H
THEN AND NOW
./ : V : V . O :'
THEN AND NOW
BY DEAN HOLE . .
Author of "A Book About Roses," "A
Little Tour in Ireland," " The Memories
of Dean Hole," "Our Gardens," etc.
"THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH,
YIELDING PLACE TO NEW "
EIGHTH AND POPULAR EDITION
London
HUTCHINSON 6f CO.
Paternoster Row . 1907
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, TL.TD.
IONDON AND AYLESBURY.
PREFACE
IT was suggested to me that, having lived a long
life, as a squire and a parson, a churchman and a
sportsman, in country and city, with high and low,
I should have something to say, which would interest
others, about the changes which I have seen ; and
with the hope which is given to every man who
has done his best, the result of that suggestion is
presented by the writer to those who have so long
and so kindly encouraged him to write. I make
no apology for sudden transitions from solemn to
humorous discourse. Thoughts grave and mirthful
bring shadow or sunshine to our hearts, like the
uncertain glories of an April day, and I have
sketched them as they came.
S. REYNOLDS HOLE.
THE DEANERY,
ROCHESTER,
November ; 1901.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PACK
I. BABIES AND CHILDREN ...... I
II. EDUCATION 17
III. GENTLE AND OTHER MEN 28
IV. BETTING AND GAMBLING ..... 43
V. THE TRUE GENTLEMAN 54
VI. GENTLE AND OTHER WOMEN ..... 66
VII. THE WIFE Si
VIII. THE NURSE ........ 91
IX. GAMES 1 08
X. SPORTS 128
XI. RECREATIONS 142
XII. TEETOTALLERS, WISE AND OTHERWISE . . 159
XIII. CLERGY AND LAITY 174
XIV. PREACHING AND SPEAKING . . . . . IQO
XV. LOCOMOTION . .213
vii
viii Contents
CHAP. PAGE
XVI. CYCLING . . . . . . . .231
XVII. BOOKS OLD AND NEW 241
XVIII. PARTIES. I. POLITICAL 273
XIX. PARTIES. II. SOCIAL 283
XX. PARTIES. III. RELIGIOUS ... . 292
XXI. OUR HOMES 302
XXII. OUR HORTICULTURE ...... 316
CONCLUSION 332
HEN AND NOW
CHAPTER I
Babies and Children
Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said,
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.
LONGFELLOW.
I DO not observe any distinctive features in the babies
of Then and Now. I notice the same proportion of
infants plump and placid, smiling or sleeping, and
of others mewling and puking, or with countenances
of a carmine tint howling their miseries from enormous
mouths, and fiercely fighting the air.
The babes are identical, but in the middle and upper
there is an extension of an evil habit as to their
Limentary treatment. The natural process has been
irgely discarded as tedious, disfiguring, and interfering
nth social enjoyments, and has been relegated to other
lothers, or to the cow.* Our infants, instead of being
There is an admirable essay on this subject in Knox's
filter Evenings i vol. i. p. 363.
Then and Now
privately regaled at home, hold a symposium of topers
in our streets, and the heart's desire among mothers
seems now to be " May we ne'er want a babe, or a
bottle to give him." They are under the impression
that they have greatly improved upon the time when
Shakespeare's daughter inscribed on her mother's
grave : " Ubera tu, mater, tu lac, vitamque dedisti."
It is not an edifying sight, and it is associated
with a much more severe affliction. These babes
are mounted infantry, or, rather, they are " carriage
company," and Master Redhead's phaeton, and Miss
Merry's victoria, with a procession of diminutive
vehicles of all denominations, stop the way " where
men most do congregate."
For many years of my earlier existence we were
mercifully spared this plague of perambulators, which
now, in consequence of some national degradation,
Little Englandism, barbed wire, pigeon-shooting, or
croquet, has spread like locusts through the land.
I shall never forget the ordeal when, in attempting
to avoid one of these machines, I lost my balance
and stumbled on another, upsetting it, and ejecting
the occupant. I fell clear of it ; but the nurse,
although the baby was screaming loudly, immediately
announced, " He has killed the child ! " and it was
evidently the verdict of the spectators that I had
out-Heroded Herod, and ought to die.
The nursemaid loves the perambulator. In the
first place, we have long been convinced that it ill
becomes us, as the most civilised nation on the face
Babies and Children 3
of the earth, to carry anything, even for ourselves,
much less to bear one another's burdens ; that, being
supreme on the face of the waters also, no Briton,
male or female, shall ever be a slave ; and that only
as helps, colleagues, auxiliaries, employes, but never
as servants, will we co-operate with our fellow-men ;
and this upon one immutable condition, that the
maximum of wage shall accompany the minimum of
work.
There are associations more tender and sweet. The
perambulator may be taken far from the madding crowd
to the quiet suburb and the peaceful park ; and when
it is located awhile in the scorching sunshine, the
chilly shade, or in " all the airts the wind can blow,"
with the head of the inmate dangling over the side,
pretty Jane can enjoy delightful converse with Mr.
Atkins, of his Majesty's army, or Mr. Peeler, of
his Majesty's police.
Should the babe be preserved from sunstroke, catarrh,
and strangulation, a new peril awaits his early child-
hood from this same custodian and culprit so soon as
he is able to understand it, and an arrow that flieth
by night is far more hurtful than any pestilence which
walketh by noonday. Miss Jenny has heard from her
friend the policeman of deeds of violence, of burglars,
murderers, and executions, and has read in her favourite
publications of spectres, and of giants, dwarfs, and
other deformities. With a cruel ignorance she repeats
these records in the nursery, and the result in many
cases inflicts so much suffering, such an agony of
t Then and Now
terror, that, in all seriousness, I would earnestly entreat
those persons that are married, or intend to take that
estate upon them, to remember and to avert this
miserable distress, not only by a thoughtful caution
as to the words which they speak in the hearing of
their children, but by forbidding their servants to tell
them these idle tales.
Keble has said that " the heart of childhood is
all mirth/* but this mirth may be overwhelmed by
that horrible dread, by that awful, appalling con-
sciousness of the presence of evil, and that terrible
apprehension of its power, which convince us that
there are angels of darkness as well as angels of
light, and which can only be dispelled by the prayerful
faith that greater are they which are with us than those
that are against us. It is wicked to tell children of
those things only which are vile and hateful, and not
of those which are beautiful and true, and it is this
omission which aggravates the terrors and sorrows of
childhood, and causes the tender, sensitive spirit to feel
them more acutely than at any other period of life.
I write of my own experience. I have been in positions
of great peril, nigh unto death, on the sea, on the
precipice, on the rail, and on the hunting-field, but
I have never realised so helplessly, so hopelessly, the
torment of fear as when a little child alone in the night
I have expected to feel the touch or to hear the voice
of some monster described to me in the preceding
day with threats of a visitation. I can distinctly
remember visions w"Jiich I had in my dreams more than
Babies and Children 5
seventy years ago of Burke and Hare, two villains in
Edinburgh who suddenly sprang upon their victims
and suffocated them with pitch-plasters. I saw them
as they had been introduced to me by Jenny two
short, stout men, with fur caps and ferocious faces,
standing at the bottom of my bed. I was also terrified
by recollections of giants who were constrained by
moral obligations to punish naughty children, and at
the same time to replenish their larder, by carrying
them away in the night.
Or, remembering our sorrows, have we ever felt so
acutely the misery of grief, the anguish of a great
despair, since, after some foolish disobedience, some
imaginary neglect or slight, we shed those bitter tears,
and sobbed our heart away, as we thought that we
had lost for ever the love of those whom we loved
the most, and the burden laid upon us seemed greater
than we could bear ?
Ghosts are no longer that which they have been :
they are not Now as Then ; there seems to be neither
time nor place for them ; their favourite occupations
of banging doors, audibly though invisibly walking up
and down stairs, rolling heavy weights over the floors
of distant apartments, gliding along passages in gowns
which rustle as though they were barristers who had
recently " taken silk," excite no sympathy. They are
denounced, on the contrary, as altogether beneath the
dignity of a spirit, bodied or disembodied, and as a
frivolous waste of energy and time. The surroundings
are not congenial, as when there were gloomy corridors,
6 Then and Now
clattering windows, and creaking furniture. The solemn
four-poster, with its dismal draperies, is superseded
by the open couch, with its bright coverlet and shining
brass. The dingy old bedroom, which depressed like
a dungeon, enlivens with a gay delight. The fire-
grate, about the size of *a soup-tureen, with an
occasional brick included to prevent the lavish con-
sumption of coal, so constructed as to send its heat
up the chimney and its smoke into the room, has been
removed for a more ample accommodation of fuel,
and, bordered with its pretty encaustic tiles, warms the
chamber with its cheerful glow. The electric light
may be turned on in a second, and in its brilliant
splendour the faint halo of the astonished spectre
must pale its ineffectual fire.
Ghosts have deteriorated in character and declined
in popularity from their association with spiritualists
and spooks. The spirits have so frequently presented
themselves as pre-eminently ignorant of grammar, erratic
in spelling, silly in their conversation, and mendacious
in their announcements, that they cannot be regarded as
worthy companions of the ghosts who, whatever their
debilities may have been, have generally, as members
of ancient families, behaved like gentlemen, and have
not given themselves away as third-class dunces or as
unsuccessful knaves.
Literature, in its connection with spooks, failing to
impress the reading public, has been hurtful rather
than helpful to the reputation of ghosts, and psycho-
logical studies and inquiries as to phenomena claiming
Babies and Children 7
to be supernatural have not tended to reinstate
them.
There was a time when everybody knew somebody
who had a friend who had seen a ghost, but one never
could get at the friend, much less at his mysterious
mate. I have been in places most favourable for an
interview, which, in the language of the sanguine
sportsman, were " almost a certain find," but there was
neither sight nor sniff. I have slept in " Byron's
Tower," in his own rooms, when the winds roared, and
sighed, and soughed, and the ivy tapped and scraped
at the windows, but there were no Don Juans, no
corsairs, no Giaours, no visitors, until "jocund day
stood tiptoe on the misty mountain top " and a foot-
man brought me hot water. I have been where
O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said as plain as whisper in the ear
This place is haunted;
but it wasn't.
There seems to have been a general exodus to those
mer climes which do not freeze the imagination
or nip romance in the bud ; to communities which are
not so bigoted as our own by a rigid preference for facts,
but which give a more kindly welcome to the senti-
mental balloonist, the aerial architect, and the voyager
in unknown seas.
I remember a remarkable exit. At a tenants' ball
given at a great country house to celebrate the coming
of age of the heir, a small lady of middle age and
8 Then and Now
respectable appearance, very simply and neatly attired
in mourning dress, appeared among the guests. No
one knew her, and she gradually attracted more
inquiry and attention, until after supper she suddenly
vanished from the crowd and was seen by two or
three persons in the hall to pass through the great door
with a strange and solemn expression on her face,
and pointing with one hand heavenward as though in
a trance. Then the suggestion was made by some
superstitious individual, and was told in whispers,
and by many gravely accepted, that the visitor was
no less than the " Dark Lady " who was traditionally
reported to have rambled and rustled for generations
in this ancient house ; and with this impression the
company retired to rest, and rose early to spread
the report far and wide through the county. It was
suddenly suppressed by the announcement that my
lady's maid had missed some valuable jewels from
my lady's dressing-table, that the housemaids were
unable to find a large number of miniatures, and that
the butler missed a gold snuff-box from his sideboard
and ten of his apostle spoons. On collecting such
evidence as was available with regard to the move-
ments and behaviour of the ghost, they came to the
conclusion that their lost treasures had gone away in
her pocket ; and a detective, who came quickly from
town, not only endorsed their decision, but expressed
his confident belief that the Dark Lady was an adroit
burglar, fair and slim, and well known to the metro-
politan police for his successful annexation of property
Babies and Children 9
when disguised in female attire. As time went on
there arose a strong suspicion that this accomplished
artist was identical with a footman who was known to
have dressed himself as the Dark Lady, and to have
nearly frightened some inmates of the house into fits.
He was never trusted ; money went mysteriously ; the
house from which he came had been robbed, and he
was finally dismissed.
There is an immeasurable difference between ghosts
and other apparitions between that which witnesses
declare they saw with their own eyes when they were
wide awake, as Hamlet saw the ghost of his father
and Macbeth saw Banquo, and that which presents
itself to us when we are asleep, or in that condition
between waking and sleeping which makes the vision
so like reality. I do not believe in the former, and
I am fully persuaded in my own mind that the
wonderful stories which we hear are to be accounted
for either as exaggerations or as the result of natural
causes which have been misstated or suppressed ; but
many of us have had experience of the latter of
those visions of the night which have seemed so real,
and which in some instances have brought us in-
formation as to occurrences before unknown to us,
but subsequently proved to be true. I must not
repeat the records of my own experience, which I
have written elsewhere,* but I may add another
example suggested by its association with the children
now in our thoughts.
* In The Memories of Dean Hole.
io Then and Now
George Benfield, a driver on the Midland Railway
living at Derby, was standing on the footplate
oiling his engine, the train being stationary, when
he slipped and fell on the space between the lines.
He heard the express coming on, and had only just
time to lie full length on the " six-foot " when it
rushed by, and he escaped unhurt. He returned to
his home in the middle of the night, and as he was
going up the stairs, he heard one of his children,
a girl about eight years old, crying and sobbing.
" Oh, father," she said, " I thought somebody came
and told me that you were going to be killed, and
I got out of bed and prayed that God would not
let you die." Was it only a dream, a coincidence ?
George Benfield and some others believed that he
owed his life to that prayer.
I recall another instance in which the intercession
of a little child, its effectual, fervent prayer, prevailed
to prolong a life. A friend informed me that he
was in his garden with a daughter of seven years
when a visitor came and told him that a near neigh-
bour was at the point of death, that he had just
seen the- doctor, and that there was no hope of
recovery. The little girl hurried away, and when
her father called to her and asked where she was
going, she said, " Oh, father, I'm going to my
room to ask God that Mr. may not die." The
sick man was restored to health.
The Turks in this matter are no " infidels."
When the plague was raging in Constantinople,
thousand;
Babies and Children n
:
ousands of children were assembled on a hill out-
side the city, and there, standing between the dead
and the living, prayed that the plague might cease.
Reverting to the perils of childhood, when it
emerges from the perambulator and passes to the
closer intimacy and supervision of parents, it may
have to encounter the most disastrous danger of all.
They who should be its best friends may be its
most cruel enemies ; its foes may be those of its
own house.
It is sad indeed to see anything that was once
pure and beautiful, and full of power and promise,
defiled, deformed, perverted, and abused ; and such
a sight is the most miserable when it is seen in the
beginning of a life, when the stream is polluted at
the spring, when the blight is on the blossom and
the worm is in the bud. What is there more
lovable, more joyous, on earth than a child in its
innocence, gently but firmly taught and trained,
obedient, reverent, affectionate, tender-hearted ? What
is there more deplorable, more prophetic of evil, than
spoiled child, sullen, defiant, greedy, revengeful ?
The best of them are not angels, but in their
purity and their happiness they most resemble them ;
and it is the duty of parents, pastors, and teachers
to maintain, not to mar, the likeness. They are
not angels ; they have the taint of the Fall ; and it
should be the first object of those who are nearest,
and should be dearest, to them to lead and to help
them how to overcome evil with good. They inherit
12 Then and Now
the spirit of " man's first disobedience,** and they
themselves seem to be conscious that the instinct is
sinful, though parents neither explain nor denounce
it. There is a power which teaches our hands to
war and our fingers to fight, that we may resist the
oppressor and defend the right, and there is a power
which teaches our hands to strike and our fingers to
scratch from mere anger, cruelty, and spite.
It is told of the child of a famous painter that,
from want of due repression and discipline, he gave
way from time to time to paroxysms of violent and
vindictive rage, and that in one of these furious moods
he kicked and spat at his father. Soon afterwards,
downcast and remorseful, he drew near and made his
humble confession, " Fat 'her ', the devil told me to kick
you ; the spitting was my own idea"
The apology is quaint in its expression, but it is
in perfect conformity with the Christian faith as
to two of the three sources of temptation.
Socially, what a nuisance these spoilt children are
to us ! No one loves them in their integrity more
than I, but I must confess that when I see childhood
in its degradation, see it misrepresented by conceited
little prigs in their ostentatious finery, and hear their
querulous " Shan't, can't, and won't," I am visited
by a truculent suggestion that just one discriminating
ogre in a county might be a blessing in disguise ;
although in strict justice the parents, who have
done the wrong, and not the child, should be punished,
selfishly permitting the weaker human instincts of
Babies and Children 13
fondness, indolence, or indifference to prevail over
the higher dictates of duty and discipline. The Wise
Man spake no words wiser than these : " The rod
and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to him-
self bringeth his mother to shame." I have never
forgotten the corporal castigation (the only one, I
regret to say) which my father gave me, when I
persisted in making experiments with my new knife
upon the more prominent shoots of some valuable
trees and shrubs recently planted in his garden.
Keen was the shaft, but keener far to feel
I winged the pinion which impelled the steel.
I was at that period so rapidly developing my pro-
portions that the tightness of my costume gave
additional smartness to the switch, but I bore it as
bravely, as I could. I had been forewarned, and
conscience assured me that
the gods are just,
And of our pleasant vices make whips to scourge us.
My neighbour, Smith, has two children Master
Zachary Macaulay, aged seven, and Miss Felicia
Hemans, aged six. They despise government ;
they revel in mischief. Their appearance, although
they are gaudily attired, is disappointing. Being
coddled and kept as much as possible from fresh air
and outdoor exercise, they have chronic catarrhs of
a most effusive character, and when nurse makes for
them with a pocket-handkerchief they fly howling
into the wilderness, or they stand and cuff. They
1 4 Then and Now
wear an expression of green and yellow melancholy,
which indicates surfeit and indigestion. I missed
Zachary Macaulay from a garden-party for children
which we gave in the summer, and having sought him
with anxious presentiments, I found him lying on the
floor of our morning-room, contemplating my largest
gold-fish, which he had removed for closer inspection
from its bowl to the hearthrug. When I addressed
him with some asperity, he requested me to " Shut
up ! " I generally miss something after he has paid
us a visit, and always a dislocation of goods and
chattels. He delights in saying words that may do
hurt, affecting a sweet simplicity, though with malice
prepense. Smith invited his neighbours to shoot,
and when they were assembled in his hall, Zachary
went up to one of them and said, " Oh, Mr. Brown,
are you going to shoot ? I heard daddy tell Uncle
Jack you couldn't hit a haystack." He told some
guests who had just arrived for a visit that he knew
they were coming, and when asked whence his know-
ledge came, he replied, " Oh, I heard mammy say
some days ago that she had invited the Goods, and
daddy said, ' Oh, blow those Goods ! * He has an
observant eye as well as an attentive ear, and he
informed a large party at Christmas time that he
had seen Captain Wilson kissing Isabel where there
wasn't a bit of mistletoe, he was quite sure.
Ordinarily the questions, commentaries, and specu-
lations of the ingenuus puer delight, though they defy
explanation. It was told to me by his near relation
Babies and Children 15
that a bright little fellow, very fond of horses and
poultry, came home from a walk in a state of great
perplexity to inform his mother that " The mare in the
paddock has got a foal, and we never saw her sitting " !
And my grandson John observed, during a con-
versation having reference to his father's wedding,
" We " turning to his sister " were not alive then.
/ suppose we were in the incubator"
It is interesting to evoke the impressions and wishes
of children, so very different from our own. When
we restored the western front of our Cathedral here in
Rochester at a cost of many thousand pounds, we had
a great function and congress of dignitaries the Arch-
bishop and Bishops, the Lord Lieutenant, the High
Sheriff, our Member of Parliament, the Mayor, the
Admiral of the Dockyard, the General of the District
and we proceeded in state. A little boy who watched
from the window was asked what he thought of the
spectacle, and he frankly replied that he did not think
much of it. He remarked that there was not a single
elephant, and he "did think they might have had a
kangaroo"
I invited another little fellow to say what he would
ost like for a present on his birthday. At first he
pressed a preference for Buckingham Palace, of which
ere was an engraving in his nursery, but he ultimately
cided on " a white mouse in a box, with a sliding lid,
d plenty of cotton wool."
Another, when he was promised a tea-party in the
rbour, and inquiry was made as to his choice of
1 6 Then and Now
guests, whether, supposing they would accept his
invitations, he would desire the company of the Queen,
the Lord Mayor of London, and a noble duke who
was the Marquis of Carabbas in his neighbourhood,
promptly declared that he should much prefer the
presence of the old man at the toll-bar (there were toll-
bars in abundance at that period), of Mr. Cooper, the
coachman, and Susan from the laundry.
Some of the anachronisms and combinations suggested
by children are remarkable ; as when a small nephew of
mine, roseate, with golden curls, came to inform me
that Mitter (Mr.) Noah, whom he had taken out of
the ark for a ride in his railway train, had fallen into
the chimney of the engine head downwards, and could
I get him out with a corkscrew ?
CHAPTER II
Education
God to thy teaching delegates the art
To form the future man. The care be thine ;
No shape unworthy from the marble start,
Reptile or monster, but with just design
Copy the heavenly model, and impart,
As best thou canst, similitude Divine.
MANX.
'ASS ING from Then to Now, we must regard with a
great respect and thankfulness the efforts which are
being made to protect, to rescue, to teach, and generally
to promote the welfare of the children of the poor.
We cannot read the records of such societies as that for
the prevention of cruelty to children, for the finding
homes for our waifs and strays, for orphanage and
jformatories, without sympathy and sorrow of heart
for the miseries of poverty and the tyrannies of sin, for
le hunger and the thirst and the nakedness in the foul
ur and filth of overcrowded homes, for the brutal treat-
lent of those who cannot defend themselves.
No wonder that we have Hooliganism in our streets,
wonder that the reformatory ship is set on fire !
"hey become utterly reprobate, these children of the
Irunken father and the cruel mother, " the seed of the
'7 2
1 8 Then and Now
adulterer and the whore." They are more like wild
animals than Christian boys.
Mr. Rudolf, the Secretary of the Society for Pro-
viding Homes for the Waifs and Strays, told me that
a country clergyman came to their office in London
with a request that one of the lads under their care
might be transferred to him, that he might take him to
his own home, instruct and improve him. He also
expressed his special desire to have the most villainous
and reprobate of the baser sort committed to his charge.
In vain he was informed that if his request was granted
he would be associated with a young barbarian who
realised more nearly than any other barbarian of their
acquaintance St. James's description of the tongue as
that which no man can tame. Expostulation only
increased his eagerness, and he bore his miscreant away
He returned in a fortnight, a sadder and a wiser man.
" I am convinced," he said, " that the miscreant is
a fiend in disguise, and that the disguise is thin and
transparent. From the time of his arrival he performed
a succession of diabolical acts, which for originality,
malignity, and destructiveness could only have been
arranged by Satan. The parishioners were white with
terror, the village policeman declined to interfere,
two young farmers proposed to shoot him.
" His misdemeanours would fill a Newgate Calendar.
His first enterprise on meeting with a girl on her
way home from the village shop was the distribution
of her purchases on the road and the adjoining fields,
and the final adorning of her person with a complete
!ducation
covering of Reckitt's Blue, transforming her into a
striking companion picture to Gainsborough's c Blue
Boy,' and causing much painful astonishment to her
mother, who failed at first to recognise her child.
Finally, he got on the roof of the Rectory, and pelted
me with the tiles. I returned the article, with thanks."
Such a case is, of course, exceptional, and, as a
rule, these societies have successful power, which
well deserves the pecuniary help of those who are
hindered from rendering personal service, remembering
always that prevention is better than cure, and that it is
better and easier to keep the young from wickedness
than to get them out of it, better to keep them from
falling than to raise them when they are down. Every
earnest endeavour, every kindly help to promote self-
respect, a sense of duty, and of the " nobility of labour,"
a love of those things which are really beautiful, of truth,
and honour, and mercy ; a contempt of those things
which, behind the mask and the paint and the glitter,
are so false and foul ; any organisation which tends
to convince the young that life is happier, hopes are
brighter, health is stronger, for those who work than
for those who are idle, for those who are obedient
than for those who rebel all such aids which are
given to our lads that they may keep innocence and
do the thing that is right must bring a blessing to
him that gives and to him that takes them.
We want more public playgrounds for cricket and
football, more gymnasiums and baths, more gardens
and allotments, more bands of music for boys, more
20 Then and Now
Church Lads* Brigades, more inducements to study
science and natural history.
In the higher grades of society the treatment of
children, in some particulars, differs Now from Then.
We were accustomed seventy years ago to a more
simple diet, and to a discipline somewhat more severe.
I have never overcome the satiety which ensued from
the frequent repetitions of rice and batter puddings.
Apple dumplings and roley-poleys were reserved for
festive occasions, and like all things which
When they seldom come, they wished for come,
I have loved them ever since.
We went to our beds and left them on the strike
of the clock, and Christmas was " that only night of
all the year" when we sat up to hear the singers.
There were compensations. We were sometimes
taken down to dessert (the dinner hour was earlier then),
having been washed and brushed with a violence which
was altogether superfluous ; and there were occasions
when, " company " (as Jenny designated guests) being
invited to dine, we descended silently and in white
attire, like young ghosts, into regions where the dishes
rested awhile in their passage to and fro, and bore
away in triumph our surreptitious spoil. We had,
moreover, at our nursery tea an abundance of preserves
gooseberry, raspberry, strawberry " no satis to our
jams " ; but on the whole our fare was more frugal
than that of our descendants, and when I made a
remark to this effect to one of them, helping himself
Education
21
with a free hand, as an autocrat of the breakfast table,
and told him that in my boyhood no such licence
was allowed, he promptly answered : " Oh, but, uncle,
you must know that things have greatly improved
since then." I doubt the improvement in this case,
and I dispute the argument of a parent who said to
me, c< Let them have what they like, and they will cease
to crave " they will only cease to crave until the doctor
has restored the power of craving.
Education religious, moral, and rational has made
all classes whom it has reached more thoughtful and
intelligent, more considerate of others, less deceived
by silly superstitions, and this enlightenment being
manifest in our domestic servants, including those who
have the care of children, the special tyranny the
reign of terror to which I have referred is past. It is
cruel ignorance which seeks to prevail through fear,
which makes many hypocrites, but no converts ; it is the
true wisdom which wins through love. This principle
is acknowledged far more practically than in the days
of old by our teachers that while punishment must
follow wilful, persistent disobedience, persuasion will
conquer where force has failed. There may be perilous
abuse, weak concessions, which Mr. Gladstone denounced
as " depraved accommodations " ; ignoble minds may
take advantage of this benevolence, and may attribute
it only to cowardice ; but it is evidently achieving good
results, and has exercised a successful influence ever
since Dr. Arnold told his boys that he should confide
in their integrity and believe their word.
22 Then and Now
Children in the days of my childhood regarded
with abhorrence the period when they would be sent
to school, with doleful anticipations of suffering, as
though they were going to the dentist, who at that
time vied with the inquisitors of old in the infliction
of exquisite torture. Pupils went to their lessons
in a dismal despair, as the children of .Israel to the
making of bricks without straw.
The village schoolmaster in his fusty little school
(John Leech declared that his hall was ever fragrant
with reminiscences of a boy in corduroys, who had
been sent for " copy " from the Punch office) taught
his boys to spell, to read, to write, to add, to
multiply, to subtract, to work by rule-of-three, but
beyond this he was incapable, and until the National
Society for the Education of the Poor intro-
duced a new regime^ he was either a Squeers or
cr^oXacrri^os (in the worst sense of the word), he was
either a tyrant or a butt. The governess at the
hall was politely snubbed and suppressed. She lived
like Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, high in her
chamber up a tower to the east, in alternations of
heat and cold which would have warmed claret or
iced champagne. She had her meals where and when
it pleased the housekeeper, and consequently when she
emerged from her refrigerator in December, or from
her oven in August, she did not always bring with her
that vigour of mind or that sweetness of temper which
are so helpful to those who teach.
Why should the communication of knov/ledge be made
Education 23
as repugnant to pupils as that of castor-oil and black
dose to patients. Why should they be dosed all
round with brimstone and treacle, whether they be
strong or weak ? Why should children with different
abilities, tempers, and inclinations be treated as though
there were no diversities of gifts ? Who has not sad
remembrance of schoolfellows who were made miser-
able by lessons which they could not learn, having all
the while a natural aptness and eager desire for certain
pursuits and occupations in which they might have
attained excellence, had they been encouraged and
trained. The Spartans, we are told, would not permit
the parents themselves to bring up their children in
accordance with their own intentions. They were
divided into companies at an early age and after every
effort was made to ascertain their various capabilities,
they were disciplined accordingly for the public service.
There is a method of education " made in Germany "
which is helpful in this matter, and if the Latin and
French proverbs be true, that " He who makes a good
beginning is half way on his journey," this com-
mencement of a child's education should be the
cornerstone of a goodly edifice.
Some seventy years ago Friedrich Frftbel designed
and showed to the world the more excellent way of
attracting the mind, in the first development of its
power, to the acquisition of knowledge by con-
genial inducements, pleasant surroundings, kind words
of affectionate sympathy and of joyful hope. He
called his new school, which was open to the youngest
24 Then and Now
whom mothers could send, four, five and six years
old, the kindergarten (the <c garden of children "), and
his design was to pull out the weeds in their earliest
growth, when the soil was soft and the roots were
small, and to give to the flowers the dews and the
showers, the sunshine and pure air from heaven.
More than this, he sought to discover the peculiar
properties of that virgin soil, its adaptation to various
growths of beauty, and then the method of culture, the
training, and the pruning by which they were brought
to perfection.
All around was to be bright and cheerful, gay
colours, sweet music, merry games ; but the watchful
eye and the listening ear were to be ever observant,
so that the gentle voice might speak the word in
season to encourage or repress. The hand waits to
sow the good seed on the good ground that it may
blossom abundantly, to drop the acorn which shall
grow into an oak.
All who have tried the experiment, or only seen
it in operation, will testify to its influence in making
the first approaches to learning ways of pleasantness
and paths of peace, and in transforming the school-
boy with his satchel, creeping like a snail unwillingly
to school, into the brave lad who despises dunces
and duffers, and who has found in the beginning of
his life that which so many learn only from a long
and bitter experience that to be really happy we
must be really good.
There is no punching, no pinching, no breathing
Education 25
out slaughter, no sneers, no sarcasm, in the kinder-
garten. If the colt or the filly begins to rear or to
jib, to kick, to shy, or to bolt, the patient breaker sits
immovably, handles delicately, speaks soothingly, pats
affectionately, until the steed goes on, from very shame
and weariness in wrong-doing, learns to love and obey
his rider, and to run his course.
The children of to-day have another great advantage,
although it is accompanied by a great peril, inasmuch
as Christianity is no longer misrepresented by their
teachers, with sad countenance and tragic tone, as
the burden of a slave, and that day which should be
associated by Christians with their most joyful hopes,
as a day of darkness and gloom. There was a time
in which it was said
All the theology we knew,
Was that we might not play on Sundays,
when all picture-books, toys, posies, music, must be put
aside, and when grim silence held her solitary reign,
except when we were anything but glad to hear that
we must go to church, or when we sat at a table
in the library to listen to sermons, handsomely bound
in tree-calf, but, like apples of Sodom, dry and dis-
tasteful within, of which the criticism might be
repeated, as of Blair's, that they did not contain
sufficient Gospel to save a tomtit, or that they were
composed under the impression that the chief duty of
a Christian was to excommunicate the Pope and consign
his disciples to perdition. Our instruction in the
26 Then and Now
Scriptures referred chiefly to the history and geography,
dates and names, of the Old Testament, and rarely to
the lessons and the Great Example of the New ; and
because the former evoked no interest, and were either
forgotten at once or retained in hazy confusion, the
results of subsequent examination were frequently mixed
and vague, and were accompanied by the audacious
attempts of the respondent to substitute for facts of
which he was ignorant conjectures and conclusions of
his own. This is a specimen: "What do you know
about Edom ? " " Edom was the man at whom some-
body cast a shoe, and this was most probably the
commencement of the religious ceremony which takes
place at weddings of k throwing slippers at the bride
and bridegroom."
Now, in place of those dreary discourses, children
have books, which they delight to read, by devout
writers Miss Yonge was the Miriam who led the
procession of praise and illustrated by accomplished
artists. Their little heads are no longer oppressed
by chronological lists, genealogies, and maps, but they
are taught, as the Great Teacher taught, by parables
that is, by stories and by that which they see around,
object-lessons, examples of real life the beautiful
Gospel truth. Now they have in most of the
churches a service of their own. I do not mean
that which is called the "Children's Mass," for that
is a fond thing vainly invented, and has no authority
in the Church of England or in the Word of God ;
but I mean a simple service of prayer and praise
ex
*
Education 27
which all can pray and sing with the spirit, and with
the understanding also, as they sang their hosannas
in the Temple nineteen hundred years ago, and with
plain instruction, which gives wisdom unto the simple.
It is the best substitute we can have for the good
old custom of catechising in church, which is still
enjoined in the Prayer Book, until that discipline be
restored, which is much to be wished.
Technical education should be a powerful help in
their after-life to our boys and girls. Christians have
become convinced of that which the Jews practised
many hundred years ago, when every youth learned
a trade, that it is desirable to teach more that is
necessary and less that is superfluous, more that is real
and less that is fanciful, to their children ; that early
lessons on agriculture might be useful to those who
are to get their living from the soil, on machinery
to future mechanics ; and that all would derive benefit
from a more practical knowledge of common neces-
sities, the use of tools (the needle inclusive), the
lighting of a fire, the cooking of food, the shoeing
of a horse. Many of our county councils are doing
admirable work in establishing school gardens, cottage
gardens, and allotments, under the supervision of
experts, for boys and men, and in sending out teachers
f cookery and dressmaking for girls and women. All
ould join an ambulance class as soon as they are
pable, and learn how to revive those who are
brought insensible from the water, how to stop
hemorrhage, and bind a broken limb.
CHAPTER III
Gentle and other Men
But Nature with a matchless hand
Sends forth her nobly born,
And laughs the paltry attributes
Of wealth and rank to scorn.
She moulds with care a spirit rare,
Half human, half divine,
And cries exultant, "Who can make
A gentleman like mine?"
THE weathercock of public opinion, ever kept in motion
by the popularis aura, has veered from north to south
as to the meaning and application of the words gentle-
man and esquire ; it has turned from the frigidity of
a disdainful exclusion to a maudlin embrace of all sorts
and conditions of men. I remember the time when
no man engaged in buying and selling, much less in
manual labour, was regarded as a gentleman, and when
they only assumed the title of " esquire," whose coats of
arms were to be found in the Heralds* Office. No
amount of virtue, intellect, or money, no achievements,
no accomplishments, could obtain admission within the
sacred enclosure. A yeoman who had inherited his
lands from many generations of honest ancestors might
rise to the designation of " a gentleman farmer " ; and
28
Gentle and other Men 29
even shopkeepers might be privileged now and then to
hear themselves addressed as " gentlemen of the jury."
The man who had a pleasant home, a good cook, and
a good cellar might be visited (provisionally speaking)
by gentlemen, and even be received as their guests ;
and he who had influence at an election, rode well to
hounds, or was reliable at whist, was occasionally invited
to emerge from his obscurity and to pass from dark-
ness to light. But the real bond fide gentleman was the
possessor of an entailed estate with an ample income,
whose family had been privileged for generations to
engrave lions and eagles and badgers and crows upon
their spoons, who had nothing whatever to do, and,
with some admirable exceptions, did it.
At school we resented with indignant asperity and
brilliant sarcasm the intrusion of boys whose fathers
had disgraced themselves by earning their own bread
and by connecting themselves with vulgar employments,
instead of inheriting houses and taking their place in
genteel society. The lawyer's son was " Six and Eight-
pence," and the doctor's son was " Young Bolus," and
the brewer's two boys were " Swipes " and " Mashtub,"
and those of the farmer " Beans " and " Bacon.' 7
At Oxford the qualifications were rigidly maintained,
my own college it was a law as inflexible as those
the Medes and Persians that every member of
the Phoenix, the oldest social club in the University,
should be bene natus, bene vestifus, moderate doctus
" well born, well dressed, and moderately, not
oppressively, learned." I still believe in the bene
30 Then and Now
vest it us, for the apparel " oft proclaims the man," and
" youth no less becomes the light and graceful livery it
wears than age its furs and sables " ; but who is to be the
arbiter elegantiarum ? In my day an undergraduate
who did not wear straps to his trousers was a smug ;
and it was sung in the parody of a popular song,
" She wore a wreath of roses " :
He wore grey worsted stockings,
That term when first we met,
His trousers had no straps,
His highlows lacked jet.
If a youth omitted the letter h in his conversation
or construing, he was placed on the Index Expurgatorius ;
if he wore a false front or cuffs to his shirt, " down
among the dead men let him lie." There was a
tradition that in All Souls' College, before an election
was made to a vacant fellowship, the selected persons
were invited to dine with the electors ; a cherry pie
formed part of the meal, and he who ate it most like
a gentleman was the favoured guest.
What a difference between Then and Now ! There is
no need in these days for the anxiety of the Lancashire
mechanic who had a son baptized " Gentleman,"
so that there might be one in the family. Genealogy,
manners, habiliment, armorial bearings, pronunciation,
grammar, are ignored, and every householder is "that
gentleman," and is addressed on his letters as " esquire."*
* History repeats itself, and this is no modern innovation.
Nigh upon two hundred years ago there was a complaint in
the Tatler that the nation was becoming populus armigerorum
" a nation of esquires."
Gentle and .other Men 31
These titles are sometimes almost as inappropriate as
when the usher of the court at an Irish assize addressed
the jury with, " Gentlemen, you will go to your usual
places/' and most of them went to the prisoner's dock,
or when the victim of some gamblers in the Far West
ran for his life, having been robbed and almost denuded,
and when at the trial of his pursuers he was asked,
" Was there no one to help you ? " " No," he replied,
" there were many in the streets, but only one gentle-
man ; " and when the further questions were put,
" How did you know he was a gentleman, and what did
he do ? " he said, " He took his pipe out of his mouth
and shouted, ' Go it, Shirt-tails, bowie knives is a gaining
on yer.' " *
How, then, are we to distinguish the reality from the
sham, the true coin from the counterfeit, the solid
wood from the veneer, the diamond from the paste ?
Where shall we find " that gentleness which, when
it weds with manhood, makes a man," Aristotle's
TTjoayoji/o? avev i//dyou, the man who stands four
square to every wind that blows, Horace's integer vit<e
scelerisque pitrus y the French knight sans peur et sans
reproche, the English gentleman, having those qualities
which Isaac Barrow commends as the " two chief
properties of a gentleman, courage and courtesy " ?
As meek as the man Moses, and withal
As bold as in Agrippa's presence Paul.
* I know that these two anecdotes are as venerable as an
I archdeacon, but the critic will pardon them as things one would
not willingly let die.
32 Then and Now
What is the difference between homo and vir ? Of
whom can we speak Cicero's praise of Metellus, homo
nobilissimusy optimus vir ?
Descent may be helpful, and " notes of fatherhood,"
good as well as evil, are commonly seen in the child.
Ex quovis ligno non Jit Mercurius, and the sculptor who
has to carve a statue, chip by chip, is to be con-
gratulated when his marble comes from a famous
quarry. The Romans (I seem to have wandered into
the Latin Quarter) recognised this advantage Abi y
patrissas, virum te judico and it may be accepted
almost as rule, verified by the biographies of our most
illustrious authors and artists, that their genius was
the early and marvellous development of some peculiar
quality inherited from one of their parents. In a less
prominent degree we find certain impressions both of
mind and body transmitted from father to son ex-
cellence as musicians, as draughtsmen, as linguists, as
horsemen, as athletes. It is a common observation,
"He comes from a good old stock; he's a chip of the
old block." There have been eleven Lytteltons, Walkers,
Studds, GarnettSj who played cricket against a county,
and won the match.
These natural gifts of mind and body are good
material, but that is all. They may be auxiliary in
making a gentleman, but that depends upon the use
or the abuse which the heir makes of his heritage.
Some who have been " born great " have become
exceedingly small, and some who have had " greatness
thrust upon them " have sunk under the burden of an
Gentle and other Men 33
lonour unto which they were not born; but they who
have achieved greatness have, as a rule, maintained it
in their own persons, and, though they could not entail
it, have been the founders of noble and wealthy families.
Some would lead us to suppose that the sudden enrich-
ment and exaltation of which we have seen in our
generation so many examples, and which have been
achieved by ability and industry, are of a recent date
in our history, whereas an immense majority of those
who hold high positions and great estates are in-
debted to the famous ancestor with grand ambitions
in his head and courage in his heart, who, in the sweat
of his face, according to the immutable law, earned
wealth, won battles, built cities, made great discoveries,
and was a king of men. He worked in his shirt-
sleeves before he had a coat of ^ arms. He prevailed,
not from blood, but from brains. When there is a
pugilistic competition at Eton or Harrow between my
lord and the grandson of some contractor of works
or purveyor of food, and the combatants tap each the
other's nose, we look in vain for the " blue blood "
which is supposed to flow in the veins of our ancient
nobility ; and when they found Diogenes closely
inspecting the bones in a charnel-house, and asked
the object of his search, he informed them that he
was endeavouring to distinguish between the limbs
of the masters and the slaves, but had met with no
success.
I remember incidents in illustration. The younger
son of a nobleman and a son of his bailiff went out
34 Then and Now
together as emigrants. When they returned, twenty
years after departure, their positions were reversed :
the master's son was the servant, the agent, of his
companion, and the latter was his superior, not only
in wealth, but in appearance, manner, and refinement.
A footman in a family closely connected with my own
had begun life as a doctor's boy, was devoted to the
study, of medicine, and spent his leisure time in reading
medical books. He went to the United States,
worked hard as a student and M.D. for many years,
until he attained a large practice and returned to
England. Seated at luncheon with those whom he
had formerly served, and looking in every respect a
gentleman, he suddenly astonished the company, among
whom were several strangers, by holding up a mustard-
pot and addressing it with, cc Hast thou found me, O
mine enemy," subsequently explaining that the only
reproof which he had incurred from the lady at the
head of the table during his service was evoked by
the neglected condition of the vessel before him.
Wherefore, dismissing as silly conceits the claims of
a clique or of a crowd, we will go in search of better
information as to the qualifications of a gentleman,
Who claims no honour from descent of blood
But that which makes him noble, makes him good.
The pursuit may invigorate, like a gallop on a fast
horse over the downs to the sea, like a sail upon the
sea itself to some Isola Eella^ when the air becomes
more fragrant to the mariners drawing nigh to
Gentle and other Men 35
Araby the Blest ; or, in a more apt analogy, we shall
be as Alpine tourists, who leave the noises and the
dust of their hotel in the valley, and gradually ascend,
where the pure white snow glitters in the sunshine, to
the magnificent landscape of the mountain top.
Before we adjudicate we must hear the definitions
and weigh the arguments of those who claim the
title of u gentleman." They may be divided into
three companies : the social, the moral, and the
religious.
Society has largely extended its boundaries and re-
laxed its rules. They who in severer Crimes would
have been repelled as having vulgar parents have been
freely forgiven. Brewers, coal-merchants, bakers, and
shopkeepers have been affectionately embraced. They
have been to levees and dined with dukes, elected to
Parliament, and raised to the peerage.
Society has discovered that pedigrees are not accepted
by bankers as securities, nor regarded by solicitors as
available for marriage settlements. It has learned
from bitter experience that, if delicta majorum
immeritus lues and inherit an exhausted mine, you
are not to be envied, however large and picturesque
your estate may be, when you discover it is mortgaged
for more than it is worth. An old country squire
was asked to give his views on bimetallism, and he
replied that for many years he had seen so little of
the precious metals that he had quite lost touch with
the subject.
Moreover, it has occurred to certain persons after
3 6 Then and Now
thoughtful observation that there is much to be said in
support of Lord Tennyson's suggestion that
From yon blue heaven above us bent,
The grand old gardener and his wife
Smile at the claim of long descent,
and that it is not worth while to demand particulars
about a man's grandfather, or to be inquisitive and
microscopic as to his habits and surroundings, if, having
a large income, he knocks at the door of the sacred
precincts, asks admission, and is prepared to pay for it.
