to die of hunger, or to be drowned in the 
 sea. Wild cries forthwith rent the air cries of heart-rending despair 
 cries for justice and compassion cries also of vengeance and 
 contempt. All were alike unheeded. The boats hastened on their 
 course. 
 
 From the narrative of Mademoiselle Picard, we learn that the 
 cries on this melancholy occasion would have melted any but the 
 most obdurate of hearts. ' Alas ! why do you leave us ? why do you 
 leave us?' was wafted to their ears. 'I felt,' says she, 'my heart 
 bursting with emotion. I believed that the waves would speedily 
 overwhelm all these forlorn wretches, and I could not suppress the 
 tears which burst from my eyes. My father, exasperated to excess, 
 and bursting with indignation at seeing so much cowardice and 
 inhumanity among the officers of the boats, began to express his 
 regret for not having allowed himself to be placed on the raft along 
 with the sufferers. " At least," he observed, " we would have died 
 with the brave, or we would have returned to the wreck of the 
 Medusa, and been spared the disgrace of having saved ourselves 
 with cowards."' 
 
 Such is the account given by an eye-witness of this scene of 
 8
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 disaster and disgrace. The history of the shipwreck now divides 
 itself into three parts the account of the boats and their crews, 
 of the raft, and of the wreck of the Medusa. In the first place, we 
 shall follow the account of 
 
 THE BOATS AND THEIR CREWS. 
 
 Among the six boats which left the Medusa, two only had a suf- 
 ficient stock of provisions, and these made off with all dispatch from 
 their companions in misfortune. It had been arranged that they 
 all should make for the nearest land; but these two boats taking 
 the lead, proceeded, by orders of the governor, in the direction of 
 Senegal. This unforeseen change of course surprised and alarmed 
 the crews of the other boats ; for none of them had provisions for 
 more than one or two days ; and to encounter a voyage of longer 
 duration, was altogether hopeless. Undecided, however, they con- 
 tinued to move on in the wake of the boats which were in advance. 
 The provisions on board the pinnace consisted of a barrel of biscuit 
 and a tierce of water ; but the biscuit had been soaked in the sea, 
 and was little better than salted paste. A small portion of this 
 nauseous biscuit, with a glass of water, formed the daily portion of 
 each on board. The other boats were in some degree better provided, 
 for they had a little wine. 
 
 During the night of the 5th, the day on which the raft had been 
 abandoned, the boats lay to ; and on the morning of the 6th, they 
 were again under way. The pinnace, according to the account of 
 Mademoiselle Picard, which we shall principally follow, now began 
 to leak fearfully, and the holes in it were stuffed with oakum, which 
 an old sailor had had the precaution to provide. At noon the heat 
 was intense ; hot winds blew from the desert, and many thought 
 their last moments were come. In the afternoon a distribution of a 
 little water and biscuit was made ; and hope revived of reaching 
 Senegal on the morrow. As evening came on, the sky changed, and 
 then a tempest of wind, thunder, and lightning, which threatened to 
 overwhelm the boat. Again the leaks broke out, and there were 
 stuffed into them old clothes, sleeves of shirts, shawls, anything that 
 came to hand ; and for six hours, every one momentarily anticipated 
 death. Towards midnight the atmosphere tranquillised, and once 
 more a gleam of hope passed through the minds of the forlorn crew. 
 
 In the morning of the 7th, the shores of the desert were again 
 seen, and a number of the sailors murmuring, and wishing to land, 
 the boat was directed towards the coast. On approaching the land, 
 the hearts of the most courageous failed, on seeing the breakers 
 which it would be necessary to pass through to the shore. Again 
 the pinnace put to sea, and another day was spent under a burning 
 sun, and in a state of intolerable thirst. The freshness of the night- 
 wind revived the spirits of all on board; but all were becoming 
 28 9
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 excessively weak for want of nourishment ; and on the morrow it 
 was determined to attempt a landing. Early in the morning of the 
 8th, accordingly, after a scanty meal of a mouthful of biscuit and a 
 few drops of water, the boats once more put in-shore, and being 
 cheered with observing a group of persons from two of the boats 
 already landed, they pushed towards a landing-place. It was a 
 desperate struggle. The breakers overwhelmed the boat, and only 
 after weltering in the waves, and being all thoroughly drenched, 
 they got to dry land. 
 
 The crews of all the boats were here united, except those on board 
 the governor's and captain's boats, both of which pursued their way 
 to Senegal, which they reached next day, the gih that is, four days 
 after quitting the wreck. As soon as they arrived, a council was 
 held to concert measures necessary to be taken on the occasion. It 
 will scarcely be credited that, notwithstanding this apparent activity, 
 nothing was done for some days. At length a vessel, the Argus, 
 was despatched in quest of the boats and of the raft, and what it 
 achieved will appear in the sequel. 
 
 Returning, in the meanwhile, to the large party who had effected 
 a landing from the boats numbering about a hundred and seventy 
 persons we find them in a dismal plight, on the shore of a barren 
 desert, without food or water, and many nearly naked. All, it 
 appears, had got ashore without material injury, except one person, 
 who had his legs broken, while landing, by a concussion from one of 
 the boats. He was laid on the shore of the desert, and left to his 
 fate, which would most likely be destruction by wild animals on the 
 ensuing night. In this incident alone is seen an inhumanity for 
 which there is no valid excuse. 
 
 Leaving the poor wretch on the sands, the party proceeded to 
 consult on measures for proceeding to Senegal ; but that involved a 
 march of several days, and great fatigues and dangers, not to be 
 contemplated without dismay. As remaining on the spot, however, 
 would have been worse than madness, all prepared to set out. What 
 ensued will be best told in the unaffected words of Mademoiselle 
 Picard : 
 
 ' Shortly after landing, or about seven in the morning, a party was 
 formed to penetrate into the interior, for the purpose of finding some 
 fresh water. Some accordingly was found at a little distance from 
 the sea, by digging among the sand. Every one instantly flocked 
 round the little wells, which furnished enough to quench our thirst. 
 This water was found to be delicious, although it had a sulphureous 
 taste ; its colour was that of whey. As all our clothes were wet, and 
 in tatters, and as we had nothing to change them, some generous 
 officers offered theirs. My stepmother, my cousin, and my sister, 
 were dressed in them ; for myself, I preferred keeping my own. We 
 remained nearly an hour beside our beneficent fountain, then took 
 the route for Senegal ; that is, a southerly direction, for we did not
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 know exactly where that country lay. It was agreed that the females 
 and children should walk before the caravan, as the general body 
 was called, that they might not be left behind. The sailors volun- 
 tarily carried the youngest on their shoulders, and every one took 
 the route along the coast. Notwithstanding it was nearly seven 
 o'clock, the sand was quite burning, and we suffered severely, walking 
 without shoes, having lost them whilst landing. As soon as we 
 arrived on the shore, we went to walk on the wet sand, to cool us a. 
 little. Thus we travelled during the night, without encountering 
 anything but shells, which wounded our feet. 
 
 ' Early on the morning of the Qth, we saw an antelope on a little 
 hill ; it instantly disappeared, before any of the party had time to 
 shoot it. The desert seemed to our view one immense plain of 
 sand, on which not a blade of verdure was seen. However, we still 
 found water by digging in the sand. In the forenoon, two officers of 
 marine complained that our family incommoded the progress of the 
 general body. It is true the females and the children could not 
 walk so quickly as the men. We walked as fast as it was possible 
 for us ; nevertheless, we often fell behind, which obliged them to 
 halt till we came up. These officers, joined with other individuals, 
 considered among themselves whether they would wait for us, or 
 abandon us in the desert. I will be bold to say, however, that but 
 few were of the latter opinion. My father being informed of what 
 was plotting against us, stepped up to the chiefs of the conspiracy, 
 and reproached them in the bitterest terms for their selfishness and 
 cruelty. The dispute waxed warm. Those who were desirous of 
 leaving us drew their swords, and my father put his hand upon a 
 poniard, with which he had provided himself on quitting the frigate. 
 At this scene we threw ourselves between them, conjuring him rather 
 to remain in the desert with his family, than seek the assistance of 
 those who were perhaps less humane than the Moors themselves. 
 Several people took our part, particularly M. Be"gnere, captain of 
 infantry, who allayed the dispute by saying to his soldiers : " My 
 friends, you are Frenchmen, and I have the honour to be your com- 
 mander ; let us never abandon an unfortunate family in the desert, 
 so long as we are able to be of use to them." This brief but ener- 
 getic speech caused those to blush who wished to quit us. All then 
 joined with the old captain, saying they would not leave us, on 
 condition that we would walk a little quicker. M. Be"gnere and his 
 soldiers replied, they did not wish to impose conditions on those to 
 whom they were desirous of doing a favour ; and the unfortunate 
 family of Picard were again on the road with the whole caravan. 
 
 ' About noon, hunger was felt so powerfully among us, that it was 
 agreed upon to go to the small hills of sand which were near the 
 coast, to see if any herbs could be found fit for eating : nothing, 
 however, was procured but poisonous plants, among which were 
 various kinds of euphorbium. Convolvuli of a bright green carpeted
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 the downs ; but on tasting their leaves, we found them as bitter as gall. 
 The party rested in this place, whilst several officers went farther 
 into the interior. They returned in about an hour, loaded with wild 
 purslain, which they distributed to each of us. Every one instantly 
 devoured his bunch of herbage, without leaving the smallest branch ; 
 but as our hunger was far from being satisfied with this small allow- 
 ance, the soldiers and sailors betook themselves to look for more. 
 They soon brought a sufficient quantity, which was equally distri- 
 buted, and devoured upon the spot, so delicious had hunger made 
 that food to us. For myself, I declare I never ate anything with so 
 much appetite in all my life. Water was also found in this place, 
 but it was of a nauseous taste. After this truly frugal repast, we 
 continued our route. The heat was insupportable in the last degree. 
 The sands on which we trod were burning ; nevertheless, several ot 
 us walked on these scorching coals without shoes ; and the females 
 had nothing but their hair for a cap. When we reached the sea- 
 shore, we all ran and lay down among the surf. After remaining 
 there some time, we took our route along the wet beach. On our 
 journey we met with several large crabs, which were of considerable 
 service to us. Every now and then we endeavoured to slake our 
 thirst by sucking their crooked claws. About nine at night we 
 halted between two pretty high sand-hills. After a short talk con- 
 cerning our misfortunes, all seemed desirous of passing the night in 
 this place, notwithstanding we heard on every side the roaring of 
 leopards. Our situation had been thus perilous during the night ; 
 nevertheless, at break of day, we had the satisfaction of finding 
 none missing.' 
 
 At sunrise next morning the party resumed its march, holding a 
 little towards the east, in the hope of finding water. In this they 
 were disappointed ; but were gratified in observing that the country 
 was less arid, and possessed a species of vegetation. Some of the 
 travellers having pushed forward to make observations, ' returned 
 and told us they had seen two Arab tents upon a slightly rising 
 ground. We instantly directed our steps thither. We had to pass 
 great downs of sand, very slippery, and arrived in a large plain, 
 streaked here and there with verdure ; but the turf was so hard and 
 piercing, that we could scarcely walk over it without wounding our 
 feet. Our presence in these frightful solitudes put to flight three or 
 four Moorish shepherds, who herded a small flock of sheep and 
 goats in an oasis. At last we arrived at the tents after which we 
 were searching, and found in them three Mooresses and two little 
 children, who did not seem in the least frightened by our visit. A 
 negro servant, belonging to one of the officers, interpreted between 
 us and the women, who, when they had heard of our misfortunes, 
 offered us millet and water for payment. We bought a little of that 
 grain at the rate of three francs a handful : the water was got for 
 three francs a glass ; it was very good, and none grudged the money
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 it cost. As a glass of water with a handful of millet was but a poor 
 dinner for famished people, my father bought two kids, for which 
 twenty piastres were charged. We immediately killed them, and 
 the Moorish women boiled them for us in a large kettle.' 
 
 Resuming their march, the party fell in with several friendly Moors 
 or Arabs, who conducted them to their encampment. 'We found a 
 Moor in the camp who had previously known my father in Senegal, 
 and who spoke a little French. We were all struck, with astonish- 
 ment at the unexpected meeting. My father recollected having 
 employed long ago a young goldsmith at Senegal, and discovering 
 the Moor Amet to be the same person, shook him by the hand. 
 After that good fellow had been made acquainted with our shipwreck, 
 and to what extremities our unfortunate family had been reduced, he 
 could not refrain from tears. Amet was not satisfied with deploring 
 our hard fate ; he was desirous of proving that he was generous and 
 humane, and instantly distributed among us a large quantity of milk 
 and water, free of any charge. He also raised for our family a large 
 tent of the skins of camels, cattle, and sheep ; because his religion 
 would not allow him to lodge under the same roof with Christians.' 
 
 Next day the band of wayfarers, assisted by asses which they had 
 hired from the Moors, regained the sea-shore, still pursuing the route 
 for Senegal ; and they had the satisfaction of perceiving a ship out 
 at sea, to which they made signals. ' The vessel having approached 
 sufficiently near to the coast, the Moors who were with us threw 
 themselves into the sea, and swam to it. In about half an hour we 
 saw these friendly assistants returning, pushing before them three 
 small barrels. Arrived on shore, one of them gave a letter to the 
 leader of our party from the commander of the ship, which was the 
 Argus, a vessel sent to seek after the raft, and to give us provisions. 
 This letter announced a small barrel of biscuit, a tierce of wine, 
 a half-tierce of brandy, and a cheese. O fortunate circumstance ! 
 We were very desirous of testifying our gratitude to the generous 
 commander of the brig, but he instantly set out and left us. We 
 staved the barrels which held our small stock of provisions, and 
 made a distribution. Each of us had a biscuit, about a glass of 
 wine, a half-glass of brandy, and a small morsel of cheese. Each 
 drank his allowance of wine at one gulp : the brandy was not even 
 despised by the ladies. I, however, preferred 'quantity to quality, 
 and exchanged my ration of brandy for one of wine. To describe 
 our joy whilst taking this repast is impossible. Exposed to the fierce 
 rays of a vertical sun, exhausted by a long train of suffering, deprived 
 for a long time of the use of any kind of spirituous liquors, when our 
 portions of water, wine, and brandy mingled in our stomachs, we 
 became like insane people. Life, which had lately been a great 
 burden, now became precious to us. Foreheads, lowering and sulky, 
 began to unwrinkle ; enemies became most brotherly ; the avaricious 
 endeavoured to forget their selfishness and cupidity ; the children 
 
 13
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 smiled for the first time since our shipwreck; in a word, every one 
 seemed to revive from a state of melancholy and dejection. 
 
 'About six in the evening, my father, finding himself extremely 
 fatigued, wished to rest himself. We allowed the caravan to move 
 on whilst my stepmother and myself remained near him, and the rest 
 of the family followed with their asses. We all three soon fell asleep. 
 When we awoke, we were astonished at not seeing our companions. 
 The sun was sinking in the west. We saw several Moors approaching 
 us, mounted on camels ; and my father reproached himself for 
 having slept so long. Their appearance gave us great uneasiness, 
 and we wished much to escape from them, but my stepmother and 
 myself fell quite exhausted. The Moors, with long beards, having 
 come quite close to us, one of them alighted, and addressed us in 
 the following words : " Be comforted, ladies ; under the costume of 
 an Arab, you see an Englishman who is desirous of serving you. 
 Having heard at Senegal that Frenchmen were thrown ashore on 
 these deserts, I thought my presence might be of some service to 
 them, as I was acquainted with several of the princes of this arid 
 country." These noble words from the mouth of a man we had at 
 first taken to be a Moor, instantly calmed our fears. Recovering 
 from our fright, we rose and expressed to the philanthropic English- 
 man the gratitude we felt. Mr Garnet, the name of the generous 
 Briton, told us that our caravan, which he had met, waited for us at 
 about the distance of two leagues. He then gave us some biscuit, 
 which we ate ; and we then set off together to join our companions. 
 Mr Garnet wished us to mount his camels, but my stepmother and 
 myself, being unable to persuade ourselves we could sit securely 
 on their hairy haunches, continued to walk on the moist sand ; 
 whilst my father, Mr Garnet, and the Moors who accompanied him, 
 proceeded on the camels. We soon reached a little river, of which 
 we wished to drink, but found it as bitter as the sea. Mr Garnet 
 desired us to have patience, and we should find some at the place 
 where our caravan waited. We forded that river knee-deep. At 
 last, having walked about an hour, we rejoined our companions, 
 who had found several wells of fresh water. It was resolved to pass 
 the night in this place, which seemed less arid than any we saw near 
 us. The soldiers being requested to go and seek wood to light a fire, 
 for the purpose of frightening the ferocious beasts which were heard 
 roaring around us, refused ; but Mr Garnet assured us that the 
 Moors who were with him knew well how to keep all such intruders 
 from our camp.' 
 
 The succeeding night passed over without any unpleasant event, 
 and the party were again on the march along the shore at four in 
 the morning. All were hungry, and Mr Garnet left them to procure 
 some provisions. ' At noon, the sun's heat became so violent that 
 even the Moors themselves endured it with difficulty. We then 
 determined on finding some shade behind the high mounds of sand 
 14
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 which appeared in the interior ; but how were we to reach them ? 
 The sands could not be hotter. We had been obliged to leave our 
 asses on the shore, for they would neither advance nor recede. The 
 greater part of us had neither shoes nor hats ; notwithstanding, we 
 were obliged to go forward almost a long league to find a little 
 shade. Whether from want of air, or the heat of the ground on 
 which we seated ourselves, we were nearly suffocated. I thought my 
 last moments were come. Already my eyes saw nothing but a dark 
 cloud, when a person of the name of Borner, who was to have been 
 a smith at Senegal, gave me a boot containing some muddy water, 
 which he had had the precaution to keep. I seized the elastic vase, 
 and hastened to swallow the liquid in large draughts. One of my 
 companions, equally tormented with thirst, envious of the pleasure 
 I seemed to feel, and which I felt effectually, drew the foot from the 
 boot, and seized it in his turn ; but it availed him nothing. The 
 water which remained was so disgusting that he could not drink it, 
 and spilt it on the ground. Captain Be'gnere, who was present, 
 judging, by the water that fell, how loathsome that must have been 
 which I had drunk, offered me some crumbs of biscuit, which he 
 had kept most carefully in his pocket. I chewed that mixture of 
 bread, dust, and tobacco ; but I could not swallow it, and gave it 
 all masticated to one of my younger brothers, who had fallen from 
 inanition. 
 
 ' We were on the point of quitting this furnace, when we saw our 
 English friend approaching, who brought us provisions. At this 
 sight I felt my strength revive, and ceased to desire death, which I 
 had before called on to release me from my sufferings. Several 
 Moors accompanied Mr Garnet, and every one was loaded. On 
 their arrival, we had water, with rice and dried fish in abundance. 
 Every one drank his allowance of water ; but had not ability to eat, 
 although the rice was excellent. We were all anxious to return to 
 the sea, that we might bathe ourselves, and the caravan put itself on 
 the road to the breakers of Sahara. After an hour's march of great 
 suffering, we regained the shore, as well as our asses, which were 
 lying in the water. We rushed among the waves, and, after a bath 
 of half an hour, reposed ourselves upon the beach.' 
 
 There was still another day's painful travelling before reaching 
 the banks of the river Senegal, where boats were expected to be 
 ready to convey the party to the town of St Louis, the place of their 
 destination. ' During the day we quickened our march ; and for the 
 first time since our shipwreck, a smiling picture presented itself to 
 our view. The trees, always green, with which that noble river is 
 shaded, the humming-birds, the red-birds, the paroquets, the prome- 
 rops, and others, which flitted among their long yielding branches, 
 caused in us emotions difficult to express. We could not satiate our 
 eyes with gazing on the beauties of this place, verdure being so 
 enchanting to the sight, especially after having travelled through the
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 desert. Before reaching the river, we had to descend a little hiH 
 covered with thorny bushes. It was four o'clock in the afternoon 
 before the boats of the government arrived, and we all embarked. 
 Biscuit and wine were found in each of them, and all were refreshed. 
 After sailing for an hour down the stream, we came in sight of St 
 Louis, a town miserable in appearance, but delightful to our vision 
 after so much suffering. At six in the evening we arrived at the 
 fort, where the late English governor and others, including our 
 generous friend Mr Garnet, were met to receive us. My father 
 presented us to the governor, who had alighted : he appeared to 
 be sensibly affected with our misfortunes, the females and children 
 chiefly exciting his commiseration ; and the native inhabitants and 
 Europeans tenderly shook the hands of the unfortunate people ; the 
 negro slaves even seemed to deplore our disastrous fate. Everything 
 was done to relieve our necessities, and render us comfortable after 
 our dangers and fatigues.' 
 
 We now turn to the account of the raft, and the unfortunates who 
 had been treacherously deserted on it. 
 
 THE RAFT. 
 
 Ruthlessly abandoned in the midst of the ocean, and at the distance 
 of five or six miles from the wreck of the Medusa, the crew of the 
 raft, numbering altogether a hundred and fifty individuals, gave 
 themselves up to all the horrors of despair. This feeling, however, 
 was less manifested by the officers than by their companions, who 
 were principally soldiers and sailors. M. Coudin, the nominal com- 
 mander, was unfit, from illness, to issue orders or exert his influence, 
 and the duty of attending to the general wants and safety appears to 
 have been assumed by M. Corre'ard and M. Savigny, with one or 
 two other officers. These gentlemen, by putting on a countenance 
 of greater fortitude than they really possessed, endeavoured to soothe 
 the general apprehensions, and held out hopes of succour, of which 
 they had but a feeble expectation. 
 
 When tranquillity was restored, and attention could be given to the 
 more immediate condition of affairs, the first idea that occurred to 
 the officers in command was that of steering the raft by the aid of 
 sails and compass. A search was now made for the chart, compass, 
 and anchor, which, on quitting the wreck, were understood to have 
 been placed on the raft ; but they were nowhere to be found, and 
 had never been embarked. In this emergency, M. Corre'ard recol- 
 lected that he had seen one of the sailors with a small pocket- 
 compass in his hands, and on inquiry, it was still fortunately in his 
 possession. This was a piece of joyful intelligence. The compass 
 was not larger than a crown-piece, and perhaps not very accu- 
 rate ; nevertheless, it would answer the purpose for which it was 
 required, and was accordingly given to the chief in command. 
 
 16
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 Alas ! short-lived were the expectations which the possession of the 
 compass had raised. From want of care, it dropped from the fingers 
 of the commander, disappeared between the planks of the raft, and 
 was irrecoverably lost. There was now no other guide across the 
 deep than the rising and setting sun. 
 
 In the hurry of leaving the wreck, none had eaten anything, and 
 in the course of the forenoon all began to feel severely the calls of 
 hunger. A meal was now served, consisting of a little biscuit, 
 mixed with three-quarters of a pint of wine. Bad as it was, it was 
 the best meal distributed on the raft. The biscuit was all consumed, 
 and there was nothing left but wine. After this repast, and while all 
 were as yet able to form correct conclusions, it might be supposed that 
 some definite plan would have been executed for navigating the raft, 
 if not to the shore of the desert, at least back to the Medusa, where 
 there were stores of many useful materials, and an abundance of 
 provisions. Except the erecting of a very insufficient mast and sail, 
 nothing of this kind appears to have been done. The raft lay a hulk 
 on the water, at the mercy of every wave. A few of the better-dis- 
 posed officers preserved a degree of order, and preached patience 
 and hope ; and this is the utmost that can be said in their favour. 
 Others employed themselves in canvassing with the common soldiers 
 and sailors plans for taking revenge on those who had deserted them 
 when they should reach the land. 
 
 With the shades of evening a better spirit prevailed. To the first 
 feeling of despair, there now ensued a degree of resignation ; and 
 religion, with its soothing influence, contributed to the general calm. 
 At times a sanguine spirit would try to impart hopes of succour on 
 the morrow. Perhaps the boats would land their crews on the 
 island of Arguin, and return to carry away those on the raft ; 
 perhaps they might return after reaching the desert ; perhaps they 
 might give intelligence of their fate to one of the vessels of the 
 squadron with which they might fall in. These attempts at comfort 
 were only of momentary avail. Night set in, darkness enveloped 
 the raft, the wind rose, and the agitated sea dashed its waves and 
 spray over the cowering mass of sufferers. The uneasy motion of 
 the raft, and the shifting of the spars, likewise added to the horrors 
 of the scene. With feet entangled amidst the planks and cordage, 
 many were thrown down, and deprived of the power of moving, by 
 others falling above them. As the storm increased, numbers were 
 obliged to lash themselves to the beams, to prevent the waves from 
 washing them off. Cries of pain, of renewed despair, and of bitter 
 lamentation, again rose on the blast. The faculties of many became 
 temporarily impaired; they fancied that vessels were approaching, 
 and, by way of holding out a signal, they fired off pistols, and set 
 fire to small heaps of gunpowder. Amongst the whole on board 
 during that awful night, there were few who did not expect that 
 the raft would perish in the storm before morning. But these 
 
 17
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 anticipations were not realised. The morning at length" broke, and 
 found the raft still buffeted on the surface of the water. It was 
 reserved for greater horrors. 
 
 As the second day dawned, the storm gradually ceased, and the 
 ocean calmed. When there was sufficient light, the spectacle which 
 presented itself was most dismal. Wet, battered, sick, and wounded, 
 the wretched sufferers were huddled confusedly together in heaps. On 
 giving out rations of wine by way of a meal, it was found that twenty 
 persons were missing ; a greater number, however, were probably 
 washed overboard during the night ; for several, in order to increase 
 their allowance, took rations for their dead companions. That 
 twenty out of the hundred and fifty were gone, was at least certain. 
 Death had taken his first instalment. 
 
 During the day, which continued fine throughout, tranquillity pre- 
 vailed, and sanguine hopes were entertained that the boats would 
 shortly appear ; none of them, however, made their appearance, and 
 hope once more gave way to gloomy despair. A mutiny now broke 
 out ; the orders of the officers were disregarded, and there was 
 reason to expect that next night, for want of the precautions hitherto 
 adopted, many lives would be sacrificed. Night at length came, 
 and, to add to the horrors of the scene, there was every appearance 
 of a fresh storm approaching. The sky became covered with heavy 
 clouds, the wind, which had been rather high all day, now rose to a 
 gale, and the waves, again excited, rolled upon the raft in continuous 
 masses, driving it before them as if to immediate destruction. 
 
 In this dismal condition the hearts of the mutineers quailed, and 
 all tried to seek safety in being calm. But rest was impossible. 
 Terrified by the fury of the waves, the mass of sufferers clung to the 
 centre of the raft, where some were actually stifled by the weight 
 of their companions. Those who were outside, and exposed, were 
 rolled over from side to side, and of these a number were swept 
 into the sea. So little was the hope of surviving, that a body of 
 sailors and soldiers resolved to drown the sense of their situation 
 in wine, and so die while in a stupor of intoxication. The officers, 
 clinging for safety to the mast, could offer no effectual opposition to 
 this mad and cowardly scheme ; and accordingly a wine-cask was 
 opened, and from it the mutineers drank a considerable quantity 
 and would have drunk more, had the sea-water not entered the 
 cask by the opening which had been made in it, and caused them to 
 desist. Now maddened with liquor, the folly of the mutineers knew 
 no bounds ; and they proceeded to cut the lashings that held the 
 timbers of the raft together, in order to destroy all at a blow. 
 Roused by the proposal, the officers endeavoured to avert their 
 impending fate by more vigorous measures than they had hitherto 
 dared to put in practice. When one of the ringleaders in the revolt 
 made the first move to cut the ropes with a hatchet, the officers 
 rushed upon him, and, after a desperate struggle, despatched him, 
 18
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 and threw his body into the sea. He was an Asiatic, of extra- 
 ordinary size ; and, having been troublesome and overbearing in 
 demeanour, few lamented his loss. There was now an expectation 
 of a battle between the two parties. The mutineers drew their 
 swords, and were on the point of commencing an attack, when 
 another of their number was killed, and they retreated; only, how- 
 ever, to make a fresh attempt to cut the ropes. One of the officers 
 succeeded in preventing this being done, and in a scuffle which 
 ensued, struck down a soldier and sailor, whom he threw into the 
 sea, where they were drowned. Their exasperated comrades now 
 rushed to the mast, and began to cut down the ropes which sup- 
 ported it. The mast fell with a crash on the leg of an officer, which 
 it nearly broke ; and, far from pitying this misfortune, the enraged 
 crowd threw the poor man into the sea, whence, however, his friends 
 rescued him. No sooner was he on board the wretched raft, which, 
 during the commotion, was tumbling about among the waves, than 
 he was seized on a second time, and an attempt made to put out his 
 eyes. Rendered desperate by these barbarous cruelties, the officers, 
 and those who supported them, made a charge on their antagonists, 
 and put a number of them to death. 
 
 While the combat still raged, some of the mutineers took occasion 
 to throw into the sea, together with her husband, the unfortunate 
 woman who was on board. M. Corrdard, distressed at seeing two 
 unoffending individuals perish, and affected by their cries for help, 
 seized a large rope which he found on the fore-part of the raft, 
 fastened it round his waist, and plunged into the sea. He was thus 
 able to save the female when she was in the act of disappearing 
 below the water. Her husband was at the same time rescued by M. 
 Lavillette. The two exhausted beings were laid on the dead bodies, 
 and their backs were supported by a barrel : in this situation they 
 shortly recovered their senses. The first thing the woman did was 
 to acquaint herself with the name of the person who had saved 
 her from drowning, and to express to him her liveliest gratitude. 
 Finding, doubtless, that her words but ill expressed her feeling, she 
 recollected she had in her pocket a small quantity of snuff, and 
 instantly offered it to him it was all she possessed. Touched with 
 her gift, but unable to use it, M. Corre'ard gave it to a poor sailor, 
 who derived a solacement from it for three or four days. It is 
 impossible to describe a still more affecting incident the joyful 
 recognition of the husband and wife when they discovered that both 
 were alive : they could scarcely credit their senses when they found 
 themselves in one another's arms. This woman was quite a heroine 
 of humble life. For twenty-four years she had travelled as a soldier's 
 wife along with the French armies, in their campaigns in Italy and 
 other places. In this vagrant life she acted as a sutler, supplying 
 the men with articles ; and often was exposed to the greatest dangers 
 on the battle-field, in carrying assistance to the wounded soldiers.
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 In telling her story to M. Correard, she said : ' Whether the men 
 had money or not, I always let them have my goods. Sometimes a 
 battle would deprive me of my poor debtors ; but after the victory, 
 others would pay me double or triple for what they had consumed 
 before the engagement. Thus I came in for a share of their victories.' 
 Unfortunate woman, to have sailed in such a miserable expedition ! 
 Little was she aware of the fate that awaited her ! 
 
 Returning to the position of affairs on the raft : the mutiny was 
 quelled by the determined attitude of the officers ; nor was the 
 humanity shewn to the woman and her husband without its effect 
 in restoring better feelings. Overcome with a momentary sense of 
 shame, the mutineers went the length of asking pardon on their 
 knees for their conduct. This was granted ; and the officers returned 
 to their post at the centre of the raft, still, however, watchful of the 
 movements of their infatuated companions. Towards midnight the 
 old grudge again broke out with increased fury. Rushing on the 
 officers, they attempted to kill them with their weapons ; and those 
 who had no arms, actually bit their adversaries in a shocking 
 manner. One of their drunken delusions was, that Lieutenant 
 Lozach, an officer on board, was a M. Danglas, who had deserted 
 them on quitting the frigate ; and this gentleman was with the 
 greatest difficulty preserved from their fury. Brandishing their 
 arms, reeling to and fro, and stumbling against each other, they 
 continued to cry for Danglas to be delivered up to their vengeance, 
 and by no power of reasoning could they be convinced that they 
 were in error. 
 
 Defeated in getting hold of M. Lozach, the wretches now turned 
 their rage upon the unfortunate M. Coudin, the wounded and 
 distressed commander of the raft. Coudin appears to have been a 
 young man worthy of a better fate than that of sailing among such 
 a crew. During the scuffle we have been describing, he had seated 
 himself on a small barrel, supporting in his arms a young sailor-boy 
 of twelve years of age, in whom he took an interest. Suddenly he 
 was seized by the mutineers, who threw him into the sea, along with 
 the barrel on which he sat, and the little boy whom he held in his 
 arms. The other officers rushed to the rescue of their friend, and 
 keeping off the mob with their swords, they fortunately got hold 
 of him, and dragged him, still holding the little boy, on board. 
 Towards morning the mutiny was finally quelled, the maddening 
 effects of the liquor having worn off, and left the rioters dispirited. 
 
 Great suffering, and the hopelessness of their situation, had 
 contributed, as well as wine, to render the men deranged during this 
 eventful night. Even the strongest minded of the officers felt them- 
 selves affected with strange illusions. M. Savigny had visions of a 
 most agreeable kind : he fancied himself in a rich cultivated country, 
 surrounded by happy friends, and although reason ever and anon 
 pointed out the fallacy, he could not divest himself of the impression.
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 Some appeared full of hope, told their companions not to fear, and 
 saying that they were going to fetch succour, plunged headlong 
 into the sea, and perished. Others thought that their companions 
 mocked them, by holding out temptingly the wings of chickens and 
 other delicacies, and for this they rushed on them with drawn 
 swords. Some believed they were still in the frigate, and asked 
 where was their hammock, for they wanted to go below to sleep. 
 A few imagined they saw ships, or a harbour, with a noble city in 
 the background. M. Corre"ard at one time was under the illusion of 
 being in Italy ; and another officer mentioned gravely that he had 
 sent off a letter to the governor describing the state of affairs on the 
 raft, and that he would certainly send boats in the morning to 
 take every one ashore. Such were some of the fancies of which 
 those on board the raft were the involuntary victims ; and nothing 
 could convey a more striking testimony of their bodily and mental 
 sufferings. 
 
 When day returned, and a reckoning could be taken, it was found 
 that sixty-five had perished, and that the entire number was now 
 reduced to sixty. Of those who were missing, the greater number 
 had fallen a sacrifice to intemperance, or to ill-regulated minds. 
 The officers were surprised to find that only two of their number 
 were gone ; and this, on consideration, they could only attribute to 
 the comparative strength of mind they had possessed. This circum- 
 stance is a proof of the power which every man has of resisting 
 misfortune, if he remain temperate in habits, and do not give way to 
 panic or despair. 
 
 With the return of daylight the storm abated as formerly ; and 
 when order was restored, and a reckoning of the numbers taken, 
 attention was directed to the stock of provisions on board. It sent 
 a shock of fresh despair into the bosoms of the more intelligent, 
 when it was found that the mutineers had thrown overboard two 
 casks of wine, and the only two casks of water which remained. 
 The loss of the water was felt to be a calamity greater than that of 
 the wine ; and the distress on the occasion was augmented by the 
 reflection, that it was a loss caused entirely by drunken folly. 
 Nothing now remained but one cask of wine, and it was arranged 
 that this should be carefully served out in half-allowances. The 
 sea being calm, the solitary mast and sail were again raised, and an 
 attempt made to direct the raft towards land. The effort was not 
 successful ; the wind drove the unruly platform hither and thither as 
 it listed, and it was impossible to say whether the raft approached or 
 receded from the spot where land was believed to be. 
 
 During the day, the gnawings of hunger suggested the idea of 
 catching fish, and an attempt was forthwith made. Hooks made of 
 tags from the soldiers' clothing were tied to lines, and with baits (it 
 is not mentioned of what) were thrown into the sea ; but the current 
 drew them under the raft, where they got entangled. A bayonet
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 was bent to catch sharks, but a shark bit at and straightened it ; so 
 this also failed. Fishing, in short, proved an unavailing resource ; 
 and when it was abandoned as hopeless, some tried to feed on the 
 dead bodies of their companions, while others gnawed the soldiers' 
 belts and cartridge-boxes. Fortunately the day was calm. The sun 
 shone placidly on the face of the deep. Amidst the torments of 
 hunger, therefore, hope again stole across the minds of the most 
 desponding. They expected to see the boats make their appearance 
 on the horizon, and with fainting eyes they looked forth to catch the 
 first token of deliverance. Noon passed, the sun sunk beneath the 
 world of waters, and yet relief came not. The gloom and misery of 
 another night presented themselves. 
 
 This night was less terrible than the preceding. The weather was 
 calm, and there was no new mutiny on board. In the darkness, 
 nothing was heard but the groans and sobs of the sufferers, inter- 
 mingled with the gurgling of the sea between the planks. The 
 silence, broken by such sounds, was perhaps more appalling than the 
 raging of the tempest. When the morning of the fourth day dawned 
 on the spectral scene, it shewed the dead bodies of twelve persons, 
 who had expired during the night ; and all these, with the exception 
 of one, were thrown into the sea. The number on board was now 
 reduced to forty-eight. 
 
 This day passed like the preceding. The weather continued fine, 
 and despondency again gave way to feelings of hope. About four 
 o'clock in the afternoon a joyful event occurred a shoal of flying- 
 fish passed under the raft, and a great number got entangled in the 
 spaces between the timbers. All threw themselves eagerly upon 
 them, and captured about two hundred, which they placed in an 
 empty cask, removing only the milts. These fish were about the 
 size of a herring, and, to men who were famishing, they were 
 delicious. Several of the party returned thanks to God for the relief. 
 To render the fish fit for eating, an attempt was made to boil them 
 by means of a barrel, which served as a pot ; fire being procured 
 by a flint, steel, and a little dried gunpowder. This was the last 
 meal they were able to cook, for the barrel took fire ; and though 
 it was soon extinguished, they were not able to save as much of 
 it as would answer the purpose again. There was also no more 
 gunpowder. 
 
 Night again came on, the sun set, and still there was no appear- 
 ance of relief. The calm having continued, there was a prospect 
 of a little rest, even although the greater number stood or sat 
 constantly in water. It is distressing to know that human passions 
 again interfered to render the scene of misery a battle-field. Some 
 Spaniards, Italians, and negroes, who had hitherto taken no part 
 with the mutineers, and who had been inclined to the side of the 
 officers, formed a plot to throw all into the sea ; the negroes 
 persuading them that land was near, and that if once there, they
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 could conduct them in safety through Africa. It is not improbable 
 that a wish to get possession of a small bag of money, which was 
 tied to the mast as a common fund, to be made use of on landing, 
 tempted them to the crime. The officers, and some sailors who 
 refused to join the conspirators, were now obliged to take arms. 
 They seized the Spaniard who was the ringleader, and threw him 
 into the sea ; another, when he saw that all was discovered, plunged 
 into the water, and was drowned. The remaining conspirators now 
 rushed forward to revenge their comrades : a desperate combat 
 ensued ; and the raft was strewn with the dead and wounded. It 
 was evident, during the fight, that the mutineers were affected by 
 the same delusions as before ; they were, in fact, partially deranged 
 in mind. They called for Lieutenant Danglas, in order to kill him 
 for having deserted them, and they could not be persuaded that 
 that person was not on the raft. During the fray, the woman was 
 again thrown into the sea, but was a second time rescued by the 
 intrepid Coudin, assisted by some workmen. At length the battle 
 ceased ; the mutineers were repulsed ; and the remainder of the 
 night was passed without disturbance. 
 
 The morning of the fifth day dawned, and revealed the slaughter 
 that had taken place. Since the previous morning, eighteen had, 
 by one means or other, perished, and their number was now reduced 
 to thirty. Among the dead were five sailors, whom the officers deeply 
 lamented, for they were trustworthy and tractable. Of the thirty 
 who remained alive on the raft, only twenty could stand upright or 
 move about. The sea-water had stripped the skin from the feet and 
 legs of nearly the whole, and every one was in a state of deplorable 
 emaciation. If no vessel came to their assistance, they did not 
 expect to survive more than four days, for there was wine only for 
 that time, and scarcely a dozen fish. The fifth day passed over in 
 melancholy mood ; night came, and still there was no relief. The 
 sixth day passed, and so did the succeeding night, in a condition 
 equally disconsolate. 
 
 The seventh day was more eventful. Two soldiers were dis- 
 covered drinking wine clandestinely from the cask by means of a 
 pipe. As this had been declared to be a crime punishable with 
 death, they were immediately seized, and thrown into the sea. One 
 of them was a sergeant, who had fomented the last conspiracy, and 
 had contrived to escape detection ; his fate, therefore, did not cause 
 any regret. In the course of the day died also the young boy Leon, 
 to whom M. Coudin had shewn so much kindness. Exhausted from 
 hunger, and delirious, he could no longer support the dreadful 
 fatigues to which he was exposed. Before his death, his mind took 
 the direction of his home in France ; he thought his mother was 
 near him, and till the last he cried to her for food and water. He 
 died in the arms of his kind friend, M. Coudin. 
 
 The party were now reduced to twenty-seven ; of these, twelve 
 
 23
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 were so ill, that there was no hope of their surviving even a few 
 days ; they had almost entirely lost their reason, and were covered 
 with wounds ; nevertheless, an equal ration of the declining quantity 
 of wine was served out to them. A consultation was now held 
 respecting these unfortunate beings. It was represented that, as 
 they could not possibly survive, and as their consumption of wine 
 was daily diminishing the stock, already too low, it would be no 
 crime to put an end to their sufferings by throwing them into the 
 sea. This was a horrible and painful expedient, and such it was felt 
 to be, for those who proposed and assented to it had not the cruelty 
 to put it into execution or see it done. Three soldiers and a sailor 
 were commissioned to act as executioners ; and while they cleared 
 the raft of their dying companions, the others turned their backs, 
 not to witness the afflicting spectacle. Among those thrown over- 
 board were the woman and her husband already mentioned. Both 
 had been grievously wounded in the different combats. The woman 
 had a thigh broken between the beams of the raft, and the stroke of 
 a sabre had made a deep wound in the head of her husband. In 
 terminating the existence of these hapless individuals, M. Con-ford 
 observes that all felt themselves to be under a terrible necessity 
 which knew no law. ' Ye,' he continues, ' who shudder at the cry of 
 outraged humanity, recollect that it was other men, fellow-country- 
 men, who had placed us in this awful situation.' The expedient of 
 throwing overboard their apparently dying comrades, reduced the 
 number on the raft to fifteen, and gave the means of subsistence for 
 a few additional days. When the dreadful sacrifice was completed, 
 all cast their swords into the sea, reserving but one sabre, for cutting 
 a piece of wood or cordage that might be necessary. 
 
 We have now the afflicting spectacle of fifteen wretched beings 
 in the depth of despair on this flpating tomb, seated or standing 
 constantly in water, the sun beating down upon them with tropical 
 intensity by day, and darkness enshrouding them by night. The 
 eighth day passed, night came, and still no friendly sail rose on the 
 horizon. Then came the ninth day, with its aggravated hunger, and 
 thirst, and wretchedness. While hope was sunk in the feelings of 
 the unhappy party, the eyes of all were startled on seeing a butterfly, 
 of a kind common in France, fly over their heads and settle on 
 the sail of the raft. This trifling incident once more raised a bright 
 gleam of hope ; the butterfly was accepted as a harbinger of deliver- 
 ance, and was taken under the protection of the forlorn group. On 
 the succeeding days, more butterflies visited them, and gave rise to 
 the belief that the land could not be far distant. While cheering 
 with new hopes, these insects also roused the party to fresh exertions. 
 *We had recourse,' says M. Corre'ard, 'to every expedient which 
 might lessen the miseries of our situation. We detached some 
 planks from the raft, and made a sort of platform, on which we 
 might lie down ; this raised us above the water, which had always
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 been from one to two feet above the surface of the raft ; the waves, 
 however, still washed over us at intervals, and frequently covered 
 us completely. Here we endeavoured to beguile the time, by 
 recounting our different adventures. Lavillette related the various 
 scenes he had passed through, which were indeed extraordinary ; 
 but none, he said, had brought with them such sufferings from 
 fatigue and privation as those we now endured. 
 