They may have been impressed by the declaration
that " Of all the vanities under the sun, that of being
proud of one's birth is the greatest." They may have
been struck by the absurdity of a man taking credit
for that with which he had nothing to do ; and of
supposing that his own delinquencies were condoned
by the merits of an individual whom he resembles
only in name ; of trying to believe that any ancestor
of whom he possesses a picture in a wig, a long
waistcoat, and no legs to speak of was a saint or a
hero ; and even when he condescends to confess that
"he is afraid Sir Guy was a spendthrift," or "Lady Betty
was no better than she should be," there is a tone in
his communication which would have us to understand
that these venial eccentricities are not to be criticised
by their inferiors, and that the foibles which spring
from mere gaiety of heart and are presented to us
in their most graceful form are not to be classed
and confused with the uproarious vices and indecent
gambols of the common people.
Gentle and other Men 37
Whatever may be the causes and motives financial,
political, or the convictions of common sense it is
manifest that liberal concessions have been made, that
the dictum, " It takes three generations to make a
gentleman/' is no longer in quotation, and that in
an elaborate discussion of this subject published by
one of our most popular weekly papers, only one
correspondent ventured to suggest that " a gentleman
must not be tainted by trade."
Even supposing that the conventional gentleman has
all the attributes which society once required ancestry,
income, appearance, manners he may not be an
article which, in the language of the cheap Jack, will
bear the closest inspection. He may be idle, stupid,
inheriting the dulness which
In the fat age of pleasure, wealth, and ease
Sprang a fat weed, and throve with large increase.
He may eat and drink with the drunken, be grossly
immoral, false to his marriage vows ; he may cheat
at cards, and be utterly selfish and sensual.
A gentleman must be generous. He will not starve
his guests because the price of coals has risen a shilling
per ton ; he will not mount his friend, knowing him
to be a clumsy rider, upon a runaway horse.
A gentleman is not obviously greedy. At breakfast
in a country house an elderly lady was asked in my
hearing what she thought of the gentleman who had
taken her in to dinner on the night preceding. She
replied that according to her estimates he was not
38 Then and Now
a gentleman at all ; and when an expostulation was
made, " Oh, grandma, why did you think so? " it was
added, u Because I saw him scooping all the oysters
he could find out of the fish sauce, and appropriating
half of the forced strawberries at the dessert." On this
the brother from Brasenose failed to comprehend
how Granny could speak with such severity of one
who left so little to be wished.
The contemptible superstition still survived in my
boyhood that if you were insulted, or thought you
were insulted, by another man, it was your bounden
duty not to be satisfied with horse-whipping, kicking,
publicly denouncing, or appealing to the law for
defamation of character, but to offer him the opportunity
of murdering you or maiming you for life. He who
had never pulled a trigger was constrained to present
himself to some brutal bully who was a deadly expert.
This ferocious insanity was rapidly abating, but it
was not extinct in my early days. It had been gradually
tamed by conscience and reason, since the time when
an Irishman, being forbidden as a Roman Catholic to
carry a sword, changed his religion that he might fight
a duel ; but three men were killed in duels soon after
my birth, the last of them being D'Esterre, who was
shot by O'Connell ; and I was ten years old when
the Duke of Wellington sent a challenge to Lord
Winchilsea, who had accused him of intentions to
promote Popery, and they met in Battersea Fields.
He who refused to fight was branded as a coward, and
few had the moral courage which dares to defy public
Gentle and other Men 39
opinion even when it opposes Divine decree. The duel
was not only an outrage on religion, but it was an
insult to reason, a concession to fools ; and no amount
of sarcastic obloquy could ever diminish my respectful
admiration of a certain Mr. Vernon, of whom Horace
Walpole records in one of his letters that being offered
satisfaction by a man who had knocked him down,
he expressed himself as more than satisfied already.
This incident reminds me of another example of
prudent submission which came within my personal
experience. I had a vigorous groom who had taken
lessons in the noble art of self defence, and was anxious
to communicate his knowledge in an aggressive capacity
to others. I had heard of his combative spirit and
pugilistic exploits, and had warned him that if he wished
to remain in my service, he must restrict his powerful
manipulations to the horses under his care. We were
returning one evening from an excursion, and I had
left him for some hours in charge of my dogcart and
horse at a village public-house. Driving homeward,
I saw from his nervous, fidgety condition that there
was something in his mind which must find utterance,
and presently he said, touching his hat : " I beg your
pardon, sir, but there was a bit of unpleasantness
while you was away. A man came into the Red
Lion and began to insult me, and I never took
no notice until he began to talk against, you, sir, and
I couldn't stand that ; and so, I beg your pardon, sir,
we went into the yard arid had a bit of a scrimmage."
I expressed my disgust at such disreputable conduct,
40 Then and Now
told him that if it occurred again he must leave
my service, and I added in conclusion, " I hope that
you were separated." " I beg your pardon, sir," he
said, touching his hat, but with an impenitent twinkle
in his eye ; " he didn't want no separating." Here
was another wise example how in adversity to keep
the equal mind. The prostrate pugilist, like Mr.
Vernon, was already more than satisfied, and he declined
to leave the recumbent position in which he was exempt
from danger, preferring rather to endure the ills he
had than fly to others which he knew not of.
Prize-fighting at that time was a popular institution,
and was patronised, like Mrs. Jarley's waxworks, by the
nobility and gentry. Once a year in my Oxford days
there was a great crowd at the Union to vote for
Bell's Life, the chronicle of pugilism, and Mr. (after-
wards Professor and now Canon) Rawlinson had great
difficulty in keeping order. On one of these occasions
he announced that " Mr. Cazenose of Brasenose will
address the meeting," whereupon a remonstrance
was made. " My name, sir, is Cazenove, not Caze-
nose." c< I beg pardon," said the president, " Mr.
Cazenove of Brasenose will be the next speaker."
Boxing is a fine exercise, and a most potent auxiliary,
without the perils which environ the man who meddles
with cold iron, in resisting the fury of the oppressor
and in punishing a snob. A school-fight has been to
most of us a wholesome discipline, which has taught
us to transfer to others an overplus of conceit which
we had appropriated to ourselves. When we read
Gentle and other Men 41
Thackeray's tribute to Tom Sayers, or Conan Doyle's
thrilling description of the prize fight in Rodney Stone,
we are inclined to think that there is much to be said
for " the Ring," but when they who have seen, recall
the reality the appearance of the combatants towards
the end of the battle, the beaten man staggering on to
be knocked down until he can rise no more, the brutal
execrations of the spectators I cannot believe that he
who desired the repetition of such a scene could be
enrolled as a true gentleman.
Sixty years ago the conventional gentleman was as
profuse in his anathemas as an CEcumenical Council or
a Commination Service, but his maledictions were not
pronounced against evil and unbelief, but against
political opponents, inclement weather, forgetful servants,
refractory horses, disagreeable duties, and tradesmen
who wished to be paid. Those were days in which a
Primate said to a Premier, " It may save time, my
lord, if we assume before we commence our discussion
that everybody and everything is damned."
Cock-fighting, although Roger Ascham regarded it
as " a pastime fitted for a gentleman," although it was
once a royal amusement, and there was a cockpit
attached to the old Palace at Whitehall, and the remark,
" It beats cock-fighting," which denoted a supreme
excellence, is still in use, no longer commends itself to
the true sportsman, who rejoices in the Act of 1849 by
which a penalty of $ may be inflicted on persons in
any way connected with the fighting of cocks. * The
cruelty is no longer possible which was once such a
42 Then and Now
strong fascination that the story is told of a country
rector paying a visit to the squire of his parish, who was
seriously ill, and being asked by his patient kindly
to postpone their conversation for a few minutes, as
he was much interested in a little business on the other
side of the bed, where two cocks were fighting for
their lives !
CHAPTER IV
Betting and Gambling
What is your duty towards your neighbour? Not to covet nor
desire other men's good. Church Catechism,
I REGARD the racing of horses, whether over the flat or
the fields, as an enjoyable, harmless, holiday pastime,
and I heartily regret that it is so inseparably, though
not necessarily, connected with betting, and that so
many should go to races, not for the sport, but for
the spoliation of their brethren ; but the instinct,
which is one of the ills which flesh is heir to, to
gain some advantage over our fellow-creatures, with as
little effort as may be, becomes irresistible to minds which
have lost their weapons of defence, the principles of
morality and religion when they meet the temptations
of the course. Surely it is not only beneath the
dignity of a gentleman, but also a neglect of his
responsibility, either to receive from others that for which
he makes no recompense or to pay to others that which
he might employ to his own profit or to the relief of
poverty. Why, instead of coveting and desiring other
men's goods, should he not have the independence and
courage to say with one to whom Noblesse oblige
43
44 Then and Now
was a law of conduct, <c I don't want your money, and
I'll take care you don't have mine " ?
I am only acquainted with one elaborate work
on gambling, the Traite de Jeu, written by M. Jean
Barbeyrac, a Frenchman who was compelled to leave
his country on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
and became a professor of law at Lausanne, in which
the author maintains that gambling is not in itself
immoral or illegal, and that it is nowhere directly or
indirectly forbidden in the Holy Scriptures. He begins
by asserting that work is inevitable, which none dispute
who believe in the Divine command that in the sweat
of his face man must eat bread (he who is idle may be
gentle, but he is no man), that rest is necessary, and
that a moderate amount of recreation and amusement
are salutary to good work, a fact which is patent to
all, and is expressed by the familar adage that " All
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." He
appeals with a quaint sarcasm to those persons who
suppose that use and abuse cannot be separated, who
form to themselves strange mystical notions of virtue
and piety, and would persuade us that every kind of
diversion and amusement, being neither more nor
less than the consequences of man's fallen nature, are
unworthy of a rational creature; and he asks them to
look down from their " thrones of purple sublimity,"
from height unattainable to the great mass of mankind,
and to permit their inferiors to walk in lowliness and
humility in their native vales, to enjoy such rays of
sunshine as may penetrate their cypress-trees, such
Betting and Gambling 45
harmless amusements as present themselves for their
relaxation. He might have added, " Thinkest thou,
because thou art virtuous, that there shall be no more
cakes and ale ? " but his argument suffices, and even when
he proceeds to state that if a person takes pleasure in
cards or dice, there is no reason why he may not amuse
himself in that manner quite as innocently as in painting,
dancing, music, hunting, or any other similar diversion,
however we may deplore the ' substitution of childish
trifles for the healthful exercise of manly sports and the
charming accomplishments of art, we cannot deny the
right of weak-minded people in their own way to enjoy
their debilities. " Folly is joy to him that is destitute
of wisdom."
It is when he proceeds to answer the question.
" Should games be played for nothing or for valuable
stakes ? " that he leaves terra frma for the bog. He
affirms that if he is at liberty to promise and give his
property absolutely and unconditionally to whomsoever
he pleases, he is equally at liberty to promise and give a
certain sum in the event of a person proving more skil-
ful or fortunate than himself with respect to the result
of certain contingencies, movements, or combinations
on which they had previously agreed. And why, he
asks, may not this person honestly avail himself of the
result either of his skill or of a favourable concurrence
of fortuitous circumstances, on the issue of which he
had voluntarily contracted an obligation ? And though
but one of the parties gains an advantage, there is
nothing contrary to strict equity in the transaction,
46 Then and Now
the terms having been previously agreed on by both.
Every person being at liberty to determine the con-
ditions on which he will concede a right to another,
may make it dependent on the most chance circum-
stances. A fortiori^ then, a person may fairly and
honestly avail himself of these winnings, when he has
risked on the event as much as he was likely to gain.
" In fact," he concludes, " gambling is a contract, and
in every contract the mutual consent of the parties is
the supreme law; and this is an incontestable maxim
of natural equity."
The Swiss are a simple, thrifty, and honest people,
and the temptations to gamble, the perils, degradations,
and miseries of gambling must have been very small
at Lausanne. If M. Barbeyrac had come to
England, he might have ascertained that his scheme
of permitting all men to follow their own imagina-
tions, and do that which was right in their own eyes,
of trusting to games of chance and " favourable con-
currence of fortuitous circumstances " for their enrich-
ment rather than to honourable employments, was
generally regarded with abhorrence by reason of the
evil which it wrought. He would have been told that
although gambling was not illegal, the law intimated
its disdain of such transactions by declaring them to
be void that is to say, neither party can bring an
action to enforce payment. He would have seen in
every county a score of estates which had been sold to
strangers, or had been encumbered, because they who
had inherited them from their forefathers and should
Betting and Gambling 47
have transmitted them to their children as they received
them wasted the income and mortgaged the land.
Would he have revered the memory of those men
who have impoverished others to gratify their own
covetous greed ? Is this the law of a natural equity,"
which takes the children's bread and casts it to the
dogs ? What would he have thought of those who
regarded the sums which they had lost at cards,
at dice, or at races as debts of honour which must
be discharged at once, while the tradesman was paid
in driblets and told that he must wait. Fox, the
statesman, told a tradesman who presented a pro-
missory note, " I owe all the money I have to Sheridan.
It is a debt of honour. 1 ' " So now is mine," said the
applicant, as he tore up the note. And it was paid.
No law can prevent a man from making himself a
fool and a pauper, but he should be prevented so far
as it is possible from inflicting injury on others, and
punished when prevention pleads in vain.
I read in the evening papers of Saturday, December
2gth, 1900, that twenty-nine members of the Stock
Exchange, representing thirteen firms, were declared
to be defaulters. These failures were caused to a
large extent by reckless speculations with money
entrusted to the speculators for rational investment,
and therefore brought not only disaster, but disgrace.
So long as the " bulls" and the u bears" toss and
hug and rend and tear each other in the arena, and
only shed their own blood that is, risk their own
money the spectators can look on with complacent
48 Then and Now
pity, while the severer critic repeats the parody of
Watts :
Let dogs delight to bark and fight,
If so be that they're game ;
Let bears and lions growl and fight;
To me it's all the same;
but when they leap over the barriers and bleed the
outsiders with their horns and teeth, the time for
the revolvers has come.
M. Barbeyrac (the name is suggestive of the French
game of baccarat) would never have written his
encouragements to gamblers could he have foreknown
a time when in every large gaol in England and I even
include the largest, which I visited, in the United States
some prisoners would be found among the thieves
who trace their downfall to small peculations which
they made from their employers, intending to replace
them, but never recovering the means, that they might
pay the debts which they had incurred through betting
or games of chance.
These things being so, and seeing that the conven-
tional gentleman may be subject to one or all of those
infirmities which have been under our consideration,
that he may be a dunce or a duffer, a fool among
judges, although he be a judge among fools, a toady and
a sycophant, a glutton and a wine-bibber, a libertine,
a profane person, in debt, and a gambler, that he
may spend half of his life on the racecourse, and
that cards may be the first thought of his awaking,
as with him who, when his wife aroused him with
Betting and Gambling 49
the point of her parasol at the end of a sermon,
murmured, " Honours easy " ; and that he may, not-
withstanding, be retained on society's list, and be
received as a welcome guest if he has a fair income,
dresses in the fashion, rides in the Park, and gives
good dinners ; we must dismiss this candidate as
ineligible, and continue our search for examples more
refined and reliable. We shall find them described
in our literature, and represented occasionally by
living men.
Here, apropos of portraits and persons, the thought
presents itself what a splendid possession it would
be to have a picture-gallery of those heroes and
heroines whom we admire the most, or if we could
realise that of which we can only dream the exquisite
felicity, the " feast of reason and the flow of soul," of
reviving and inviting them to a matinee or a soiree
at which Homer, Anacreon, Sappho, and Theocritus
cc would sing us something " ; when ^Ischylus would
recite the lighting of the beacons, as the warder saw
them from the tower at Argos, that night when Troy
was burned ; and Sophocles and Euripides and Aris-
tophanes and Terence would discuss with Irving and
Beerbohm Tree the relative merits of the ancient and
modern stage ; and Demosthenes and Cicero would
kindly say a few words ; and Horace would express
in graceful Alcaics his admiration of Madame Cliquot
(Veuve) ; and Virgil would make in bucolic verse hi?
Observations on the gardens at Kew, the show at
Smithfield, and the model farm.
5o Then and Now
And how proud we should be of our own celebrities
of our royal personages, from Alfred to Victoria ; of
our great poets, from Shakespeare to Tennyson ; our
great warriors, from Marlborough and Wellington to
Gordon and Roberts ; our sailors, from Nelson to Charley
Beresford ; our artists, from Reynolds to Millais, from
Hogarth to John Leech.
We must return from our excursion to improve our
knowledge and appreciation of an English gentleman.
I remember that when I was a boy at school it was
the custom in most of our provincial towns, before the
introduction of the corn exchange, for the buyers and
sellers of agricultural produce to assemble once a week,
at midday, in front of the town hall maltsters, brewers,
millers, horsekeepers, with a few casual visitors, two
or three squires, who had been sitting on the magis-
terial bench, and some of the principal inhabitants,
professional and independent, who came to meet their
friends from the country and to discuss the topics of
the times. On one of these occasions a silly young
clerk from a lawyer's office suddenly appeared in a
state of great excitement, and, rushing through the
crowd until he reached a physician, old enough to be
his father, and infinitely his superior in mind, body,
and estate, shouted, so that all around might hear,
" Doctor, you are no gentleman." a Mr. Jones," said
the doctor, with such a sweet, compassionate smile, as
a tender-hearted father might bestow upon his imbecile
child, " you are no judge." Goaded by the derisive
grins and " Brayvo, doctor ! " of the agricultural
Betting and Gambling 51
interest, it seemed for the moment as though Jones
would resort to personal violence ; but the physician
was a man of strong physique, and the approximation
of his broad shoulders and biceps muscles seemed to
suggest discretion, and Jones escaped to his home
let us hope to enlighten his judgment by that study
of the character of a Christian gentleman which is
beneficial always and to all.
Steele gives us instructions which at once command
our admiration and our keen desire to obey them.
Before he begins to build, he demolishes some lath-
and-plaster erections, set up for show, without
foundations, made from soft, crumbling bricks, green
wood, untempered mortar. He ridicules the fallacy
of supposing that the virtues of a true gentleman are
transmitted from father to son. " It is certain," he
writes, " and observed by the wisest writers, that there
are women who are not severely chaste, and men who
are not severely honest in all families," and he calls
upon those who are so proud of their breeding either
to prove that it makes them better than other folk
or to abstain from claiming superiority over others
because they were born, by the dispensation of Provi-
dence, in a lower grade of life than their own.
Under the assumed name of Bickerstaff, he illustrates
his argument from the humorous history of the great
Staff family, from whom Staffordshire took its name.
He tells us that <c the Bicker- or Bigger-Staffs, the heads
of the family, were learned and successful, just as in
our own day they are men of high position and piety ;
52 Then and Now
that the White-Staffs were distinguished courtiers, and
the Distaffs men of business, manufacturers of linen
and wool, but the Longstaffs were erratic, and the
Quarterstaffs were prize-fighters and stole deer, and
so many were hanged that they are almost extinct ;
and the Falstaffs were given to wine and worse. The
family tree, in short, brought forth good figs and
some very naughty figs, which were so bad they could
not be eaten."
He exposes another delusion which prevails in some
feeble minds, and demonstrates that fine clothes no
more make fine gentlemen than fine feathers make fine
birds. Not all the gorgeous plumage of the parrot
or the peacock can qualify those birds to sing. Nigh
upon two hundred years ago, he tells us that London
swarmed with these fine gentlemen. A nimble pair
of heels, a smooth complexion, a full-bottom wig, a
laced shirt, an embroidered suit, a pair of fringed
gloves, a hat and feather any one or more of these
and the like accomplishments ennobles a man and raises
him above the vulgar in a female imagination. On
the contrary, a modest serious behaviour, a plain dress,
a thick pair of shoes, a leathern belt, a waistcoat not
lined with silk, and such like imperfections, degrade
a man, and are so many blots on his escutcheon.
Having convicted these impostors, he leaves them
to our contempt and indignation " A twister of
ringlets passing by, ' Oh, my soul/ said a stick, * if
I could only get at him ! ' " and sets before us his
ideal of a perfect gentleman. Like the statue which
Betting and Gambling
the Greek sculptor carved, so exact in its proportions,
so fraught with grace and beauty, that it was accepted
as the model, the " rule of Polycletus," to be copied by
all, being a combination of all that was most admirable
in the human form, though not to be found in any
individual man, so Steele prefaces his definition with the
statement that he is about to describe, not so much
what is, as what may or ought to be, assembling
together such qualifications as seem requisite to make
the character complete, while it is possible for all of us,
in our several degrees, to profit from his description.
We may not have the natural endowments, the oppor-
tunities of culture, travel, and intercourse with others
which he regards as necessary for those who would
attain the highest stature, who are to be qualified for
the service and good, as well as for the ornament and
delight, of society, but we can all possess the heart
of a gentleman, firm and intrepid, void of all inordinate
passions, full of tenderness, compassion, and benevolence.
We can be modest without bashfulness, frank and
affable without impertinence, obliging and complaisant
without servility, cheerful and in good humour without
noise. We can be principled in religion and instructed
in all the moral virtues.
CHAPTER V
The True Gentleman
Loke he that is most vertuous alway,
Prive and apart, and most entendeth aye
To doe the gentil deedes that he can,
And take him for the gretest gentilman.
CHAUCER.
So that in all the essential qualifications, every man
may be a gentleman, because we do not rank a man
among the vulgar for the condition of life he is in,
but according to his behaviour, thoughts, and senti-
ments in that condition, according to that which he
hath and not according to that which he hath not.
For if a man be loaded with riches and honours, and
in that state of life hath thoughts and inclinations
below the meanest artificer, is not such an artificer,
who, within his power, is good to his friends, moderate
in his demands, and cheerful in his occupation, very
much superior to him who lives for no other end
but to serve himself, and assumes a preference in all
his words and actions to those who act their part with
much more grace than himself? Epictetus writes that
it is not to be considered among the actors who is
prince or who is beggar, but who acts prince or
54
The True Gentleman 55
beggar best. The circumstance of life should not
be that which gives us place, but our behaviour in
that circumstance is what should be our solid dis-
tinction. Thus a wise man should think no man
above him or below him, any further than it regards
the outward order or discipline of the world, for if we
conceive too great an idea of the eminence of our
superiors or the subordination of our inferiors, it will
have an ill effect on our behaviour to both. He who
thinks no man above him but for his virtue, and no
man below him but for his vice, can never be obsequious
or assuming in a wrong place, but will frequently emu-
late men in rank below him, and pity those above him.
There are noblemen and gentlemen, and there are
duffers and drones, in huts and in mansions, in pumps
and in wooden shoes ; and I know not which I admire
the most the men who in the high places of the
world are resisting the temptations to luxury and self-
indulgence which allure them always, who are doing
work and discharging duties which they might rele-
gate to others, or those who conscientiously endeavour
to earn their wages, bear their hardships bravely ;
who, having little, do their diligence gladly to give
of that little, and have learned in whatever state they
are therewith to be content.
It may be noticed, moreover, that having in so many
instances the elements of a gentleman within themselves,
we find among the poorer a prompt and reliable dis-
crimination between the genuine and the spurious in
others who claim to be gentlemen. An old man living
56 Then and Now
in a tiny cottage and receiving relief from the parish,
told me that two of his wealthy neighbours came to
visit him now and then. One of them opened his
door without knocking, sat down with his hat
on, smoking his cigar, without being offered a chair,
spoke of poverty as though it was in all cases the
result of idleness or intemperance, hoped that he
was grateful for all the blessings which he enjoyed
" including, no doubt," the old man added quaintly,
"the rats which run and the rain which drips on my
bed ; and then he gives me sixpence and a tract
against intoxicating liquors. I am afraid, sir, that
on a recent occasion I behaved disgracefully" there
was a twinkle in his eye, which did not indicate
remorse " I spent half of his munificent donation in
a pint of ale for my supper, and forgot to drink his
health. There's another neighbour," he continued,
" who knocks and waits, takes off his hat when he
enters, and stands until he is asked to take a scat ;
and talks to me pleasantly as though we were equals,
fellow-servants of One Who is no respecter of persons.
He gives me half a crown and a bit o 'baccy, and if
I can go up to the hall he thinks he can find me
some clothes which will keep me warm in the winter."
Addison conferred upon me, as upon thousands of
others, a perpetual delight when he introduced us to
Sir Roger de Coverley. The name has a musical
sound to us all; perhaps a little too musical for
those elderly ladies who remember the time when it
was associated with the final dance at a ball, when it
The True Gentleman 57
seemed as though the fiddlers would never cease, and
daughters were blind to weary mothers, yawning behind
their fans, and deaf to impatient fathers who came
behind them to state that the carriage had been waiting
for hours, and that the horses were being frozen to
death. They forgot, these parents, that history repeats
itself, and that retribution follows on the track of crime.
Sir Roger de Coverley it is refreshing, helpful, to
think of him. It is good to be with goodness, with
those that excel in virtue. They invoke our higher
ambitions, they invigorate our weakness, they reprove
our mistakes, they put our selfishness and indolence
to shame. I rejoice to be, though it is only in
imagination, with this noble, benevolent, and beneficent
knight ; to see him surrounded by his tenants, many
of whom he has placed in comfortable cottages with
small holdings of land, in reward of faithful service ;
or in the midst of domestics, who have been with him
for many years, honoured and beloved by them all.
It is no mean testimony to the kindly rule which
has prevailed from generation to generation in our
aristocratic and ancient families that so many of
those whom they have employed have grown grey in
their service, and have been so content and happy in
their several occupations that it has been one of their
chief desires to be succeeded by their children in the
discharge of duties which they could no longer fulfil.
When I hear the railing accusations which are brought
against servants ; when I hear Mrs. Money in her
crimson velvet and diamonds bewailing the artificial
5 8 Then and Now
flowers in her kitchenmaids' Sunday bonnet; when I
see my neighbour Skinflint suspiciously eyeing the
whiskey in his decanter, believing, as I do, that he
drinks every drop of it himself, and knowing, as I do,
that he dare not lock it up in his sideboard because
when he tried that experiment his butler declined to
stay where he was not trusted, where he was regarded,
not only as a thief, but as a fool who risked his liveli-
hood for a mouthful of whiskey ; when they who go
continually to all kinds of entertainments and places of
amusement never think of giving an opportunity to their
servants of receiving or visiting their friends, of enjoying
a drama, listening to a concert, or attending a lecture
which has some points of interest more exciting than a
man with a glass of water and a wand, with diagrams
and maps ; I am convinced that the character and
disposition of the person employed depend mainly
upon the treatment which he receives from the em-
ployer, and that it is now as when the words were
written between two and three thousand years ago,
" As with the servant so with the master, as with the
maid so with her mistress." Bad masters make bad
servants. What can they expect who never speak to
those who wait upon them and do so much for their
gratification, except to command or admonish?* In
* " I would not tell my footmen, if I kept any, that their whole
fraternity were a pack of scoundrels ; that lying and stealing were
inseparable qualities from their cloth ; that I should think myself
very happy in them, if they confessed themselves to innocent lies
and woul^ only steal candle ends. On the contrary, I would say
The True Gentleman 59
vain they give higher wages and wages were never
so high. Something is wanted which cannot be gotten
for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price
thereof sympathy that most excellent gift, which alone
can make us dwell together in unity in the surest,
purest happiness which we can know on earth the
happiness of home.
The good knight, having found it there, went not
abroad in quest ; and it would assuredly have been for
England's welfare, and might have prevented a deplor-
able exodus, of compulsion and not of choice, if they
to whom the lot had . fallen in a fair ground and who
had a goodly heritage had spent more of their time
and money upon their estates, had given a more thought-
ful and generous consideration to those who had a prior
claim, and who would have rewarded them with an
affection far more sincere and faithful than that which
is to be found among strangers. I have known some
pathetic instances of the devoted affection of servants
towards their masters and mistresses, when riches took
to themselves wings and flew away the savings of the
past, and the offer of gratuitous service in the future,
freely offered with that simple tenderness which is
beyond the actor's art. Sir Roger lived within his
income, he was one of those who can " look the whole
in their presence that birth and money were accidents of
fortune ; that no man was to be despised for wanting them ; that
an honest, faithful servant was a character of more value than an
insolent corrupt lord ; and that the real distinction between man
and man lay in his integrity." Essay by Lady M. W. Montagu.
60 Then and Now
world in the face, and owe not any man," who know
that "frugality is the best support of generosity," and
have always, in cases of sudden necessity, something, to
give to him that needeth.
He was not ashamed of his religion. He had
the village church kept decently and in order, and the
choir well taught. When in want of a .chaplain to
whom he might also give the parsonage of the parish,
he wrote to a particular friend at the University to find
him a clergyman rather of plain sense than of much
learning, of a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable
temper, and, if possible, a man that understood a little
of backgammon. He got the man he wanted. " He
has now been with me thirty years, and, though he
does not know that I have taken notice of it, he has
never in all that time asked anything of me for himself,
though he is every day soliciting me for something for
one or other of my tenants, his parishioners. There
has not been a lawsuit in the parish since he has lived
among them ; if any dispute arises, they apply them-
selves to him for the decision ; if they do not acquiesce
in his judgment, which I think never happened above
once or twice at most, they appeal to me."
To this congenial pastor he presented copies of all
the good sermons printed in English, and only begged
of him that every Sunday he would pronounce one of
them in the pulpit. He obeyed the injunction, but it
is to be hoped that he adapted the language of Tillotson,
Sanderson, and Barrow, who were on his list, to the
apprehension of his hearers ; otherwise, however much
The True Gentleman 61
he might please his patron, and Addison, his patron's
friend, he would preach in a tongue not understanded
of the people.
Sir Roger boldly asserted the rights of the laity to
share in the government of the Established Church.
He gave to each of them a hassock and a prayer-book,
expressing, in anticipation, the pleasure which he should
have when he saw them meekly kneeling upon their
knees. He kept a strict watch over the congregation,
suffering none to slumber except himself; and if by
chance he was surprised into a short nap at sermon, on
recovering out of it he stood up and looked about him,
and if he saw any one else nodding, either wakes them
himself, or sends one of his servants to them. In the
middle of the service he calls out to John Matthews
to behave himself and not disturb the congregation.
On catechising days he will order a Bible to be
sent to the boy who has answered well, and sometimes
adds to this gift a flitch of bacon for his mother.
He has added $ a year to the clerk's salary,
and that he may encourage the young fellows to
make themselves perfect in the Church service, he has
promised to bestow the office, when it is vacant, on
the candidate who can most appreciately discharge its
duties.
Exercising his powerful influence for the good or
others, he disclaimed any tribute of admiration for
himself. To do honour to his old master the tenant
of a small inn in the neighbourhood had set up a
likeness of Sir Roger as a signpost. The knight, most
62 Then and Now
politely thanking him for the compliment, insisted,
nevertheless, upon its removal, suggesting that it might
be altered by a few touches, and that he would gladly
defray the expense. The face was accordingly trans-
formed by the addition of enormous whiskers, protruding
eyeballs, and other embellishments, into an expression
of grim ferocity, and was known henceforth as the
Saracen's Head unto all wayfaring men.
He was a thorough sportsman, not regarding sport
as the end and aim of his existence, but as the holiday
which made a man stronger for his work, and as one
who believed it
Better to hunt in fields for health unbought
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
There were trophies in his hall to show that he had
stalked the deer and killed big game. With birds on
the wing, although he shot with the old flint and steel,
he had the same success. He who in those days had
mastered the art of shooting animals in motion was
indeed a man of mark, and Sir Roger, in commending
one of his neighbours, speaks of him as " a very sensible
man, shoots flying^ and has been several times foreman
of the petty jury."
He was a master of hounds first of foxhounds,
then in his less vigorous age of beagles, and finally of
" stop-hounds " hounds which hunted slowly and
stopped at a signal from their master. What these
wanted in speed he endeavours to make amends for by
the depth and variety of their notes, which are suited in
The True Gentleman 63
such manner to each other that the whole cry makes
up a complete concert :
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouths like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Was never halloo'd to, nor cheer'd by horn.
He was so nice in this particular that a gentleman
having made him a present of a very fine hound the
other day, the knight returned it by the servant with
a great many expressions of civility, and desired him to
tell his master that the dog he had sent was indeed
a most excellent bass, but that at present he only
wanted a counter-tenor.
We shall be told, of course, that Sir Roger and his
adherents were representatives of the iniquitous and
tyrannical feudal system ; of the fat spider, comfortably
seated at the top of his web, and feasting at the expense
of his neighbours ; of the darkness, which would be
quickly dispersed by the rising sun of progressive
reform. Some years ago a rustic told me that he had
been listening to one of those demagogues who have
kindly undertaken to beatify the world, and he
" couldn't make out what he was up to. He said as
all parsons and squires was mermaids " (myrmidons ?)>
" and all we labourers was scurfs " (serfs ?)
How about Now and Then ? Without consideration
whether the great changes which have taken place the
depopulation of our villages and the depletion of the
squires were inevitable ; whether pollution in our
atmospheres, the poisoning of our streams, the stunted
6 4 Then and Now
growth, not only of our vegetation, but of our men,
women, and children, have been fraught with inestimable
blessings ; I venture to suggest a doubt whether the
villagers of England are happier under the administra-
tion of the parish council than they were under the
feudal system.
Thackeray has given us in Colonel Newcome the
bright presentment, and in his Book of Snobs and his
History of the Georges definitions terse and truthful, of a
gentleman. " What is it," he asks, "to be a gentleman ?
It is to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be
brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to
exercise them in the most graceful outward manner.
He should be a loyal son and a true husband ; his life
should be decent, his bills should be paid, his tastes
should be elegant, his aims in life lofty and noble. He
should have the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the
love of his fireside ; he should bear good fortune, suffer
evil with constancy, and through good or evil always
maintain truth."
The last is the supreme ordeal and test. No man
can be accepted as a true gentleman who has not
learned what a noble thing it is to suffer and be strong.
Not on the yacht, but in the lifeboat ; not on parade, but
marching in weariness and waste through an enemy's
land; not in prosperity, but in adversity, can there be a
sure discernment between the coward and the hero, the
deceitful and the honest, the carnal and the spiritual
man. 1
Charles Dickens, in Barnaby Rudge, one of his
The True Gentleman 65
greatest achievements (where shall we find a more
splendid example of descriptive power than in his
narration of the Gordon riots and the burning of
Newgate?), has set before us in admirable contrast a
gentleman in sorrow and persecution and a cad in
sensuality and sloth ; between Haredale who main-
tained and lived up to his rule that no man should
deviate from the path of honour, that all good ends can
be worked out by good means, and that all others
should be left alone and Chester, who never com-
promised himself by doing an " ungentlemanly " action,
according to his own definitions, and never did a manly
one in his life. Haredale, severe in his self-restraint,
was tender in his compassion for others and always
ready to help them ; Chester, never denying himself
an indulgence, was pitiless and vindictive. On the
same level as to social position, no two men could be
more unlike. Haredale was a Christian, in the world
but not of it ; Chester had nothing but the world to
worship, although to him it was nothing more than a
despised and broken idol. Only religion can teach the
self-denial and the integrity which make a gentleman.
There is only one perfect example
The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer,
A sweet, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
CHAPTER VI
Gentle and other Women
I do not mean to tell you that there are no women in the world
vulgar and ill-humoured, rancorous and narrow-minded, mean
schemers, son-in-law hunters, slaves of fashion, and hypocrites ; but
I do respect, admire, and almost worship good women ; and I think
there is a very fair number of such to be found in this world, and
I have no doubt in every educated Englishman's circle of society
whether he finds that circle in palaces in Belgravia and Mayfair, in
snug little suburban villas, in ancient, comfortable old Bloomsbury,
or in back parlours behind the shop. THACKERAY.
I ENTER fearlessly upon a survey which may seem
to some to be rash and dangerous, because there is,
comparatively, so little to censure and so much to
praise, and because I know that a large majority of my
male readers, believing themselves to be associated with
the most admirable of mothers, wives and daughters,
will appropriate to them all the commendations, and will
transfer to others any criticisms which may suggest
reproof* They will find no more difficulty in dis-
tributing these admonitions, and in connecting them
with their rightful owners, than an old woman in my
village, who, after a recent sermon, expressed her
profound astonishment " 'ow Sammy Potts could sit
there, as unconsarned as a hinnocent babe, and 'ear
66
Gentle and other Women 67
hissel' called a child of the devil, when every man
and woman in that church know'd full well as parson
meant it for Sam." Many years ago, when the
telegraph was first set up by the railways, a navvy
working on a Northamptonshire line, hearing overhead
the vibration of the wires, turned to his mate and
said, " They're getting it hot at Thrapston ! " Let
the galled jade wince : our withers are un wrung.
We are, of course, delighted to hear Brown's
panegyric of his saintly mother ; to note the pride
and affection which sparkle in Jones's eye when he
gazes on his diminutive bride ; to hear Robinson
whispering that he may tell us confidentially that
Edith, his daughter, was the belle of the hospital ball.
We do not for a moment doubt their sincerity, but
really, you know, when we think of a certain portrait
with silver hair in our dining-room at home ; when
we recall Mrs. Brown as we saw her when we left that
same room to join the ladies with a few friends who
had partaken of our hospitality, with her mouth open,
fast asleep ; and when we cannot forget how Miss
Robinson tried to drown our sweet little Gwendolen's
voice in the duet, ar\d blew out one of the candles on
the piano well, not wishing to hurt anybody's feelings,
we will only add how grateful we ought to be for these
satisfactory contrasts, and how willing we are, as will
appear hereafter, cheerfully to join in that " general
chorus of mankind " which sings the praise of the
gentler sex.
We must not, however, be diverted from our
68 Then and Now
intention, nor prevented by our own privileges ih
particular, or by our admiration of feminine excellence
in general, from protesting against errors and eccen-
tricities which derogate from the dignity and grace
of womanhood. There are fascinations which dazzle
into blindness, and which have compelled even the jilted
critic and the frigid misogamist to ignore the faults,
If to her share some venial errors fall,
Look in her face and you'll forget them all.
How can we resist, they plead, the enchantress, who
captivates both by her conversation and her personal
charms, makes every man believe that he takes pre-
cedence in her sympathy, like Penelope
Sweet hope she gave to every youth apart,
With well-taught look and a deceitful heart
and sends him away saying to himself, "They tell
me thou art the favoured guest"? She assures the
admiral that a life on the ocean wave has always been
her dream of felicity, and that a blue jacket is her ideal
of beauty. She informs the general, with a pathetic
depression, that the one great sorrow of her existence
has been the sad misfortune that she was not born a boy,
so that she might have joined the most- glorious of all
professions. She entreats the bishop not to kill himsel
with his overwhelming work, and his lordship, having
a keen sense of humour, replies gravely that her request
shall have his best consideration ; and she tells the
dean that a cathedral service is " quite too heavenly."
Gentle and other Women 69
She talks to elderly men about politics, and to young
men about polo. She is somewhat contradictory in her
statements and superlative in her enthusiasm, but she
persuades herself and others that she is temporarily
sincere, and is monarch of all she surveys.
She rejoices in the exercise of her power, her subjects
rejoice in her service, and so far all is well. Wise men
and wise women know the boundaries, and do not go
beyond. They discern between good and evil ; and
as with the former
'Tis excellent
To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous
To use it as a giant,
so with the latter 'tis excellent to have a syren's song,
but it is tyrannous to use it as a syren. To suggest
hope only to crush it, to pretend that which is not
felt, to induce an offer of the lowliest homage, the most
devoted affection, which one human being can offer to
another, only to reject and deride what cruelty can
be more contemptible than this? Who can pity when
retribution comes to her who refuses to
Pray Heaven for a human heart,
And let the foolish yeoman go,
or to her who, " playing with edged tools," and
accepting offers from two lovers, is found out by both
of them, and left " lovely and lonely, on the winter
cast."
There are some women in our own, as in former, days
who imperil their claim to the title of " gentle " by
70 Then and Now
adopting the costumes and the customs of men. We
are no longer under the law, but under grace ; but on
what plea shall we regard as obsolete and refuse to
obey the Divine commandment the "woman shall not
wear that which appertaineth unto the man, neither
shall a man put on a woman's garment." It has
been well said that God has made the sexes distinct,
let not the tailor confound them ; but that modern
institution, the man-milliner, with jacket, waistcoat,
knickerbockers, gaiters, with the supplement of a
pot-hat, stick-up collars, tie and pin, has laughed law
and precept to scorn. Add a dog-whip and whistle,
a bulldog, a case for cigarettes, and a book for bets,
and behold an hermaphrodite, neither " fish, flesh, fowl,
nor good red herring," the demolition of a woman, the
caricature of a man, ridiculed as " our friend from Middle
Sex," toasted as "the ladies, once our examples, now
our imitators ; once our superiors, now our equals."
I have a distinct recollection of an attempt to intro-
duce into this country the " Bloomer costume " for
women. It was invented by Mrs. Ann Bloomer, of
the United States, and was an attempt to substitute
the lighter and more convenient dress for the present
heavy and inelegant attire. It was neither immodest
nor ungraceful. The skirt, less ample than before,
reached down half-way between the knee and the ankle,
over trousers of a Turkish fashion, which were fastened
round the ankle by a band and clasp. It met with no
encouragement on either side of the Atlantic. The
originator was not popular, holding strong views
Gentle and other Women 71
about woman's rights (with very weak notions, as
usual, about woman's duties), and had no intellectual
attractions or social influence. The novelty of this
dress and the effrontery of those who wore it were the
main causes of condemnation. With regard to modesty,
the Bloomer costume must now be considered as severe,
Quakerish, and prim, when compared with the abbre-
viated draperies of the cycle and of the ball. I am
speaking of exceptional cases, in which certain indiscreet
persons do, despite the truer spirit of their sex,
seem to vie with each other who shall go first and
fastest upon ice which is known to be " dangerous."
Two brothers went to the same school. They were
absent for a fortnight, and then only one returned.
"Where is your brother, Thomas?" " Oh, if you
please, sir, there isn't any Tommy now. We played
at a game, which should lean the farthest out of the
top attic window, and 'Tommy won"
Not many months ago, several benevolent members
of the dramatic vocation (and there is no profession
more generous in its charitable sympathies) arranged
a very interesting series of performances and recitations
at the Globe Theatre for the benefit of the Sailors'
Home at Chatham. I went to see, and was greatly
delighted with the comedietta ofATair of Knickerbockers.
A bridegroom not many days after marriage discovers,
on inviting his bride to a walking tour, that to his
infinite disgust and distress he has inseparably attached
himself to a disciple of the new school of women. She
presents herself prepared for the promenade in a suit
72 Then and Now
which is not in any part to be distinguished from that in
which he is clad the same hat, collar, tie, coat, waistcoat
(brilliant scarlet), breeches, stockings, and boots. " A
moment o'er his face a tablet of unutterable thoughts
was traced," and then in an agony of indignant sorrow
and shame he made his protest, a most powerful,
pathetic appeal to argument and to affection. He
was fearless in denouncing that which he believed to
be wrong, tender and persuasive in his love ; but
the wife had evidently anticipated the crisis, made
herself ready for the battle, and was determined not
to yield. At last, after a contest long and painful,
he left the room in despair. And then after
an interval a lucid interval, a thoughtful magni-
ficent interval he returns to his bride, attired in
a spacious bonnet, a gay shawl, some underclothing
ignorantly arranged, and only covering in part his
nether garments. When he announces in a cheerful
tone that he is quite ready for their promenade, she
turns, and the victory is won. Supposing at first that
it is only done in jest, her horror on finding that he
most certainly intends to accompany her in his dis-
figurement, unless she abandons her own, asserting
the right, which she cannot dispute, of the man to
wear the woman's costume if she wears the man's,
seems to overpower her, and after an expostulation
as vain as his own she too, disappears. She also has
her lucid interval, and when on her return her husband
looks and sees her sitting and clothed and in her right
mind I need not add the rest.
Gentle and other Women 73
Apropos of the drama, there was a time, we know,
when women were not allowed to appear on the stage,
and the heroines were represented by young men,
who were like David, ruddy and of a fair counten-
ance ; and when, after the Restoration, King Charles
the Second protested against a long delay which took
place before the commencement of a tragedy, the
manager came with profuse apologies to explain that
the Queen was in the act of shaving. I have twice
seen men successfully attired as women Bedford,
Wright, and Oxberry as the Three Graces. Bedford
must have weighed nearly twenty stone, and, dressed
as a danseuse, with a wreath of roses, he performed a
pirouette during which you might have boiled an
egg ; and Sam Brandram, attired as a Scotch fisherwoman,
delighted every one who heard his " Caller Herring " ;
but it is best to have no confusion of the sexes, and
except in such cases as that in which Shakespeare
sends Portia to plead, no actress outside the music
halls will disguise herself as a man.
Let every woman take Angelo's advice to heart :
Be that you are,
That is, a woman : if you are more, you're none.