 ' Our situation was now most distressing : the waves, which almost 
 constantly washed over us, caused intolerable pain ; and our exces- 
 sive thirst, which we felt was increased by the intense heat of a 
 tropical sun. To relieve this thirst, we tried several expedients ; 
 we bathed our hands, faces, and even hair in salt water, and some 
 even drank considerable quantities of it. One means of slaking 
 our thirst was never thought of by us, though it has often been 
 adopted by persons in our situation with great success. When. 
 Captain Bligh made his perilous voyage in an open boat over three 
 thousand miles of the ocean, he and his companions used to dip 
 their clothes in the sea, and wear them damp ; the pores of the 
 body, it is supposed, imbibing part of the moisture, and thus allaying 
 their desire for drink. Unfortunately, we had never heard of this 
 expedient. An officer found a small lemon, which he resolved to 
 keep for himself : for a long time he refused it to the entreaties of 
 those around him, till their threats and rage obliged him to share 
 it. We had also a serious dispute about thirty cloves of garlic, 
 which had escaped notice in the bottom of a sack ; at another time 
 we contended for two small vials of a liquor for cleaning the teeth ; 
 we never came, however, to extremities. This liquor was husbanded 
 with the greatest care, two drops of it producing a delightful sensa- 
 tion ; indeed, it is difficult to conceive the agreeable effect which 
 the most trifling relief of this kind produced. One of us had found 
 an empty bottle, which still retained some scent of the perfume it 
 had formerly contained ; to smell at this for an instant appeared the 
 highest enjoyment. Some kept their wine, and sucked it slowly 
 from the goblet through a quill; the intoxication, however, it produced 
 upon their debilitated frames was remarkable, and often produced 
 angry disputes, and sometimes was near causing more serious conse- 
 quences. On the tenth day, for example, after the wine had been 
 distributed, MM. Clairet, Coudin, Chariot, and two others, resolved, 
 in a firof intoxication, to destroy themselves, and were with consider- 
 able difficulty prevented by the entreaties of their companions. 
 Perhaps all our arguments would have been unavailing, if a number 
 of sharks had not surrounded the raft, and turned their attention 
 to this new danger. They came so near, that we were enabled to 
 strike at them with the sabre ; but notwithstanding all the exertions 
 of M. Lavillette, who gave them several blows, we could not kill one. 
 The size of several appeared enormous, some of them being above 
 thirty feet long. 
 
 25
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 * Three days now passed away in intolerable torments. We had 
 become so careless of life, that we bathed even in the sight of the 
 sharks, which were swimming round the raft; others were not 
 afraid to place themselves naked on the fore-part of the machine, 
 which was then entirely under water; and though it was exceed- 
 ingly dangerous, it had the effect of taking away their thirst. On 
 the 1 6th July, eight of us resolved on trying to reach the coast, to 
 which we imagined ourselves to be now very near ; for this purpose 
 we nailed some boards across a few spars, which we separated from 
 the raft, fitted it with a mast and a sail, and made oars of barrel 
 staves ; a certain portion of the wine remaining, which consisted 
 but of fifteen bottles in all, was to be given to us, and our departure 
 was fixed for the next day. Our machine being finished, however, 
 it was necessary to try if she was able to bear us. A sailor went 
 upon it, when it immediately upset, and shewed us the rashness 
 of our design ; we therefore gave it up, resolving to wait upon the 
 raft for the approach of death, which, unless we were immediately 
 relieved, could not be very distant, our stock of wine being so low, 
 and our disgust at the loathsome food we ate hourly increasing. 
 
 ' On the morning of the iyth July, the sun shone brightly, the sky 
 appearing without a cloud ; we addressed our prayers to God, and 
 distributed the rations of wine. Whilst each person was taking 
 his portion, a captain of infantry discovered a ship on the horizon, 
 and with a shout of joy informed us of it. We saw that it was a 
 brig, but at such a distance that we could discern no more than 
 the tops of her masts. It is impossible to describe the joy which 
 we felt at the sight ; each looked upon his delivery as certain, and 
 returned repeated thanks to God. Still, in the midst of these hopes 
 we were apprehensive that we should not be seen. We straightened 
 some hoops, and fastened some handkerchiefs of different colours 
 to the end. We then united our efforts, and raised a man to the 
 top of the mast, who waved these flags. For half an hour we were 
 suspended between hope and fear : some of us thought that the 
 vessel was coming nearer, whilst others, with more accuracy, asserted 
 that she was making sail away from us. In fact, in a short time the 
 brig disappeared. We now resigned ourselves to despair ; we even 
 envied those whom death had taken away from the suffering we 
 were now to undergo. We determined to seek consolation in sleep. 
 The day before, we had suffered exceedingly from the rays of a 
 burning sun ; we now made an awning to screen us from the heat, 
 and lay down beneath it. We agreed to carve our names on a 
 plank, along with a short recital of our adventures, and to hang it 
 to the mast, in the hope that it might reach our government and 
 our families. We had passed two hours in these desponding reflec- 
 tions, when the master-gunner went from under the awning, in order 
 to go to the fore-part of the raft : he had scarcely, however, put his 
 head out, when he turned towards us and uttered a loud cry. Joy 
 M
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 was on his countenance, his hands were stretched out towards the 
 sea, and he scarcely breathed : he could only utter : " We are saved ; 
 the brig is near to us!" We rushed out, and found that she was 
 in fact only a mile and a half distant, and was steering directly 
 towards us under a press of saiL Joy now succeeded to despair; 
 we embraced each other, and burst into tears. Even those whose 
 wounds rendered them incapable of more exertion, dragged them- 
 selves along to the side of the raft, in order to enjoy the sight of 
 the vessel which was to deliver them. Each laid hold on a hand- 
 kerchief or a piece of linen, to make signals to the brig, which 
 neared us fast; a few returned thanks to Providence for their 
 miraculous preservation. We now recognised the vessel to be the 
 Argus, and soon after had the pleasure of seeing her shorten sail 
 when she was within half pistol-shot. The crew, dispersed through 
 the shrouds and on the deck, waved their hats, to express their 
 pleasure at having come to our relief. A boat was now lowered, 
 commanded by M. Lemaigre, who ardently wished to be the person 
 who should take us from the fatal raft. He removed the sick first, 
 placed them beside him in his boat, and shewed them all the care 
 and attention which humanity could prompt. In a short time we 
 were all in safety on board the brig, where we met some of our 
 shipwrecked companions who had been saved in the boats. 
 
 ' All were affected to see our miserable condition : ten out of the 
 fifteen were scarcely able to move : the skin was stripped off our 
 limbs, our eyes were sunk, our beards long, and we were in the most 
 emaciated condition. As soon as we had been discovered, they 
 prepared some excellent broth for us, and mixed in it some wine, to 
 recruit our exhausted strength. Our wounds were dressed ; and, in 
 short, we received every attention which our miserable state required. 
 Some became delirious ; but the care of the surgeon, and the kind 
 attention of every one on board, soon wrought in us the most favour- 
 able change.' 
 
 The Argus, as has been already mentioned, had been, after some 
 delay, sent from Senegal, with instructions to afford assistance to 
 the crews of the boats, and afterwards to look for the raft. In her 
 course she had become aware that the crews in the boats had been 
 saved, and had rendered them some succour while coasting the 
 desert. Her search for the raft was at first fruitless, and after 
 cruising about for a number of days, she had turned helm to proceed 
 to Senegal It was while returning that the party on the raft had 
 seen and lost sight of her. Having reached to within forty leagues 
 of the river, the wind veered to the south-west, and the captain said 
 that he would steer for a short time in that direction ; he tacked 
 accordingly, and was standing towards the raft for about two hours, 
 when those on board descried the vessel on the horizon. This change 
 of course, as we have seen, saved the fifteen unfortunate beings, who 
 at the time did not expect they could hold out four-and-twenty hours 
 
 27
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 longer ; for the last two days had been spent without food, and only 
 a small quantity of wine was left. 
 
 As soon as the party were removed to the Argus, that vessel 
 steered for Senegal, which it reached next day. In the evening, it 
 moored close to the shore, and on the following morning, the iQth 
 July, anchored in the roads of St Louis. 
 
 Thus were fifteen, all who remained alive out of a hundred and 
 fifty individuals left on the wreck, rescued from the death which 
 seemed to await them. Of the fifteen, five died in a short time of 
 the injuries they had sustained ; and the remainder carried on their 
 wounded and emaciated bodies the lasting effects of their protracted 
 sufferings on the raft. 
 
 THE WRECK. 
 
 It will be recollected that, at the disgraceful scramble in leaving 
 the Medusa, seventeen persons, some of them in a state of intoxi- 
 cation, did not depart with their companions in the boats. Lachau- 
 mareys, on quitting the vessel at one of the port-holes, promised to 
 send out succour to them as soon as he should reach the land. To 
 fill up the measure of his depravity, the captain falsified this as well 
 as all his other promises ; and it is not less distressing to know that 
 neither the party generally who escaped in the boats, nor those who 
 afterwards were taken from the raft, gave themselves any concern 
 about their less fortunate brethren in the wreck. It does not appear, 
 from the narrative of M. Corrdard, that they would have been 
 thought of, but for the governor Schmaltz wishing to save the specie 
 and provisions which were on board. To secure these articles, a 
 schooner was fitted out, commanded by a lieutenant, and manned 
 by some negro traders and a few passengers. She set sail from 
 Senegal on the 26th of July, that is, seven days after the party saved 
 from the raft had been landed, and seventeen from the time the 
 governor and captain had reached Senegal ; but having provisions 
 for only eight days on board, she was obliged, when that stock was 
 exhausted, to return without having -got sight of the frigate : she was 
 afterwards furnished with a sufficiency for twenty-five days, but, 
 being ill found, she returned into port a second time, after having 
 been fifteen days at sea. A delay of ten days now occurred, when 
 she made a third attempt, with a new set of sails, and reached the 
 Medusa fifty-two days after it had been abandoned. From the time 
 which had elapsed, it was confidently believed that all who had been 
 left on board the frigate would be dead ; what, therefore, was the 
 astonishment of those in the schooner to find that three of the 
 miserable beings had outlived all their sufferings, and now appeared 
 like spectres to welcome the approach of their countrymen. 
 
 The following is the account which these unfortunate men gave of 
 what had occurred on the wreck. When the boats and the raft 
 28
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 had left the frigate, the seventeen had collected a sufficient quantity 
 of wine, biscuit, brandy, and bacon for their subsistence during a 
 certain number of days. Whilst this stock lasted they were quiet ; 
 but forty-two days having passed without the arrival of the expected 
 succour, twelve of the most resolute constructed a raft, and, 
 endeavouring to make the land without oars or sails, and but a 
 small quantity of provisions, were drowned. That this was their 
 fate there is no reason for doubting, as the shattered fragments of 
 their raft were some time afterwards thrown on shore by the waves, 
 and picked up by the Moors. Another seaman, who refused to trust 
 for safety to the raft, adopted the strange resolution, a few days 
 after, of placing himself on a hencoop, and in this way tried to reach 
 the shore ; at the distance of half a cable's length, however, the coop 
 upset, and he was drowned. 
 
 Four now remained on the wreck, resolved to await death or 
 succour, rather than brave dangers which appeared to them insur- 
 mountable. One of them had lately expired when the schooner 
 arrived, and the others were so weak and emaciated, that in a very 
 short time death would have put an end to all their sufferings. 
 They lived in separate corners of the vessel, which they never quitted 
 but to look for food, and this latterly consisted only of tallow and a 
 little bacon. If on these occasions they accidentally met, they used 
 to run at each other with drawn knives ; so completely had selfish- 
 ness and ferocity stifled that sympathy which fellow-sufferers are 
 generally disposed to feel for one another. It is mentioned as a 
 remarkable fact, worthy of being made known, that as long as these 
 men abstained from strong liquor, they were able to support the 
 hardships of their situation in a surprising manner ; but when they 
 began to drink brandy, their strength daily and rapidly diminished. 
 How these unfortunate beings should have been driven to extremities 
 for food, is not easily accounted for. The Medusa contained a large 
 cargo of provisions, and why this store was not reached, is not 
 explained in the original narrative. Perhaps the men did not know 
 of there being barrels of provisions on board; or they might not have 
 possessed sufficient strength to reach them below other articles in 
 the hold. 
 
 On being discovered and removed by the schooner, the three 
 survivors received all the attention which their situation required. 
 This having been attended to, the crew of the schooner proceeded to 
 remove from the frigate everything that could be taken out ; and 
 after having loaded their own vessel with wine, flour, and everything 
 else that was removable, whether public or private property, though 
 without discovering the money, they returned to Senegal. 
 
 Those who had been rescued by the boats, and also from the raft, 
 expected that the schooner, besides fetching the public property from 
 the wreck, would bring many articles which they could claim as their 
 own. The crew of the schooner, however, though in the service of the
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 king of France, acted on this occasion the part of pirates : they not 
 only kept and made sale, in the market of St Louis, of articles of 
 value found in the wreck, but robbed the miserable victims whom 
 they had rescued. 
 
 The report they gave of the state of the wreck induced the 
 governor to permit merchants to send vessels to bring off more of 
 the goods on board the proceeds to be equally divided between the 
 government and the adventurers. Four vessels thus set sail, and in 
 a short time brought back a great quantity of flour, salt provisions, 
 brandy, cordage, and other articles, of which there was a fair division. 
 
 In concluding this melancholy recital, we almost feel it necessary 
 to assure our readers that what we have been telling them is no 
 dressed-up fiction, but a narrative drawn from authentic sources, 
 and true in every particular. We need scarcely repeat, what must 
 occur to every mind, that nothing in the whole annals of shipwreck 
 equals in infamy the conduct of Lachaumareys, the captain of the 
 Medusa, or of the governor Schmaltz, with whom he appears to have 
 acted in concert. Neither, we believe, did ever any disaster by sea 
 or land present such a series of blunders, such want of concert or 
 management, or such a deficiency, among nearly all concerned, of 
 the common feelings of humanity. Shortly after its occurrence, the 
 shipwreck of the Medusa created a considerable sensation in Europe, 
 and especially in France. The general feeling was that of horror ; 
 but in France, this sentiment was mingled with shame, and every 
 effort was made to prevent the publication of the details by Corre'ard, 
 as well as belief in them after publication. But all was unavailing. 
 The narrative remains trustworthy in all respects a sad memorial 
 of human suffering and depravity. 
 
 THE PICARDS. 
 
 The account we have been presenting would be in some measure 
 incomplete without a notice of this unfortunate family ; and this we 
 are fortunately able to supply, from the account of the shipwreck 
 written by Mademoiselle Picard. As soon as M. Picard had 
 recovered from the fatigues of his journey across the desert, he 
 expected to be installed in the situation to which he had been 
 appointed before leaving France. An unforeseen difficulty, however, 
 now presented itself. The English resident governor had as yet 
 received no intimation to give up the colony of Senegal to the 
 French. This information distressed the Picards very much; and 
 their affliction was at its height, when Schmaltz, the French governor 
 in expectancy, ordered them to quit the colony, and go and reside at 
 the French establishment at Cape Verd until further orders. From 
 this indignity they were saved by the kindness of the English 
 governor, who, pitying their misfortunes, permitted them to remain ;
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 whilst a number less fortunate proceeded to Cape Verd, and there 
 miserably died. 
 
 In a short time the French authority was established, but with no 
 advantage to Picard. Of warm and impetuous feelings, he had 
 given deep offence to Schmaltz and other officers of the Medusa by 
 the freedom of his remarks on quitting the wreck. These sayings 
 were now meanly remembered against him ; and everything that a 
 despicable nature could suggest was done to ruin his prospects. 
 He was, in short, deprived of his situation ; and with barely the 
 means of subsistence for his family, he took refuge in a small island, 
 his own property, in the Senegal river, which he proposed to culti- 
 vate for the sake of a livelihood. The island was laid out chiefly in 
 crops of cotton an article more suitable to the climate than were 
 the constitutions of this unfortunate family. 
 
 For the space of two or three years the Picards struggled manfully 
 with their fate. Living in a wretched hut, in the midst of a tropical 
 vegetation, they were exposed to continual irritations from insects, 
 and to the more formidable attacks of snakes and wild beasts, which 
 lurked about the neighbourhood. Towards the middle of July 1817, 
 Madame Picard became alarmingly ill, and died. Mademoiselle 
 Picard, who seems to have been a young woman of an energetic and 
 persevering mind, was now the consoler and chief support of the 
 miserable family : she was the educator of her young companions, 
 the manager of the domestic establishment, in which she wrought 
 with her own hands, and, in her father's frequent absence, super- 
 intended the labours of a few hired field-negroes. Irksome as this 
 mode of life was, mademoiselle did not repine ; her principal 
 distress was a severe headache, which she suffered almost daily 
 from the great heat. At night, after the out-of-door labours of the 
 day, she retired with her two younger brothers into the cottage, and 
 the working negroes brought the cotton which had been collected 
 during the day, after which she set about preparing supper. Assisted 
 by the children, she lighted a fire in the middle of the hut, and 
 kneaded the cakes of millet-flour which were to be the family supper, 
 as well as what were to be used next day. These cakes were baked 
 on an iron shovel, and were usually ready in half an hour : they 
 were far from pleasant to persons who had been accustomed to 
 better fare; but hunger rendered them palatable. Occasionally, they 
 were eaten with a little butter or sour milk. 
 
 In the morning, all were early at work in the cotton-fields ; and 
 the only relaxation from toil was at noon, when the heat of the sun 
 was greatest, also a short period in the evening. From this unvarying 
 round of duties, it was delightful to find relief in the rest of Sunday. 
 On this day, all the family would assemble under the shade of a 
 large baobab tree, while mademoiselle or her sister read a chapter 
 from the evangelists, or from some book likely to inspire them 
 with cheerfulness and resignation. At such times, M. Picard almost 
 
 3*
 
 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
 
 forgot his misfortunes, and anticipations of brighter days yet in store 
 would flit across his imagination. His daughters likewise were 
 happy in these family reunions. They began to discover that every 
 condition of life has its peculiar enjoyments. If the labours of the 
 week seemed long and laborious, the Sabbath recompensed them by 
 its calm and its recreations. If life was spent in rustic occupations, 
 there was at least no struggle to keep up appearances : the labour of 
 the fields, the simplicity of dress and manners, all seemed like a 
 return to the primitive ages of the world. 
 
 But all this rural enjoyment, if so it might be called, came 
 unexpectedly to an end. The plantation failed to realise the outlay 
 upon it. Wild beasts carried off all the live stock in a single night ; 
 and various other losses occurred, sufficient to depress minds much 
 more hopeful. To bring the family disasters towards a climax, the 
 younger children fell victims to the climate ; and this blow was 
 succeeded by a still greater misfortune the death of M. Picard. 
 The remaining members of this ill-fated family were now only 
 mademoiselle and her sister Caroline ; their cousin having already 
 returned to France. At this melancholy juncture, M. Dard, a person 
 who had done many acts of kindness to the Picards, and who had 
 for some years followed the profession of a teacher in St Louis, with 
 the greatest delicacy offered his hand and his fortune to made- 
 moiselle ; and this amiable young lady, who had been a pattern to 
 daughters in affliction, was, in accepting his offer, rewarded for all 
 her sufferings. Her sister Caroline afterwards married M. Richard, 
 a botanist who was attached to the agricultural establishment of 
 the colony. 
 
 Leaving Senegal with her husband, Madame Dard arrived in 
 France at the close of the year 1820. After a residence in Paris for 
 two months, they reached M. Dard's native place at Bligny-sous- 
 Beaune, in the department of the Cote d'Or, where madame had the 
 happiness of finding new relations, whose tender friendship consoled 
 her in part for the loss of those whom death had taken from her in 
 Africa. 
 32
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 EARLY HISTORY. 
 
 [REVIOUS to the year 1795, there existed in Europe a 
 country called POLAND a name associated in all minds 
 with ideas of heroism and disaster. Poland is now no 
 more, and many of its people are wanderers. How such 
 
 should be the case, cannot but be a matter of interest 
 
 to all reflecting minds, and this we propose to explain in the following 
 pages. 
 
 The Poles belong to that variety of the human race called the 
 Slavonic. This variety, identical, it is believed, with the Scythians 
 of ancient history, at one time overspread the whole of the southern* 
 and eastern parts of Europe, from the shores of the Baltic and the 
 Adriatic as far as the Ural Mountains. A particular branch of this 
 Slavonic stock, divided into a number of tribes, occupied in early 
 times the districts lying about the Vistula and the Oder. One of 
 those tribes, called the Polani, or inhabitants of the plain (in Polish, 
 polska is a plain), gained the supremacy over the rest, and gave 
 29 i
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 their name to the whole body ; and thus was formed the nucleus of 
 a nation, whose territories, at the height of its prosperity, covered an 
 area of 284,000 square miles, or a third more than that of France, 
 with a population of fifteen millions. 
 
 Until the end of the tenth century, the Poles were pagans. About 
 this time, however, they were converted to Christianity by mission- 
 aries from Germany and Bohemia. Their history after this becomes 
 less obscure ; but it would be an exceedingly unprofitable under- 
 taking to follow them through the incessant wars and civil broils in 
 which they were engaged for the next five centuries. Suffice it to 
 say, that during this period two dynasties reigned successively over 
 Poland the dynasty of the Piasts, and that of the Jagellons. Under 
 the latter, the country made considerable advances in civilisation. 
 The Poles began to assume a respectable standing in literature; 
 and the university of Cracow became the most important school in 
 Central Europe. Among the celebrated Polish names of this period 
 is that of the far-famed Nicolas Copernic, or Copernicus, who first 
 promulgated the true notion of the solar system, and who died in 
 
 1543- 
 
 Commencing our narrative with the end of the sixteenth century, 
 let us first give a general description of the state of society and the 
 mode of government which we find then established among the 
 Poles. 
 
 In Poland, as in Russia until quite recently, society consisted but 
 of two classes nobles and serfs. The noble or privileged class, 
 including a body of clergy, amounted to about 200,000 ; while the 
 great body of the inhabitants numbered several millions. Under 
 the rule of this handful of masters did these millions of serfs till the 
 soil of Poland, and perform all the manual labour of the nation 
 the severity of their condition being perhaps only modified by the 
 softening influences of the church, which in these barbarous times 
 was the only institution that leaned mercifully towards the poor. 
 The nobles viewed themselves as almost a different order of beings 
 from the common people : their persons were sacred ; and they had 
 the power of life and death over their dependants. Among the serfs 
 or common people there were various ranks and gradations ; but, 
 politically, the great mass of the inhabitants of Poland were a 
 degraded order : they do not make any appearance in what is usually 
 called history ; and what we term Polish history is, in fact, the 
 history of the Polish nobles. The agricultural serfs, who were the 
 .most numerous, appear to have been sunk in the lowest depths 
 of ignorance and animalism ; but in the towns, such as Posen, 
 Warsaw, and Bromberg, the serfs, who pursued various crafts, were 
 considerably higher in the scale of civilisation. 
 
 The Jagellon dynasty becoming extinct in 1572, the plan of elective 
 monarchy was adopted; the election being reposed in the hands 
 of the legislature, which consisted of two chambers the chamber of
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 senators or chief nobles, and the chamber of nuncios or representa- 
 tives of the other nobles; and the king, with these two chambers, 
 constituted the Polish diet. When the king wished to hold a diet 
 or parliament, which was generally every two years, he sent letters- 
 patent to the palatines of the kingdom that is, the chief officers 
 in each palatinate stating his intention to hold the diet, and also 
 giving a brief list of the subjects which would come under its 
 consideration. The nobles of the various palatinates then met and 
 elected their deputies, three for each palatinate, giving them at the 
 same time certain instructions for their conduct at the ensuing diet. 
 When the day arrived appointed for the holding of the diet, the 
 king, the senators, and the deputies assembled at the place of 
 meeting, which was usually Warsaw ; and the three orders sat in 
 the same hall, some distinctions of etiquette being observed between 
 the superior and inferior nobles, but all enjoying equal legislative 
 influence. Originally, the Polish diets were characterised by honesty 
 and zeal for the general good ; but latterly, the members became 
 venal and corrupt. There were also certain absurd customs, the 
 observance of which prevented anything like vigorous government. 
 One of these was the custom of restricting the sittings of the diets 
 to the period of six weeks a custom which was so rigorously 
 observed, that when the six weeks were ended, the diet would break 
 up in the midst of the most important business. Another absurd 
 1 regulation was that which obliged every vote to be unanimous a 
 regulation which compelled the diet to pass not the best measures, 
 but only those which should please everybody. Not only so, but 
 every one of the whole series of measures proposed in the diet 
 required to be passed unanimously, otherwise the whole series fell to 
 the ground. Thus a single negative vote in the sixth week would 
 overturn the whole work of the session. This was called the liberum 
 veto. 
 
 The king had extremely little power in the diet : his suggestions 
 were as liable to criticism as those of an ordinary member. Besides 
 the deputies from the palatinates, deputies from several of the 
 cities had seats in the diet. The Prussian provinces of Poland had 
 a separate legislature ; but on occasions of general importance, such 
 as the election of the king, they sent representatives to the diet. 
 
 Such is a sketch of the constitution of Poland as it existed from 
 the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. It was a republic of nobles, 
 governed by a legislature and a chief magistrate of its own choosing; 
 and resting upon a population of serfs, who had no voice in public 
 affairs, but whose business it was to labour for the subsistence of 
 the whole community. 
 
 The first king elected according to the new order of things was 
 Henry of Valois, brother to Charles IX. of France. The reign of 
 Henry, however, was short ; for his brother, Charles IX., dying in 
 1574, leaving him his successor, Henry secretly slipped out of Poland, 
 
 3
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 to take possession of a throne which he thought preferable to that 
 which he already occupied. In July 1575, therefore, the Poles 
 declared the throne vacant, and elected Stephen Bathori, a man of 
 energy and vigorous talent, who had raised himself from the position 
 of a plain Hungarian noble to that of sovereign prince of Transyl- 
 vania. The glory of Bathori's reign consists .in the success with 
 which he maintained a long war against the Russians. Not only 
 did he repel their invasions ; he also made several victorious expedi- 
 tions into the heart of Muscovy, returning with great spoil. No 
 sooner was the war with Muscovy at an end, than he turned his 
 arms against the Tartars of the eastern frontier, and, by means 
 of his cavalry, cleared the Ukraine of these troublesome enemies, 
 annexing its inhabitants, the Cossacks, to the dominion of Poland, 
 and establishing among them some of the arts and institutions of 
 civilised life. In the end of Bathori's reign, the Swedes began to 
 imitate the Russians, and attempt to gain a footing in the Polish 
 territories of the Baltic. Bathori was preparing to make war upon 
 them, when he was cut off by death in the year 1586. 
 
 Four candidates now appeared for the throne of Poland two 
 princes of the House of Austria ; Fedor Ivanovitch, the Czar of 
 Muscovy; and Sigismund Vasa, son of John III., king of Sweden. 
 The election, after a struggle, fell upon the last, who accordingly 
 ascended the Polish throne, which he occupied for the long period 
 of forty-five years, during the whole of which the political history of 
 Poland is mixed up with that of Russia and Sweden. This Sigismund 
 was succeeded in 1632 by his son, Wladislas, who was elected 
 without opposition. His reign, which lasted till his death in 1648, 
 was noted for a series of wars with Muscovites, Turks, and Swedes ; 
 and that of his brother and successor, John Casimir, was still more 
 distinguished by an invasion of Tartars and Cossacks, united with 
 an outbreak of serfs and rebel nobles. In 1668, John Casimir, 
 whose disposition had always been that of a monk rather than 
 that of a king, resigned his throne, and retired to France, where 
 he died as Abbd de St Germain in 1672. He left the kingdom 
 shorn of a considerable part of its ancient dominions ; for, besides 
 that portion of it which had been annexed to Muscovy, Poland 
 sustained another loss in this reign by the erection of the Polish 
 dependency of Brandenburg into an independent state the germ 
 of the present Prussian kingdom. 
 
 For two years after the abdication of John Casimir, the country 
 was in a state of turmoil and confusion, caused partly by the recent 
 calamities, and partly by intrigues regarding the succession ; but 
 in 1670, a powerful faction of the inferior nobles secured the election 
 of Michael Wisniowiecki, an amiable but silly young man. His 
 election gave rise to great dissatisfaction among the Polish grandees ; 
 and it is probable that a civil war would have broken out, had 
 not the Poles been called upon to use all their energies against their
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 old enemies the Turks. Crossing the south-eastern frontier of 
 Poland with an immense army, these formidable foes swept all 
 before them. Polish valour, even when commanded by the greatest 
 of Polish geniuses, was unable to check their progress ; and in 1672 
 a dishonourable treaty was concluded, by which Poland ceded to 
 Turkey a section of her territories, and engaged to pay to the 
 sultan an annual tribute of 22,000 ducats. No sooner was this igno- 
 minious treaty concluded, than the Polish nobles became ashamed 
 of it ; and it was resolved to break the peace, and challenge Turkey 
 once more to a decisive death-grapple. Luckily, at this moment 
 Wisniowiecki died; and on the 2Oth of April 1674, the Polish diet 
 elected, as his successor, John Sobieski a name illustrious in the 
 history of Poland, and on which we may for a moment pause. 
 
 JOHN SOBIESKI. 
 
 John Sobieski was born, in the summer of 1629, at Olesko, a little 
 place in Black Russia, at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains, on 
 the confines of Lithuania and Poland, and in the centre of the most 
 elevated plateau of these countries. He was of a noble family, his 
 father being castellan of Cracow, and the proprietor of princely 
 estates ; and his mother being descended from Zalkiewski, one of the 
 most celebrated generals that Poland had produced. John and an 
 elder brother named Mark spent their early years on their father's 
 estates, and received an education corresponding to their high 
 station. When John was sixteen years of age, the two brothers went 
 to complete their education at Paris, where they served some time 
 in the body-guards of Louis XIV. After a residence of some years 
 in France, the brothers travelled into Italy, and thence into Turkey, 
 then at peace with Poland ; and they were in Constantinople at 
 the time when the insurrection of serfs broke out in Poland on the 
 occasion of the Cossack invasion. The two Sobieskis, on receiving 
 intelligence of this insurrection, immediately left Constantinople, 
 and hurried home to commence active service with John Casimir 
 in the loyal Polish army. In one engagement with the Tartars, 
 the elder brother Mark was killed. John continued to serve during 
 the war, rising from rank to rank, till, in the year 1660, he was one 
 of the commanders of the Polish army sent to repel the Russians, 
 who were ravaging the eastern provinces of the kingdom. A great 
 victory which he gained at Slobadyssa over the Muscovite general 
 Sheremetoff, established his military reputation, and from that time 
 the name of Sobieski was known over all Eastern Europe. His 
 fame increased during the six years which followed, till he outshone 
 all his contemporaries. He was created by his sovereign, John 
 Casimir, first the Grand-marshal, and afterwards the Grand-hetman 
 of the kingdom ; the first being the highest civil, and the second 
 the highest military, dignity in Poland, and the two having never
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 before been held in conjunction by the same individual. These 
 dignities, having once been conferred on Sobieski, could not be 
 revoked; for, by the Polish constitution, the king, though he had 
 the power to confer honours, was not permitted to resume them. 
 
 In 1667, a second army of Cossacks and Tartars invaded Poland, 
 and the task of repelling them devolved on Sobieski, as Grand- 
 hetman. Raising at his own expense an army of 20,000 men, he 
 marched to meet the invaders. His efforts were successful; the 
 Cossacks and Tartars, baffled and defeated, were obliged to sue for 
 peace ; and the Polish republic, which all Europe had expected to 
 see extinguished, owed its deliverance to Sobieski. 
 
 When John Casimir abdicated the throne, Sobieski, retaining his 
 office of Grand-hetman under his successor, the feeble Wisniowiecki, 
 was commander-in-chief of the Polish forces against the Turks. In 
 the campaigns of 1671 and 1672, his successes against this powerful 
 enemy were almost miraculous. But all his exertions were insuffi- 
 cient, in the existing condition of the republic, to deliver it from 
 the terror of the impetuous Mussulmans. In 1672, as we have 
 already informed our readers, a disgraceful truce was concluded 
 between the Polish diet and the sultan. The republic was now 
 racked by internal convulsions ; nobles, serfs, and clergy contending 
 with each other, and a large faction of the nobility being inclined 
 to dethrone Wisniowiecki, and attempt a complete revolution in the 
 government With this party Sobieski had no sympathy; and 
 finding that his services at Warsaw were of no avail, he retired to 
 his estates. 
 
 Meanwhile the revolutionary party were busy at Warsaw. They 
 had formed themselves (as was customary among the Polish nobles, 
 when they aimed at any object which could not be discussed in 
 a diet) into a body called the Royal Confederation, and were pro- 
 ceeding to carry out their plans for remodelling the constitu- 
 tion. Before this self-elected body, some private enemy of Sobieski 
 impeached him as a traitor. They summoned him to Warsaw to 
 defend himself. Sobieski came accompanied, however, by a retinue 
 of the highest nobles, and some regiments of horse. The court and 
 the accuser were abashed. Sobieski, acting in his capacity as Grand- 
 marshal of Poland, denounced the Royal Confederation as illegal, 
 and insisted on its being changed into a constitutional diet. The 
 demand was complied with. The men who had joined in accusing 
 him were now the most lavish in his praises, as a ' hero into whom 
 the souls of all preceding heroes had passed ;' he was triumphantly 
 acquitted of all the charges that had been brought against him ; 
 and the man who had impeached him was condemned to death. 
 When, in conclusion, Sobieski, as Grand-hetman, advised the 
 immediate rupture of the dishonourable treaty with the Turks, their 
 approval was unanimous and enthusiastic. 
 
 Raising an army of 30,000 men, not without difficulty, Sobieski 
 
 6
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 marched against the Turks. He laid siege to the fortress of Kotzim, 
 garrisoned by a strong Turkish force, and hitherto deemed impreg- 
 nable. The fortress was taken ; the provinces of Moldavia and 
 Walachia yielded ; the Turks hastily retreated across the Danube ; 
 and ' Europe thanked God for the most signal success which, for 
 three centuries, Christendom had gained over the Infidel.' While 
 the Poles were preparing to follow up their victory, intelligence 
 reached the camp that Wisniowiecki was dead. He had died of a 
 surfeit of apples sent him from Danzig. The army returned home, 
 to be present at the assembling of the diet for the election of the 
 new sovereign. 
 
 The diet had already met when Sobieski, and those of the Polish 
 nobles who had been with him, reached Warsaw. The electors 
 were divided respecting the claims of two candidates, both foreigners 
 Charles of Lorraine, who was supported by Austria ; and Philip 
 of Neuburg, who was supported by Louis XIV. of France. Many 
 of the Polish nobility had become so corrupt, that foreign gold and 
 foreign influence ruled the diet. In this case, the Austrian candidate 
 seemed to be most favourably received ; but, as the diet was engaged 
 in the discussion, Sobieski entered, and taking his place in the diet, 
 proposed the Prince of Conde". A stormy discussion ensued, in 
 the midst of which the cry of ' Let a Pole rule over Poland,' was 
 raised by one of the nobles, who further proposed that John Sobieski 
 should be elected. The proposition went with the humour of the 
 assembly, and Sobieski, under the title of John III., was proclaimed 
 king of Poland (1674). 
 
 Sobieski accepted the proffered honour, and immediately set 
 about improving the national affairs, founding an institution for the 
 education of Polish nobles, and increasing the army. The nation 
 being placed in a critical position as respects the encroachments 
 of the Turks, at that time a powerful and dreaded enemy in Europe, 
 the leading idea of Sobieski was to attack, and, by a series of move- 
 ments, drive this Asiatic people out of their possessions, and, if 
 possible, restore the Byzantine empire. Such was the magnificent 
 scheme to the execution of which he devoted himself, and in which 
 he endeavoured to engage the co-operation of the great European 
 powers. As the Turks had already threatened to invade Italy, and 
 seize on Rome, as they had formerly done on Constantinople, the pope, 
 as was natural, seems most eagerly to have entered into his views. 
 
 After several battles of lesser moment with his Turkish foes, 
 Sobieski prepared for a grand effort ; but before he could mature his 
 plans, the Pasha of Damascus appeared with an army of 300,000 
 men on the Polish frontier, and threatened the national subjugation. 
 With the small force he could immediately collect, amounting to 
 not more than 10,000 soldiers, Sobieski opposed this enormous force, 
 taking up his position in two small villages on the banks of the 
 Dniester, where he withstood a bombardment for twenty days. Food 
 
 7
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 and ammunition had failed, but still the Poles held out. Gathering 
 the balls and shells which the enemy threw within their intrench- 
 ments, they thrust them into their own cannons and mortars, and 
 dashed them back against the faces of the Turks, who surrounded 
 them on all sides at the distance of a musket-shot. The besiegers 
 were surprised, and slackened their fire. At length, early in the 
 morning of the I4th of October 1676, they saw the Poles issue slowly 
 out of their intrenchments in order of battle, and apparently confident 
 of victory. A superstitious fear came over them at such a strange 
 sight No ordinary mortal, they thought, could dare such a thing ; 
 and the Tartars cried out that it was useless to fight against the 
 wizard king. The pasha himself was superior to the fears of his men ; 
 but knowing that succours were approaching from Poland, he offered 
 an honourable peace, which was accepted, and Sobieski returned 
 home in triumph. 
 
 Seven years of peace followed. These were spent by Sobieski in 
 performing his ordinary duties as king of Poland duties which the 
 constant jealousies and discords of the nobles rendered by no means 
 easy. He found himself especially checked in all that he under- 
 took by the inordinate and morbid love of independence which 
 animated the Polish nobles, and prevented them from agreeing in 
 measures which, however salutary for the nation, might have a 
 tendency to increase the power of the king. He also felt particularly 
 the defects of the Polish constitution ; above all, the preposterous 
 arrangement, that every act of the diet must be passed unanimously. 
 Struggling against these political vexations, Sobieski had an addi- 
 tional torment in his domestic relations ; his wife, a Frenchwoman, 
 giving him daily uneasiness by her conduct. It was almost a relief to 
 the hero when, in 1683, a threatened invasion of Christendom by the 
 Turks called him again to the field. 
 
 The Turks had been long preparing this invasion, resolved that 
 it should surpass in magnitude all previous ones. The point of 
 Christendom against which the attack was to be directed was not 
 Poland, but Austria. The subtle genius of Louis XIV. of France 
 was concerned in this : he had intrigued with the sultan, in order 
 that, by means of a Turkish invasion, he might weaken those 
 European nations to whose interests he was unfriendly ; and that the 
 invasion might be the more successful, he was at this moment 
 endeavouring to excite a conspiracy among the Polish nobles, with 
 a view to the deposition of Sobieski, of whom alone the Turks stood 
 in dread. The intrigue was discovered by means of a letter to 
 Louis from the French ambassador, which Sobieski intercepted. 
 Summoning a diet, he read the letter, which implicated several 
 nobles present in the conspiracy ; but cunningly expressed his belief 
 that the charge against them was a forgery. ' But,' added he, ' to 
 convince the world that it is so, you must declare war against the 
 Turks.' War was accordingly declared.
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 Meanwhile the Turks, under the vizier, Kara Mustapha, were 
 scouring the plains of Hungary. All Europe was in consternation 
 when it was discovered that they were marching against the Austrian 
 capital, Vienna. The Emperor Leopold fled, with his court, leaving 
 his dominions to be defended by Charles, Duke of Lorraine, who 
 had been Sobieski's rival for the Polish throne. On the I5th of 
 July the siege of Vienna was begun. Who now could save Christen- 
 dom but Sobieski ? Courier after courier was despatched by the 
 pope and by the emperor to implore his assistance. Austria being 
 no friend to Poland, and having in various ways deserved ill at 
 the hands of Sobieski, it was feared he would refuse his help, and 
 leave Vienna to its fate. But in the soul of Sobieski hatred to the 
 Turks was a profound and earnest feeling, to which all mere personal 
 animosity, all mere political reasoning, gave way. He could not, 
 he dared not remain at ease, and see a Christian city besieged by 
 Mohammedans. Assembling his forces, he marched to Vienna ; all 
 Europe looking with anxiety for the result. 
 
 At Heilbronn, Sobieski joined his forces with those of the Duke 
 of Lorraine; and on the nth of September 1683, the allied army 
 reached the summit of the Calemburg, from which were seen the 
 towers of Vienna, and far spreading round the city, the gilded tents 
 of the Turkish army. On the I2th of September, having heard 
 mass, and communicated a pious practice which he never neglected 
 when a battle was impending the king descended the mountain, to 
 encounter the dense hosts of the Moslems on the plains below. 
 * The shouts of the Christian army bore to the enemy the dreaded 
 name of Sobieski. The latter were driven to their intrenchments 
 after some time. On contemplating these works, Sobieski deemed 
 them too strong and too formidably defended to be forced. Five 
 o'clock in the afternoon had sounded, and he had given up for the 
 day all hope of the grand struggle, when the provoking composure 
 of Kara Mustapha, whom he espied in a splendid tent, tranquilly 
 taking coffee with his two sons, roused him to such a pitch that he 
 instantly gave orders for a general assault. It was made simul- 
 taneously on the wings and centre. He made towards the pasha's 
 tent, bearing down all opposition, and repeating with a loud voice : 
 " Non nobis, non nobis, Domine exercituum, sed nomini tuo da 
 gloriam" (Not unto us, not unto us, Lord of Hosts, but to thy 
 name be the glory). He was soon recognised by Tartar and 
 Cossack, who had so often beheld him blazing in the van of the 
 Polish chivalry. They drew back, while his name rapidly passed 
 from one extremity to the other of the Ottoman lines, to the dismay 
 of those who had refused to believe him present. " Allah," said the 
 Tartar khan, "but the wizard is with them sure enough." At 
 that moment the hussars, raising their national cry of " God for 
 Poland ! " cleared a ditch which would long have arrested the 
 infantry, and dashed into the ranks of the enemy. They were a 
 29 9
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 gallant band : their appearance almost justified the saying of one of 
 their kings, that "if the sky itself were to fall, they would bear 
 it up on the points of their lances." The shock was rude, and for 
 some minutes doubtful ; but the valour of the Poles, still more the 
 reputation of their leader, routed these immense hosts. They gave 
 way on every side ; the khan was borne along with the stream to 
 the tent of the now despairing vizier. " Canst not thou help me ? " 
 said Mustapha to the brave Tartar: "then I am lost indeed." 
 " The Polish king is there," replied the other ; " I know him welL 
 Did I not tell thee that all we could do was to get away as quickly 
 as possible ?" Still the vizier attempted to make a stand in vain. 
 With tears in his eyes, he embraced his sons, and, following the 
 universal example, fled. Europe was saved.'* 
 
 After this great victory, Sobieski and his troops entered Vienna, 
 and divine service was performed in the cathedral. Sobieski was 
 kneeling on the steps of the altar, when a priest read aloud the text 
 from Scripture 'There was a man sent from God, whose name 
 was John.' The effect upon the audience was electrical ; they 
 acknowledged the application by marks of vehement emotion. The 
 whole Christian world responded to the sentiment. ' Protestants 
 as well as Catholics caught the enthusiasm. Every pulpit, at Mentz 
 as at Venice, in England as in Spain, resounded with the praises of 
 the victor. At Rome the rejoicings continued a whole month. 
 Innocent XI., bathed in tears of gratitude and joy, remained for 
 hours prostrate before a crucifix.' Christendom was saved from a 
 Mohammedan conquest ; and the hero to whom all the nations of 
 Europe attributed the glorious achievement was John Sobieski. 
 
 After completely clearing Austria of the Turks, Sobieski returned 
 to Poland, again to be harassed with political and domestic annoy- 
 ances. To such a height did the spirit of anarchy reach, that not 
 only were all his efforts for the good of the country thwarted, but he 
 himself became the object of calumny. He was called a tyrant, a 
 traitor, a destroyer of liberty ; he was even challenged by one of his 
 nobles to fight a duel. In this anarchy Sobieski saw too fearfully 
 foreshadowed the downfall of Poland. At the close of the diet of 
 1688, he addressed the assembled nobles in these foreboding words : 
 ' I am no believer in auguries ; but, as a Christian, I believe that 
 the power and justice of Him who made the universe regulates the 
 destinies of states. Wherever, therefore, during the lifetime of the 
 prince, crime is attempted with impunity, where altar is raised 
 against altar, and strange gods followed under the very eye of the 
 true one, there I believe the vengeance of the Most High has already 
 begun its work.' Sobieski then expressed a wish to resign his 
 throne. His nobles, alarmed and conscience-stricken, persuaded 
 him to retain it The remaining years of his life, embittered by 
 
 Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. vii.
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 family griefs and by sad anticipations of his country's fortune, were 
 spent in the cultivation of literature and in religious exercises. 
 Clogged and confined by an absurd system of government, to which 
 the nobles tenaciously clung, his genius was prevented from employ- 
 ing itself with effect upon great national objects. He died suddenly 
 on Corpus Christi Day, in the year 1696; and 'with him,' says the 
 historian, ' the glory of Poland descended to the tomb.' 
 
 SWEDISH AND RUSSIAN DOMINATION. 
 
 On the death of Sobieski, the crown of Poland was disposed of to 
 the highest bidder. The competitors were James Sobieski, the son 
 of John ; the Prince of Conti ; the Elector of Bavaria ; and Frederick 
 Augustus, Elector of Saxony. The last was the successful candidate, 
 having bought over one half of the Polish nobility, and terrified the 
 other half by the approach of his Saxon troops. He had just 
 succeeded to the electorate of Saxony, and was already celebrated 
 as one of the strongest and most handsome men in Europe. 
 
 Augustus entertained a great ambition to be a conqueror, and the 
 particular province which he wished to annex to Poland was Livonia, 
 on the Baltic a province which had originally belonged to the 
 Teutonic Knights ; for which the Swedes, Poles, and Russians had 
 long contended ; but which had now, for nearly a century, been in 
 the possession of Sweden. The Czar of Russia, Peter the Great, 
 had also a craving for a slice of Swedish territory ; and the two 
 monarchs concluded an alliance, by which Russia and Poland were 
 bound to assist each other in shattering the power of Sweden, and 
 wresting from her all her provinces on the shores of the Baltic and 
 the Gulf of Finland. In prosecution of this scheme, Augustus 
 marched into Livonia, and laid siege to Riga. 
 
 But the two monarchs, when they resolved to crush Sweden, had 
 little calculated on the resistance they would meet with. The 
 Swedish throne was then filled by Charles XII., a lad of seventeen, 
 who as yet had exhibited no symptoms of extraordinary ability, and 
 was noted only for his love of hardy sports, and a strange, wild 
 obstinacy of disposition. But when intelligence reached Sweden 
 that Riga was besieged, and that the czar and the Polish king were 
 leagued together for the purpose of curtailing the Swedish power, 
 the sleeping lion was roused within him. From that moment 
 Charles XII. became the terror of Europe. Abandoning pleasure, 
 ease, study, comfort, nay, even all the ordinary conveniences of life, 
 wearing the coarsest clothes, ' the waistcoat and breeches of leather, 
 and so greasy that they might be fried/ dispensing with the use of 
 a comb, and spreading his bread and butter at meals with his 
 thumbs, he devoted himself from that time to war, and war only. 
 
 Augustus had roused an enemy of a far more formidable character 
 than he was at first aware of. Compelled, by the activity of Charles
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 who had already fought his maiden battle against the Russians 
 to raise the siege of Riga, he withdrew into Poland. Livonia was 
 speedily re-occupied by the Swedes, who defeated and expelled the 
 Saxon forces of Augustus. Augustus at first hoped to make up his 
 losses by the assistance of the Polish army ; but the Poles, divided 
 amongst themselves, and incensed at the conduct of Augustus, in 
 bringing them into a war which they would have wished to avoid, 
 as well as in introducing so many Saxons into Poland, shewed no 
 alacrity in co-operating with him, but, on the contrary, seemed 
 perfectly disposed to admit the Swedish troops into the kingdom. 
 The senate even resolved to send an embassy to Charles in 
 Lithuania in the name of the Polish republic ; and Charles, though 
 he had refused to treat with Augustus, expressed his willingness to 
 receive an embassy from the nation. As, however, the ambassadors 
 were cautious and prevaricating, and did not appear sufficiently 
 submissive, Charles did not make any answer to their proposals, 
 but said he would give one at the gates of Warsaw. Accordingly, 
 quitting Lithuania, he marched into Poland, and on the 5th of May 
 1702 arrived at Warsaw, from which Augustus had just taken his 
 departure, with a view to raise some troops in Saxony. Charles 
 had an interview with Radjowski the primate, in which he declared 
 that 'he would never give the Poles peace till they had elected 
 another king.' It was not long before he accomplished his wish. 
 P.ursuing Augustus from one place to another, and defeating him 
 wherever the two armies came to an engagement, he at length 
 expelled him from the kingdom, and forced the diet to pass a resolu- 
 tion ' declaring Augustus, Elector of Saxony, incapable of wearing 
 the crown of Poland.' 
 
 It was intended both by Charles and by the Radjowski party in 
 Poland that James Sobieski should be elected king ; but this inten- 
 tion was frustrated by a bold step on the part of the dethroned 
 Augustus, who succeeded in carrying off Sobieski from his residence 
 at Breslau. Alexander Sobieski, the brother of James, was then 
 thought of; but he declined the offer, refusing to obtain a crown 
 by his brother's misfortune. The Polish diet sent to consult Charles 
 as to what should be done in this dilemma. Their ambassador was 
 Stanislas Lesczinski, the young palatine of Posnania, son of Raphael 
 Lesczinski, Grand-treasurer of Poland, the descendant and repre- 
 sentative of a House so illustrious in ancient Polish history, that it 
 was said that ' he who did not know the family of the Lesczinskis, 
 knew nothing of Poland.' The young palatine so pleased the 
 Swedish king, that he resolved to appoint him to the vacant throne, 
 as a ' man fitter than any he had seen to reconcile all parties.' 
 Lesczinski was accordingly elected without opposition on the i2th 
 of July 1704. 
 
 For nearly two years, a contest was carried on between the two 
 rival kings of Poland ; at length, however, Augustus was reduced
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 to such straits that he was obliged to accept whatever terms Charles 
 chose to offer. The sum of these was, that he should abdicate all 
 pretension to the Polish crown now and for ever. Augustus was 
 forced to comply ; and after an interview with Charles at Guntersdorf, 
 in which the conqueror would converse about nothing but a pair 
 of jack-boots, which he said had lasted him six years, he wrote a 
 humble letter to his rival Stanislas, congratulating him on his 
 accession to the crown, and expressing a hope that his subjects 
 would be more faithful to their new king than they had been to the 
 old one. He then withdrew into Saxony, and gave up all connec- 
 tion with Poland. 
 
 Having thus settled the affairs of Poland, Charles, after displaying 
 his influence in various parts of Germany, prepared for a decisive 
 struggle with his grand enemy the Czar of Russia, a man as extra- 
 ordinary as himself, and of much greater genius. Hitherto, in the 
 battles between the Russians and the Swedes, the Swedes had 
 almost always gained the victory ; but for this, Peter, who knew 
 that the Swedish superiority lay in their discipline, and who was 
 resolved to make good soldiers out of his own half-savage subjects, 
 was quite prepared. ' I know,' he used to say, ' the Swedes will go 
 on beating us for a long time ; but with such capital teaching, we 
 shall be able at last to beat them.' Now, however, Charles was 
 resolved to invade Russia, and dethrone the czar as he had the 
 Polish king. Marching in the dead of winter through the Ukraine, 
 the inhabitants of which had revolted from the czar, he announced 
 his intention of proceeding straight to Moscow. To the hardy 
 Swedes, trained under such a captain, no climate was too severe, no 
 enterprise too arduous. The czar, who no doubt knew that the 
 military education he meant to give his subjects was not yet 
 complete, shewed some symptoms of alarm ; and wishing to defer 
 the invasion, sent some pacific proposals to the Swedish monarch. 
 ' I will treat with the czar at Moscow,' was the reply. When this 
 reply was reported to Peter, ' My brother Charles,' said he, ' still 
 sticks, I see, to the notion of acting Alexander ; but I flatter myself 
 he will not find a Darius in me.' 
 
 Charles did not find a Darius in the Russian czar : the expedition 
 to Moscow proved as fatal to him as it did to Napoleon a hundred 
 years afterwards. He had penetrated to within a hundred leagues 
 of Moscow, when the failure of provisions obliged him to turn aside 
 from the direct road into the country inhabited by the Cossacks ; 
 and here, on the 8th of July 1709, was fought the great battle of 
 Pultovva, in which the czar was victorious, and the Swedes were 
 totally routed. Charles having in this one battle lost the fruits of 
 all his former victories, fled into the Turkish dominions, where, 
 attended by a few Poles and Swedes, he remained for nearly four 
 years, notwithstanding all the efforts of the sultan and his council to 
 induce him to depart. His obstinacy, which obtained for him the 
 
 13
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 name of the Iron Head, would not allow him to return to Sweden 
 until he had redeemed part of his losses, and he hoped to persuade 
 the Turks to send an army to invade Russia. 
 
 The battle of Pultowa changed the fate of Europe, and in a 
 particular manner that of Poland. Augustus, freed from the fear of 
 the Swedish king, now an exile in Turkey, and having obtained 
 leave from the pope to break his oath abdicating the Polish crown, 
 immediately advanced into Poland ; and his rival, Stanislas Lesczin- 
 ski, too weak to meet him, was obliged to quit the country, and 
 joined his master in Turkey, where he was detained a prisoner by 
 the Turks. On his release, he retired to an estate granted him by 
 Charles ; and little else remains to be related about him, except that 
 his daughter became queen of France, having married Louis XV. 
 He died in 1766, and left several published works. 
 
 Augustus II. was now, for the second time, king of Poland. The 
 change was by no means an advantageous one for the country. 
 True, Stanislas had been a mere nominee of Charles XII., and 
 Poland, under him, had been little better than a Swedish province ; 
 still Charles had been a generous master ; and the restoration of 
 Augustus, instead of bringing back independence to Poland, had 
 only placed it under the harsher and less tolerable domination of 
 Russia. Augustus was not popular among his Polish subjects, and 
 it was only by the assistance of foreign powers that he retained his 
 throne. Of all these powers, Russia possessed the greatest appetite 
 for conquest. Poland was a country upon which Russia had already 
 fixed her greedy eye ; and the first step towards its acquisition was 
 the reduction of the national Polish army from 100,000 to 20,000 
 men. This and other measures were carried by Augustus II., at 
 the prompting of Russia. 'Augustus II.,' says a Polish historian, 
 ' brought peace to Poland, but it was the peace of the tomb.' 
 
 He died in 1733, and was succeeded by his son, Augustus III. 
 Like his father, Augustus III. was both king of Poland and Elector 
 of Saxony. As king of Poland, he shewed even less capacity than 
 his father. As he owed the crown to Russian influence, so, during 
 his whole reign, Russian influence was supreme. Augustus usually 
 resided in Dresden, his Saxon capital, where he obtained some 
 reputation as a person of taste and a patron of the fine arts ; and 
 as St Petersburg was more truly the centre of the Polish govern- 
 ment than Dresden, the Russian capital became the resort of the 
 Poles. Augustus III. died at Dresden in 1763. His daughter, 
 Maria Josepha, became the wife of the Dauphin of France, and the 
 mother of three French monarchs the unfortunate Louis XVI., and 
 his brothers Louis XVIII. and Charles X. 
 
 About a year elapsed before a successor was appointed to 
 Augustus, and this interval was, as usual, one of anarchy and 
 confusion. There were at this time two parties among the Polish 
 grandees the Radzivil, or republican party, who were for keeping
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 up the government of Poland in its existing republican form ; and 
 the Czartoryski, or monarchical party, who perceived the evils 
 arising from such a system of government, and wished to change it 
 into a well-organised monarchy. The former relied on German and 
 French influence ; the latter looked for help from Russia. Mixed 
 up with these political differences, there were differences of a 
 religious kind. The power of the Jesuits had of late been increasing 
 in Poland, and in 1736 they were able to procure an act of the 
 Polish diet, depriving dissenters of access to public offices, and of 
 many other important civil rights ; in fact, reducing them to the 
 same level as the Polish Jews. Ever since that time, the spirit of 
 religious controversy had run high in Poland. The Czartoryski 
 party inclined to the Roman Catholic side ; the Radzivil party were 
 in favour of the toleration of Protestants. 
 
 The Czartoryski party triumphed over the other in the election 
 of the new king. With the assistance of a Russian force, which 
 Catharine II. of Russia sent into Poland, they secured the election 
 of Count Stanislas Poniatowski, a relative of the Czartoryski 
 family, and a favourite of the Russian empress. At the same 
 diet the Czartoryski party effected several salutary reforms in the 
 Polish constitution, abolishing, among other things, the absurd 
 custom by which the veto of a single member was permitted to 
 dissolve the diet. Altogether, they effected a very desirable revolu- 
 tion in the Polish political system, although the merit of what they 
 did is greatly detracted from by the fact, that they procured at the 
 same time a more stringent act against dissenters. 
 
 No sooner had Count Poniatowski, under the title of Stanislas 
 Augustus, ascended the Polish throne the last who was to ascend 
 it than the Russian empress found that the changes which the 
 Czartoryski party had effected with her help were injurious to her 
 influence over Poland ; and Catharine was not a woman to suffer 
 any loss of power. She had a good pretext for interfering in the 
 affairs of Poland, inasmuch as Russia was one of the European 
 powers which had guaranteed the treaty of Oliva in 1660, by which 
 the Polish Protestants were secured liberty of conscience. As soon 
 as Poniatowski was crowned, Russia, along with Prussia, Denmark, 
 and Great Britain, remonstrated with the Polish diet against its 
 recent act of bigotry, by which the dissenters were excluded from 
 civil rights. The Polish Protestants, as well as those who, without 
 being Protestants, were in favour of toleration, of course felt them- 
 selves indebted to Russia, and supported the Russian interests. 
 In this way, partly by the growth of a Russian party in the Polish 
 diet, partly by the terror caused by the presence of Russian troops, 
 all the reforms of the Czartoryski party were annulled, and the old 
 constitution revived. The Catholic party, however, headed by the 
 Bishop of Cracow, was still strong enough to prevent the repeal of 
 Yhe act against dissenters ; and it was not till after a severe struggle, 
 
 is
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 during which the bishop and some other principal men of the 
 Catholic party were carried off by Russian detachments, and sent 
 to Siberia, that the intolerant statute was abolished. At length, 
 in 1768, Russia succeeded in becoming absolute in Poland, and 
 ruling the diet. Poniatowski was a mere underling of Catharine ; 
 he encouraged literature, and did as much good as his position 
 allowed, but he was not an independent sovereign. 
 
 Here may be said to close the history of Poland as an independent 
 country, and we may be allowed to take a momentary glance at its 
 condition. Consisting of a large and fertile territory, with a fine 
 climate, and traversed by magnificent rivers ; independent also, and 
 capable of maintaining a respectable footing in the list of nations, 
 this unfortunate country appears to have at no time pursued a 
 tranquil and prosperous career. All the blessings which nature 
 lavished upon it were unable to give it happiness. There was 
 clearly but one cause for this its wretched political constitution. 
 The principle of electing its kings introduced endless cabals and 
 commotions ; and although occasionally governed by a man like 
 Sobieski, the nation was in point of fact under the thraldom of one 
 of the least intelligent and most intractable oligarchies the world 
 has ever seen. The natural consequences of this species of misrule 
 were now manifest. A foreign power, urged by ambition, and with 
 the plausible excuse of securing toleration in religion, had succeeded 
 in undermining Polish independence. Though leaving Poland its 
 king and other externals of an independent nation, Russia was now 
 the actual ruler of the state. 
 
 PARTITIONING AND FINAL DISMEMBERMENT OF POLAND. 
 
 There were not wanting patriotic spirits who watched with grief 
 the increase of Russian influence, and were resolved to make Poland 
 again independent. These patriots, consisting of the relics of the 
 Czartoryski party, and of all the chief Catholic nobles, formed them- 
 selves into a confederacy, called the Confederacy of Bar ; and from 
 1768 to 1771, they kept the country in a state of civil war, by inces- 
 santly fighting with the Russian troops who surrounded the king, as 
 well as with those of their fellow-countrymen who, being Protestants, 
 adhered to Russia. In these engagements the confederates were 
 always beaten by the Russians; until, in 1771, being reinforced by 
 secret assistance from France, they were able to act more vigorously, 
 and even to gain partial successes. Russia, however, obtained 
 speedy assistance from her allies, Prussia and Austria ; and the 
 confederates were utterly crushed by the joint armies of these 
 three powers. Thus were the last hopes of Polish independence 
 destroyed. 
 
 The introduction of foreign troops proved disastrous. Frederick 
 II. of Prussia had long coveted the western portion of Poland, and 
 16
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 had already, in the course of the recent disturbances, filled it with 
 Prussian troops. Seeing, however, now that the war was concluded, 
 that he would be obliged to relinquish his prize, unless he could 
 persuade his two allies, Russia and Austria, to allow him to retain 
 it, he planned the partition of Poland that is, the cutting off from 
 Poland a large portion of her territories, to be divided among the 
 three allied powers. He was to retain for himself those provinces 
 on which he had already set his heart, and Russia and Austria were 
 to select what other portions they liked best. This proposal was 
 made first to the emperor of Austria, and then to the empress of 
 Russia ; and a satisfactory agreement having been come to, a treaty 
 was signed by the plenipotentiaries of the three powers in February 
 1772, by which Poland was to be deprived of 82,000 square miles 
 of her territory, or nearly one-third of the whole. Although Great 
 Britain, France, Sweden, and Denmark protested against this 
 monstrous act of usurpation, yet, as their interference amounted to 
 nothing but a protest, the allies persevered in carrying their plan 
 into execution. To give a colour of legality to their proceedings, 
 they assembled the Polish diet in April 1773, and caused the scheme 
 to be submitted to it. Many of the senators and nuncios behaved 
 nobly on the occasion ; the king was resolute in behalf of inde- 
 pendence ; but at length threats and bribery prevailed, and the act 
 of dismemberment was passed. 
 
 This calamity would have been a matter of little consequence, if 
 it had restored the Poles to unanimity, and opened their eyes to 
 their own faults and follies. It failed in any such effect. Instead 
 of laying aside minor differences, and uniting against the common 
 enemy, the nobles still squabbled and set up divisions ; and not a 
 few of them, to their great disgrace, accepted bribes from their 
 oppressors. Yet, with every vile influence that could be brought to 
 bear, the nation generally was indignant, and for twenty years enter- 
 tained hopes of recovering its lost territory and independent position. 
 Among the nobles, there were many patriotic and enlightened men 
 laboriously exerting themselves, by means of personal influence and 
 political confederacy, as well as through the press, to reanimate the 
 national spirit. Under the auspices of these men a reaction was 
 begun, which succeeded so far, that, in the year 1791, a new consti- 
 tution was agreed upon by the diet. In this new constitution many 
 of the old forms were purposely preserved; but the reform which 
 jt aimed at effecting was a very sweeping one, as may be judged 
 by the following selection from its provisions. Slavery was to be 
 abolished, and every inhabitant of Poland to become a free man ; 
 the Roman Catholic religion was to be established by law, but all 
 other forms of worship were to be tolerated ; instead of a single diet 
 as heretofore, there were to be two legislative chambers, one of sena- 
 tors, the other of representatives ; these parliaments were to meet at 
 any time, and were not to be restricted in the length of their sittings, 
 
 '7
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 and the liberum veto was to be abolished ; the free royal towns were 
 to have municipal governments ; and the king, instead of being elec- 
 tive, was henceforth to be hereditary the Saxon line to succeed 
 after the death of Poniatowski. 
 
 These proposals for reform came a hundred years too late. Poland 
 was already in the jaws of destruction. Russia, which watched the 
 proceedings of the diet, resolved to interfere ; nor were there wanting 
 among the Poles men corrupt enough to be her agents. Catharine 
 sent her armies into Poland ; the king of Prussia, who was pledged 
 to assist the patriots, deserted them in their extremity ; the Russian 
 party among the Polish nobility exerted their strength ; the feeble 
 Stanislas betrayed the trust reposed in him and the work of the 
 grand diet was overthrown. Not only so, but, to punish Poland for 
 rebelling against her Prussian master and her Russian mistress, a 
 second partition of her territories took place in 1 793, by which she 
 lost 118,000 square miles of her remaining territory, 22,000 of which 
 were annexed to Prussia, and the other 96,000 to Russia, The Polish 
 territories were thus reduced to less than one-third of their ancient 
 extent. 
 
 One struggle more, the last and the bravest, and Poland was to 
 be blotted from the map of Europe. The two names most illustrious 
 in this final struggle, or at least best known in connection with 
 it, are Julian Ursin Niemcewicz and Thaddeus Kosciuszko, both 
 of them Lithuanians, the one born in 1757, the other in 1746. 
 Kosciuszko, when a young officer in the Polish army, had formed an 
 attachment to Louisa Sosnowski, daughter of Joseph Sosnowski, 
 Grand-marshal of Lithuania. Her parents forbidding her union with 
 one whose rank was so inferior to her own, she consented to elope 
 with him. The lovers were pursued and overtaken ; Kosciuszko 
 drew his sword, but was overpowered, and left on the ground 
 weltering in his blood, all that remained to him of his bride being 
 a white handkerchief which she had dropped, and which ever after- 
 wards, by day and night, and in the hottest hour of battle, he carried 
 next his heart. Kosciuszko went to America, where the war of 
 independence was then raging; and after serving with distinction 
 on the side of the colonists, and attaining the rank of general of 
 brigade, he returned to his native country, where, being created 
 major-general in the Polish army by Stanislas, he fought in behalf 
 of the independence of Poland. In 1792, when the Russians had 
 completely crushed the power of Poland, he retired into exile at 
 Leipsic, where he was when the second partition took place. His 
 friend and co-patriot, Niemcewicz, was not only a soldier, like 
 Kosciuszko, but likewise a poet and a statesman one of the highest 
 names in the history of Polish literature. He had been a member 
 of the great diet which prepared the new constitution, and had 
 exerted his powers, both as a journalist and as a dramatist, to 
 inspire his countrymen with the same ardent enthusiasm which
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 burned in his own breast. But the poetical genius of Niemcewicz 
 was not more effective against the Russian power than the valour of 
 his friend Kosciuszko ; and before the second partition took place, 
 he had retired into Italy. 
 
 Kosciuszko at Leipsic, and Niemcewicz in Italy, were looking 
 eagerly towards Poland, watching for an opportunity of once more 
 raising the standard of independence, when intelligence was brought 
 them that, in consequence of the second partition, the whole country, 
 and especially the capital, Warsaw, was in a ferment. Hurrying 
 from Leipsic, Kosciuszko appeared at Cracow on the 24th of March 
 1 794, at the head of a small band of patriots. The news spread 
 ' Kosciuszko is here :' nobles and citizens, peasants and handi- 
 craftsmen, poured in to join him ; ladies tore off their jewels to 
 furnish the means of sustaining the revolt ; many of them even 
 armed themselves to fight by the side of their husbands. Kosciuszko 
 was created by the nobles general-in-chief of the Polish armies ; 
 and the whole country became the scene of a terrible war. On the 
 first rumour of the insurrection, Niemcewicz had hastened to join 
 his friend. The struggle lasted six months. At first, the Poles 
 gained considerable successes ; the Russians were driven out of 
 Warsaw and many other places ; but on the loth of October 1794, 
 was fought the fatal battle of Maciejowice, in which the Poles were 
 completely defeated, and Kosciuszko, Niemcewicz, and many other 
 eminent patriots, taken prisoners. We shall copy the description of 
 this last battle given by the pen of Niemcewicz himself hi his Notes 
 on my Captivity in Russia. 
 
 Receiving intelligence that the Russian army, under General 
 Fersen, had crossed the Vistula near the village of Maciejowice, 
 twenty Polish, or about eighty-four English miles from Warsaw, 
 Kosciuszko resolved to give him battle, in order to prevent him 
 from joining Suvorof. When he reached the spot, Kosciuszko 
 found that some troops which he expected to join him had not done 
 so ; but he could not avoid the battle. ' On Friday the loth October, 
 at break of day, we were informed,' says Niemcewicz, ' that all the 
 enemy's army was advancing towards us in battle-array. Our little 
 army stood in readiness to receive them. As the enemy had cannon 
 of larger caliber than ours, they opened fire upon us at a great 
 distance ; and their large balls, passing through the brambles, and 
 smashing the boughs of trees with dreadful noise, were falling 
 among us. We had only three or four twelve-pounders, and as soon 
 as the enemy were within the proper distance, we fired upon them ; 
 and with such effect that we could see their columns wavering, and 
 panic spreading through their ranks. Our position was on a dry 
 and elevated piece of ground, while the Russians were advancing 
 over marshes, in which cannon and men were sinking at every step. 
 The Russians seemed at one time to be on the point of giving up 
 the attack, and retreating. But it proved soon to be quite the
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 contrary: the enemy, four times stronger than we, and having a 
 large park of artillery, were not discouraged by the disadvantages 
 of the terrain, but continued to advance. Their fire became more 
 and more rapid ; a shower of balls of every size, grape-shot, and 
 grenades, spreading, as they burst, death on all sides, over- 
 whelmed us. 
 
 ' About twelve o'clock the fire became still more terrible : death 
 was flying and striking everywhere : nearly all our artillery-horses 
 were killed or maimed. Not one of us, however, left his place. The 
 enemy were already within musket-shot, when the infantry began 
 a terrible fire on both sides : the ground was covered with dead and 
 wounded, and the air resounded with their groanings. The shower 
 of bullets, with their shrill whistling, was so incessant, that I do not 
 know how any of us escaped. In the meantime the ammunition was 
 exhausted, and our artillery became entirely silent. 
 
 ' While I was looking everywhere for General Kosciuszko, the loss 
 of blood weakened me, and the sword fell from my hand. An officer 
 seeing me in this condition, undid his neckcloth, and tied it round 
 my arm. I found the general at last, engaged in rallying a small 
 detachment of cavalry. His horse was killed by a cannon-shot, and 
 he had just mounted another, when suddenly a new corps of the 
 enemy's horse shewed itself on our front. We attacked and repulsed 
 them ; but all the Russian light dragoons soon rushed upon us ; the 
 Cossacks took us on the flanks : our little army gave way ; and 
 every one, for safety, betook himself to flight as well as he could, the 
 wood promising to cover our retreat. I saw myself surrounded by a 
 band of Cossacks. I had no sword ; my pistols were discharged ; 
 and I could not raise my arm. They seized my horse by the bridle, 
 and thus I was taken prisoner.' 
 
 Kosciuszko had fallen in leaping his horse over a ditch ; he was 
 taken prisoner, after having received terrible wounds. Niemcewicz 
 describes his appearance when brought to the Russian head-quarters 
 among the other prisoners. 'Between four and five o'clock in the 
 evening we saw a detachment of soldiers approaching headquarters, 
 and carrying upon a handbarrow, hastily constructed, a man half- 
 dead. This was General Kosciuszko. His head and body covered 
 with blood, contrasted in a dreadful manner with the livid paleness 
 of his face. He had on his head a large wound from a sword, and 
 three on his back above the loins, from the thrusts of a pike. He 
 could scarcely breathe, and lay in a stupor. I spent the most miser- 
 able night that it could fall to the lot of mortal to endure. The 
 dawn dissipated at last the horrible darkness. General Kosciuszko 
 awoke like a man who had been in a profound lethargy, and seeing 
 me wounded by his side, asked me what was the matter, and where 
 we were. "Alas!" said I, "we are prisoners of the Russians.'" 
 
 Kosciuszko, Niemcewicz, Fischer, and the other Polish prisoners 
 were carried to St Petersburg, where they were confined in separate
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 cells by the orders of the empress. On Catharine's death, in 1796, 
 they were released by her successor Paul. Kosciuszko and Niem- 
 cewicz went to America ; the others were scattered over the world. 
 Kosciuszko never recovered his health. Returning to Europe, he 
 died in Switzerland, on the I5th of October 1817. Niemcewicz died 
 in Paris, at an advanced age, in 1841. 
 
 The battle of Maciejowice decided the fate of Poland. Warsaw 
 immediately capitulated ; and the remaining 84,000 miles of Polish 
 territory were parted among Russia, Prussia, and Austria ; Russia, 
 as usual, obtaining the largest share. Thus, in the year 1795, Poland 
 was erased from the list of European states. 
 
 SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF THE POLES. 
 
 From 1795 to 1815, the Poles entertained the hope of a restoration 
 of their national independence by the assistance of France. Imme- 
 diately after the dismemberment, a large body of Polish refugees 
 offered to hire themselves as the soldiers of the French Directory ; 
 and the offer being accepted, a number of Polish regiments were 
 levied under the command of their own leaders, which, distinguished 
 by the name of the Polish Legions, continued to serve France during 
 the Republic, and also under Napoleon. Their object was, in one 
 point of view, a noble one ; they hoped, by their bravery and earnest- 
 ness in the French service, to earn from Napoleon the restoration of 
 Polish liberty. Accordingly, after gaining many victories for Napo- 
 leon in all parts of the continent, as well as serving him in the West 
 Indies, they were rewarded by having their wishes in part complied 
 with. In 1806, Napoleon having gained an advantage over Prussia, 
 with the assistance of the Poles, deprived that kingdom of nearly all 
 that portion of Polish territory which it had acquired by the second 
 and third partitions, amounting to 40,000 square miles, with upwards 
 of 2,000,000 of inhabitants, and constituted it into an independent 
 European state, under the name of the duchy of Warsaw, the ducal 
 authority to be hereditary in the Saxon line. In 1809-10 this new 
 Polish state was augmented by the addition of a large portion of the 
 Austrian territory; and by the treaty of Vienna in 1812, the bound- 
 aries of the new duchy were fixed, so as to include about 63,000 
 square miles. 
 
 This was something ; for although large sections of the old Polish 
 territory were still allowed to remain in the possession of Prussia and 
 Austria, and although Russia still retained all her share, yet Napo- 
 leon had shewn himself disposed to behave generously in the matter ; 
 and there was no reason to doubt that, when the state of Europe 
 permitted it, he would carry his generosity to still greater lengths. 
 Accordingly, the grateful Poles resolved to serve him faithfully in his 
 future campaigns ; and in 1812, when the invasion of Russia by the 
 French was determined on, the Poles, eager to inflict vengeance on
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 their old enemy, shewed their enthusiasm by raising 80,000 men for 
 the expedition. Although Napoleon did not actually promise the 
 restoration of Russian Poland, yet they did not doubt that, if the 
 expedition were successful, the restoration would take place. The 
 disastrous issue of the invasion, and the consequent abdication of 
 Napoleon, overthrew these hopes. The only expectation that now 
 remained to the Poles was, that the plenipotentiaries of the various 
 European powers, by whose negotiations in 1814 the affairs of 
 Europe were to be finally settled, would do something for Poland. 
 Nor was this expectation unfounded. Lord Castlereagh on the part 
 of Great Britain, and Talleyrand on the part of France, were alike 
 favourable to a restoration of Polish independence ; Austria professed 
 her willingness to surrender all the Polish territory she still retained ; 
 the Emperor Alexander of Russia was at that time believed to enter- 
 tain ultra-liberal political sentiments ; and should all these powers 
 agree, Prussia would be obliged to submit. It is extremely probable 
 that a final arrangement favourable to the Poles would have been 
 agreed to ; but at the time when the negotiations were going 
 on, Napoleon landed from Elba, and threw Europe again into 
 consternation. 
 
 The plenipotentiaries being obliged to hurry through their negotia- 
 tions as fast as possible, the following arrangement was adopted. 
 The greater part of the duchy of Warsaw was to be thenceforth 
 called the Kingdom of Poland ; and under that name it was to be 
 united to Russia, ' to be enjoyed by His Majesty the Emperor of all 
 the Russias, his heirs and successors, for ever; 5 but to be governed 
 by a constitution of its own. The remainder of the duchy was to 
 be annexed to Prussia, under the name of the duchy of Posen. 
 Galicia and the salt mines of Wieliczka were to be secured to 
 Austria. Lastly, the city and district of Cracow, embracing about 
 twenty geographical miles, and containing a population of about 
 100,000, was to be formed into an independent republic. Thus the 
 whole of Poland, with the exception of this last-named little spot, 
 was divided, as formerly, among the three powers which had dis- 
 membered it; and in tracing the history of the Poles from 1815 to 
 the present time, we require to divide the narrative into three parts, 
 one relating to Austrian Poland, one to Prussian Poland, and one 
 to Russian Poland. 
 
 With respect to Austrian and Prussian Poland, little need be 
 said : in both, the Poles are subjected to those misfortunes which 
 attend a subdued nation under the government of foreigners. There 
 is this difference, however, that the Poles of Austria are allowed to 
 retain perhaps more of their national manners and habits than it is 
 possible for them to do in Prussia, where there is a tendency to 
 establish Germanism on the ruins of everything else. In both 
 countries, however, the Poles have until recently been under a 
 government virtually despotic ; and if it is an evil for the natives
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 of a country to be under a despotic government, it is a double evil 
 to be under a government which, besides being despotic, is admin- 
 istered by foreigners. 
 
 But Russian Poland is far more extensive than Austrian and 
 Prussian Poland united, and its history is more interesting. At 
 first, its condition was surprisingly fortunate. The Emperor 
 Alexander took a pride in his new title of King of Poland, and 
 declared that he wished Poland to be united to Russia only by the 
 title of its own happy constitution. A new constitution was guaranteed 
 to the kingdom of Poland, by which the liberty of the press, the 
 freedom of the person, the responsibility of the ministers, the use 
 of the national Polish language, and the service of a national army, 
 were secured, along with a representative system of government 
 resembling that agreed to by the grand diet of 1791. This was 
 astonishing from a man who held absolute power over 50,000,000 
 Russians. A similar constitution was also granted to the other parts 
 of Russian Poland. 
 
 Thus was founded a second Poland, not so large, indeed, as the 
 first, but under auspices which seemed to promise a better fortune. 
 The following facts, obtained from an authentic source, will give 
 an idea of the condition of the new kingdom in the year 1829, 
 fourteen years after its establishment, and four years after the 
 accession of the late emperor, Nicholas, to the Russian throne. 
 The entire kingdom was divided into eight palatinates. The 
 population amounted to nearly four millions, of whom one million 
 were foreigners Russians, Jews, Germans, &c. With the excep- 
 tion of the Jews, nearly all the inhabitants were Roman Catholics. 
 The number of persons engaged in agriculture was about six times 
 greater than the number of persons engaged in all other occupations 
 together ; and the proportion between the nobles and the plebeians 
 was one to thirteen. An immense improvement had been effected 
 in the country. In the first place, the peasantry of a large part of 
 the country had been emancipated ; some landlords having adopted 
 the system of free labour in exchange for wages, others having 
 adopted an improved feudal arrangement, and allowing their depend- 
 ants a cottage and a few acres of ground on condition of obtaining 
 so many days' labour a week from them. With respect to religion ; 
 although the Roman Catholic form of faith was under the special 
 protection of .government, all other forms of worship were tolerated, 
 and their professors were entitled to the enjoyment of all civil rights. 
 A wonderful enlargement had also taken place in manufactures and 
 commerce. While in 1815 there were hardly one hundred looms 
 for coarse woollen cloths, there were in 1829 above six thousand. 
 The reason of this change was the repeal of many of the ancient 
 Polish laws which checked commerce, especially a law which pro- 
 hibited the nobles from engaging in it, on the idea that it would 
 be a degradation of their order to do so. The face of the country
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 had also been materially improved, and the facilities of travelling 
 increased. 'The city of Warsaw had been wonderfully improved. 
 In 1815 it reckoned only 80,000 inhabitants; in 1829 its popula- 
 tion amounted to 140,000, besides the garrison. The university of 
 Warsaw, which had been founded in 1816, in lieu of that of Cracow, 
 consisted of five faculties, and had 48 professors and about 750 
 students.' The means of education had also been greatly extended 
 all over the kingdom. 
 
 Such were the happy effects of fourteen years of tolerably free 
 government. Most of these results had been accomplished by the 
 Poles themselves ; for although the emperor of Russia was their king, 
 his power was limited by the constitution. The Poles, therefore, 
 had given proof of the force and elasticity of their national character, 
 when placed in favourable circumstances ; they had proved that it 
 was to their wretched system of social arrangements, and not to 
 any defect of natural genius, that the long series of disasters which 
 had befallen their nation was owing. A nation which in fourteen 
 years could make such advances in civilisation, had still some vigour 
 and vitality left. There was hope that the rising fortunes of the 
 second Poland would cause the miseries of the first to be forgotten. 
 
 These hopes were doomed to disappointment. Even before the 
 death of Alexander, symptoms of commotion began to appear. An 
 excitement which rose among the Poles may be attributed to two 
 causes. In the first place, there still lingered in the minds of the 
 Polish subjects of Alexander recollections of their ancient nationality, 
 of their sufferings, of the unjust dismemberment of their country. 
 Although enjoying comparative liberty and happiness themselves, 
 they could not forget that there were millions of their countrymen 
 less fortunately situated groaning under the Prussian and the 
 Austrian yoke. Accordingly, the restoration of ancient Poland, the 
 reunion of its torn and scattered provinces, was the dream of all the 
 young men of Warsaw and other cities ; and a revolution was 
 precipitated by the despotic conduct of the Grand-duke Constan- 
 tine, whom his brother, the Emperor Alexander, had unfortunately 
 appointed generalissimo of the forces in Poland. The grand-duke 
 is described by Louis Blanc as ' one of those inexplicable beings 
 who, baffling observation, disappoint alike their friends and their 
 foes. His figure was athletic, and admirably symmetrical; his face 
 hideous ; and yet gleams of good nature shot from his eyes, deep 
 set beneath their bushy and sandy brows, and tempered the savage 
 expression of his countenance.' 
 
 There could not have been a more unfit man to wield power in 
 Poland than the Grand-duke Constantine. Wherever he went, he 
 offended and disgusted the Poles by his tyrannical conduct, setting 
 at defiance all the articles of the constitution of 1815, interfering 
 with all the processes of government, and obeying no law but his 
 own caprice. The consequence was, that, even before the death of
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 Alexander, the Poles were burning under innumerable grievances, 
 and complaining that the constitution which secured their liberties 
 was treated as a dead letter. This condition of affairs was not 
 improved by the death of Alexander in 1825. His successor should 
 have been the Grand-duke Constantine, but, aware of his own 
 incapacity to rule, Constantine abdicated in favour of his younger 
 brother, the late Emperor Nicholas. Poland now suffered more than 
 ever. Still residing at Warsaw, Constantine, in addition to his 
 duties as commander-in-chief of the army, wielded the functions of 
 viceroy of Poland, and governed the country according to his own 
 will. Even had Nicholas been himself favourably disposed towards 
 the Poles, it would have been difficult for him to remonstrate 
 against the conduct of the man to whom he was indebted for his 
 empire. But Nicholas, whose antipathies to representative govern- 
 ment are well known, had no wish to curb the tyrannical licence 
 of his brother, and looked on approvingly rather than otherwise, 
 while Constantine acted the despot in Warsaw. 
 
 Groaning under these and other inflictions of a similar nature, 
 the Poles had long been prepared for a revolt. Numerous secret 
 societies had been organised in Warsaw and other towns, under 
 the character of literary associations and institutions of free- 
 masonry. The students of the university and the young officers 
 of the army were the most eager spirits of the new movement. 
 The French Revolution of 1830, agitating, as it did, all Europe, 
 hastened the development of the conspiracy ; and the month of 
 February 1831 was fixed as the time for a simultaneous rising 
 throughout Poland. The activity of Nicholas, however, in obtain- 
 ing information of whatever was occurring in Poland, and in 
 particular the publication of an imperial edict for the assembling 
 of the Polish army to serve against France, shewed the conspirators 
 the necessity of acting immediately ; and the night of the 2pth of 
 November 1830 was appointed for the outbreak. On that night 
 a body of 200 young men of the Military School, with two sub- 
 lieutenants, Wysocki and Zaliwski, at their head, rose, and, assisted 
 by the students of the university, roused the whole of Warsaw, 
 attacked the Russians, put to death a number of their officers, and 
 obtained possession of the city ; the Grand-duke Constantine 
 barely escaping with his life. The morning of the 3Oth of 
 November rose on blood-stained streets and crowds of citizens 
 mad with joy. A provisional government, consisting of the most 
 approved patriots, was appointed in the name of Nicholas as the 
 constitutional king of Poland ; and the mob called eagerly for 
 Chlopicki to come and assume the command of the troops. Chlopicki 
 was an old general who had served with distinction in the armies 
 of Napoleon ; he was a man of commanding appearance and 
 peremptory manners, and had gained great popularity among the 
 Poles by his conduct during the oppressions of the grand-duke,
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 In consequence of this popularity, although he had taken no part 
 personally in the insurrection of the previous evening, he was urged 
 to accept the command of the Polish forces. Unfortunately, his 
 character was inferior to the task imposed upon him. He was a 
 man of mere method and rule, and, although personally courageous, 
 deficient in that daring and enthusiasm which animated the mass 
 of the younger patriots, and alone could secure a triumph at such 
 a crisis. 
 
 Chlopicki's first act, after assuming the command, was to enter 
 into a negotiation with the grand-duke, who was encamped at a 
 small distance from Warsaw with 8000 Russians, the Polish regiments 
 on which he depended for support having deserted him, and joined 
 the patriots. By a strange and irreparable blunder, he permitted 
 the grand-duke and his Russian troops to leave the country unmo- 
 lested ; thus losing the decided advantage which the possession of 
 Constantine's person would have given him in his future negotiations 
 with the emperor. Anxious to bring the war to a conclusion, he 
 despatched two ambassadors, whose views were similar to his own, 
 to St Petersburg, to endeavour to obtain terms from the emperor. 
 Meanwhile, the bolder spirits among the patriots were chafing under 
 his cautious and temporising government. 
 
 The reply of Nicholas to the representations of the Poles reached 
 Warsaw on the I5th of January 1831. The substance of it was, that 
 the Poles must surrender at discretion. On the memorial which 
 had been presented to the emperor was a note in the emperor's own 
 hand, which ran : ' I am king of Poland, and I will drive her. The 
 first cannon-shot fired by the Poles shall annihilate Poland.' When 
 this was read in the Polish diet, the shout arose : 'There is no longer a 
 Nicholas ! There is no longer an emperor !' The House of Romanoff 
 was declared incapable for ever of possessing the crown of Poland, 
 and a new government was organised, under the presidency of 
 Prince Adam Czartoryski. 
 
 The rupture between Russia and Poland was now irreparable, 
 and the patriots nerved themselves for an encounter, the end of 
 which was to be death on the battle-field, or slavery and exile. In 
 February 1831, the Russian field-marshal Diebitch entered Poland 
 with an army of 120,000 men, and 400 pieces of cannon. The 
 whole Polish force amounted to about 50,000 men, and 136 pieces 
 of artillery. 
 
 For seven months the unequal contest was continued. Prodigies 
 of valour were performed by the brave Poles. Several great battles 
 were fought between the two armies, besides many detached 
 skirmishes ; and in most of them the Poles gained the victory. 
 Their misfortune, however the misfortune of their whole history 
 lay in the want of a leader able to follow up advantageously the 
 successes which their heroism as soldiers had won. Radzivil, 
 who had taken the place of Chlopicki in the dictatorship, was
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 displaced from the command, to be succeeded by Skrzynecki, 
 described as a man of ability and accomplishments, but ' a perti- 
 nacious negotiator, and evidently not fit to lead an armed revolution.' 
 Having recruited his forces, he met the Russian army twice in the 
 open field in the months of March and April, and inflicted on it 
 immense losses. For two months the antagonist armies continued 
 their marching and counter-marching in the neighbourhood of 
 Warsaw, their numbers thinned not only by the usual casualties 
 of war, but also by the ravages of the cholera, which was then 
 pursuing its pestilential progress through the central districts of 
 Europe. On the 26th of May 1831, Skrzynecki found himself 
 compelled to give battle, under very disadvantageous circumstances, 
 at Ostrolenka, a town situated on the river Narew, at some distance 
 from Warsaw. A part of the Polish army had engaged unexpectedly 
 with the whole Russian force. They had been fighting from nine 
 to eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and the day was going against 
 them, when Skrzynecki, who had been lying unsuspectingly at head- 
 quarters, arrives on the field. ' He gallops like a madman from 
 column to column, shouting : " Ho ! Rybinski ! Malachowski ! For- 
 ward, forward, all of you !" Himself, with his coat torn with balls, 
 rushes towards the bridge, from which fresh masses of the enemy 
 are every moment issuing ; and taking his battalions one after 
 another, he plunges them into the mele"e. The generals set the 
 example : Langermann, Pac, Muchowski, Prondzynski, execute 
 furious but ineffectual charges ; the Polish army has soon spent its 
 ammunition ; the battery of Colonel Bern alone carries death into 
 the ranks of the enemy. The battle is fought man to man with 
 swords and pikes. A sort of frenzy seizes the Poles. Hundreds of 
 officers are seen rushing to the front, sword in hand, singing the 
 Warsaw hymn. The lancers attempt to charge in their turn, and 
 the generalissimo urges them on at full speed ; but their horses sink 
 up to the breast in the plashy soil, and they are exterminated with- 
 out striking a blow. Night began to fall ; the field of battle is now 
 but a vast cemetery. Skrzynecki had succeeded in preventing the 
 Russian army from passing over wholly to the right bank. He 
 remained master of the field ; but it had cost him 7000 men. 
 Generals Kicki and Kaminski were slain ; 270 officers had fallen. 
 The Russians recrossed the Narew during the night, having lost 
 more than 10,000 men. The Polish generalissimo gave orders to 
 retreat to Warsaw ; and as he stepped into his carriage with 
 Prondzynski, he repeated sadly the famous words of Kosciuszko : 
 " Finis Polonies" (An end of Poland).'* 
 
 A temporary check was given to the movements of the Russian 
 army by the sudden deaths of the commander-in-chief Diebitch and 
 the Grand-duke Constantine, which occurred within a short interval 
 
 * Louis Blanc's History of Ten Years.
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 of each other, and were by common report attributed to foul means. 
 Efforts were also made by the friends of Poland in other countries, 
 especially in France, to render her some assistance by procuring 
 diplomatic remonstrances ; but the result was that Poland was left 
 to her fate. 
 