Some, notwithstanding, are dissatisfied with their
personal appearance, and forgetting that rien nest fas
beau que le vrai, waste time and money in their
attempts to correct mistakes and to supply omissions ;
but there is no foliage so becoming to a flower as that
which nature provides for it, and no alteration or
74 Then and Now
addition of feathers would improve the beauty, agility,
and utility of a bird. Wherefore Hamlet warns :
" God hath given you one face and you give yourself
another. Now get you to my lady and tell her,
let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come ; " and the Puritan, Philip Stubbs, makes a
righteous accusation against those who, disapproving
their natural appearance, must adulterate the Lord's
handiwork with far-fetched, dear-bought liquors,
unguents, and cosmetics all of them, he might have
added, uncertain in their results, detested, ridiculed,
and despised ;.some of them containing rank poison,
and producing cutaneous disease.
Nor can I believe in a gentlewoman adorning her-
self with hair
often known
To be the dowry of a second head
The skull that bred them in the sepulchre,
or shorn from the head of some peasant girl in
Brittany.
The ideal lady, whom I honour and revere, is never
overdressed. She wears at high festivals robes of
richest material and of brilliant hue, but there is
never gaudiness or incongruity. As a rule, her dress is
like herself unassuming, graceful, in perfect harmony
with her surroundings. Every one says, " How well
she dresses ! " yet no one can remember what she wore.
I do not assume for a moment that she is indifferent
in this matter. She would be the first to affirm that
every woman, for her own satisfaction as well as for
Gentle and other Women 75
the satisfaction of others, should make the best of
her appearance, but she possesses, together with the
taste and refinement which suggest the less obtrusive
costume, and the modesty which shrinks from display,
the knowledge that good looks and good qualities
will assert themselves, sooner or later ; and that it is
the picture which pleases and not the frame. Who
has not noticed the perversity of stubborn mankind
in making for a pretty or a clever head, without
reference to rank or raiment, the reckless youth devot-
ing himself exclusively to a little governess with a
pleasing intellectual face who had come into the
drawing-room to sing and play after a banquet, instead
of surrendering to the daughter of the house in accord-
ance with his bounden duty, leaving velvets and satins
for plain black silk, for one
Vested in a simple robe, the best attire,
Beyond the pomp of dress ; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament.
The gentlewoman has, or course, a voice gentle
and low, an excellent thing in woman, and in her
laughter there is mirth and music, although it is
never loud. She despises slang, and does not tell
you that whatever she may approve is " awfully jolly,"
whether it be a strawberry ice or a hymn. I heard
a gay young person of the feminine gender make a
declaration that golf was u stunning " and hockey was
" ripping," and that she did not know which she
" loved " the most ; and when I inquired why, if the
7 6 Then and Now
one induced stupefaction and the other rent and tore,
she was attached to either exercise, she favoured me
with a smile such as we usually bestow upon infants
and upon those of whom we have been told in con-
fidence "that they are not quite all there, you
know."
She is earnest, enthusiastic, sentimental ; but she
abstains from exaggeration, display, and gush. She
is not one of those of whom the critic said that
" mendacity was bad, but womendacity was worse."
Even in the time of love's young dream she will
not depress you with doleful ditties about " We two,"
" He and I," " He came," One more," " He left,"
" No more," " Oh, do not ask me not to die," etc., etc.
She believes that charity begins at home, and does
not look beyond the duties which surround her for
occupations which seem more attractive, like the
daughter who complained that her father was getting
so blind and her mother so deaf that she was strongly
inclined to join a sisterhood, or take to hospital work.
She avoids extremes. She does not tell you
with a jaunty air in the middle of dinner that she
rather thinks of going over to Rome, or ask you
whether you are saved. She does not provoke
her father to speak, as a country squire spoke to
his daughter : "I am told, Augusta, that you have
adopted another * father/ a clerical gentleman about
your own age, and that he is so kind as to call you
his child. Oblige me by informing him that I have
not resigned the paternal office, and do not require a
Gentle and other Women 77
coadjutor. I have also heard that finding your
parents, your clergyman, your Bible, and your con-
science incapable as guides, and mistaken in their
instructions, you have engaged a ' director.' Let me,
therefore, suggest a further intimation, that if I meet
the c director ' on any part of my property, I shall direct
him off with a stick."
I am told that it is a " selfish and silly prejudice which
would debar women from the harmless enjoyment of a
cigarette." Having consumed and distributed (occa-
sionally to poor old women) a large amount of tobacco,
I am not in a position to deny the assertion, and am
quite content to leave the limitations to the ladies them-
selves. At the same time, I am in full sympathy
with the country squire who placed a notice outside
the door of his smoke-room, " For men only," and I
felt much more inclined to tip than to rebuke the Eton
boy who, thinking that it was bad form in his sister
to smoke, disguised his feelings, and presented her with
a cigarette of his own manufacture, into which he intro-
duced with startling results a small pinch of gunpowder.
Neither could I condemn the undergraduate, who,
deploring his sister's desire to bet on races, also pre-
tended sympathy, and sent her " a moral " (by which
is meant, in the morality of the turf, a horse certain to
win), whereby she was induced to ask a racing friend
whether he would put a couple of sovereigns for her on
Cornelius Nepos for the Oaks. The friend replied
that, without disputing the " moral " qualifications of
Nepos, he had positive information that he would not
78 Then and Now
be present on the occasion to which she referred, as the
meeting was for ladies only. The brother scored a
grand success, for the story was passed from smoke-
room to smoke-room, from course to course, and the
young girl was so cruelly chaffed that her betting book
was thrown into the fire. She is now a matron in
middle age, but is still reminded from time to time by
her brother the colonel of <c that famous year when
Cornelius Nepos did not win the Oaks."
One more disagreeable specimen the arrogant
dame who, being herself a parvenu of humble extraction,
but associated by marriage with a family of much higher
grade, ignores her antecedents, toadies those above and
snubs those below her. Her grandfather having achieved
a great financial success, in calico or in corn, she has
been heard to say contemptuously of other prosperous
merchants, cc They sell something, don't they, dear ?
beer, or blacking, or pills ; I can't remember." As
though every one did not sell something landlords the
produce of their lands to tenants or others, professional
men their brains, working men their bodies, and as
though no praise had ever been bestowed on those who
gain by trading.
To hear her talk of the lower classes, the frefanum
vulgus, you might suppose that she was alluding to
some strange barbarians, nude, ferocious, jabbering in
an unknown tongue, roosting in trees, and eating one
another on festivals.
She has a house in London as well as in the country,
and in a momentary mood of condescension she invited
Gentle and other Women 79
a young yeoman living in her neighbourhood, whose
family had farmed their own land for centuries, and who
was one of the best riders in the county, to call upon
her when he came to the Smithfield Show ; but her tiny,
timid heart failed her when he presented himself in
a costume which was more appropriate to the sports of
the field than to a salon in Belgravia, and she received
him with one finger and a sickly smile. The yeoman
flushed with a righteous indignation ; the conversation
was beginning to flag, and the hostess was magnanimously
suggesting refreshment in the housekeeper's room, when
the butler opened the door of the drawing-room and
announced " Lord Melton," her most sacred idol.
How was she to explain to the peer the presence of this
rural phenomenon ? Her agony was brief the noble-
man went straight for the farmer and shook him heartily
by the hand with " Frank, old man " (<t. su. xxx.),
<c I am glad to see you. Why, we haven't met since that
grand gallop with the Belvoir, when we ran into the
Quorn country. Come to see the Show, I suppose ?
I'll go with you to-morrow, and we'll have a trot in the
Park, and then you'll dine with me, and we'll go over
that run again, every inch of it, together."
She is too silly to be dealt with seriously, and a little
cheerful banter is much more potent to impress and
improve than sermon, satire, or scorn. She has a
hilarious nephew who, although he is often absurd, has
considerable success in rebuking her pride. He invents
stories for this purpose, and you may hear him at a
large dinner party at which many strangers are present
8o Then and Now
begin one of his narratives, " My dear aunt and I have
been on a visit this morning to a near relation, who was
originally a pork-butcher at Wapping," or he will enter
upon a series of arguments for the abolition of titles, the
redistribution of property, the destruction of foxes, the
advantages of polygamy, conscription, and confiscation.
The pride of ignorance, defying all around, like a
bantam cock on a midden, is always ridiculous, but in
these days of universal brotherhood, fusion of ranks^
familiarity with lords, absolute equality, and profound
humility, it is especially and irresistibly comic.
CHAPTER VII
The Wife
All other gifts by Fortune's hand are given ;
A wife is the peculiar gift of Heaven.
POPE.
Video meliora^ proboque. We have tried and condemned
the women who make fools of men, and the women who
make fools of themselves, who deceive, imitate, and
bore ; and " now is the winter of our discontent made
glorious summer " : the weeds are gone, which at distant
intervals disfigured the parterre, and we have only
before us a beautiful garden of flowers flowers which
grow everywhere, for all ; which bring joy, peace, and
contentment to those hearts and homes in which the
love of them is pure and true. They cannot root where
is no depth of soil, they cannot bloom where the atmo-
sphere is impure, but wherever, in a fair ground, they
are tended by affection, they cheer the ungenial day
and make the desert smile. The cynic may sneer with
his varium et mutabile semper and his belli deterrima
causa ; it may gratify the cowardly instinct which we
inherit from our father Adam to lay the blame upon
the woman, but he cannot deny that wherever she has
81 6
82 Then and Now
not hindered the Divine intention by the abuse of
her power, she has been the help most meet for her
husband's happiness and the brightest blessing of the
world.
Erasmus tells us that no man ever had a bad wife but
from his own fault, that a good wife may be spoilt by
a bad husband, but that a bad wife is usually reformed
by a good one. I should be inclined to reverse this
statement so far as to respectfully suggest the alteration
that the husband is the one more frequently converted
by the chaste conversation of the wife. Who has not
seen the spendthrift reformed to economy, the " screw "
to liberality, the sceptic to faith, by his wife ?
It is in the power of either to bring misery and
dishonour upon both ; and when the motives for
marriage have been mercenary or suggested by passion
only or by pique, where constraint has been applied
or the means for maintenance misstated, the results
may be disastrous when the discovery is made that
money cannot buy happiness, or that love which has
nothing but beauty to keep it in good health is
short-lived, and apt to have ague-fits ; but when
there is the mutual love and respect in u hearts of
each other sure," there is also the mutual help and
comfort which the one has of the other both in
prosperity and adversity.
Matrimony has often an admirable influence some-
what similar to that which is exercised by the regime
of a public school upon a new pupil who has been
an autocrat in his home, or by the House of Commons
The Wife 83
upon a new member from the country having a local
reputation as a brilliant orator, and being
One whom the music of his own sweet voice
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony.
The husband may find himself in the continual
presence of powers superior to his own good taste,
refinement, accomplishments, sweet temper, and self-
control. Luther's message may be whispered to
his remembrance, " Tell Philip Melancthon to leave
off thinking that he is going to rule the world." He
will be gently reminded that he is not an (Ecumenical
Council, that some of his edicts admit of discussion, and
that some of his habits might be improved. He will
clearly comprehend the meaning of the remark imputed
to the late Lord Shaftesbury, that " it was a subject
of much regret that the Pope of Rome could not be
married, because he would have quickly discovered in
that honourable estate whether he was infallible or not.*
He will find himself more and more restrained from
action upon sudden impulse ; warned from exuberance of
mirth since " joy's full chords oft prelude woes," cheered
in defeat and depression to wait till the clouds roll by.
For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
Than women's are.
* A schoolboy, being asked why the Pope, who claimed to be
the successor of St. Peter, did not follow his example by taking a
wife, made answer that he " supposed the Pope did not like the
idea of having, as St. Peter had, an invalid mother-in-law."
84 Then and Now
The wife is more calm, considerate, tender, and patient.
If the man is opposed or offended, his counsel is
for open war and vengeance ; the woman will hear
explanations, will offer or accept apologies. If a
servant forgets to post a letter, the master
promptly informs him that he takes precedence over
all the asses in Europe ; the mistress u knows that
he is sorry to have forgotten the letter, and must
ask him to walk with a telegram to the station, two
miles from the house." She does not ridicule or
vehemently condemn the first proposal of some
thoughtless scheme ; she does not retaliate the bitter
words which have been uttered in an angry mood.
She will only speak affectionately the argument which
seems to her the simple truth, and leave it, as she
trusts, to germinate. For she learns to know her
husband better than he knows himself, to discern
the weakness and the strength ; and so to lead him
gently to the higher levels of his life.
She knows, when he makes a solemn proclamation,
that " no power on earth can alter his intention, that
he means to have his own way for once, though, of
course, he is always in the wrong," she knows, believ-
ing that she has right on her side, that she can
make this huge snorting, rushing engine <c slow down "
at her will, even as the huge ship is directed by the
small rudder, because the helmsman steers by the
compass.
When it is first revealed to him that the codk
says she must have a new grate, he assumes such
The Wife 85
lugubrious expression and heaves such a plaintive
sigh as might lead you to suppose that he was about
to order his wagonette for the conveyance of himself
and family to the nearest workhouse. He has recently
paid ^300 for a hunter, but this 25 for a grate
quite breaks him down. " It seems to me only the
other day that I paid no end of money for thf
beastly thing now in use ; " and when it is positively
stated that a the other day " occurred eighteen years ago,
and that the man who has been to examine the grate
has said, as the man who comes to examine the grate
always does say, that " it is completely done for,
and that it's a marcy as the boiler hadn't bust and
blown up the whole consarn," why, then the proprietor
can only say that he believes the whole affair to be
a job, a conspiracy between the elements, the fire and
the water, and the lime in the water, with the cook,
the ironmonger, and the bricklayer, to corrode, crack,
and wear out the metal, to irripose upon his ignorance
and to impoverish his estate. When he is left to his
reflections, it begins to dawn upon him that there is a
limit to the endurance of all earthly things ; he braces
himself to face the inevitable, and is finally taken
from home for a fortnight in a state of cheerful
resignation to an expensive London hotel until half a
dozen men, leisurely working for four hours a day,
have adjusted the new kitchen grate.
Alas ! soon after his return, and when he thinks,
good, easy man, full sure that all his domestic
arrangements are in perfect order, his attention is
86 Then and Now
called to the gross misbehaviour of the dining-room
carpet, which, at the early age of nineteen summers,
has quite lost its complexion, and displays other
unsightly symptoms of premature decay. Again
melancholy marks him for her own. "None but
millionaires can stand these incessant outlays. I hardly
dare open my banker's books." Again he is " left
to cool," and when he recovers his serenity and is
seen to be in a cheery, genial mood, he is told that the
old carpet will make the boys' bedroom a " thing of
beauty and a joy for ever," and he not only assents
to replace it, but treats himself to 'a feeble pun about
something always being on the tapis, and thoroughly
enjoys it.
It may be said that these adaptations are mere
matters of tact to secure personal comfort and other
concessions, but if they are to be maintained against
perpetual irritations and other ordeals, which will try
them severely, there must be something stronger than
this shrewd device. There must be always the loving
heart, even as
All places where the eye of Heaven visits
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens;
and as the true gentleman never fails to make the best
of his companions and of his surroundings, and when
temptation, dangers, or disappointment comes to himself
or to his friends, keeps the child's heart in the brave
man's breast; so the true gentlewoman, in all the
alternations of life elated by success or depressed by
The Wife 87
failure will not be dazzled by the sunshine or dis-
mayed by the storm. Who has not seen (as I in my
long life have seen so often), to honour and to admire,
the modest, grateful joy with which she has succeeded
to honour and abundance, for which she never hoped.
When weaker heads grow giddy, and when weaker
hearts grow proud) she keeps the even tenor of her
way, is not puffed up, does not behave herself unseemly.
So with an equal grace and composure, whether by
constraint or free will, she can take a lower place.
There are women working in the slums of London,
and in the courts and alleys of our cities and towns
who were born and lived to womanhood in spacious
homes, in the pure air of the country, with gardens,
carriages, and servants, and all the comforts which
money can buy now wives of clergymen, deaconesses,
sisters of mercy, district visitors. There is the tender,
delicate woman, the emigrant's wife, doing the hardest
and coarsest household work ; and everywhere, here
in England and six thousand miles away in South
Africa, in homes, in hospitals, in tents, and on the
battlefield, she is tending the wounded and the sick.
She has disdained to live
A sort of birdcage life, born in a cage,
Accounting that to leap from perch to perch
Was act and joy enough for any bird;
and so in the school and in the orphanage, the refuge
and the reformatory, she has gone forth, not to be
ministered unto, but to minister. She cannot fight
and wrestle (the Amazon was- only a myth), scale
88 Then and Now
mountains, ride, or march ; she cannot stoke the fiery
furnace or toil in dark mines, nor save lives from
fire and water why should she ? like men ; she
cannot compete in science, in the appliance of steam
and electric power. In astronomy, Mrs. Somerville's
Mechanism of the Heavens is her only magnum opus.
In art, she cannot paint like the great masters
Rosa Bonheur and Lady Butler are phenomenal ;
and though as a vocalist she is to my ear supreme,
she cannot vie with the male as an instrumental per-
former or as a composer of music. But there are
better possessions than muscular strength, than dis-
coveries in science or accomplishments in art, and she
can show to mankind a yet more excellent way.
Women have more self-control, more self-sacrifice,
more patient perseverance, when the first excitements
wane, than men. Men will give money (there are
some who seem to think that a donation of one guinea
is a panacea for " all the ills that flesh is heir to ")
sufficient to build a church, suppress a revolution,
cure a pestilence, supply a famine, and end a war,
but they are loath to believe that it is better to go
to the house of mourning rather than to the house
of feasting, to visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction, although no man ever gave such a proof
of his sympathy who did not feel thankful that he went.
Women endure pain the statement that they suffer
less acutely than men being " not proven " far more
complacently than men, and do not fume, fret, and
pose as martyrs, as he who is kept indoors by a cold.
The Wife 89
They have marvellous self-command in a great crisis.
A Jady whom it was my privilege to meet some years
ago, being in delicate health, went for restoration to a
quiet place in the Scottish highlands with her husband
and children. They were in the garden together on a
summer's evening when she was suddenly seized with
a kind of paralysis in her eyes, and entirely lost her
sight. She made no exclamation, but her first thoughts,
as she related afterwards, were the remembrance that her
two boys were to leave next morning on their return to
school, and her determination to spare them the anguish
which she knew they would feel on hearing that she
was blind. She entered the house, and, remarking only
that she felt unwell, retired to her bedroom. The sons
came next morning, bade her good-bye, and went.
Soon afterwards the daughter brought a piece of work
which she was unable to continue, and asked for
instruction. The mother took it, held it for a few
moments in her hands, then laid it down on the bed
and said, " I cannot help you, my child ; I am blind."
When I saw her, she had partly recovered her sight, but
it was still weak, and, anticipating a total loss, she
was frequently walking in and around her home with
closed eyelids or during the night, that she might go
about securely when the darkness came. This pathetic
preparation reminded me of a record in the life of
Lord Lyndhurst, that when his sight was failing his
little grand-daughter continually read to him verses
from the Psalms, which he committed to memory for
his spiritual comfort when he could no longer read.
90 Then and Now
It is not only in her sweet submission to her own
personal sorrows, but in her tender thoughtfulness for
others who suffer, and her anxious efforts to help and
alleviate, that the gentlewoman wins our reverent
affection ; and it was never more manifest than now.
For example, in all the contrasts which may present
themselves between Then and Now, there will be none
more conspicuous than in the character of our nurses
and the condition of our hospitals sixty years ago and
now ; and when we recall the terrible neglect of the
helpless and the imbecile in the past, and regard the
treatment and accommodation in the present, our sack-
cloth is put off for the garment of praise.
CHAPTER VIII
The Nurse
Thy love
Shall chant itself its own beatitudes
After its own life-working. A child's kiss
Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad ;
A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich,
A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong ;
Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense
Of service which thou renderest.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
CHARLES DICKENS informs us in his preface to
Martin Chuzzlewit that in his early life Mrs. Sarah
Gamp was a fair representative of the hired attendant
of the poor in sickness ; and his biographer, John
Forster, tells us that he might have added that
the rich were no better off, because Mrs. Gamp's
original was in reality a person hired by a dis-
tinguished lady to take charge of a very dear friend
of her own. Dickens goes on to state " that though
many of the London hospitals were noble institutions,
others were defective, and that it was not the least of
the instances of their mismanagement that Mrs. Betsey
Prig was a fair specimen of a hospital nurse, and that
the hospitals with their means and funds should have
91
92 Then and Now
left it to private humanity and enterprise to enter
upon an attempt to improve that class of persons, since
greatly improved by the agency of good women."
Compare the delineation which accompanies the
history of these ignorant, coarse, fat, flabby females,
unkempt, unclean, drinking gin out of a teapot, with
our modern nurses, taught and trained, comely,
shapely, neat and trim, bright and cheery. Regard this
counterpart presentment of two sisters the former
waddling and puffing, with their coal-scuttle bonnets
and gig umbrellas, or drowsing by the fireside, the
latter in their simple, becoming uniform, active, vigilant
the difference between a barge waterlogged (gin-and-
water-logged) and a yacht that flies on the sea.
To whom do we owe the transformation ? To
Florence Nightingale. Of all the saints in our calendar
not named in the scriptures, who so worthy of our
veneration as Sancta Philomena ? The voice of " The
Swedish Nightingale " is silent now, but the music which
our Nightingale composed to soothe the sufferer and to
teach hymns of praise to those who were ready to perish
is heard in many lands. When we think of her
beneficence, and then turn to those records of miracles
and exposition of relics which the credulity of ordinary
minds is quite incompetent to grasp, to the nuns mured
in captivity, and the monks who are not allowed to
speak, what can we feel but a sad and pitiful regret
for these evasions of the work and the duty which we
owe to each other and to the position in which we were
placed ; and how can we repress some such words of
The Nurse 93
remonstrance as those which Dr. Johnson spoke to the
abbess, " Madam, you are here, not so much from your
love of virtue, as from your fear of vice " ? Who are
the bravest soldiers of the Cross ? They who shut
themselves up in a fortress or they who go forth to
fight ? Who are the most obedient attendants upon
One Who came to seek and to save and went about
doing good ?
It was manifest from her childhood, as almost
invariably with those heroes and heroines of history who
have been the lovers and leaders of mankind, that
Florence Nightingale had special gifts and sympathies,
and that she was inspired by a sacred ambition to use
them for the alleviation of pain and sorrow. I remember
a row of young palm-trees in Dr. Bennett's garden at
Mentone, and one of them was thrice the height of the
rest. There was a tank of water five yards below, but
the tree had reached it with its roots. So Florence,
rooted and grounded in love, rose above her fellows.
In her girlhood she visited with her father many of the
principal hospitals of Europe, and in her twenty-first
year she began to train as a nurse with the Protestant
deaconesses of Kaiserwerth on the Rhine, and afterwards
studied the management of hospitals with the sisters of
St. Vincent de Paul in Paris.
In 1854 news came to England of the gallant
battle of the Alma and of great multitudes of soldiers
wounded and sick. Her offer of help was gratefully
accepted by the Government, and she lost no time in
embarking, with thirty-four nurses, for the Crimea.
94 Then and Now
A few months after her arrival she had ten thousand
sick under her care. The work which she did, to the
injury of her own health, in the hospital at Scutari and
elsewhere was marvellous : the soldiers worshipped
her,* the world loved her. When the war was over,
^50,000 was subscribed to found an institution for
the training of nurses in connection with the hospitals
of St. Thomas' and King's College.
From that time to this there has been a continua-
tion and a development of the noble work which she
inaugurated, and of the special objects which she has
told us were uppermost in her hearts' desire the better
construction, arrangement, and service of our hospitals ;
pure air, not polluted by noxious smoke and vapours,
a clean, dry soil, spacious apartments, ample ventila-
tion, no superfluous furniture, an abundant supply of
water, the best of everything, without extravagance or
waste, a matron of pleasant appearance, sweet temper,
cheery conversation, energetic zeal, with trained nurses
to match. The latter are taught to minister to all
sorts and conditions of maladies and men, in public
* As they worshipped those who followed her example in the
present South African war. I hear from my son, and others who
were present, of their infinite devotion. A nephew, who was
sixteen weeks in hospital with enteric fever, tells me that he
cannot express his grateful admiration of the hard work which they
did with untiring cheerfulness. There was only one nurse when
he was left at Bothaville with fifty other patients. She was there
all the day, and sometimes came in the night ; but they were all
the same, and he saw many. There was nothing they would
not do.
The Nurse 95
institutions and in private homes, hospitals in the
city and the field, in town and country, general and
special, military, naval, ophthalmic, for children, for
convalescents, for incurables.
It may be that if the terrible need had been regarded
as probable, some more elaborate preparations might
have been made for the sufferers from enteric fever in
South Africa ; but I am assured that had there been no
Florence Nightingale, the medical arrangements, the
number and capability of the nurses, would have been
far more deplorable. From girlhood to old age she has
devoted the sympathies of her heart, the energies of
her brain, the results of her experience, to this bene-
ficent work ; she has been the quickening spirit of
the council of Queen Victoria's Jubilee Institute for
Nurses and of the Queen's Commemoration Fund,
1897, and now, an octogenarian, she makes an earnest
appeal to the women of the United Kingdom for
a further endowment.
" We feel very strongly," she writes, for herself and
other members of the committee, " that there could be
no more fitting memorial raised by the women of the
British Empire to her late Majesty, our beloved Queen,
than to collect a large sum of money to carry on the
work which her Majesty herself started i.e., to provide
the poor with good nurses in their own homes. . . .
The sum of money which her Majesty devoted to this
object was given to her as a tribute of love and respect
by the women of the United Kingdom on the occasion
of her Jubilee in 1887. It is, therefore, all the more
9 6 Then and Now
incumbent on us as women to help to continue this
noble work ; and we are confident that there are few
women in the British Empire who would not willingly
do all in their power to assist a memorial so worthy
of perpetuating the beloved and glorious memory of
the best and greatest of queens."
Again, in the Crimean war, the French, our allies,
had ambulance waggons, but we had none, and it was
Florence Nightingale who suggested their use to our
Government, with so many other improvements.
Ten years before that war began, and for more than
thirty years after it was over, I was a parish priest,
constantly visiting the sick poor. For thirteen years I
have been president, and a frequent visitor, of one of
the largest hospitals out of London St. Bartholomew's,
at Rochester. I have the honour to be a chaplain of
the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and have taken
much interest in their excellent ambulance work. I am,
therefore, justified by personal experience in speaking
with a thankful heart of the difference in this most
important subject between Now and Then.
Although much remains to be done for our in-
creasing population, great progress has been made in
the last sixty years in building, enlargement, and im-
provement of hospitals, and in the treatment of the
sick. In many of the rural districts the sick poor
are not only within reach of infirmaries in the towns
adjacent, but they have the inestimable boon of their
own village hospitals. It was sad to witness the
suffering which was endured in crowded homes, the
The Nurse 97
want of accommodation and pure air, the extremes of
heat and cold, the ignorance as to treatment, the
inability to provide things needful. It was impossible
for the parish doctor, with a multitude of patients and
a minimum of pay, to bestow the attention which he
knew was necessary and which he desired to give, and
none knew so painfully as he did the harm which
ensued, aggravated by the neglect and stupidity of
ignorant nurses. All doctors will tell you that nothing
so mars their work, so vexes and disappoints them, as
disobedience, forgetfulness, and obstinacy in those who
wait upon the sick.
There never was a time, notwithstanding, in which
we were more bound to u honour the physician " and to
admire the surgeon's skill. The aids and improve-
ments for which we are principally indebted to Florence
Nightingale have not only added so much to the
special relief and recovery of the sick and wounded, but
they have immensely improved the comfort and the
health of the community at large. It is not only that
whenever her example and instructions have been
followed as to the management of hospitals, the training
of nurses, and the laws of sanitation, there have been
alleviation of pain, healing of sickness, abatement of
disease, but there have also been new opportunities,
facilities, experiences, and successes for the medical
>rofession. Hence the admirable results of their
research.
On a winter's morn some years ago 1 met my
friend and physician, Dr. Vincent Bell, in the streets
7
98 Then and Now
of Rochester, and with that insatiable desire which
animates every Englishman to impart information
concerning the weather to those who already possess
it, I lost no time in remarking that the frost had been
severe, on which he said (or, rather, I thought he said),
"Yes, happily ; it kills my crows." "Kills your crows ! "
I exclaimed in astonishment. " I never heard of such
an event ; my crows were all right when I left the
Deanery." " Oh," he replied, "I did not mention
crows I referred to microbes ; " and then he gave me
much interesting information about bacillas, bacteria,
and germs of disease which surprised me even more
than the crows.
Think of the blessings bestowed on suffering
humanity by the anaesthetic and antiseptic treatment !
In all times and climes men have sought to discover
some anodyne for pain in opium, mandragora, hemp,
and other sedatives, but the process has been in most
cases as painful as, and more perilous than, the affliction,
and the invention has been reserved for our own days
of applications which produce insensibility during the
most severe and critical operations. Sir James Paget,
who held the pride of place in his profession, and was
beloved by all who knew him, wrote on this subject :
" I have just witnessed with intense interest a surgical
operation. If any one had told me, ten years ago,
that it would be performed without profuse hemorrhage,
endangering life, and without acute pain to the patient,
I should have regarded him as insane ; but under
anaesthetic treatment all the objects of the operator were
The Nurse 99
successfully achieved without any suffering and with
the loss of two drops of blood ! "
Experto crede. My dentist suggested certain elimi-
nations which would be very tedious and distasteful
under the ordinary process, but would be comparatively
brief* and altogether innocuous under ether. I found
myself accordingly placed on a seat which was in the
days of my boyhood about as comfortable as the rack
of the inquisitor, but which science is gradually con-
verting into quite an easy chair, with two M.R.C.S.'s in
front of me. They presented me with a red bag and
bade me inhale from it freely. I suppose I took too large
a gulp, for it was accompanied by an agony of suffoca-
tion which caused me to place a hand on each of my
companions, and to repel them with such force that
they recessed with the rapidity of a dissolving view to
the end of the surgery, where they stood like a pair
of male caryatides supporting the chimney-piece on
either side of the fire. Then I made request that I
might inspire the ether more gradually; a pleasant
exposition of sleep came upon me, the elegant extracts
were completed, and after sitting for half an hour in
a quiet room, I left with only the taste of the anaesthetic
lingering in my mouth, and with a thankful heart.
Let the name of Dr. Morton, dentist, of Boston, in
the United States of America, be held in remembrance
with honour and admiration always ; let it be enrolled
with such names as Jenner and Lister, not among
1" black-lettered saints " more or less mythical, but
in letters of gold, among those who were sent to be
ioo Then and Now
the real benefactors of mankind, and whose works do
follow them.
In the days of my youth dentists were associated in
our thoughts with fiends and the enemies of mankind.
They certainly inflicted upon our race a large and
unnecessary amount of cruelty, but they erred, not from
intention, but from ignorance, and the same excuse
might be pleaded for them as was pleaded in a church
of the Far West during troublous times : " Don't shoot
the organist ; he is doing his best." Their tender mercies
were cruel. You may have seen at some public dinner,
when the guests were many and the waiters were few,
the violent wrenching of wires with a powerful forceps
from the bottles which hold the champagne. The per-
formance suggests the impetuosity of the dentist and
the bulk of his rude instruments seventy years ago.
It was not only that children must be coaxed and
bribed to repeat a visit to the tormentor in trembling
terror, but we were all afraid of him,
For there was never yet philosopher
Who could endure the toothache patiently,
and there came upon us a sense of shrinking if
we only passed the brazen plate upon his door. I
knew a man in the vigorous prime of his manhood,
of strong determination, fearless in the chase, and
he went to his dentist for the extraction of a tooth.
He was asked to wait in a dismal apartment, scantily
draped and furnished, suggestive of a mortuary chapel.
Presently he heard a loud exclamation of pain, and
The Nurse 101
then the hurried tr.imp of footsteps, as of some one
trying to escape from it. He looked forth from his
chamber. All was silent below, but distinct sounds
of affliction were audible from above. His toothache
was gone : why should he stay? He opened the
front door ; the sun shone in the street abiit, excessit,
evasit, erupit.
I have cause to believe that neither the toothache
nor the proprietor of the tooth returned, but it was
a sad exposition of cowardice, enhanced by the fact
that the culprit continually refers to the incident
with far more pride than penitence.
The fear of the dentist is gone. In no department
of surgical science has a more welcome progress been
made, and not only in the discovery and application
of anaesthetics, but in the general treatment of dental
decay and disease, in manipulation, stopping, filing,
extracting, substituting artificial teeth. America takes
precedence, and many of our successful operators have
learned their art on the other side of the Atlantic.
All the world rejoices in these and other alterations,
which have been mercifully granted to patient study,
careful practice, and long experience, and Christian
chanty can find no work more worthy of its zeal
than the communication of these comforts to those
who need them. Here in England, in addition to
the mandates and the sympathies of our religion,
we have special encouragement and examples. The
interest which Queen Victoria of blessed memory
always felt in the building and improvement of
102 Th&n and Now
hospitals and in the training of nurses was wonderful
unto all men. She was not only a founder, patron,
and subscriber, but a frequent visitor, especially to
those hospitals appropriated to her sick and wounded
soldiers and sailors ; and when, on the occasion of her
Jubilee in 1887, the women of England presented an
offering of ,70,000, the Queen generously devoted
it to a scheme for supplying and supporting trained
nurses in districts throughout the land. No man
has done so much for the hospitals of London as
her son the Prince of Wales, now King of England.
All the members of the Royal Family seem to inherit
the same sacred sympathies. The beloved Princess
Mary, Duchess of Teck, gave every help in her power
to hospitals, visiting them frequently in her own
neighbourhood, or when staying with friends, going
through the wards, talking kindly to the patients ; and
her daughter, H.R.H. the Duchess of Cornwall
and York, has the like beneficent spirit.
When this quality of mercy is seen in high places,
when
Tis mightiest in the mighty and becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown,
it has a very potent influence. It often induces those
who give to give more abundantly, and it stimulates the
niggard and persuades the churl to be bountiful. An
American lady is said to have deserted the Christian
community to which she belonged, not because she
differed from its tenets, but because the Episcopal
The Nurse 103
Church was "so much more toney" and there are
persons not a few who, though they will not give
from a sense of kindness or of duty, think it more
<c toney " to put their confidence in princes, and seem to
have a sense of association with royalty, a prevision
of courts, not so much of Heaven, as of Buckingham
Palace and of Windsor. Castle.
We may confidently believe in the higher motives,
because the magnificent work which we have witnessed
could not have been done without them, and we may
all rejoice in the results. Suffering has been relieved
and life has been prolonged. Even we octogenarians
are hale and blithe. Our companions in a walk
uphill might hesitate to warrant us as perfectly sound
in the wind, but we move over the flat with silent ease,
and we hold our own at bowls, not forgetting that
Contra vim mortis non est medicamen in hortis,
or the last scene in this strange eventful history.
Here again we have great cause for thankfulness,
as we compare the Then and Now, our funerals, church-
yards, and cemeteries, as they were and as they are.
Fifty years ago the arrangements for burial seemed
to be suggested by a sorrow which had lost all hope.
The indications were hideous. The nodding plumes
of the hearse might have been birds of prey hovering
over the dead. The mourners wore huge hatbands
with long streamers fluttering in the wind, and their
bodies were swathed from shoulder to hip with scarves,
the materials being crape or silk. More and more
Then and Now
demonstrative in proportion to the rank and wealth
of the mourners was the pageantry of woe.
The whole house was draped with mourning in the
earlier part of the eighteenth century, and it was a custom
among the grandees " for the widows of the deceased "
to " see company " soon after the funeral was over that
is, to receive in person the compliments of condolence,
which every lady on her visiting list was bound also
to tender in person. The ceremony, as witnessed by
Lady Bute, after the death of her grandfather, and
related by her to Lady Montagu, was this : the
apartments, the staircase, and all that could be seen
of the house were hung with black cloth. The
duchess, closely veiled with crape, sat upright in her
state-bed under a huge black canopy, and at the
foot of the bed stood ranged, like a row of mutes in
a tragedy, the grandchildren of the deceased duke,
Lady Frances Pierpoint, Miss Wortley (afterwards
Lady Bute), and others. Profound silence reigned.
The room had no light but from a single wax taper,
and the condoling visitors, who curtseyed in and out
of it, approached the bed on tiptoe ; if relations, all,
down to the hundredth cousin, in deep mourning.
The performance, which must have been a terrible
strain upon the performers, upon those especially who
are afflicted by a sense of humour within the most
solemn surroundings, has long been discontinued, and
the magnates are content to disfigure the house of
God instead of their own homes. But why these
dismal demonstrations with reference to those for whom
The Nurse 105
we always express the hope, and not seldom the con-
fident assurance, that they are in joy and felicity ? Why
this waste of cloth and of silk, which would supply
so much welcome clothing for our poorer brethren ?
The poor consoled themselves with a lugubrious
meat tea. " I've lost five," said a Yorkshire dame,
" but I've buried 'em all wi' 'am." So they forgot
awhile the <c mighty difference " which one of them
suggested, when told by a rich neighbour that we all
had our troubles, u between fat sorrow and lean."
The churchyard was a desolation. It was the
playground for the parish, and the churchwarden's
horse, pursued by the young barbarians, stumbled
over the mounds and broken headstones covered by
the long rank grass.
The sextons like unto him who had exercised
that office, man and boy, thirty years, at Elsinore
had no feeling of their business, custom having made
it a property of easiness, and we were shocked from
time to time by profuse and painful exhibition of
skulls and bones. They evidently regarded the graves
and their contents as their own estate in fee simple,
to be allotted and tenanted at their discretion. When
two knights of Windsor ventured to suggest that
the graves of their brotherhood had not a sufficient
space intervening, the sexton promptly replied, u Well,
yer see, gentlemen, I'm bound to get three on yer
between this here grave and the wall, and there's
nothing for it but to pack yer close ! "
There have been happy alterations. We have
io6 Then and Now
been delivered from the hatbands and scarves, from
the rookery on wheels and the mutes with alcoholic
complexions. There is much less of unsightly extrava-
gance and much more evidence of belief and hope.
All Christians should be grateful to the Prince of
Wales, now King of England, who declined to put
London into sackcloth and ashes when we buried
our Queen of Queens. While the heart of the city
mourned as never before, the gleam of the royal
purple suggested the sure and certain hope. God
set His bow on the cloud.
The Burial Service is treated rather as a song of
victory than as a lamentation of defeat. The white-
robed choir meet the funeral at the lych-gate, and
sing psalms and hymns in the church and at the
grave. The sign of our redemption is on the pall
and goes before the procession. Flowers are on the
coffin and around, emblems of the resurrection. The
churchyard is itself a garden, except on the north side
of the church, where the sun shines not in his strength,
except in a water-colour sketch of old Southwark
Church by the illustrious Turner. He must have
read ere he painted it the words which Horace wrote
to the Pisos :
Pictoribus atque Poetis
Quidlibet audendi semper fuit sequa potestas,
and accepted the suggestion.
An anecdote suggests itself, which I related some
twenty years ago at a Church Congress to three
thousand working men at Derby, and which they
The Nurse 107
received con amore : It is told that a clergyman,
whose graveyard was sadly overcrowded, except on
the north side of his church, which, being damp and
drear, was not used for sepulture, went to a woman,
who was very old and ill, and having explained to
her that the dislike to the shady side was a mere
fancy and superstition, asked her as a favour, and
for the example of others, to give directions that her
interment should take place in the vacant portion of
the ground. The old lady took a few moments for
consideration, and then made answer, " Well, sir, as
you say that one part's as good as another, and that
it's of no consequence whatever where we're put,
p'raps you'll gie us a lend."
CHAPTER IX
Games
T'was in the prime of summer time,
An evening calm and cool,
When four and twenty happy boys
Came bounding out of school :
To a level mead they came, and there
They drave the wickets in.
ASSURED of the marvellous progress which has been
made in the science of the physician, the skill of the
surgeon, and in the assiduous and intelligent supervi-
sion of the trained nurse, confidently anticipating new
discoveries for the alleviation of pain and the cure
of disease, and placing no restriction on tentative
experiments, except that they be made in corf ore alieno
(even as Artemus Ward, when prevented by other
engagements from taking part in the war, freely offered
the service of all his relations), I would now propose
to consider other helps to longevity, improvements in
the preservation as well as in the restoration of health,
which have become during my lifetime more and
more appreciated, accessible, and practically applied.
We have been gradually convinced that prevention
is better than cure, and the laws of sanitation have not
1 08
Games 109
only been proclaimed from the housetop, but they
have been enforced in the cesspool and in the sewer.
The councils of the nation, of the counties and the
towns, are unanimous on the subject of stinks, and in
their aspirations for sweetness and light ; and their
appointment of sanitary inspectors for the admonition
of those who seem rather to relish than to repudiate
bad smells has been most beneficial. There is even
hope, although at present it is little more than a glow-
worm in a wood, a good deed in a naughty world,
that the time may come when the abomination of deso-
lation itself, monstrum, horrendum, informe, ingens^ cui
lumen ademptum, the noxious fumes and vapours of
smoke, which pollute our atmosphere and darken our
light, may hurt the earth no more ; when no men
shall imperil or impair the health of their fellows
to satisfy their greed of gain ; when the children
of those now dwarfed and pale shall regain the
stature and the glow of health ; when the fish shall
swim in the pure stream, and the white sheep
shall graze on the green pastures, and the thrush
shall sing amid the blossoms of the orchard, and the
garden shall be gay with flowers.
We want a St. George to slay this dragon. The
working men are acclimatised, and must earn their
bread. The tradesmen cannot afford to prosecute
their wealthy customers. The proprietors of smoky
chimneys are not alarmed by literary protests, however
just and cleverly written, nor are they distressed or
deterred by the infliction of small fines. They decline
no Then and Now
to believe, although it has been proved again and
again (several years ago Mr. Fletcher, of Bolton,
assured me that the process by which he had made
eleven factories smokeless had resulted in gain rather
than loss), that the smoke nuisance could be abolished
without a tedious and costly outlay. If the working
men were unanimous in asserting their rights and
in the exercise of their powers, no representatives
would go to Parliament who were not pledged to secure
for their constituents the gracious gifts which were
surely intended for us all pure air, and light, and
water. These soften into mercy the penal curse, "In
the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread."
At present we are in a state of transition, and it
is every man's duty and interest to ring out the old
and ring in the new. We resemble so many of the
French, German, and Italian cities, partly ancient and
partly modern.
At Colne, a town of monks and bones,
And pavements fanged with murderous stones,
And rags and jags and hideous wenches,
I counted two and seventy stenches,
All well-defined and separate stinks.
Ye nymphs, who reign o'er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it well is known,
Doth wash the city of Cologne
But tell me, nymphs, what power Divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?
And in many others the open sewers run down the
streets and the narrow lanes, and the effluvium is as
vigorous as that which caused John Leech to exclaim
Games 1 1 1
at a place which we visited together, " I think this
stench is strong enough to sketch." The modern
additions are spacious, breezy, and sweet, as in our
own large cities we have the open squares and broad
streets in close contiguity with the courts and alleys,
but with us there is at this present time a far more
general desire and endeavour to improve and purify
the dwellings of the poor than in those countries
to which I have referred.
It is gratifying to notice the diminution of those
frowsy persons who prefer to travel in almost all
weathers with the windows of their carriage closed ;
and conscience makes such cowards of those who
remain that they only protest against the admission
of air by a sour expression of countenance and a
rearrangement of wraps. Generally we have become
more sensible of the salutary influence of fresh air
and less apprehensive that epidemic diseases and
catarrhs of all denominations are waiting for admis-
sion outside our homes. In my early youth we wore
warm nightcaps, silk and woollen, enclosing ourselves
in four-posters surmounted by canopies and sur-
rounded by dense curtains. Now we leave apertures
in our casements through the night, except during
frost and storm, and though we are more indulgent
than our fathers in the matter of bedroom fires, our
dormitory is much brighter, lighter, and airier than
theirs. We were scrupulous, but not so enthusiastic
as now, in our ablutions. We met with early
discouragements. We were doused and scrubbed with
ii2 Then and Now
a rude manipulation which seemed to us to be
ferocious, and there was a special ceremony in our
childhood performed at intervals, and known to us as
" tub night,'* which was conducted with a reckless-
ness in the distribution of soap-suds about our
mouths and eyes and a seventy of friction in the
application of towels that resulted on a memorable
occasion in my sudden exodus from the nursery,
downstairs into the garden, and my capture, after a
brief but lively chase, in a clump of rhododendrons.
There were bathrooms, which included the shower-
bath, principally used for the drenching of strange
children whom we beguiled to enter, but there were
few companions of the bath. There was an abundance
of basins and pans, but the bountiful hip-bath (which
prevents the disappointment, known to some of us,
of stealthily approaching, in unbecoming costume, the
distant lavatory, to find it occupied), the capacious
sponge, the soft Turkish towel, were sixty years ago
unknown. Even then we were the cleanliest of the
nations ; and I recall a clever little sketch made half a
century ago in which the English hostess addresses
a foreign visitor, " My dear Count, I am sorry to see
that you are not in your health." " Ah, no," the
noble invalid makes answer, " I have done one very
foolish thing I wash my neck."
Chiefly, in contrasting Now and Then with regard
to ablutions, we may congratulate ourselves on the
institution of public baths and washhouses. An Act
was passed in 1 843 empowering municipal and parochial
Games 113
councils to establish and to support them from the
rates, and an Act of 1878, amended in 1880, also
authorises the construction of cheap swimming baths.
In no land which I have visited, or of which I have
read, is there such a love of games and sports, or such
opportunities for their enjoyment, as in our own. We
are profuse, if not profane, in our vituperations of the
weather, but no day passes in which it is impossible for
awhile to gratify these instincts, in which we cannot
ride, drive, fish, shoot, or skate. All around us the
woods and coverts, the fields and fences, the firm level
sward or the tract of light sandy soil, suggest the horn
of the hunter, the bay of the hound, the perilous leap,
the links, the wicket, and the goal.
What a contrast between the Frenchman playing
handball in the Champs Elysees, the Italian rolling
oranges along the drive of the public garden, and our
cricket, tennis, and football ! There are points of simi-
larity. The games are played by men upon the soil,
and the plaything is of globular form. It is interesting
to note what a large majority of those games which
refresh our life from childhood to old age is brought
to us by a ball ! marbles, ninepins, cup and ball, trap
and ball, nurr and spell, rounders, fives, racquets, tennis
(lawn and court), cricket (king game of all), football,
golf, hockey, baseball (American), lacrosse (Canadian),
skittles, billiards, croquet, bagatelle, English and
American bowls, not to mention the cowslip balls
of our childhood or the snowballs of our youth. In
all these exercises we and our relations in our colonies
8
ii4 Then and Now
and in America excel all nations. They are innate, and
with one brilliant exception (Prince Ranjitsinhji), cannot
be acquired by foreigners. Miss Mary Kingsley gave
an amusing account of her endeavours to introduce
cricket among the West African natives. They have
a green orange, which never gets yellow, and this was
used as a ball. She got some stumps and instructed
the natives how to play. A distinguished chief, who
was accused of murder and was compelled to retire
into the bush, acted as umpire. The worst of it was
that whenever there was a " lost ball," which occurred
almost every four minutes, the wretches would fly up
the trees and bring new balls instead of looking for the
old ones, and she failed, moreover, to make them under-
stand that it was not the game for half a dozen people
to be bowling at the wicket at the same time. " I do
not pretend," she added, " to know much about
cricket, but I know that ; and besides, it damages the
batsman."
That England hath no rival
Well know the trembling pack
Whom Charley Brown by Calais town
Bowled out behind his back.
C. B., a Nottingham cricketer, won a match against
three Frenchmen, swinging his right arm round his
back, with a fast pace, and generally on the wicket.
I anticipate doubt, but I have seen him do it.
Cricket has become a science, taught by professional
experts in our public schools, and the number of men
who can bat, bowl, and keep wicket well has been
Games 1 1 5
multiplied tenfold in the last half-century. In the field,
we are no better than our fathers ; and I am constrained
to add, though I shall be denounced as laudator temporis
acti^ and commiserated for my senile decay, that I do
not think the game, on the whole, to be so enjoyable to
watch, despite this large accession of skill, as when there
was less caution and uniformity, when the wicket was
defended by the bat, not by the leg, and the bowler did
not throw the ball. I went some time ago with another
old fogey to Lord's, and we much admired the quick
sight and manipulation, the play of wrist, the cutting,
and the snicking and the patting, until the repetition
became slightly monotonous, and when it was followed
by five u maiden overs," I turned to my companion (we
had been friends at Oxford fifty years ago) and I said
to him, u It's very beautiful, ain't it, Billy ? " and Billy
said, " My sight is not so good as it used to be, and it's
rather dazzling." As he spoke one of the batsmen
hardened his heart and opened his shoulders, and he
went out and hit, and the ball soared in the firmament,
and the other old fogey cried, " That's the style ! " and
ur eyes sparkled with joy, until, as that ball came
own, we saw in the far distance, at the very boundary
of the ground, the tall form, in cricket costume, of
Mr. William Gunn, also gazing with a placid smile upon
the same object, until it came to his bosom as a dove to
its nest, and he cherished it with a fond though brief
affection. Then Billy, with the expression of a man
who had taken an olive at dessert in mistake for a
preserved plum, remarked with a sigh that it might not
n6 Then and Now
be severe cricket, but that he would rather make a hit
like that now and then at the risk of being caught than
always to be playing at tip and run ; and he shouted
" Bravo ! " as the batsman drew near with a vehemence
that suggested alcohol. Another procession of
" maidens " gradually dispelled his excitement, when
Jessop came, and hit two balls in succession into the
middle of the pavilion, and the bell rang, and we went
away jubilant to dine.
Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona there was splendid
cricket before Grace, although there has never been
such a combination of excellence in one man. I have
seen the most accomplished batsmen and bowlers who
have played in the great matches during the last sixty
years, but there has been no abatement of my intense
admiration of Fuller Pilch, his manly form, his long
reach, his impregnable defence, and vigorous power to
smite ; of Alfred the Great and Lillywhite the Small,
Saul and Zacchaeus, the longest and the lowest on the
field ; of Redgate in white breeches and stockings ac-
celerating and improving the art of " round bowling,"
which had been introduced by Lillywhite ; of George
Parr hitting fives to leg ; of Joe Guy (" Joe Guy, sir,
Joe Guy/' said William Clark, the unrivalled bowler of
"slows" " all helegance, all helegance, fit to play before
her Majesty in a drawing-room ") ; of Richard Daft,
alike clever whether keeping himself in at the wicket,
or getting others out in the field ; of a second Alfred
(Shaw), great and royal, a king of bowlers ; of Felix, and
fifty others, men of renown, of whom I have not time
Games 1 1 7
to tell. With regard to the nauseous subject of
" draws," were I a court of final appeal my decree
would be short, sharp, and decisive. If the match is
not played out, let the victory be awarded to the best
score of the first innings.
Tennis in a covered court is, next to cricket, the
most fascinating game to the eye (excepting, of
course, the unwary visitor whom the ball hits in u the
Dedans "), and, as I saw it played more than fifty years
ago by Barre, the French champion, and as it is played
now by Peter Latham, exhibits that phenomenal power
of sight, strength, and science which make the posses-
sor to
bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus ; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves,
as with so many of us at Oxford, paying seven shillings
and sixpence per hour for the court, and insulting that
beautiful game with uproarious imbecility. We learned,
nevertheless, from our failures to appreciate the success
of those who persevered and won it, and always to
regret that the expense of building and maintaining
the courts makes the game impossible except to the
wealthy. The number is practically increasing, but
can never be large, and the out-of-door games are
more healthful, and are available for all.
Of these, the most popular at the present time is
football. On April 2Oth in this year, 1901, 114,000
persons assembled in the grounds of the Crystal
n8 Then and Now
Palace, to witness a match between the Tottenham
Hotspurs and the Sheffield United. Football is more
popular than cricket, and the causes of preference
are plain. The game is more easily understood, the
advance or retreat of the adversaries being distinguished
by their colours ; the players belong, as a rule,
to the working classes, and evoke accordingly the
sympathy of their brethren ; the matches are played
in the afternoon of a holiday ; they are too brief and
brisk to be tedious ; they are finally decided, except
in case of a tie, not lasting for three days, as so
often in cricket, and then ending in a draw ; and
they gratify that " rough and tumble " instinct, that
love of a scrimmage, that mysterious curiosity, which
propels us into peril, which we inherit from our fathers
and desire to transmit unto our sons. Now and then
these proclivities become extravagant and disgraceful,
suggesting the dismal prophecy that when in distant
days, and in the vicinity of our large manufacturing
towns, skeletons are found, of which almost every bone
is broken, posterity will exclaim, " Alas, for our brave
brother! He fell in the discharge of his duty a
football referee."
Seriously, the game has been disgraced by outbreaks
which must be punished and repressed by the central
committees. There is abuse of all things, however
good and honest in themselves, and when those meet
who are sudden and quick in quarrel, whose principles
are weak and whose passions are strong, sparks develop
into conflagrations. There are records to show that
Games 119
so far back as the reign of Edward II. the game
frequently ended in a free fight ; there were royal edicts
for its suppression in the reigns of Edward III.,
Henry IV., and Henry VIII. , and it was forbidden in
the reign of Queen Elizabeth on pain of imprisonment.
It could not be suppressed, but it was played less
frequently and fiercely ; it almost disappeared in the
time of the Puritans, when all joy was darkened and
the mirth of the land was gone ; but it was never
extinct. In the days of my youth the tide was at low-
water mark. The game was played chiefly by school-
boys and rustics, and was regarded only as a contest
of strength and agility, with which science, strategy,
and tactics had nothing to do. Our village football
consisted of a piece of coarse, thick leather, enclosing
a large bladder, which was inflated through the stem
of a tobacco-pipe, and then secured by a bootlace
through holes perforated at the sides. The outline
was irregular, and the movements of the ball in the
air were as eccentric and unexpected as those of a
pig driven to market. I do not recall the presence
of umpires or referees, but their place was occupied by
strong language, and sometimes by pugilistic encounters.
I witnessed the remarkable solution of an animated
discussion. A young farmer who was the proprietor
of the ball took it up and carried it to his home.
He must have been an ancestor of the agriculturist
delineated by Punch as terminating a cricket match,
when he was " given out," by ordering the whole
company to leave his field.
i2o Then and Now
Our poorer brethren ought not to be depen-
dent upon individual bounty for their recreation
grounds. Something like the old village greens
should be secured for their use. The rich should
be more generous, and young men of all ranks
should join now and then in their games. We are
fluent in our condemnations of loafers, poachers,
tipplers, the abjects at the corners of our streets. What
better things do we provide ? When Sir Francis
Crossley presented a park and gardens to the people of
Halifax, he said to them, " I attribute my success to a
promise which was made by my mother, when we first
entered the yard of the great mill yonder : < If the Lord
prosper us in this place, the poor shall taste of it.' '
Many a kind heart since then has offered the same
noble deodand ; and how can the rich do better with
their riches than by using them for health and good-
fellowship among their fellow-men ?
Again, we justly deplore the fact that our famous
cricket and football teams are not, with very few
exceptions, such as Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire
in cricket, representative of counties and towns, as
nominally they profess to be, but a collection of
hirelings hired by the highest bidder from all parts
of the land. The interest was much more intense,
and the match much more enjoyable, when the
contest was a reality and not a sham, and more was
*hought of the honour of a county than of the
money at the gate. It is sad when a great per-
former plays against his own townsmen, as in the
Games 1 2 1
case of Lockwood for Surrey versus Notts, and is
the chief cause of their defeat.
It is, of course, always a delight to see cricket and
football played in their most perfect form, but the
esprit and enthusiasm of local sympathies, as still dis-
played in the university, college, public school, and
regimental matches, added greatly to our enjoyment.
Victory brings no honour to the place represented by
the victors when the match has been won by paid
aliens. They have got the cup, but they bought the
metal. The name engraved on it is misplaced, and
the only inscription should be
Sic vos non vobis mellificatis, apes.
What connection is there between Tottenham and
Hotspur, or between Hotspur and football, except
that in the latter instance we read of the gallant
prince that
Beads of sweat were seen upon his brow,
Like bubbles on some late disturbed stream ?
There is something mysterious in the disappearance
and reappearance of the game of golf in England. If
the " man in the street " had been asked twenty years
ago to give a description of golf he would probably
have said that he had never seen it, but that he
supposed it to be an inferior form of hockey played
on a piece of waste ground with a sort of spud or
hoe, and that it consisted in propelling a ball into
122 Then and Now
a hole prepared to receive it, and then scooping it out
again with an elongated spoon and hitting it onward
through a long succession of similar cavities ; that it
was played exclusively in Scotland, and offered no
attraction to men on this side of the border. But
he would tell the inquirer now that golf was a very
fashionable, healthful, delightful exercise, suitable alike
for young and old, male and female, and that there
were golf clubs, public and private links, and pro-
fessional experts in all parts of the country. He
might add that although the records of a remote
antiquity inform us that golf was established as a
favourite game in Scotland some centuries before it
was played here, it is no novelty with us. In the
middle of the fifteenth century it was so popular in
Scotland that it threatened to supersede the practice
of archery, and in 1457 an Act was passed by the
Scottish Parliament that football and golf should be
discontinued, and that new butts should be set up
in the vicinity of the parish kirks, and that all capable
men should be taught the use of the bow as a weapon
of war on every Sunday of the year.
The oldest golf club in England was founded by
James I. in 1608 at Blackheath, and Mr. Scott,
the Keeper of the Manuscript Department in the
British Museum, has recently discovered in the muni-
ment room of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster
a document showing that golf was a recreation of
the gentry of Westminster during the time of the
Commonwealth. It is in the form of a petition, dated
Games 123
1658, from Thomas Harbottle to the governors of
Westminster School, showing that Tothill Fields were
being defaced and intrenched upon to the hindrance
of the meeting of the gentry for their recreation at
bowls, golf, and stowball, " and humbly soliciting
redress for the present and prevention for the future."
I have never played at golf, and money would not
tempt me to run the risk of a " foozle " the word is
so suggestive of disgrace. Moreover, I have learned
long ago never to talk didactically about that of
which I have no practical knowledge, or to adjudicate
before I have heard both sides. I listen to those who
have achieved greatness with confidence and admiration,
only venturing to offer my impressions as a looker-on
for assent or correction. Wherefore, when Mr. R. H.
Lyttelton, in his excellent book on cricket and golf,
tells me that " golf is a very great game, a splendid
game, with a charm which it is impossible to describe
or exaggerate," I implicitly believe, not only because
he is an u honourable " man, but because no Lyttelton
can err in the matter of games. When he tell us
that golf has added to the gaiety of the nations, I
can only deplore the fact that, as a spectator, it
never makes me gay. First-class cricket and foot-
ball excite, exhilarate, but golf does not cause me to
glow. The little groups wandering on the waste
always seem to me " remote, unfriended, melancholy,
slow," and Mr. Lyttelton tells us that the game is the
most nervous of all, that the cases are painfully
common in which the players become irritable, fussy,
124 Then and Now
and fidgety, that the silence is at times funereal, and
that golf is played by more faddists than have been
returned to the House of Commons in the last ten
years. He treats with courteous reticence the con-
trast which has been made by an illustrious statesman
in favour of golf as against cricket, and which suggests
the commentary made by Canning when a similar
preference for Addington versus Pitt was expressed
in his presence
As Pitt is to Addington
So is London to Paddington.
Most of us who have been at one of our public
schools or universities have been depressed in spirit
when we had played our last game at racquets or at
fives, and left the courts always to remember, but
never to repeat, the many games which we had
played within their walls. Consolation, joyful con-
solation, has come to us in recent years through the
introduction of lawn tennis, a delightful, healthful
game for vigorous men and graceful dames to play,
and for men who have lost their agility, or women
who have lost their shape, to contemplate and admire.
Quietly and skilfully played, it is a pretty sight to
see, but the smashers and crashers who seem to think
that the glory of the game consists in effecting, after
innumerable failures, an impossible service, should have
a court of their own. The server who puts a twist
on the ball is an artist, but the slogger would be
Games 125
more appropriately placed at the anvil or by the
roadside heap of stones. It is said that the Greeks
played a similar game, but it could hardly have been
upon grass. There was nothing like an English lawn
in Attica.
I approach the bowling-green in sackcloth and ashes.
There was a time in my hot youth when I had arrived
at years of indiscretion, in my salad days when I was
green in judgment, and spoke contemptuously of bowls.
I associated it with tea-gardens, with senile decay, and
knew not until time, the greatest of all teachers, taught
me that there was strong exercise for all the limbs of
the body, nice calculation, and clever dexterity in the
game. Justice would have condemned me to be " set
quick i' th' earth, and bowled to death with turnips/' but
mercy preserved me to appreciate and to enjoy the game,
as all may so long as they have their health, wherever
a bit of level grass can be found. When I am somewhat
wearied by my work, correspondence, composition,
interviews, and other occupations, I can leave my study
and with cheery companions, including admirals, generals,
and ecclesiastics of high degree, can drown my sorrows
in the bowls. The sailor remembers that the great
Admiral Drake was playing this diversion when the
announcement was made that the Spanish Armada was
in sight, and that he calmly turned to his companions
and said, " Gentlemen, we will finish the game." The
soldier who has been in South Africa prefers, for a time,
these rolling balls to those which come from the cannon
of the Boers. The Churchman thinks with a sigh how
i26 Then and Now
much more edifying it would be for religion, how much
more consistent with Christianity, if all rivalries and
contentions were conducted in the same spirit of brotherly
love as this.
Croquet was a welcome novelty and was played
everywhere until it began to pale its ineffectual fire, and
was well-nigh extinguished by lawn tennis. There has
been a revival of late, and we are assured by those
whom we esteem highly and who seem to be in full
possession of their mental and physical powers that
croquet is a fascinating occupation. It certainly appears
to be specially beatific to young gentlemen who are
teaching young ladies how to play by adjusting their
hands upon the mallet, or their boots upon the ball ;
but I do not think that it has come to stay with us, like
cricket, football, and bowls.
Archery is a great delight to those who frequently
hit the target, but few have a convenient ground for
practice, and without constant practice it must be a
failure. To attain or maintain excellence an amount of
time is required which must be deprecated as waste.
It was so denounced to me by one who was a dear
friend, the champion archer of his day, whose scores
have never been beaten.
I have witnessed a wonderful progress in the game of
billiards, remembering a match between Mr. Charles
Garnett, another of my friends and one of the most
successful of our English amateurs, and Roberts, the
father of a far more famous son. Roberts made a
hundred off the balls, and the event was regarded as so
Games 1 2 7
phenomenal by the striker that he asked permission, the
game being finished, to continue the break. He made
a cannon and then a miss, and we spectators went forth
to astonish our neighbours with the record of this
magnificent success.
CHAPTER X
Sports
Then began
A stop i' th' chaser, a retire ; anon
A rout, confusion thick.
SHAKESPEARE.
FROM games to sports. For fifty years, boy and man,
I followed the fox, and I have known personally many
of our most famous masters of hounds, beginning with
Squire Musters, and their huntsmen. I have not
mounted a horse for twenty years, but I have read and
heard of the chase, and have attended now and then
a meet of the hunt on wheels, although I resolved on
the first occasion never again to undergo the sinking
of spirit, the sense of desolation, the chill, the gloom,
which oppress the excited lover of the chase when the
fox is found, and he is left in his open carriage in the
lane to be covered with mud by a long line of u duffers "
who are afraid of the fences, and ought to be picking
oakum.
I note but few alterations from Then to Now.
Although there is a deplorable absence of the farmers
who were sportsmen, but can no longer afford the
128
ati
:
E
Sports 129
diversion, the assembly seems to be larger ; there are
more ladies and more townspeople ; there is an increase
of the "pop and porter brigade," making frequent
detours from the line of chase in favour of the public-
house ; and then there is that <c unkindest cut of all,"
that detestable cruelty to man and beast, barbed wire
in our hedgerows.
As to the first addition, the presence of ladies is
always precious, but human delight is always mixed,
and the charm of their society is somewhat impaired
when they set their minds on a process which they are
pleased to designate as " riding to hounds." Only one
or two in a score, accomplished horsewomen on perfect
hunters, can do it, and these are in far more peril,
from their position in the saddle and from their dress,
than men. I speak from painful facts, because in the
last hunting season two of my nieces, good riders on
good horses, were badly hurt one rendered for some
hours insensible and both were for some time in bed
under the doctor's care. In these instances the same
catastrophe might have happened to any horseman, and
would not oppose their return to the sport; but what
I should like to see would be this any amount of ladies
at the meet, but only the experts to whom the
master has sent the collar or button of the hunt
attempting to follow where the scent was strong and
e country was stiff.
The programme generally is much the same: the usual
avalcade on the park side of the haha before an old
Elizabethan house; the hounds arrive, and their master,
9
130 Then and Now
in his cap of velvet and snow-white neckerchief, red coat,
and glittering spurs, enters the hall to pay his respects to
" my lady. " No man is under a more severe necessity
to practise a policy of politeness than the master who
desires to preserve his friendships and his foxes. He
may be a master of hounds, but he is too often the slave
of the landed gentry, of those especially who desire
more pleasure from their aviaries than from their
stables, and prefer the pheasant which they can shoot
and sell to the horse which they cannot ride. By
these he is criticised, snubbed, disappointed, and is
expected to make all his arrangements in strict sub-
servience to theirs. Now and then he may receive
encouragement. One of his brotherhood, who hunted
his own hounds, and of course wore the costume and
carried the horn of a huntsman, told me that after an
excellent run a stranger who had seen it came and said
to him, " You have given us a grand day's sport,"
slipped a sovereign into his hand, and rode away. " I
met him," he added, " the same day at dinner in the
house, and when I noticed his embarrassment, I took
him by the hand and begged him not to think of an
apology, or to flatter himself for a moment that I
should return his sovereign. He had paid me one of
the most welcome compliments which I had ever
received. No schoolboy could be more pleased with a
tip, and when next we met, which I hoped would be
soon, it would be attached, as a trophy, to the chain of
my watch."
The procession moves to the gorse on the hill, the
hounds r
Sports
ounds move in, the fox moves out, and then follows
a magnificent display of reckless riding, so long as the
fences do not exceed three or four feet in altitude, and
the first performers make gaps for those in their rear.
Then a strong " stake and bound," a broad dike, or a
stile acts upon the company like a break upon a motor
car. Half a dozen men do not hesitate and are over ;
several make an approach with a faint heart (the
punster would say that the whole affair was a feint)
and their benevolent steeds " refuse " in sympathy ;
then there is a fall, and the sight of the prostration of
man and horse dispels all doubt in the wavering mind
and secures a general obedience to the natural law of
self-preservation. There is an immediate stampede to
the gate. Finally, if the scent is good and the obstacles
are difficult, the huntsmen, with three or four others,
who might have been named before the chase began,
are present at its close, a dozen or a score arrive at
intervals, and the rest are ubiquitous gone in the
forest, lost on the mountain, or homeward bound ; but
all are pleased with the excitement, the country air,
ie social greetings satisfied with excuses which
:>body believes, and fully prepared to entertain their
iends with imaginary descriptions of the run.
And now I venture, as an old soldier (has not
Mr. Jorrocks described the chase as "the image of
war without its cruelty, and only five and twenty per
cent, of its danger''?), to offer a few suggestions to
fe young recruit. He must have a horse well up to
s weight^ or he may experience the most miserable
Then and Now
catastrophe which can befall the sportsman, and which
will be a sorrow to him for the rest of his life he may
break a horse's back. To a heavy man a good start is
indispensable cest le 'premier fas qui coute ; dimidium
facti, qui bene cepit, habet but to all it is most
advantageous. When hounds are in covert, you won't
see the true sportsman loafing afar off, or hear him
chaffing with the c< loud laugh that tells the vacant
mind." He seems like the jolly young waterman, to be
" thinking of nothing at all," but his eye and his ear
are intent upon every sight and sound, and on the very
first intimation of a " find," he is off towards the place
from whence it came. You take twice as much out
of your horse when you are galloping in search of
hounds as when you are riding in sight of them and
in a run, while the skirter is always on the move to
make up for lost ground. You will have those oppor-
tunities of rest and a slower pace which generally occur
from checks and other stoppages, and which are bene-
ficial, though they may be brief. Make the most of
them. If the pace begins to tell on your horse,
dismount awhile when you may.
Having obtained a good place, you must keep it.
Yes, " It's a nasty one," but you must have it, and
having made up your mind to do it, do it with your
might. You must not let your horse refuse, or he
will acquire the habit. There are exceptions very
few when he knows more than you do, and evades a
danger which you do not see. In a good run near my
Nottinghamshire home, we came to the Caunton brook
Sports 133
r here it is narrow and quite negotiable from grass to
grass, even for a heavy man well mounted. The
huntsman gave me precedence, but my horse made a
sudden stop <ix feet from the edge of the bank, and
after a second failure I invited my companion to give me
a lead, which he promptly essayed to do, with results
precisely the same. Happily for us, there was a check,
and we got to the hounds after a short deviation from
their track. Next day I went in my " constitutional "
walk to survey the scene, and I found that the bank
from which the horses declined to leap was so worn
underneath by the action of the stream that it could
not have sustained the weight of a man on horseback.
Never press hounds when the scent is uncertain,
although when it is good they, will press you, and don't
get in the huntsman's way ; rather let him perceive
and he will perceive quickly your appreciation of his
difficult work and your anxious desire to help it. This
you may do sometimes by getting forward to the end
of a covert, and viewing the egress of the fox, by
turning hounds when the whips are away, and in other
minor matters. I have never forgotten a compliment
paid to me by the huntsman of a pack with which I
had not hunted before, and which was repeated to me
by a friend to whom it was spoken: " I don't know who
that gentleman is, but he's a sportsman." There had
been nothing of special interest in our proceedings a
slow hunting run with occasional spurts but Jack
Morgan had seen enough to convince him that I loved
the sport too well to spoil it.
134 Then and Now
Spare your horse as much as you can and be always
on the look-out for good galloping ground. I have
seen men toiling in ploughed clay when there has
been a footpath close by through the field, and some-
times by jumping a low fence or opening a gate you
may pass from the same heavy arable soil to the springy
pasture turf. " A merciful man is merciful to his beast,"
but the hunting man is more than this he loves
and honours the brave, wise, patient friend who has
given him so much happy, healthful enjoyment. If he
halts to refresh himself, after a hard day, on his long
homeward route, he does not forget that oats make
meal as well as whiskey. He goes to say " Good-night "
to his horse before he retires to rest. Invariably on
hunting days the butler came into our dining-room at
eight p.m. (we dined early in those days about six) and
announced that " Smith is in the stables,'' and thither
we went, pere et fils^ where the light from the great
lanthorns shone on the clean white straw, twisted at
the end when it reached the pavement. The long
thorn had been extracted, the overreach had been
soothed with healing ointment, and the hunters, a little
tired and not a little hungry, had been comfortably
" suppered up."
To ride after a " drag " with a " scratch pack "
of miscellaneous mongrels following a menial who
trails a dead rabbit steeped in aniseed in lieu of the
natural scent of the living fox is denounced by hunting
men as a vile caricature and degradation, and I have
seen an enthusiastic lover of the chase in furious
Sports 135
excitement when he heard a cynical philosopher,
totally bereft of all sporting instincts, and who had
never mounted a horse, declare that he saw no
difference in the comparative merits of two such
silly amusements or two such abominable stinks.
Nevertheless, there are times and places when the
meets are few or far when, faute de mieux, the
drag has strong attractions in the prospect of a
fast gallop over perilous obstacles for impetuous
youth.
In the United States, where there are no coverts
for foxes and the noble animal is a most expensive
luxury, the drag supplies to the man of business,
who leaves the city for his " country club," an
excitement and exercise which refreshes his mind
and promotes his health.
In both these cases the drag has this advantage
that is not associated with any apprehensions of that
blank day or total absence of scent which so often
here in England depresses the spirits and embitters
the existence of so many gallant men. The subject
is not suggestive of romance, but in my time there
was a legend at Oxford connected with the Christ
Church drag so dramatic in its incidents and issues
that I sent some record of it forty years ago to a
popular periodical, accompanied by a most admirable
illustration expressly drawn for me by my friend
John Leech, and herewith reprinted.*
* By the kind permission of Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew & Co.,
the proprietors of Once a Week.
136 Then and Now
A country squire and retired general, shooting
on his estate, came suddenly upon a pedestrian of
disreputable appearance, and sent his keeper to inquire
the cause of his trespass. The messenger returned
to inform his master that the man was trailing a
drag for " them Oxford gents," who would very
soon follow with their horses and dogs. The General
immediately gave orders for the line of chase to be
diverted to his stable yard and that on the arrival
of the hounds the lot should be locked up in the
coach-house and await his arrival. This was accord-
ingly done. The " field " on approaching the
mansion suspected a trap, and, at the bidding of the
master, betook themselves to the seat of learning.
The huntsman stuck to his hounds and was speedily
confronted by the general, who addressed him with
such terms of copious vituperation as he could only
have acquired during many years of military command
in an irritable climate. Finally he demanded the
card of the Oxonian in order that he might appeal
to the authorities to have him c * sent down." The
undergraduate departed in pensive mood, but had
not proceeded far on his way when he was overtaken
by a groom on horseback, who informed him that
the general wished to see him immediately, as there
had been a great mistake. He was received on his
return with a smiling face and a right hand of welcome.
" My dear boy," exclaimed the general, " I see from the
address on your card that you are the son of my
dearest friend and old comrade in arms. Send that
Sports 137
skunk home with the curs, put your horse in the
stable, and come to the house." The denouements
were delightful the Oxonian visited the general
more and more frequently, lost his heart to his
daughter and only child, married her, and ultimately
inherited the estate, became a veritable master of
hounds, but always declared that the best day's
sport he ever had in his life was that day with the
Christ Church drag.
There has been a remarkable transformation in
gunnery since old Will Talbot, our gamekeeper I
recall him to memory with his silvery hair, his close-
shaven ruddy cheeks, and his neat jacket of brown
velveteen first taught my " young idea how to shoot."
I brought down my first partridge with a long single-
barrelled, 2O-bore gun, aiming, as boys do, at the
middle of the covey and killing the old cock as he
flew several yards in the rear. The process of loading
and also of ignition was dilatory. The gunpowder
was doled out from a flask, the wad was produced
from a capacious pocket of the shooting jacket, the
ramrod was drawn, used, and returned, the shot-belt
made its contribution, and the second wad was sent
home by another application of the ramrod. The
wads were punched from thick cardboard, and are
associated with a great disappointment which depressed
me when I brought home my best specimen, after half
a year's instruction, in drawing, and the only remark
my father made was, " Splendid for wads ! "
Then came to our joyful astonishment the copper
138 Then and Now
cap with its detonating powder, and then the breach-
loader, and the cartridge, to be gradually developed
into the hammerless, smokeless, faultless implement
which is now in use. What a contrast ! It suggests
an antithesis on a much larger scale which I saw in
an exhibition at Liverpool an enormous locomotive
engine, which looked as though it could have drawn
half a mile of carriages at fifty miles an hour, side by
side with the little Rocket, which I believe was the
first engine which Stephenson made for the first
railway at Darlington.
It seems impossible to improve the modern gun or
its accessories, including the neat workmanlike attire of
the shooter, who has long since discarded the cumbrous
coat, waistcoat, and trousers for the Norfolk jacket,
knickerbockers, and strong stockings of warm wool. But
what shall we say of the sport ? My verdict may evoke
ridicule, but I am entitled to my opinion, having taken
out fifty certificates, and having been an eye-witness
of the great changes which have taken place in covert
and open shooting. When thousands of Irishmen
crossed , the channel every year to reap our wheat with
the sickle, the pursuit of the partridge in stubbles
a foot in depth, with clever dogs pointers, spaniels,
and setters hunting, finding, retrieving was infinitely
more interesting, more invigorating, with some con-
genial friend, far more social, than the file-firing in
turnips at birds which have been driven into them
before the arrival of the guns. When the scythe and
the mowing-machine superseded the sickle and shaved
Sports
the ground like a lawn, then commenced the decline
and fall, and our grandchildren can never know that
robust enjoyment that took us to the fields between
eight and nine in the morning, and kept us there
until the sun was westering to its close.
Keepers, as a rule, are clever, energetic, reliable,
respectful, but they have their strategies, and they
make their commentaries like other men. " You
needn't tell Lord John," I heard one of them say to
a subaltern, " as we ain't agoing to shoot hens in his
plantation. He wouldn't hit a helephant standing
on his hind legs."
" We got that rocketer, my lord, which fell on
the other side of the river." Delighted nobleman :
"Oh, bravo, Bocock." (Another pound for Bocock.)
Sometimes a few birds which have been reared at
home are retained for special purposes. " There's
often a pheasant in this little spinney," says the keeper,
" if you will look out, sir, while I walk through," and
out flies the cock, previously placed there under a
large pot, originally intended for the cultivation of
rhubarb and seakale.
Neither the trolling for pike with a gudgeon, nor
the trolling for perch with a minnow, nor an affec-
tionate respect for Isaac Walton, although Byron
wrote :
The quaint old cruel coxcomb in his gullet
Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it
not even the fact that I had a friend who caught a salmon
140 Then and Now
weighing fifty-three pounds in Norway, will entitle me
to take rank as a fisherman. I had never the oppor-
tunity of acquiring knowledge in the haute ecole of
piscatorial art, and yet some of the happiest hours
of my life were spent by the side of a stream which
flows through my fields in Notts, and at a mill-pool
through which it passes onward to the Trent ; and
what can transcend the boy's ecstasy of excitement
when the gaudy float goes down into the deep ? or
was ever salmon yet that shone so fair as that silvery
roach, the first fish he ever brought to land ?
I have only one abnormal incident to relate from
my own experience as an angler^ and that is not
received with implicit confidence. I was fishing with
my host in the waters at Newstead Abbey, and we had
taken a good number of perch with worms, when,
our baits being exhausted, I was taking out my
line with a view to our return, when I saw a perch
seize the bare hook, for the worm was gone, close to
the surface, and he was transferred without delay to
the basket. My friend tried the experiment with the
same success, and we caught six or seven fish without
a scrap of bait. I asked my companion some years
afterwards whether he remembered this capture, and
his reply was, " Only too well," I never mention it
without a manifestation of unbelief protruding through
a thin veneer of politeness, and evidently connecting me
with the individual of whom Shakespeare wrote : c< He
will lie with such volubility, that you would think
truth was a fool." c ' Let us console ourselves," I said,
Sports 141
c< with Serjeant Murphy's observation when an ad-
vocate who was weak in his Latin finished his oration
with < magna est veritas, et pr#valebit* pronouncing
the penultimate vowel as a short quantity : ' Yes/
exclaimed the serjeant, 'truth is great indeed, and I
trust that it will not only " prevail a bit," but altogether,
in order that I may win my cause/ '
I have said nothing about the "Turf" because it
is spoiled by its surroundings, nor of polo, because
whatever attractions it may have for young men, it has
none for an ancient doctor of divinity weighing
seventeen stone.
As for pigeon-shooting, it is one of those things of
which it is a shame to speak, except at Monte Carlo,
where there is no shame.
CHAPTER XI
Recreations
Dulce est desipere in loco.
WITH reference to recreations, which are neither
sports nor games, I would repeat Lord Bacon's famous
declaration, et decies repel it a placebit : " Gardening is the
purest of human pleasures, and the greatest refreshment
to the spirit of man." I have written elsewhere on this
subject, and I will only add now that in no science has
greater progress been made during my lifetime than in
horticulture, in the addition and the treatment of new
material ; but that a great work remains to be done
the substitution of the natural, graceful English style,
with its lawns and shrubberies and walks, for the
Italian system, rigidly artificial, ostentatious, monotonous,
formal. There are hopeful indications of reform, but
the stonemason and the geometrician are still painfully
obtrusive.
In our public amusements, especially in that which is
by far the most popular and important in the drama
1 have witnessed a great evolution. A schoolboy, some
sixty-five years ago I saw in the little theatre at Newark
142
Recreations 143
upon the Trent, about the size of a drawing-room in
Belgravia, Edmund, the father of Charles Kean, per-
form the part of Richard III. I saw Matthews, also
father of a Charles, at the same theatre on a bed in the
middle of the stage, " first lying on one side and then
on the other," like a mendacious attorney, and en-
deavouring to discover the cause of his feverish unrest
after a City dinner. " It could not have been the turtle
soup, because he had only one help and one glass of milk
punch ; it could not have been the salmon and the lobster
sauce, for both were as fresh as though they had just
come from the sea." This being part of an entertainment
which he gave, accompanied by Mr. Yates, the father of
Edmund, the novelist and editor of the World. Here I
saw Liston as Paul Pry, and I recall a memorable night
when the theatre was crowded to see Miss Foote as Lady
Teazle in The School for Scandal, and the disappoint-
ment was great when she never came, until the cause
of absence her marriage that day to Lord Harington
was revealed on the morrow. Here I also listened to
the song of Miss Love and Miss Sheriff. In fact, all
the great artists made annual tours in the provinces
wandering stars now fixed in London. Mr. and Mrs.
Robertson, highly esteemed by all who knew them, were
the managers, and were, I believe, the ancestors of the
talented dramatic author to whom we are indebted for
School, Ours, and other charming comedies, and also of
the accomplished actress who bore their name.
At the age of fifteen I lost my heart to Miss Cooper,
the prima donna in the tragedy department, and, as in
144 Then and Now
the case of Helen and others, love led to war to a battle
with one of my schoolfellows, who, in ignorance of my
passion, confidentially revealed to me his immutable
determination to make Miss Cooper his wife.
And it was you, my Thomas, you,
The friend in whom my soul confided,
Who dared to gaze on her, to do,
I may say, much the same as I did.
The fight was shorter than at Troy, but it was longer
than either of us liked, and we were separated without
opposition when the school bell rang. Our honour was
satisfied, and some suggestions which were made as to
a renewal of the combat were received by the principals
with an apathy which meant peace, and ensured it.
There were clever tragedians in those days Kean the
aforesaid, Macready, and others but my father very
positively assured me that they were not to be compared
with the Cookes and Kembles of his day, and I am quite
sure that they did not possess the talent of our Irving,
Beerbohm Tree, and Wilson Barrett. I believe that
clever actors now, both in tragedy and comedy, out-
number, in the proportion of twenty to one, our
actors then ; and this superiority is rapidly increasing
as men and women from the higher grades, of refined
taste and intellectual culture, seem to be ever more
impressed by the conviction that for their future
occupation "the play, the play's the thing."*
* In the Government report of the census of England and
Wales for 1891 it is stated that there were 3,625 actors and 3,696
actresses in England and Wales.
Recreations 145
Simultaneously with the increase of theatres and
of proficiency in the player's art, we have had a cor-
responding improvement in the scenery, the costumes,
the music, and in all the accessories of the stage, with
this grand result that whereas in the days of my
youth the success of those who could act was marred
by those who were impotent, by pictorial daubs which
bore no similitude to anything in Heaven or earth, and
by instruments which were " like sweet bells, jangled,
out of tune and harsh," we can now have the supreme
enjoyment of seeing a play of Shakespeare thought-
fully, heartily performed and exquisitely illustrated by
the painter and the musician.
There are optimists and pessimists (I feel sure that
the schoolboy who told the examiner that " optimists
were the doctors who managed our eyes, and pessimists
were the doctors who managed our feet," will rise some
day to high places on Parnassus) as to the power of the
drama for good or evil, as on all other subjects. I not
only believe with Addison that the stage might be made
a perpetual source of the most noble and useful enter-
tainments were it under proper regulations, but that on
the whole it has exercised in times past, and exercises
now, a powerful influence for good. Did you ever hear
one among the great multitude of those who have
seen the solemn drama at Ober Ammergau who did
not speak of it with a reverent and thankful admiration ?
The purpose of playing was, and is, " to hold the
mirror up to nature ; to show virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the
10
146 Then and Now
time his form and pressure." There is abuse as well as
use in all things, and sometimes the unprincipled play-
wright may so disguise vice with paint and gay raiment
making merry over its wine, and may so misrepresent
virtue as inanimate, ungainly, ignorant, and cold, that
Jezebel and the daughter of Herodias are to be more
admired than Miriam or Ruth. Sometimes the fool
rushes in where the angel fears to tread, there is an
attempt to make religion ridiculous, and, as Jeremy
Taylor describes it, to jest about deadly sin, and the
sceptic and the sensualist are well pleased. It is still
thought desirable by some authors to introduce a few
profane oaths for the acclamations of the gallery, but
the " Dammit, sir," of the irascible major is gradually
becoming less frequent, and is partly condoned by his
long residence in India on a diet of curry and cayenne,
and finally forgiven when he is proved to be a most
tender-hearted uncle, and commits his niece and heiress
to the object of her affections, saying, " Take her, my
boy, and be happy." And I would notice here an
important fact which seems to be forgotten or ignored
by those who <c bring railing accusations " against the
theatre, that we find almost invariably in the denouement
of a drama the exaltation of virtue and the discomfiture
of vice. So Macklin writes of " the catastrophe of a
stage play, where knaves and fools are disappointed, and
honest men rewarded/'
I have heard most of the great musicians of my time,
Malibran and Grisi, and Jennv Lind, who excelled them
all. I have heard Braham and Mario, but no song ever
Recreations 147
so stirred my heart as " Tom Bowling " sung by Sims
Reeves in his prime. I have heard Nicholson on the
flute, Thalberg on the piano, Lindley on the 'cello,
Paganini fiddling on one string, and Koenig playing
" The Post Horn " gallop after a ball at Oxford in
the small room of an undergraduate.
It is a far cry from Shakespeare to Sanger, from
King Lear to dancing dogs, from Jenny Lind to a brass
band ; but I love a circus, and no grandeur of modern
Hippodromes, with their naval engagements on real
water, their terrific sieges on land, their roaring lions,
their pyramids of horses, their performing elephants,
their gorgeous processions, will ever estrange my affec-
tion for the old canvas tent and the sawdust. What's
the French clown to me ? " Joey's awa'," and I crave
to hear him as he stands with his hands in his pockets
conversing with the master of the ring, informing him
that he had just returned from the South Sea Islands,
where there had been a competition between all the
clowns in the world for the championship and a prize
of 25,000, all in half-crowns, and everybody thought
that a gentleman who was ten feet high without his
stockings would win, but Joey beat him. " I'm
delighted to hear it," says the master of the ring ; " and
how did you achieve this great victory ? " " Well,"
Joe replies, " it was decided by the committee, which
was principally composed of crowned heads, with the
Archbishop of Canterbury in the chair, that the tall
gentleman and I were to go through the performance
which we considered to be our best, and the judges,
148 Then and Now
including the Lord Chancellor of England, Sir Joshua
Reynolds, and the Tipton Slasher, would make their
final award. My gigantic adversary comes into the
arena with a pole about a hundred yards in length and
fixes it into the ground, and went up that pole six times
in succession and never came down once. The Emperor
of China comes and whispers in my ear, ' Joey, my boy,
you're done/ but I said to him, ' Wait and see.* I asked
for the loan of that pole, which was kindly granted. I
climbed to the top of it. By a strong muscular effort
I cast it down from beneath me, and there I sat for
three weeks, until my adversary caved in." " Oh, Joey,
Joey," says the master of the ring, with a loud crack
from his long whip. " Help the lady on to her horse."
Sometimes he favours the audience with records of
his life. " t was born, Mr. Cooke " (Cooke's circus
was my first enchantment), " at a very early period of
my existence, and my mother, who was there, always
assured me that I was the most beautiful baby in
the world. My father was a man of brilliant abilities
and was especially remarkable for his presence of mind
and prompt action in time of great peril. It was an
established fact in the neighbourhood that on one
occasion he inadvertently took hold of a red-hot
poker and immediately laid it down again without
anybody advising him to do so. We lived happily
together, Mr. Cooke, in a peaceful village two hundred
miles from land, three hundred from water, and four
hundred from anywhere else, until dear Billy, my
brother, began to die, and has been dying ever since "
Recreations 149
Here Joey produces a pocket-handkerchief about two
yards in length, and begins to wail and howl in a
paroxysm of woe. The master of the ring attempts to
console him, reminding him of the common lot of all,
bift loses patience when Joey insists that his brother
Billy dies so much more than anybody else, and
reproves him for the silly assertion. " He does, he
does," cries Joey ; and then, putting his hands on his
hips, and with a broad grin on his face, he shouts, " He's
a dyer by trade he dyes every fortnight," and rushes
out of the arena with the end of Mr. Cooke's long six-
in-hand whip unpleasantly close to his rear.
Then there was the tournament Joey and his
brother clown as gallant knights on their prancing steeds
(hobby-horses) charging with lance in rest. Suddenly
the wily Joe looks up with the exclamation, " Bal-loon,
bal-loon ! " His opponent, is deceived by this mean
stratagem, raises his eyes to the firmament, and is
promptly pierced through the heart.