 Field-marshal Paskevitch was appointed to succeed Diebitch as 
 commander-in-chief of the Russian forces. Paskevitch's plan of 
 operations was to cross the Vistula at a point near the Prussian 
 frontier, and attack Warsaw on the left bank, where it was more 
 weakly protected than on the right. Skrzynecki's conduct amounted 
 to infatuation. Instead of marching to oppose the advance of 
 the Russians, as his best officers advised him, he remained in 
 Warsaw, and permitted Paskevitch to effect the passage of the river 
 unopposed. Warsaw was in an uproar ; the population, enraged 
 at the indecision of their government, rose in riot, and put to 
 death many persons suspected of favouring the Russian interests. 
 Skrzynecki was deprived of the command, and Krukowiecki was 
 nominated president of a new one ; and General Malachowski was 
 appointed commander-in-chief of the forces. By this time the 
 Russians were within a mile of the capital. There was a diversity 
 of opinions in the Polish council ; but it was finally resolved, that, 
 detaching one-half of the army to procure provisions, they should, 
 defend the city. The besiegers numbered 120,000 men and 386 
 cannon ; the Poles did not amount to 35,000. Paskevitch, after a 
 vain attempt to treat with Krukowiecki, commenced the attack on 
 the 6th of September 1831. All day the cannonading was kept up 
 on both sides, and numbers fell. The superiority, however, was 
 plainly on the side of the besiegers. The only hope of the besieged 
 lay in the return of Ramorino with the 20,000 men who had been 
 sent into the neighbouring country for provisions. There was no 
 appearance, however, of his return ; and at four o'clock in the after- 
 noon the diet again met to deliberate, while the flames were rising 
 in various parts of the town. Krukowiecki gave in his resignation ; 
 but before it was accepted, Prondzynski, who had been sent to the 
 Russian camp, returned, accompanied by the Muscovite General 
 Berg, who was empowered by Paskevitch to treat with the Poles. 
 The Russian general had a long conference with Krukowiecki, 
 at the end of which he departed, carrying with him a letter of 
 submission, addressed to the Emperor Nicholas. 
 
 When General Berg returned five hours afterwards to complete 
 the treaty of capitulation, he found the members of the diet 
 assembled in arms, and in a state of extraordinary excitement. He 
 was informed that Krukowiecki was no longer president of the 
 government, and that the agreement made with him was null and 
 void. This, however, was the mere expiring spasm of Polish resolu- 
 tion ; and on the morning of the 8th of September, the articles of 
 capitulation were signed by Malachowski. The Poles were allowed 
 28
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 forty-eight hours to quit the city ; but the greater part were after- 
 wards made prisoners by the Russians : a few fragments of the 
 army, however, escaped out of Poland. 
 
 Such was the fall of Warsaw such the end of Poland. The 
 nation now lay prostrate at the mercy of the conqueror. It was 
 hoped that Nicholas would be merciful of his own accord. Nicholas 
 was not merciful. Hundreds of Poles who had taken part in the 
 revolt were sent to labour in the mines of Siberia; many more to 
 serve in the Russian armies of the Caucasus ; and those who escaped 
 scattered themselves over Europe and America, everywhere meeting 
 with the commiseration and respect which are due to heroism and 
 misfortune. The constitution of 1815 was formally annulled, and 
 the government vested in a viceroy and a council named by the 
 emperor ; the universities of Vilna and Warsaw, and many Polish 
 seminaries, abolished ; Polish libraries and museums were carried 
 away to St Petersburg ; and everything else done that could extin- 
 guish a national spirit. All confiscated estates were conferred on 
 Russians, and thus could be inherited afterwards only by adherents 
 of the orthodox Russian faith. The coinage was assimilated to the 
 Russian, even to the names ; and no one could henceforth hold 
 office that had not learned the Russian language. 
 
 But Polish nationality, although outwardly abolished, has continued 
 to live in the hearts of the people, and has manifested its vitality by 
 repeated vigorous, though frantic and hopeless, outbursts. A simul- 
 taneous rising in Russian, Prussian, and Austrian Poland took 
 place in 1846, but resulted only in more banishments, executions, 
 and confiscations. In Galicia, the oppressed peasantry, instead of 
 joining with the nobles in the insurrection, turned against and 
 butchered them in hundreds. On this occasion, the small republic 
 of Cracow was suppressed, and the city and territory united with 
 Austria. 
 
 The European convulsions of 1848 opened up for a time a vista 
 of hope to the Poles. Prussia and Austria were fain to make many 
 concessions in the direction of self-government to their Polish 
 subjects ; but, in the reaction that speedily followed, these were 
 recalled, and things restored to their former footing. In the mean- 
 time Russia had been steadily pursuing her policy of ' stamping out,' 
 and had significantly abolished the line of custom-houses between 
 the kingdom of Poland and Russia proper. 
 
 With the accession of Alexander II. to the throne, a milder 
 regime was tried. During a visit to Warsaw in 1856, the emperor 
 proclaimed an amnesty, and promised various reforms in the admin- 
 istration ; but he announced at the same time that the connection 
 with Russia would be firmly upheld as it was, and gave pointed 
 warning against cherishing ' dreams ' of anything farther. But it 
 was just those dreams of a separate political life that the Poles had 
 set their hearts on, and without that, they cared little for any
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 administrative reforms. Accordingly, the ferment of discontent con- 
 tinued to work more actively than ever. In 1860 the people began 
 to assemble in the churches and sing patriotic hymns. In February 
 1 86 1, on the anniversary of one of the battles for freedom, a vast 
 procession, numbering, it is said, 60,000 persons, was made to the 
 scene in the vicinity of Warsaw ; the Russian troops interfered, and 
 numbers of people were killed. On the anniversary of Kosciuszko's 
 death the churches were surrounded with soldiers ; yet the people 
 went to them in crowds, sang the forbidden hymns, and refused to 
 disperse. > At last the military forcibly cleared the churches, and 
 made numerous arrests. This was declared by the Catholic arch- 
 bishop to be desecration, and he ordered all the Catholic churches 
 of the city to be closed ; an example which was followed by the 
 Protestants and Jews. For this the archbishop was arrested, tried 
 by a court-martial, and condemned to death ; a sentence which was 
 commuted for incarceration in a Russian fortress. The chapter of 
 Warsaw refused for a time to name a successor ; and it was not till 
 after a lapse of four months (in February 1862) that the new arch- 
 bishop allowed the churches to be again opened. In the meantime, 
 the people continued to manifest their discontent in every possible 
 way, ceasing to frequent the theatres and other places of public 
 amusement, and breaking out on all occasions in demonstrations, 
 which were followed, of course, by fresh arrests and banishments. 
 
 Nevertheless, the emperor resolved to make another attempt at 
 conciliation. His brother, Constantine Nicolajewitch, was sent as 
 viceroy (July 1862), with a Polish prime-minister; native Poles were 
 appointed governors of the provinces ; and several decided ameliora- 
 tions were initiated. But all these friendly overtures were received 
 as mockery ; and the national feeling, which had risen to a frenzy, 
 responded to them in attempts to assassinate the Grand-duke 
 Constantine, the prime-minister, and the commander -in -chief, 
 General Liiders. It now became apparent that what Russia had to 
 contend with was a vast national conspiracy, banded together in the 
 resolution not to rest contented with anything short of an inde- 
 pendent national and constitutional government. The conspiracy 
 embraced Posen, Galicia, and other parts of ancient Poland beyond 
 the boundaries of the ' kingdom.' It was, however, a combination 
 of the nobility or land-owners ; the so long neglected and degraded 
 peasantry took little interest, or, at all events, active part in it. 
 Acting on this circumstance, the Russian government now com- 
 menced the policy of .ruining and rooting out the nobility or land- 
 owners, and of seeking to win the adherence of the peasantry by 
 concessions made at their expense. 
 
 The crisis was precipitated by an iniquitous and cruel measure. 
 
 There had been no recruiting of the army since the end of the 
 
 Crimean War in 1856 ; and on occasion of the first new conscription 
 
 for the army, secret instructions were given to the authorities in 
 
 30
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 Warsaw to endeavour to make it fall exclusively on that part of the 
 population that had contributed chiefly to the political disturbances ; 
 those especially were to be chosen who had received 'bad marks,' 
 as disaffected. Students were no longer to be exempt, as hereto- 
 fore ; and more recruits, in proportion, were to be drawn from the 
 towns than from the rural districts. In short, the cultivated part 
 of the population was to be struck atj for it was among them that 
 the national feeling was chiefly fostered. Accordingly, throughout 
 Poland, on the I5th of January 1863, in the early morning, while it 
 was yet dark, soldiers burst into the houses of the individuals thus 
 arbitrarily fixed upon, and dragged them off to serve in the army. 
 But great numbers of young men, knowing what was coming, had 
 previously left their homes, and taken refuge in the forests. These 
 now gathered in armed bands ; the secret committee of Warsaw 
 came forward as a provisional national government, and issued a 
 proclamation calling the Polish people to arms ; numbers of expa- 
 triated Poles and volunteers hastened to the conflict from all the 
 countries of Europe, and the whole kingdom was soon overspread 
 with insurrectionary corps. They never succeeded, however, in 
 forming anything like a powerful well-organised army, and notwith- 
 standing prodigies of valour, no decided impression was made on 
 the Russian forces. A kind of dictatorship had at first been con- 
 ferred on Mieroslawski ; but he was soon obliged to take refuge 
 beyond the frontier, and Langiewicz, who succeeded him, fared no 
 better. 
 
 The secret committee again (May) took the direction of affairs, and 
 declared against any more dictators. The sway which this secret 
 National Government, as it styled itself, was able to exercise for a 
 time, was something wonderful. All efforts of the Russian authorities 
 to discover where it was located were fruitless ; and yet its action 
 was everywhere seen. Its orders were publicly announced, and a 
 formal government gazette expounded its views. Its commands 
 were everywhere implicitly obeyed. When the emperor, in April, 
 announced an amnesty to all who, within a month, should lay down 
 their arms, the secret government declared that Poland rejected all 
 favours ; and at the expiry of the term not one Pole had taken 
 advantage of the amnesty. The secret government now forbade the 
 paying of any more taxes to the Russian authorities, and collected a 
 revenue for its own purposes ; it even took the making and adminis- 
 tration of criminal laws into its hands, and sent secret emissaries to 
 execute the sentences of its tribunals. It was a real reign of terror ; 
 and although Poland was bristling with Russian bayonets, the 
 Russian government was far less powerful to secure obedience. On 
 the other hand, no progress was made in the field against the Russian 
 troops, who were constantly receiving accessions to their numbers ; 
 so that the suppression of the rebellion was only a question of time. 
 
 In the meantime, the Russian government, despairing of concilia-
 
 HISTORY OF POLAND. 
 
 tion, had resolved on the sternest repression. Constantine gave up 
 his mission, August 1863, and returned to St Petersburg, and General 
 Berg proceeded to carry out the new policy with unrelenting vigour. 
 In this, however, he was far exceeded by General Muravief, military 
 governor of Lithuania, who, by the ruthless measures by which he 
 ruined and crushed the Polish nobility of that province, raised a cry 
 of execration throughout Europe. All over the Polish area there 
 was nothing but arrests, banishments, executions, confiscations, and 
 enforced contributions ; and severe punishments were inflicted for 
 wearing mourning. But the most effective step towards the extinc- 
 tion of the rebellion was when, by an imperial ukase, the peasants 
 were made absolute proprietors of the lands which they had hith- 
 erto occupied as tenants. The government undertook to indemnify 
 the land-owners for the loss of their revenues, and thus made them 
 dependent upon its good-will for their very subsistence ; while the 
 peasantry now willingly assisted the troops in hunting down the insur- 
 rectionary corps. In February 1864, the secret government began 
 to cease its activity, and the insurrection might be said to be extinct. 
 Still prosecutions and punishments went on, and multitudes of 
 unhappy Poles fled to join the already numerous ranks of their expa- 
 triated countrymen. The remnants of the nobility and the clergy 
 made proffers of submission ; but the government had resolved on 
 the complete extirpation of the element of disaffection. The land- 
 owners had already been rendered powerless in the way already 
 described ; and now came the turn of the clergy. A ukase issued in 
 the end of 1864 suppressed one hundred and twenty monasteries, 
 either for having openly favoured the rebellion, or because their 
 inmates were below a certain number. A more fatal blow to the 
 power of the church followed in 1865, when the whole of the church 
 lands were taken possession of, and the clergy put on fixed state-pay. 
 Along with this the process of Russianising was set about with 
 unrelenting rigour. In those parts of Russia proper where the 
 Polish language had been current, its official use was forbidden ; 
 and the direction of education, even for Catholic children, was given 
 to the orthodox Greek Church. In 1865, it was made unlawful for 
 a refugee whose property had not been confiscated, to sell it to 
 any but a member of the Russian Church ; and a Pole can no longer 
 acquire property unless it come to him by inheritance. The last 
 external mark of the separate existence of the kingdom of Poland 
 was obliterated in 1867 ; the administrative machinery in Warsaw 
 was abolished, and the ten governments into which the country is 
 now divided are put on the same footing as the other governments 
 of the empire. 
 
 The Poles as a people were calculated in 1864 at nine and a half 
 millions ; of whom rather more than one-half were under Russia, 
 the remainder being about equally divided between Austria and 
 Prussia.
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AMONG THE ICE.
 
 Erebus and Terror in the ice. 
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 HE Arctic regions are understood to be only those seas 
 and lands that lie within the Arctic circle, that is, within 
 that parallel of latitude (66 30') at which the pheno- 
 menon begins of the sun at one time of the year not 
 setting for more or fewer days together, and at another 
 time not rising for as many. There are, however, many tracts with- 
 out this circle as frigid as those within it. The south of Green- 
 land and Davis' Strait are always included in the designation, 
 although they lie south of the circle, Cape Farewell being in the 
 latitude of the north of Scotland. Iceland, again, notwithstanding 
 30 '
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 its name, and although it impinges on the Arctic circle, is not a 
 frozen country ; the only ice to be seen in the seas around it is 
 drifted from Greenland by the winds and currents. In common 
 parlance, then, the term Arctic regions designates those countries 
 within or near the Arctic circle which are subject to such degrees 
 of cold that the seas are frozen in winter, and comprehends all 
 the extreme north of Europe, Asia, and America. Beginning to 
 the north of Europe, the chief lands and seas to be noted are 
 the following : 
 
 1. Spitzbergen, lying between 77 and 80 of N. lat., is a group of 
 islands, separated by narrow ice-encumbered channels. There are 
 no permanent inhabitants ; but it is frequented for the purpose of 
 hunting the reindeer and for killing the walrus, which is found on 
 the shores in great abundance. The island of Jan Mayen, to the 
 south-west of Spitzbergen, in lat. 71, is also a dreary, uninhabited 
 waste in the midst of a frozen ocean. From the top of the highest 
 mountain, called Beerenberg, flames and smoke have been seen to 
 issue ; and the sides exhibit immense glaciers and frozen waterfalls. 
 The Dutch attempted to form a settlement here, as they did in 
 Spitzbergen, for the convenience of whaling ; but several seamen 
 left to winter were found dead in spring, and the attempt was 
 abandoned. The story of the sufferings of those men forms a painful 
 chapter in the annals of Arctic adventure. 
 
 2. Greenland is an extensive tract of land, the known part of 
 which is of a triangular shape, with the apex pointing southward, 
 and terminating in Cape Farewell, in 60 N. lat. The west coast 
 has been traced as far north as the parallel of 80; the east coast is 
 almost unapproachable, owing to the ice which besets it, so that the 
 land has not been traced farther than the 76th degree. Although 
 the land evidently extends far beyond the explored limits, it is 
 believed to be an island, or rather perhaps a group of islands over- 
 laid and bound together by an immense central mass of glacier ice. 
 The interior has never been explored, nor the country crossed from 
 side to side ; but wherever it has been entered, the same appearance 
 was presented. After crossing the partially clear border strip, which 
 the Danes call the Fastland, a huge glacier is seen overlying the 
 whole country, and squeezing itself out towards the sea through the 
 valleys and inlets ; the view is bounded towards the east by a dim 
 horizon, and as the adventurer advances, the strip of land behind him 
 fades from the sight as the shore fades from those sailing out to sea. 
 There may be mountains in the interior, but none have been seen. 
 In 1867 a party of English and Danes attempted to explore this icy 
 desert, starting from the coast in 69 N. lat. ; but after proceeding 
 some distance they were forced to return, the sledges, drawn by Esqui- 
 maux dogs, having been broken to pieces by the rough character 
 of the surface, cracked with deep crevasses, and deluged by streams 
 of water from the melting snow. One of the party thus describes the
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 scene : 'The whole interior of the country appears to be merely a frozen 
 waste, overlain to the depth of many feet by a huge mer de glace, 
 extending, so far as yet known, over its entire extent from north to 
 south a sea of fresh-water ice whereon no creature lives ; a death- 
 like desert, with nought to relieve the eye, its silence enlivened by 
 the sound or sight of no breathing thing. This is the Inlands Us of 
 the Danish colonists ; the outer strip, with its mossy valleys and 
 ice-planed hills, is the well-remembered Fastland. Dreary, doubtless, 
 is it to eyes only schooled in the scenery of more southern lands ; 
 but with its covies of ptarmigans flying up at your feet with their 
 whir ! ; the Arctic fox barking its hue, hue on the rocks ; and the rein- 
 deer browsing in the glens covered with the creeping birch, the 
 Arctic willows, the crow-berry, the vacciniums, and the yellow 
 poppies, it is a place of life, compared with the cheerless waste 
 lying beyond.' * 
 
 The western shores up to 73 N. lat. are claimed by the Danish 
 government, who have established a strict monopoly of the trade 
 of Greenland, managed by a Board in Copenhagen, called the Royal 
 Greenland Merchant Company, who have established trading-ports 
 along the coast, at convenient distances, for the purpose of pur- 
 chasing from the Esquimaux their oil, seal-skins, narwhal and 
 walrus ivory (the latter, however, being obtained in very small 
 quantities), eider-down, &c. Missionaries and physicians are also 
 provided by the government, and the whole conduct of the Danish 
 authorities is marked by enlightened philanthropy. The result 
 of this paternal government is manifested in the great honesty 
 and general morality of the natives. No spirits are allowed to be 
 sold to them, though they are exceedingly fond of intoxicants. They 
 are all Christians, nominally at least ; and churches and missions 
 subsidised by the government are scattered along the coast. The 
 native population of Greenland has greatly decreased since it was 
 settled by the Danes about 1720. It was then estimated at 20,000; 
 but small-pox and other epidemics had reduced it in 1820 to little 
 more than 6000. Since that date, the population has again increased, 
 until it is now (1869) about 9000. The greater part are of mixed 
 race, and there are about 250 Europeans, chiefly officials and their 
 families. 
 
 North of the Danish colonies, a few savages drag out an inde- 
 pendent existence, wandering as far north as 79. The last estimate 
 did not make them more than 100, so that, in all probability, they 
 will soon become extinct. The number of natives on the east coast 
 is not exactly known, nor how far they extend north. Traces of them 
 have, however, been found as far as man has gone. On this coast 
 chiefly were at one time supposed to be situated the early colonies of 
 Norsemen, afterwards spoken of. The trade of Greenland employs 
 
 * Proceedings oftJie Zoological Society of London, 1868, p. 337.
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 fifteen ships, and amounts to about 22,000. Nearly the whole of 
 the profits are returned to the natives, each district being credited 
 with its share, and the distribution among the individuals is made 
 by a kind of local parliament. In Greenland is found coal, which 
 -is wrought in the vicinity of Disco ; cryolite (a double fluoride of 
 aluminium and sodium), which is mined and exported by a Danish 
 company ; and there are immense quantities of graphite in the 
 northern portion of the country, which have not, however, been 
 considered sufficiently profitable to be wrought. 
 
 3. Between Greenland and the opposite coast of America lies 
 Davis' Strait, the upper part of which is called Baffin's Bay. This 
 
 Circumpolar Map. 
 
 is further prolonged towards the north-east into a channel called in 
 its southern part Smith's Sound, and to the north, Kennedy Channel. 
 The land on the west shores of this channel Ellesmere Land, Grinnell
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 Land is believed to be unconnected with Greenland, and the 
 channel itself is supposed to open into the Polar Sea. 
 
 4. From the west side of Davis' Strait and Baffin's Bay there 
 branch off a number of inlets, communicating in all directions with 
 one another, and with Hudson's Strait and Hudson's Bay on the 
 south, and forming an intricate maze of peninsulas, islands, and 
 tortuous channels, the relative position of which can be understood 
 only by studying a map on a large scale. On such a map there will 
 be seen a rather wide and nearly straight channel, running through 
 this archipelago from east to west, about the parallel of 74, and 
 called in its several parts Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Melville 
 Sound, and Banks' Strait. This may be considered as the North- 
 west Passage so long sought for. The group of islands to the north 
 of it are called by the collective name of the Parry Islands. The 
 archipelago we have been describing extends to about the meridian of 
 125 W. long. Westward from this, the continental coast runs nearly 
 on the parallel of 70 N. lat, the most northern point, Point Barrow, 
 being in lat. 71 23'. The chief rivers that have their mouths in 
 this bare monotonous coast are the Coppermine and the Mackenzie. 
 
 5. To the west of B eh ring's Strait the north coast of Asia follows 
 almost the same parallel, until, about the meridian of 1 10 E., it turns 
 abruptly north, and in Cape Severe reaches the lat. of 78 25'. This 
 coast is indented by the estuaries of numerous rivers, some of them 
 among the largest on the globe the Kolima, the Alaseia, the Indi- 
 girka, the Lena, the Olenek, the Anabara, the Kalanga, the Yenissei, 
 the Obi, &c. An extensive tract bordering the ocean is composed 
 of swamps and mossy flats, covered with ice and snow for one half 
 of the year, and even during the greatest heats of summer thawed 
 only to the depth of two or three inches below the surface of the soil. 
 The ocean is frozen for miles seaward for more than half the year ; 
 and during the remaining months the numberless icebergs and floes 
 that beset the sea render the navigation so dangerous, that no 
 complete hydrographic survey of the coast has ever been made. 
 North-west from the mouth of the Obi lies the island chain of Nova 
 Zembla, which may be considered as an insular continuation of the 
 Ural Mountains. The mean temperature of the southern extremity 
 is only 35'5 for the summer half-year, and as low as 3'2 F. for 
 the winter. Nothing grows on its sterile soil except moss and 
 lichens. It has no permanent inhabitants, but is frequented by 
 hunters and fishermen in pursuit of bears, reindeer, and foxes, and 
 of the walruses that abound on the coasts. 
 
 Another insular group, of considerable extent, called the Liakov 
 Islands, or New Siberia, lies north-east from the mouth of the Lena, 
 in lat. 73 76. They are utterly barren and uninhabited ; but 
 there are traces of former inhabitants, and in the soil are found 
 great numbers of bones and teeth of the mammoth and rhino- 
 ceros. North-by-west from Behring's Strait, Herald Shoal and 
 
 s
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 Herald Island may be seen laid down on most maps ; but still 
 farther north and west, about the meridian of 180, and in lat. 71 30', 
 a coast of considerable extent has been descried with high cliffs 
 and peaks. The existence of this land had been reported for more 
 than two hundred years ; and it was indicated on maps as Wran- 
 gell Land. In 1849 Captain Kellet of the British navy discovered 
 Herald Island, and sighted the unknown land, and it is now called 
 Kellet Land. It has since been more nearly inspected by American 
 whaling-ships, but no landing was effected. 
 
 Climate, The climate of the Arctic regions is, as a whole, cold. 
 In summer, however, the sun beats down with considerable power, 
 and the weather is warm and even sultry. During several months 
 of winter, varying according to the latitude, the sun entirely dis- 
 appears below the horizon, and darkness reigns. Snow covers the 
 ground to the depth of several feet ; the soil, when such exists, 
 freezes to a considerable depth, and all nature slumbers. However, 
 the moon and the stars shine with enhanced brilliancy, and the 
 coruscations of the aurora borealis relieve the darkness of that long 
 winter night. The cold is intense, but the air is free of moisture, 
 and the climate accordingly perfectly healthy. In spring, the sun 
 appears again, and it is at that season that the cold is most acutely 
 felt. The air is raw, and the moisture in it is condensed on very 
 cold days into vapour, composed of sharp spiculae of ice, which cut 
 like lancets, so that the whalers call such a fog ' the barber.' Now 
 through the fog appear mock-suns and mock-moons, and all the 
 
 ghenomena arising from refraction are exhibited on a gigantic scale, 
 hips may be seen as if upturned in the air, sailing past inverted ice- 
 bergs. Then succeeds the long summer day, during which the sun 
 never sinks beneath the horizon for months at a time. Continuous 
 daylight reigns. This is the season when ships sail into these ice- 
 bound regions. The snow clears off the ground, and where there is 
 any soil, vegetation appears. It is a short but a merry summer. 
 The cliffs are noisy with birds, and the sea is dotted with seals, 
 whales, and walrus. Little snow falls, though rain is not uncommon. 
 The morning may be pleasant, and in the evening, cold blasts sweep 
 along. Autumn is the most disagreeable season of the whole year 
 in polar lands. The days are short and foggy. Snow, sleet, and 
 rain begin to fall, and the nights are cold, dark, and dreary. It is 
 then that every one leaves these northern lands that can, and those 
 whose lot it is to reside there prepare to pass the winter as agreeably 
 as possible. The Esquimaux builds his snow-hut or repairs his earthen 
 one, and stores up supplies against the winter which is coming on. 
 By October, the country is usually covered with snow, and winter 
 again holds everything in his iron grasp. During the winter, the 
 rocks often burst with loud explosions, and hoar-frost lies on the 
 pillow of a morning. The most extreme cold recorded in the Arctic 
 regions was by Belcher ; namely, 62^, or 94^ below the freezing-
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 point. Kane experienced such severe cold in Smith's Sound that 
 whisky froze under his head. It is, however, erroneous to suppose 
 that the cold increases as we proceed northward, the temperature of 
 the Arctic regions depending in a great measure on the currents 
 and drift-ice. 
 
 Icebergs. The best known and most prominent characteristic of 
 the Arctic regions is that of the sea being encumbered with ice. 
 This ice is of two kinds, fresh-water and marine. The fresh-water 
 ice is derived from the glaciers which flow out from almost every 
 valley in the Arctic regions. These glaciers are exactly the same 
 as those of the Swiss Alps or other mountain ranges, only that in 
 these inland mountains, the glacier, as it descends into the warm 
 valleys, melts away at its lower end. In the Arctic regions, on the 
 other hand, they descend to the sea, and, entering it, plough their 
 way for a short distance along the bottom, until the buoyant action 
 of the water tilts up the end, and breaks off a piece, which floats 
 away in the shape of an iceberg. This floating mountain of ice 
 tosses about in the Arctic sea, every now and then capsizing as the 
 bottom portion melts away and the upper gets top-heavy, until, 
 drifting off into warmer latitudes, it breaks up or gets melted. 
 It has been calculated that for every one hundred feet of the 
 iceberg above water, there must be one thousand feet under the 
 surface; and as some of these ice-mountains are higher than the 
 topmast, the danger of a ship among hundreds of them may be 
 imagined. Yet it is not often that ships are destroyed by them in 
 the Arctic seas, the continual daylight of the summer months acting 
 as a means of safety. It is in a great measure by means of this 
 discharge of icebergs that Greenland gets clear of the ' treasured 
 winters of a thousand years.' Part of the accumulation is also 
 carried off by water-courses under the ice of the interior. 
 
 The marine ice is the result of the freezing of the sea in winter, 
 and is of the thickness of several feet. When this ice is of great 
 extent the whalers call it a field; a smaller extent is a floe, or if 
 attached to the shore, a land-floe. When the ice is broken up by 
 the action of the sea and currents in large pieces, these are called 
 collectively a pack. The pack, again, when of smaller extent, is 
 called a patch, and when elongated, a stream. Small pieces are 
 called pancake ice ; and when broken down into smaller pieces, the 
 word brash-ice is applied, &c. Raised places on these ice-fields, 
 by the pressure of two portions together, are called hummocks. It 
 is these floes or fields of ice which are most dangerous to the 
 northern navigator. During the spring and summer, they are broken 
 up and moved about by the currents in large pieces several miles in 
 extent. The navigator pushing north comes to a place where the 
 passage is blocked up by such an extent of ice. He anchors on with 
 the ice-anchor to the edge until he sees two fields separate, and form 
 a lead or lane of water, into which he pushes. Gradually he 
 
 7
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 perceives, when about half-way through, that the fields are closing 
 again : he redoubles his exertions by tracking the ship along the 
 edge of the ice, or pulling it ahead by boats, if in a calm ; but finding 
 that he cannot get through in time, he immediately sets all hands to 
 cut a 'dock' in the ice. This dock consists of a place in the edge 
 of one of the floes, out of which a piece of ice about the area of the 
 ship is cut by means of ice-saws. Into this the ship is worked; and 
 when the floes come together, she escapes the shock. If he is too 
 late, nothing can save the vessel from being smashed. If the floes 
 do not go through the vessel, they will go over it. Ever watchful 
 of such a contingency, Arctic navigators, when going through a 
 dangerous place, have casks of provisions and bags of clothing on 
 deck, and go in twos and threes, so that they may render each other 
 assistance. When the vessel is smashed, the men throw these 
 provisions, &c. on the floes, and themselves escape on to the ice, so 
 that the means of the destruction of the ship is their salvation. The 
 ice opens again, and the vessel sinks. So rapid, indeed, is this some- 
 times, that only a few minutes elapse between the time the ship was 
 safe and when she disappears beneath the waters. At other times 
 she will remain buoyed up for several days, and even escape total 
 wreck if the floe has not come with great force. In this case it is 
 only 'nipped;' and few have sailed the Arctic seas without having 
 at one time or another experienced the disagreeable situation of 
 the cabin doors being unable to be opened or closed when the vessel 
 was gently pressed by ice. Of late years, the introduction of steam- 
 vessels has robbed the Arctic navigation of half its terrors, and 
 rendered navigation there more certain and safe. 
 
 The Fauna. The larger animals peculiar to the Arctic regions 
 are the polar bear, the white and blue foxes, the Arctic dog, white 
 hare, the musk ox, the reindeer, &c., on the land ; and various 
 species of whales and seals in the sea. Few birds are peculiar to 
 the Arctic regions, most of them being also known either as 
 common or rarer visitants to more southern shores. The seas 
 swarm with fishes, notwithstanding the dictum of Edward Pelham. 
 A few insects are found on the land (the worst of which are swarms 
 of mosquitoes) ; and in the sea the lower forms of life are abundant. 
 Nearly all the birds leave the Arctic regions in the winter, to seek 
 a milder climate, returning again in the summer, the only exceptions 
 being the ptarmigan and a few birds of prey. Even several of the 
 larger mammalia leave the country at the approach of winter. For 
 instance, in Greenland, the only species indigenous all the year 
 round are the white bear, the dog, the fox (possibly the lemming of 
 the east coast), the hare, the musk ox (of the far north for it does 
 not come south of Wolstenholme Sound), the reindeer, the walrus, 
 the common seal (Callocephalus vitulinus), the foetid seal (Pagomys 
 fcetidus), the narwhal or sea-unicorn, and the white whale the other 
 species of seals and whales migrating for longer or shorter periods. 
 
 8
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 The Flora. The species of plants that grow in the polar regions 
 are few ; but in the short summer a wonderful profusion of flowers 
 spring up in the chinks of the rocks these Arctic plants generally 
 having their flowers larger in proportion to the leaves and other 
 portions of the plant. There are, again, very few plants peculiar to 
 the Arctic regions, most of them being found in Scandinavia also, 
 or on the summits of our Scottish hills. There are no trees over 
 the greatest extent of the Arctic regions; the dwarf birch, juniper, 
 and willow, creeping along the ground, being the largest species found 
 in Greenland. However, in Siberia, the tree limit extends much 
 farther north than in America, trees being found even in 70 N. lat., 
 though in the same parallel the shores of Davis' Strait the whole 
 country is bare of anything approaching to a tree, the largest plant of 
 the kind, the dwarf birch (Setula nana), not exceeding the size of a 
 soup-plate. There have been found more than 800 different species of 
 flowering-plants and ferns within the Arctic 
 circle ; and in Greenland, a botanist who 
 recently visited that country collected in 
 two months, not altogether devoted to this 
 object, within the circuit of Disco Bay alone, 
 no less than 129 species of flowering- plants 
 and ferns, and more than 200 species of the 
 lower orders (sea-weeds, lichens, mosses, 
 &c.).* In some places the snow is stained 
 a brownish red, and this phenomenon of the 
 'red snow' is due to a minute species of 
 plant allied to the lowest tribes of sea- 
 weeds, and called Protococcus nivalis. 
 
 Inhabitants. Inhospitable as the Arctic 
 regions are, there is a peculiar branch of 
 the human family, the Esquimaux or 
 Eskimo, that have chosen them as their 
 home. The Esquimaux, though few in 
 number, are the most widely spread nation 
 in the world. They inhabit the coasts of 
 all the seas, bays, and islands of America 
 north of the sixtieth degree of N. lat. from 
 the east coast of Greenland, in E. long. 20, 
 to Behring's Strait, in W. long. 167. They 
 
 are also met with On the Asiatic side of A Greenland Esquimaux Girt 
 
 Behring's Strait, and are thought by many 
 
 ethnologists to have more affinity with the Mongolian races of Asia 
 than with the 'red-skins' of America. They are a squat people, not 
 much above five feet high, but broad-shouldered ; the complexion is 
 fairer than that of either the Mongolian or the Indian. Their habits 
 
 * Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, vol. lx., pp. 430 465. 
 30 9
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 are necessarily filthy ; their food, which is exclusively animal, is 
 most frequently eaten raw ; and the snow or earth huts in which 
 they burrow in winter have a stench that is insupportable to a 
 European. With their dog-sledges and skin canoes, or kayaks, they 
 are expert hunters and fishers. Their clothing is made of the skins 
 of reindeer, bears, seals, birds, &c. The blubber of the seal, walrus, 
 and other cetaceans is highly prized both as food and as furnishing 
 light for the long winter night. 
 
 VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 
 
 The knowledge of the Arctic regions, thus imperfectly sketched, 
 has not been acquired in a day. It has been the result of countless 
 voyages and expeditions, and been purchased at much cost of 
 treasure expended, danger encountered, and suffering endured. The 
 first who are positively known to have adventured into the frozen seas 
 were the daring Norsemen. In the end of the tenth century, about 
 a century after they had colonised Iceland, one of these sea-rovers, 
 Erik the Red, having made Iceland too hot for him, fitted out a 
 stout ship, and with a crew of his ' house-carles,' went in search of a 
 country for himself. Finding land to the north-west, he resolved to 
 form a colony ; and well aware, like other ' promoters ' of companies, 
 of the value of a name, he called the country Greenland, a name 
 which, now at least, it sadly belies. He succeeded in inducing 
 several ship-loads of emigrants to leave Iceland for the new country, 
 and for two or three centuries the colony continued to receive acces- 
 sions of Icelanders and other Scandinavians. It was a son of this 
 Red Erik that anticipated Columbus, and sailing southward along 
 the coast of America, attempted to form a colony at a place which he 
 called Vinland, and which antiquaries believe to have been near New 
 Bedford, on the coast of Massachusetts. The Greenland colonists 
 pursued their fishing as far north as Lancaster Sound and Barrow 
 Strait, six or seven centuries before the adventurous voyage of Parry. 
 Stones carved with runic inscriptions with the date 1135 were found 
 in 1824 on Women's Islands, Baffin's Bay, in lat. 72 55'. The 
 colony was divided into two districts, called East Bygd and West 
 Bygd. These names and other circumstances gave rise to the notion 
 that the chief Norse settlement was on the east coast of the island ; 
 but recent explorations have made it clear to most geographers that 
 both Bygds or settlements were on the west side. In the thirteenth 
 century, Greenland had become the see of a bishop, and was formally 
 united with Norway. About the middle of the fourteenth century, 
 the northern settlement of West Bygd had one hundred and ten 
 farms and four churches ; and East Bygd had two towns, a cathedral, 
 eleven other churches, four convents, and one hundred and ninety 
 farms. Although grain did not ripen, the inhabitants lived by 
 rearing cattle and sheep on the green pastures on the fiords, and by
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 hunting and fishing ; they also sent occasional trading vessels to 
 Iceland and Norway. Shortly after this the colony disappears from 
 history. In their rovings along the American coast, the Norsemen 
 had met with a strange diminutive race whom they contemptuously 
 call Skrcellings that is, chips or parings. No mention is made of 
 any native inhabitants of Greenland having been seen until, in 1349 
 or 1379, a horde of these Skrcellings made their appearance from the 
 north, and before their brethren of East Bygd could come to the 
 rescue, had exterminated the settlers of West Bygd. The narrative 
 here abruptly ceases, and we have only a vague account of East 
 Bygd having been ruined in 1418 by a hostile fleet; whence it came 
 is unknown. The troubles of the Reformation, and a change of 
 dynasty in the mother-country, now put the colony for a time out 
 of mind ; and when, about the close of the sixteenth century, the 
 kings of Denmark began to send in quest of it, it had disappeared : 
 expedition after expedition, from 1585 to 1680, searched in vain. It 
 was not till 1727, six years after the heroic Hans Egede had begun his 
 missionary work among the Esquimaux, that the Danes began their 
 modern settlement on Greenland. Since then, although no descend- 
 ants of the Norsemen have been seen, numerous traces have been 
 found of their settlements, in the shape of tombstones with runic and 
 Icelandic inscriptions, long rows of coffins containing skeletons, the 
 ruins of a church with the broken church bells, &c. 
 
 The discoveries of those early adventurers, embodied in Icelandic 
 narratives half historical half legendary, remained unknown to the 
 world at large, and the exploration of the north had to begin anew. 
 This time it was no longer the boisterous adventurousness of the 
 Northmen, but an earnest spirit of enterprise directed to a definite 
 end. That end was the discovery of a short way by sea to the rich 
 and gorgeous countries of India and Cathay (China), with pictures 
 of which all imaginations were in that age inflamed. It was this idea 
 that led Columbus, in 1492, across the Atlantic to the discovery of 
 America. Vasco da Gama actually reached India in 1497 by sailing 
 round the south of Africa ; but the Cape of Good Hope was reputed 
 so stormy as to terrify mariners, and the configuration of the 
 continents being unknown, it was thought that a much shorter route 
 must exist by the north. The voyages originating in this idea may 
 be grouped under four heads : I. Voyages for the discovery of a 
 North-east Passage ; 2. Voyages for the discovery of a North-west 
 Passage ; 3. Voyages in search of Sir John Franklin ; 4. North 
 Polar Voyages. It so happens that, in point of time, they occurred 
 pretty much in the order here given. 
 
 NORTH-EAST VOYAGES. 
 
 The first to project a northern route to the Indies seems to have 
 been Sebastian Cabot. This distinguished navigator had entered
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 the service of Henry VII. of England, and, along with his father, 
 landed on the coast of Labrador in 1497, eighteen months before 
 Columbus saw the mainland of tropical America. It was by the north 
 of the newly discovered continent that he first thought of making 
 his way; and in 1515 we find him in Spain planning an exploration 
 ^of a North-west Passage, which, however, was never carried out. 
 Returning to England, he was sent by Henry VIII. a second time to 
 Labrador, in 1517, when he reached lat. 67^, and entered Hudson's 
 Bay. After a second period of service in Spain, he returned once 
 more to England in 1548. Edward VI. gave him a pension, and 
 consulted him in all naval matters ; and now he resumed his old 
 idea, but this time it was towards the north-east that he turned his 
 attention. A company of merchant adventurers, called the Muscovy 
 Company, was formed to open up communication with the north of 
 Russia ; Cabot was made governor of the company, and under his 
 'direction a great expedition was fitted out, the like of which ' was 
 never in any realm seen, used, or known.' This great expedition 
 was placed under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby, to whom 
 the most minute and quaint instructions were delivered, to regulate 
 his conduct with the people of the country he came to (whom he 
 was instructed to get drunk, so that the secrets of their hearts might 
 ooze out), and all other subjects of the slightest importance. The fleet 
 consisted of three ships the Bona Esperanza, the flag-ship of the 
 admiral ; the Edward Bonadventure, under the command of Richard 
 Chancelor, Stephen Burough being master ; and the Bona Confi- 
 dentia, the captain of which was Master Cornelius Durfoorth. It is 
 with a feeling almost of sadness that we read of the joyousness with 
 which these early adventurers of England into the unknown regions 
 of the frozen north left the Thames ; how, on the day of sailing, 
 ' they saluted their acquaintance, one his wife, another his children, 
 and another his kinsfolkes, and another his friend dearer than his 
 kinsfolkes ;' and after this they dropped down to Greenwich, where 
 the court was. The ' great ships ' (they were only three, and none 
 of them was more than one hundred and sixty tons, the smallest 
 only ninety tons burden) were towed by the boats, ' the mariners 
 being all apparelled in watchet or skie coloured cloth. The courtiers 
 came running out, and the people flocked together, standing very 
 thicke upon the shoare ; the Privie Consel they looked out at the 
 windowes of the court, and the rest ran up to the toppes of the 
 towers ; the shippes hereupon discharged their ordinance, and shoot 
 off their pieces after the maner of warre and of the sea, insomuch 
 that the toppes of the hilles sounded therewith ; the valleys and the 
 waters gave an echo, and the mariners they shouted in such sort 
 that the skie rang again with the noise thereof.' All this, and much 
 more, we read in the pages of Hakluyt, who had it from Clement 
 Adams, ' schoolemaster to the queene's henshmen.' The results of 
 this voyage, hailed so joyously by Edward's court at Greenwich,
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 proved most disastrous, for Sir Hugh and all his associates, together 
 with the merchants, officers, and ship's company, as well as those 
 of the Bona Confidentia, to the number of seventy persons, perished 
 miserably, from the effects of cold or hunger, on a barren and unin- 
 habited part of the eastern coast of Lapland, where the dead bodies 
 of those who thus perished were discovered the following year by 
 some Russian fishermen. 
 
 Fairer fortune attended Chancelor, who succeeded in reaching 
 Wardhuys in Norway, where he waited anxiously for the rest of the 
 expedition ; and though dissuaded from his design by ' certaine 
 Scottishmen,' who had even at that early date wandered so far 
 afield, he pushed north, until he came to a land where there was 
 everlasting sunshine, shining with ' a continuall light and brightnesse 
 clearly upon the huge and mighty sea.' He now learned that he 
 was in the dominions of Ivan Vassilovich, Czar of Russia ; and Master 
 Chancelor, journeying fifteen hundred miles, came to his court at 
 Moscow, where he was well received ; and after laying the foun- 
 dations of the long peace and friendship we enjoyed with Russia 
 almost uninterruptedly, he reached England in safety the following 
 spring. 
 
 After one or two more fruitless attempts on the part of England 
 fruitless at least in as far as the discovery of the North-east Passage 
 was concerned the States-general of Holland, anxious to find 
 access to the trade of India, without encountering their determined 
 enemies the Spaniards, took up the pursuit, and, in 1594-6, sent out 
 three expeditions, which alike failed in the main object. The last 
 of the three affords striking examples of dangers encountered and 
 manful perseverance in -struggling against them. They first dis- 
 covered Spitzbergen, which, however, they supposed to be part of 
 Greenland. One of the ships, commanded by Willem Barentz, who 
 had been in the former two expeditions, then separated from the 
 others, and reached Nova Zembla, where the ice closed in upon 
 them, and made escape impossible. On the nth of September, 'we 
 saw,' to quote the narrative, ' that we could not get out of the ice, 
 but rather became faster, and could not loose our ship, as at other 
 times we had done, as also that it began to be winter, we tooke 
 counsell together what we were best to doe, according to the time, 
 that we might winter there, and attend such adventure as God 
 would send us ; and after we had debated upon the matter (to keepe 
 and defend ourselves both from the colde and wilde beastes), we 
 determined to build a house upon the land, to keepe us therein as 
 well as wee could, and so to commit ourselves unto the tuition of 
 God.' . While casting about for material for the edifice, to their great 
 joy they discovered a quantity of drift-timber, which they regarded 
 as a special interposition of .Providence in their behalf, and 'were 
 much comforted, being in good hope that God would shew us some 
 further favour ; for that wood served us not onely to build our house,
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 but also to burne, and serve us all the winter long ; otherwise, 
 without all doubt, we had died there miserably with extreme cold.' 
 