There was " The Great Leicestershire Hunt," the
riders being monkeys in scarlet apparel, and the horses
being dogs barking in full cry ; and there was <c Paddy
from Cork," enveloped in a variety of costumes which
were discarded in rapid succession from a wardrobe as
large as that of the Syrian ambassador who took with
him ten changes of raiment, until the horseman con-
cluded his performance in pure white as Winged
Mercury.
There was the annual pleasure fair. In the
market-place the long tent of the bazaar with whips,
150 Then and Now
kaleidoscopes, penny trumpets, and toys of all denomina-
tions ; stalls of nuts, cocoanuts, gingerbread, twist,
bulls'-eyes, peppermint, oysters, and shrimps in an
advanced stage of decomposition ; the cheap Jack
with a saw in his hand asking his audience what they
thought would happen if that saw were left over-night
by the side of a great' oak-tree 4 , and the answer
comes, " Whoy, yer means as the tree 'ud be gone,"
and the auctioneer remarks with a smile and a bow,
" Not so, my lord the saw." There was WombwelTs
menagerie, the waxworks, the mechanical figures, the
astute rustic remarking that the giant could not be
nine feet in height because the caravan itself was below
that altitude, while his credulous companion reproves
him, 4C Do yer think as this gentleman 'ud say as the
giant was nine foot high if he wasn't nine foot high,
Spooney ? " And there was the fat lady, of whom I
heard the comment of a young barbarian, " Oh my,
what candles she'd make ! " and the peep-shows, in-
cluding a picture of our great victory over the French,
with particulars, not generally known, by the showman :
4 'That gentleman on the right with a feather in his hat
is his Grace the Duke of Vellington in conversation
with Mestur Blucher. Says Blucher to Vellington,
c Vellington, why don't yer charge ? ' Says Vellington
to Blucher, ' What's that to you, Mestur Blucher ? Do
yer think I'm agoing to be dictated to by the likes o'
you, on the plains o' Warterloo ? '
There are laudable improvements, with power to add
to their number, in our village entertainments. I
Recreations 1 5 1
remember the morris dancers paying their annual visit
on " Plough Monday " so-called because on that day
the farm labourer went back to his work after the
holiday of Christmas walking round the big kitchen
with their faces raddled and a few bits of ribbon and
coloured rags sewn on their smocks by their wives and
sweethearts, and favouring us as they passed by with
brief notes as to their personal history.
First Rustic (carrying bow and arrow, with peacock's
feathers in his hat) :
Here come I, bold Robin Hood
As used to shoot the deer i' th' wood.
Second Rustic (similarly adorned and armed) :
And here comes I. I'm Little John,
I'm Robin Hood's compan-i-on.
'Third Rustic (large labourer in woman's attire
bonnet and shawl, and hobnailed boots appearing
below scanty skirt) :
And here comes I, a lively dame;
Maid Marion it is my name.
Fourth Rustic (supposed, with good reason, to be a
fool or clown) :
And here comes I, as it is fit,
With my great head and little wit.
Then they danced, shaking a tin box, which contained
152 Then and Now
the coins they had collected, and calling out " Largesse,
largesse ! " received additional donations, were refreshed
with ale, not having tasted that beverage for a period
of twenty minutes, and with cheers and a bow, and a
curtsey from Maid Marion which brought down the
house, they took their departure.
The club feast, to quote the local newspapers, " was
a red-letter day in the picturesque village of Caunton,
and all the parish was en fete'' They might have
added that after they had attended a service in church,
paraded the village with a flag and band, dined, smoked,
and imbibed, two-thirds of the members were tipsy
and the rest were drunk. Some ten years ago I saw
the members leaving the inn after the festival, and not
one was intoxicated. Is drunkenness on the increase
in the rural districts ? On the contrary, I believe that
drunkenness is decreasing, not only in the villages, but
" all along the line." On this subject I have more
to say.
" Harvest suppers " were given at the different
farms in the parishes, and followed the "harvest
homes." The last load, generally of beans or of
rakings, was covered with branches of trees, and
within them the farm lads sat and sang :
Mr. Barlow has got his corn,
Well mown and well shorn,
Never hurled over, and never stuck fast
He has got his harvest home at last.
Hip, hip, hurra !
As the waggon passed, the vocalists were drenched
Recreations 153
with water from buckets at points of vantage on the
road, until it reached the stacking yard. The supper
was given, when the labourers were few, in the
kitchen of the farmhouse, and when there were many,
in the barn. Roast beef and plum pudding were
plentiful, and it seemed as though increase of appetite
did grow with that it fed on, until at last there came
a time of placid plethora, and each man felt as the
Earl of Chatham felt when he remarked, after the
enjoyment of a good dinner, " Pitt's full." Then
came the long tobacco pipes, tipped with sealing wax,
and the jacks (metal jugs) of home-brewed ale. Every
farmer in those days brewed his own beer. It was
composed of malt and hops, and arsenic and glucose
were unknown quantities.
Sometimes the tables were removed after supper,
and there were games and songs, the wives and
women servants being present. There was " Turn the
trencher" and " Prinkum prankum," a sort of dance
round, beginning with a gentleman selecting a lady, then
the lady a gentleman, until most of the company was
included. When the choice was with the gentleman,
the words were sung :
Prinkum prankum is a fine song,
And we will dance it all along,
All along and round about,
Until we find this fair maid out.
When it was the lady's turn to choose,, <* fine man,"
was substituted for " fair maid."
154 Then and Now
There were tableaux vivants. Suddenly there arose
some shrieks and howls of pain, and all eyes were
turned on stout old Nanny Platts, who was supposed
to be suffering agonies from an aching tooth, the
tooth being represented by a piece broken from one
of the pipes aforesaid inserted within the upper and
protruding over the lower lip. There were loud
cries of " Doctor ! Doctor ! " quickly followed by the
arrival of the dentist, a youth, bearing the kitchen
tongs in his hand, mounted on the back of a stalwart
labourer, who imitated to the best of his ability the
action of the horse. Nanny's yells during the process
of extraction rang through the parish.
There was a concert ; songs pathetic and comic.
One of the former impressed me much. It was sung
by an old man of eighty years, beloved by all who
knew him for his cheerful faith, which had taught
him, though he was very poor, in whatsoever state he
was therewith to be content simple words about the
sorrows of life, somewhat plaintive, but joyful through
hope, each verse ending with the chorus, " For we've
always been provided for, and so shall we yet."
With few exceptions, the ballads were quaint and
humorous, all the more so because, however incoherent
in expression and impossible as facts, they were
uttered and heard with that solemn gravity which is
our homage to the majesty of truth. Some were
of foreign extraction and some were original. Of the
former I preferred the tragic history of Colonel
Kelly's son :
Recreations 155
I'll sing to you a doleful tale,
Which it will make you weep and wail.
'Tis of a gent both fair and young,
And he was Colonel Kelly's only son.
Now this young man, as you must know,
Went to the fields the hay to mow,
And as he mowed he did feel
A poisonous serpent bite his heel,
And he was Colonel Kelly's only son.
Then this poor lad, to his surprise,
Began to swell to such a size
That his mother failed to recognise
Her, and the Colonel's, only son.
Sad was his lot ; at twenty-seven
He left this world, and went to Heaven,
And as he upwards, upwards went,
All that he said was, " O cruel serpent ! "
For he was Colonel Kelly's only son.
We had a poet of our own (the individual to whom
I have referred in my Book about Roses as my briar
man), of desultory habits, everything by turn, but
nothing long gardener, harvester, rat-catcher, hair-
cutter, cattle-driver, agent to the commissioners of
the court of sewers, supernumerary waiter and ostler
at the village public-house, member of the community
commonly known as " shacks " too idle to do regular
work, but capable and clever when necessity suggested
employment. He composed several ditties, and I
purchased a copy of that which follows, his magnum
ofus y always demanded and applauded when we held
high festival ;
156 Then and Now
Here's a health unto our gallant squire,
He is our noble boss,
No gentleman in all the shire
Can beat him on a hoss,
And he does boldly lead the van
A-following of the fox ;
Likewise he drives a four-in-hand,
All seated on the box.
And we will drink his lady fair
Great dukes .they stand around,
And bow and scrape when she does wear
Her best new Sunday gowndj
And we'll drink to all her family
The young squire in the Guards
And Master John, as went to sea
To learn to man the yards.
Here's a health to jolly farmers,
And the lads that drive the plough,
They grows the malt as warms us
From off the barley mow:
Master Brown, the butler, brews it
This good ale as bright as wine,
And we all know how to use it
When it's yours, my boys, and mine.
And now we'll sing ''God save our Queen,"
We must not leave her out;
The likes of her has never been
Though getting rather stout ;
And she rules the world from north to south,
Likewise from west to east,
And the man as says she doesn't
Is a liar and a beast.
We had not in those days for the Christian
seemed to forget that which the Jew never ceased to
Recreations 157
remember, his service of thanksgiving to the Giver
of our daily bread the harvest festivals, which were
introduced by my dear old friend Archdeacon Denison,
and have now become universal. I am grieved to
hear that in some cases the hospitality formerly
bestowed upon the labourer has been transferred to
the friends and neighbours of the master, his guests
on the occasion.
" Penny readings/' village concerts, cricket and
football clubs, help rendered by many of the county
councils to cottage gardens and allotments, are to be
gratefully admired, as varying the monotony of rural
life, enlightening the mind, invigorating the body,
and promoting unity. They quicken at the same
time a sad and shameful regret which has been in
my thoughts, and has, I think, in some degree
influenced my actions, that in the days that are past,
and with the means which are available no more, so
little sympathy was shown, so few efforts were made,
that the poor might have some occasional experience
of the sports and amusements which were so abundantly
enjoyed by the rich, they ought to have had better
homes I have passed many hours in cottages chiefly
composed of mud and straw. They ought to have
had better gardens, and I will even add that an
honest man who had worked long and well should
have "three acres and a cow/' No wonder that
long before our present agricultural distress, and
when so much might have been done which is now
impossible, strong men went away to the mines and
158 Then and Now
factories, and to our colonies over the sea. And
what will become of the deserted village ? Improved
machinery, the steam plough, and the marvellous
reaper, which ties the corn as it falls into sheaves,
together with the large amount of land " laid down
in grass," have happily diminished the need of manual
labour, but there are times when, for the farmer who
farms well, the supply is not equal to the demand.
CHAPTER XII
Teetotallers, Wise and Otherwise
Little fools may drink too much,
And great ones not at all.
CHARLES MACKAY.
THE same causes which induced the exodus of the
agricultural labourer from our villages the mean home
with its dreary surroundings, the low wage (sixty years
ago he had ten shillings a week), the exposure to heat
and cold, the prospect of lumbago and the workhouse-
inclined him before his departure, and those whom he
left behind, to seek such brief change and excitement
as came within his reach, and to find them in the
warmth and brightness, the fellowship and rude mirth,
the soothing tobacco and the strong stimulants, of the
public-house. There is a bird on the veldt in South
Africa called " kurhalu " " The Scolding Hen" and
sometimes the labourer found an irritable wife, tired,
poor soul, beyond endurance by crying children in
his crowded home.
Noblemen and gentlemen with spacious mansions,
hot-water pipes and glowing fires, soft carpets, pictures,
music, and flowers, Pomery, Lafitte, and choice cigars,
159
160 Then and Now
bridge, billiards, and troops of friends, are distressed
to hear of Hodge's discontent with his "home, sweet
home/' and to think of him emerging from his com-
fortable pigsty to discover new wallowings in the mire.
It may be said that the mud cottages were exceptional,
and that they have disappeared long ago, that there is
no fault to be found now with the dwellings of the
farm labourer, and that he might smoke his pipe and
find his happiness at home. Do they who preach this
doctrine practise it ? Have they no clubs, no dinner-
parties, theatres, excursions ?
I know that " there is no place like home " for
happiness ; that for the man who does not find it there,
the substitutes are feeble and few ; and therefore the
first thing to be done by statesmen, councilmen, clergy-
men, rich men, is to exercise the charity which begins
at home. I know also that man is a gregarious and
not a solitary snipe, that it is not good for him to be
always alone nay, more, that is wise sometimes to be
merry and to sing
O quam bonum est,
O quam jucundum est,
Poculis fraternis gaudere,
even though the focula contain nothing stronger than
tea. It is therefore our duty, as it should be our
delight, not only to improve the homes of the poor,
but to provide for them places in which they can enjoy
together recreation and rest.
You " don't like the public-house " ! Then you
Teetotallers: Wise and Otherwise 161
should try all the more earnestly to keep others out of
it, by increasing the attractions at home, or by placing
something which you do like between it and them.
" But he will go to the public-house." Improve the
public-house. "He goes there and gets drunk." What
else is there for him to do, in small rooms, in a stifling
atmosphere, with nothing but intoxicants to drink ?
In other countries men and women, husbands with their
wives, go to cafes, and don't get drunk. We have not
their sunshine, and cannot sit and sip and smoke
al fresco^ but we might have larger rooms, verandahs,
gardens, with a selection of beverages, alcoholic and
otherwise. There are hopeful intimations, ever in-
creasing, here and there, that if the owners, brewers,
and occupiers will not, or cannot, make improvements,
the religious spirit, the patriotic, even the commercial,
spirit will bring more air, more variety, more rational
enjoyment to the public-house. It is a process which
will meet with fierce opposition, with many failures
and disappointments ; but the acorn is making roots.
Meanwhile, we shall do well to remember, and to
remind others, that no good has come, or will come,
from merely denouncing these public houses as morgues
and upas-trees, Juggernauts and Black Holes of
Calcutta, nor in announcements, made with so much
confidence that they seem to emanate from the authority
to which they refer, that the publicans are specially
selected and commissioned as the agents of Satan.
Mr. Vardon believed that the publicans coupled with
sinners in Holy Writ were veritable licensed victuallers,
1 1
1 62 Then and Now
but the most ignorant and rabid teetotaller could never
make this mistake, because he is quite sure that no
publican of the present day would ever think of going
to the Temple to pray, much less of humility and
repentance. Verily there are no men in all the world
who do more harm than those who always make the
worst of, and never the best of, their neighbours.
Two things are certain : (i) that prevention is better
than cure ; and (2) that no permanent cure will be made
and it must be made in the earlier stages, for there
seems to be only too much truth in the sad conviction
of scientific men that for habitual drunkenness there
is no cure by total prohibition, pledges, or human
laws.
As to prevention, we want that Christian education
which teaches the dignity and the responsibility of
manhood self-respect, the beauty of goodness, and
the ugliness of vice. The Spartans made a slave drunk,
and their boys, seeing the degradation which ensued
when a man " put an enemy into his mouth to steal
away his brains," despised both the effect and cause.
In my own village some friends of a young fellow who
drank to excess found him in an out-house prostrate,
in a disgusting condition. They placed a mirror near
to him so that he should see himself defiled with dirt,
bruises, and blood when he awoke from his sleep
and from his sin.
<c John," said a clergyman to one of his parishioners,
" I'm pleased to see that you have got a nice young
pig. I know that you have been wanting for a long
Teetotallers: Wise and Otherwise 163
time to buy one ; how did you manage it at last ? "
" Well, sir," John replied, " I guv up making a pig of
myself. 11
I have the village stocks in a corner of my garden,
and I regard them with a sincere respect as having
exercised a powerful influence for good. In my youth
I saw several drunkards fast bound in misery, hooted,
cuffed, lugged, tweaked, and thoroughly ashamed
once, at a later period of life, my wife ! Not from
those proclivities which, the poet tells us, drew the
lady of his verse to the Marquis of Granby Hotel, and
made her so disgracefully reluctant to return to her
sorrowing spouse, but because her son, aged seven,
induced her to give him an object-lesson as to the
use of this penal and pedal machine, and having dis-
covered that she was powerless without his help to
escape, he danced round her in a rapture of delight.
I built a clubroom for working men, and found it
most helpful in preventing drunkenness. We had a
variety of games, and the members were allowed to in-
vest in a pint of beer or threepenny worth of gin. I heard
one of them for whom the club was specially designed
saying to his rival after a game of bagatelle, in a tone
of apology, as though he had done himself an injustice,
" I don't know how it is, but somehow when we get
agate o' them games, I forget all about the drink."
We need all the means which we possess to con-
vince those who are tempted that he who striveth for
the mastery, to be the master and not the slave of
evil inclinations, is temperate in all things. It is very
164 Then and Now
meet, right, and our bounden duty that we should
teach and help others as we ourselves were taught so
soon as we were able to learn, to keep our bodies in
temperance, but what is temperance?
Human philosophy, the philosophy of Greece and
Rome, has taught us TO necrov apicrrov^ medio tutissimus
ibis, but a voice from Heaven commands, " Let your
moderation be known unto all men." Temperance is
the golden mean between two extremes ; it is use,
between disuse and abuse. Every creature of God is
good, but it may be perverted and spoiled, nor was
anything by the wit of man ever so devised and surely
established which in continuance of time hath not been
corrupted. Corn and wine, the wheat, the barley, the
vine, are ubiquitous ; the corn strengthens, the wine
gladdens, as at the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee,
man's heart ; but to the glutton and the winebibber
weakness and woe. The free agent has his choice : the
wise man chooses temperance, the foolish man gets
drunk ; but he who has solemnly pledged himself to
total abstinence has surrendered to a society of human
and modern institution his liberty to choose. We may
sit, he and I, at a table, on which there is a bottle of
excellent wine. He says, " I cannot drink it, I am
under a vow, and I am resolved to keep it." He has
been known to say, " I will not touch the accursed
thing." I venture to remark, as I fill my glass, that I
am very sorry for him. He is quite right, if he has
been a drunkard and is afraid of drink, not to give his
enemy any more opportunities of conquest, but this
Teetotallers: Wise and Otherwise 165
resolution might have been made between himself and
his Maker without signing a card or wearing a blue
ribbon, and let him not make a virtue of his necessity,
for he is no better than those children of Ephraim who,
being harnessed and carrying bows, turned themselves
back in the day of battle, instead of resisting their
adversary and overcoming evil with good.
As for those who, without inclinations or tempta-
tions to excess, have pledged themselves to total
abstinence, who have surrendered their power to be
temperate in the true sense of the word, I can condole,
but I cannot extol. They are to be admired for their
enthusiasm, 'but it is a zeal not according to know-
ledge. They have clever writers, speakers, and
preachers, but
Some to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more to turn it to its use.
We are told that this vow of total abstinence has been
made as an example to others. If so, there has been
a dismal failure. For many years I have searched and
inquired for some successful results, for one man who
would prove to me that, being a drunkard, he was so
much impressed by the example of his clergyman,
who for his sake and imitation ceased to drink his
glass of beer at luncheon, his glass of port at dinner, or
his glass of whiskey and water at night, that he broke
away from his vicious indulgence and became a sober
man. I am waiting to receive him, but until he arrives
I shall retain the sorrowful suspicion that there is a
1 66 Then and Now
strong resemblance between this total abstainer and
the native of Japan who disembowelled himself before
an Englishman whom he hated, expecting him to
follow his example, in accordance with the custom
of the country, and the brutal Briton put his thumb
to his nose.
The extreme teetotaller exposes himself to further
disappointment and derision by his violent language,
his inaccurate statements, and his want of tact in
conciliating others. His desire to diminish drunken-
ness deserves all honour and praise, but his modus
operandi is often rash and offensive. He does more
harm than good, and the advocate of true temperance
may justly say of him, " A man's foes are those of his
own house."
Though you may guess what temperance should be,
You know not what it is.
Nye, the American humorist, brilliant as the best,
whose comedy never fails to charm, and whose tragic
death I shall never cease to mourn, told me that when
he met Wagner, he said to him, " Your music is
beyond my comprehension, but I always feel sure
when I hear it that it is really much better than it
sounds" The analogy is only meant to intimate that
excellent motives may be so expressed as to estrange
sympathies, and that when we hear such silly assertions
as that the moderate drinker is the best friend of
the drunkard, we must give the speaker credit for
righteous motives ; and though we are bound to
Teetotallers: Wise and Otherwise 167
condemn both his words and his acts, we may not
refuse to sigh, with the compassionate critics in Dombey,
" But oh, how well poor Fanny meant ! "
I have heard a cadaverous preacher say that when
a man began to take alcoholic liquors he was sowing
the seeds of mortal disease. My father sowed until he
was ninety, and I was at eighty engaged in the same
occupation ; and I murmured sotto voce, " Rubbish ! "
The proposal to make men sober by constraint, by
acts of Parliament, or by the police, implies debility
of brain. Fenelon writes that force can never persuade
men ; it can only make hypocrites. I have been in
some of those States of America in which the sale
of intoxicating drink is prohibited. Brandy poured
from a tea-pot was in several instances preferred to
"the cup which cheers but not inebriates," and I was
told of an enormous importation of eggs in the State
of Maine, which had been emptied and refilled with
whiskey !
When novelties are introduced with despotic claims
and ostentatious display, they are received with repug-
nance, evasion, and deceit. A kinsman of mine saw
a crowd of women on the outskirts of Newark
decorated with blue ribbons, and was informed that
they were going to Belvoir to join a temperance
fete. There was a sudden outburst of laughter, and
a portly, purple dame was welcomed with derisive
cheers and a cry of " Goodness gracious, here's old
Sally agoing to the temperance treat ! " "In
course I am," exclaims Sally, jubilant, and proud of
1 68 Then and Now
her decoration as a newly made K.G. " In course
I'm going to Belvoir," and then, lowering her voice
to a whisper, a but I've got a sup of gin in my
pocket."
Sometimes the engineer is hoisted by his own
petard. I am acquainted with a vendor of artificial
manures, who was most severe in his denunciations
of beer. With a want of caution, which he was
never allowed to forget when advertising his wares in
the local paper, he strongly recommended a special
preparation as producing most satisfactory results in
the cultivation of malting barley. A young farmer,
anxious to add to his store of knowledge, wrote to
ask the merchant what malt was for.
These deceptions are comparatively of small import-
ance, and amuse us more than they annoy, but when
the faddist, not satisfied with his theory that because
he is virtuous there should be no more cakes and
ale, and that it should be felony to drink small
beer, not only vituperates those who dissent, but
makes false statements in support of his opinions,
he must be dealt with seriously.
We were told that England was degenerate through
drunkenness, that her brutal intoxication had gradually
impaired her strength, and that "Ichabod " was written
against her name " the glory is departed." Since the
war commenced in South Africa this commentary has
not been repeated.
We have been told that drunkenness is the cause of
all the evil in our midst, I have just read in one of
Teetotallers: Wise and Otherwise 169
the cleverest, wisest, and most entertaining books on
that same South African war, A Subaltern s Letters
to his Wife, the passage following : u Coffee is the
Boer's beer. The co-existence of a distinctive
immorality and a distinctive teetotalism goes far to
disprove the cant teetotal argument that alcohol is
responsible for all the vices."
Wherein is our inferiority to the nations who drink
no wine ? It has been said, and there has been no
contradiction, that " humanity owes everything worth
having to those who use alcohol. The drinking races
have not only conquered, but have moralised the
world. The Jew drank and gave us monotheism
and Christianity, the Greek drank and gave us
literature and art, the Roman drank and gave us law,
the Teuton drank (hard) and gave us the passion of
freedom. What have the two great races which
rejected alcohol, the Hindoo and the Arab, done to
counterweigh the benefits conferred by their drinking
rivals?" *
We have been informed that although alcoholic
drinks may add to sensual enjoyment, they are never
beneficial to health. When I was in my fifteenth
year I outgrew my strength and was lanky and limp
and lean. My anxious father took me to see a clever
physician, and his instruction was this, " Give the lad
a plate of cold beef at his breakfast, and a glass of
good pure ale at his dinner, and he will make a
* The Spectator, June i6th, 1900.
170 Then and Now
strong man." I took the medicine, and fulfilled the
prophecy.
Acquainted as I have been all my life with the
homes, the habits, and the ailments of the poorer
class, I can only pity the ignorance of those who
affirm that there is no power in wine, beer, or
brandy to strengthen, to refresh, or to revive ; that
a pint of ale at the dinner of a hard-working man
is injurious rather than invigorating ; that port wine
retarded rather than promoted the recovery of the
sick ; and that brandy has never been successfully
applied in cases of collapse or accidents.
The question may be asked, Where do you draw
the line, the boundary, between use and abuse ?
What is intemperance? When and where does it
begin ? A great and good man, Dr. South, has
given us a wise reply : " I account that intemper-
ance which, immediately after eating or drinking,
unfits a man for business, whether of body or mind."
Temperance warned by the Divine light, and steering
by the compass of the Divine law, keeps clear of
the rock.
Intemperance is not restricted to that which is
commonly regarded as drunkenness ; it means a great
deal more than the sot staggering helplessly along
the pavement ; it means all that indulgence in alcoholic
drinks c< wherein is excess," the immoderate use, and
therefore the abuse, of that which is given for our
health, cheerfulness, and refreshment of spirit, until
it makes a man less qualified to do his work, makes
Teetotallers: Wise and Otherwise 171
him dull, drowsy, idle, irritable, morose. There are
many who are " the worse for drink," whose physical
and mental strength is weakened, whose home is
rendered unhappy, by drink, who never show the
ordinary signs of drunkenness. They stop at the
boundary where they know that further indulgence
would endanger their self-control and expose them to
contempt, but they have overstepped the confines of
temperance, and though there be no outward evidence,
the head is overcharged with surfeiting and drunken-
ness. Any abuse of stimulants which unsteadies the
hand, clouds the brain, sours the temper, is a form
of drunkenness. A man who goes on sipping through
the day, and every day, is a worse drunkard than he
who at rare intervals takes at once a large quantity
of intoxicating drink and is conspicuously drunk.
There may be a gradual suicide as fatal as the sudden
plunge or stroke. The dram small in quantity but
continually repeated may be as deadly as the prussic
acid or the pistol shot.
The extremists appear to forget that there are other
intoxications besides that of alcohol, and that men
can rant and rave on water as wildly as on wine.
There is the intoxication of pride, of bigotry, wealth,
station, authority, popularity, which boasts that it is
" rich and hath need of nothing, and knoweth not that
it is poor and blind and naked." It is possible to live
in a "fool's paradise," and to despise and insult wise
men outside it. Archbishop Magee, when Bishop of
Peterborough, went to preach in a Staffordshire church,
172 Then and Now
and was informed by the vicar when they went to
dine that there was only water on the table, but
that he could have a little whiskey in his bedroom
" to put his lips to,' 5 as Mrs. Gamp expresses it,
" when he was so dispoged." The bishop remarked
to a friend, who kindly repeated his words to me,
" I shall ask my host to be my guest, and I shall
say to him, ' There is nothing but whiskey on the
table, but if you would like a little water, you can
have it upstairs/ ' In some cases there is no option
Water, water everywhere,
And never a drop to drink.
The visitor cannot be temperate, because there is
nothing on which he can exercise his temperance,
and so far from being converted to this hydropathic
treatment, he feels much more inclined to forswear
thin potations and addict himself to sack.
Persons who are intoxicated by false excitements
are sometimes under a delusion that they possess ex-
clusively the sober mind, as the Rev. Mr. Stiggins when
he made the declaration, " This meeting is drunk,"
Persons who live among habitual drunkards are
apt to fancy that all the world is drunk. There is
a pathetic story that one of the best of men and
most beloved of bishops was seated on a bench in
some public grounds, and was talking to a little
maiden who came by, some seven years of age. " I
must go now," he said, " and you must help me to
rise, but I'm afraid you'll find me very heavy."
Teetotallers: Wise and Otherwise 173
" Oh no" she replied, " you re not half so drunk as
father often is."
I abhor and deplore that sin of drunkenness which
stupefies the brain, defiles the mind, petrifies the heart,
cripples the body, and disfigures the countenance of
the drunkard. Before the invention of the teetotal
scheme, and since, I have given thought, time, and
money to provide antidotes to drunkenness and sub-
stitutes for the public-house. I am an advocate foi
a reduction in the number of licensed houses, and
for the supervision and management of the liquot
business, as in Norway and Sweden, by the State.
I believe that such an arrangement would prove in
this country, as in those which I have mentioned,
morally a blessing and financially a boon ; but I
despise self-righteous faddists, and feel towards them as
P.M. the Duke of Cambridge, many years ago, towards
a regiment which his Royal Highness reviewed and
found to be so incapable that he gave an order (to
no one in particular, and obeyed accordingly), "Send
pioneers to the front. Let them dig a trench and
bury the lot"
Let us eliminate the fanatics, with their autocratic
arrogance and their impossible programme, and let
all Christians who love their religion, and the
common- sense which is inseparable from it, unite in
the endeavour, by their example and by their influence,
to overcome evil with good. Above all, let them
Ask God for temperance, that is the appliance
Which your disease requires.
CHAPTER XIII
Clergy and Laity
An humble clergy is a very good one, and an humble laity too,
since humility is a virtue which equally adorns every station of
life. SWIFT.
THE dean of a cathedral city and the squire of a
country village, with " troops of friends," ecclesiastical
and civil, and being moreover an old man, with the
long experience of an active life, I am sometimes con-
sulted by my brethren, clerical and lay, concerning
those " unhappy divisions " which prevent the hearty
co-operation of men who have the chief influence for
good. For many years a rural dean, and having
visited more than three hundred parishes (from the
Land's End to the border) as a preacher I state
this, not to magnify mine office, but to justify my
claims as a counsellor having closely studied the laws
of our Church and the rubrics of our service, I have
answered questions and given advice without hesitation ;
and being privileged tc know that my suggestions have
been in some cases helpful, I venture to repeat them.
They refer especially to doubtful disputations between
squires and parsons, but they have a general application
174
Clergy and Laity 175
to subjects of severance between the clergy and their
congregations.
As a rule, when Christians who deserve the title,
when gentlemen gifted with common sense, meet
together, they desire to encourage rather than to pro-
voke one another ; in matters of minor importance
they can even agree to differ. It is their desire to
have in necessarariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in
omnibus caritas. There are persons so wise in their
own conceit that you cannot deal with them. " I am
Sir Oracle, and when I speak let no dog bark." In
removing a " three-decker " some years ago, the
following lines were discovered written in chalk on
a panel at the back of the pulpit previously hidden
from view :
A proud parson and a silly squire
Caused me to make this pulpit higher ;
and pride and ignorance, whether they combine or
contend, will be condemned even by the village
carpenter although they put money in his pocket.
Fifty years ago there was more sympathy than now.
The priest and his patron had in many cases been
at the same school and university, and a much larger
proportion of the clergy belonged to the higher grades
of society. Whatever may have been the shortcomings
of the parsons and the squires, however disgraceful
the condition of the churches, however dull were their
services and feeble their lays, they were more congenial
in their manners and habits, likes and dislikes ; there
i7 6 Then and Now
were more gentlemen among the clergy in the con-
ventional meaning of the word.
It is still reported among persons hostile to religion
in general, and to the Church of England in particular,
that the squires and the parsons sixty years ago spent
their days in hunting the fox and their nights in
drinking port wine. At that time, before I took
orders, I hunted a good deal with three or four packs
of hounds, and I cannot name half a score of clergy-
men out of some hundreds who regularly joined in the
chase, and only two of these had more than one horse.
At dinner-parties and on festive public occasions
men indulged too freely in wine, and I have seen
them more merry than wise ; but these temptations
came at distant intervals. Luncheon consisted of a
glass of sherry and a biscuit (dinner being at
five or six p.m.), and I do not believe that, on the
whole, more alcohol was consumed when taken in
large quantities at once, than now, when it is taken
in smaller potations at intervals throughout the day.
There was a sad lack of the earnest zeal of the
practical Christianity which since those days has
evoked our grateful admiration. The spirit of our
ancestors which adorned the land with magnificent
cathedrals and beautiful churches seemed to be
extinct. Few houses were built for worship, and
these for the most part were as inadequate for the
accommodation of the people as they were unworthy
of their sacred dedication.
Nevertheless, and simultaneously, there was much
Clergy and Laity 177
sweet, simple, Christian charity. I can remember the
constant visits, more than seventy years ago, of the
aged and the ailing for meat, soup, wine, tea, and
" dripping " ; the donations of coal, blankets, and
clothes; my mother's little u lending library," which, J
am bound to state, included some of the dreariest and
most improbable stories ; but far better than all the
tracts and denunciations that ever were printed, were
our expeditions, when I proudly carried the basket, to
the cottages of the poor. More than this, though
some may hear it with surprise, it is the conviction
of my experience the experience of one who has
seen so many die that there was then as much real
faith as now. We feel in ourselves, and we witness
in others, many great demonstrations of religion, but
the last is the greatest of all,
We are surrounded by rnanifold proofs of the
progress which has been made during the reign of
our great Queen Victoria : in the more just distri^
bution of the revenues of the Church by the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners, which has prevented
many parishes from losing the benefit of clergy ;
in the abolition of pluralities and the compulsory
residence of incumbents ; but the revival has been
wrought by the religious instinct, by the spiritual
influence, first developed by the " Evangelical clergy "
and then marvellously extended
Parva metu primum mox sese attolttt ad auras
by the Oxford Movement.
12
1 78 Then and Now
There are great gains, but there are losses also.
The opportunities for worship are much more frequent,
the form and accessories of worship are more devout
and attractive ; but in the rural churches the farm
labourers, whom I remember in their blue smock-
frocks, are absent, and Sunday is less reverently
observed by rich and poor alike.
Our Church music is of a higher class, but when
the amateur organist, who can read music not wisely
but too well, takes out all the stops, or when difficult
Gregorian chants are sung in anything but unison by
a few incompetent boys, or when we have a quarter
of an hour of vain repetitions in chorus, with a solo
by the inharmonious blacksmith, which is called an
anthem, the results are not so soothing to the spirit
as David's harp to Saul.
There comes at times to us old folks a feeling of
regret that our village choirs were not amended instead
of being abolished. The violins, clarionets, bassoons,
and flutes might have been taught a more excellent
way, and might have encouraged that taste for music
which not only refines and elevates the musician, but
makes him happier in his home and keeps him from
temptations elsewhere.
It is the decision of experts that choirs composed
of men and boys are the best, and, where they may
be had efficiently, I think that it is so ; but I remember
that when we eliminated women singers from our
orchestra we lost some of our sweetest voices, and I
must confess that when I heard them resounding from
Clergy and Laity 179
the Primitive Methodist chapel I did not recognise
so gratefully as I might have done that the blessings
were transferred to my brother Christians. They
ought to have remained faithful to their Church, but
they went under the impression that the Church had
not been faithful to them, and certain tender associa-
tions took others with them.
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
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.
When there was less reverence during Divine ser-
vice, and mixed choirs of young people were crowded
together in the " singers' pew," there were sometimes
inducements to indecorous levity which no longer exist,
not only because there is better accommodation and
all things are done more decently and in order, but
because there is a more anxious ambition to sing with
the spirit and with the understanding also. At our
Sunday evening service in the nave of the cathedral
we have a large choir of male and female voices, which
is not only most efficient in educing and leading the
i8o Then and Now
voices of the congregation, but is most exemplary in
its devout behaviour.
What, then, are the present causes of estrangement,
the excuses for absence from public worship, the ob-
stacles to co-operation between clergymen and laymen,
to which I have referred ? J will repeat some of the
complaints and protests which I have heard from both.
Laymen rightly affirm that no changes, no additions,
should be made to the usual services of the Church with-
out a previous explanation as to intention and authority,
without proof that they are in accordance with the
laws of the Church and with the directions of the Book
of Common Prayer. If this information is refused or
fails to satisfy, then, to avoid doubtful disputations,
let there be an appeal to the bishop. If the general
(the bishop) declines to give the word of command,
or the captain refuses to act in accordance, the rank
and file are no longer under obligation to obey the
captain. Both the captains and the soldiers have a
right to expect that the general will " give no un-
certain sound.'* When a young vicar expostulated
with Bishop Blomfield, and quoted St. Ambrose as
differing from his lordship's instructions, this answer
was received from Fulham : " Sir, St. Ambrose
was not Bishop of London I am.'' When Bishop
Thorold was told that he was not to say a prayer
in the pulpit, he replied, " I am bishop of this
diocese, and I shall do what pleases me." Before
he left he said, "I hope I did not speak rudely,
but it's difficult to teach an old dog new tricks."
Clergy and Laity 181
The laity complain that the Holy ScHptures are
often read, as it were, by rote, without emphasis or
change of tone, as though the subject-matter was
always identical and of no vital importance. " It is
a very wonderful thing," Swift wrote in the 'Tatler
nigh upon two hundred years ago, " that such a learned
body as the clergy should not know how to read ; for
there is no man but must be sensible that the lazy
tone and inarticulate sound of our common readers
depreciate the most proper form of words that were
ever extant in any nation or language to speak our
own wants or His power from Whom we ask relief."
Worse than this, the laity complain that the prayers
are sometimes gabbled with a rapidity which it is
impossible to follow, and which create an impression
that the conclusion of the service is the chief object
of the reader, and that it is a case of vox, et prxterea
nihil. " I guess," said an American father who had
been present during one of these feats of garrulity,
" if any son of mine came to ask me a favour, and
spoke as that minister spoke to his Father in Heaven
I guess I should give him the stick."
Sometimes, they say, the monotone of a man with
a feeble voice and an inaccurate ear for music is dis-
sonant, and evokes ridicule rather than reverence.
When a curate commenced the service with a high
falsetto note, more canine than human, a young
farmer, fond of hunting, whispered to his friend on
the seat in front of him, " It's old Ruby they've
found ! "
1 82 Then and Now
The squires and others of the laity are very severe
in their commentaries on sermons ; and the preachers,
after listening to the public speeches of the laity, and
reading them in the newspapers, seem to think that
a dismal experience should have made their critics
somewhat more indulgent. I propose to devote a
separate chapter to a subject so interesting and
important.
As to habits, amusements, appearance, dress, there
are some not many of the clergy who seem to think
that they endear themselves to the laity, announce their
large-hearted liberality, their emancipation from the
thraldom of conventional customs, by ignoring all dis-
tinctions, and copying them as closely as they can.
They are under an erroneous impression, so far as those
laymen are concerned whose sympathies they should
most desire. The latter like to have their clergy as
companions in their manly games and social enjoy-
ments ; to play with them at cricket, football, and golf ;
to see them playing with the parochial clubs which they
have established, or teaching boys to play. They like
to meet them at the Oxford and Cambridge or the Eton
and Harrow match, and to talk about the "merrie
old times " ; but they have no sympathies with the
cleric who spends many days in watching the game with
a short black pipe between his lips and a whiskey and
soda by his side. The laity take more interest than is
generally supposed in the outward appearance and habili-
ments of their ministers. They do not admire the
cassock outside of the church ; it reminds them of the
Clergy and Laity 183
scribes, who love to go about in long clothing ; and
they dislike the bob-tail yet more than the long-tail
coat, because it suggests the steward on a penny boat.
They see no just cause why their reverend brothers
should be disguised either as monks or waiters.
I have heard strong invectives against the huge
moustaches sometimes worn by the parson, and I am
not prepared to contradict the statement that it is more
becoming to a dragoon in uniform.
The biretta seems to have the same effect upon certain
minds which the tarantula is said to have upon certain
bodies ; it stings to madness, and makes men dance
with rage. No defence can be made for certain villagers
in a northern county who removed the scarecrow from
a cornfield, and erected in its place a long wooden
figure, painted black, with extended arms, and crowned
with a biretta. The parson represented was a persona
grata, a hard-working young priest, who had won
golden opinions from all sorts of men by his zeal and
his love ; but this effigy, so far from provoking censure,
was manifestly approved by the parishioners, even by
those who maintained a respectful silence. Soon after-
wards the Roman headgear was superseded by the
Anglican college cap, and no one ever regretted the
success of the object-lesson.
These minutiae, "anise, and mint, and cummin," are
comparatively of small importance, although they must
be dealt with ; but I am often consulted, as one who
has something to say, though I cannot say it like
Cicero, De Senectute^ from my experience as an old
184 Then and Now
ecclesiastic, and De Amicitid, from my long friendship
with influential laymen, concerning the weightier matters
of the law. For example, the question is often asked,
How can we regard as faithful Christians certain persons
who, having publicly declared that they unfeignedly
believe all the canonical books of the Holy Scriptures,
and having been ordained and admitted as ministers of
the Church on this declaration, afterwards express their
unbelief in certain portions and contradict their state-
ments ? How can we esteem as loyal Churchmen those
who, having ct set to their seal " that there are three
Creeds which ought thoroughly to be received and
believed, subsequently denounce one of them and refuse
to respect it ? How can we respect, as men of honour or
gentlemen, those who receive the money of the Church
but do not teach her doctrines or Walk in her ways?
We are told that these innovations are benevolent
endeavours to adapt Christianity to the age in which
we live, but we retain a conviction that the age in
which we live should ; adapt itself to Christianity,
the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. As for the
" religion of humanity," we have already received it
by Divine revelation, and have no desire to listen
to those who are teaching for doctrines the com-
mandments of men. They are at liberty to follow
their own imaginations outside the church, but having
pledged themselves to an obedient service, and feeling
that they can no longer discharge conscientiously
the duties which they undertook, they are also
bounden, if that same conscience is in good working
Clergy and Laity 185
order> to give place to those who will do them
heartily.
Such are some of the allegations which the laity
make against those clergy whom they regard as faddists,
rebellious, disloyal, and dishonest. Audi alteram
partem. The parsons say that in many instances squires
and other influential Churchmen induce others by their
example to absent themselves from public worship and
to disregard the observance of the Lord's Day. It
seems to them very strange and sad that any man who
would resent it as an insult if he was told that he was
not a Christian should refuse to join in the public
worship of his God ; that all the good gifts which he
has received should be devoted to self-indulgence, to
the acquisition of wealth and honour, and that there
should be no recognition of Him Who giveth all ;
that life, which might have been so noble and happy in
itself and so helpful to others, should be wasted, and
death a tragedy. It is a wise warning, <c Proportion
thine alms to thine estate lest thine estate be propor-
tioned to thine alms " ; and it is said as to Saul, " I
have taken away thy kingdom and given it to a neigh-
bour of thine who is better than thou." The examples
of this restitution and transfer abound throughout
the land.
The clergy state that they fail to discover in the Old
or New Testament any authority or precedent for
the posture of sitting in the act of prayer, and that
such an attitude ill becomes a miserable offender
asking pardon in the palace and presence of his King ;
1 86 Then and Now
that many of those whose visits are few and far
between are the first to find fault with the service
and to suggest alterations as to time and mode ; and
that they are patronising and dictatorial to the
clergy, as though they were the servants of the
State, which neither appoints nor pays them. A lay-
man, rarely seen in his parish church, informed the
vicar that he was about to be married, and that
he must insist on certain omissions from the Marriage
Service. Being informed that such exceptions were
illegal, he became exceeding wroth, and denounced
any allusion to the causes for which matrimony was
ordained as indecent. The vicar replied that " to
the pure all things were pure," and that the indecency
was in the mind which suggested the thought honi
soit qui mal y fense. " May I ask," he added, " whether
you have any plan for replenishing the earth more
satisfactorily than by ' the procreation of children, to
be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord,
and to the praise of His holy name ' ? "
The clergy respectfully but firmly decline to be
patronised, domineered, or pitied. It is sometimes
said by their contemporaries at college, when their
sacred work and serious responsibilities have constrained
them to decline pleasant invitations, and to be more
thoughtful and less exuberant, that " Poor So and So
is very much gone off/' whereas " poor So and So " is
under the impression that he is very much come on,
and was never happier in his life. Not long ago,
some similar words of compassion were repeated to
Clergy and Laity 187
the young friend of whom they were made, and from
whom I received an account of the effect which they
produced. <( I heard this account of my collapse,"
he said, " with a merry heart, and Sam Weller's
words came from my lips, ' If he knowed who was
a-coming, he would soon change his note, as the
hawk remarked with a cheerful laugh when he heard
the robin redbreast a-singing round the corner.'
My commentator was a college friend who, having
once made a long innings in a country match, had
held himself ever since in high admiration as a bat,
and whose wicket it had been my frequent privilege
to lower, though I failed to subdue his pride.