 Parties were thereupon set to work to build the house, and drag 
 their stores from the ship on hand-sleds, in which labours they were 
 grievously interrupted by bears and severity of the weather : if any 
 one held a nail between his lips, the skin came off with as much 
 pain on taking it out again as though the iron had been red hot ; 
 yet notwithstanding the cold, there was open sea for many weeks an 
 ' arrow-shot ' beyond their ship. The dwelling, slow in progress, 
 was finished by the end of October, and thatched with sea-wrack, 
 the more effectually to close the chinks in the roof and walls, and 
 '* we set up our dyall, and made the clocke strike.' On the 4th 
 November ' wee saw the sunne no more, for it was no longer above 
 the horizon ; then our chirurgion made a bath (to bathe us in) of a 
 wine-pipe, wherein wee entred one after the other, and it did us 
 much good, and was a great meanes of our health.' All the spare 
 clothing was distributed, regulations established with regard to diet, 
 and duties apportioned ; the master and pilot being exempted from 
 cleaving wood and other rude labours. Traps were set to catch 
 foxes for food, and cheerfulness was as much as possible promoted ; 
 but at times they were snowed up, and could not open their door 
 for many days, and had no light but that of their fire : they were 
 tormented with smoke, while ice two inches thick formed in their 
 sleeping-berths. The clock stopped with the cold, after which they 
 could only reckon time by ' the twelve-hour glass.' 
 
 The misery they endured may be judged of by the tone of some of 
 the entries in their journal ; such suffering was but too frequent : ' It 
 was foule weather againe, with an easterly wind and extreame cold, 
 almost not to bee indured ; whereupon wee lookt pittifully one upon 
 the other, being in great feare that if the extreamitie of the cold grew 
 to bee more and more, wee should all dye there with cold ; for that 
 what fire soever wee made it would not warme us ; yea, and our 
 sacke, which is so hot, was frozen very hard, so that when we were 
 every man to have his part, we were forced to melt it in the fire, 
 -which we shared every second day about halfe a pint for a man, 
 wherewith we were forced to sustayne ourselves ; and at other times 
 wee dranke water, which agreed not well with the cold, and we 
 needed not to coole it with snow or ice ; but we were forced to melt 
 it out of the snow.' Sometimes, while they sat at the fire, ' and 
 seemed to burne on the fore-side, we froze behind at our backes, 
 and were all white as the countreymen use to bee when they come 
 in at the gates of the toune in Holland with their sleds, and have 
 gone all night.' It might indeed seem that no room remained for 
 hope ; yet under date December 19 we read : 'Wee put each other in 
 good comfort that the sunne was then almost halfe over, and ready 
 to come to us againe, which wee sore longed for, it being a weary 
 time for us to bee without the sunne, and to want the greatest comfort
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 that God sendeth unto man here upon the earth, and that which 
 rejoyceth every living thing.' They kept Twelfth-night also, and 
 ' made pancakes with oyle, and every man a white bisket, which we 
 sopt in wine : and so, supposing that we were in our owne countrey, 
 and amongst our friends, it comforted us as well as if we had made 
 a great banquet in our owne house : and wee also made tickets, and 
 our gunner was king of Nova Zembla, which is at least two hundred 
 miles long, and lyeth between two seas.' 
 
 On the 24th January they saw the sun again, a sight that reani- 
 mated their sinking spirits, confined as they had been with no light 
 but that of the fire, and often prevented by heavy snow from going 
 out of their dwelling for many days in succession. Several of the 
 party were sick one died : a grave seven feet deep was dug in the 
 snow ; and then, as is mournfully recorded, ' after that we had read 
 certaine chapters and sung some psalmes, we all went out and 
 buried the man.' As the days lengthened, they set about prepara- 
 tions for departure, and repaired their two boats, and had good hope 
 * to get out of that wilde, desart, irkesome, fearfull, and cold 
 countrey.' On the I3th of June, the survivors, twelve in number, 
 left the desolate shore after a stay of ten months. Barentz and two 
 others were so worn out with disease, that they died soon after, 
 amid all the privations of exposure in small boats in an ice-encum- 
 bered sea. The remainder struggled onwards, manfully overcoming 
 the perils that beset them ;' and in September reached the coast of 
 Lapland, where ' wee saw some trees on the river side, which com- 
 forted us, and made us glad, as if wee had then come into a new world; 
 for in all the time that wee had been out, we had not scene any 
 trees.' On the i ith of the same month, after a voyage of 1 143 miles, 
 these brave-hearted men set up their boats in the ' merchants' house 
 at Coola, as a sign and token of their deliverance ;' and embarking 
 on board a Dutch ship, in the course of a few weeks once more set 
 foot in their native country. 
 
 The search for a North-east Passage was again taken up on the 
 part of England; and Henry Hudson, better known in connection 
 with the western continent, attempted, first in 1608, and again in 
 1609, to pass between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, but without 
 success. The last attempt in this direction was in 1676, when the 
 English Admiralty sent out two ships under Captain John Wood; 
 one of them was wrecked on the coast of Nova Zembla, and the 
 other returned with the rescued crew. Though unsuccessful in their 
 main object, these expeditions made the north coasts of Europe 
 well known, and revealed the riches of those seas in oil and fur 
 animals. 
 
 NORTH-WEST YOYAGES. 
 
 The early voyages of Cabot to the north-west have already been 
 noticed. The next of importance are the three voyages by Martin
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 Frobisher. He discovered the entrance to Hudson's Strait, and 
 explored that still known as Frobisher's ; but failed in penetrating 
 to the westward. Great hopes were excited by some lumps of yellow 
 glistening ore which he brought home, and in his later voyages 
 gold mines were not less to be searched for than the North-west 
 Passage. The three voyages by Davis in 1585-8 enlarged the 
 . limits of research ; by the discovery of the strait which still bears 
 his name, he opened the way to Baffin's Bay and the Polar Sea ; he 
 also surveyed a considerable extent of the Greenland coast. 
 
 Henry Hudson, ' the North Seas' great Columbus,' comes next in 
 the list of explorers. In his first voyage, with a crew of only ten 
 men and a boy (1607), he penetrated as far as 82 N. lat, and dis- 
 covered part of the eastern coast of Greenland. His second attempt 
 was made on the track of Barentz, but with no better success. In 
 his third and last voyage in 1610, he passed the strait which now 
 bears his name, and entered the great inland sea known as Hudson's 
 Bay. Concluding that this led to the North-west Passage, he passed 
 the winter there, with the intention of resuming operations early in 
 the following year ; but in the spring his crew, wearied with hard- 
 ship, mutinied, and Hudson, with his son and seven others, was 
 turned adrift in a small boat, and never afterwards heard of : 
 
 ' Of all the sea-shapes death has worn, may manners never know 
 Such fate as Hendrik Hudson found in the labyrinths of snow.' 
 
 We are told in the history of the voyage, that later in the same day 
 on which the fated few were abandoned, the conspirators saw the 
 boat again, when ' they let fall the main-sayle, and out with their 
 top-sayles, and flye as from an enemy.' Continuing thus that night 
 and the next day, ' they saw not the shallop, nor ever after.' But 
 punishment overtook the perpetrators of this foul crime : four were 
 killed in a skirmish with the Esquimaux near Cape Digges ; and 
 another died on the passage to Ireland, where the survivors arrived 
 in a famishing condition, having been reduced to such extremities 
 for want of food as to devour their candles. Strange to relate, no 
 attempt was made to bring the mutineers to trial ; some of them, 
 indeed, were afterwards employed in further explorations. 
 
 In 1616, Baffin sailed into and explored the vast bay, 800 miles 
 long and 300 wide, named after him. For a long time his report 
 of its great length was disbelieved, but later researches have confirmed 
 the accuracy of his statements ; even the latitudes laid down by him 
 are almost identical with those recently determined with all the 
 advantage of superior instruments. Among other openings, Baffin 
 saw Lancaster Sound ; and had he explored it, Parry's discoveries 
 would have been anticipated by two hundred years, as they had been 
 to some extent by the long-forgotten Northmen. 
 
 In 1743, parliament offered a reward of 20,000 to any one who 
 should sail to the north-west by way of Hudson's Strait, which 
 
 16
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 passage, it was declared, would be ' of great benefit and advantage 
 to the kingdom.' 
 
 In 1776, Cook sailed on the fatal expedition which cost England 
 her famous navigator, with instructions to attempt the passage of 
 the Icy Sea from Bern-ing's Strait to Baffin's Bay. The clause of 
 the act above referred to, wherein Hudson's Strait was exclusively 
 specified, was altered to include ' any northern passage ' for ships ; 
 and .5000 was further voted to any one who should get within one 
 degree of the pole. Cook, with all his perseverance, could not pene- 
 trate beyond Icy Cape, lat. 70 45', where he found the ice stretching 
 in a compact mass across to the opposite continent, which he also- 
 visited, sailing as far as Cape North on the coast of Asia. It would 
 appear that expectations prevailed of the enterprising mariner's 
 success, for a vessel was sent to Baffin's Bay to wait for him, in 1 777,. 
 in charge of Lieutenant Pickersgill. 
 
 These failures threw a damp for a time on exploring enter- 
 prise ; and besides, the attention of Europe was engrossed with 
 the struggles of the French Revolution. But in 1816-17, the Green- 
 land whalers reported the sea to be clearer of ice than at any former 
 time within their knowledge. This fact engaged the attention 
 of the Admiralty; and the Council of the Royal Society were 
 consulted as to the prospects of renewed operations in the Arctic 
 regions. Their reply was favourable; and in 1818, two expeditions 
 were fitted out the one to discover the North-west Passage, the 
 other to reach the pole. Captain (afterwards Sir John) Ross and 
 Lieutenant (afterwards Sir Edward) Parry, in the vessels Isabella 
 and Alexander, were intrusted with the former of these objects. 
 They were especially charged to examine the great openings described 
 by Baffin as existing at the head of the vast bay which he so 
 diligently explored ; and in carrying out these instructions, the com- 
 manders found full reason to applaud the care and perseverance of 
 the able navigator who had preceded them by two hundred years. 
 It must be remembered that we are now treating of a period when 
 science put forward its imperative claims, and when, as at present, 
 something more was required than a meagre chart of a previously 
 unexplored coast, and graphic accounts of new countries and their 
 inhabitants. Astronomy, geology, meteorology, magnetism, natural 
 history, were all clamorous for new facts, or for satisfactory tests 
 of those already known. For the same reason it is that of late years 
 exploring expeditions have been more interesting to the philosopher 
 than to the general public. Lord Anson returning from the southern 
 seas with wagon-loads of Spanish dollars and doubloons would be 
 hailed with popular acclaim; while Sir James Ross arriving from 
 the Antarctic Ocean with materials for accurate magnetic charts, 
 and records of soundings deep as Mont Blanc's altitude, is the 
 hero of the scientific world. 
 
 The open state of the sea greatly facilitated the purposes of the
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 expedition. In August the ships were sailing up Lancaster Sound, 
 with every prospect of an easy passage to the westward ; when the 
 commander, fancying that he saw a range of mountains barring 
 all further progress in the distance, hesitated to advance, and finally, 
 throwing away the favourable opportunity, returned with his consort 
 to England. 
 
 But some who took part in the voyage affirmed the mountains 
 seen by the commander were an ocular deception ; and further exer- 
 tions being resolved on, two ships, the Hecla and the Griper, com- 
 manded by Captain Parry, sailed in May 1819, to explore Lancaster 
 Sound anew. Using every exertion to be early on the scene of 
 operations, they were in the entrance of the Sound in the end of July, 
 waiting for an easterly breeze. It came at last ; both vessels crowded 
 sail ; and as Captain Parry relates : ' It is more easy to imagine than 
 to describe the almost breathless anxiety which was now visible in 
 every countenance while, as the breeze increased to a fresh gale, 
 we ran quickly up the Sound. The mast-heads were crowded by 
 the officers and men during the whole afternoon ; and an unconcerned 
 observer, if any could have been unconcerned on such an occasion, 
 would have been amused by the eagerness with which the various 
 reports from the crow's-nest were received all, however, hitherto, 
 favourable to our most sanguine hopes. 3 The question as to a pass- 
 age was soon settled. ' We were,' pursues the narrative, ' by mid- 
 night in a great measure relieved from our anxiety respecting the 
 supposed continuity of land at the bottom of this magnificent inlet, 
 having reached the longitude of 83 12', where the two shores are 
 still above thirteen leagues apart, without the slightest appearance of 
 any land to the westward of us for four or five points of the compass.' 
 
 An inlet ten leagues wide, on the southern shore, was next seen. 
 Thinking that this would lead to the American continent, Captain 
 Parry sailed into it for some distance until stopped by the ice. 
 While here, the singular phenomenon was observed, as it had been 
 by former voyagers, of the compasses becoming useless, the needles 
 losing all directive power, and pointing to any direction in which 
 they might be turned. This effect, which added materially to the 
 difficulty of navigating an unknown sea, was due chiefly to the 
 proximity of the magnetic pole. From this channel, to which 
 the name of Regent's Inlet was given, the ships returned to Barrow 
 Strait, where, on the 22d August, another wide opening of eight 
 leagues was discovered on the northern shore. Far as the eye 
 could reach it was clear of ice, but no attempt was made to 
 explore it, as all on board the vessels were desirous of getting to 
 the westward : it was called Wellington Channel. Beyond this, 
 several islands were passed, the whole group now known as the 
 Parry Islands; and during this part of the voyage a change was 
 noticed in the general direction of the compass needle from westerly 
 to easterly, shewing, as Captain Parry observes, that they had
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 ' crossed immediately to the northward of the magnetic pole, and had 
 undoubtedly passed over one of those spots on the globe where the 
 needle would have been found to vary 180, or, in other words, 
 where its north pole would have pointed due south.' 
 
 Sailing onwards, the passage narrowed ; Melville Island was dis- 
 covered and named ; and on the 4th September the party became 
 entitled to the parliamentary reward of .5000 offered for attaining 
 I io j of west longitude ; a gratifying fact duly commemorated in 
 the appellation of an adjacent headland Bounty Cape. The 
 narrowing of the channel disappointed the explorers in their hope 
 of making their way to Behring's Strait in one season. Ice was met 
 with ; on the I4th September a sudden fall of snow indicated the 
 close of the fine season ; the Griper was forced on shore ; and though 
 got off again, the obstructions were such as to make it evident that 
 no time was to be lost in looking for winter-quarters. With some 
 difficulty the course was retraced to a bay in Melville Island ; but 
 new ice seven inches in thickness formed so rapidly, that before 
 the vessels could be brought to their anchoring-ground, a channel 
 more than two miles long had to be cut to admit them. 
 
 All heavy materials and stores were immediately landed, the 
 decks cleared, and each vessel housed over with a thick tilt- cloth ; 
 and to insure as much snugness as possible under the circumstances, 
 the sides were banked up with snow. Notwithstanding the heating 
 apparatus distributed throughout each ship, the sleeping-berths were 
 nearly always damp, and coated with ice ; and whenever the external 
 air was admitted by the opening of a door, the sudden rush of cold 
 condensed the warm air of the apartment to a visible vapour, which 
 settled and froze on the bulk-heads and beams. Later in the season 
 the berths were taken down, and hammocks slung amidship sub- 
 stituted for them, very much to the comfort and health of the crews 
 an arrangement which has been followed in subsequent voyages 
 with equal benefit. During the winter all available means were 
 taken to promote health and cheerfulness : when the weather per- 
 mitted, the men took exercise on shore, and on other occasions were 
 made to run round the deck to the tunes of a hand-organ or to their 
 own songs. Dramatic entertainments were prepared : the first 
 representation took place on the day on which the ice-bound 
 adventurers lost sight of the sun, to see it no more for three dreary 
 months, and was repeated fortnightly afterwards. A school was 
 opened, and well attended by the crews, who found learning to read 
 a valuable relief from ennui and its concomitant evils ; and the 
 officers, among other modes of using the time, started a weekly 
 manuscript newspaper The North Georgia Gazette and Winter 
 Chronicle in which humour and philosophy were mingled, to the 
 amusement and edification of writers and readers. Those who 
 understand the intimate connection between mental and physical 
 health will best appreciate these attempts to provide occupation for 
 
 19
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 mind and body. But the scientific objects of the expedition were 
 not forgotten : in the observatory built on shore, astronomical, 
 magnetical, and meteorological observations were perseveringly 
 recorded, in spite of the rigorous climate ; and when the cold was 
 such that to touch the metal of the instruments raised a blister, or 
 took off the skin, just as in a case of burning, it was necessary to 
 hold the breath while observing, otherwise a thin film of ice formed 
 on the eye-glasses. Several phenomena peculiar to northern latitudes 
 were taken account of : curious effects of refraction, appearances of 
 the aurora, facility of hearing sounds at great distances in calm 
 weather conversation could be held between two individuals more 
 than a mile apart with but a slight elevation of the voice ; smoke 
 did not rise, but crept along for several miles in a horizontal 
 direction ; objects seen at a distance in the dreary waste of snow 
 deceived the eye, and appeared much larger than they were in 
 reality. February 1820 was the coldest part of the season ; the 
 temperature fell to 55 below zero, a degree of frigor which might 
 well be supposed to be unbearable ; yet, if there be no wind, it can 
 be borne without pain. Mercury froze so as to become malleable, 
 and could be beaten into a variety of forms. 
 
 In March, preparations were made to fit the ships again for 
 service ; the ice which had accumulated inside the Hecla from 
 breath and steam was scraped off, making a quantity of seventy-five 
 bushels. On the I2th and I3th May, the first ptarmigan, deer, and 
 musk ox were seen ; the animals pass every spring from the main- 
 land to the islands to graze and breed. On the 1st June, a party set 
 out to cross the island to its northern shore : the pools were full of 
 fowl, the rapid fervour of an Arctic summer had already converted 
 the snowy waste into ' luxuriant pasture-ground,' rich in flowers and 
 grass, with ' almost the same lively appearance as that of an English 
 meadow,' a fact which fully accounts for the periodical migration of 
 animals from the continent. 
 
 It was not until the ist August that the ships were once more 
 fairly afloat, and endeavours made to push to the westward ; but the 
 icy barrier which the party had seen on their first approach still 
 barred their progress. The Griper again took the ground during a 
 perilous interval, and all further progress in the much desired 
 direction became hopeless. The heads of the vessels were reluc- 
 tantly turned to the eastward ; they stood out of the Sound, surveyed 
 part of Baffin's Bay, and in November returned to England, with all 
 hands, comprising ninety-four individuals, in health, having lost but 
 one during their eighteen months' absence. 
 
 In September of the same year that Parry sailed, an overland 
 expedition started from York Factory, Hudson's Bay, under charge 
 of Sir John Franklin, accompanied by Dr (afterwards Sir John) 
 Richardson, two midshipmen (Messrs Back and Hood), and Hepburn 
 a seaman, with the object of exploring the north coast of America to
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 its eastern extremity from the mouth of the Coppermine. There was 
 a chance that Parry might make for the coast in his ships ; and if 
 so, the two parties would have co-operated with mutual advantage. 
 
 It may be well to notice here that more than one exploring 
 expedition had already been sent out by the Hudson's Bay Company. 
 Although bound by their charter to attempt the discovery of a North- 
 west Passage, they were very lukewarm in the matter until 1719. 
 when, under strong influence brought to bear on them, they fitted 
 out an expedition under Knight and Barlow. These officers never 
 returned, nor did the expedition (under Scroggs) sent in search of 
 them succeed in learning any trace of them. Fifty years afterwards, 
 the wrecks of their vessels were discovered on Marble Island, where 
 they apparently perished. The Esquimaux told a sad tale of the 
 sufferings of these poor castaways. It appears that in 1720 twenty 
 of them were living the rest having been destroyed by sickness 
 and famine. In the summer of 1721, only five of them were alive 
 and in such distress for provisions, that they eagerly ate the seal's 
 flesh and whale's blubber quite raw, as they purchased it from the 
 natives. This disordered them so much that three of them died in 
 a few days ; and the other two, though very weak, made a shift to 
 bury them. These two survived many days after the rest, and 
 frequently went to the top of an adjacent rock, and earnestly looked 
 to the south and east, as if in expectation of some vessels coming to 
 their relief. After continuing there a considerable time together, 
 and nothing appearing in sight, they sat down close together and 
 wept bitterly. At length one of them died, and the other's strength 
 was so far exhausted, that he fell down and died also in attempting 
 to dig a grave for his companion. The skulls and other large bones 
 of these two men were lying about the ground, close to the house 
 which they inhabited, as late as 1769. The longest liver, according 
 to the Esquimaux account, was always employed in working 
 iron into implements for them ; probably he was the armourer or 
 smith. It is said that in 1800, Mr Atkinson, an officer of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, found the following inscription written on 
 a piece of cedar-wood about a foot square, and five feet above the 
 ground, on Old Factory Island, in James Bay, about thirty miles to 
 the northward of East Main Factory. Though it is said that all the 
 letters were quite visible, yet doubtless this was only partially true, 
 because the date and number of ships are given incorrectly. ' In 
 the year 1692 [1719] wintered three [two] ships at this island, with 
 one hundred and twenty-seven men, under the government of 
 Captain James Knight. Then we erected this monument in remem- 
 brance of it.' 
 
 Between the years 1769 and 1772, Samuel Hearne made a remark- 
 able overland journey to the Polar Sea, near the mouth of the 
 Coppermine River; and in 1789, Mr (afterwards Sir Alexander) 
 Mackenzie, another officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, reached
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 the same ocean at the mouth of the Mackenzie River, which has 
 been named in his honour. Both their narratives are, however, very 
 unsatisfactory ; and these men seem to have been more intent on 
 serving the trading company by whom they were employed, than in 
 making geographical discoveries which might be supposed to act 
 prejudicially to the interests of the fur-trade, and the monopoly of the 
 incorporation under whose directions they acted. 
 
 Franklin and his party, increased by a number of Canadian 
 voyageurs, interpreters, &c., set out from Fort Chippewayan in July 
 1820 for Fort Enterprise, 500 miles to the north. Here they wintered ; 
 and in June next year sailed in canoes down the Coppermine River 
 to the sea. They then paddled eastward a distance, counting the 
 indentations of the coast, of 555 geographical miles, when, their 
 provisions beginning to fail, they were obliged to halt. The farthest 
 point reached, on what is now Coronation Gulf, they called Point 
 Turnagain. The fatigues and privations endured on the way back 
 to Fort Enterprise are scarcely to be paralleled. Their chief sub- 
 sistence was a species of lichen called rock-tripe, which had a most 
 nauseous taste, and caused cruel bowel-complaints. One day, 
 'previous to setting out, the whole party ate the remains of their 
 old shoes and whatever scraps of leather they had, to strengthen 
 their stomachs for the fatigue of the day's journey/ When the 
 survivors reached York Factory, they had travelled 5500 miles in the 
 course of three years. 
 
 In 1821, Parry and Lyon were again despatched in the Hecla and 
 Fury up Hudson's Strait and Foxe's Channel, where winter overtook 
 them. This dark season was again spent in the same cheerful and 
 beneficial manner as before. In July the vessels were released from 
 their icy dock, and the explorations were again resumed up Foxe's 
 Channel and Hecla and Fury Strait, a continuation of the former, 
 until they came to a place called by the Esquimaux Igloolik, 
 where they again wintered, but apparently with less jollity than 
 before the protracted residence in the frozen seas seeming to tell 
 on the spirits of the seamen. In the spring, they again attempted 
 to proceed, but finding their efforts fruitless, they bore up for 
 England, reaching the town of Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands, on 
 the loth of October 1823, after having been more than two years 
 absent, without a single word reaching the outer world regarding 
 their safety. The honest islanders looked upon them as people 
 risen from the dead, and testified their joy at their safety by ringing 
 the bells, and firing guns to their hearts' content. 
 
 In 1824, the Hecla and Fury, under Captains Parry and Hoppner, 
 were again despatched on northern discovery. This voyage proved 
 most unfortunate. They only succeeded in reaching Port Bowen in 
 Barrow Strait (a continuation of Lancaster Sound), when they were 
 frozen up for the winter. In the spring, they met many obstacles 
 and disasters, the final one of which was the Fury getting nipped
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 or crushed by the ice to such an extent as to render her unseaworthy. 
 This now frustrated the whole object of the expedition. The Fury 
 being abandoned, her crew was transferred to the Heda, and the 
 whole expedition returned to England. The government was so 
 discouraged at this finale to the long list of failures to effect the 
 main object of the expeditions, that, notwithstanding the brilliant 
 geographical discoveries they had made, and the great increase to 
 our knowledge of the Arctic regions effected by them, they resolved 
 to discontinue their efforts to seek for a North-west Passage. They 
 further withdrew the offer of ,20,000 as a reward to the vessel 
 which should accomplish this feat. Matters were in this condition 
 but a short time, for in 1829, a London distiller, Mr (afterwards Sir 
 Felix) Booth fitted out an expedition, consisting of a steamer, the 
 Victory, under the command of Captain John Ross. The steamer 
 proved almost worthless, the machinery continually breaking down r 
 and at its best rarely accomplishing more than one and a half miles 
 an hour. However, on the I2th of August, they reached the wreck 
 of the Fury, when, though the vessel was almost entirely gone, they 
 secured some useful stores. Pushing westward, they reached an 
 extensive land, which Ross named Boothia Felix, in honour of his 
 munificent patron. After exploring 300 miles of this coast, they 
 wintered. The summer of 1830 was spent in explorations on foot 
 and by sledge, the principal result of which was the discovery by 
 Commander (afterwards Sir) James Ross of the magnetic pole, in 
 70 5' 17" N. lat., and 96 46' 45" W. long. Here the needle did not 
 move. Again the winter closed on them, and again in the summer 
 they repeated their exploration, until a third winter bound their vessel 
 still immovable. Next summer, though in great sorrow, they 
 determined to abandon their vessel, and attempt their escape to the 
 whalers in Baffin's Bay. This they failed to accomplish, and a 
 fourth winter was passed in their vessel. Next summer they again 
 renewed their attempt, and after many obstacles, they gained the 
 open waters of Baffin's Bay. ' At four o'clock in the morning of the 
 26th,' says Murray, 'they were roused from sleep by the look-out 
 man announcing "A sail," which, viewed through a glass, proved 
 evidently to be a ship. All were presently in motion, and their 
 hopes and fears were variously expressed. But they were detained 
 by calms and light shifting airs, and, a breeze springing up, the 
 vessel made sail with a rapidity which left them hopelessly behind. 
 About ten, however, they descried another, which seemed to be lying 
 to ; but she also bore up under all sail, and appeared to be fast 
 leaving them. Happily a calm succeeded, and by hard rowing they 
 approached so near that their signals were perceived, when she was 
 seen to heave to and lower a boat, which made directly towards 
 them. On its arrival, the mate in command asked if they were in 
 distress, and had lost their vessel, proffering his aid ; stating, in 
 answer to their inquiries, that he belonged to the Isabella of Hull,
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 once commanded by Captain Ross, now by Captain Humphreys. 
 On being told that the former person stood before him, his brain was 
 so puzzled that he declared the captain must be under a mistake, as 
 he had certainly been dead two years/ He was soon satisfied of the 
 truth of the intelligence, and hastened back to his ship with the 
 news. Immediately the yards were manned, and the adventurers 
 saluted back to civilisation and friends with three hearty cheers. 
 ' Every man was hungry, and was to be fed ; all were ragged, and 
 were to be clothed ; there was not one to whom washing was not 
 indispensable, nor one whom his beard did not deprive of all English 
 semblance it was washing, dressing, shaving, eating, all inter- 
 mingled.' After the excitement of the day, they retired to rest, but 
 so long had they been accustomed to live in the open air, that few 
 of them could sleep on a bed. On the 3oth September they left for 
 home, and to their joy, and astonishment of all Europe, reached 
 England in safety. Captain (now Admiral Sir George) Back had 
 been despatched previously, however, to search for the expedition 
 on the shore of the American polar sea, and had already been absent 
 for a year on his overland journey, during which considerable 
 discoveries were made.* All the officers and men received double 
 pay and promotion ; and after some delay, Captain Ross was 
 knighted, and received a reward of five thousand pounds from 
 parliament ; while Mr Booth was created a baronet. 
 
 In 1830, Captain Back was sent in the Terror to complete the 
 discovery of the coast-line between Regent's Inlet and Point Turn- 
 again. This expedition almost entirely failed in its object, through 
 the disasters which the vessel encountered from the ice. Though 
 Back had thus failed in accomplishing the objects of his expedition, 
 Messrs Dease and Simpson, two officers of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany, in 1837, 1838, and 1839, under the auspices of that body, 
 succeeded in accomplishing, by overland and coast journeys, nearly 
 all that Back had mapped out for himself. 
 
 In 1844, the return of Captain Sir James Ross from his brilliant 
 Antarctic expedition gave a new impetus to Arctic discovery. The 
 government having finally, under judicious pressure, resolved to 
 despatch another expedition, the Erebus and Terror were fitted out 
 for this purpose, and the command given to Captain Sir John 
 Franklin, who had already greatly distinguished himself in an expe- 
 dition to Spitzbergen in 1818, in the overland expedition to the 
 Arctic Sea in 1819-21, already mentioned, and in a second of the 
 same nature in 1825-6. Sir John had been more recently governor 
 of Van Diemen's Land, and was then well advanced in years. The 
 junior captains were Crozier and Fitzjames, and the total number of 
 officers and men was 134, comprising the pick of Arctic seamen. 
 The vessels were, in addition, provided each with a small steam- 
 
 * King's Narrative, a vols. Back's Narrative.
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 engine and propeller, and every scientific instrument and store which 
 might be supposed to be useful or necessary to the comfort and 
 safety of the crew, or the success of the expedition. On the igih of 
 May 1845, the expedition left the Thames, and a tender which 
 accompanied it discharged its extra stores and returned to England 
 from Davis' Strait, the two vessels being then provided with stores 
 sufficient for five years. On the 26th of July they were seen by a 
 whaler moored to an iceberg, waiting for an opening through the 
 ice which extends down the middle of Baffin's Bay, and this was 
 the last positive intelligence of the Franklin Expedition. From this 
 time, Arctic exploration takes the shape of a search for the missing 
 expedition. 
 
 EXPEDITIONS IN SEARCH OF FRANKLIN. 
 
 Nothing having been heard for two years of Franklin and his 
 companions, some anxiety began to be felt about their safety. Hear- 
 say stories came floating home of whalers having seen Esquimaux 
 who talked of ships having been lost, and of men dragging boats 
 behind them over the ice. At last the government resolved to send 
 out several vessels to succour the men if possible, and if not, to 
 ascertain their fate. The first were despatched in 1848 ; and for five 
 years expedition followed expedition (once as many as six in one 
 year) on the same errand. Private liberality supplemented the 
 exertions of government ; nor were the people of the United States 
 behind in what was felt to be the common cause of humanity. It 
 has been calculated that, including the cost of the missing expedition, 
 more than a million of money was spent on this object. If all these 
 enterprises effected little in so far as their main end was concerned, 
 they at least extended vastly our knowledge of the Arctic regions ; 
 the greater part of the definite outlines of this intricate maze of land 
 and water, or rather land and ice, which now cover our maps, were 
 filled in in those years. We can do little more than enumerate the 
 several expeditions. 
 
 In 1848, the Plover, Commander Maguire, was despatched to 
 Behring's Strait, and conjointly with him Captains Kellet and Moore, 
 in 1848-9, to the same region. They were also accompanied by Mr 
 Robert Shedden in his own yacht, and we regret to say that thfs 
 gentleman fell a victim to his exertions dying shortly after his 
 return. 
 
 Sir John Richardson was also despatched to examine the shores 
 of the Arctic Sea in the vicinity of the Mackenzie River ; and con- 
 joined with him was Dr John Rae, a celebrated North American 
 traveller, and chief trader and surgeon of the Hudson's Bay 
 Company, who had already distinguished himself as an explorer of 
 the Melville Peninsula in 1846-7. Sir James Ross was sent to 
 Lancaster Sound ; and a store-ship, under Mr Saunders, was secured
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 in the same quarter. All of these expeditions returned safely to 
 England, without, however, obtaining any trace of the missing 
 expedition. In 1850, no less than eight expeditions were again in 
 the Arctic seas namely, Collinson and M'Clure, in the Enterprise 
 and Investigator, by way of Behring's Strait ; Captain Penny, a 
 whaler, with Captain Stewart, in the direction of Lancaster Sound ; 
 Austin, Ommaney, M'Clintock, and Sherard Osborn, in four vessels. 
 to Lancaster Sound, &c. ; and Forsyth, in the Prince Albert, to the 
 same region. The seventh expedition was one sent by the liberality 
 of the United States' government and Mr Grinnell, a merchant of 
 New York, under Lieutenant De Haven of the United States' navy. 
 The eighth was the schooner Felix, equipped by public subscription, 
 under the command of the veteran Sir John Ross, with a tender 
 of twelve tons called the Mary, with which it was intended to explore 
 the vicinity of Wellington Channel and the headlands to Banks 
 Land. Some of these expeditions were fortunate enough to come 
 upon remains of the expedition comprising scraps of paper, empty 
 meat-tins, remains of observatory, carpenters' and armourers' shops, 
 and three graves of men of the Erebus and Terror all proving that 
 Franklin had wintered at the mouth of Wellington Channel in 
 1845-6, and had suddenly pushed forward. In 1851, Rae was 
 despatched on another overland expedition, with a single boat, to 
 launch upon the waters in the vicinity of Boothia, when he should 
 reach so far ; Kennedy was despatched to Regent's Inlet in the 
 Prince Albert, Inglefield to Baffin's Bay, Belcher to Wellington 
 Channel, Pullen to Beechy Island, Osborn to Wellington Channel, 
 and Kellet and M'Clintock to Melville Island. These expeditions 
 nearly all failed of the main object of their search, but some of them 
 succeeded in accomplishing great 'geographical discoveries. In 
 1854, Captain M'Clure reached England, having discovered the 
 long-sought-for North-west Passage. His story was as follows : In 
 
 1850, when Captains Collinson and M'Clure were sent out to 
 Behring's Strait in search of Franklin, M'Clure, after making his 
 way along the north coast of the American continent to about W. 
 long. 125, struck north-east for Banks Land, and sailing through 
 the strait which separates it from Prince Albert Land on the south- 
 east, almost succeeded in getting into Melville Sound, which is 
 a continuation of Barrow Strait. But although exploring parties 
 reached it, the ship could not be got through the ice ; and it was 
 resolved to return, sail round the west side of Banks Land, and 
 attempt to get into Melville Sound by the north. By September 
 
 1851, the Investigator had got along the north side of the island as 
 far as long. 117^ 54', where she was frozen in, in Mercy Bay, and 
 there remains. Captain M'Clure and his men stuck by the ship till 
 June 1853, when they made their way over the ice to the Resolute, 
 Captain Kellet, which had entered the strait from the west. This 
 vessel was also deserted in April 1854, and M'Clure reached England 
 
 36
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 in the Phcenix steamer. Although he did not find a navigable 
 passage, still he had water under him the whole way, and thus may 
 be said to have gone through the North-west Passage. Open it 
 undoubtedly is some years, as witness the drift-timber from the 
 Pacific, and the whales with harpoons put in them in the Sea of 
 Okhotsk, &c., which have been found in Davis' Strait ; but that it 
 ever will be of the slightest use to the world, few for long before 
 its discovery ever imagined, and still less so now is the belief enter- 
 tained. M'Clure was tried by court-martial for the loss of his ship, 
 but was acquitted ; and a reward of ten thousand pounds was made 
 for this discovery. 
 
 Again, in 1853, Trollope and Kennedy were despatched to 
 Behring's Strait, .and Inglefield to Wellington Channel, &c., but 
 without effecting anything of importance. During the same year, 
 Dr Elisha Kent Kane, of the United States' navy, who had been 
 surgeon of De Haven's expedition, was despatched by the Americans 
 (the chief of whom was Mr Grinnell) in the schooner Advance up 
 Smith's Sound in search of Franklin. The vessel was of poor 
 quality ill found, and ill fitted for the service ; but notwithstanding, 
 Dr Kane held by the vessel for three years in a harbour in 78 37' 
 N. lat., in Smith's Sound, where she had got frozen in, suffering 
 almost incredible hardships. Finally, deserting the vessel in open 
 boats, they reached the most northerly of the Danish settlements in 
 Greenland, and were conveyed to the United States by an expedition 
 despatched in search of them, which met them here. Kane con- 
 sidered that he had discovered an open sea to the northward, sur- 
 rounding the pole. The wonderful tale of his sufferings has been 
 told by himself in a book of great interest and value, notwith- 
 standing the rather too evident attempts to produce effect.* 
 
 The saddest of all the intelligence about Franklin's expedition, 
 however, reached England in 1853. Dr Rae, who had been exploring 
 Boothia, found among the Esquimaux various articles of silver-plate, 
 &c. belonging to the officers of Franklin's expedition, and dis- 
 covered further, that the vessels had been destroyed by the ice. The 
 most horrible conclusion, however, drawn was, that the unfortunate 
 crew had been driven by starvation to cannibalism many of the 
 bodies being described by the Esquimaux as being in a very muti- 
 lated condition, and the contents of the kettles seen by them making 
 this conclusion too inevitable. Though Dr Rae's report was sub- 
 jected to severe criticism, and he himself to unmerited abuse, yet so 
 thoroughly were the government convinced of the truth of it, that 
 they rewarded this beau idtal of an explorer by presenting to the 
 expedition which he commanded the sum of ten thousand pounds, 
 in terms of the reward offered by the Admiralty to any person who 
 should first succeed in ascertaining the fate of the crews of the 
 
 * Arctic Explorations, 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1855. 
 
 27
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 Erebus and Terror. In 1855, the Hudson's Bay Company de- 
 spatched Mr Anderson, one of their chief traders, with a party down 
 the Great Fish River, but without obtaining any further intelligence 
 of the missing expedition, beyond buying from the Esquimaux 
 various articles known to have belonged to it. 
 
 Still, public interest in the ill-fated expedition was not quite 
 allayed, for no certain intimation had yet been obtained of the fate 
 of the greater number of the men belonging to the expedition. The 
 government, however, declined to send out any more expeditions ; 
 and it was only with the utmost exertions of Lady Franklin and her 
 scientific friends that the steam-yacht fox; of 177 tons, was pur- 
 chased at their own cost, and despatched on June 30, 1857, under 
 the command of Captain M'Clintock, R.N. Being late in reaching 
 the upper part of Baffin's Bay, they were frozen in the pack-ice the 
 whole of the first winter, and drifted south 1385 miles. The next 
 winter they lay in safety in Port Kennedy, and from this point sledging- 
 parties were despatched in the spring ; the result of which was that 
 buttons, medals, &c., belonging to Franklin's expedition were 
 obtained from the Esquimaux, who also told them of a party of men 
 who had ' died of starvation on an island where there are salmon.' 
 On the 25th of May, on King William's Island, a skeleton was tound, 
 and around it, and peeping through the snow, were scraps of 
 clothing. The person appears from these to have been a steward 
 or officer's servant, and from the position he was found in, to 
 confirm the truth of what the Esquimaux told them ' they fell 
 down as they walked.' Still later they came upon a cairn, in 
 which was a copper case containing a valuable document. Round 
 this cairn was an immense quantity of relics of the missing expe- 
 dition clothing, compasses, stores, &c. ; but, with the exception 
 of the document referred to, not one scrap of writing. This paper 
 (of which a fac-simile is given in M'Clintock's narrative*) was one 
 of those supplied to the expedition, to be deposited here and there 
 with intelligence of the progress of the party, and with a request 
 printed on it for the finder to send it to the nearest British consul, 
 or to the Admiralty in London. It informs us that Franklin and 
 his companions wintered on Beechy Island in 1846-7 (a mistake 
 for 1845-6). Next year, they went to within twelve miles of King 
 William's Land, and there wintered, in lat. 70 5' N.; long. 98 
 23' W. As yet, Sir John Franklin commanded. On the nth of 
 June 1847, Sir John died. Then is written round the margin a 
 sad tale. In 1848, the Terror and Erebus were deserted on the 22d 
 April, having been beset since I2th September 1846 the officers 
 and crew, under the command of Captain Crozier, numbering 
 one hundred and five souls. By the shores of a desolate bay, the 
 explorers also found a boat mounted on a sledge, and inside was 
 
 * The Fate of Franklin. London, 1860. 
 38
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 something which struck them with awe namely, portions of two 
 skeletons, with fragments of worked slippers, and a pair of strong 
 shooting-boots, five watches, two guns one barrel in each loaded 
 and cocked, five or six small books the Vicar of Wakefield, Christian 
 Melodies, cover of New Testament and Prayer-book, &c. One can 
 imagine the feelings of the last of these two men as his companion 
 died, and he peered through the leaden atmosphere, waiting until 
 such time as he should meet the same fate. Their sad duties 
 having been so far completed, the expedition returned home on 
 30th September 1859. 
 
 It would appear that some of the Franklin expedition had been 
 able to reach Montreal Island, in the estuary of the Back River, 
 where remains of clothing and equipment were found, but no 
 skeletons. Still, no detailed records of the expedition have been 
 found, and it is reasonably supposed that these must be buried 
 securely in some position, to be discovered, perhaps, when the ground 
 is bare of snow. Be that as it may, the discoveries of M'Clintock 
 establish the fact that Sir John Franklin and his companions had 
 anticipated M'Clure in discovering a North-west Passage. 
 
 NORTH POLAR VOYAGES. 
 
 At various times in the course of Arctic discovery there have 
 been breaks in the search for north-east and north-west passages, 
 by attempts to reach the north pole itself, and crossing over, to 
 find by that route a passage to the south seas. Thus the object of 
 Hudson in sailing north in 1607 and 1614 was partially with this 
 view. In 1773, the government sent Captain John Phipps (after- 
 wards Lord Mulgrave) and Lieutenant Lutwidge (under whom 
 served Horatio Nelson as cockswain) in the Racehorse and Carcass 
 in the direction of Spitzbergen. Though cruising about all summer, 
 they were unable to penetrate through the pack-ice, and did not 
 reach farther north than 80 37'. In 1806, the celebrated Captain 
 Scoresby, senior (a whaler), succeeded in reaching 81 12' 42" N. 
 lat. or to within 8 47' 18" of the pole. This is supposed to 
 be the highest authenticated latitude ever reached by a ship, until 
 the voyage of the Polaris, to be afterwards spoken of. In 1818, 
 the Admiralty again despatched Captain Buchan and Lieutenant 
 Franklin in the Dorothea and the Trent, who reached 80 34', 
 when they were stopped by the ice. In 1827, the celebrated Parry 
 made an attempt to advance north from Spitzbergen towards the 
 pole by dragging the boats over the ice. But the southerly drift of 
 the ice became so great that they lost daily nearly as much as they 
 gained by laborious dragging of the boats. The result was that they 
 were forced to return, after reaching 82 45' the highest latitude 
 yet attained. 
 
 Although Parry's attempt was in so far a failure, it pointed out 
 
 29
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 the only way by which it is believed that the north pole can be 
 reached, if it is to be reached at all, namely, by sledge-travelling 
 over the ice and land. 
 
 With the return of the last expedition in search of Franklin. 
 Great Britain seemed to retire from the field of Arctic research. 
 The work, however, was continued by other nations. It would be 
 tedious to enumerate the various attempts that have been made to 
 find an opening through the ice-barrier that stretches between Nova 
 Zembla and Greenland. The southern border of this pack has 
 nowhere been found, even in the most favourable season, to retreat 
 much farther north than the parallel of 80. Norwegians, Swedes, 
 and Germans have in vain essayed to penetrate it. Their per- 
 sistent enterprise has added much to our knowledge of the seas 
 around Spitzbergen, and new lands have been discovered ; but the 
 pole has remained as distant as ever. In these explorations more 
 than one English yachtsman has taken part at his own cost. 
 
 The reiterated attempts to penetrate to the pole through the Spitz- 
 bergen portal were fostered by the theory, that, after passing through 
 the barrier of pack-ice impinging upon Spitzbergen, the explorers 
 would pass into a comparatively iceless sea. The barrier of ice always 
 encountered by ships about 80 of N. lat. is, according to this theory, 
 ice which has drifted south in summer and autumn, and which must 
 leave a wide space of open sea round the north pole. The Gulf Stream 
 also is held to contribute to this effect. The warm stream from the 
 Atlantic is known to send a branch towards Nova Zembla, while 
 another flows along the west coast of Spitzbergen. When it meets 
 the polar current, this warm water dips under it, and has been 
 found off the north-west of Spitzbergen below a considerable depth 
 of ice-cold water. Now this warm under-current is supposed to 
 hold its way northwards for a long way, and then to emerge to the 
 surface with warmth sufficient to melt the ice and keep an open sea. 
 All these and other arguments have been shewn to be fallacious ; 
 and the results of experience are so decidedly against the open 
 polar sea theory, that belief in it has died out, and expectation is 
 directed to another quarter and to other means. 
 
 Of the recent enterprises in the seas between Greenland and 
 Nova Zembla, the most remarkable were the German expedition, 
 sent to explore the northern part of the east coast of Greenland ; and 
 the Austro-Hungarian expedition, which discovered the new archi- 
 pelago of Franz Joseph Land. The German expedition consisted 
 of the screw-steamer Germania, of 140 tons, with the sailing-brig 
 Hansa as consort and storeship. It sailed from Bremen in June 1869, 
 carrying with it the enthusiastic good wishes of the whole Fatherland. 
 'In latitude 70 46' N., longitude 10 51' W., the Hansa, which had 
 on board some of the supplies of fuel for herself and consort, got 
 separated from the Germania, and caught in the ice. On October 
 22, the ice-floes pressing on every side, crushed her. Then, home- 
 so
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 less in the midst of this dreary ice-field, with the winter coming on ? 
 the crew built on the floe, with the patent fuel, a house in which 
 they took refuge. In this strangest of all abodes they passed 
 Christmas not uncheerfully on the whole, they tell us. In two 
 months the current had carried them south 400 miles, and though 
 they were only 30 miles from land, it was impossible to reach it. 
 On November 27, their track-map shews that they were just about 
 half-way between Greenland and Iceland. Shortly after their 
 Christmas festivities, the floe split, and ruined their house. For 
 some time it would seem as if their lives hung on a thread. But 
 they were destined for better things. The floe righted again, and 
 they left their boats, to which they had been forced to flee, and 
 again built their fuel-house. On January 3, 1870, they were close 
 to the Greenland coast, but could only survey it in sadness, as the 
 broken ice precluded the possibility of ever reaching it. As f spring 
 advanced and the summer came, their situation was more cheering 
 in one sense, but more depressing in another. Their ice island 
 had now, by the lashing of the surge and the melting of the ice, got 
 reduced until it was not more than a hundred yards in breadth. 
 By May their sextants told them they had drifted i loo miles on 
 their cheerless raft. Finally, on June 14, 1870, they arrived in 
 safety in their three boats at the Greenland Moravian Mission 
 station of Friedriksthal, in latitude 60 N., just on the other side of 
 Cape Farewell. Here they met their countrymen of the Herrnhut- 
 tian Unitas Fratntm, and once more were safe.' The Threshold of 
 the Unknown Region, by C. R. Markham. 1875. 
 
 The Germania, by the aid of her steam-power, sailed up the 
 coast of Greenland as high as 75 30'. She wintered among 
 the Pendulum Islands in lat. 74 30'; and in March a sledge-party 
 pushed their way as high as lat. 77, when want of provisions com- 
 pelled them to return to the ship. When the navigation was again 
 opened they explored a part of the coast, and discovered, in lat. 73 
 15', a branching inlet stretching far into the land, -which they named 
 Franz Joseph Fjord. The expedition returned to Bremen in Sep- 
 tember 1870. 
 
 The Austro-Hungarian expedition, consisting of the steamer 
 Tegethoffoi 300 tons, under the command of Lieutenant Weyprecht r 
 with Lieutenant Payer in charge of the land-travelling, started from 
 the Elbe in June 1872, and intended to sail round the north end of 
 Nova Zembla, with a view to making a north-east passage. Off the 
 north-west of Nova Zembla the Tegethoffvias closely beset by the ice 
 in August, and was never again extricated. More than a year was 
 passed by the crew in constant danger of being crushed by the pres- 
 sure of the ice. They were drifted for a time north-east, and then, by 
 a change of the wind, north-west, until, at the end of August 1873, tnev 
 found themselves on the coast of an unknown land. In October, 
 the TqF&qfTbeCKBK finally fixed in lat. 79 51', long. 58 56', within
 
 ARCTIC REGIONS AND ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 three miles of an island. In March, a sledge-party explored the 
 country, which they report to ' equal Spitzbergen in extent, and to 
 consist of several large masses of land intersected by numerous 
 fjords, and skirted by a large number of islands.' The whole archi- 
 pelago was named Franz Joseph Land. The highest point reached 
 was 82 5', with land still seen stretching to the north. Abandoning 
 the ship on the aoth May, the crew took to their sledges and boats, 
 and after a perilous journey of ninety-six days over ice and open sea, 
 reached Nova Zembla, where they found means of being conveyed 
 home. 
 
 Recent expeditions have sought to reach the pole by way of 
 Smith's Sound, at the head of Baffin's Bay. This channel was 
 discovered by Baffin himself in 1616, but was never explored until 
 1853, when Dr Kane, an American, pushed as far north as lat. 
 80 or 81. Dr Hayes, another American explorer, following the 
 same track in 1861, reached perhaps the lat. of 81 35'. But 
 both were outstripped by Captain Hall, who in August 1871 
 carried the American steamer Polaris to lat. 82 16', within thirty 
 miles of the most northern point attained by Parry on the ice. In 
 November Captain Hall died. Little was accomplished in the 
 way of sledge exploration; and in August 1872 the Polaris sailed 
 southwards, but was beset by ice in Baffin's Bay. Part of the crew 
 were parted from the ship, and drifted, along with several Esquimaux, 
 southwards to the coast of Labrador, where they were picked up in 
 April in excellent health. The Polaris had meanwhile been driven 
 northwards again into Smith's Sound, where the crew ran the vessel 
 ashore and wintered. In summer 1873, having built two boats, 
 they went south, and were picked up by a whaler in Melville Bay. 
 
 In the autumn of 1874, the English government resolved on 
 another attempt to explore the region of the North Pole. An 
 expedition, consisting of two steamships, the Alert and the Dis- 
 covery, sailed from Portsmouth, 2Qth May 1875, under the command 
 of Captain Nares and Commander (now Captain) Markham. The 
 Discovery was left in winter quarters at Lady Franklin Bay in lat 
 81 44', well to the northward of Smith's Sound ; while the Alert 
 was safely carried farther north than any ship had yet floated, and 
 wintered in lat. 82 27' N. In spite of bitter and prolonged cold, 
 and the still more formidable inroads of scurvy, the work of ex- 
 ploring this unknown region northward, eastward, and westward was 
 diligently carried on ; and on the loth May 1876, one sledge party 
 succeeded in reaching, over well-nigh impassable ice, the latitude 
 of 83 20' 26" N., or within 399? miles of the North Pole. The 
 explorers were compelled to admit that the Pole is wholly inacces- 
 sible by this route ; they further convinced themselves that there 
 was no open polar sea to the northward. And as the health both 
 of officers and men prohibited the attempt to risk a second winter 
 within the Arctic Circle, the return home was begun in July.
 
 [MO N GST those whose self-denying heroism, in the 
 midst of perils and personal privations, have shed a 
 glory over female devotedness, Flora Macdonald has 
 deservedly obtained a high meed of applause. This 
 lady was the daughter of Macdonald of Milton, in South 
 Uist, one of the remoter of the Western Islands of Scotland. She 
 was born about the year 1 720, and received the usual limited education 
 of the daughter of a Highland gentleman of that age. It conferred 
 little school learning, and scarcely any accomplishments, but included 
 good moral principles, and the feelings and manners of a lady. 
 When Flora was a girl, her father died, leaving his estate to a son. 
 The widowed mother, being still young and handsome, was soon 
 afterwards wooed by Mr Macdonald of Armadale, in the Isle of 
 Skye ; but she long resisted all his solicitations. At length he resorted 
 to an expedient which was not then uncommon in the Highlands, 
 and was at a later period more common in Ireland he forcibly 
 carried away the lady from her house, and married her. It is said
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 that they proved a sufficiently happy couple ; though this of course 
 does not justify the act by which the marriage was brought about. 
 
 Flora, therefore, spent her youthful years in the house of her step- 
 father at Armadale. She grew to womanhood without ever having 
 seen a town, or mingled in any bustling scene. The simple life 
 which she led in the rugged and remote Isle of Skye, was enlivened 
 only by visits among neighbours, who were thought near if they 
 were not above ten miles distant. The greatest event of her youth 
 was her spending about a year in the house of Macdonald of Largoe. 
 in Argyleshire a lonely Highland mansion like her stepfather's, 
 but one in which there was probably more knowledge of the world, 
 and more of the style of life which prevailed in Lowland society. 
 This was not long before the breaking out of the rebellion of 1745. 
 
 When Prince Charles Stuart came in that year to Scotland, to 
 endeavour to regain the throne from which his family had been 
 expelled, he was joined by a great portion of the clan Macdonald, 
 including nearly the whole of the Clanranald branch, to which Flora's 
 father had belonged. Another large portion, who looked to Sir 
 Alexander Macdonald of Sleat as their superior, was prevailed upon 
 by that gentleman to remain at peace ; for he, though a friend of 
 the Stuarts, was prudent enough to see that the enterprise had no 
 chance of success. Flora's stepfather, as one of Sir Alexander's 
 friends, was among those who refrained from joining the prince's 
 standard ; and it was probably from his example that Flora's brother, 
 young Macdonald of Milton, also kept quiet. Thus, it will be 
 observed, Flora's immediate living relatives were not involved in 
 this unhappy civil war ; but the branch of the clan to which she 
 belonged was fully engaged, and she and her friends all wished well 
 to the Stuart cause. 
 
 Prince Charles Edward landed in Scotland on the iQth of August 
 1745. The place chosen for his disembarkation from the small 
 vessel which had conveyed him from France, was Glenfinnin, a 
 lonely vale at the head of Loch Shiel, in the western part of Inverness- 
 shire, through which runs the small river Finnin.* Here, having 
 planted his standard, he was immediately attended by a band of 
 Highlanders of different clans, with whom he forthwith proceeded 
 towards the low country. His small irregular army, augmented by 
 adherents from Lowland Jacobite families, passed, as is well known, 
 through a series of extraordinary adventures. After taking posses- 
 sion of Edinburgh, it attacked and routed a fully equal army of 
 regular troops at Prestonpans. It marched into England in the 
 depth of winter, and boldly advanced to Derby, a hundred and twenty- 
 seven miles from the metropolis. Then it retreated turned upon 
 and routed a second army at Falkirk, but at Culloden was finally 
 
 * The spot is now distinguished by a monumental pillar, erected by the late Mr Mac* 
 donald of Glenaladale, a young gentleman of the district, whose grandfather, with the most 
 of his clan, had engaged in the unfortunate enterprise which it is designed to commemorate.
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 broken to pieces by the Duke of Cumberland (April 16, 1746). 
 Prince Charles, escaping from the field, withdrew into the western 
 parts of Inverness-shire, with the design of endeavouring to get to 
 France by sea ; while parties of the king's troops proceeded to ravage 
 the lands of all those who had been concerned in the enterprise. 
 
 The government, sensible of the dangerous nature of the prince's 
 claims, had set a price of thirty thousand pounds upon his head. 
 This was a sum sufficient in those days to have purchased a large 
 estate in the Highlands ; and as the Highlanders were generally 
 poor, it was thought that some one would, for its sake, betray the 
 prince into his enemies' hands. Charles, aware of the danger in 
 which he stood, very quickly assumed a mean disguise, in order 
 to elude notice, and pursued his way almost alone. Disappointed 
 in his first attempts to obtain a passage in a French vessel, he 
 sailed in an open boat to the Outer Hebrides, where, after some 
 perilous adventures, he found a refuge in South Uist, under the care 
 of the chieftain of Clanranald and his lady, who resided there at a 
 place called Ormaclade. It has been mentioned that the Clanranald 
 branch of the Macdonalds had been engaged in the insurrection. 
 They had, however, been led out by the chiefs eldest son, who alone, 
 therefore, became responsible to the law, while the chieftain himself 
 and the estate were safe. This enabled Clanranald and his lady to 
 extend their protection to Prince Charles in his now distressed state. 
 They placed him in a lonely hut amidst the mountains of Coradale 
 in South Uist, and supplied all his wants for about six weeks, during 
 which he daily hoped for an opportunity of escaping to France. At 
 length, his enemies having formed some suspicion of his retreat, the 
 island was suddenly beset with parties by sea and land, with the 
 view of taking him prisoner in which case there can be little doubt 
 that his life would have been instantly sacrificed, for orders to that 
 effect had been issued. Clanranald, his lady, and the two or three 
 friends who kept the prince company, were in the greatest alarm, 
 more particularly when they heard that the commander of the party 
 was a Captain Scott, who had already become notorious for his 
 cruelties towards the poor Highlanders. The first object was to 
 remove Charles from his hut, lest exact information about it should 
 have been obtained ; the second was to get him, if possible, carried 
 away from the island. But the state of affairs was such, that it was 
 impossible for him to move a mile in any direction without the 
 greatest risk of being seized by some of his enemies. 
 
 At this period the Hebridean or Western Isles, in which the 
 prince had taken refuge, were in a rude and almost primitive con- 
 dition ; from which, indeed, they can scarcely now be said to have 
 emerged. Extending in a range, with detached masses, for upwards 
 of a hundred and fifty miles along the west coast of Argyle, Inver- 
 ness, Ross, and Cromarty shires, to one or other of which they 
 belong, they are generally difficult of access, and present the wild 
 
 3
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 'features of rocks, mountains, heaths, and morasses in a state of 
 nature, with occasional patches of cultivated land, and hamlets of 
 an exceedingly rude construction. The inhabitants, who are of the 
 original Celtic race, remain for the most part tenants of small farms 
 and allotments, from which they draw a miserable subsistence, 
 chiefly by the breeding of cattle for the Lowland markets. Although 
 poor and illiterate, and with few residents amongst them belonging 
 to the higher classes, they are distinguished for their orderly conduct, 
 their patience under an almost perennial adversity, and, like all the 
 ^Celtic people, for their attachment to their chief a dignity now 
 little better than nominal. In the main range of the Hebrides, 
 Lewis is the largest island, and is situated to the north of the 
 others. South from it lie in succession North Uist, Benbecula, and 
 South Uist, the whole so closely environed and nearly connected 
 by islets, that they are spoken of collectively as the Long Island, 
 Opposite South Uist, on the east, lies Skye, one of the largest and 
 most important of the Hebrides. It extends along the coast of 
 Ross-shire in an irregular manner, and is remarkable for the bold- 
 ness of its shores and the grandeur of some of its mountains. The 
 indentations of the coast furnish a great variety of natural harbours, 
 the refuge of vessels exposed to the tempests of the western ocean. 
 The chief town in the island is Portree, and the principal mansion 
 that of Dunvegan, the seat of the Macleods, who own the greater 
 part of the isle. The southern district of Skye is called Sleat, or 
 Slate. Skye is separated from the Outer Hebrides by a strait or 
 sound, from twenty to forty miles wide. Such, as will be imme- 
 diately seen, was the principal scene of the wanderings and hair- 
 breadth escapes of Charles Stuart. Fleeing from island to island, 
 crossing straits in open boats, lurking in wilds and caves, attended 
 by seldom more than one adherent, and assisted, when in the 
 greatest extremity, by the heroic Flora Macdonald, did this unfor- 
 tunate prince contrive to elude the grasp of his enemies. 
 
 In South Uist, in which he had taken refuge with a single follower 
 named O'Neal, he was in continual danger from the parties on the 
 watch for his apprehension, and for about ten days he wandered 
 from place to place, crossing to Benbecula, and returning, sometimes 
 making the narrowest escape, but with the faintest possible hope of 
 finally eluding discovery. It was at this critical juncture that Flora 
 Macdonald became accessory to his preservation. She was at the 
 time paying a visit to her brother at his house of Milton, in South 
 Uist. It also happened that her stepfather, Armadale, was acting 
 as commander of a party of Skye militia amongst the troops in 
 pursuit of the prince. Armadale, like many others, had joined that 
 militia corps at the wish of his superior, the laird of Sleat ; but, 
 in reality, he retained a friendly feeling towards the Stuarts, and 
 wished anything rather than to be concerned in capturing the royal 
 fugitive. Such associations of feeling, with an opposite mode of 
 
 4
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 acting, were not uncommon in those days. O'Neal, who had 
 formerly been slightly acquainted with Flora, seems to have sug- 
 gested the idea of employing her to assist in getting Charles carried 
 off the island. 
 
 One night near the end of June, he came by appointment to meet 
 the young lady in a cottage upon her brother's land in Benbecula r 
 the prince remained outside. After a little conversation, O'Neal 
 told her he had brought a friend to see her. She asked with emotion 
 if it was the prince, and O'Neal answered in the affirmative, and 
 instantly brought him in. She was asked by Charles himself if she 
 could undertake to convey him to Skye, and it was pointed out to 
 her that she might do this the more easily, as her stepfather would 
 be able to give her a pass for her journey. The first idea of Flora 
 was, not her own peril, but the danger into which she might bring 
 Sir Alexander and Lady Margaret Macdonald, by carrying the 
 fugitive to their neighbourhood. She therefore answered the prince 
 with the greatest respect, but added, that she could not think of 
 being the ruin of her friend Sir Alexander. To this it was replied, 
 that that gentleman was from home ; but, supposing it were other- 
 wise, she could convey Prince Charles to her mother's house, which 
 was conveniently situated on the sea-side, and the Sleat family was 
 not necessarily to have any concern in the transaction. O'Neal 
 then demonstrated to her the honour and glory of saving the life 
 of her lawful prince : it has been said that, to allay scruples of 
 another kind, this light-hearted Irishman offered instantly to marry 
 her. If such a proposal was really made, Flora did not choose to 
 accept of it ; but, without further hesitation, she agreed to undertake 
 the prince's rescue. 
 
 Pleased with the prospect which this frank and single-hearted 
 offer presented, Charles and his friend O'Neal again betook them- 
 selves to the fastnesses of Coradale, while Miss Macdonald repaired 
 to Ormaclade, to make preparations in concert with Lady Clan- 
 ranald. The journey was not accomplished without encountering 
 a difficulty arising from the strictly-guarded state of the passes. 
 While on her way, crossing the sea-ford between Benbecula and 
 South Uist, she and her servant were seized and detained by a 
 militia party, which, on inquiry, she found to be that commanded 
 by her stepfather. When Armadale came to the spot next morning, 
 he was greatly surprised to find Flora in custody, and quickly 
 ordered her liberation. Of what passed between him and his step- 
 daughter, we have no distinct account ; but there seems no reason 
 to doubt that he became a confidant in the scheme, and entered 
 cordially into it. At her request he granted her a passport, to enable 
 her to proceed on her return to her mother's house in Skye, accom- 
 panied by her man-servant, Neil Mackechan, and a young Irish- 
 woman named Betty Burke. This last person was understood to 
 be a servant out of place, whom she thought likely to answer her 
 
 s
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 mother as a spinner : in reality, she contemplated making Prince 
 Charles pass as Betty Burke. She now pursued her way to Orma- 
 clade, where all the proper arrangements were made in the course 
 of a few days. 
 
 On Friday the 27th, everything being ready, Lady Clanranald, Flora, 
 and her servant Mackechan, went to a wretched hut near the sea-side, 
 where the prince had taken up his abode. The elegant youth who 
 had lately shone at the head of an army the descendant of a line 
 of kings which stretched back into ages when there was no history 
 was found roasting the liver of a sheep for his dinner. The sight 
 moved some of the party to tears ; but he was always cheerful under 
 such circumstances, and on this occasion only made the remark, 
 that it might be well for other royal personages to go through the 
 ordeal which he was now enduring. Lady Clanranald was soon 
 after called home by intelligence of the arrival of a military party 
 at her house, and Flora and her servant were left with the prince 
 and O'Neal. Next morning O'Neal was compelled, much against 
 his will, to take his leave : he had not long parted from the prince 
 when he was made prisoner. 
 
 Next forenoon Charles assumed the printed linen gown, apron, 
 and coif, which were to transform him from a prince into an Irish 
 servant-girl. He would have added a charged pistol under his 
 clothes, but Flora's good sense overruled that project, as she con- 
 cluded that, in the event of his being searched, it would be a strong 
 proof against him. He was compelled to content himself with a 
 stout walking-stick, with which he thought he should be able to 
 defend himself against any single enemy. The boat, meanwhile, 
 was ready for them at the shore. Arriving there wet and weary, 
 they were alarmed by seeing several wherries pass with parties of? 
 soldiers, and were obliged to skulk till the approach of night. They 
 then embarked for Skye Charles, Flora, Mackechan, and the boat- 
 men. A night voyage of thirty or forty miles across a sound in the 
 Hebrides, with the risk of being seized by some of the numerous 
 government vessels constantly prowling about, was what they had to 
 encounter. It appears that the anxiety of Flora for the life of the 
 prince was much greater than his own, and he was the only person 
 on board who could do anything to keep up the spirits of the party. 
 For that purpose he sang a number of lively songs, and related a few 
 anecdotes. The night became rainy, and, distressed with the wet 
 and her former fatigues, the young lady fell asleep in the bottom of 
 the boat. To favour her slumbers, Charles continued to sing. 
 When she awoke, she found him leaning over her, with his hands 
 spread above her face, to protect her from any injury that might 
 arise from a rower who was obliged at that moment to re-adjust the 
 sail. In the same spirit he insisted upon reserving for her exclusive 
 use a small quantity of wine which Lady Clanranald had given 
 them. These circumstances are not related as reflecting any positive 
 
 6
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 honour on the prince, but simply as facts which occurred on that 
 remarkable night, and as at least shewing that he was not deficient 
 in a gentlemanlike tenderness towards the amiable woman who was 
 risking so much in his behalf. It may here be mentioned that 
 Mackechan, whose presence on the occasion was fully as good a 
 protection to Flora's good fame as the name of O'Neal would have 
 been, was a Macdonald of humble extraction, who had received a 
 foreign education as a priest. He served the prince afterwards for 
 some years, and became the father of the celebrated Marshal Mac- 
 donald, Duke of Tarentum, who, more than eighty years afterwards, 
 visited the scenes of all these events. 
 
 When day dawned, they found themselves out of sight of land, 
 without any means of determining in what part of the Hebrides they 
 were. They sailed, however, but a little way further, when they 
 perceived the lofty mountains and dark bold headlands of Skye. 
 Making with all speed towards that coast, they soon approached 
 Waternish, one of the western points of the island. They had no 
 sooner drawn near to the shore, than they perceived a body of militia 
 stationed at the place. These men had a boat, but no oars. The 
 men in Miss Macdonald's boat no sooner perceived them, than they 
 began to pull heartily in the contrary direction. The soldiers called 
 upon them to land, upon peril of being shot at ; but it was resolved 
 to escape at all risks, and they exerted their utmost energies in 
 pulling off their little vessel. The soldiers then put their threat in 
 execution by firing, but fortunately without hitting the boat or any 
 of its crew. Charles called upon the boatmen 'not to mind the 
 villains ;' and they assured him that, if they cared at all, it was only 
 for him ; to which he replied, with undaunted lightness of demean- 
 our, 'Oh, no fear of me !' He then entreated Miss Macdonald to 
 lie down at the bottom of the boat, in order to avoid the bullets, as 
 nothing, he said, would give him at that moment greater pain than 
 if any accident were to befall her. She declared, however, that she 
 would not do as he desired, unless he also took the same measure 
 for his safety, which, she told him, was of much more importance 
 than hers. It was not till after some altercation that they agreed 
 to ensconce themselves together in the bottom of the boat. The 
 rowers soon pulled them out of all further danger. 
 
 In the eagerness of Duke William's emissaries to take Charles 
 in South Uist, or the adjoining islands in the range, where they had 
 certain information he was, Skye, lying close on the mainland, in 
 which the prince was now about to arrive, was left comparatively 
 unwatched. The island was, however, chiefly possessed by two 
 clans, the Sleat Macdonalds and Macleods, whose superiors had 
 deserted the Stuart cause, and even raised men on the opposite side. 
 Parties of their militia were posted throughout the island, one of 
 which had nearly taken the boat with its important charge when it 
 was off Waternish.
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 Proceeding on their voyage a few miles to the northward, the little 
 party in the boat put into a creek or cleft, to rest jind refresh the 
 fatigued rowers ; but the alarm which their appearance occasioned 
 in a neighbouring village quickly obliged them to put off again. At 
 length they landed safely at a place within the parish of Kilmuir, 
 about twelve miles from Waternish, and very near Sir Alexander 
 Macdonald's seat of Mugstat. 
 
 Sir Alexander was at this time at Fort Augustus, in attendance on 
 the Duke of Cumberland ; but his wife, Lady Margaret Macdonald 
 one of the beautiful daughters of Alexander and Susanna, Earl 
 and Countess of Eglintoune a lady in the bloom of life, of elegant 
 manners, and one who was accustomed to figure in the fashionable 
 scenes of the metropolis now resided at Mugstat. A Jacobite at 
 heart, Lady Margaret had corresponded with the prince when he was 
 skulking in South Uist, and she had been made aware by a Mrs 
 Macdonald of Kirkibost that it was likely he would soon make his 
 appearance in Skye. When the boat containing the fugitive had 
 landed, Flora, attended by Mackechan, proceeded to the house, 
 leaving Charles, in his female dress, sitting on her trunk upon the 
 beach. On arriving at the house, she desired a servant to inform 
 Lady Margaret that she had called on her way home from Uist. 
 She was immediately introduced to the family apartment, where she 
 found, besides Mrs Macdonald of Kirkibost, a Lieutenant Macleod, 
 the commander of a band of militia stationed near by, three or four 
 of whom were also in the house. There were also present Mr 
 Alexander Macdonald of Kingsburgh, an elderly gentleman of the 
 neighbourhood, who acted as chamberlain or factor to Sir Alexander, 
 and who was, she knew, a sound Jacobite. Flora entered easily into 
 conversation with the officer, who asked her a number of questions, 
 as where she had come from, where she was going, and so forth ; all 
 of which she answered without manifesting the least trace of that 
 confusion which might have been expected from a young lady under 
 such circumstances. The same man had been in the custom of 
 examining every boat which landed from the Long Island ; that, for 
 instance, in which Mrs Macdonald of Kirkibost arrived, had been so 
 examined ; and we can only account for his allowing that of Miss 
 Flora to pass, by the circumstance of his meeting her under the 
 imposing courtesies of the drawing-room of a lady of rank. Miss 
 Macdonald, with the same self-possession, dined in Lieutenant 
 Macleod's company. Seizing a proper opportunity, she apprised 
 Kingsburgh of the circumstances of the prince, and he immediately 
 proceeded to another room, and sent for Lady Margaret, that he 
 might break the intelligence to her in private. Notwithstanding the 
 previous warning, she was much alarmed at the idea of the wanderer 
 being so near her house, and immediately sent for a certain Donald 
 Roy Macdonald, to consult as to what should be done. Donald 
 had been wounded in the prince's army at Culloden, and was as 
 
 8
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 obnoxious to the government as he could be. He came and joined 
 the lady and her friends in the garden, when it was arranged that 
 Kingsburgh should take the prince along with him to his own house, 
 some miles distant, and thence pass him through the island to 
 Portree, where Donald Roy should take him up, and provide for his 
 further safety. 
 
 The old gentleman accordingly joined Charles on the shore, and 
 conducted him, as had been arranged, on the way to Kingsburgh. 
 Meanwhile, Flora sat in company with Lady Margaret and the 
 young government officer till she thought the two travellers would 
 be a good way advanced, and then rose to take her leave. Lady 
 Margaret affected great concern at her short stay, and entreated that 
 she would prolong it at least till next day ; reminding her that, when 
 last at Mugstat, she had promised a much longer visit. Flora, on 
 the other hand, pleaded the necessity of getting immediately home 
 to attend her mother, who was unwell, and entirely alone in these 
 troublesome times. After a proper reciprocation of entreaties and 
 refusals, Lady Margaret, with great apparent reluctance, permitted 
 her young friend to depart. 
 
 Miss Macdonald and Mackechan were accompanied in their 
 journey by Mrs Macdonald of Kirkibost, and by that lady's male and 
 female servants, all the five riding on horseback. They quickly 
 came up with Kingsburgh and the prince, who had walked thus far 
 on the public road, but were soon after to turn off upon an unfre- 
 quented path across the wild country. Flora, anxious that her 
 fellow-traveller's servants, who were uninitiated in the secret, should 
 not see the route which Kingsburgh and the prince were about to 
 take, called upon the party to ride faster ; and they passed the two 
 pedestrians at a trot. Mrs Macdonald's girl, however, could not help 
 observing the extraordinary appearance of the female with whom 
 Kingsburgh was walking, and exclaimed, that she 'had never seen 
 such a tall impudent-looking woman in her life ! See !' she continued, 
 addressing Flora, ' what long strides the jade takes ! I daresay she 's 
 an Irishwoman, or else a man in woman's clothes.' Flora confirmed 
 her in the former supposition, and soon after parted with her 
 fellow-travellers in order to rejoin Kingsburgh and the prince. 
 
 These individuals, in walking along the road, were at first con- 
 siderably annoyed by the number of country-people whom they met 
 returning from church, and who all expressed wonder at the uncom- 
 mon height and awkwardness of the apparent female. The oppor- 
 tunity of talking to their landlord's factotum being too precious to 
 be despised, these people fastened themselves on Kingsburgh, who, 
 under the particular circumstances, felt a good deal annoyed by 
 them, but at last bethought himself of saying, ' Oh, sirs, cannot 
 you let alone talking of your worldly affairs on Sabbath, and 
 have patience till another day.' They took the hint, and moved 
 off. The whole party Charles, Kingsburgh, and Miss Macdonald
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 arrived in safety at Kingsburgh House about eleven o'clock at 
 night. 
 
 Mrs Macdonald, or, as she was usually called, Lady Kingsburgh, 
 lost no time in preparing supper, at which Charles, still wearing the 
 female disguise, placed Flora on his right hand, and his hostess on 
 his left. Afterwards, the two ladies left the other two over a bowl 
 of punch, and went to have a little conversation by themselves. 
 When Flora had related her adventures, Lady Kingsburgh asked 
 what had been done with the boatmen who brought them to Skye. 
 Miss Macdonald said they had been sent back to South Uist. Lady 
 Kingsburgh observed that they ought not to have been permitted 
 to return immediately, lest, falling into the hands of the prince's 
 enemies in that island, they might divulge the secret of his route. 
 Her conjecture, which turned out to have been correct, though 
 happily without being attended with evil consequences to the prince, 
 determined Flora to change the prince's clothes next day. 
 
 The pretended Betty Burke was that night laid in the best bed 
 which the house contained, and next morning all the ladies assisted 
 at her toilet. A lock of her hair was cut off as a keepsake, and 
 divided between Lady Kingsburgh and Flora. Late in the day, the 
 prince set out for Portree, attended by Flora and Mackechan as 
 before, Kingsburgh accompanying them with a suit of male Highland 
 attire under his arm. At a convenient place in a wood, Charles 
 exchanged his female dress for this suit ; it being thought best that 
 this should be done after he had left Kingsburgh House, so that the 
 servants there might have nothing to say, either of their own accord 
 or upon compulsion, but that they had seen a female servant come 
 and go in company with Miss Flora. The party now separated, 
 Kingsburgh returning home, while the prince and Mackechan set 
 out for Portree (a walk of fourteen miles), and Flora proceeded 
 thither by a different route. 
 
 At this village, the only one in Skye, Donald Roy had meanwhile 
 made arrangements for carrying the prince to the neighbouring 
 island of Raasay, which was judged a safe place for him, as its 
 apparent and legal proprietor, Mr Macleod, had not been concerned 
 in the insurrection ; although his father, the actual proprietor, and 
 all his followers, had been engaged in it, and he himself was strongly 
 attached to the cause. In the evening, Donald, and some friends 
 whom he had called to his aid, received the adventurer at a mean 
 public-house in the village, where he partook of a coarse meal, and 
 slaked his thirst from a broken brown potsherd, which was usually 
 employed in baling water out of a boat. Here Flora joined the 
 party, but only to take a final farewell of the prince, as she was no 
 longer able to be of any service to him. Having paid her a small 
 sum of money which he had borrowed from her in their journey, he 
 gave her his warm thanks for her heroic efforts to preserve his life, 
 and tenderly saluted her, adding, in a cheerful manner, ' For all that
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 has happened, I hope, madam, we shall meet in St James's yet!' 
 He then set sail for Raasay with his new friends, while Flora pro- 
 ceeded to her mother's house in Sleat. Respecting the further 
 adventures of tiie prince, it is only necessary to say that they were 
 of a nature not less extraordinary than those which have been 
 related, and that they terminated, three months after, in his happily 
 escaping to France. 
 
 Our heroine Flora had gone through all these adventures with a 
 quiet energy peculiar to her, but with little conception that she was 
 doing anything beyond what the common voice of humanity called 
 for, and what good people were doing every day. Reaching home, she 
 said nothing to her mother, or any one else, of what she had been 
 about, probably judging that the possession of such knowledge was 
 in itself dangerous. Meanwhile the boatmen, returning to Uist, 
 were there seized by the military, and obliged to give an account of 
 their late voyage. This was what Lady Kingsburgh dreaded, and it 
 seems to have been the only point in which the prudence of our 
 heroine had failed. Having obtained an exact description of the 
 dress of the tall female accompanying Miss Macdonald, a merciless 
 emissary of the government, styled Captain Ferguson, lost no time 
 in sailing for Skye, where he arrived about a week after the prince. 
 Inquiring at Mugstat, he learned that Miss Macdonald had been 
 there ; but no tall female had been seen. He then followed on 
 Flora's track to Kingsburgh, where he readily learned that the tall 
 female had been entertained for a night. He asked Kingsburgh 
 where Miss Macdonald and the person who was with her in woman's 
 clothes had slept. The old gentleman answered, that he knew where 
 Miss Flora had lain, but as for the servants, he never asked any 
 questions about them. The officer nevertheless discovered that the 
 apparent servant had been placed in the best bed, which he held as 
 tolerably good proof of the real character of that person, and he 
 acted accordingly. Kingsburgh was sent prisoner to Fort Augustus, 
 and treated with great severity : thence he was removed to 
 Edinburgh Castle, where he suffered a whole year's confinement. 
 Macleod of Talisker, captain of a militia company, caused a message 
 to be sent, desiring the presence of Flora Macdonald. She con- 
 sulted with her friends, who recommended her not attending to it ; 
 but she herself determined to go. On her way she met her step- 
 father returning home, and had not gone much further, when she 
 was seized by an officer and a party of soldiers, and hurried on 
 board Captain Ferguson's vessel. General Campbell, who was on 
 board, ordered that she should be well treated ; and finding her 
 story had been blabbed by the boatmen, she confessed all to that 
 officer. 
 
 She was soon after transferred from the ship commanded by 
 Ferguson to one commanded by Commodore Smith, a humane per- 
 son, capable of appreciating her noble conduct. By the permission
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 ^of General Campbell she was now allowed to land at Armadale, 
 and take leave of her mother : her stepfather was by this time in 
 .hiding, from fear lest his concern in the prince's escape should bring 
 -him into trouble. Flora, who had hitherto been without a change 
 of clothes, here obtained all she required, and engaged as her 
 attendant an honest, good girl named Kate Macdowall, who could 
 not speak a word of any language but Gaelic. She then returned 
 on board the vessel, and was in time carried to the south. It 
 chanced that she here had for one of her fellow-prisoners Captain 
 O'Neal, who had engaged her to undertake the charge of the prince. 
 When she first met him on board, she went playfully up, and slap- 
 ping him gently on the cheek with the palm of her hand, said : ' To 
 that black face do I owe all my misfortune !' O'Neal told her that, 
 instead of being her misfortune, it was her brightest honour, and 
 that if she continued to act up to the character she had already 
 shewn, not pretending to repent of what she had done, or to be 
 ashamed of it, it would yet redound greatly to her advantage. 
 
 The vessel in which she was (the Bridgewater) arrived at Leith in 
 September, and remained there for about two months. She was not 
 allowed to land : but ladies and others of her own way of thinking 
 were freely permitted to visit her, and she began to find that her 
 deliverance of Prince Charles had rendered her a famous person. 
 Many presents of value were given to her ; but those which most 
 pleased her were a Bible and prayer-book, and the materials for 
 sewing, as she had had neither books nor work hitherto. Even the 
 naval officers in whose charge she was were much affected in her 
 .behalf. Commodore Smith presented her with a handsome suit of 
 riding clothes, with plain mounting, and some fine linen for riding 
 .shifts, as also some linen for shifts to her attendant Kate, whose 
 .generosity in offering to accompany her when no one else would, 
 had excited general admiration. Captain Knowler treated her with 
 the deference due to her heroic character, and allowed her to call for 
 anything in the vessel to treat her friends when they came on board, 
 and even to invite some of them to dine with her. On one occasion, 
 when Lady Mary Cochrane was on board, a breeze beginning to 
 blow, the lady requested leave to stay all night, which was granted. 
 This, she confessed, she chiefly was prompted to do by a wish to 
 "have it to say that she had slept in the same bed with Miss Flora 
 Macdonald. At this time the prince was not yet known to have 
 escaped, though such was actually the fact. One day a false rumour 
 was brought to the vessel that he had been at length taker, prisoner. 
 This greatly distressed Flora, who said to one of her friends with 
 tears in her eyes : 'Alas: I fear that now all is in vain that I have 
 done !' She could not be consoled till the falsity of the rumour was 
 ascertained. Her behaviour during the whole time the vessel stayed 
 in Leith Road was admired by all who saw her. The Episcopal 
 minister of Leith, who was among her visitors, wrote about her as
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 follows : ' Some that went on board to pay their respects to her,-, 
 used to take a dance in the cabin, and to press her much to share 
 with them in the diversion ; but with all their importunity, they 
 could not prevail with her to take a trip. She told them that at 
 present her dancing-days were done, and she would not readily 
 entertain a thought of that diversion till she should be assured of 
 her prince's safety, and perhaps not till she should be blessed with 
 the happiness of seeing him again. Although she was easy and 
 cheerful, yet she had a certain mixture of gravity in all her behaviour, 
 which became her situation exceedingly well, and set her off to great 
 advantage. She is of a low stature, of a fair complexion, and well 
 enough shaped. One would not discern by her conversation that she 
 had spent all her former days in the Highlands ; for she talks English 
 (or rather Scots) easily, and not at all through the Earse tone. She 
 has a sweet voice, and sings well ; and no lady, Edinburgh-bred, can> 
 acquit herself better at the tea-table than what she did when in. 
 Leith Road. Her wise conduct in one of the most perplexing scenes 
 that can happen in life, her fortitude and good sense, are memorable 
 instances of the strength of a female mind, even in those years that 
 are tender and inexperienced.' 
 
 The Bridgewater left Leith Road on the 7th of November, and 1 
 carried her straightway to London, where she was kept in a not less 
 honourable captivity in the house of a private family till the passing 
 of the act of indemnity in July 1747, when she was discharged 
 without being asked a single question. The ministers, we may well 
 believe, had found that to carry further the prosecution of a woman 
 vvhose guilt consisted only in the performance of one of the most 
 generous of actions, would not conduce to their popularity.* Her 
 story had by this time excited not less interest in the metropolis 
 than it had done in Scotland. Being received after her liberation 
 into the house of the Dowager-lady Primrose of Dunnipace, she was 
 there visited by crowds of the fashionable world, who paid her such, 
 homage as would have turned the heads of ninety-nine of a hundred 
 women of any age, country, or condition. It is said that the street 
 in which Lady Primrose lived was sometimes completely filled with 
 the carriages of ladies and gentlemen visiting the person called the 
 Pretender's Deliverer. On the mind of Flora these flatteries pro- 
 duced no effect but that of surprise : she had only, she said, per- 
 formed an act of common humanity, and she had never thought of it 
 in any other light till she found the world making so much ado 
 about it. It has been stated that a subscription to the amount of 
 .1500 was raised for her in London. 
 
 Soon after returning to her own country, she was married 
 
 * It has been stated that Frederick Prince of Wales, father of George III., did not 
 scruple to avow his admiration of Flora's conduct. His consort having one day expressed 
 some disapprobation of her interference in behalf of ' the Pretender,' the prince, whose heart 
 was better than his head, said : ' Let me not hear you speak thus again, madam. If you had, 
 been in the same circumstances, I hope in God you would have acted as she did !' 
 
 '3
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 (November 6, 1750) to Mr Alexander Macdonald, son of the worthy 
 Kingsburgh, and who in time succeeded to that property. Thus 
 Flora became the lady of the mansion in which the prince had 
 been entertained; and there she bore a large family of sons and 
 daughters. As memorials of her singular adventure, she preserved 
 a half of the sheet in which the prince had slept in that house, 
 intending that it should be her shroud ; and also a portrait of 
 Charles, which he had sent to her after his safe arrival in France. 
 When Dr Samuel Johnson, accompanied by his friend Boswell, 
 visited Skye in 1773, he was hospitably entertained at Kingsburgh, 
 and had the pleasure (for so it was to him) of sleeping in the bed 
 which had accommodated the last of the Stuarts : he remarked that 
 he had had no ambitious thoughts in it. In his well-known book 
 respecting this journey, he introduces the maiden name of his 
 hostess, which he says is one 'that will be mentioned in history, 
 and, if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour.' 
 He adds, ' she is a woman of middle stature, soft features, gentle 
 manners, and elegant presence ' a picture the more remarkable, 
 when it is recollected that she was now fifty-three years of age. 
 
 Soon after this period, under the influence of the passion for 
 emigration which was then raging in the Highlands, Kingsburgh 
 and his amiable partner went to North Carolina, where they pur- 
 chased and settled upon an estate. She carried with her the sheet 
 in which the prince had slept, determined that it should serve the 
 purpose which she contemplated, wherever it might please Providence 
 to end her days. But this event was not to take place in America. 
 Her husband had scarcely settled .there when the war of independ- 
 ence broke out. On that occasion the Highlanders shewed the same 
 faithful attachment to the government (being now reconciled to it 
 by mild treatment) which they had formerly manifested for the 
 House of Stuart. Mr Macdonald, being loyally disposed, was 
 imprisoned by the discontented colonists as a dangerous person ; 
 but he was soon after liberated. He then became an officer in a 
 loyal corps called the North Carolina Highlanders, and he and 
 his lady passed through many strange adventures. Towards the 
 conclusion of the contest, abandoning all hopes of a comfortable 
 settlement in America, they determined to return to the land of their 
 fathers. In crossing the Atlantic, Flora met with the last of her 
 adventures. The vessel being attacked by a French ship of war, 
 nothing could induce her to leave her husband on deck, and in the 
 course of the bustle she was thrown down and had her arm broken. 
 She only remarked, that she had now suffered a little for both the 
 House of Stuart and the House of Hanover. 
 
 She spent the remainder of her life in Skye, and at her death, 
 which took place March 5, 1790, when she had attained the age of 
 seventy, was actually buried in the shroud which she had so strangely 
 selected for that purpose in her youth, and carried with her through
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 so many adventures and migrations. Her grave may be seen in the 
 Kingsburgh mausoleum, in the parish churchyard of Kilmuir ; but 
 a stone which was laid by her youngest son upon her grave, being 
 accidentally broken, has been carried off in pieces by wandering 
 tourists. Flora Macdonald retained to the last that vivacity and 
 vigour of character which has procured her so much historical 
 distinction. Her husband, who survived her a few years, died on the 
 half-pay list as a British officer ; and no fewer than five of her sons 
 served their king in a military capacity. Charles, the eldest son, 
 was a captain in the Queen's Rangers. He was a most accom- 
 plished man. The late Lord Macdonald, on seeing him lowered 
 into the grave, said : ' There lies the most finished gentleman of my 
 family and name.' Alexander, the second son, was also an officer : 
 he was lost at sea. The third son, Ranald, was a captain of marines, 
 of high professional character, and remarkable for the elegance of his 
 appearance. James, the fourth son, served in Tarlton's British 
 Legion, and was a brave and experienced officer. The last surviving 
 son was Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonald, who long resided at 
 Exeter, and was the father of a numerous family. The engraving 
 prefixed to this sketch is taken from a portrait of Flora, which was 
 originally in his possession, and which he approved of as a likeness. 
 There were, moreover, two daughters, one of whom was the late 
 Mrs Major Macleod of Lochbay, in the Isle of Skye. 
 