Opportunely for the assertion of my manhood, and to
disprove the statement that ordination had an enervating
influence upon the body and a depressing power
upon the spirit, I had promised to play with an
eleven of our parochial club against the cricketers
of a village where my friend was squire and of great
renown as a mighty hitter. We were some distance
apart, and it was evident that my presence was not
expected, and that there was a modification in the
customary joy of his welcome. 'A moment o'er his
face a tablet of unutterable thought was traced/ and
I knew that he heartily wished ' poor So and So ' had
been on a missionary tour. The meeting reminded
me, if I may be permitted to associate common folk
with heroes, of that delectable record how that on
an occasion when the Hon. R. Grimston was making
more runs at Lord's than was approved by his
1 88 Then and Now
opponents, the Rev. Mr. Fagge, whose style of bowling
was especially obnoxious to the Hon. Robert, was
put on ' with fatal results. The batsman retired
to the pavilion, took off his pads, and sat down
by the side of his friend Ponsonby as sulky as
Achilles. After a period for thoughts which were too
deep for words, he relieved his mind by remarking
that he wished Fagge was dead, but being severely
rebuked by his companion, he came after another
interval of gloomy silence to his better self, and
sighed, c I wish they would make Fagge a bishop.'
I do not know what my old college friend said in
the tent, but I got his middle stump in my first
over, and in his second innings he was caught in
long field from an enticement specially designed
for that consummation."
My convictions are, after sixty years of intercourse
with clergy and laity of all degrees and orders, that
there are faults on both sides ; that there is in too
many parishes a Diotrephes who "loveth to have the
pre-eminence," be he squire or parson ; and that these
mutual recriminations are more commonly caused
by self-conceit and self-interest than by conscientious
scruples. " Sirs, ye are brethren." The laity must
not lay all the blame upon the clergy, like the farmer
who, when a downpour came soon after the prayer
for rain had been said in the church, remarked to
his neighbour, " It's just like our parson, he always
overdoes everything " ; nor must the clergy assume a
Papal infallibility. Let them both have a remembrance
Clergy and Laity 189
of the mote and the beam. If we would keep in
mind the words of Thomas a Kempis " How canst
thou expect that perfection in others which thou
canst not attain for thyself ? " if we had more of
the charity which u believeth all things, hopeth all
things," which cries, " Alas, my brother/' and less of
the harsh inclinations to think evil and to condemn ;
if we thought more of the ancient Scriptures and less
of modern scribes, more of principles and less of
persons ; we should see everywhere, as we see now
whenever men hold the faith in the unity of the
Spirit, in the bond of peace and righteousness of life,
how good and joyful a thing it is for brethren to
take sweet counsel together and to walk to the house
of God as friends.
CHAPTER XIV
Preaching and Speaking
Male si mandata loqueris,
Aut dormitabo aut ridebo.
HORACE.
WE want a greater variety in our Church services,
earlier and later, so that we shall not speak of our-
selves as " brought to the beginning of this day "
when we draw nigh to the meridian, nor pray to be
delivered from " the perils of this night " between
three and four p.m. We might have special services
of praise and thanksgiving, of intercessory and peni-
tential prayer, for sacred music, for sermons. They
should be short and simple. We want more oppor-
tunities of public worship, such as will be most
convenient for all grades, and we want more aids
to devotion. If the people when invited decline to
attend them, the clergy have a Divine commandment
to go out into the streets and lanes and compel them
to come in. How can we compel ? By making
a great united effort, such as that which is made by
the Church and the Salvation Armies. We want
190
Preaching and Speaking 191
outdoor pulpits, such as that which was recently
dedicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in
memory of Bishop Billing, as well as intra muros.
We want a school of the prophets and an order
of preachers. If the poor will not come to the
preacher, the preacher must go to the poor; and
above all, he must have a steadfast faith in the
promise, " I will give you a mouth and wisdom,
which none of your adversaries shall be able to
gainsay nor resist."
We want more powerful preaching both in and out
of the Church. I heartily sympathise with the laymen
who complain of the general debility of our sermons ;
and while I believe that the preachers are fully per-
suaded in their own minds of the truths which they
teach, I am constrained to acknowledge that many
do not make that prayerful, thoughtful, studious pre-
paration which is required to convince and instruct
their hearers. It is sometimes said that the clergy in
our days are prevented by other work from devoting
to this important duty the attention which it deserves.
My experience is that all ministerial work, whether
it be worship, teaching, relieving want, or visiting
the sick, suggests the best material for sermons ; and
that every preacher should make a point of taking
such an amount of time as he finds necessary for the
composition of one weekly discourse ; more than this
he cannot do, to his own satisfaction or that of his
hearers. %
The laity desire to hear more of practical Christianity
192 Then and Now
and less about doubtful disputations, more about
the living than the dead, of men and women like
themselves, of their temptations and trials, their
failure and success, of the power of evil and the
power of good, of Christ and Anti-Christ, of helps
to happiness.
I knew some years ago a London clergyman who,
by his wise, patient, generous energy, achieved a great
success in the cause of Christian education. He had
opponents, and from one of them there came, at an
important public meeting, convened to assist his enter-
prise, the intimation of a doubt as to the soundness
of his theological views. Indignantly resisting this
mean attempt to frustrate his endeavour for the com-
monweal by insinuating motives and associating theories
of which no trace was to be found in his scheme, he
said in his haste, " Oh, hang theology ! " and from
that day to the end of his life he was known among
men as <c Hang-Theology Rogers." To those who
understood him the epithet conveyed no opprobrium
condemning him as a regicide of the queen of all the
sciences, but was accepted, on the contrary, as the
protest of an honest man against the " oppositions of
science, falsely so called," which would place a pretender
on the throne. The laity take little interest in
<c schools of thought," but they are much impressed
by "schools of action." They have neither the
time nor the inclination to study the tomes of the
theologian, $he essays and pamphlets of the professor
and the critic, the scribe and the disputer, but they
Preaching and Speaking 193
will listen to the preacher of righteousness who tells
them in the pulpit what to do, and shows them in the
parish how to do it.
It must be told earnestly, for it is a matter of life
and death. The earnestness of the preacher, as James
Russell Lowell writes in The Biglow Papers, is a
sermon appreciable by dullest intellects and inatten-
tive ears. The chief thing is that the messenger
believe that he has an authentic message to deliver.
When Rowland Hill was reprimanded by a friend
as being too much excited in preaching, too demon-
strative in his manner, too loud in his utterance, he
related an incident which occurred in his early life.
He was walking on some cliffs overlooking the sea
when he saw two persons on the sands of a small bay
some distance from him, evidently unaware that they
were nearly surrounded by the coming tide in front
and on either side of them, and behind them by the
precipice, which they could not climb. He shouted
to apprise them of their peril, but they did not
hear, until almost in despair he made after prayer
a final effort, and his voice was heard, as he believed,
first in Heaven and then on earth. It was given to
him to save two lives from perishing by water, but
only after the utmost effort of his power. " And
would you have me," he asked, " to show no signs
of emotion, to speak in a conversational tone as of
some ordinary matter, when I am commanded to
lift up my voice like a trumpet to ears dull of
hearing and to hearts that are hardened, and to tell
194 Then and Now
them before it is too late of the only way by which
they can escape death ? "
What shall we say, then, when we read the words
which Dean Swift wrote nigh upon two hundred years
ago ? " Of all the people upon earth there are none
that puzzle me so much as the clergy of Great Britain,
who are, I believe, the most learned body of men
now in the world ; and yet the art of speaking,
with the proper ornaments of voice and gesture, is
wholly neglected among them ; and I will engage
were a deaf man to behold the greater part of them
preach, he would rather think they were reading the
contents only of some discourse they intended to make
than actually in the body of an oration, even when
they are upon matters of such a nature as one would
believe it were impossible to think of without emotion."
What would the deaf gentleman present for the
first time at the delivery of a sermon, knowing
nothing about the place or the purport, say now in
many a church ? " I saw a man with a pleasant
countenance, and wearing a white robe, reading to a
number of people, who listened to him for some time
with respectful attention ; but I did not infer from
his demeanour or from the countenances of his
hearers that his communication was of special interest.
There was no change of expression on the faces of
the congregation until an exposition of sleep came
gradually upon them, and here and there the heads
were nodding, like the corks on a net which begins
to fill."
Preaching and Speaking 195
The crisis has come, of which Horace wrote,
for smiles or for slumber ; but it is no place for
mirth, and
While in such lays as neither ebb nor flow,
Correctly cold, and regularly slow ;
Still humming on their drowsy course they keep,
We must not ridicule, but we may sleep.
Eutychus was severely punished because he fell
asleep when an inspired apostle was preaching, and
still, however dull the sermon may be, as George
Herbert, says, " it preacheth patience," I remember
a sermon, very dull, tedious, and wearisome, which
not only preached, but immediately produced, the virtue
it was designed to teach. It was a sermon on thank-
fulness, and as soon as it was over a profound sense
of gratitude pervaded the congregation. We must
not forget that though the messenger be stupid, the
message is Divine. Accordingly, there is always some
feeling of compunction, however bravely we may have
resisted the soporific influence, in awaking with a start;
and there are records of disastrous results, as when a
gentleman who travelled daily by rail mistook the
collector of alms for the collector of tickets, and
audibly muttered, " Season."
There is a terpptation to some preachers, who desire
to avoid this dreary and somniferous style, to rely
too much upon a loud resonant tone, which sets the
echoes flying, and which without modifications soon
becomes as irksome and monotonous to their hearers
196 Then and Now
as the sermons in a lower key vox, et pr^eterea nihil.
Action and emphasis may be alike misplaced. I have
seen preachers and speakers working their arms like
those of a semaphore, while they raised their voices
as though they were scaring crows from the cornfields
freshly sown, when the subject of which they spoke
was comparatively of small importance.
The laity are quick in discerning whether from the
fulness of the heart the preacher speaketh or from
his library shelves. If it be the former, his earnest-
ness and his experience will make him eloquent. If
it be the latter, his arguments may be many, but his
converts will be few. When the natural voice has
the spiritual tone, which no human wisdom can teach,
it will convince, because it comes from conviction.
There is no stereotyped form for preaching the Gospel,
although several syndicates seem to claim an exclusive
power.
There are diversities of gifts, and if each preacher
makes the best of those which have been bestowed
upon him, he will not preach in vain. He will
have neither the desire nor the need to apply
those stimulants which are proposed to us in these
latter days as inducements to the people to hear
sermons. Stimulants are always signs of weakness,
drams for cowards, props for a falling wall ; their
influence is brief, and when the reaction comes, the
last stare of their recipient is worse than the first.
Sermons should be made as interesting and as
applicable to the hearers as it is possible to make
Preaching and Speaking 197
them ; and in this, as in all things else, the preacher
should have before him the Great Example Who spake
as never man, <c and the common people, the multitude,
heard Him gladly." He illustrated His teaching by
what we now call object-lessons from the home life
and daily occupations of His hearers, from the scenery
around Him, the corn and the grass, the trees, the
fruits, and the flowers, the houses, the bread, the water,
the wine, the sheep, the birds, the money in common
use, the light and the darkness. He set His mark
on those things which are ever before us, and signed
them with the sign of His Cross that we might have
Him in remembrance. We are therefore following a
Divine guide when we use analogies, parables, histories
in our sermons ; but we leave Him and follow our
own imaginations if we speak lightly and irreverently,
if we indulge in " foolish jesting which is not con-
venient," when and where we are especially warned
by the solemnity of the place and the sanctity of our
subject, to take heed to our ways that we offend not
in our tongue.
All rules have their exceptions, and we are
inclined in certain cases to condone remarks on
account of their wit and humour, their keen satire,
their just reproof, their quaintness, and even their
absurdity. For example, Horace Walpole gives us
in one of his letters a quotation from a sermon
preached in Mayfair Chapel on the death of Frederick,
Prince of Wales, one hundred and fifty years ago :
" His virtues were so great that they degenerated
198 Then and Now
into vices ; he was very generous, but I hear that
his generosity has ruined a great many people ; and
his condescension was such that he kept very bad
company."
A clergyman in the North of England, "afterwards
a dignitary of the Church, told the story following in
a sermon to a large congregation, chiefly composed of
ladies, with a request that wives would repeat it to
those husbands who were not present on that occasion .
" There are," he said, " in this parish many gentlemen
who seem to be under the impression that if their wives
go to church on Sunday, they are thereby released
from any obligation as to their own attendance. I
had a sort of vision the other day about these nominal
Christians, who prefer, after the manner of some
foreign countries, to send their women to work while
they smoke or slumber in the shade. I thought that
one of them was summoned to another world, and not
being able on this occasion to procure a delegate, he
was constrained to go. He came to the gates of
Paradise, and St. Peter, who stood by with the keys,
inquired rather roughly, c And who are you ? * c Oh,
St. Peter, I'm Mr. Smith from Newcastle-on-Tyne.'
'I don't know you/ c Oh, if you please, St. Peter,
I'm the husband of Mrs. Smith, who went regularly to
church, and taught in the Sunday school, and was kind
to the poor.' ' Why did you not do likewise ? '
' Oh, St. Peter, I was in business all the week, and
very tired on Sunday, and I thought if Mrs. Smith
went to church regularly, it would do for both of
Preaching and Speaking 199
us.' c Your wife/ said St. Peter, c was a true,
faithful Christian. She came to these gates three
years ago, and she has gone in for both of you."
Many years ago I had the happiness of being
entertained by Dean Ramsay in his home at Edinburgh,
and he told me marvellous stories of the familiarity
of certain ministers in their addresses to the Almighty.
At the same time he bade me remember that the
speakers were godly men, who loved their Master and
were incapable of disrespect, but who were under a
false impression that the easy colloquial style was the
proof of a more affectionate intercourse and a closer
sympathy than were generally bestowed upon their
fellow-men, or in some cases, he added, they have
so much to say extempore that they became some-
what muddled in thought and somewhat mixed in
their utterance. His anecdotes followed each other
with such rapidity that I caught only two to keep
in memory's cage.
The first was a supplication for fair weather made
by a minister in a season of storm and tempest :
" Noo, Lard, ye'll nae send us a roaring, tearing wund,
but ye'll send us a nice gentle wund, and " Here
there was a terrible gust, which dislodged some tiles
from the roof, and were seen through the windows
as they fell. The unhappy minister beheld the cata-
strophe with dismay and bewilderment, and on looking
upward, exclaimed reproachfully, <c O Lard, this is
farfactly ridiculous ! "
The second was a prayer for Queen Adelaide :
2oo Then and Now
<c O Lord, save Thy servant, our sovereign lady the
Queen : grant that as she grows an old woman she
may become a new man ; strengthen her with Thy
blessing that she may live a pure virgin, bringing forth
sons and daughters to the glory of God ; and give her
grace that she may go forth before her people like
a he-goat on the mountains."
The laity make a reasonable protest against the
prolixity of preachers, suggesting that when the
service is long the sermon should be short; and
vice versa, when the sermon has some object of
special interest, or is to be preached by an orator. In
either case one hour is a sufficient period for service
and sermon inclusive, but there appears too often in
the pulpit
One whom the music of his own sweet voice
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony,
and then the boundary is passed. The hearers gener-
ally are powerless ; but the soldiers have found out
a remedy. When a tedious preacher evokes no
interest, they are suddenly afflicted by an irritation
of the respiratory organs, and " coughing drowns
the parson's saw," an appropriate quotation from
Love's Labour's Lost. They have been known to
give this intimation of weariness even to an arch-
bishop.
We have too many sermons. The Church says
little about them. Children are to be called upon
to hear sermons for their instruction, but chiefly to
Preaching and Speaking 201
learn their credenda, precanda, and agenda, to believe,
to pray, and to do their duty. And in the order
of Holy Communion we read, c< Then shall follow
the sermon " ; but it is not mentioned as an adjunct
to morning or evening prayer, and was never intended
to be, as now in the estimation of many minds, the
most important part of a service. "Praying is the
end of preaching." The servant brings an invitation
from the Master to come and worship. The conse-
quence is that this continuous demand for sermons
prevents the preacher from devoting the time and
thought which he requires if he is to do his best ;
and it comes to pass, as Bishop Andrewes foretold,
that "he who preaches twice prates once." John
Wesley said that without rational restrictions he
should preach both himself and his hearers into
sleep.
We want more simplicity, to speak in a tongue
understanded of the people. Moliere used to read
his comedies to an old woman, who had no advantages
of education, that he might judge by the manner in
which she was affected how his wit and humour would
be received by the public ; and I could name some poor
old folks whose opinion I would rather have about a
sermon than that of men in high estate. " Tell me
the story simply, as to a little child," cries the heart
which yearns for truth ; but some preachers take
pleasure in grandiloquence, mysteries, metaphysics.
A famous classical scholar, preaching to a small con-
gregation of rustics in the Lake District, reminded
202 Then and Now
them, "In this beautiful country, my brethren, you
have an apotheosis of nature and an apodeikneusis of
theopratic omnipotence." And I remember a dis-
course from a learned canon which I utterly failed
to understand. I was comforted to find that others
of the audience were as much bewildered as myself,
and I asked in vain, " Can you tell what it was about ? "
until I met with a friend, who promptly replied, " Of
course I can tell you ; it was about an hour and a
quarter, and that is all I know.'*
After all that has been said of defects and diffi-
culties, want of training, elocution, preparation, and zeal,
laymen of my age, remembering the sermons of sixty
years ago, and comparing Then and Now, will recognise
a general improvement more originality, animation,
and effort the dawn, let us hope, of a brighter
morning, although the mist is dense and the light
is grey.
Should sermons be read from manuscript or preached
without? I have never met with a preacher who had
tried both of these methods and did not believe that
he had gained a new power in speaking without book.
There is no record from the days of the Baptist until
now of the conversion of the heathen by the process
of reading sermons. The missioner must speak to
them face to face. The Scriptures must be read, the
sermons preached. Some years ago, in one of our
cathedrals, a mistake had been made as to the ap-
pointment of preachers, and when the time came for
the sermon no one entered the pulpit, although four
Preaching and Speaking 203
canons and other priests were present. A satirical
person quoted Isaiah Ivi. 10, " They are all dumb
dogs, they cannot bark," and the congregation dispersed.
" The good example of the preacher," we are told
by one who is commonly regarded as the greatest of
our bishops since the Reformation (Jeremy Taylor),
" is always the most prevailing homily ; his life is his
best sermon." A country squire who had the pre-
sentation to a valuable living received applications from
many candidates, of whom he selected three. He went
to the three parishes in which the applicants were at
work, and spent a week in each. In the first he found
a clergyman who was an eloquent preacher, but the
church was sparsely occupied by a fashionable con-
gregation, who paid for their pews, more accurately
described as " sittings." With the exception of a few
old women on benches in the aisle, there was an elimina-
tion of the poor. The church was closed from Sunday
to Sunday.
In the second parish he round a handsome church,
with open seats and hearty services, good music, good
congregations or the upper and middle classes with
their servants, large Sunday schools, two weekday
services ; and notices of meetings for the maintenance
of religion and virtue, the instruction of ignorance
and the relief of distress, bore ample testimony to the
good works which were in progress. Of the sermons
it might be said that their excellence was that they had
no fault, and their fault that they had no excellence.
In the third parish an ugly church of the Georgian
204 Then and Now
era had been made the best of. The sleeping cars and
the three-deckers were gone, and Zeba and Salmanna
had given up their possession and occupied the same
oak benches as the poor. There was daily service, and
the doors were open until the sun went down. Now
and then there were services very early in the morning
before the men went to their work, and late in the
evening when they had returned. The sermons were
short and plain, but there was a quiet earnestness
which impressed the hearers, just as there was a
reality, a presence, in the church, a voice which seemed
to say, "The place where thou standest is holy
ground."
" For a time I felt a difficulty," the patron said to
me, " in deciding between Nos. 2 and 3. I felt a great
responsibility ; I made diligent inquiry, and I obtained
the information which I sought. I found that in No. i
the intercourse of the clergyman and his people was re-
stricted to social amenities with the wealthy members ;
that in No. 2 the district visitors were most constant in
their sympathy and generous help to the needy and the
sick and in their report to the parish priest of such
cases as seemed to suggest his personal aid ; and that
in No. 3 the visiting was done chiefly by the vicar
himself. In No. i parish I never met the pastor
outside the church ; in No. 2 I saw him three or
four times in the week ; No. 3 daily, going in and
coming out among his people, his church, and his
school sometimes attended by a suite of children,
the first lord in waiting attached to his long coat as
Preaching and Speaking 205
to a train. Finally, I followed one of these processions
to his home a small, gloomy house in a narrow street
and told him, to his surprise, that I had come on
important business, and wished to see his wife. I shall
never forget that interview. I told the husband that,
after much anxious deliberation, I had decided to offer
him the vacant rectory, that it was situated in a pleasant
country village, with a comfortable home and a pretty
garden, and that the income was ^500 a year. The
wife looked at me for a few seconds in silence, burst
into tears, and rushed out of the room to her children.
The clergyman was bewildered for a while and speech-
less. Then he took my hand and spoke to me, ' I
don't know what to do or to say ; I don't know
whether to go down on my knees, or dance the sailor's
hornpipe ' ; and then, after a pause, he looked upward
with a face which made me think of Stephen, and he
prayed, * Qod help me to do my best' '
When we turn our attention from preaching to
speaking, from the pulpit to the platform, to the
meetings and the dinners at which " men most do
congregate," the layman who has been most severe in
his criticism of sermons will sometimes be found as
The desolator desolate, the victor overthrown,
The arbiter of others' fate a suppliant for his own.
As the parson listens to the hesitations, platitudes, and
repetitions of the squire, he will, being human, agree
with Rochefoucauld, that " there is something in the
206 Then and Now
misfortunes of others which does not altogether
displease us."
The Americans excel, for the simple reason that
they take for their rule in things small or great, grave
or gay, quod facio valde facto, " Whatsoever thy hand
or thy head findeth to do, do it with thy might." It
is not only their brilliant humorists and orators, such
as Mark Twain and Horace Depew, but the ordinary
American, "alike to fortune and to fame unknown,"
who succeeds, because he has paid his audience the
compliment of thinking what he will say, and offers
them the best which he has to give.
In matters of grave importance, in our parliaments,
in our public assemblies for the discussion of subjects
political, social, educational, commercial, affecting our
national interests or our local interests, we can hold our
own in common-sense and clear expression with any
other nation ; but at the social assemblies and the public
banquets our American brother takes precedence, pro-
vides light, wholesome, palatable food for the mind as
well as for the body, exhilarates the spirits, and aids
digestion.
Mark Twain is called upon to respond to the toast
of " Literature." He rises with a sorrowful counten-
ance and he speaks in a doleful tone. He says that
it makes him " sad at heart to think of the great
authors who have gone and can never be replaced
the philosophers, the poets, the orators, the
dramatists, the historians of Greece and Rome ; the
illustrious writers who have followed them through
Preaching and Speaking 207
the centuries, of whom there is no time to speak.
Shakespeare has left us, Milton is no more ; and "
here he places his hand a short distance below his
breast " I'm not feeling very well myself."
Not only, as I have said, with the officers high
in* command, major-generally speaking, as Artemus
Ward puts it, but with the rank and file, we find
this keen sense of humour. A friend of mine in
Cornwall took an American guest to a village
festival, which concluded with a supper, after which,
among other toasts, came "The Health of the
Visitor." He rose in apparent perplexity : he was
highly gratified, but what could he say an ignorant
stranger, with every inclination but with no power
to speak to them on subjects which they cared for
most ? They must kindly accept his excuse that
he did not feel equal to the occasion. " Ah," he
exclaimed, when, he was about to sit down, as a sudden
thought seemed to strike him. Those words " not
equal to the occasion " recalled an incident which
might amuse them. In the town from which he came
on the other side of the Atlantic, there was a most
irritable, wrathful, abusive individual, who was em-
ployed as a carter. The boys delighted in baiting
this bear, and his growls made music to their ears.
He was leading his horse uphill, having a load of
potatoes, when these lads adroitly succeeded in re-
moving the board from the end of the cart. In strict
accordance with the laws of gravitation, as the
vehicle rose, the vegetables fell. The noise of the
2oB Then and Now
wheels prevented the driver from hearing the sounds
of their descent, and he went on in the bliss of
ignorance until he reached the summit and turned
to see that his cart was empty. The conspirators,
who gave free and full details of the occurrence
until it became the talk of the town, disagreed
in only one particular, the colour of the carter's
complexion when he first surveyed the scene,
whether it was crimson, purple, green, or white ; but
they were unanimous in their affirmation that when
he saw them grinning over the fence he turned
deadly pale, that he glanced at them with his mouth
and eyes wide open like a madman, and then he
seemed to collapse and to surrender himself to
despair, and, learned as he was as a profane linguist,
he only said, " Gentlemen, I am not equal to the
occasion."
" Permit me," the American remarked in conclusion,
" not humiliated by the malice of enemies, but over-
come by the kindness of those who have welcomed
me as friends, to repeat the words, ' Gentlemen, I
am not equal to the occasion.' '
Eloquence is innate in Irishmen. It is a natural
spring which widens into a copious stream, broad and
narrow, deep and shallow (but never dry), sparkling
and gloomy, swift and stagnant, sometimes overflowing
its banks to the discomfort of riparian proprietors, and
even flooding the House of Commons and swelling
up to the Speaker's Chair.
No orator had more power to impress the House
Preaching and Speaking 209
of Lords than the late Archbishop of Yorlc, Magee ;
no preacher has attracted so many large congregations
as Canon Knox Little.
I had a charming Irish friend at Oxford who had a
gift of marvellous loquacity. He would speak the
most sarcastic words to his hearers, but with such
an affectionate smile on his face and such sweet music
in his voice that they were received as compliments.
He spoke, indeed, with such rapidity on such a variety
of promiscuous subjects that there was no time to
dispute or discriminate.
It was his supreme delight when, wearied by our
arduous studies, we occasionally drove or rode into
the country and took dinner in some of the neighbour-
ing towns Abingdon, Bicester, Witney, Henley o
intimate to the waiters and others that in the evening
one of the most distinguished members of the Univer-
sity would deliver an address. Sometimes he would
pose as a ferocious anarchist threatening fire and sword
against all authority, using the most inflammatory
and revolutionary language, uttering the wildest
nonsense, with such a dramatic intensity of feeling
and action that only his friends knew (and it was
a most trying process to conceal our knowledge) that
he was amusing himself at the expense of his hearers.
I still remember some of the sentences and scenes. He
began an address to the small miscellaneous company
outside the inn with, " Redheaded monsters, know
ye not who would be free themselves must strike
the blow ? " And then he would stretch out his
14
2io Then and Now
arms as though longing to embrace the whole
company and would say, c< My brothers, my
oppressed, my odorous, my beloved and illiterate
friends, I am here to tell you that the morning star
of freedom, of ablution, and industry is about to
shine after the long dark night in which you have
suffered so bravely from the cruel results of in-
ebriation, the incessant attacks of animalculas gorged
with the life blood of the poor, and from that in-
cessant cutaneous irritation which only men like
yourselves can bear. I come to tell you, at the
special request of the Dean of Christ Church, the
Lord Mayor of London, the Queen of Sheba and
the equinoctial gales, that the teeth of your tyrants,
the nobility and gentry who are now occupying the
land and houses which belong to the people of
England, are decaying in their gums in consequence
of the expensive dainties which are paid for by the
perspiration of your noble brows. They are drinking
champagne at a guinea a bottle, they are smoking
cigars at three-and-sixpence apiece, resting their gouty
limbs on soft feather beds and velvet sofas, while
you, the lords of creation, are feeding on red herrings,
crusts, and offal, and quench your thirst at the trough
and the pump, and sleep among the rats and the
beetles. Are you to be kicked and cuffed and cursed
in order that the miscreants may go about the country
with their packs of hounds, and their four-in-hands,
a-tallyho-ing with their foxes, and a-tootling with
their horns ? Are you to be always on the wing
Preaching and Speaking 211
and gathering honey all the day from every open-
ing flower that these drones, clothed in purple
and fine linen, may sit in your hives and eat it ? "
I did not see my friend for six years after we parted
at Oxford, and then I found him the vicar of a large
parish, devoted to his work, and the most popular
preacher in his diocese.
Whatever our gifts may be, we must make the
best of them. The minister must practise, the actor
must rehearse, the speaker must think before he speaks.
Let the beginner write what he means to say, and
when he takes his walk, let him repeat it to the birds
of the air. Let him put a few notes in his pocket
when he goes to the meeting, but only use them if
memory fails. Let him be satisfied at first with short
speeches, and not daunted if he seems to fail. He
will succeed if he really tries, and will not be too
anxious or nervous when he has made up his mind
as to what he ought to say, as to his modus loquendi ;
if the food is wholesome, the garnish will be excused.
I was told by an illustrious personage, who, having
spent a long life in the discharge of most important
duties, from early manhood in high command, and
for many years with an authority almost supreme,
and who had made more addresses and speeches which
required knowledge and tact than any other man out
of Parliament, that there was a time when the thought
of these allocutions was a constant worry, and absorbed
far too much of his time. " I determined," he said,
"onlv to devote such a fixed period as I could
212 Then and Now
conveniently spare to the consideration of the subject,
to put down a few notes, and think no more of the
matter until the hour came for speech. My plan suc-
ceeded, greatly to my own satisfaction, and, I believe,
to that of my hearers. " He might have added that
he was always heard with the most attentive and
affectionate respect.
CHAPTER XV
Locomotion
Surrounding objects rendered invisible by extreme velocity.
WELLER.
I CAN think of no greater contrast in matters of
public interest between Now and Then than that
which has been gradually produced during my lifetime
in our methods of locomotion. I have watched
Pickford's waggon with eight horses dragging its
slow length along, so slowly that, seen from a
distance, it would not have suggested to the spectator
Galileo's famous words, " It moves." I have gazed
with admiration, almost with awe, at the guard of
his Majesty's mail, clothed in royal scarlet, seated
in solitary state on his throne, or dickey, behind, horn
in hand, and a blunderbuss by his side ; for the
highwayman was still supposed by imaginations of
extra power to be lurking in his lair, and there were
gloomy glades in which the timid female shrank for
protection to the brave heart of the male, as though
the brigand, like Quilp's dog on the wharf, was
" waiting for a spring." Centuries ago a law had
213
214 Then and Now
been made that all trees and shrubs were to be
removed for a distance of two hundred feet on either
side of the road to prevent the concealment of
robbers, but it had been long in abeyance, and every-
where the traveller passed through dismal alleys under
the shade of melancholy boughs, which left nothing to be
wished as coverts and ambuscades for felons, assassins,
and villains of all denominations. A mile from my
home there was an umbrageous curve in the road
which was known as the " Dark Turn/' and there
dwelt, as we children believed, a mixed company of
ogres, demons, bandits, snakes, and hyaenas, prowling
in the darkness to devour their prey. Whenever in
our walks with the nurses we came in sight of the
Dark Turn, we were seized with a sudden weariness, a
yearning for home, a presentiment of drenching rains.
During my boyhood the stage coaches were doing
a brisk business in great numbers, and in all parts
of the country, especially at Christmastide, when they
who lived in the cities exchanged visits or amenities
of an edible nature with those who lived among the
fields, and the public vehicles were crowded with
passengers, with small barrels of new white wood
containing the u best natives " of untainted reputation
purveyed by Mr. Pym or Mr. Lynn, of Fleet Street,
at five shillings per hundred, and piled upon the roof.
Sometimes Mr. Vintner sent boxes of onions imported
with his wines from Portugal, huge in size but mild in
flavour ; or of delicious prunes, always appropriated
to us of the rising generation. The rural districts
Locomotion 215
responded gratefully with hampers of game and
poultry.
Not much more than one hundred years before I
was born the journey from London to York occupied
a week, from London to Oxford or to Salisbury two
days. The chief cause of this delay was the dis-
graceful condition of the roads. When the wonderful
structures which the Romans made in our island for
the transport of themselves and their belongings fell,
after an endurance of fifteen centuries, into decay, the
people of this country were the most indolent and the
most ignorant of all the civilised nations with regard
to the making of roads, and they maintained this pre-
eminence until at the beginning of the last century
the genius of Macadam was appreciated and employed
throughout the length and breadth of the land. The
concave form, by which the water was retained in the
middle of the road, had previously been preferred in
many instances to the convex, by which it was dismissed
at the sides. Soft gravel was used, and the ruts,
universally followed, became daily deeper. In many
places, as in the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath,
the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers
walked through byways. They alighted and made
their way through the fields, while the vehicles,
lightened of their load, were dragged through the
slough ; but in times of much rain and of floods
even this arrangement was impossible, and the company
returned, until the waters abated, to the place from
whence they came.
2i6 Then and Now
I have never forgotten a striking incident which
occurred in a long and heavy fall of snow, when, the
Scotch mail being unable to proceed, the coachman
and the guard put saddles on two of the horses,
and rode on with the bags. The horse ridden by
the coachman was exhausted, stumbled, and fell, and
being lame when he rose, was with great difficulty
led back to the inn. His rider before leaving his
companion besought him to give up the hopeless
endeavour to proceed, but the guard replied that
he must do his best to reach a post office, which
was only three miles away. He never came, and
when a search was made the bags were found
suspended on the branch of a tree which grew over
the road, his last effort in the work committed to
his charge. He may have had a presentiment that
the end was near, and not many yards from the
tree he fell with his horse down a steep bank into
a great drift of snow, and there they lay dead together.
He died and " how can a man die better ? " on
duty.
As to private carriages, I think that my father's
collection was an average sample of the vehicles in
vogue among country gentlemen. There was the great
yellow canary yellow chariot, beautifully adorned
with armorial bearings, and covered on the roof
when we went on journeys with a huge " imperial,"
which held our luggage. It was drawn by horses
sixteen hands and over, a striking contrast to the
smaller quadrupeds, cobs comparatively and ponies
Locomotion 2 1 7
of extra size, which now occupy their place. I allow
that in several instances our magnificent steeds had
been drafted from the hunters to the harness depart-
ment, that Boreas, who was so admirable to the
eye, was disagreeable at times, when excited by the
chase, to the ears of polite society, and I am aware,
that ^Eolus protested somewhat too audibly when
he came to rising ground. I know that the lighter
modern carriage does not require the same power
of traction ; but I mourn, nevertheless, whenever I go
to London, the absence of those splendid animals
which were so common some fifty years ago in its
Park and streets.
There was for summer use the open carriage
barouche, landau, or britzka, I cannot remember which
the mail phaeton, and the gig. The chariot and the gig
have been superseded by the brougham and the dogcart,
and to these has been added an instrument of torture
called the waggonette, in which the occupants, travelling
sideways, like Mr. Winkle's horse, are enabled from
time to time to irritate and dislocate each other by
inviting their vis-a-vis to the contemplation of
objects which are situated behind his back. The
cabriolet was a vehicle which we young men in
the 'forties delighted to drive in the Park and
elsewhere. It was a large form of gig with a hood,
and behind it, on a footboard, holding on by leathern
straps, stood in buckskins and top-boots the neatest,
cleanest, cutest, most conceited of all the boys in
London, called a " tiger," but more like a tomtit.
218 Then and Now
We were not possessed of the income or the
influence which suggested a " season in London,"
but we made an annual expedition to the seaside,
and our favourite resort was " The Queen of Watering
Places," Scarborough. The journey was accomplished
in three days ; on the first we drove to Doncaster,
on the second to York, and on the third we arrived
at Scarborough. I recall it, soon after the bridge
was built, when there were no houses on the South
Cliff, no Esplanade, no Spa, only where the present
Spa now stands in its beautiful grounds a small hut,
in which was kept the rocket apparatus for use in
time of storm and wreck. The Scarborough of
to-day was not in existence, and in the houses of
St. Nicholas Cliff, in the streets adjoining, and in
the Royal Hotel the visitors were lodged. On
several occasions we took a house which stood on
the site now occupied by the Grand Hotel, with
a pleasant garden in front, and a large rookery between
the garden and the sea.
We bathed in the early morn, we had delicious
herrings for breakfast, we read books from Theakston's
Library, not quite so fresh as the herrings, we went
a-fishing and were sorry that we went, and in the
afternoon we had solemn processions of the family
tubs on the sand. No Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals was then in existence.
At Scarborough in later days, and in my intercourse
with John Leech, I had special enjoyments of the
happiest friendship of my life. Here, as it is known
Locomotion 219
to all men, he found subjects in abundance for his keen
sense of humour and his exquisite art, simultaneously
replenishing his sketch-book and refreshing his spirits.
I was walking with him on the sands, when below the
young lady on the plank half-way between the boat and
the shore we saw the huge legs of the fisherman, which
seemed, the rest of him being hidden by her dress, to
belong to the maiden whom he was escorting ; and on
many other occasions he directed my attention to incon-
gruities and comic tableaux, which never escaped his
observation.
During one of our marine excursions I wrote the
verses herewith reprinted, which he illustrated with
one of the most charming sketches he ever drew, and
which we sent for publication to our friend " Sam
Lucas," the editor of Once a Week? and the author of
some of the cleverest articles, chiefly reviews of books,
which have appeared in the 'Times. Two of the figures
have a strong resemblance to himself and his wife.
SCARBOROUGH, 1859.
I have been here a little child, with a nankeen frock and spade,
The darling and the despot of a pretty little maid ;
"She niver know'd," I heard her say, as we came up the rocks,
" Sich a nawfil boy as Master John for 'dirtying of his socks."
And here (ah, merry days !), a boy, I learn'd to dive and swim,
And that dear old sailor taught me his little craft to trim,
Or, when the sail flapp'd idly, to " feather " and to scull,
To catch the whiting and to shoot the heavy, harmless gull.
* Reprinted by permission of the proprietors.
220 Then and Now
Again, I came from Oxford with the newest thing in ties,
The hat, the coat, the whole "get-up," a marvel and surprise;
And I meant to read for honours, as in letters home 'twas said,
But took to flirting on the Spa and playing pool instead.
And here, a man, I lost my heart, and woo'd on wave and
strand,
My counterpart, my queen, until I won that soft small hand ;
And for ever shall I bless that hour, in the grotto by the sea,
When we talk'd of all our mutual love and sighed in ecstasy.
For now once more with her I come, and though the children say
That they find hairs in my whiskers of a most decided grey,
And though my Kate, the "counterpart," must weigh nigh
thirteen stone,
We're happier now than ever say, are we not, my own?
A child runs to us o'er the sand, and his curls are dank with
brine ;
My childhood lives again in his, for that little boy is mine j
And yonder on the Spa I see a mirthful, handsome swell, ,
Our eldest born, our Frank, the slave of every winsome belle.
God bless them, child and boy, and may He grant to them,
my Kate,
When manhood comes to these our sons their father's happy
fate
Such a wife, my own true darling, as thou hast been to me,
According to thy promise in the grotto by the sea.
The science of locomotion by means of carnages and
horses seemed to have attained perfection : the roads
were in excellent order, the rate of progress was ten
miles an hour, the drivers were skilful, and the acci-
dents were rare, when a bolt fell from the blue, there
was thunder in the time of harvest. A single word
Locomotion 221
proclaimed a revolution, and that word was Steam.
I was ten years old before a railway for passengers was
opened in England, and now the country is barred like
a gridiron, and the inhabitants hurry to and fro, like
the ants disturbed in their hill or like shoals of fish in a
stream. Railways everywhere up, down, and through
Alpine mountains, over and under great rivers ; over
the Tyne at Newcastle, over the Tweed at Berwick,
over the Straits of Mexico, over the St. Lawrence at
Montreal these only the first pioneers of a great army
of right royal engineers who have marched in triumph
through the civilised world. And who were the first to
organise and to lead this glorious expedition, to leave
surmise for certainty, theory for practice, failure for
success ? Two men who began life, " alike to fortune
and to fame unknown," in toil and poverty, as firemen in
a northern colliery, and who by their genius and energy
achieved that new and wonderful method of transport
and locomotion by steam power which not only won for
them riches and honours, but the gratitude and admira-
tion of the world. No two men have accomplished
such extensive and important results by their endeavours
as George and Robert Stephenson, father and son.
Ambitious boys will be encouraged to read that
George Stephenson received twopence a day for what
we call in the Midlands " tenting be-asts " keeping
cows within the boundaries of their pasture and that
subsequently he doubled his income, receiving four-
pence a day for hoeing turnips, before he became a
fireman.
222 Then and Now
There have been many instances in which servants
have become masters in places where they have served,
in which sweepers and porters have become members
of the firm ; but none more notable than that of
George Stephenson carrying coals as third footman to
his royal highness the steam engine, and in a very short
time obtaining a complete command over his master,
making him come and go at his pleasure, and sending
him out on errands to all parts of the world. He em-
ployed him first of all in the conveyance of trucks on
tramways, then on the Stockton and Darlington Railway
for the transport of minerals, and then, as a reward of
good behaviour, he promoted him to carry men !
I can distinctly remember the consternation in our
home on a September morning more than seventy
years ago when my father told us that at the opening
of the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, Mr. Huskis-
son, the eminent statesman, Secretary of State for the
Colonies, had been struck down by an engine as he
was crossing the line, after conversing with the Duke
of Wellington, and died a few hours afterwards.
The enterprise itself, chiefly owing to Stephenson's
construction of the new locomotive engine, was a com-
plete success, despite the bitter opposition and foolish
ridicule which would not be convinced. The comic
singer was severely sarcastic on the subject of steam.
When I was young and I was little
The only steam came from the kettle;
But the next thing they have, I verily believe, sir,
Will be a cast-iron parson to preach by steam, sir.
Locomotion 223
Young gentlemen, who were occasionally permitted
to drive the coaches on payment of five shillings,
to the imminent peril of human life, were also loud
in their chorus.
Let the steam pot hiss till it's hot,
Give me the speed of the Tantivy trot.
We were assured again and again that " there was
nothing to compare with the four spanking tits," and
there were undoubtedly distinct advantages in travelling
by coach. You breathed a pure air, and there was no
stench from inferior coal ; you had time to admire the
scenery of the most beautiful country in the world ;
you had no fear of losing your luggage ; and for
young persons in high spirits " turning to mirth all
things of earth/* climbing with agility and with such
proportions as did not encroach on their fellow-
passengers this process of locomotion was in fine
weather healthful and exhilarating ; but when
The way was long, the wind was cold,
The minstrel was infirm and old;
when the drip from your neighbour's umbrella was
" flowing," as in the case of Miss Miggs, "aperiently
down your back " ; when you travelled over the
Derbyshire moors in a snowstorm, or with fifteen
degrees of frost ; when the cramp held your leg in
its grip ; when a sudden blast took your hat over
the bridge into the river ; when a stout and stertorous
farmer, who had been dining at the market ordinary,
224 Then and Now
persisted in resting his head upon your shoulder ; when
the " spanking tits " had quite left off spanking, there
was a sense of incompleteness in the enjoyment of
travelling by coach.
All who remember those tedious journeys on the road,
and contrast them with the rapidity and the comforts of
the rail, must rejoice that they are departed never to
return ; and in the nights of winter, when the cold
north winds blow, in a deluge of rain, when the
telegram comes, " Make haste or you will be too
late," they revere the memory and bless the work
of George and Robert Stephenson.
In no Lives of the Engineers which every boy
should read in no Universal Biography, are there
records more admirable, more pathetic, than those
of the Stephensons. Theirs is a history not only
of extraordinary talent, indomitable courage, and
triumphant victory, but of the most tender mutual
affection.
<c When Robert was a little boy " (these are his
father's words), " I saw how deficient I was in education,
and I made up my mind that he should not labour
under the same defect, but that I would put him to
a good school and give him a liberal training. I
was, however, a poor man, and how do you think
I managed ? I betook myself to mending my neigh-
bours' clocks and watches at night after my daily
labour was done, and thus I procured the means of
educating my son."
With all his heart and to the end of his days
Locomotion 225
that son appreciated the self-denial of his father's
love. " When I went to college," he said, " I knew
the difficulty my father had in collecting funds to send
me there ; and therefore, before I went to Edinburgh,
I learned shorthand, and while there I took down
verbatim every lecture, and in the evening, before I
went to bed, I transcribed them word for word in order
that my father might receive the same advantage from
their instruction." Afterwards he wrote : " It was
my father's thorough training, his example, and his
character which made me the man I am ; and it is
my great pride to remember that, whatever may
have been my own connection with railway develop-
ment, all I know, all I have done, is primarily
due to the parent whose memory I cherish and
revere."
It is my privilege as a friend, and something more
than a friend, of the occupant, to visit the house in
which George Stephenson spent the latter years of
his life. It is pleasant to think of him resting, after
his hard and anxious life, in the garden which he
loved, and enjoying the fruits, not only of his
wonderful success as an engineer, but of his vines,
pineapples, and peaches, as an expert in their culture ;
and to this day no better grapes are grown in England
than those in the houses which he built at Tapton.