 Such is an authentic history of the heroic and amiable Flora 
 Macdonald. Like all incidents equally romantic, the aid she 
 extended to the prince, which unquestionably saved him from cap- 
 tivity and a violent death, has given rise to various poetical effusions. 
 One of the most pleasing of these pieces, from the pen of James 
 Hogg, narrating, however, an incident as well as sentiments purely 
 imaginary, and entitled Flora Macdonald's Lament, may here be 
 appended : 
 
 Far over yon hills of the heather so green, 
 
 And down by the Corrie that sings to the sea, 
 The bonnie young Flora sat sighing her lane, 
 
 The dew on her plaid and the tear in her e'e. 
 She looted at a boat with the breezes that swung 
 
 Away on the wave like a bird of the main ; 
 And aye as it lessened, she sighed and she sung, 
 
 Fareweel to the lad I shall ne'er see again ! 
 Fareweel to my hero, the gallant and young ! 
 
 Fareweel to the lad I shall ne'er see again !
 
 FLORA MACDONALD. 
 
 The moorcock that craws on the brow of Ben Connal, 
 
 He kens o' his bed in a sweet mossy hame ; 
 The eagle that soars on the cliffs of Clanronaid, 
 
 Unawed and unhunted his eyrie can claim : 
 The solan can sleep on his shelve of the shore, 
 
 The cormorant roost on his rock of the sea, 
 But oh ! there is one whose hard fate I deplore, 
 
 Nor house, ha', nor hame, in his country has he. 
 The conflict is past, and our name is no more ; 
 
 There's nought left but sorrow for Scotland and ma !
 
 'IT'S ONLY A DROP! 1 
 
 AN IRISH TALE, BY MRS S. C. HALL.* 
 
 IT was a cold winter's night, and though the cottage 
 where Ellen and Michael, the two surviving children 
 of old Ben Murphy, lived, was always neat and comfort- 
 able, still there was a cloud over the brow of both brother 
 and sister, as they sat before the cheerful fire ; it had 
 obviously been spread not by anger but by sorrow. The silence had 
 continued long, though it was not bitter. At last Michael drew 
 away from his sister's eyes the checked apron she had applied to 
 them, and taking her hand affectionately within his own, said: 'It 
 isn't for my own sake, Ellen, though I shall be lonesome enough the 
 long winter nights and the long summer days without your wise 
 saying, and your sweet song, and your merry laugh, that I can so well 
 remember ay, since the time when our poor mother used to seat us 
 on the new rick, and then, in the innocent pride of her heart, call our 
 father to look at us, and preach to us against being conceited, at the 
 very time she was making us proud by calling us her blossoms of 
 beauty.' 
 
 ' God and the blessed Virgin make her bed in heaven now and for 
 evermore, amen !' said Ellen, at the same time drawing out her beads. 
 'Ah, Mike,' she added, 'that was the mother, and the father too, 
 full of grace and godliness.' 
 
 ' True for ye, Ellen ; but thafs not what I 'm afther now, as you 
 
 * Part of this tale appeared originally in Chambers 's Edinburgh "Journal some yean 
 ago ; a large portion has since been added. Ed. 
 
 '7
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 well know, you blushing little rogue of the world ; and sorra a word 
 I'll say against it in the end, though it's lonesome Fll be on my own 
 hearth-stone, with no one to keep me company but the ould black 
 cat, that can't see, let alone hear, the craythur !' 
 
 ' Now,' said Ellen, wiping her eyes, and smiling her own bright 
 smile, 'lave off; ye're just like all the men, purtending to one thing 
 whin they mane another ; there's a dale of desate about them all 
 every one of them and so my mother often said. Now, you'd better 
 have done, or maybe I'll say something that will bring, if not the 
 colour to your brown cheek, a dale more warmth to yer warm heart 
 than would be convanient, just by the mention of one Mary. Mary ! 
 what a purty name Mary is, isn't it? it's a common name too, 
 and yet you like it none the worse for that. Do you mind the ould 
 rhyme? 
 
 " Mary, Mary, quite contrary." 
 
 Well, I'm not going to say she is contrary I'm sure she's anything 
 but that to you, anyway, brother Mike. Can't you sit still, and don't 
 be pulling the hairs out of Pusheen cat's tail ; it isn't many there 's 
 in it ; and I'd thank you not to unravel the beautiful English cotton 
 stocking I 'm knitting : lave off your tricks, or I '11 make common talk 
 of it, I will, and be more than even with you, my fine fellow ! Indeed, 
 poor ould Pusheen,' she continued, addressing the cat with great 
 gravity, ' never heed what he says to you ; he has no notion to make 
 you either head or tail to the house, not he ; he won't let you be with- 
 out a misthress to give you yer sup of milk or yer bit of sop ; he 
 won't let you be lonesome, my poor puss ; he 's glad enough to swop 
 an Ellen for a Mary, so he is ; but that 's a sacret, avourneen ; don't 
 tell it to any one.' 
 
 'Anything for your happiness,' replied the brother somewhat 
 sulkily ; ' but your bachelor has a worse fault than ever I had, not- 
 withstanding all the lecturing you kept on to me ; he has a turn for 
 the drop, Ellen ; you know he has.' 
 
 'How spitefully you said that !' replied Ellen ; 'and it isn't gener- 
 ous to spake of it when he 's not here to defend himself.' 
 
 ' You 11 not let a word go against him,' said Michael. 
 
 ' No,' she said, ' I will never let ill be spoken of an absent friend. 
 I know he has a turn for the drop, but I '11 cure him.' 
 
 ' After he's married,' observed Michael not very good-naturedly. 
 
 ' No,' she answered ; ' before. I think a girl's chance of happi- 
 ness is not worth much who trusts to #/&r-marriage reformation. 
 / won't. Didn't I reform you, Mike, of the shockin' habit you had 
 of putting everything off to the last? and after reforming a brother, 
 who knows what I may do with a lover ! Do you think that Larry's 
 heart is harder than yours, Mike ? Look what fine vegetables we 
 have in our garden now, all planted by yer own hands when you 
 come home from work planted during the very time which you 
 
 18
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 used to spend in leaning against the door-cheek or smoking your 
 pipe, or sleeping over the fire : look at the money you got from the 
 Agricultural Society.' 
 
 ' That 's yours, Ellen,' said the generous-hearted Mike ; ' I '11 never 
 touch a penny of it ; but for you I never should have had it ; I '11 
 never touch it.' 
 
 ' You never shall,' she answered ; ' I Ve laid it every penny out ; 
 so that when the young bride comes home, she '11 have such a house 
 of comforts as are not to be found in the parish white table-cloths 
 for Sunday, a little store of tay and sugar, soap, candles, starch ; 
 everything good, and plenty of it.' 
 
 'My own dear, generous sister !' exclaimed the young man. 
 
 ' I shall ever be your sister,' she replied, ' and hers too. She 's a 
 good colleen, and worthy my own Mike, and that's more than I 
 would say to e'er another in the parish. I wasn't in earnest when 
 I said you 'd be glad to get rid of me ; so put the pouch, every bit 
 of it, off yer handsome face. And hush ! whisht! will ye? there's 
 the sound of Larry's footstep in the bawn hand me the needles, 
 Mike.' She braided back her hair with both hands, arranged the 
 red ribbon that confined its luxuriance, in the little glass that hung 
 upon a nail on the dresser, and, after composing her arch, laughing 
 features into an expression of great gravity, sat down and applied 
 herself with singular industry to take up the stitches her brother 
 had dropped, and put on a look of right maidenly astonishment 
 when the door opened, and Larry's good-humoured face entered with 
 the salutation of 'God save all here!' He 'popped' his head in 
 first, and, after gazing round, presented his goodly person to their 
 view ; and a pleasant view it was ; for he was of genuine Irish 
 bearing and beauty frank, and manly, and fearless-looking. Ellen, 
 the wicked one, looked up with well-feigned astonishment, and 
 exclaimed : ' O Larry, is it you, and who would have thought of 
 seeing you this blessed night ? Ye 're lucky just in time for a bit 
 of supper afther your walk across the moor. I cannot think what in 
 the world makes you walk over that moor so often j you '11 get wet 
 feet, and yer mother '11 be forced to nurse you. Of all the walks in 
 the county, the walk across that moor 's the dreariest, and yet ye 're 
 always going it ! I wonder you haven't better sense ; ye 're not 
 such a chicken now.' 
 
 'Well,' interrupted Mike, 'it's the women that bates the world for 
 desaving. Sure she heard yer step when nobody else could ; its 
 echo struck on her heart, Larry let her deny it ; she '11 make a 
 shove off if she can ; she '11 twist you, and twirl you, and turn you 
 about, so that you won't know whether it 's on your head or your 
 heels ye 're standing. She '11 tossicate yer brains in no time, and be 
 as composed herself as a dove on her nest in a storm. But ask her, 
 Larry, the straightforward question, whether she heard you or not. 
 She '11 tell no lie she never does.'
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 Ellen shook her head at her brother, and laughed. And imme- 
 diately after the happy trio sat down to a cheerful supper. 
 
 Larry was a good tradesman, blithe, and ' well to do ' in the world - r 
 and had it not been for the one great fault an inclination to take 
 the ' least taste in life more' when he had already taken quite enough 
 there could not have been found a better match for good, excellent 
 Ellen Murphy, in the whole kingdom of Ireland. When supper was 
 finished, the everlasting whisky-bottle was produced, and Ellen 
 resumed her knitting. After a time, Larry pressed his suit to 
 Michael for the industrious hand of his sister, thinking, doubtless, 
 with the natural self-conceit of all mankind, that he was perfectly 
 secure with Ellen ; but though Ellen loved, like all my fair country- 
 women, well, she loved, I am compelled to say, unlike the generality 
 of my fair countrywomen, wisely, and reminded her lover that she 
 had seen him intoxicated at the last fair of Rathcoolin. 
 
 ' Dear Ellen ! ' he exclaimed, ' it was " only a drop," the least taste 
 in life that overcame me. It overtook me unknowns!, quite aginst 
 my will.' 
 
 ' Who poured it down yer throat, Larry ?' 
 
 ' Who poured it down my throat, is it ? why myself, to be sure ; 
 but are you going to put me to a three months' penance for that ? ' 
 
 ' Larry, will you listen to me, and remember that the man I marry 
 must be converted before we stand before the priest. I have no 
 faith whatever in conversions after' 
 
 ' O Ellen ! ' interrupted her lover. 
 
 'It's no use O Ellen-ing me,' she answered quickly; 'I have made 
 my resolution, and I '11 stick to it.' 
 
 ' She 's as obstinate as ten women ! ' said her brother. ' There 's 
 no use in attempting to contradict her ; she always has had her own 
 way.' 
 
 ' It 's very cruel of you, Ellen, not to listen to raison. I tell you a 
 tablespoonful will often upset me.' 
 
 ' If you know that, Larry, why do you take the tablespoonful?' 
 
 Larry could not reply to this question. He could only plead that 
 the drop got the better of him, and the temptation and the overcom- 
 ingness of the thing, and it was very hard to be at him so about a 
 trifle. 
 
 ' I can never think a thing a trifle,' she observed, ' that makes you 
 so unlike yourself ; I should wish to respect you always, Larry, and 
 in my heart I believe no woman ever could respect a drunkard. I 
 don't want to make you angry ; God forbid you should ever be one ; 
 and I know you are not one yet ; but sin grows mighty strong upon 
 us without our knowledge. And no matter what indulgence leads 
 to bad ; we Ve a right to think anything that does lead to it sinful 
 in the prospect, if not at the present.' 
 
 'You'd have made a fine priest, Ellen,' said the young man, 
 determined, if he could not reason, to laugh her out of her resolve.
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 * I don't think,' she replied archly, ' if I were a priest, that either 
 of you would have liked to come to me to confession.' 
 
 ' But, Ellen, dear Ellen, sure it 's not in positive downright earnest 
 you are ; you can 't think of putting me off on account of that unlucky 
 drop, the least taste in life, I took at the fair. You could not find 
 it in your heart. Speak for me, Michael ; speak for me. But I see 
 it's joking you are. Why, Lent 'ill be on us in no time, and then 
 we must wait till Easter it 's easy talking ' 
 
 ' Larry,' interrupted Ellen, ' do not you talk yourself into a passion 5 
 it will do no good ; none in the world. I am sure you love me, and 
 I confess before my brother it will be the delight of my heart to 
 return that love, and make myself worthy of you, if you will only 
 break yourself off that one habit, which you qualify to your own 
 undoing, by fancying, because it is the least taste in life makes you 
 what you ought not to be, that you may still take it.' 
 
 ' I '11 take an oath against the whisky, if that will plase ye, till 
 Christmas.' 
 
 ' And when Christmas comes, get twice as tipsy as ever, with joy 
 to think yer oath is out no !' 
 
 ' I '11 swear anything you plase.' 
 
 ' I don't want you to swear at all ; there is no use in a man's 
 taking an oath he is anxious to have a chance of breaking. I want 
 your reason to be convinced.' 
 
 ' My darling Ellen, all the reason I ever had in my life is con- 
 vinced.' 
 
 ' Prove it by abstaining from taking even a drop, even the least 
 drop in life, if that drop can make you ashamed to look your poor 
 Ellen in the face.' 
 
 ' I '11 give it up altogether.' 
 
 ' I hope you will, from a conviction that it is really bad in every 
 way ; but not from cowardice, not because you darn't trust yerself.' 
 
 ' Ellen, I 'm sure ye 've some English blood in yer veins, ye 're 
 such a raisoner. Irish women don't often throw a boy off because 
 of a drop ; if they did, it 's not many marriage-dues his reverence 
 would have, winter or summer.' 
 
 ' Listen to me, Larry, and believe that, though I spake this way, 
 I regard you truly ; and if I did not, I 'd not take the throuble to tell 
 you my mind.' 
 
 ' Like Mick Brady's wife, who, whenever she thrashed him, cried 
 over the blows, and said they were all for his good,' observed her 
 brother slyly. 
 
 ' Nonsense ! listen to me, I say, and I '11 tell you why I am so 
 resolute. It 's many a long day since, going to school, I used to 
 meet Michael minds her too, I 'm sure an old bent woman; they 
 used to call her the Witch of Ballaghton. Stacy was, as I have said, 
 very old intirely, withered and white-headed, bent nearly double 
 with age, and she used to be ever and always muddling about the
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 strames and ditches, gathering herbs and plants, the girls said to 
 work charms with ; and at first they used to watch, rather far off, 
 and if they thought they had a good chance of escaping her tongue 
 and the stones she flung at them, they 'd call her an ill name or two ; 
 and sometimes, old as she was, she 'd make a spring at them sideways 
 like a crab, and howl, and hoot, and scrame, and then they'd be 
 off like a flock of pigeons from a hawk, and she 'd go on disturbing 
 the green-coated waters with her crooked stick, and muttering words 
 which none, if they heard, could understand. Stacy had been a well- 
 rared woman, and knew a dale more than any of us ; when not 
 tormented by the children, she was mighty well-spoken, and the 
 gentry thought a dale about her more than she did about them ; for 
 she'd say there wasn't one in the country fit to tie her shoe, and tell 
 them so too, if they 'd call her anything but Lady Stacy, which the 
 rale gentry of the place all humoured her in ; but the upstarts, who 
 think every civil word to an inferior is a pulling down of their own 
 dignity, would turn up their noses as they passed her, and maybe she 
 didn't bless them for it. 
 
 ' One day Mike had gone home before me, and, coming down the 
 back bohreen, who should I see moving along it but Lady Stacy; 
 and on she came, muttering and mumbling to herself, till she got 
 near me, and as she did, I heard Master Nixon (the dogman *)'s 
 hound in full cry, and seen him at her heels, and he over the hedge 
 encouraging the baste to tear her in pieces. The dog soon was 
 up with her, and then she kept him off as well as she could with 
 her crutch, cursing the entire time, and I was very frightened ; but 
 I darted to her side, and, with a wattle I pulled out of the hedge, 
 did my best to keep him off her. 
 
 ' Master Nixon cursed at me with all his heart ; but I wasn't to 
 be turned off that way. Stacy herself laid about with her staff; but 
 the ugly brute would have finished her, only for me. I don't suppose 
 Nixon meant that; but the dog was savage, and some men, like him, 
 delight in cruelty. Well, I bate the dog off; and then I had to help 
 the poor fainting woman ; for she was both faint and hurt. I didn't 
 much like bringing her here, for the people said she wasn't lucky ; 
 however, she wanted help, and I gave it. When I got her on the 
 floor,f I thought a drop of whisky would revive her, and accordingly 
 I offered her a glass. I shall never forget the venom with which she 
 dashed it on the ground. 
 
 ' " Do you want to poison me," she shouted, " afther saving my life ?" 
 When she came to herself a little, she made me sit down by her side, 
 and fixing her large gray eyes upon my face, she kept rocking her 
 body backwards and forwards, while she spoke, as well as I can 
 remember what I '11 try to tell you but I can't tell it as she did 
 
 Tax-gatherers were so called some time ago in Ireland, because they collected the duty 
 on dogs. t In the house.
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 that wouldn't be in nature. " Ellen," she said, and her eyes fixed 
 in my face, " I wasn't always a poor lone creature, that every ruffian 
 who walks the country dare set his cur at. There was full and 
 plenty in my father's house when I was young; but before I grew 
 to womanly estate, its walls were bare and roofless. What made 
 them so ? drink ! whisky ! My father was in debt : to kill thought, 
 he tried to keep himself so that he could not think ; he wanted the 
 courage of a man to look his danger and difficulty in the face, and 
 overcome it ; for, Ellen, mind my words the man that will look debt 
 and danger steadily in the face, and resolve to overcome them, can 
 do so. He had not means, he said, to educate his children as became 
 them : he grew not to have means to find them or their poor patient 
 mother the proper necessaries of life, yet he found the means to keep 
 the whisky cask flowing, and to answer the bailiff's knocks for admis- 
 sion by the loud roar of drunkenness, mad as it was wicked. They 
 got in at last, in spite of the care taken to keep them out, and there 
 was much fighting, ay, and blood spilt, but not to death ; and while 
 the riot was afoot, and we were crying round the death-bed of a 
 dying mother, where was he ? they had raised a ten-gallon cask of 
 whisky on the table in the parlour, and astride on it sat my father, 
 flourishing the huge pewter funnel in one hand, and the black jack 
 streaming with whisky in the other ; and amid the fumes of hot punch 
 that flowed over the room, and the cries and oaths of the fighting, 
 drunken company, his voice was heard swearing ' he had lived like a 
 king, and WOULD die like a king !'" 
 
 ' " And your poor mother ?" I asked. 
 
 ' " Thank God ! she died that night she died before worse came ; 
 she died on the bed that, before her corpse was cold, was dragged 
 from under her through the strong drink through the badness of 
 him who ought to have saved her not that he was a bad man either, 
 when the whisky had no power over him, but he could not bear his 
 own reflections. And his end soon came. He didn't die like a 
 king ; he died smothered in a ditch, where he fell ; he died, and was 
 in the presence of God how ? Oh, there are things that have had 
 whisky as their beginning and their end, that make me as mad as 
 ever it made him ! The man takes a drop, and forgets his starving 
 family ; the woman takes it, and forgets she is a mother and a wife. 
 It 's the curse of Ireland a bitterer, blacker, deeper curse than ever 
 was put on it by foreign power or hard-made laws !"' 
 
 'God bless us !' was Larry's half-breathed ejaculation. 
 
 ' I only repeat ould Stacy's words,' said Ellen ; ' you see I never 
 forgot them. " You might think," she continued, " that I had had 
 warning enough to keep me from having anything to say to those 
 who war too fond of drink ; and I thought I had ; but somehow 
 Edward Lambert got round me with his sweet words, and I was 
 lone and unprotected. I knew he had a little fondness for the drop ; 
 but in him, young, handsome, and gay-hearted, with bright eyes and 
 
 23
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 sunny hair, it did not seem like the horrid thing which had made me 
 shed no tear over my father's grave. Think of that, young girl : the 
 drink doesn't make a man a beast at first, but it will do so before 
 it 's done with him it will do so before it 's done with him. I had 
 enough power over Edward, and enough memory of the past, to 
 make him swear against it, except so much at such and such a time ; 
 and for a while he was very particular ; but one used to entice him, 
 and another used to entice him, and I am not going to say but I 
 might have managed him differently ; I might have got him off it 
 gently, maybe ; but the pride got the better of me, and I thought 
 of the line I came of, and how I had married him who wasn't my 
 equal, and such nonsense, which always breeds disturbance betwixt 
 married people ; and I used to rave, when, maybe, it would have 
 been wiser if I had reasoned. Anyway, things didn't go smooth 
 not that he neglected his employment : he was industrious, and 
 sorry enough when the fault was done ; still he would come home 
 often the worse for drink and now that he 's dead and gone, and 
 no finger is stretched to me but in scorn or hatred, I think maybe 
 I might have done better ; but, God defend me, the last was hard 
 to bear." Oh, boys ! ' said Ellen, ' if you had only heard her voice 
 when she said that, and seen her face. Poor ould Lady Stacy ! 
 no wonder she hated the drop ; no wonder she dashed down the 
 whisky.' 
 
 ' You kept this mighty close, Ellen/ said Mike ; ' I never heard 
 it before.' 
 
 ' I did not like coming over it,' she replied ; ' the last is hard to 
 tell.' The girl turned pale while she spoke, and Lawrence gave her 
 a cup of water. ' It must be told,' she said ; ' the death of her 
 father proved the effects of deliberate drunkenness. What I have 
 to say, shews what may happen from being even once unable to 
 think or act. 
 
 '" I had one child," said Stacy; "one, a darlint, blue-eyed, laughing 
 child. I never saw any so handsome, never knew any so good. She 
 was almost three years ould, and he was fond of her he said he 
 was ; but it 's a quare fondness that destroys what it ought to save. 
 It was the Pattern of Lady-day, and well I knew that Edward would 
 not return as he went : he said he would ; he almost swore he would ; 
 but the promise of a man given to drink has no more strength in it 
 than a rope of sand. I took sulky, and wouldn't go ; if I had, maybe 
 it would not have ended so. The evening came on, and I thought 
 my baby breathed hard in her cradle ; I took the candle and went 
 over to look at her ; her little face was red ; and when I laid my 
 cheek close to her lips so as not to touch them, but to feel her breath, 
 it was hot very hot ; she tossed her arms, and they were dry and 
 burning. The measles were about the country, and I was frightened 
 for my child. It was only half a mile to the doctor's ; I knew every 
 foot of the road ; and so, leaving the door on the latch, I resolved
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 to tell him how my darlint was, and thought I should be back before 
 my husband's return. Grass, you may be sure, didn't grow under 
 my feet. I ran with all speed, and wasn't kept long, the doctor said 
 though it seemed long to me. The moon was down when I came 
 home, though the night was fine. The cabin we lived in was in a 
 hollow ; but when I was on the hill, and looked down where I knew 
 it stood a dark mass, I thought I saw a white light fog coming out 
 of it ; I rubbed my eyes, and darted forward as a wild bird flies to 
 its nest when it hears the scream of the hawk in the heavens. When 
 I reached the door, I saw it was open ; the fume cloud came out of 
 it, sure enough, white and thick. Blind with that and terror together, 
 I rushed to my child's cradle. I found my way to that, in spite of 
 the burning and the smothering. But, Ellen Ellen Murphy my 
 child, the rosy child whose breath had been hot on my cheek only 
 a little while before, she was nothing but a cinder. Mad as I felt, 
 I saw how it was in a minute. The father had come home, as I 
 expected ; he had gone to the cradle to look at his child, had dropt 
 the candle into the straw, and, unable to speak or stand, had fallen 
 down and asleep on the floor not two yards from my child. Oh, 
 how I flew to the doctor's with -what had been my baby ; I tore 
 across the country like a banshee ; I laid it in his arms ; I told him 
 if he did not put life in it, I 'd destroy him in his house. He thought 
 me mad ; for there was no breath, either cowld or hot, coming from 
 its lips then. I couldn't kiss it in death ; there was nothing left of 
 my child to kiss think of that ! I snatched it from where the 
 doctor had laid it ; I cursed him, for he looked with disgust at my 
 purty child. The whole night long I wandered in the woods of 
 Newtownbarry with that burden at my heart.'" 
 
 ' But her husband her husband ?' inquired Larry in accents of 
 horror ; ' what became of him ; did she leave him in the burning 
 without calling him to himself ? ' 
 
 ' No,' answered Ellen ; ' I asked her, and she told me that her 
 shrieks she supposed roused him from the suffocation in which he 
 must but for them have perished. He staggered out of the place, 
 and was found soon after by the neighbours, and lived long after, but 
 only to be a poor heart-broken man ; for she was mad for years 
 through the country ; and many a day after she told me that story, 
 my heart trembled like a willow leaf. " And now, Ellen Murphy," 
 she added, when the end was come, "do ye wonder I threw from yer 
 hand as poison the glass you offered me ? And do you know why I 
 have tould you what tares my heart to come over ? because I wish 
 to save you, who shewed me kindness, from what I have gone 
 through. It's the only good I can do ye, and indeed it's long since 
 I cared to do good. Never trust a drinking man ; he has no guard 
 on his words, and will say that of his nearest friend that would 
 destroy him, soul and body. His breath is hot as the breath of the 
 plague ; his tongue is a foolish as well as a fiery serpent. Ellen, 
 
 25
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 let no drunkard become your lover ; and don't trust to promises ; try 
 them, prove them all before you marry." ' 
 
 ' Ellen, that 's enough,' interrupted Larry. ' I have heard enough 
 the two proofs are enough without words. Now, hear me. What 
 length of punishment am I to have ? I won't say that, for, Nelly, 
 there 's a tear in your eye that says more than words. Look I '11 
 make no promises but you shall see ; I '11 wait yer time ; name it ; 
 I '11 stand the trial.' 
 
 Ellen named the period, and Lawrence, of course, declared it was 
 the next thing to murder it was murder itself to keep him so long 
 but he 'd ' put up with it ' he 'd ' brave it ! ' he 'd ' walk straight 
 into a sea of boiling hot whisky punch until it touched his lips 
 flowed over his lips. And see ! look there now ! he 'd never let it 
 pass them never, barring the one tumbler. She wouldn't say against 
 one tumbler, would she?' 
 
 Ellen shook her head. Though this occurred before Father 
 Mathew regenerated his country, she knew that. the only safeguard, 
 where there is a tendency to habits of intoxication, or even to take 
 ' only a drop ' where ' the drop ' is more than the head will bear is 
 TOTAL ABSTINENCE. She knew that the liquid fire was as dangerous 
 to sport with as the fire which destroyed the sleeping child ; and she 
 told him so ; and he, lover-like, vowed that, though it would be 
 'mighty hard,' and very unneighbourly, to drink 'cowld wather' 
 fornint a ' hot tumbler ' of the ' mountain-dew,' still, if it was her 
 wish, he 'd do it he 'd do anything for a ' short day.' But Ellen had 
 more forethought than belongs to her countrywomen in general, and 
 she remained firm. 
 
 ' You 've wonderful houlding out in you, sister dear,' said Michael : 
 ' I 'm sure he '11 never touch another drop.' 
 
 ' I wish I felt assured of it, Michael,' replied Ellen. ' Even while 
 the story I told him was beating about his heart, he wouldn't give 
 me the promise. Sure it 's woeful to see how hard the habit is he 
 would not give the promise only for a short day though, before I 
 told him of Lady Stacy, he said he would. The grip it takes, the 
 hoult it gets after a while, is wonderful ; and sure it 's so with other 
 habits that people can't get shut of. Why, there's yourself, Micky, 
 has a wonderful fidgety way with you notching the table with a 
 knife, or churning the salt, or twisting the buttons off yer shirt 
 sleeves anything on earth to fiddle with never can keep yer fingers 
 aisy one single minute : it 's Saint Vitus's dance you have in them ; 
 oh ! then dear, that saint must have been mighty unaisy in himself, 
 to be so shaking ever and always.' 
 
 'There,' said her brother, throwing down the knife and pushing 
 away the salt, 'anything for peace and quietness. I wonder will 
 Larry be as aisy with you as I am. I often take pride in myself for 
 being such an angel. Ellen, I wonder how Larry will behave at the 
 fair of Birr will he hould out there ?' 
 26
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 'He will,' answered Ellen ; 'I'm not fearful of Larry in a great 
 temptation, but I doubt him in little ones. I wish masters would 
 pay their men at twelve o'clock on Saturdays instead ef in the evening, 
 and let them take their money where they work, instead of paying 
 them in public-houses : that's the ruin of many a fine boy; for it's 
 counted mean to go into the public and not take something ; and the 
 boys hate meanness as bad as murder.' 
 
 ' Oh ! save us !' ejaculated Michael. 
 
 ' Some of them do, anyhow,' said Ellen. 
 
 'Set a case,' commenced Michael with a very wise look 'that 
 Larry really did break out once or twice only now and then would 
 you give him up ?' 
 
 Ellen became pale, then red ; but after a pause, she replied : ' I 
 think I would / think I could not make a drunkard happy no 
 woman could it would be impossible ; and whatever love he has for 
 me would wear out, and soon ; for though I hope I should never 
 forget the duty I owed as a wife, one of her duties is to seek a 
 husband's good in all things, and the highest step towards a man's 
 earthly good is sobriety.' 
 
 'Bedad !' replied her brother, 'you did not go to school for nothing, 
 I see that.' 
 
 'It was you, dear, that sent me there,' she said ; 'and I owe to you 
 what I can never repay.' 
 
 The fair of Birr came and went, and Larry behaved like a hero. 
 His 'big-coat' was thrown back with an air of determined self-con- 
 fidence (the most dangerous confidence in the world certain in the 
 long-run to get a man into trouble) ; his hat put on with a jaunty 
 air; his crimson-silk 'Barcelona' tied with a knot and floating ends ; 
 his scarlet-cloth waistcoat peeped from beneath the body-coat of blue, 
 whose brass buttons glittered like gold. ' Brogues ! ' Larry disdained 
 them ! his 'neat' feet were encased in black shining leather, so that 
 he was ready for a jig if he could only get Ellen to dance one, but 
 she would not : she did not like dancing in 'a tent;' nor was she 
 foolishly jealous or angry when her betrothed attended to the curtsey 
 of a ' little cousin of her own,' and danced her down, amid the 
 vigorous applause of the company. On that occasion Lawrence 
 certainly behaved like a very hero ! not a drop would he touch 
 ' beyant ' the one tumbler ; and when he walked home with Ellen 
 in the evening, he felt almost inclined to quarrel with her, because 
 she remained firm to the time she had originally named for their 
 union. 
 
 The victory Lawrence achieved at Birr uplifted him sadly. He 
 had hitherto kept a wakeful guard over himself; and whenever 
 inclination put in its plea for another ' drop,' resolution said ' No,' 
 and fidelity whispered ' Ellen ;' but Birr ' birred ' in his ears. ' Think 
 of me there,' thought Lawrence ; 'just look at me, when every boy in 
 the fair was " blind " or " reeling," able to walk a chalked line from
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 this to Bantry ; up before the lark, and working alone at my trade 
 in the morning.' Perhaps Lawrence had never read : ' Let him that 
 thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall ; ' or if he had, he had 
 forgotten ! It was within a week of his ' statute of limitation ' one 
 single week ! Saturday came as usual, and Lawrence went to receive 
 his wages at the public-house. Some of his old friends were there, 
 steady-headed men, who could drink 'a deal' without shewing it, 
 and made a boast that they could do so a strange boast, is it not ? 
 and often made by men whose families, if not absolutely clotheless 
 and foodless, are without the comforts of life : yet their husbands 
 and fathers, those who are bound by every law human and divine to 
 protect them, can make a boast of what ? of drinking ; that is, of 
 absolutely swallowing the pence, shillings, and pounds which would 
 feed, clothe, and educate them respectably ; a strange boast ! Such 
 a man might just as well say : ' My wife has no shoes, my baby no 
 clothes, the fire on my hearth burns low, there is little food for our- 
 selves, and if our neighbour wants, there is none to give him ; yet 
 I am a good workman, I earn good wages, I could give my wife 
 good shoes, and my baby clothes ; they might warm themselves at 
 a cheerful fire, that would join them in giving me a welcome those 
 dreary nights ; there would be abundant food for ourselves, and 
 something to spare for a poor neighbour or a houseless wanderer, 
 so that the blessings they returned might be treasured up in heaven, 
 a dower for me and my children hereafter ! But if I did this, I 
 should not be able to shew that I could drink ten or twelve tumblers 
 with a steady eye and a steady hand. Yet, let me think ! my hand 
 is not steady ; and though my eyes are steady enough, I can't see 
 much out of them ; but then I can drink the ten tumblers without 
 a reeling head ; though it may be bothered, it doesn't reel. Hurra ! 
 isn't that a glorious thing? I can swallow wife's shoes, baby's 
 clothes, blazing fire, plenty of unblest food, and my own credit, in 
 ten strong tumblers of punch. Hurra ! there's a head ! isn't that 
 
 a FINE THING?' 
 
 Lawrence met one or two of these very tremendous ten and twelve 
 tumbler men, and other poor weak-headed fellows, who reeled and 
 staggered, and made fools of themselves upon the value of a single 
 shoe, or a new apron, while the mighty drinkers sneered and laughed 
 at them. And then Lawrence was induced to boast that his head, 
 was as hard and as strong as e'er a head there. His companions 
 did not at all doubt its hardness, but they doubted its strength ; and 
 they told him so : they were sure a wine-glassful beyond his quantity 
 his stint would 'knock him over;' and to prove it would not, 
 Lawrence took another wine-glassful ; and those who were anxious 
 he should be overthrown like themselves, pushed the jug of punch 
 close to him ; and the talking and singing, the increased stimulant 
 of the glass, led him to pour out another unconsciously ; then, as his 
 spirit mounted, companioned by the other spirit he had imbibed, he 
 38
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 declared that he could drink as much as any of them without being 
 touched or ' staggered.' 
 
 There are always, unfortunately, a number of persons who take 
 a mischievous pleasure in setting, not wrong right, but right wrong ; 
 and such were delighted at making Lawrence ' steady Lawrence, 
 sober Lawrence ' the same as themselves. His was precisely a 
 case where it was easier to abstain than to refrain; he could do the 
 one, but not the other ; he lacked that greatest of all commands 
 SELF-COMMAND. If roused, like all his countrymen he was equal to 
 anything brave, earnest, self-denying, silent, strong-hearted ; but 
 when once the watch and ward slumbered, he sunk. Once thrown off 
 his guard, Lawrence plunged still more deeply into the pit. Drop 
 by drop he went on until his head turned and amid the uproarious 
 mirth, little remained of his real nature. He was angry with himself; 
 the hour was past when he had promised to meet Ellen; and when, 
 having stood up to ascertain, with a species of drunken stupidity, if 
 he could walk, he was hailed with a shout of triumphant laughter, 
 he turned upon his tempters like a baited lion, fierce and desperate, 
 and a violent conflict ensued. Larry, from the circumstance of being 
 from a distant part of the country, had no ' faction ' to take his part, 
 and so stood a chance of being murdered; but Michael Murphy, 
 who, astonished at his intended brother-in-law's loitering, had come 
 to the public-house to inquire why he tarried, hearing the riot with- 
 in, rushed forward, and, but for his raising the well-known cry : ' A 
 Murphy, a Murphy, hirroo ! here's for a Murphy!' there is little 
 doubt that Lawrence would have been sent, unprepared and unre- 
 pentant, out of the world, whose peace and harmony is destroyed 
 by the vices and intemperance of those whom the Almighty created 
 for far different purposes. 
 
 ' I could,' said Ellen on the following morning ' I could have 
 followed him with a less heart-broken feeling in poverty through the 
 world : I could have begged with him, begged for him, worked my 
 fingers to the bone, and at the last, if it had been the will of Heaven, 
 have sat a mourning widow on his grave ay, to the end of my own 
 days rather than have seen him as I did last night ; not so crushed 
 in body as in mind ; unable to speak three plain words, or call me 
 by my own name, while every drunkard in the parish shouted at his 
 disgrace. Och, Michael dear, your poor sister's heart is broken 
 intirely ! I took too much pride out of him ! I thought at the fair 
 of Birr how grand he looked, taking the shine out of every one ; and 
 he so sober, his eyes as pure as crystal, his head strong, and his 
 hand ready to save others from the usage which every spalpeen in 
 the place was able to give him last night and all through u the 
 drop.'"' 
 
 Poor Ellen felt her lover's degradation more than he felt it himself; 
 though he did feel it when he saw that, however others might think 
 of it who were as bad, or worse than he, Ellen's pale cheek and
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 wasted form proved how much she suffered. It was nearly four 
 weeks before Lawrence was able to resume his employment, and 
 during that time Ellen never reproached him never said a word 
 that could give him pain but when he was quite recovered, and 
 again spoke of their marriage, she at first turned away to weep 
 bitterly, and then firmly told him 'that her mind was fixed;' she 
 never would marry him until he took ' an obligation ' on himself ' at 
 the priest's knee ' never to touch spirits of any kind from that day 
 to the day of his death. There might have been a struggle in 
 Larry's mind as to which he would give up, Ellen or the whisky. 
 Ellen, however, triumphed; he practised total abstinence for three 
 months. When, from faith in his oath, she married him, experience 
 had convinced him that his tower of strength was total abstinence, 
 his guardian angel his firm yet gentle wife. He never tasted whisky 
 from that time, and Ellen has the proud satisfaction of knowing she 
 had saved him from destruction. I wish all Irish maidens would 
 follow Ellen's example. Women could do a great deal to prove that 
 'the least taste in life' is a large taste too much that ' ONLY A DROP' 
 is a temptation fatal if unresisted. 
 
 Since the foregoing story was written, a great change has taken 
 place in Ireland,* and, by the blessing of God, in England and in 
 
 * The following particulars may here be advantageously introduced from the work on 
 Ireland by Mr and Mrs S. C. Hall : ' In reference to the extent to which sobriety has 
 spread, it will be almost sufficient to state that during our recent stay in Ireland, from 
 the loth of June to the 6th of September 1840, we saw but six persons intoxicated ; 
 and that for the first thirty days we had not encountered one. In the course of that 
 month we had travelled from Cork to Killarney round the coast ; returning by the 
 inland route, not along mail-coach roads, but on a 'jaunting-car,' through byways as 
 well as highways ; visiting small villages and populous towns, driving through fairs, 
 attending wakes and funerals (returning from one of which ; between Glengariff and 
 Kenmare, at nightfall, we met at least a hundred substantial farmers, mounted) ; in 
 short, wherever crowds were assembled, and we considered it likely we might gather 
 information as to the state of the country, and the character of its people. We 
 repeat, we did not meet a single individual who appeared to have tasted spirits ; and 
 we do not hesitate to express our conviction, that two years ago, in the same places, and 
 during the same time, we should have encountered many thousand drunken men. From 
 first to last, we employed perhaps fifty car-drivers ; we never found one to accept a drink : 
 the boatmen of Killarney, proverbial for drunkenness, insubordination, and recklessness of 
 life, declined the whisky we had taken with us for the bugle-player, who was not ' pledged,' 
 and after hours of hard labour, dipped a can into the lake, and refreshed themselves from 
 its waters. It was amusing as well as gratifying to hear their new reading of the address 
 to the famous echo: "Paddy Blake, plase yer honour, the gintleman promises ye some 
 coffee whin ye get home ;" and on the Blackwater, a muddy river, as its name denotes, 
 our boat's crew put into shore, midway between Youghal and Lismore, to visit a clear 
 spring, with the whereabouts of which they were familiar. The whisky-shops arc closed, 
 Or converted into coffee-houses ; the distilleries have, for the most part, ceased to work ; 
 and the breweries are barely able to maintain a trade sufficient to prevent entire stoppage. 
 Of the extent of the change, therefore, we have had ample experience ; and it is borne out 
 by the assurances of so many who live in towns as well as in the country, that we can have 
 no hesitation in describing sobriety to be almost universal throughout Ireland." Mr Hall, 
 at a meeting in Exeter Hall on behalf of Father Mathew, related the following anecdote 
 Illustrative of the great moral change which had taken place_ in Ireland. 'About seven 
 or eight years ago he had visited a friend of his at Limerick, intending to enjoy the sport 
 of fishing in the Shannon. In order that the man whom his friend employed to attend the 
 30
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 Scotland also : there are many thousands at this moment who, 
 instead of striving to content themselves with 'only a drop' an 
 experiment that failed in nine cases out of ten never taste or touch 
 the liquid poison. What has been the consequence? Their comforts 
 have augmented fourfold ; they are bringing up their families respect- 
 ably, giving them better clothes, better food, and better education, 
 than their means could have permitted them to do, had they spent 
 what they once did upon strong drinks. Many, many are the bless- 
 ings they hourly enjoy, arising out of the moneys of which drinking- 
 houses are deprived. Their heads are cool, while their hands are 
 strengthened by industry sevenfold productive industry born of 
 temperance. Moreover, there are very few members of temperance 
 societies who have not laid by a little at least against ' a rainy day.' 
 Proud and happy men are they who once a week visit THE SAVINGS- 
 BANK, that tower of the working-man's strength. Proudly yet 
 humbly do they pass by the ' gin-palaces,' whose glaring lights and 
 broad windows shine in bitter mockery upon the rags, the violence, 
 the evil-speaking, the debilitated forms and emaciated countenances 
 of those who are there ruining bodies and perilling souls by the most 
 debasing and least defensible of all bad habits. Of such unhappy 
 fellow-creatures the upholders of temperance may well say, though 
 with an unblamable and truly Christian feeling : ' God be thanked 
 that we are not as other men are.' 
 
 But the hero of total abstinence will not be satisfied with this ; he 
 will not be content with his own prosperity ; he will not say : ' Stand 
 back, I am holier than thou ' not he. He will call to mind when 
 he too was one of the 'unclean ;' he will prove his gratitude for the 
 saving knowledge he has acquired by endeavouring to impart it to 
 others ; and he will do this gently and without self-exaltation. He 
 will be ready at all times and in all places to give a reason unto all 
 men, to shew why he is more comfortable than his neighbours ; and 
 why, despite the ' hardness of the times,' he is able to multiply his 
 ' little ' by the self-restraint that renders it ' much.' I look upon the 
 temperance movement as one of the greatest glories of the age we 
 
 boat should appear as decent as possible, a new suit of clothes had been given to him the 
 
 surprise to unu me same man neaiuiy, wen ciau, un wiic ura cuiiureu uuuuunauic, auu 
 having money in the savings-bank. And how was this change brought about ? Why, the 
 man had taken the pledge, and kept it. His master had given him five shillings to go to 
 
 aim naii-a-crown to neip mm on nis roaa DOCK, no man lovea ireiana or me insn cna- 
 ractcr more than he did ; and he should always endeavour to place that character in its 
 best and truest position before Englishmen ; and now that the Irishman had added to his 
 many high and good qualities the greatest of all virtues next to religion, temperance, they 
 might depend he was now to be trusted at all times and under all circumstances.' Note by 
 Ediifrs.
 
 IT'S ONLY A DROP. 
 
 live in. It was preached unto the poor by a few good men, and the 
 poor adopted it ; its influence spread upwards, and the rich have 
 since followed the example of the humblest class. 
 
 But while I rejoice at the spread of temperance in England, and 
 hope it may be as widely extended in Scotland, I find it difficult to 
 write dispassionately of the self-denial practised by the peasantry of 
 my own dear country, giving up what might be termed, and with 
 perfect truth, their only luxury relinquishing what, according to one 
 of their popular songs, was 
 
 ' Sister and brother, 
 And father and mother ; 
 My Sunday coat, I have no other' 
 
 discarding a habit, the growth of centuries, suddenly, and yet faith- 
 fully is enough to warm even a stranger's heart towards the 
 country, despite all that is said against it. The fact that they made 
 a resolution to which they have adhered, and gave a pledge which 
 they have kept faithfully for a number of years, will surely be accepted 
 as sufficient proof that the Irish may be trusted fully in even higher 
 matters that they are capable of any effort for the social elevation 
 of their country and that the poverty and misery which have been 
 for a series of years proverbial, cannot be much longer their burden 
 and reproach. 
 
 A. M. H.
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 HILLIAM COWPER, born November 15, 1731, and 
 whose life was extended to April 25, 1800, was one of 
 the most popular English poets of his day, and his pieces 
 still enjoy a high reputation for their truthfulness to 
 nature, piety, and good sense ; also for the smoothness 
 and finish of their versification. Written towards the close of the 
 eighteenth century, they may be considered to form a link between 
 the era of Pope, Johnson, Goldsmith, and others, and that of the 
 modern poets, including Byron and Scott. Unfortunately, Cowper 
 suffered under a poor state of health for many years before his death ; 
 and his life was spent chiefly in rural retirement, of which there are 
 various evidences in his writings. 
 
 32 i
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER, 
 
 ON THE RECEIPT OF HIS MOTHER'S PICTURE. 
 
 O that those lips had language ! Life has passed 
 With me but roughly since I heard thee last. 
 Those lips are thine thy own sweet smiles I see, 
 The same that oft in childhood solaced me ; 
 Voice only fails, else, how distinct they say : 
 ' Grieve not, my child ; chase all thy fears away !' 
 The meek intelligence of those dear eyes 
 (Blest be the art that can immortalise, 
 The art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim 
 To quench it) here shines on me still the same. 
 
 Faithful remembrancer of one so dear ; 
 
 welcome guest, though unexpected here ! 
 Who bidd'st me honour with an artless song, 
 Affectionate, a mother lost so long. 
 
 1 will obey, not willingly alone, 
 
 But gladly, as the precept were her own : 
 And, while that face renews my filial grief, 
 Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief; 
 Shall steep me in Elysian reverie, 
 A momentary dream, that thou art she. 
 
 My mother ! when I learned that thou wast dead, 
 Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed ? 
 Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, 
 Wretch even then, life's journey just begun ? 
 Perhaps thou gav'st me, though unfelt, a kiss ; 
 Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss. 
 Ah, that maternal smile ! it answers Yes. 
 I heard the bell tolled on thy burial-day, 
 I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, 
 And, turning from my nursery window, drew 
 A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu ! 
 But was it such ? It was. Where thou art gone, 
 Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. 
 May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, 
 The parting word shall pass my lips no more ! 
 Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern, 
 Oft gave me promise of a quick return : 
 What ardently I wished, I long believed, 
 And, disappointed still, was still deceived ; 
 By expectation every day beguiled, 
 Dupe of to-morrow even from a child.
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went, 
 Till, all my stock of infant sorrows spent, 
 I learned at last submission to my lot, 
 But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot. 
 
 Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, 
 Children not thine have trod my nursery floor ; 
 And where the gardener Robin, day by day, 
 Drew me to school along the public way, 
 Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapped 
 In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet-capped, 
 'Tis now become a history little known, 
 That once we called the pastoral house our own. 
 Short-lived possession ! But the record fair 
 That memory keeps of all thy kindness there, 
 Still outlives many a storm, that has effaced 
 A thousand other themes less deeply traced. 
 Thy nightly visits to my chamber made, 
 That thou mightst know me safe and warmly laid ; 
 Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, 
 The biscuit, or confectionary plum ; 
 The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed 
 By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed : 
 All this, and more endearing still than all, 
 Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall, 
 Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and breaks, 
 That humour interposed too often makes : 
 All this, still legible in memory's page, 
 And still to be so to my latest age, 
 Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay 
 Such honours to thee as my numbers may ; 
 Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere, 
 Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here. 
 
 Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours, 
 When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers, 
 The violet, the pink, and jessamine, 
 I pricked them into paper with a pin 
 (And thou wast happier than myself the while, 
 Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head, and smile) ; 
 Could those few pleasant days again appear, 
 Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here ? 
 I would not trust my heart the dear delight 
 Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might. 
 But no ; what here we call our life is such, 
 So little to be loved, and thou so much, 
 
 3
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 That I should ill requite thee to constrain 
 Thy unbound spirit into bonds again. 
 
 Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast 
 (The storms all weathered, and the ocean crossed) 
 Shoots into port at some well-havened isle, 
 Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile, 
 There sits quiescent on the floods, that shew 
 Her beauteous form reflected clear below, 
 While airs impregnated with incense play 
 Around her, fanning light her streamers gay ; 
 So thou, with sails how swift ! hast reached the shore 
 ' Where tempests never beat nor billows roar ; ' 
 And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide 
 Of life long since has anchored at thy side. 
 But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest, 
 Always from port withheld, always distressed 
 Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-tossed. 
 Sails ript, seams opening wide, and compass lost j 
 And day by day some current's thwarting force 
 Sets me more distant from a prosperous course. 
 But oh ! the thought that thou art safe, and he ! 
 That thought is joy, arrive what may to me. 
 My boast is not that I deduce my birth 
 From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth ; 
 But higher far my proud pretensions rise 
 The son of parents passed into the skies. 
 And now, farewell ! Time unrevoked has run 
 His wonted course, yet what I wished is done. 
 By contemplation's help, not sought in vain, 
 I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again ; 
 To have renewed the joys that once were mine, 
 Without the sin of violating thine : 
 And while the wings of fancy still are free, 
 And I can view this mimic show of thee, 
 Time has but half succeeded in his theft 
 Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left. 
 
 THE ROSE. 
 
 THE rose had been washed, just washed in a shower, 
 
 Which Mary to Anna conveyed, 
 The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower, 
 
 And weighed down its beautiful head.
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 The cup was all filled, and the leaves were all wet, 
 
 And it seemed, to a fanciful view, 
 To weep for the buds it had left with regret, 
 
 On the nourishing bush where it grew. 
 
 I hastily seized it, unfit as it was 
 
 For a nosegay, so dripping and drowned, 
 
 And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas ! 
 I snapped it it fell to the ground. 
 
 ' And such,' I exclaimed, ' is the pitiless part 
 
 Some act by the delicate mind, 
 Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart 
 
 Already to sorrow resigned. 
 
 ' This elegant rose, had I shaken it less, 
 
 Might have bloomed with its owner a while ; 
 
 And the tear, that is wiped with a little address, 
 May be followed perhaps by a smile.' 
 
 THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT. 
 
 FORCED from home and all its pleasures, 
 
 Afric's coast I left forlorn ; 
 To increase a stranger's treasures, 
 
 O'er the raging billows borne. 
 Men from England bought and sold me, 
 
 Paid my price in paltry gold ; 
 But, though theirs they have enrolled me, 
 
 Minds are never to be sold. 
 
 Still in thought as free as ever, 
 
 What are England's rights, I ask, 
 Me from my delights to sever, 
 
 Me to torture, me to task? 
 Fleecy locks and black complexion 
 
 Cannot forfeit nature's claim ; 
 Skins may differ, but affection 
 
 Dwells in white and black the same. 
 
 Why did All-creating Nature 
 
 Make the plant for which we toil ? 
 
 Sighs must fan it, tears must water, 
 Sweat of ours must dress the soiL
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 Think, ye masters iron-hearted, 
 
 Lolling at your jovial boards, 
 Think how many backs have smarted 
 
 For the sweets your cane affords. 
 
 Is there, as ye sometimes tell us, 
 
 Is there One who reigns on high ? 
 Has He bid you buy and sell us, 
 
 Speaking from His throne the sky? 
 Ask Him, if your knotted scourges, 
 
 Matches, blood-extorting screws, 
 Are the means which duty urges 
 
 Agents of His will to use ? 
 
 Hark ! He answers Wild tornadoes, 
 
 Strewing yonder sea with wrecks ; 
 Wasting towns, plantations, meadows, 
 
 Are the voice with which He speaks. 
 He, foreseeing what vexations 
 
 Afric's sons should undergo, 
 Fixed their tyrants' habitations 
 
 Where His whirlwinds answer No. 
 
 By our blood in Afric wasted, 
 
 Ere our necks received the chain ; 
 By the miseries we have tasted, 
 
 Crossing in your barks the main ; 
 By our sufferings since ye brought us 
 
 To the man-degrading mart ; 
 All sustained by patience, taught us 
 
 Only by a broken heart. 
 
 Deem our nation brutes no longer, 
 
 Till some reason ye shall find 
 Worthier of regard, and stronger 
 
 Than the colour of our kind. 
 Slaves of gold, whose sordid dealings 
 
 Tarnish all your boasted powers, 
 Prove that you have human feelings, 
 
 Ere you proudly question ours ! 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE AND GLOW-WORM. 
 
 A NIGHTINGALE, that all day long 
 Had cheered the village with his song, 
 Nor yet at eve his note suspended, 
 Nor yet when eventide was ended,
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 Began to feel, as well he might, 
 The keen demands of appetite ; 
 When, looking eagerly around, 
 He spied far off, upon the ground, 
 A something shining in the dark, 
 And knew the glow-worm by his spark ; 
 So, stooping down from hawthorn top, 
 He thought to put him in his crop. 
 The worm, aware of his intent, 
 Harangued him thus, right eloquent : 
 
 ' Did you admire my lamp,' quoth he, 
 ' As much as I your minstrelsy, 
 You would abhor to do me wrong, 
 As much as I to spoil your song ; 
 For 'twas the self-same Power divine 
 Taught you to sing, and me to shine ; 
 That you with music, I with light, 
 Might beautify and cheer the night.' 
 The songster heard his short oration, 
 And warbling out his approbation, 
 Released him, as my story tells, 
 And found a supper somewhere else. 
 
 Hence jarring sectaries may learn 
 Their real interest to discern ; 
 That brother should not war with brother, 
 And worry and devour each other ; 
 But sing and shine by sweet consent, 
 Till life's poor transient night is spent, 
 Respecting in each other's case 
 The gifts of nature and of grace. 
 
 Those Christians best deserve the name 
 Who studiously make peace their aim ; 
 Peace, both the duty and the prize 
 Of him that.creeps and him that flies. 
 
 JOHN GILPIN. 
 
 JOHN GILPIN was a citizen 
 
 Of credit and renown, 
 A train-band captain eke was he 
 
 Of famous London town. 
 
 John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear : 
 ' Though wedded we have been 
 
 These twice ten tedious years, yet we 
 No holiday have seen.
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 ' To-morrow is our wedding-day, 
 
 And we will then repair 
 Unto the Bell at Edmonton 
 
 All in a chaise and pair. 
 
 ' My sister and my sister's child, 
 
 Myself and children three, 
 Will fill the chaise ; so you must ride 
 
 On horseback after we.' 
 
 He soon replied : ' I do admire 
 
 Of womankind but one, 
 And you are she, my dearest dear, 
 
 Therefore it shall be done. 
 
 ' I am a linendraper bold, 
 
 As all the world doth know, 
 And my good friend the calender 
 
 Will lend his horse to go.' 
 
 Quoth Mrs Gilpin : ' That 's well said ; 
 
 And for that wine is dear, 
 We will be furnished with our own, 
 
 Which is both bright and clear.' 
 
 John Gilpin kissed his loving wife ; 
 
 O'erjoyed was he to find 
 That, though on .pleasure she was bent, 
 
 She had a frugal mind. 
 
 The morning came, the chaise was brought, 
 
 But yet was not allowed 
 To drive up to the door, lest all 
 
 Should say that she was proud. 
 
 So three doors off the chaise was stayed, 
 
 Where they did all get in ; 
 Six precious souls, and all agog 
 
 To dash through thick and thin. 
 
 Smack went the whip, round went the wheels, 
 
 Were never folk so glad, 
 The stones did rattle underneath, 
 
 As if Cheapside were mad. 
 
 John Gilpin at his horse's side 
 
 Seized fast the flowing mane, 
 And up he got, in haste to ride, 
 
 But soon came down again ;
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 For saddle-tree scarce reached had he, 
 
 His journey to begin, 
 When, turning round his head, he saw 
 
 Three customers come in. 
 
 So down he came ; for loss of time, 
 
 Although it grieved him sore, 
 Yet loss of pence, full well he knew, 
 
 Would trouble him much more. 
 
 ' Twas long before the customers 
 
 Were suited to their mind, 
 When Betty screaming came down-stairs : 
 
 ' The wine is left behind!' 
 
 * Good lack ! ' quoth he ; ' yet bring it me, 
 
 My leathern belt likewise, 
 In which I bear my trusty sword 
 
 When I do exercise.' 
 
 Now Mrs Gilpin (careful soul) 
 
 Had two stone bottles found, 
 To hold the liquor that she loved, 
 
 And keep it safe and sound. 
 
 Each bottle had a curling ear, 
 Through which the belt he drew, 
 
 And hung a bottle on each side, 
 To make his balance true. 
 
 Then over all, that he might be 
 
 Equipped from top to toe, 
 His long red cloak, well brushed and neat, 
 
 He manfully did throw. 
 
 Now see him mounted once again 
 
 Upon his nimble steed, 
 Full slowly pacing o'er the stones 
 
 With caution and good heed. 
 
 But finding soon a smoother road 
 
 Beneath his well-shod feet, 
 The snorting beast began to trot, 
 
 W T hich galled him in his seat. 
 
 So ' Fair and softly,' John he cried ; 
 
 But John he cried in vain ; 
 That trot became a gallop soon, 
 
 In spite of curb and rein. 
 32
 
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 So stooping down, as needs he must 
 
 Who cannot sit upright, 
 He grasped the mane with both his hands, 
 
 And eke with all his might. 
 
 His horse, which never in that sort 
 
 Had handled been before, 
 What thing upon his back had got 
 
 Did wonder more and more. 
 
 Away went Gilpin, neck or nought ; 
 
 Away went hat and wig ; 
 He little dreamt, when he set out, 
 
 Of running such a rig. 
 
 The wind did blow, the cloak did fly, 
 
 Like streamer long and gay, 
 Till, loop and button failing both, 
 
 At last it flew away. 
 
 Then might all people well discern 
 
 The bottles he had slung ; 
 A bottle swinging at each side, 
 
 As hath been said or sung. 
 
 The dogs did bark, the children screamed, 
 
 Up flew the windows all ; 
 And every soul cried out ' Well done ! ' 
 
 As loud as he could bawl. 
 
 Away went Gilpin who but he ? 
 
 His fame soon spread around ; 
 ' He carries weight ! he rides a race ! 
 
 'Tis for a thousand pound ! ' 
 
 And still, as fast as he drew near, 
 
 'Twas wonderful to view 
 How in a trice the turnpike-men 
 
 Their gates wide open threw. 
 
 And now, as he went bowing down 
 
 His reeking head full low, 
 The bottles twain behind his back 
 
 Were shattered at a blow. 
 
 Down ran the wine into the road, 
 
 Most piteous to be seen, 
 Which made his horse's flanks to smoke 
 
 As they had basted been.
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 But still he seemed to carry weight, 
 
 With leathern girdle braced ; 
 For all might see the bottle-necks 
 
 Still dangling at his waist. 
 
 Thus all through merry Islington 
 
 These gambols he did play, 
 Until he came unto the Wash 
 
 Of Edmonton so gay ; 
 
 And there he threw the wash about 
 
 On both sides of the way, 
 Just like unto a trundling mop, 
 
 Or a wild goose at play. 
 
 At Edmonton his loving wife 
 
 From the balcony espied 
 Her tender husband, wondering much 
 
 To see how he did ride. 
 
 ' Stop, stop, John Gilpin ! Here 's the house,' 
 
 They all aloud did cry ; 
 ' The dinner waits, and we are tired : ' 
 
 Said Gilpin : ' So am I.' 
 
 But yet his horse was not a whit 
 
 Inclined to tarry there ; 
 For why ? His owner had a house 
 
 Full ten miles off at Ware. 
 
 So like an arrow swift he flew, 
 
 Shot by an archer strong ; 
 So did he fly which brings me to 
 
 The middle of my song. 
 
 Away went Gilpin out of breath, 
 
 And sore against his will, 
 Till at his friend the calender's 
 
 His horse at last stood still. 
 
 The calender, amazed to see 
 
 His neighbour in such trim, 
 Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate, 
 
 And thus accosted him : 
 
 ' What news ? what news ? your tidings tell ; 
 
 Tell me you must and shall ; 
 Say why bare-headed you are come, 
 
 Or why you come at all ?'
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit, 
 
 And loved a timely joke ; 
 And thus unto the calender 
 
 In merry guise he spoke : 
 
 ' I came because your horse would come ; 
 
 And, if I well forebode, 
 My hat and wig will soon be here 
 
 They are upon the road.' 
 
 The calender, right glad to find 
 
 His friend in merry pin, 
 Returned him not a single word, 
 
 But to the house went in ; 
 
 Whence straight he came with hat and wig : 
 
 A wig that flowed behind, 
 A hat not much the worse for wear, 
 
 Each comely in its kind. 
 
 He held them up, and in his turn 
 
 Thus shewed his ready wit : 
 ' My head is twice as big as yours, 
 
 They therefore needs must fit. 
 
 ' But let me scrape the dirt away 
 
 That hangs upon your face ; 
 And stop and eat, for well you may 
 
 Be in a hungry case.' 
 
 Said John : ' It is my wedding-day, 
 
 And all the world would stare 
 If wife should dine at Edmonton, 
 
 And I should dine at Ware.' 
 
 So, turning to his horse, he said : 
 
 ' I am in haste to dine ; 
 'Twas for your pleasure you came here, 
 
 You shall go back for mine.' 
 
 Ah, luckless speech, and bootless boast ! 
 
 For which he paid full dear ; 
 For while he spake, a braying ass 
 
 Did sing most loud and clear ; 
 
 Whereat his horse did snort, as he 
 
 Had heard a lion roar, 
 And galloped off with all his might, 
 
 As he had done before.
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 Away went Gilpin, and away 
 
 Went Gilpin's hat and wig : 
 He lost them sooner than at first; 
 
 For why? They were too big. 
 
 Now Mrs Gilpin, when she saw 
 
 Her husband posting down 
 Into the country far away, 
 
 She pulled out half-a-crown ; 
 
 And thus unto the youth she said 
 
 That drove them to the Bell : 
 ' This shall be yours when you bring back 
 
 My husband safe and well.' 
 
 The youth did ride, and soon did meet 
 
 John coming back amain ! 
 "Whom in a trice he tried to step, 
 
 By catching at his rein : 
 
 But not performing what he meant, 
 
 And gladly would have done, 
 The frighted steed he frighted more, 
 
 And made him faster run. 
 
 Away went Gilpin, and away 
 
 Went post-boy at his heels, 
 The post-boy's horse right glad to miss 
 
 The lumbering of the wheels. 
 
 Six gentlemen upon the road 
 
 Thus seeing Gilpin fly, 
 With post-boy scampering in the rear, 
 
 They raised the hue and cry : 
 
 'Stop thief! stop thief! a highwayman !' 
 
 Not one of them was mute ; 
 And all and each that passed that way 
 
 Did join in the pursuit. 
 
 And now the turnpike-gates again 
 
 Flew open in short space ; 
 The tollmen thinking, as before, 
 
 That Gilpin rode a race. 
 
 And so he did ; and won it too ; 
 
 For he got first to town ; 
 Nor stopped till where he had got up 
 
 He did again get down.
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 Now let us sing, long live the king ; 
 
 And Gilpin, long live he ; 
 And when he next doth ride abroad, 
 
 May I be there to see ! 
 
 LOVE OF NATURE. 
 
 NOR rural sights alone, but rural sounds, 
 Exhilarate the spirit, and restore 
 The tone of languid Nature. Mighty winds, 
 That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood 
 Of ancient growth, make music not unlike 
 The dash of Ocean on his winding shore, 
 And lull the spirit while they fill the mind ; 
 Unnumbered branches waving in the blast, 
 And all their leaves, fast fluttering, all at once. 
 Nor less composure waits upon the roar 
 Of distant floods, or on the softer voice 
 Of neighbouring fountain, or of rills that slip 
 Through the cleft rock, and, chiming as they fall 
 Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length 
 In matted grass, that, with a livelier green, 
 Betrays the secret of their silent course. 
 Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds, 
 But animated Nature sweeter still, 
 To soothe and satisfy the human ear. 
 Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one 
 The livelong night : nor these alone whose notes 
 Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain, 
 But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime 
 In still repeated circles, screaming loud, 
 The jay, the pie, and even the boding owl, 
 That hails the rising moon, have charms for me. 
 Sounds inharmonious in themselves, and harsh, 
 Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns, 
 And only there, please highly for their sake. 
 
 Like a coy maiden, ease, when courted most, 
 Farthest retires an idol, at whose shrine 
 Who oftenest sacrifice, are favoured least. 
 The love of Nature, and the scenes she draws, 
 Is Nature's dictate. Strange there should be found 
 Who, self-imprisoned in their proud saloons, 
 Renounce the odours of the open field 
 For the unscented fictions of the loom ; 
 Who, satisfied with only pencilled scenes, 
 Prefer to the performance of a God
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 The inferior wonders of an artist's hand ! 
 
 Lovely indeed the mimic works of art ; 
 
 But Nature's works far lovelier. I admire, 
 
 None more admires, the painter's magic skill, 
 
 Who shews me that which I shall never see, 
 
 Conveys a distant country into mine, 
 
 And throws Italian light on English walls : 
 
 But imitative strokes can do no more 
 
 Than please the eye sweet Nature, every sense. 
 
 The air salubrious of her lofty hills, 
 
 The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales, 
 
 And music of her woods no works of man 
 
 May rival these ; these all bespeak a power 
 
 Peculiar, and exclusively her own. 
 
 Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast ; 
 
 'Tis free to all 'tis every day renewed ; 
 
 Who scorns it, starves deservedly at home. 
 
 He does not scorn it who, imprisoned long 
 
 In some unwholesome dungeon, and a prey 
 
 To sallow sickness, which the vapours, dank 
 
 And clammy, of his dark abode have bred, 
 
 Escapes at last to liberty and light : 
 
 His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue ; 
 
 His eye relumines its extinguished fires ; 
 
 He walks, he leaps, he runs is winged with joy, 
 
 And riots in the sweets of every breeze. 
 
 He does not scorn it who has long endured 
 
 A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs ; 
 
 Nor yet the mariner, his blood inflamed 
 
 With acrid salts, his very heart athirst 
 
 To gaze at Nature in her green array ; 
 
 Upon the ship's tall side he stands, possessed 
 
 With visions prompted by intense desire : 
 
 Fair fields appear below, such as he left 
 
 Far distant, such as he would die to find 
 
 He seeks them headlong, and is seen no more. 
 
 The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns ; 
 The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown, 
 And sullen sadness that overshade, distort, 
 And mar the face of beauty, when no cause 
 For such immeasurable woe appears ; 
 These Flora banishes, and gives the fair 
 Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own. 
 It is the constant revolution, stale 
 And tasteless, of the same repeated joys 
 That palls and satiates, and makes languid life 
 A pedler's pack, that bows the bearer down.
 
 if, 
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 Health suffers, and the spirits ebb ; the heart 
 
 Recoils from its own choice at the full feast 
 
 Is famished finds no music in the song, 
 
 No smartness in the jest ; and wonders why. 
 
 Yet thousands still desire to journey on, 
 
 Though halt, and weary of the path they tread. 
 
 The paralytic, who can hold her cards, 
 
 But cannot play them, borrows a friend's hand 
 
 To deal and shuffle, to divide and sort 
 
 Her mingled suits and sequences ; and sits, 
 
 Spectatress both and spectacle, a sad 
 
 And silent cipher, while her proxy plays. 
 
 Others are dragged into the crowded room. 
 
 Between supporters ; and, once seated, sit 
 
 Through downright inability to rise, 
 
 Till the stout bearers lift the corpse again. 
 
 These speak a loud memento. Yet even these 
 
 Themselves love life, and cling to it, as he 
 
 That overhangs a torrent to a twig. 
 
 They love it, and yet loathe it ; fear to die, 
 
 Yet scorn the purposes for which they live. 
 
 Then wherefore not renounce them ? No ; the dread, 
 
 The slavish dread of solitude, that breeds 
 
 Reflection and remorse, the fear of shame, 
 
 And their inveterate habits, all forbid. 
 
 TOWN LIFE. 
 
 GOD made the country, and man made the town. 
 What wonder, then, that health and virtue gifts 
 That can alone make sweet the bitter draught 
 That life holds out to all should most abound, 
 And least be threatened, in the fields and groves ? 
 Possess ye therefore, ye who, borne about 
 In chariots and sedans, know no fatigue 
 But that of idleness, and taste no scenes 
 But such as art contrives, possess ye still 
 Your element ; there only can ye shine ; 
 There only minds like yours can do no harm. 
 Our groves were planted to console at noon 
 The pensive wanderer in their shades. At eve 
 The moonbeam, sliding softly in between 
 The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish ; 
 Birds warbling all the music. We can spare 
 The splendour of your lamps ; they but eclipse 
 Our softer satellite. Your songs confound
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPEH. 
 
 Our more harmonious notes : the thrush departs 
 
 Scared, and the offended nightingale is mute. 
 
 There is a public mischief in your mirth ; 
 
 It plagues your country. Folly such as yours, 
 
 Graced with a sword, and worthier of a fan, 
 
 Has made what enemies could ne'er have done 
 
 Our arch of empire, steadfast but for you, 
 
 A mutilated structure, soon to fall. 
 
 WAR SLAVERY. 
 
 FOR a lodge in some vast wilderness, 
 Some boundless contiguity of shade, 
 Where rumour of oppression and deceit, 
 Of unsuccessful or successful war, 
 
 Might never reach me more. My ear is pained, 
 My soul is sick, with every day's report 
 Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled. 
 There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart 
 It does not feel for man : the natural bond 
 Of brotherhood is severed as the flax 
 That falls asunder at the touch of fire. 
 He finds his fellow guilty of a skin 
 Not coloured like his own ; and having power 
 To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause 
 Dooms and devotes him as a lawful prey. 
 Lands intersected by a narrow frith 
 Abhor each other. Mountains interposed 
 Make enemies of nations, who had else, 
 Like kindred drops, been mingled into one. 
 Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys ; 
 And, worse than all, and most to be deplored 
 As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, 
 Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat 
 With stripes, that Mercy with a bleeding heart 
 Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. 
 Then what is man ? And what man, seeing this, 
 And having human feelings, does not blush 
 And hang his head to think himself a man ? 
 
 1 would not have a slave to till my ground, 
 To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, 
 
 And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 
 That sinews bought and sold have ever earned. 
 No : dear as freedom is, and in my heart's 
 Just estimation prized above all price, 
 I had much rather be myself the slave,
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. 
 We have no slaves at home. Then why abroad ? 
 And they themselves, once ferried o'er the wave 
 That parts us, are emancipate and loosed. 
 Slaves cannot breathe in England : if their lungs 
 Receive our air, that moment they are free : 
 They touch our country, and their shackles fall. 
 That is noble, and bespeaks a nation proud 
 And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, 
 And let it circulate through every vein 
 Of all your empire ; that, where Britain's power 
 Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too. 
 
 BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 HAPPY the man who sees a God employed 
 In all the good and ill that checker life ! 
 Resolving all events, with their effects 
 And manifold results, into the will 
 And arbitration wise of the Supreme. 
 Did not His eye rule all things, and intend 
 The least of our concerns (since from the least 
 The greatest oft originate) ; could chance 
 Find place in His dominion, or dispose 
 One lawless particle to thwart His plan ; 
 Then God might be surprised, and unforeseen 
 Contingence might alarm Him, and disturb 
 The smooth and equal course of His affairs. 
 This truth Philosophy, though eagle-eyed 
 In nature's tendencies, oft o'erlooks ; 
 And, having found his instrument, forgets, 
 Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still, 
 Denies the power that wields it. 
 
 LOVE OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ENGLAND, with all thy faults, I love thee still 
 My country ! And, while yet a nook is left, 
 Where English minds and manners may be found, 
 Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime 
 Be fickle, and thy year most part deformed 
 With dripping rains, or withered by a frost, 
 I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies, 
 And fields without a flower, for warmer France 
 With all her vines ; nor for Ausonia's groves 
 18
 
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 Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers. 
 To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime 
 Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire 
 Upon thy foes, was never meant my task : 
 But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake 
 Thy joys and sorrows, with as true a heart 
 As any thunderer there. And I can feel 
 Thy follies too; and with a just disdain 
 Frown at effeminates, whose very looks 
 Reflect dishonour on the land I love. 
 
 ENGLISH LIBERTY. 
 
 WE love 
 
 The king who loves the law, respects his bounds, 
 And reigns content within them ; him we serve 
 Freely, and with delight, who leaves us free : 
 But recollecting still that he is man, 
 We trust him not too far. King though he be, 
 And king in England too, he may be weak, 
 And vain enough to be ambitious still ; 
 May exercise amiss his proper powers, 
 Or covet more than freemen choose to grant : 
 Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours 
 To administer, to guard, to adorn the state, 
 But not to warp or change it We are his 
 To serve him nobly in the common cause, 
 True to the death, but not to be his slaves. 
 Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love 
 Of kings, between your loyalty and ours ! 
 We love the man, the paltry pageant you ; 
 We the chief patron of the commonwealth, 
 You the regardless author of its woes ; 
 We, for the sake of liberty, a king, 
 You chains and bondage for a tyrant's sake : 
 Our love is principle, and has its root 
 In reason is judicious, manly, free ; 
 Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod, 
 And licks the foot that treads it in the dust. 
 Were kingship as true treasure as it seems, 
 Sterling, and worthy of a wise man's wish, 
 I would not be a king to be beloved 
 Causeless, and daubed with undiscerning praise, 
 Where love is mere attachment to the throne, 
 Not to the man who fills it as he ought. 
 'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume ; 
 
 And we are weeds without it. All constraint, 
 
 Except what wisdom lays on evil men, 
 
 Is evil ; hurts the faculties, impedes 
 
 Their progress in the road of science, blinds 
 
 The eyesight of discovery, and begets 
 
 In those that suffer it a sordid mind, 
 
 Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit 
 
 To be the tenant of man's noble form. 
 
 Thee therefore still, blameworthy as thou art, 
 
 With all thy loss of empire, and though squeezed 
 
 By public exigence till annual food 
 
 Fails for the craving hunger of the state, 
 
 Thee I account still happy, and the chief 
 
 Among the nations, seeing thou art free. 
 
 My native nook of earth ! thy clime is rude, 
 
 Replete with vapours, and disposes much 
 
 All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine : 
 
 Thine unadulterate manners are less soft 
 
 And plausible than social life requires ; 
 
 And thou hast need of discipline and art 
 
 To give thee what politer France receives 
 
 From nature's bounty that humane address 
 
 And sweetness, without which no pleasure is 
 
 In converse, either starved by cold reserve, 
 
 Or flushed with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl : 
 
 Yet, being free, I love thee : for the sake 
 
 Of that one feature can be well content, 
 
 Disgraced as thou hast been, poor as thou art, 
 
 To seek no sublunary rest beside. 
 
 But once enslaved, farewell ! I could endure 
 
 Chains nowhere patiently ; and chains at home, 
 
 Where I am free by birthright, not at all. 
 
 EPITAPH ON TINEY, 
 A HARE WHICH THE AUTHOR TAMED AND DOMESTICATED. 
 
 HERE lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue, 
 
 Nor swifter greyhound follow, 
 Whose foot ne'er tainted morning dew, 
 
 Nor e'er heard huntsman's hollo. 
 
 Old Tiney, surliest of his kind, 
 
 Who, nursed with tender care, 
 And to domestic bounds confined, 
 
 Was still a wild Jack-hare.
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 Though duly from my hand he took 
 
 His pittance every night, 
 He did it with a jealous look, 
 
 And, when he could, would bite. 
 
 His diet was of wheaten bread, 
 And milk, and oats, and straw ; 
 
 Thistles, or lettuces instead, 
 With sand to scour his maw. 
 
 On twigs of hawthorn he regaled, 
 
 On pippins' russet peel, 
 And, when his juicy salads failed, 
 
 Sliced carrot pleased him well. 
 
 A Turkey-carpet was his lawn, 
 
 Whereon he loved to bound, 
 To skip and gambol like a fawn, 
 
 And swing his rump around. 
 
 His frisking was at evening hours, 
 
 For then he lost his fear, 
 But most before approaching showers, 
 
 Or when a storm drew near. 
 
 Eight years and five round-rolling moons 
 
 He thus saw steal away, 
 Dozing out all his idle noons, 
 
 And every night at play. 
 
 I kept him for his humour's sake ; 
 
 For he would oft beguile 
 My heart of thoughts that made it ache, 
 
 And force me to a smile. 
 
 But now beneath his walnut shade 
 
 He finds his long last home, 
 And waits, in snug concealment laid, 
 
 Till gentler Puss shall come. 
 
 He, still more aged, feels the shocks 
 From which no care can save, 
 
 And, partner once of Tiney's box, 
 Must soon partake his grave.
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 TALKERS. 
 
 THE emphatic speaker dearly loves to oppose, 
 In contact inconvenient, nose to nose, 
 As if the gnomon on his neighbour's phiz, 
 Touched with a magnet, had attracted his. 
 His whispered theme, dilated and at large, 
 Proves after all a wind-gun's airy charge 
 An extract of his diary no more 
 A tasteless journal of the day before. 
 He walked abroad, o'ertaken in the rain, 
 Called on a friend, drank tea, stept home again ; 
 Resumed his purpose, had a world of talk 
 With one he stumbled on, and lost his walk ; 
 I interrupt him with a sudden bow, 
 Adieu, dear sir, lest you should lose it now. 
 
 Some men employ their health an ugly trick 
 In making known how oft they have been sick, 
 And give us in recitals of disease 
 A doctor's trouble, but without the fees ; 
 Relate how many weeks they kept their bed, 
 How an emetic or cathartic sped ; 
 Nothing is slightly touched, much less forgot ; 
 Nose, ears, and eyes seem present on the spot. 
 Now the distemper, spite of draught or pill, 
 Victorious seemed; and now the doctors skill; 
 And now alas for unforeseen mishaps ! 
 They put on a damp nightcap, and relapse : 
 They thought they must have died, they were so bad; 
 Their peevish hearers almost wish they had. 
 
 Some fretful tempers wince at every touch; 
 You always do too little or too much : 
 You speak with life, in hopes to entertain 
 Your elevated voice goes through the brain ; 
 You fall at once into a lower key 
 That 's worse, the drone-pipe of a humble-bee. 
 The southern sash admits too strong a light ; 
 You rise and drop the curtain now 'tis night. 
 He shakes with cold you stir the fire, and strive 
 To make a blaze that 's roasting him alive. 
 Serve him with venison, and he chooses fish ; 
 With sole that 's just the sort he would not wish. 
 He takes what he at first professed to loathe, 
 And in due time feeds heartily on both ; 
 Yet still, o'erclouded with a constant frown, 
 He does not swallow, but he gulps it down.
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 Your hope to please him vain on every plan; 
 Himself should work that wonder if he can. 
 Alas ! his efforts double his distress. 
 He likes yours little, and his own still less. 
 Thus always teasing others, always teased, 
 His only pleasure is to be displeased. 
 
 THE LACE-WORKER AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 YON cottager, who weaves at her own door, 
 Pillow and bobbins all her little store ; 
 Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, 
 Shuffling her threads about the livelong day, 
 Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night 
 Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light. 
 She, for her humble sphere by nature fit, 
 Has little understanding, and no wit ; 
 Receives no praise ; but though her lot be such 
 (Toilsome and indigent), she renders much ; 
 Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true 
 A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew ; 
 And in that charter reads, with sparkling eyes, 
 Her title to a treasure in the skies; 
 O happy peasant ! O unhappy bard ! 
 His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward; 
 He praised, perhaps, for ages yet to come, 
 She never heard of half a mile from home ; 
 He lost in errors his vain heart prefers, 
 She safe in the simplicity of hers. 
 
 WINTER EVENING IN THE COUNTRY. 
 
 HARK ! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge, 
 
 That with its wearisome but needful length 
 
 Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon 
 
 Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright : 
 
 He comes, the herald of a noisy world, 
 
 With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks ; 
 
 News from all nations lumbering at his back. 
 
 True to his charge, the close-packed load behind, 
 
 Yet careless what he brings, his one concern 
 
 Is to conduct it to the destined inn ; 
 
 And, having dropped the expected bag, pass on. 
 
 He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch ! 
 
 Cold and yet cheerful : messenger of grief 
 
 33
 
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 Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some ; 
 To him indifferent whether grief or joy. 
 Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks, 
 Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet 
 With tears, that trickled down the writer's cheeks 
 Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, 
 Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains, 
 Or nymphs responsive, equally affect 
 His horse and him, unconscious of them all. 
 But oh, the important budget ! ushered in 
 With such heart-shaking music, who can say 
 What are its tidings ? Have our troops awaked ? 
 Or do they still, as if with opium drugged, 
 Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave ? 
 . Is India free ? and does she wear her plumed 
 And jewelled turban with a smile of peace, 
 Or do we grind her still ? The grand debate, 
 The popular harangue, the tart reply, 
 The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit, 
 And the loud laugh I long to know them all j 
 I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free, 
 And give them voice and utterance once again. 
 Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, 
 Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, 
 And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn 
 Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, 
 That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, 
 So let us welcome peaceful evening in. ... 
 This folio of four pages, happy work ! 
 Which not even critics criticise; that holds 
 Inquisitive attention, while I read, 
 Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, 
 Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break ; 
 What is it but a map of busy life, 
 Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns ? 
 Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge 
 That tempts ambition. On the summit see 
 The seals of office glitter in his eyes ; 
 He climbs, he pants, he grasps them ! At his heels, 
 Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends, 
 And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down, 
 And wins them, but to lose them in his turn. 
 Here rills of oily eloquence in soft 
 Meanders lubricate the course they take ; 
 The modest speaker is ashamed and grieved 
 To engross a moment's notice, and yet begs, 
 Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts,
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 However trivial all that he conceives. 
 
 Sweet bashfulness ! it claims at least this praise 
 
 The dearth of information and good sense 
 
 That it foretells us, always comes to pass. 
 
 Cataracts of declamation thunder here ; 
 
 There forests of no meaning spread the page, 
 
 In which all comprehension wanders lost ; 
 
 While fields of pleasantry amuse us there, 
 
 With merry descants on a nation's woes. 
 
 The rest appears a wilderness of strange 
 
 But gay confusion : roses for the cheeks, 
 
 And lilies for the brows of faded age, 
 
 Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald, 
 
 Heaven, earth, and ocean plundered of their sweets, 
 
 Nectareous essences, Olympian dews, 
 
 Sermons, and city feasts, and favourite airs, 
 
 ./Ethereal journeys, submarine exploits, 
 
 And Katterfelto, with his hair on end 
 
 At his own wonders, wondering for his bread. 
 
 J Tis pleasant through the loopholes of retreat 
 To peep at such a world ; to see the stir 
 Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd ; 
 To hear the roar she sends through all her gates 
 At a safe distance, where the dying sound 
 Falls a soft murmur on the uninjured ear. 
 Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease 
 The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced 
 To some secure and more than mortal height, 
 That liberates and exempts me from them all. 
 
 O Winter ! ruler of the inverted year, 
 I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st, 
 And dreaded as thou art ! Thou hold'st the sun 
 A prisoner in the yet undawning east, 
 Shortening his journey between morn and noon, 
 And hurrying him, impatient of his stay, 
 Down to the rosy west ; but kindly still 
 Compensating his loss with added hours 
 Of social converse and instructive ease, 
 And gathering, at short notice, in one group 
 The family dispersed, and fixing thought, 
 Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares. 
 I crown thee king of intimate delights, 
 Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness, 
 And all the comforts that the lowly roof 
 Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours 
 Of long uninterrupted evening, know. 
 No rattling wheels stop short before these gates ;
 
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 No powdered pert, proficient in the art 
 
 Of sounding an alarm, assaults these doors 
 
 Till the street rings ; no stationary steeds 
 
 Cough their own knell, while, heedless of the sound, 
 
 The silent circle fan themselves, and quake : 
 
 But here the needle plies its busy task, 
 
 The pattern grows, the well-depicted flower, 
 
 Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn, 
 
 Unfolds its bosom : buds, and leaves, and sprigs, 
 
 And curling tendrils, gracefully disposed, 
 
 Follow the nimble finger of the fair ; 
 
 A wreath, that cannot fade, of flowers, that blow 
 
 With most success when all besides decay. 
 
 The poet's or historian's page by one 
 
 Made vocal for the amusement of the rest ; 
 
 The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds 
 
 The touch from many a trembling chord shakes out ; 
 
 And the clear voice symphonious, yet distinct, 
 
 And in the charming strife triumphant still, 
 
 Beguile the night, and set a keener edge 
 
 On female industry : the threaded steel 
 
 Flies swiftly, and unfelt the task proceeds. 
 
 The volume closed, the customary rites 
 
 Of the last meal commence..; . . 
 
 Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull, 
 
 Nor such as with a frown forbids the play 
 
 Of fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth : 
 
 Nor do we madly, like an impious world, 
 
 Who deem religion frenzy, and the God 
 
 That made them an intruder on their joys, 
 
 Start at His awful name, or deem His praise 
 
 A jarring note. Themes of a graver tone, 
 
 Exciting oft our gratitude and love, 
 
 While we retrace with memory's pointing wand, 
 
 That calls the past to our exact review, 
 
 The dangers we have 'scaped, the broken snare, 
 
 The disappointed foe, deliverance found 
 
 Unlocked for, life preserved and peace restored, 
 
 Fruits of omnipotent eternal love. 
 
 Come, Evening, once again, season of peace ; 
 Return, sweet Evening, and continue long ! 
 Methinks I see thee in the streaky west, 
 With matron-step slow-moving, while the Night 
 Treads on thy sweeping train ; one hand employed 
 In letting fall the curtain of repose 
 On bird and beast, the other charged for man 
 With sweet oblivion of the cares of day :
 
 SELECT POETICAL PIECES OF COWPER. 
 
 Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid, 
 
 Like homely featured Night, of clustering gems ; 
 
 A star or two, just twinkling on thy brow, 
 
 Suffices thee ; save that the moon is thine 
 
 No less than hers : not worn indeed on high 
 
 With ostentatious pageantry, but set 
 
 With modest grandeur in thy purple zone, 
 
 Resplendent less, but of an ampler round. 
 
 Come then, and thou shalt find thy votary calm, 
 
 Or make me so. Composure is thy gift ; 
 
 And whether I devote thy gentle hours 
 
 To books, to music, or the poet's toil ; 
 
 To weaving nets for bird-alluring fruit ; 
 
 Or twining silken threads round ivory reels, 
 
 When they command whom man was born to please, 
 
 I slight thee not, but make thee welcome still 
 
 In such a world, so thorny, and where none 
 Finds happiness unblighted, or, if found, 
 Without some thistly sorrow at its side, 
 It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin 
 Against the law of love, to measure lots 
 With less distinguished than ourselves ; that thus 
 We may with patience bear our moderate ills, 
 And sympathise with others suffering more. . . . 
 
 Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat, 
 Such claim compassion in a night like this ; 
 And have a friend in every feeling heart. 
 Warmed, while it lasts, by labour, all day long 
 They brave the season, and yet find at eve, 
 111 clad, and fed but sparely, time to cool. 
 The frugal housewife trembles while she lights 
 Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear ; 
 But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys. 
 The few small embers left she nurses well ; 
 And, while her infant race, with outspread hands 
 And crowded knees, sit cowering o'er the sparks, 
 Retires, content to quake, so they be warmed. 
 The man feels least, as more inured than she 
 To winter, and the current in his veins 
 More briskly moved by his severer toil ; 
 Yet he too finds his own distress in theirs. 
 The taper soon extinguished, which I saw 
 Dangled along at the cold finger's end 
 Just when the day declined, and the brown loaf 
 Lodged on the shelf, half-eaten without sauce 
 Of savoury cheese, or butter, costlier still. 
 Sleep seems their only refuge ; for, alas ! 
 
 27
 
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 Where penury is felt, the thought is chained, 
 
 And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few ! 
 
 With all this thrift, they thrive not. All the care 
 
 Ingenious parsimony takes, but just 
 
 Saves the small inventory bed and stool, 
 
 Skillet and old carved chest from public sale. 
 
 They live, and live without extorted alms 
 
 From grudging hands ; but other boast have none 
 
 To soothe their honest pride, that scorns to beg, 
 
 Nor comfort else, but in their mutual love. 
 
 I praise you much, ye meek and patient pair, 
 
 For ye are worthy ; choosing rather far 
 
 A dry but independent crust, hard earned, 
 
 And eaten with a sigh, than to endure 
 
 The rugged frowns and insolent rebuffs 
 
 Of knaves in office, partial in the work 
 
 Of distribution ; liberal of their aid 
 
 To clamorous importunity in rags, 
 
 But ofttimes deaf to suppliants who would blush 
 
 To wear a tattered garb, however coarse, 
 
 Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth : 
 
 These ask with painful shyness, and, refused 
 
 Because deserving, silently retire ! 
 
 But be ye of good courage ! Time itself 
 
 Shall much befriend you. Time shall give increase j 
 
 And all your numerous progeny, well trained, 
 
 But helpless, in few years shall find their hands, 
 
 And labour too. 
 
 38
 
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