The four-in-hand, if the horses are good and the
driver knows his business, is a charming conveyance
for a holiday tour although in my opinion there is
no form of locomotion to compare with an open
15
226 Then and Now
carriage with four horses and postillions and if it no
longer excites the man in the street as it trumpets
its way through Piccadilly, it is still a pretty
and harmless plaything for the unemployed , and a
delightful perch for peacocks at the Eton and Harrow
match.
Toll-bars, although they had been long established,
were ever regarded as a nuisance by those who travelled
by road. When an Englishman goes forth on some
special errand, he is impatient of delay. The vege-
tarian will tell us that too much animal food, and
the teetotaller will tell us that too much alcohol,
makes him inflammatory, irritable, sudden and quick
in quarrel ; but I prefer to believe that his determina-
tion to get on with his work or his pleasure evokes
his resent of hindrance, especially when it is connected
with the outlay of money. With reins in one hand
and a whip in the other it was an annoyance to
search for small coins and to receive numerous coppers,
unbuttoning and rebuttoning outer garments, especially
when it rained and the wind was never weary. In
the days of my youth there was much more u dining
out " than now, when the wiser plan prevails or
providing teds for your guests instead of turning
them out into the cold ; and it was an ordeal on
our return to find the gates locked, and to hear
the monster who tolled and barred our way snoring
loudly in his room overhead.
Nevertheless, these causes of provocation did not
justify the intense hatred of the institution. We
knew th;
Locomotion 227
:new that the roads must be kept in order, and that
those who used them were the right persons to pay
for their use ; we knew that until the law was altered
there could be no evasion of payment ; but we per-
sisted, instead of attempting the reform, which was
accomplished by wiser folks, in a continuous howl
and lamentation which barked itself to sleep. The
grievance in some cases became almost a monomania.
My father was a man of generous disposition, and was
rarely perturbed in spirit, but a toll-bar was too much
for him. He seemed to be under the impression that
toll-bars had been designed by the powers of evil to
vex and embitter his existence. Time, which softens
all asperities and teaches what a noble thing it is
to suffer and be strong, had enabled him to con-
template with silent scorn the toll-bars which
surrounded him on every side of his home ; but
when, like Gilpin, he " did ride abroad " with carriage
and horses, his indignation at the continual appearance
of his enemy could only find relief in words. It was
a repetition of toll-bars when we were travelling in
Wales which caused him to utter, to my astonishment
and awe, for the first and only time in my hearing, a
monosyllable which is only used in polite society with
reference to the mothers of horses or to an obstruction
made for the purpose of turning a wheel in the vicinity
of a water-mill. Great was his joy when shortly
afterwards the tidings came, in the year 1843, tnat
the Welshmen had banded themselves together and
pulled down many of these obstructions in the night.
228 Then and Now
These demolitions, sometimes made by companies
amounting to five hundred men, were only suppressed
by military force, and resulted in a very considerable
reduction. The leaders were dressed as women and
called themselves Rebecca-ites, quoting in application
to their enterprise the words from the Scriptures,
" And they called Rebecca unto them and said
unto her, Wilt thou go with this man ? and
she said unto them, I will go. And they blessed
Rebecca, and said unto her, Thou art our sister,
be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and
let thy seed possess the gate of them which hate
them."
I do not know how far this dislike was hereditary,
but there was a surly, uncivil toll-taker not far from
Oxford whom we thought it our duty to chasten by
leaving the road in the immediate neighbourhood of
his establishment and, after negotiating a few fences,
by attracting his attention with the waving of hand-
kerchiefs and derisive cheers, which he returned with
imprecations and a clenched fist, until we expressed
our regret that we were called away by urgent business
from his charming conversation, and begged him on
no account to wait for us at dinner. He was a bald
man, and the request of the young Irish orator to
whom I have referred in the preceding chapter for
a lock of his hair to be placed in the Ashmolean
Museum seemed almost more than he could bear.
His misconduct, his want of respect, his disinclination
to behave himself lowly and reverently to all his
Kpf-t-^rQ
Locomotion 229
betters, was a painful indication of the democratic
spirit which was at that time beginning to show
itself among the lower orders, who were under a
strong hallucination that the Maker of all men was no
respecter of persons, that bees who made sweetness
and light (honey and wax-candles) were very superior
to drones who made nothing, and that the amalga-
mation of gold plate with pewter principles would
produce canker.
Toll-bars suggested further evidence of this sad
tendency to insubordination. It was well known in the
University that when this same man, whom we were
conscientiously constrained to rebuke, was informed
by the Rev. Dr. Jenkins, " Man, I have left my
purse in Oxford, but I am the Master of Balliol "
(this with as much majestic dignity as a small man
on a small pony could assume), " and I shall give
orders that you are paid, " he had the effrontery to
reply, <c lf you be'ant master of tuppence, you don't
go through this gate to-day."
Clergymen on their way to take services in church
were exempt from toll, but this privilege did not
include friends who accompanied them. A friend of
mine was driving with his sister on Sunday to a neigh-
bouring village, and was surprised to see the collector
of taxes standing by the closed gate with his hand
stretched out for the toll. " Please to open the
gate," said the parson. " I am on duty." " Three-
halfpence " was the only reply. " I tell you that
I am going to the next village to officiate, and am
230 Then and Now
free from charge." "That is so," said the collector,
" but does the lady preach ? Three-halfpence ; I'll
trouble you for three-halfpence." It was paid, but
on the following Sunday the lady alighted a short
distance before she reached the turnpike and smiling
upon the occupant as she passed through the side
gate, rejoined her brother.
CHAPTER XVI
Cycling
Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum Collegisse jurat.
HORACE.
IN an old scrapbook which delighted my boyhood
there were pictorial representations of the dandies,
bucks, or mashers of some hundred years ago, in tall
hats, with curled brims, widening towards the top, high
collared, short-waisted, long- tailed coats, tight pantaloons,
and shoes, or hessian boots, enjoying their diversions
man-fighting, dog-fighting, cock-fighting, masked balls,
etc. In one of these delineations, " Corinthian Tom
and Jerry," typical leaders of this delectable society,
were mounted on the velocipede or dandy-horse, a
beam of wood with a saddle in the centre, and wheels
at either end. The rider propelled the machine by
striking the ground with the right and left foot
alternately until he had obtained sufficient impetus
to convey him a short distance without further effort,
and when this was exhausted he_ renewed his pedal
performance. It was too much like walking, as the
Irishman remarked, according to the ancient legend,
231
232 Then and Now
when they put him in the sedan from which the
bottom had been removed, and incurred such an
amount of ridicule that many years elapsed before
there were any attempts at improvement, before
discoveries were made by which the feet acted on
the wheels through the action of the pedals or
stirrups, and by which the rider could guide the
machine. Gradually the cycles attained an excellence
which has added to the health, wealth, and happiness
of our people. They enable men and women who live
where the atmosphere is polluted and the light is
obscured to go forth into the sunshine and to inhale the
pure air which God designed for us all, untainted by
chemicals, grit, and smoke. Eyes which have seen
nothing but bricks and mortar without, and the
drab, dingy walls of the office or the workshop
within, may gaze with admiration on woods and streams,
orchards in blossom or in fruit, the green pastures, or
the valleys which stand so thick with corn that they
seem to laugh and sing. Ears accustomed to the
throb of the engine, the clank of machinery, " the car
rattling o'er the stony street,'* may listen to the
nightingale or the mellow ouzel fluting in the elm.
Noses which have suffered from the odours of decay
and dirt, wood pavements, kitchens, mews, may enjoy
the fragrance of the primrose and the cowslip, the
honeysuckle and aromatic herb.
A babe is born in a lonely home, two miles from
the vicarage ; a messenger comes to say that they
know not whether it will live or die, and in a few
Cycling
minutes the vicar has arrived on his cycle and stands
surpliced and with his miniature font of alabaster
to baptize the child ; or " Poor old Farmer Smith is
fine and bad this night, and wants to see parson,"
and away goes the priest on his wheel. The doctor
has come home with a tired horse the only one he
can afford to keep but he mounts his bicycle as soon
as he hears that Mrs. Jones is anxious to enrich
creation, and his weary steed has rest.
It gladdens the heart to see these vehicles, with
the tiny saddles a-top, by the walls of offices and
other establishments, knowing that they have brought
riders from without the city who would otherwise
have been immured within it, and who, when the
day's work is over, would return to more healthful
homes.
To the tradesman in the distribution of his goods
meat, groceries, draperies, all lighter wares the
cycle is a profitable friend.
It promotes social intercourse, garden-parties, holiday
tours. Experience, tragical in many instances, has
taught caution, and the " scorcher " and the " coaster "
have learned wisdom. The bell and the lamp have
almost expelled the dangers of collision, and the clever
invention which induced so much ridicule, vituperation,
and menace is now regarded by all sane persons as
a very precious addition to the manifold blessings of
this highly favoured land.
Not only in times of peace, for recreation and busi-
ness, but in times of war also the cycle will be a
234 Then and Now
powerful auxiliary force. In the commencement of
the South African war there were officers who con-
demned it as a useless encumbrance, and I know that
in one instance a corps of cyclists met with more
contempt than encouragement ; but soldiers of enter-
prise and sagacity quickly recognised the use and
advantage of a conveyance by which a man can
travel long distances day after day with great rapidity,
acting as scouts, making observations, carrying dis-
patches, having a motive power which requires no
rest, no beans, oats, hay, or water.
It has been said that the bicycle interferes with the
due observance of the Lord's Day, but the Sabbath was
made for man and not man for the Sabbath. There is
ample time for public worship, early and late, with
other opportunties by the way ; and serious thought
and holy aspirations may come more often and
impressively to the cyclist, as he moves quietly
and silently through the fair scenes of the country,
by solemn temples and by peaceful homes, than
amid the noise and temptations of the streets or
in the drowsiness of the armchair. We have had
the nave of our cathedral at Rochester filled with
cyclists, and the clergy should, I think, have short
special services in places where they " most do
congregate."
Of " the last new thing " in locomotion, the motor
car, what shall I say of a production which simul-
taneously excites my anger and my sympathy, hopes
and fears? It is an ugly abomination it offends the
Cycling 235
eye, the nose, and the ear. I saw it arriving at a
meet of the hunt, and I wondered whether or no
some of our old masters who had never heard of its
existence would have survived the sight; but I am
convinced, notwithstanding, that it has not only come
to stay, but to be a dominant factor for the welfare
of the people. I anticipate that when the experience
of clever men has made further improvements,
and the temerity of foolish men has been severely
punished, the motor car will facilitate to an extent
unforeseen at present the traffic and transport in
our land. It has been suggested that when it
was necessary the roads should be made more
available for its progress, the valleys exalted and
the hills brought low, the crooked made straight
and the rough places plain, and that from all
parts of the country it should be possible for the
traveller to pass without interruption to the end of
his journey. Any disfigurements of the landscape
which may be caused by these arrangements will be
compensated by their profitable accommodation; and
as future generations will know nothing of the loss
which they have sustained, their ignorance will add
to their bliss ; but I am glad that I shall not be
there, and a prevision of motor cars rushing and
crawling as thick and as black as beetles on a
kitchen floor all over the land is one of the minor
considerations which make it easier to contemplate my
departure to another world.
Locomotion by water has been almost as much
236 Then and Now
improved as locomotion by land. Few comparisons
are more striking than those which can be made by
us octogenarians between the clumsy malodorous tubs
in which, " cabined, cribbed, confined," crowded and
cramped, inhaling grit and smoke, we were paddled
over the seas, and such magnificent vessels as those
which take us in eight days from Liverpool to
New York and all over the navigable world with
the comforts of our own home. The sufferings
which I endured in early life between Holyhead
and Dublin, Dover and Calais, impressed me with
a solemn apprehension that the torture, if prolonged
for two or three days would be fatal, and by this
fear I was deterred for many years from those long
voyages which, begun in trepidation, continued and
ended in enjoyment. Fifty years ago there were
few more nauseous odours than those of a steamer
when you went on board. The spirit was depressed
by an awful presentiment of doom, and a stern
voice whispered Dante, with additions, " Whoso
enters here leaves all hope that he won't be ill
behind."
Many years ago I stood with Sir Richard Owen
by the railway at Richmond, and as the trains passed
to and fro he said to me : <c All this will soon be
obsolete, superseded by a mightier power electricity.
Seven years after the opening of the Manchester
and Liverpool Railway, and more than ten years
before George Stephenson died, the world had been
astonished by a marvellous demonstration. About
Cycling . 237
the year 1837 electric telegraphs were established in
three different countries Steinheil's system at Munich,
Morse's in America, and Wheatstone and Cooke's in
England. The first telegraphs ever constructed for
commercial purposes were laid down by Wheatstone and
Cooke on the London and Birmingham and Great
Western Railways. The wires, which were five in
number, were buried in the earth, each acting on a
separate needle ; but this plan was too expensive, and
was abandoned for the single and double needle by
the same inventors. Science published its explanations,
but not one man in a hundred tried to understand
them. Every one confessed, " Such knowledge is too
wonderful and excellent for me ; I cannot attain unto
it." The ignorance which prevailed was enlivening.
An old woman came from Lincoln to Newark, and not
finding her umbrella, which had fallen under the seat
of the carriage, concluded that she had left it at the
station from which she came, and deplored her loss
to the porter. Looking in, he saw the missing article
on the floor, and his sense of humour suggested a
little amusement at the expense of the owner. He
advised her to lose no time in telegraphing, and as
soon as she was out of sight he reared a ladder against
one of the telegraph posts and placed the umbrella on
the wires. The announcement of its arrival immediately
following the dispatch of the telegram gave much
pleasure to the old lady, but very little surprise.
" In course," she said, " if they can convey me, as
weighs thirteen stone, sixteen miles in forty minutes,
238 Then and Now
they can't want more than a few seconds to pass on
a thing like that."
Another matron kindly favours us with a similar
entertainment. Receiving a telegram from a messenger
who had only just left the office from which it was
sent, she exclaimed as she opened it, " Well, I never !
If here isn't a letter from my son William Henry,
which is two hundred miles away, and the envelope
has not had time to dry since the dear lad licked it
with his tongue."
Electricity ! Who can even conjecture the sources
from which it will be stored, the methods and results
of adaptation ? Already it conveys our messages and
news throughout the world, lights our dwellings,
and is to light our streets. It is gradually becoming
a chief locomotive power, although we are sadly
behind our American friends with our electric railways
and tramways. Six years ago they were using
the electric elevator, a great improvement on the
hydraulic lift.
We are told ^that shortly we are to cook our food,
cultivate our land, print our publications, play our
pianos, destroy our enemies and murderers, by elec-
tricity.
What will to-morrow be, who can tell ? But of
this I am sure, that whatever forms of locomotion
there may be in the future, on land or water or in
the firmament of heaven, there will be none so
enjoyable as when a man who can ride is mounted on
a well-bred, well-made, high-mettled, good-tempered
horse.
Cycling 239
torse. The elasticity, the spring of the living
animal,
Scarcely touching the ground, he's so proud and elate,
the variety of action, the docility, the reciprocity, are
not to be had from wood or metal, electricity or
steam ; and it is to me a sadness that the number
of those to whom this pleasure is given, with the
exception of those who can afford to hunt or are
mounted as soldiers, is rapidly decreasing. When
the proclamations of the accession of King William
the First were made, there were public procession?
of functionaries and others of influence on horse-
back in our cities and towns. When the accession
of King Edward the Seventh was read to the people,
men in authority rode in carriages or walked, because
the majority including chief magistrates, aldermen,
and councillors had never learned to ride. Had
they been ' constrained to mount, there would have
been a revelation of impotence. There would have
been involuntary imitations of the American jockey,
with his chin between the ears of his horse. There
would have been glimpse of scenery between the
rider and the saddle, visible through an arch of
flesh, steeds curveting, unconsciously pricked by the
spur, bridles in complication, stirrup-leathers too long
and too short, hats (cocked and otherwise) trodden
underfoot, satirical commentaries, derisive cheers,
from the crowd.
Will there ever be a procession in London of royal
240 Then and Now
motor cars ? " The old order changeth, yielding place
to new." Queen Elizabeth came from Greenwich
on a pillion behind her Lord High Chancellor, but
no one would wish to see our beloved and beautiful
Queen Alexandra riding thus in Piccadilly, with
Lord Halsbury as Master of the Horse.
CHAPTER XVII
Books Old and New*
I have never pretended to be a learned man or a scholar, but God
has given me a great love of books. SIR DAVID DUNDAS.
HAPPY is the man who retains possession of the
books which it has been his chief delight to read from
childhood to old age. In the twilight,
When in the crimson clouds of even
The lingering light decays,
And Hesper on the front of Heaven
His glittering gem displays;
or in the firelight, ere the lamps are lit, it gladdens and
it saddens his heart to muse upon the memories which
they bring, like a panorama passing by in sunshine
and in shade, with music merry and mournful like
bells which chime and toll now the wail of the pibroch
and then the march of the silver trumpets and the
glorious roll of drums. The homes and the haunts,
the voices and the faces, the sights and the sounds, the
* I have made in this chapter some extracts from an article,
"Among my Books," which I wrote for Literattire having the
kind consent of the editor.
242 Then and Now
hopes and the fears of childhood and boyhood, of youth
and manhood, come back to eye and ear. The toys
and the posies, the cowslip balls and daisy chains, the
games and the sports, the romantic mystery and glamour
of love's young dream ; and then the great ordeals of
life, the contests for honour, authority, and wealth ;
the sacred and supreme ambition to overcome evil with
good all these are suggested by the books which
excited our imaginations, exercised our thoughts, brought
knowledge to our minds and to our souls.
There is the Book which was read to me by " a voice
that is still " and the grotesque illustrations hallowed
to me for ever by " the touch of a vanished hand."
And there is the first story which was told to me
before I could read 'The Talisman. Seventy-five years
have passed, but I have a distinct remembrance of the
exact spot in our day-nursery on which I stood with
tears in my eyes, and a gasp in my throat, and a painful
pity in my heart, and heard how Sir Kenneth, lured to
dishonour, returned to find that the standard of England
was gone, and that Roswal, his faithful hound, whom
he had left to guard it, was wounded, as it seemed, unto
death, just raising his head in recognition and to kiss
his master's hand. All my sympathies were with the
Knight of the Leopard, although I knew that he was
wrong in sacrificing his duty to his affection, because
I was at 'that time at. med vii., solemnly engaged to
a lady at. sud vi., and therefore could thoroughly
appreciate the overwhelming power of his temptation.
Stowed away on an upper shelf are many of the
books wh
Books Old and New 243
>oks which charmed me in the days of my childhood,
and haunted me in the visions of the night. There
were giants on the earth in those days, and apes and
ghouls, as well as the lovely beneficent fairies and the
munificent Santa Claus who came to our bedside on the
eve of Christmas and filled the long paternal stocking,
placed by our bedside in hopeful anticipation, with a
selection of things pleasant to the eye and good for
food, which made us dance with joy. As I gaze on
those three stout volumes of The Arabian Nights I
see the Genii come forth from the dark volume of
smoke, Aladdin with his wonderful lamp, Ali Baba
and his forty thieves. Evenings at Home recall a
time when, having read The Transmigrations of Indur,
we put our small heads under the bedclothes in the
cold winter's night, and imagined that we were the
dormice in their warm, snug habitations underground,
with ample stores of nuts and other dainties. Or
Robinson Crusoe suggested a braver enterprise, a more
sensational drama on the same stage, when we per-
sonated the shipwrecked mariner in his first severe
destitution, ejecting all the coverings of our couch,
that, cruel only to be kind, we might gradually replace
them, bringing them back one by one after pre-
tended visits to the wreck ( <c making believe," as the
marchioness said of her lemonade), first the sheets, then
the blankets, then, to crown all, the counterpane,
emerging from the frigid to the torrid zone, and
magnifying our enjoyment of the glow by its contrast
with our shivers in the cold.
244 Then and Now
And then what happy memories are associated with
that beloved Boys' Own Book, the dictionary and
encyclopaedia of our first games and pastimes, from cats'
cradle to cricket ! From the pages of this miniature
quarto I received those early lessons in zoology which
speedily took a practical form in the construction of
fragrant menageries for rabbits, guinea-pigs, squirrels,
white mice, magpies, jackdaws, and jays. Again I see
the quadrilateral tenement for the conies, designed
and erected by an under-gardener, and mainly consist-
ing of superannuated doors, palings, and boards,
surrounding private apartments made from barrels
and boxes, with a huge tea-chest which served as
a lying-in hospital, and was much in vogue with the
conies.
On the shelves adjoining are Miss Edgeworth's
stories, with Thaddeus of Warsaw, The Scottish Chiefs,
Sandford and Merton, Harry and Lucy, The Mysteries
of Udolpho, The Castle of Otranto, Baron Mun-
chausen, Gulliver's Travels, Fables of Msof, and
Tales of a Traveller. I read the latter (first edition,
John Murray, 1827) stretched full length upon the
hearthrug with an intense satisfaction and that implicit
belief in ghosts, hobgoblins, and other improbabilities
which seems to be innate in us all that precious
relish for the horrible which is so liberally fed by
parents and guardians as a primary and important
adjunct to Christian education. This appetite had its
seasons of terrible indigestion in the form of nightmare
and in an awful dread when I awoke in the moonlight
Books Old and New 245
or when the last flame was flickering in the grate lest
I should see, as " my uncle " saw, the white Jady sitting
on her chair, or should feel the chill which he felt from
her shadow when she moved to go, which froze the
marrow of his bones and made his blood run cold.
I never could attain <c my aunt's " contempt for spectres.
" Ghosts ! " she said. " Ghosts ! Leave them to
me ; I'll singe their whiskers for them ! " Sixty years
after I read this book I visited the home of the author
on the banks of the beautiful Hudson River, still
covered by the ivy which was sent by Sir Walter Scott
from Abbotsford, and not far from the spot where
Major Andre was shot as a spy. And that last word
reminds me of another American author in whose
books my small mind largely rejoiced 'The Spy, The
Pioneer, The Pilot, and The Last of the Mohicans ;
and that again my joy was revived when I entered the
home of Fenimore Cooper, visited the scenes which
he describes so vividly, and was introduced at Albany
to his children's children.
I pass to other shelves and epochs for in our
libraries are the records of our lives, and our
biographies are in our books to the period of
sentiment and sport. Six dainty little volumes of
Lord Byron's works remind me how it stirred my
soul with pity to read of the tears falling from
Gulnare upon the chains of Conrad, while poor Medora
was dying from despair, and of beautiful Zuleika,
Soft as the memory of buried love,
JPiire as the prayer which childhood wafts to heaven.
246 Then and Now
I learned The Dream by heart, and have been on
the hill where Mary Chaworth stood, "looking afar
if yet her lover's steed kept pace with her expectancy
and flew." The lover was John Musters, and the
hill and the fair home at Annesley belong to his
descendants. I could quote Childe Harold profusely,
including, of course, the verses which describe the
ball at Brussels on the eve of Waterloo ; but my
admiration of this poem was checked for a time
when in my later schooldays I was ordered to
translate a selection of the verses into Greek iambics.
It was a cruelty, moreover, to Byron and the Greek
language.
I am sorry that I read Don Juan in the hayloft,
because it was an act of disobedience, and I agree
for once with the fast young lady who said that
" it was not quite the book which you would give
to the dear rector's daughters " ; but I am not aware
that it did me harm, and I believe that in this case,
as in many others, if there were no denunciations,
not many young folks would care to read it. Be
this as it may, we do not go to Byron for instruction
in righteousness ; but we learn from other books and
teachers to admire that which is beautiful and true,
and to reject that which is distorted and false.
A fine copy of the second edition of Lalla Rookh
(Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1817), with
a river of noble type flowing through broad white
regions of paper, also belongs to the sentimental period.
Some years ago an old lady who had heard the
Books Old and New 247
author sing his Melodies told me that, although his
voice was weak and of small compass, it had such
a pathetic power that
The pretty and sweet manner of it forced
The water from their eyes they would have stopped.
But there is something for this sentimental period,
something about love's young dream, in all the poets,
and I have a goodly collection, with the king of
them all in six glorious tomes, " bound in russia
and lettered in gold." The old favourites still hold
precedence : Scott and Goldsmith and Gray 'The Lady
of the Lake, 'The Deserted Village, The Elegy.
The sporting proclivities which not only possess
" the beardless boy who delights in the horse and
the hound," but the man who has begun to shave,
are recorded by encyclopaedias of rural sports, sporting
magazines, books by " Nimrod " and " The Druid,"
and by one who far excelled all others in his descrip-
tion of the chase, Whyte Melville. To me most
precious are the works of Surtees, because the hand
which illustrated them has written in each volume,
" With John Leech's kindest regards."
His name and his works remind me of others
whose books are placed in proximity to those which
I have just named, and who taught me to enjoy one
of the most precious gifts which is bestowed on man
by his Maker, and which is commonly known as
" the sense of humour." To the triumvirate who
were my chief benefactors, and whom it was my
248 Then and Now
privilege to know and love as my friends Dickens,
Thackeray, and Leech I have done homage on happy
occasions ; and I have a pleasant recollection of the
smile and the sympathy of the author of Picfyvick
when I told him, in proof of my profound admiration,
how in my school-boy days from an income of six-
pence per week I had reserved half for the purchase
of that famous book, then in course of monthly
publication, and had the complete work still in my
possession bound by a country bookseller in the most
primitive form of the art. The smile expanded as I
proceeded to describe my wrestlings with temptation
the agony of conflict between body and mind when
an itinerant confectioner appeared with his tray, and
around I cast my greedy eyes upon the tartlets and
the pies ; or when the syren sang in the voice of
the oyster-man, who stood at the door of our school-
yard and lured us on our voyage of virtuous economy
to the fatal rocks of self-indulgent greed, not only
by the cravings of appetite, but by the fascinations
of gambling. His mode of business was to receive a
halfpenny from his customer, who cried " head " or
" tail " (the tail was represented by a figure of
Britannia in full uniform, with helmet and shield)
as the vendor threw it upwards. The speculator lost
his coin if his conjecture was wrong ; but if right, he
received an excellent oyster with a copious supply of
peppered vinegar from a huge stone bottle which had
a slit in the cork.
By "a sense of humour" I mean not only the prompt
perce;
Books Old and New 249
erception and keen enjoyment of the grotesque and
ludicrous, absurdities of behaviour, exhibitions of
ignorance, incongruous combinations, but a mirthful
delight in the exposure of shams, the discomfiture
of humbugs, the kicking of bullies, the handcuffing of
thieves, the bumps and the bruises of fallen pride.
I mean not only the sense, but the use, of humour
in its noblest and most powerful form, when without
gall or bitterness it makes a laughing stock of vice,
playfully abstracts the peacock's plumes from the
dismal feathers of the daw, perforates as though by
the accidental contact of a pin's point the wind-bags
of self-conceit (rem acu tetigistt), and imitates with
all good-humour, but with the precision of a photo-
graph and the accuracy of an echo, the comicalities
of swagger and the silly affectations of <c side." If
the mirror is so placed i>y author, artist, or actor
before foolish persons that they can see themselves
as other see them, some may be saved by ridicule
whom reason was powerless to persuade.
There are men (so called) who so far from distrust-
ing, concealing, or trying to extenuate their infinite
selfishness or even their gross sensuality, exult in
their cleverness to defraud and deceive, to speak all
words that may do hurt, to corrupt their companions,
o pollute the pure, to mingle strong drink, to make
a mock at sin. Their glory is their shame, and they
exult when they hear themselves described as the
most accomplished rogues of their era, up to every
move, and more successful in " bringing off good
250 Then and Now
things" by which is meant the transfer by deceit
and fraud of their neighbours' property to themselves
more than the boldest burglar, who has just got away
with his " swag." Nevertheless, if these creatures can
be made the objects of a righteous scorn, made to
feel that they are despised as knaves and braggarts
by men in every way their superiors, they will begin to
cringe and to squirm, and either to improve their
status in decent society or to wriggle out of it.
No three contemporaries had ever such a special
power to achieve this happy consummation as the trio
to whom I have referred to ring out the false and
ring in the true, to detect the wigs and the dyes,
the paints and the paddings, of the roue and the hag,
to dethrone pretenders, to mount the fictitious sports-
man on a horse which he cannot ride, to exhibit the
sham philanthropist, the devoted friend of any young
orphan who happens to have three or four hundred
pounds, in his drunken imbecility, to detect " rogues
in grain, veneered with sanctimonious theories," and to
douse St. Stiggins in the trough, to take the base coin
and bend it or drop it on the pavement with a thud.
Who can read Thackeray his derisive scorn of prigs and
parasites, loafers and sneaks, of egotism, nepotism,
toadyism, red-tapism, of the worship of titles, the idolatry
of income, the cult of the stomach, of snobs among all
sorts and conditions of men, in town and country, patri-
cian, plebeian, rich and poor, clerical and lay without
something more than a brief delight in his insight
and descriptive power ; without a new disdain of
Books Old and New 251
irrogance, of idleness, duplicity, ignorance, and lust ;
without a new admiration of " whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever
things are just, whatsoever things are pure ? "
We ask, with the author, what is it to be a
gentleman ? and he shows us in Colonel Newcome.
We ask, what makes men mean and miserable? and
he tells us vice. We ask, what makes life bright
and brave and hopeful ? and he tells us religion and
virtue. I believe that this satirical humour in all
times and ages, applied to the condemnation of that
which is evil and the exaltation of that which is
good, has had splendid influence, and never more
since the time of Juvenal than now. I affirm from
an experience long and large that in proportion to
the increase of our population there has been a
manifest decrease in the number of our fops, cocks-
combs and other examples of imbecility and ostentation
Education and a larger intercourse with our fellow-
men through the new facilities of locomotion have
contributed to this felicitous eviction, letting light into
dark places, dispersing monopolies, and dismissing small
autocrats, who, " dressed with a little brief authority/*
reigned as kings and queens in our villages and
towns, but I am convinced that the caustic criticism
of the author, the artist, and the actor, of the pen,
the pencil, and the stage (and where shall we find
them in such a combination of talent as in the
writings, the drawings, the drama of Punch ?),
have been and are, the most successful agents in
252 Then and Now
effecting a secession of humbugs and an expurgation
of fools.
The works of Dickens and Thackeray are in all
our public and in most of our private libraries.
They are circulated throughout the civilised world.
The works of John Leech are treasured in countless
homes, although they have no longer that universal
appreciation which they had when they first portrayed
the manners and customs of their day ; but when the
two great authors and the great artist were with
us, 1 am inclined to think that in its gentle application
of rebuke and protest the pencil had more power
than the pen. The Horatian precept
Segnius irritant animos dimissa per aures
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus
was verified by every sketch which he drew. The
authors whom I have named attained consummate
excellence in representing to their readers the characters,
the manners and conversation, of those persons with
whom they were familiar, but this experience had
its restrictions. Dickens knew little or nothing of
the Upper Ten Thousand and Thackeray went no
lower than the powdered " Jeames," but Leech had
no such limits to his range. Whatever he saw, and
wherever he saw it, if he thought it would point a
moral or evoke innocent mirth, he could reproduce
it. Except in his political cartoons he made no
portraits, but in all his delineations of persons there
was an unmistakable suggestion of the order to
Books Old and New 253
which they belonged, from bishops to burglars,
dukes to dustmen. None could doubt for an instant
the nationality of his Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen,
Frenchmen, and Germans. He threw his searchlight
on the ambuscade of the knave,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The insolence of office,
on the extravagance of the rich and on the sufferings
of the poor. He despised the coarse malignant
caricatures the bloated peers and parsons, the
red -faced women who were all waist and the
ridiculous dandies who had no waists at all of
Rowlandson, Gillray, Woodward, and Bunbury. He
and his contemporaries John Tenniel, Richard Doyle,
Du Maurier, and Keene had too much respect for
themselves, their admirers, and their art, to make
a jest of subjects which were lascivious or profane.
1 have not the time, nor is this the opportunity,
to speak of my books theological, ecclesiastical,
historical, but I desire, before we leave the library,
to refer briefly to a particular department of modern
literature.
And what would " the Preacher," the son of David,
who wrote nigh upon three thousand years ago that
" of making of books there was no end " what would
he say could he see the long rows of daily publications
at one of our great railway stations, read the advertise-
ments of new and forthcoming books in one of our
London newspapers or quarterly magazines, or watch
254 Then and Now
the steam printing press as it produced in an hour as
much matter as would occupy a penman for his life ?
On all subjects this making of many books is
infinite ; this current of literature, like the immortal
brook, " goes on for ever." Be they good, bad, or
indifferent as Martial said of his works, sunt bona,
sunt mala y sunt mediocria the demand seems equal to
the supply. Not at Athens when St. Paul was there
was the desire greater to tell or to hear than now
in England to read or to write some new thing.
And the new thing which attracts the most is well
named the novel. The child is father to the man,
and " Tell me a story " is the cry of old and young
I find accordingly, from information which has been
kindly given to my inquiries from public librarians,
that in some cases the demand for works of fiction
has exceeded that for all other books put together ;
in some it was half, in some a third. There was a
remarkable difference in places not far from each other.
For example, in Manchester the figures sent to me
(in the year 1896) were : total circulation, 152,767 ;
fiction, 55,132; and at Liverpool: total circulation,
613,924; fiction, 478,462. The large proportion of
those who read works of fiction is made up of
persons who in capacity and character are altogether
opposed to each other ; chiefly of indolent folk,
ignavum pecus, who have no energy, no regular
employment, no ambition beyond their own amuse-
ment. Only those books evoke their sympathies
which appeal to their senses ; but there are many
Books Old and New 255
thers, and I claim to be one, who find in the higher
class of these novels a great refreshment and delight.
Weary at times with work and duty and the perusal
of more serious books, they rejoice, like horses set
free from harness and turned into pleasant pastures,
in these clever descriptive stories, in their knowledge
and insight, their humour and pathos, their exciting
incidents, their shrewd reflections. It is indeed a restful
felicity, on a garden chair, sub tegmine fagi^ on a deck
chair when winds are still, in an armchair by the fire,
to sit with a paper-knife in one hand and a new
book in the other by one of those authors whom
we admire the most. Happily, they are not only able,
but abundant an embarras des richesses for those who
have the desire, but not the leisure, to read them.
There are three kinds of objectionable novels the
impossible, the sensual, the profane. A few of our
modern writers produce these ingredients in combina-
tion.
The first are comparatively harmless. They are
often disappointments, because the authors in many
cases are accomplished scribes, and .because when the
reader is prepared to believe almost anything, he is
distressed to lose his power of credulity. He can no
longer identify himself with the hero of such pre-
posterous romance. He ceases to enjoy great beads
of agony breaking forth from the bewildered brow ;
it affords him no gratification to hear the bay of the
ferocious bloodhound growing more and more distinct ;
to put spurs to his gallant steed, flecked with foam
256 Then and Now
and panting for breath. He has no zest for concealing
himself in caves and bogs and subterraneous passages,
and is just as happy and comfortable in the dark
dungeon with loathsome things crawling around, and
the water dripping from the roof, as though he were
strolling in the sunshine at home. He is not in the
least excited when he finds himself dangling over the
sea at the end of a rope, by which he has just escaped
from the castle of his enemy, and which is gradually
fraying itself against a projection in the rock. It
gives him neither surprise nor pain to be struck down
from behind just when he was finishing off" the last of
five furious adversaries. And he is incapable of emotion
when after a few weeks, in which all was a blank, he
awakens in a dwelling of small dimensions, but scru-
pulously clean, and sees the object of his affections
gazing fondly upon him, but with her finger on her
lips, either to intimate that he is too weak for con-
versation or that the sound of his voice may be heard
by his rival, who is lurking in the neighbourhood
and thirsting for his blood. He is, of course, aware
that his life will be carefully preserved until the end
of the third volume, and that in all probability he
will live happy ever afterwards ; but the strain of
being knocked about, like the constable in Tunch,
chapter after chapter, is too great for him, and now,
after a short series of hemorrhage, abductions, ship-
wrecks, and explosions, he can no longer identify
himself with the hero and lays the book aside.
Seriously and sadly we turn from these extravaganzas
Books Old and New 257
to books which are immoral and profane to the novel
which Sheridan described as u an everlasting tree of
diabolical writing," and of which it may be said,
" Thou shalt not bring an abomination into thine
house, lest thou be an accursed thing like it." There
are authors, as well as talkers, who seem to think that
they cannot be witty unless they are indecent, that all
men are as sensual and as sceptical as themselves, and
that incontinence and irreverence are of all themes the
most popular. Without spiritual instincts or sacred
aspirations they would degrade their readers to their
own low level, and would persuade them that all
men who were not fools would be knaves did they
not fear detection, and that women are virtuous because
they are not tempted ; that their modesty is caused by
timidity or a slow circulation, and that " cold Dian "
alone is " chaste." They would have us believe that
there are no such things as happy homes, hearts of
each other sure, and that marriage has abundance of
peace so long as the moon, the honeymoon, endureth ;
but not much afterwards. They write for those who
think as they think, that our being's end and aim is
to live in houses ceiled with cedar and painted with
vermilion, to be clothed in purple and fine linen,
faring sumptuously every day, and doing that which
is right in our own eyes. They recognise no obliga-
tions of duty or obedience except from their inferiors,
as they call them their tradespeople and servants.
Work is for the lower classes. The poor are suffi-
ciently relieved by the rates and the guardians, and
17
258 Then and Now
the sick should be sent to the hospital. Drunkards,
prostitutes, and prisoners must be managed by the
police and must not come between the wind and
their nobility. Nevertheless, they make heroes of
libertines and heroines of those who have lost the
shame which is a glory and a grace.
Vice, as represented by these professors of im-
moral philosophy to their disciples, is so lovely, so
jubilant, so perpetually crowned with roses, so abso-
lutely exempt "from all the ills which flesh is heir to,"
from jealousies and disappointments, ennui and head-
ache, that poor virtue in this dazzling splendour pales
its ineffectual fire, and, as Martha Penny remarked of
the Protestant religion, after she' had witnessed the
gorgeous ceremonials of Rome, " it do look mean
and pokey. " The heroes and heroines of obscene
romance come to no misfortune like other folks, but
are always lusty and strong. The transcendent beauty
of the women, the perfect form so liberally displayed ;
the athletic achievements of the men, who witch the
world with noble horsemanship, almost equal to that
of a circus; the exquisite surroundings gold and
silver and ivory in abundance, as when the navies of
Hiram brought them from Tarshish, and still associated
with apes and peacocks these fascinations charm the
imagination, perplex the reason, and persuade the weak.
Not a word is said of the sure results, of retribution
and remorse, of dishonour and disgrace, of disease and
of want, of mortgaged estates and desolate houses, of
broken hearts, of the valley of the shadow of death.
Books Old and New 259
These writers, of all bookmakers the most un-
scrupulous, ignore religion, or only refer to it as a
fond thing vainly invented, a myth and superstition.
None but persons of weak intellect are supposed to
attend public worship or to take any notice of the
Lord's Day. Divine service is mere formalism,
reverence is ostentation ; and they who would help
others or restrain themselves are denounced as " goody-
goodies " and almost as unfit as poor relations for
genteel society. " They are excellent people, and their
antimacassars and their cheap blankets, and their
performance on the harmonium and their soup for
the poor, are beyond all praise ; but you know, dear,
they would be quite miserable, and would make every-
body else quite miserable, if we were to ask them
to dine."
Christianity is declared by those who know about
as much of it as a monkey knows of mathematics
to be " played out/' The Old Testament is not
more reliable than the false decretals ; the New Testa-
ment is a venerable legend, a " sweet Galilean story " ;
the clergy are Papists, Calvinists, hyprocrites. They
are also bracketed as a old women," as though men
who had won honours in the schools, on the river,
and the cricket and the football fields were suddenly
emasculated at their ordination, and transformed into
muffs and duffers. They hinder progress (quite so
the rake's progress), their sermons are twaddle, and
their conversation is cant. " Papa told me," it is
written in one of these novels, " to be good, and
260 Then and Now
not to mind what priests or clergymen said to
me. He had been a clergyman himself, and knew
all about it."
We hear much of evolution, of the religion of
humanity, and of the Church of the future ; but
they who blow these bubbles, from dirty pipes and
foam, do nothing for the Church of the present ;
they enter not themselves, and they that were entering
k n they hinder. They laden other men with burdens
grievous to be borne, they have an exact knowledge
of every other man's duty, but they themselves render
no assistance, not even with one of their fingers. They
try to convince themselves and others that a religion
which reproaches and thwarts, which is constantly
obtruding itself, like Elijah to Ahab, when its presence
is inopportune, is obsolete and impossible. They
avoid and ignore it ; they make a desert and they
call it peace.
No one would suppose from reading these books
that all over the civilised world prayer was ascending
from millions of hearts, from secret chambers and
oratories, from Christian households, from devout
congregations, to the Great Intercessor ; that through
faith and grace, through the comfort of the Scriptures
and the power of the Sacraments, a multitude which
no man can number were following in the steps of
their Divine Master, caring for His poor, nursing
the sick, visiting the fatherless and widows in their
affliction, instructing the ignorant, raising the fallen,
not willing that any should perish. There might be
no missi
Books Old and New 261
missionaries, no martyrs, no Christian men and
women working in the slums and preaching righteous-
ness, not only with their lips, but with their lives.
It has been said that these books are so offensive
'to conscience, reason, and experience that they carry
with them their own refutation. Ephraim is joined
to his idols ; let him alone. But what of those
who are weak in faith, who are unstable as water,
who are young and foolish ? It is shown from the
statistics of our public libraries that these novels are
largely read by young persons from fourteen to twenty
years of age.
Here is an epitome of one of these productions,
which, though it can hardly be surpassed as a specimen
of immoral rubbish, went through fifteen editions :
Herminia, the daughter of a dean, and educated at
Girton, despises parents and preceptors, and feels it to
be her special mission to abolish marriage. She regards
that estate as " an ignominious thraldom, buttressed
with horrors." She is " pure and pellucid," and she is
attired in a sort of sleeveless sack, which sets off to the
utmost the lissom grace of her rounded figure, else-
where described as " opulent." On meeting the hero,
Alan, "just home from the Perugenesque solidarities
of the Umbrian Apennines," her heart gives a delicious
palpitation, and his heart makes a simultaneous jump.
They "thrill and heave," but when marriage is sug-
gested Herminia regards it as an insult. So there
follows that which the author of the book describes
as an irregular contract an arrangement which greatly
262 Then and Now
shocks poor strait-Jaced, kind-hearted Miss Waters,
and disgusts Alan's father, a physician who had been
made a baronet for his successful ministrations to a
royal duke who had suffered from self-indulgence.
Alan dies, and Herminia meditates suicide ; but the
contemplation of her baby's rosy feet induces her
to defer the process, until the daughter, grown to
womanhood, announced that she was going to be
married. This base degeneracy of the child, to whom
she had boasted " Your dear father was no relation
whatever to me," this mean assent to revelation and
to law, broke the sad mother's heart, and she re-
moved herself from a world in which, <c a martyr to
humanity, she struck a righteous blow in the interests
of woman," and with a promise from her biographer
that inestimable benefits would hereafter spring from
her grave at a date which will be definitely fixed,
and in a form of which full details will be given on
a future occasion.
The most odious, because it is the most attractive,
form of that literature which attacks the sanctity of mar-
riage and imperils the happiness of domestic life is the
literature of the drama, because it presents its allure-
ments, not only to the imagination, but to the eye
and ear. It is a confederacy of immodest words with
immodest beauty, gesture, and dress. It is a wicked
song sung by lying lips, but it fascinates like the song
of Vivien
When Merlin look'd and half believed her true,
So tender was her voice, so fair her face.
Books Old and New 263
.t would persuade men that, because
We sin, and all the world goes round,
As if no evil deed were done,
we are afraid where there is no cause for fear ; and it is
most persuasive when a woman sings. Sad, indeed, it is
when she who might have so much influence for good,
of whom it has been said that <c she who rocks the cradle
rules the world," suggests by her pen impurity to the
pure, ridicules virtue, and condones vice ; but she who
personates evil has the greater sin, because she has the
greater power. The first Lord Burleigh is reported to
have said to his son, " Thou shalt find nothing in life
so irksome as a female fool " ; and he might have
added, " Thou shalt find nothing in life so fatal to its
happiness as a female libertine, for it is written c More
bitter than death is the woman whose heart is snares
i > >
and nets.
We must remember, while we condemn these de-
gradations, that they are few and exceptional, that they
exist only when "the people love to have it so," that
the supply would cease with the demand, and that they
who live to please must please to live. If they who call
themselves Christian gentlemen would only patronise
those performances to which they could take their wives
and daughters without fear of disgust, there would be
a large exodus of nymphs in the nude, to return clothed
and in their right mind, and it would be found possible
to entertain an audience without lascivious innuendo or
immoral double entendre. Appeals to man as a mere
264 Then and Now
animal are easily accepted by those who devote them-
selves to eating and drinking, marrying and giving in
marriage ; but the effect, like love which has nothing
but beauty to keep it in good health, is short-lived and
apt to have ague fits. There are theatres now by
the score in which the appeal is addressed by actors
and actresses irreproachable, refined, accomplished
not to the sensual, but to the religious, moral, and
intellectual instincts. There is no excuse for those who
turn away from wholesome food and generous wine to
prey on garbage and to drink bad beer ; and it is the
same with our books as with our plays. Publishers,
booksellers, library committees, as a rule, will have
nothing to do with those writers who would disparage
honour and veneer deceit ; and to the gentlemen who
have the chief control of the circulation of books at our
railway stations we owe a debt of gratitude, the extent
of which is known only to those who have purposely
inspected, as I have, some of the books which they
have placed on their list of Rejected Addresses.
We may number with a righteous pride the authors
who might repeat the words which the most famous
of modern novelists, Charles Dickens, prefixed to his
most famous work : " I trust that throughout this
book no incident or expression occurs which would
call a blush into the most delicate cheek, or wound
the feelings of the most sensitive person " ; and the
authoresses are many of whom may be spoken the
praise which Macaulay wrote of Miss Burney, that
" although she had a keen appreciation of humour, her
Books Old and New 265
language was never inconsistent with morality, nor even
with virgin delicacy." The books are few, very few,
which communicate to gentlemen who read them a
strong desire to kick the author and to ladies a sense
of insult.
With regard to the literature which is the most
important of all, which has the most extensive circula-
tion and the most powerful influence I mean the
literature of the " Fourth Estate," of the newspaper
press every Englishman and Scotchman must feel a
righteous pride in the progress which has been made
in the quantity and quality of its daily and weekly pub-
lications. " The last forty years have seen journalism
extending as a profession from a casual, attenuated, and
precarious calling into a wide and prosperous pursuit,
attracting and supporting perhaps twenty or thirty
men where only one found a footing before."* I was
a contributor to my county newspaper, the Nottingham
Journal, sixty-seven years ago, and having been always
a reader and sometimes a writer, having had much
personal intercourse with editors, journalists, and re-
porters on both sides of the Atlantic, I can testify
to the improvement which has been made both in
the matter and the men. I recall a time when the
quill (how near the god drew to the similitude of
a goose !) was dipped in the gall of bitterness, and
the composition was as weak as the animosity was
* From a most interesting address on " The Press Militant,"
given at a meeting of the Ripon Diocesan Conference by Mr
H. J. Palmer.
266 Then and Now
strong. The sole ambition of the Tory editor was
" to dash the Whigs " and to consume them in the
flames of his wrath, while the Whig editor turned
on Niagaras of cold water to extinguish the fire
and to drown the incendiary arcades ambo et cant are
-pares et respondere parati. Dickens did not exaggerate
the vituperative talents of these disputants when he
quoted the mutual denunciations of the Eatanswill
Independent and the Eatanswill Gazette, in which they
referred to each other as " our worthless contem-
porary," " that disgraceful and dastardly journal,"
" that false and scurrilous print," " that vile and
slanderous calumniator." The epithets are not de-
ficient in vigour, but they cannot compare with an
unsavoury quotation, which I only venture to riiake in
proof of my assertion, from a leading article which
I read in my youth, and in a newspaper which was
entitled the Age, and which commenced with the
words, " In that ball of horse-dung called the Globe."
Quantum mutatus ab illo / the present chief and his
staff, writing as educated gentlemen, and sometimes
when the war of words is over, smoking together,
as members of the same club, the fragrant pipe of
peace.
It is to these men, to their independence and impar-
tiality, that I desire to offer my tribute of admiration
and respect. They may be advocates for a political
party, they may support the men who are in office
or they may desire to substitute others, they may say
satirical and severe things ; but they are unanimous in
Books Old and New 267
maintaining the great fundamental principles of truth
and charity. They may desire to make alterations in
the law, but, until such changes are made, they
insist on obedience to the powers that be. They
translate Pro rege y lege, g re g e > " For the King,
the law, and the people," and not as some (so
Lord Brougham said), " For c King,' read ' people/ '
They may differ as to creeds and communities, but
they believe in Christ ; they do not preach sermons
or indulge in theories or rigid definitions ; they do not
excommunicate or sentence to penal servitude for life ;
they do not undertake to teach men their business ;
but they put facts before them, and leave them to
judge for themselves. They act upon the injunction,
audi alter am fart em ^ and their columns are always
open to any rational protest. They do not gloat on
atrocities or pile up the agony, or invite their readers
to dine in a charnel house or sup in a chamber of
horrors.
Our kinsmen in America transcend us in many
things in their appliance of electricity, in their
inventive genius, in secular education, and in hard
work ; but with a few exceptions, in New York and
other great cities, the newspapers of Jonathan are
but as tinsel, shoddy, and squibs compared with
the newspapers of John. Jonathan has raised a new
variety of the peach and has named it " Stump the
World," but this title would be more worthily
bestowed upon the newspaper of John.
It has been truly said that u for a hundred years in
268 Then and Now
England, the most fruitful century which the world has
seen, the newspaper has been something more than a
chronicle of news. It has been an organ of opinion,
an instrument of reform, a bulwark of public rights,
and an interpreter of public sentiments. After the
manner of our national system it has been allied
with contending parties and schools of thought,
but in that sense only has it been divided in its
allegiance. Throughout every vicissitude of popular
conflict it has been steadily true to the principle
that public interests must dominate over private
objects."
Not only on Olympus, where a Jupiter Tonans
makes his thunder heard through the world, not only
in London, but " wherever men most do congregate "
(and we of the northern and midland districts are in
this matter specially favoured), men of first-rate ability,
honesty, and common sense promote this noble work
and win respect, if not full sympathy, from all.
Many of the happiest hours of my life have been
spent with these ready writers, bright, brotherly, full
of wise saws and modern instances, when they pass
from labour to refreshment, like those boys at school
who work with all their head and play with all their
heart. More than forty years ago, in the homes of
Thackeray, Millais, and Leech, at the Garrick Club,
and elsewhere, it was my privilege to meet many of
the most distinguished writers who were on the staff
of the 'Times when John Delane was king and
Mowbray Morris his prime minister. I was sitting
at dinne
Books Old and New 269
it dinner by Shirley Brooks when he invited the
company to solve an enigma, subsequently published
in Punchy of which he was then the editor. Lord
Palmerston was > Premier, and Lady Palmerston gave
many receptions, which were frequently attended by
the editor of the Times. " Why," said Tunch, " does
Lady Palmerston's residence resemble the establishment
of Messrs. Swan and Edgar ? " and when grim silence
held her solitary reign, he told us : " Because it is the
best house in London for muzzling Delane (mousse line
de laine)" Everybody knew that any such repression
was not within the range of practical politics, and we
all enjoyed without disrespect or hesitation the delicious
feu d* esprit.
Many stories were told of this illustrious president
of the press. In his later years he lamented the
diminution of his hair, and resented any allusion to
his loss. Desiring to send a wedding present to one
of his friends for whom he had a great regard, he
consulted another, in whose taste he had confidence,
as to the selection of his gift. He wanted " some-
thing different to the conventional clocks, inkstands,
gongs, and letter-boxes something which was precious
from its rarity and could not be replaced." The
referee made answer : "If you wish to give him
something which is really becoming very scarce indeed,
why not send him a lock of your hair ? "
There is a good story of another famous editor,
which, being in my anecdotage, I presume to repeat
of Horace Greeley, of the New York Tribune, whose
270 Then and Now
writing was illegible, except the signature. He wrote
a dismissal to one of his employes who had committed
a serious offence, denouncing his misconduct and
demolishing his character with unsparing severity ;
but the recipient, having the sagacity to foresee that
no one would attempt the perusal of a manuscript
of which he himself, although it was familiar to his
sight, and its intention clearly understood, could
only read here and there a word, boldly used it as
" a commendatory letter from his dear old friend
Horace Greeley " in his application to elective com-
mittees, until the usual retribution came. He had
obtained an appointment for which he was in every
way unfit, when Horace Greeley, by an extraordinary
effort, wrote a letter which could be read, and there
was a dissolving view of the elect.
In addition to our daily newspapers, we have an
abundance of weekly, monthly, quarterly publications,
which instruct and entertain us with their clever
essays, reviews, stories, and illustrations. I can only
remember in the days of my youth the Edinburgh
Review, which was the first to
Spread its bright wings of saffron and of blue;
the Quarterly, which John Murray started as an
antidote ; BlackwoocTs Magazine (I tried hard to under-
stand Noctes Ambrosian\ but the wit was too strong
for my boyish brain, and I betook myself to 'The
Diary of a Late Physician, as one who cannot drink
champagne consoles himself with ginger-beer); Frasers
Books Old and New 271
Magazine ; Bent ley's Miscellany, of which Charles
Dickens was the first editor, and in which was first pub-
lished his marvellous story of Oliver 'Twist ; Chambers' s
Journal^ and the Penny Magazine. Now there is an
embarras des richesses^ and he who goes to make
choice at a bookstall is like a boy who goes into a
kitchen garden when the cherries and the raspberries,
the gooseberries and the currants red, black, and
white are all ripe together. Every one who has a
hobby the scientific, the sentimental, the scholar, the
sportsman, the naturalist, the artist, the financier, and
the cyclist has a choice of publications on the subject
which interests him the most.
The last to join the great mixed multitude of the
scribes is the interviewer, male and female. Of these
writers I have had a large and pleasant experience,
having been visited by two hundred in the United
States and by a considerable number on this side of
the Atlantic. I have always welcomed as a compliment
an intimation from the editor of a popular publication
that his readers would be willing to make my further
acquaintance, and I have generally derived from the in-
telligent experts of his staff more interesting information
than I was able to impart. There have been a few
embarrassments, as when I found five journalists awaiting
my arrival at midnight in the hotel of a large American
city ; when I received an invitation through the key-
hole of my bedroom door to commence a conversation
with a gentleman outside, who " bid me discourse "
just when I had carefully prepared myself to be
272 Then and Now
invested or, rather, divested as a companion of the
bath ; and some of the inquiries were complicated
and required more consideration than the opportunity
seemed to suggest, as when the same interrogator
asked me in rapid sequence what I thought of New
York City, Oliver Cromwell, and the Intermediate
State.
CHAPTER XVIII
Parties. L Political
The Blues lost no opportunity in opposing the Buffs and the Buffs
lost no opportunity in opposing the Blues, and the consequence was
that whenever the Buffs and the Blues met together at public meet-
ing, town hall, fair, or market, dispute and high words rose between
them. The Pickwick Papers.
SOME forty years ago I was a guest at a christening
party, invited by my friend Mr. Shirley Brooks, who
was then the editor of Tunch, and at the dejeuner
which took place after the ceremony I sat next to
Mr. Charles Knight, the historian. We were speaking
of the more reverent administration of the Sacrament
publicly at the font in our churches, with sponsors
who felt their responsibilities, instead of the private
performance at one time almost universal with the
slop-basin ; and he told me that when he was a small
child one of his godfathers put a silver coin on the
table and said, " Now, my boy, that half-crown is for
you when you have said, * Damn Billy Pitt.' ' Let
us hope that he who proposed this vile contract really
believed that the honour and welfare of his country
could only be maintained by the relegation of Mr,
2 ?3 1 8
274 Then and Now
Pitt to the region suggested by his name. These
blasphemous condemnations were common, and even
now are not entirely unknown, and were rather the
expressions of prejudice and personal feeling than of
patriotism in a righteous cause. Mr. Knight was many
years my senior, but I recalled in response a similar
occurrence. A boy of six addressed a gentleman of
high position in his county ,- but of Liberal principles,
soon after a great reform riot, in which Nottingham
Castle was burnt, with this solemn warning : " If you
go about throwing stones, breaking windows, and
burning houses, you will go to a bad place."
It is difficult to realise in these days the intensity
of political bias ; we children would hear in our distant
nurseries the strife of tongues after dinner-parties, and
we had horrible dreams that the rioters had arrived
with torches and surrounded the house.
Among the extremists the Tory regarded the
Radical as a Guy Fawkes who was ever making
secret preparations to blow up the British Constitution,
as a sort of fellow who would rob a church, and was
afflicted by a chronic hydrophobia, a dread of cold
water, whether for outward or internal use. The
Radical, on the other hand, was fully convinced that
the Tories were in a state of rapid decomposition,
mental and physical, with their vassals dancing like
monkeys to a barrel organ, forsaken by all but
their fleas.
A lord lieutenant declined to make a magistrate
of a gentleman because he was professedly associated
Parties* L Political 275
with commerce, but really because he belonged to the
Whig party. He did not sympathise with the com-
mendation of the New Testament, bestowed upon
one who had gained by trading. He regarded trade
as a degradation, and would have all work restricted
to the lower orders. Lord John Russell, to whom
an appeal was made, seems to have had more
respectful sympathies with the commercial classes, and
made another appointment. Modifications ensued,
but these inflammable symptoms still continued.
They came to a head and were relieved by copious
hemorrhage at the time of an election. It would be
unbecoming to an aged dignitary to speak in praise
of rude words and rough actions, but I am constrained
to say, with regard to the elections, that the mirth of
the land is gone, and that there were certain beneficial
results, as when the lancet of the surgeon lets out
bad humours, or when two boys who have been
jeering and sneering at each other take off their jackets
and go in. To a fighting nation like ours the election
fifty years ago was a crisis which evoked all the
strategies and energies of an offensive and defensive
war. While potent landlords, clever lawyers, active
agents, fluent speakers, and humorous satirists were
coaxing and intimidating, the Blues met the Reds by
torchlight, and lost no time in tearing each other's
flags into ribbons and in punching each other's heads.
The big drum of the Tories was first perforated by
the trombone of the Radicals, and subsequently
smashed by their ophicleide, and the drummer, after
276 Then and Now
4
belabouring his enemies with the two sticks, retired
a sadder and a lighter man.
The mothers, wives, and daughters of the intelligent
electors were occupied at midnight and in the early
morning, like the armourers on the eve of Agincourt,
with busy hammers, or rather with diachylon, closing
up wounds and applying sponges and poultices, and
bandages and slabs of raw beef, to the swollen faces
of their warriors, who appeared next morning wearing
on their countenances a combination of the colours of
either party, purple and red, and manifesting a strong
reluctance to renew the battle without pecuniary and
alcoholic inducements. As to bribery, there was
neither secrecy nor sense of shame ; the electors knew
the market value of their votes, and where they could
obtain it. Sometimes, when the contest was very
severe, a few astute economists would abstain from
voting until a few minutes from the close of the poll,
when they could name their price as masters of the
situation.
I remember an occasion when, under these circum-
stances, a coterie of a dozen of these free and inde-
pendent electors, having been paid an extravagant sum
for their votes, were assembled waiting for their con-
veyance to the poll. A carriage and four arrived,
the horses and postillions being profusely decorated
with the colours of their party. There was ample
time for the brief journey, but the horses seemed to
be under excitement, and at the crack of the whip
they broke from a trot to a canter, and from a
Parties. L Political 277
canter to a hand gallop, and, instead of taking the
turn which led to the polling booth, went past full
speed, the coachman replying to the remonstrances
of the voters, " Can't hold 'em ; keep still, as you
value your lives ; they will stop at Highmore Hill/'
But Highmore Hill was three miles away, and they
did not stop till they had reached the top opposite
the Red Lion Hotel ; and then the electors, having
been paid their money before they started, and knowing
it was too late to record their votes, refreshed them-
selves until the shades of evening fell, and they could
escape on their return the derision of their opponents,
by whom they had been so successfully duped. The
coachman received a ten-pound note, which he well
deserved, for he literally won the election in a canter.
The strife of tongues and of pens was as persistent
as that of strategy, pugilism, and bribery. The
arguments of the editor, the appeals of the orator,
the poet, the satirist, the punster, and caricaturist
encountered each other. The political squibs hissed
and fizzed with a villainous smell of saltpetre ; it
was a time of terrible retribution to those more pro-
minent electors who had committed some indiscretion
in their youth and appeared in public view upon the
hustings. However exalted their position, they were
rudely addressed by their Christian names, and not
only their conduct as citizens and officials, but their
commercial transactions, their personal character and
private family affairs, were freely criticised ; acts of
dishonesty, intemperance, meanness, however distant
278 Then and Now
the date of commission, were freshly remembered.
For example, to one who had been convicted of using
short weights, the inquiry was made, " Well, Tommy,
my lad, how are you getting on with them new scales,
and how many ounces to the pound ? " " Hollo, Sam,
you've got a new hat; you must have skinned a sight
of flints, Sammy, before you bought that hat." The
newspaper announcements were cruelly severe : " It
is commonly reported that should the present Govern-
ment remain in office, our vicar will be raised to the
episcopate ; he has special qualifications for the office,
having had for half a century the supervision of four
important livings, and being connected with members
of the aristocracy. It is announced that a baronetcy will
be offered to one of our esteemed fellow-townsmen.
In addition to his established reputation as a manufac-
turer of artificial manure, he belongs to a family for
which the bloody hand will be especially appropriate,
as his father was engaged in the same occupation as
the father of the great Cardinal Wolsey."
The blank walls of the town were adorned principally
with drawings in chalk of those leading politicians who
were remarkable for some excess or defect in their form,
features, or dress, for noses Roman or retrousse, length
of ear, width of mouth, absence or superabundance of
hair, obesity or emaciation. A bow-legged alderman was
represented as attempting to stop a pig in a gate with the
legend below, <c The blue boar makes a vain attempt to
bolt." A ballet girl was represented in costume, with
the words underneath, " Vote for Lord Dash, patron
Parties. L Political 279
of the drama and the fine arts/' Finally, these outrages
and enormities became intolerable, and a suggestion was
made for the ballot. It was received with uproar and
execrations. It was sneaking, cowardly, un-English,
an innovation and an insult. A meeting was held at
which it was denounced with great vigour, when a
working man in the body of the hall asked to be
allowed to make an inquiry. Having obtained per-
mission to speak, he addressed himself to the gentleman
who had just sat down. " I think, sir, you are a
member of two or three clubs in London and elsewhere>
political and social. May I ask by what process
you were elected ? " The reply was, " By the usual
course. I was proposed, seconded, and elected by a
majority of votes." "Permit me further to ask,"
said the inquirer, " by what process were these votes
recorded ? " After some hesitation the answer was made :
" By the ballot." " With what object ? " To prevent
feelings of resentment on the part of those who were
not elected against those who opposed their election."
" Then may I ask, sir, why this secret method, which
was wisely adopted by you noblemen and gentlemen in
London to prevent ill-feeling, is forbidden to us working
men, on whom it brings so much bitter persecution, and
even the possibility of the loss of our daily maintenance.
Why is the ballot box regarded in London as an
ancient and honourable institution and denounced in
the country as little better than the burglar's box of
tools?" There was no satisfactory reply, and the
working man moved an amendment approving of the
280 Then and Now
ballot as likely to promote freedom from temptation
to bribery, from intimidation and injustice. This
amendment was rejected by such a small majority that
the victory was virtually a defeat, and the Bill shortly
afterwards became the law of the land.
The electors who only regarded their vote as a
marketable article were both depressed and elated:
some spoke of it as a pecuniary deprivation, and
some said, " I like this new system ; I can get a bit of
help from both sides and then vote as I please." The
new process, I must confess, although most beneficent,
is comparatively dull and tame. I go to the National
schoolroom and I find three clerks sitting at a table,
representing, I suppose, the Conservative, Unionist, and
Radical parties. The two first smile at my arrival,
the third appears unconscious of my presence. I
receive my ticket, and, taken to another compartment,
as though I was about to enjoy a shower bath or to
ascend by a lift, I put a cross to the name of the
candidate whom I support, and I return without a
groan or a cheer, without any allusion to my appear-
ance or shortcomings. Nevertheless, I rejoice in the
results ; they help to allay the malicious, vindictive
retaliations, and make it easier for us to agree to
differ. The Tories have discovered that a man may be
a Radical without being a regicide, and the Radicals are
conscious that certain Tories and Unionists believe that
some of our venerable institutions are capable of im-
provement and adaptation to their present surroundings.
On one subject these two parties have been, and always
Parties. L Political 281
will be, at variance without hope of agreement namely,
which of the two should be in office.
This emulation provokes and perpetuates a vigorous
competition and organised system of attack and defence
between those who occupy the seats of the mighty and
those' who desire to oust them ; and there is always,
in addition to this established rivalry, a number of
bigots, fanatics, and faddists, who seem to regard it
as their special mission to thwart their superiors and
to oppose every scheme of improvement which does
not exactly agree with their desires and dogmas. The
political horizon is thus continally darkened by these
clouds without rain, driven about by winds ; but hope
descries in the orient the dawn of a brighter day.
It is heralded by the unanimity upon subjects of
supreme importance, such as the honour of the
empire and the happiness of the people, among those
who think earnestly, speak temperately, and listen
patiently, who may be convinced by argument even
to make concessions, and to accept defeat without the
constraint of the closure. The longing to "Damn
Billy Pitt," or in words more appropriate to our
own day, to annihilate the Right Hon. Joseph
Chamberlain, is now restricted to a few impotent
folk, whose religion, although they profess Christianity,
resembles more closely that of the unjust judge, who
neither feared God nor regarded man ; who, pledged to
loyalty, act as though they were aliens to the common-
wealth of Israel, and by their indecent behaviour
and coarse conversation, remind us more of a drunken
282 Then and Now
lot of miners assembled at a dog-fight than of
Christian statesmen met in council for the punish-
ment of wickedness and vice and the maintenance
of true religion and virtue. The most devoted
admirers of Sir Robert Peel would not venture to
assert that in his wonderful prescience he foresaw a
time when the mutual courtesies which always prevail
among gentlemen would be ignored in the House
of Commons, but they certainly may say of him
that he provided the remedy, the only remedy, for
this disgraceful rowdyism when he instituted the
new police.
CHAPTER XIX
Parties. IL Social
Alas 1 'tis far from russet frieze,
To silk and satin gowns ;
But I doubt if God made like decrees
In courtly hearts and clowns.
HOOD.
IN our social as well as in our political intercourse
great changes present themselves to the experience,
and for the most part to the admiration, of the
octogenarian. Some seventy years ago the higher and
middle classes were separated, as it were, by a great river
so broad and deep and running over, so rough on its
surface, so rapid in its currents, and so steep in its
banks that very few pass to and fro. It has been
bridged over. The man with the pedigree and the
man with the purse have met and shaken hands.
Aristocracy and commerce have kissed each other.
Noble lords of high degree have taken a lively
interest in shares and companies, markets and manu-
factories, imports and exports, even in the improve-
ments of hansom cabs and in the combinations of
malt and hops.
Lord Agincourt is known to be an extensive
283
284 Then and Now
shareholder in the brewery of Messrs. Potts, and
even ladies of quality have been financially and
practically associated with the millinery art. This
mutual accommodation and intercourse has expelled
disparities and created assimilations ; there have been
alliances of a closer and more enduring sentiment ;
announcements have frequently appeared in the local
newspapers that "a marriage has been arranged, and
will shortly take place, between the Hon. Kemp ton
Park, second son of Lord Sandown, and Stephanotis
Alexandrina, the youngest daughter of our respected
Mayor and Mayoress, Sir Jeremiah and Lady Martha
Brown." The disparities to which I have referred were
manifest. The sons of the nobility and landed gentry had
from childhood the surroundings of refinement, the
splendid education of our public schools and univer-
sities, which prove the Latin precept,
Ingenuas puero didicisse fideliter artes
Emollit mores nee sinit esse feros,
and these, with their opportunities of travel and of
acquiring information and accomplishments, together
with their love of manly sports, made them, as a rule,
good masters, good landlords, good magistrates, and,
as they remain to this day, such a body of brave and
honourable gentlemen as no other nation can show.
There were disagreeable exceptions ; there were, as
with vicious horses, certain cases which defied the
efforts of the trainer. Here and there, in different parts
of the country, examples were to be seen of pride and
Parties, IL Social 285
prejudice which assumed in their small dominion an almost
regal importance. There were men " who sat upon
thrones of purple sublimity " and expected universal
homage. They relished that sort of drop-down-
deadness which a certain Bishop of London, according
to Sydney Smith, was pleased to contemplate in his
clergy. " Humpty Dumpty sat on his wall ; " and it
was plainly intimated to all passers-by not to come too
close between the wind and his nobility, but to make
their bows and curtseys. They expected and relished
humility in others because none knew so well as they
did, how well it became the inferior orders, and was
a just tribute to their own deserts. Sometimes, when
these magnates met their dependents, conversation was
permitted in the royal presence, but was conducted
sotto voce, and any ebullition of merriment was
repressed by the reproachful surprise of the audience,
who evidently regarded the interruption to be quite
indecorous, as though some one was whistling in a
mausoleum. To the philosophic mind the whole per-
formance was irresistibly comic, for there is nothing so
ludicrous as " side." The clown at the circus has never
his rural audience in such uproarious sympathy, nor the
accomplished comedian in a London theatre a better
opportunity of manifesting his power, than when he
" holds a mirror up to nature " and exposes to ridicule
the silly imbecilities of ostentatious pride ; but these
cease to be comic when they become insolent, and they
were insolent at the time of which I speak.
I remember an occasion when one of these parochial
286 Then and Now
bashaws received an invited guest with a nod of such
cold indifference as must have suggested to the recipient
that he had accidentally entered an ice-house. There
were times when they extended a single finger, the first
of the right hand, in gracious condescension to those
who were permitted to approach them ; and I recall
a joyful incident, when an undergraduate, the scion
of a family far more noble and distinguished than that
of the oligarch to whom he was presented, expressed
his resentment of the indignity and gratified his keen
sense of humour by inspecting the protrusive digit
through his eyeglass closely and calmly as though it
were the forepaw of a dog silently appealing for relief
from pain, and then passing on with the remark, " Sorry
I can't see the thorn." Some of the spectators went
through a painful ordeal in their attempts to repress
any outward manifestation of their inward rapturous
joy ; and the prince was more abstemious than before in
the use of this sign-manual. If you came from another
county to the precincts of one of these autocrats,
you were expected to bring an introduction, or at least
to claim acquaintanceship with other grandees of an
equal magnitude. Did you know the Katts of Chester,
the Knottes of Stafford, the Tykes of Yorkshire, the
Lambs of Notts, the Dales of Derbyshire, the Lanes of
Devon, the Hills of Surrey, the Downes of Sussex, the
Fennes of Lincoln, the Perrys of Hereford, the Pippins
of Worcester, the Foxes of Leicester, . the Lacys of
Bucks, the Bloaters of Norfolk, the Hoppers of Kent,
the Forrests of Hampshire, the Cottons of Lancashire,
Parties, IL Social 287
the Lakes of Westmoreland, the Wells of Somerset, the
Bacons of Berkshire ?
On public occasions, when the people of the town
and the county met together, there were broad lines of
demarcation. At the county balls, for example, the
nobles and squires filled their houses with selected
guests, and took them to the assembly to devote
themselves to their coteries, not to dance or converse
with others. They made merry, as they went home
in the huge omnibus, at the expense of the gaucheries,
hairdressing, and costume of the inferior orders ; but
their mirth might have been modified had they heard
the indignant protests and severe criticisms of those
who went home in their flies, having been left out in
the cold their reference to ancient traditions which
detracted from those claims to superiority which they
had recently witnessed, stories of mesalliances, gaps in
pedigrees, vulgar relations, incarcerations for debt, and
other disagreeable topics. Even where these claims of
long descent were clear and honourable, it was found
that in a great many instances the wealth of the
claimants had been inherited from those who had
acquired it in commercial pursuits, from City merchants,
grocers, drapers, goldsmiths, silversmiths, vintners,
dealers in hard and every other ware, by the honest
industry of those who lived over their shops in London
and elsewhere.
Even the servants showed an offensive discrimina-
tion. They were beautiful beings in their coats
of many colours, who inspired my childhood with
288 Then and Now
awe, and in one particular instance with adoration
a form arrayed in amber-coloured satin, glistening like
gold, which I associated with a celestial world, and
should not have been surprised if at any moment his
epaulets had expanded into wings. But they were dis-
tinctly human ; in the case of Mr. Brown they filled
the miserable vessel out of which champagne was drunk
with froth at long intervals, whereas his titled neigh-
bour was carefully and frequently supplied with the
wine without effervescence ; and the difference of tone
with which they announced " Squire Wilson's carriage "
and a Mr. Watson's conveyance " was sufficient to make
Mr. Watson wish that he had walked to the banquet.
They gave themselves such airs that I was pleased to
hear from a young farmer on the hunting field that he
had met a covey of "them cockatoos," as he called
them, the evening before at the village inn, and they
had made themselves so objectionable to the rest
of the company that he had been compelled to state
that if any one of them would step into the middle of
the room or into the stable-yard outside he would knock
all the powder out of his head in the brief space of
ten seconds. Since then there has been a great trans-
formation, since Dickens wrote of our friend Blazes
and Thackeray of Jeames FitzPlush ; and there is no
class of men more orderly in their behaviour or
attentive to their duties than the servants of the upper
classes.
And as regards their masters, there is manifestly a
wider and wiser inclination in their fellow-men to make,
Parties. IL Social 289
and in themselves to accept, that truer valuation which
weighs the man without his money-bags and measures
him without his high-heeled shoes. The boast of
heraldry is so frequently little more than a boast, as
when Sheridan, the son of an actor, announced himself
at a great dinner of the Theatrical Fund in London
to be sprung from the loins of kings, and one of the
audience whispered to his neighbour, "This statement
is perfectly true ; the last time I saw his father he was
King of Denmark, and I had previously met him when
he was King Lear and Richard III."
Brains and virtue cannot be entailed, and when
Canova was asked by an old lady whether he
intended to continue his father's business, he replied
that he could not say that it exactly suited him,
and Sir Tatton Sykes, when a visitor small in
stature but large in self-importance severely criticised
some of his thoroughbred horses, replied, " Well, sir,
perhaps you are right; we can't get everything just
as we want. If we could, sir, perhaps your father
would like you to have been a little longer in the leg,
but we must not expect to have all things just as we
please." Good breeding justifies great expectations,
but it is not certified until the speed of the horse and
the honesty of the rider have won the race. When the
clerk at the bank is counting the sovereigns he takes
no notice of the superscription.
The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man's the gow'd for a' that.
19
290 Then and Now
And so it has come to pass that the questions, Where's
his place? What's his income and his club? are
not so frequent as, What sort of fellow is he ? What
is he doing ? What has he done ? Wise men learn
from what they read, and from what they experience,
and from what they see, that " the true meaning of good
society is the company of good men " ; that the most
enjoyable is that of experts men with brains and
energy who have achieved greatness, sailors and soldiers
who have seen service (the khaki coat of the man
from South Africa " is worth a hundred coats of
arms "), thoughtful travellers, clever diplomatists, and
great engineers, the sportsmen among big game, men of
letters, famous lawyers, philanthropists, artists, of all men
in their several vocations that have made their mark.
But these are luxuries too rich and rare, like Terapin
and canvas-backed ducks, for <c human nature's daily
food," and that we shall find in its most healthful and
happiest form at home and with our neighbours. This
felicity, as with our other greatest blessings, is for us
all. Any man by uprightness and kindness may enlist
troops of friends, and happiest he who has the most
of them, for there can scarcely be a truer pleasure
than when he goes abroad to have the kindly smile
and genial words of welcome from all sorts and
conditions of men.
The greatest improvement which I have witnessed
in our social intercourse, and which at no period
was more evidenj than now, is the earnest desire
and practical effort of the wealthier classes to discover
Parties, II. Social 291
and alleviate the sufferings and the sorrows of the poor;
it is seen everywhere and always in the numerous
benevolent societies which they have established
and individual good works clergymen and laymen,
brotherhoods and sisterhoods, nurses and district
visitors, young men of our public schools and uni-
versities in the East End slums of London, and
young women devoting themselves to hospital and
educational work. This sympathy has been largely
encouraged by the example of Queen Victoria herself,
following in her long and beautiful life the Highest
Example of all, and has inspired, not only in her own
family, but among all classes, the noblest of all
ambitions, to " bear one another's burdens and so
fulfil the law of Christ."
CHAPTER XX
Parties. IIL Religious
Love is like the ocean
Ever fresh and strong,
Which the world surrounding,
Keeps it green and young.
ISAAC WILLIAMS.
As in politics and society, so in the matter of supreme
importance, religion, there is less intolerance and more
charity. We still deplore our unhappy divisions
righteously, because they have been chiefly caused by our
own neglect and self-conceit, and we still see miserable
signs of that most odious of all hatreds, the odium
theologicum. But there is evidence of our great desire
for reconciliation, and we begin to care less for pro-
fessions and more for practical Christianity, less for
creeds and communities, more for the faith which
worketh by love. We are more and more convinced
that, although we cannot have unanimity as to doctrine
or uniformity as to worship, we may hold that faith
in the unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in
righteousness of life. We perceive more and more
clearly that there are differences of gifts from the
292
Parties* III. Religious 293
same Giver, and differences of administrations from
the same Sovereign Lord of all ; that the separations
which seem so wide to us may be of small significance
in the eyes of our Heavenly Father, " Who knows all
and loves us better than He knows."
For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of man's mind,
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind ;
But we make His love too narrow
With false limits of our own,
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.
We are becoming less anxious to learn our Chris-
tianity from the scribe and the disputer, from the
novelist who sets before us from his or her own
imaginations the Christian and the Master Christian, and
desire to be taught by the life and love of the Master
Himself from the New Testament and the Gospel ;
to be followers of those of whom it is simply said :
" The vicar sat up with John for two nights and is
coming again to-morrow. My lady brought those
beautiful grapes and put them on that table with her
own hands," and to whom it will be said hereafter,
" I was sick and ye visited me ; I was thirsty and ye
gave me drink." There is much less bitterness, wrath,
strife, and envy among us than there Was when the
Wesleyan Methodists were severed from the Church
of England, and were regarded with a resentful disdain.
The examples of intolerance were infinite, but none more
294 Then and Now
remarkable than this : A member of a family distinguished
for intellectual culture and benevolent works, influenced
by a zeal which was not according to knowledge,
believing dissent was schism and that all schism was
sin, was invited by a friend to dinner with the earnest
request that he would not introduce any controversial
subject with regard to religion, as he expected the
company of another friend for whom he had a great
regard, and who was a Nonconformist. The party
assembled ; by an unhappy arrangement the two men
whose views were opposed to each other sat side by
side. Before much time had elapsed it was evident that
they were engaged in a discussion which became more
loud and furious, until at last the Nonconformist, white
with emotion and with quivering lips, was heard to
exclaim, "Then, sir, I suppose, according to your
views, no IsFonconformist can be saved." " On the
contrary, sir," the answer came, like a bolt from the
blue, " I read in the seventh verse of the thirty-sixth
Psalm that the Lord can save both man and beast."
This virulence could not sate itself with mere
verbiage, but in many deplorable instances took the
form of action, in notices to quit sent to tenants, in
the refusal of applications for vacant tenancies, in the
transfer of orders and employment, and even in the
cessation of social intercourse ; it was the addition of
insult to injury, the evil spirit which prompts odisse
quern leaser is, of the injusta noverca, who first starves
her child, then beats him because he goes begging for
food. It was not so much that the people left the
Parties. III. Religious 295
Church, as that the Church deserted the people. If
loving shepherds had tended and fed, the sheep would
not have been scattered on the mountains. When I
first took Holy Orders and returned home, not only as
the squire, but as the new curate, I went to call upon a
very old man who was the head of the Wesley an body
in our village. I have never forgotten the interview,
and remember his words.
" They told me," he said, " that your reverence
would never come to see old Jos Green, the dis-
senter, but I have known you from the time that
you were a baby in arms and went birdsnesting
with your grandfather, and I knew that you would
come. I am anxious to say a few plain words to you
before I die, and I hope that they will make you think
kindly of me and of our society when I go hence. For a
number of years there have been in this place and else-
where many of us who could not find in the Church the
instruction, the guidance, and encouragement for which
we craved ; our vicar was never seen among us
within the memory of man ; the curates lived at a
distance, and only came once a week for a single
service ; there 'was no heart in the worship and very
little Gospel in the sermon. We wanted to hear a little
less about the Church and more about Christ, less about
the prayer-book and more about the New Testament,
less about the Thirty-Nine Articles and more about
the two great commandments of the law. We heard
a great deal about our privileges as Churchmen, but we
could not see the fruit ; no one had a greater share
296 Then and Now
of those privileges than the parish clerk, but he was
such a drunkard that the village folk would not come
back with him from market in the carrier's cart. We
sought in vain for the encouragement, instruction, and
brotherly love which we so earnestly desired.
" One of our brother Wesleyans went some years ago,
before he joined our society, to ask counsel and sympathy
from the curate. After a brief conversation the clergy-
man said he thought there was something wrong in his
system and gave him an out-patient's ticket ! There was
indeed something wrong in his system a sinful and
sorrowful heart which no earthly doctor could cure, but
he sought and found health from the Great Physician,
and one night he stood up in our little chapel and said
quietly, * I thank God I am a converted man,' and as
such he lived and died.
" We heard a great deal that was true and right about
the grace of baptism, but we were not told that that
grace was continued only to those who kept their
baptismal vows and brought forth the fruits of the
spirit. Little or nothing was said to us about the need
of conversion. ' Except ye be converted and become
as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of
Heaven.' We wanted the Spirit bearing witness with
our spirit that we were still the children of God. We
wanted to feel the comfort and joy of His presence,
Who had promised that we should dwell with Him
and He with us. We wanted to feel our hearts glow
within us like the two disciples with whom He went to
Emmaus on the Resurrection Day, and spake to them
Parties* III. Religious 297
of the things belonging to their peace. We have
found that which we sought and we know that which
we prayed that we might know. I have been twice
to the church since you came as our minister, and was
thankful to see the old church made clean and bright,
those young Samuels in their linen ephods, and more
of the congregation taking part in the service. I hope
you will allow me to say that I liked your sermon,
though I did not understand much about the Anglo
Catholos. Farmer Brown said as it meant the Romans,
but I couldn't bring that in. You'll forgive an old
man for telling you that he hopes that before long
you'll leave that purple velvet case at home and speak
from your own heart and spiritual experience to your
hearers. First commune with your own heart, search
the Scriptures, visit the sick, comfort the sorrowful,
preach more from your own life and less from your
library. I do not deny, and none knows better than
yourself, that there are and have been many excellent
members of the Church, but I do not think that they
have derived the advantage which they might have
had from the Church itself."
I believe that the results of that interview and
of many others have been beneficial to both. I
became more anxious to repair the wrongs which had
been done and to acknowledge my desire that we
had more of that earnestness and faith in our con-
gregations, and my companion expressed his belief that
if the spirit of the Evangelical and Oxford Movement
had breathed over the dry bones in John Wesley's
298 Then and Now
time, neither he nor his disciples would have gone
outside of the Church.
The Wesleyan Methodists have outlived persecution,
and have become one of the most successful of our
missionary bodies at home and abroad, but there were
some who never overcame their prejudice and antipathy.
There was another old man whom I used to visit who
also claimed to be a converted Christian, and who could
show good proof of his conversion. He had been for
many years afflicted with an epidemic which attacks all
classes an obstinate aversion to continuous work.
Tommy Gibbs was idle and therefore mischievous,
easily dissuaded from doing right and easily persuaded
to do wrong. He had some good instincts, could work
well when he pleased, was kind-hearted and helpful
to others, but would accept no regular employment,
a his chief delight on a shiny night in the season
of the year," and the chief source of his daily sub-
sistence, being the art of a poacher. He was so fond
of relating the great change in his life, and told it so
often to me, that I can repeat it almost verbatim.
<c It was the squire," he said, " as first made a
new man of me when he guv me that hare. I
was loungin' about one day a-studyin' natural history,
more particularly the habits of the trout, the
pheasant, and the partridge, when I came suddenly
on the squire out a-shootin'. I touched my hat,
and to my great surprise he turns to Mr. Dawson,
the keeper, and says to him, * Give Tommy Gibbs
a hare.' Mr. Dawson comes lookin' as though they'd
Parties. III. Religious 299
given him a pint of vinegar, and growlin' and snarlin'
like a beast in Wombwell's menagerie, and gives me
the hare. I must say I felt queer and uncomfort-
able, for I deserved anything but kindness from the
squire. And there was worse to come, for no long time
after, when I went my rounds, I heard one pussy
squealing in a snare and found another struggling hard
by. Well, you'll hardly believe it, but I give you my
word of honour I let both of them hares go.
<c Of course I went back to the old way, but I got some-
how set more and more against it, and I was fined and
fined, and prisoned and prisoned, till at last I went
straight from the gaol to the squire and I ses to him,
' Squire, if you'll give me a bit of honest work, I'll kiss
the Book and never poach no more/ Next day Mr.
Dawson comes and ses, 'Tommy, you're to go into the
woods and to do any jobs as you may be called upon to
do,' and from that day I never poached fur or feather on
the squire's ground. I felt it my duty to fetch in a few
coveys as had been hatched by our birds outside the
boundaries, and if you look in the game-book at the
hall you'll find that there was more game killed during
the first two years in which I served under Mr. Dawson
than in any other seasons before or since. There's
always a lot of people interfering with other folks'
business, and some of them went and made a complaint
to the squire. He sent for me, and 'Gibbs,' he ses
I knowed it were something serious when he called me
'Gibbs' Til have no skulkin' actions on my property,
and if J hear of you nettin' any more partridges, away
300 Then and Now
you go.' Never again did I meddle with net or wire,
and no one knows better than you do (for no one has
helped me so much as you have) that I have tried from
that time to go straight.
" Not long ago one of the Wesleyans ses to
me, c Tommy, my lad, we all know as you're a
changed man and you seem to be seeking salvation.
I think it would do you good if you were to come
now and then to our chapel on a Sunday evening.' c I
thank you kindly/ I said, * but the old church is
good enough for me, and I mean to stick to it, and
moreover/ I ses, ' to tell you the plain truth, I don't
like some of your ways. You seem to me to be a-
trespassin' and a-poachin' ' (this was pretty good for a
past master), ' and if I were the Archbishop of Canter-
bury or the chairman of quarter sessions, or whoever's
got the job, I'd fine you all round, for shootin' without
a certificate.' '
Then came the scare with regard to the Catholic
Emancipation Bill, or rather the pretence of a scare,
for there was no more reality in it than in Punctis
famous cartoon of Lord John Russell chalking " No
Popery " on Cardinal Wiseman's door and then run-
ning away. Everbody knew, except a few fanatics,
Orangemen, and hysterical females, that it was an
act of justice. Newman is credibly reported to have
said that the English people regarded Roman Catholics
with mixed feelings of hate and fear. It was one of
his hard sayings after he left the Church of his baptism,
and in strange contrast with the gentleness and humility
Parties* III. Religious 301
which made him so beloved at Oxford. The English
people hate whatsoever things are false, arrogant, cruel,
or sensual, but they admire whatsoever things are
true and just and lovely and pure in the Roman
Catholic religion or in any other. No one knew
better than John Henry Newman and he acknow-
ledged it more than once their toleration and
sympathy, and as for fear, no one knew better than
he that they had no apprehension as to any Papal
interference. They know more of Runnymede than
the cabman who announced to his fare through the
orifice at the top of his vehicle, " That's Runny-
mede, sir where John the Baptist signed the Order of
the Garter," and what they know is this, that as the
barons of England, with Stephen Langton, Archbishop
of Canterbury, at their head, resisted King John and
the Pope, represented by his legate, so now any similar
encroachment would be rejected by this " Church and
Realm."
It would be far better for the happiness of us all
if, instead of wasting time in vain anticipations and in
aggravating our disagreements, we would remember
that all Christian communities, all soldiers enlisted
under the banner of the Cross, are solemnly pledged,
using their own arms and led by their own officers, to
take part with Michael and his angels against the Devil
and his angels in that battle between truth and falsehood,
good and evil, which in this world will never cease.
Fight the good fight with all thy might,
Christ is thy strength and Christ thy right.
CHAPTER XXI
Our Homes
That haunt of ancient peace,
An English home.
TENNYSON.
ALTHOUGH our domestic happiness is not derived
from the adornments and comforts of our homes,
but mainly, as Keble tells us, from the mutual love
" in hearts of each other sure/' these adjuncts, beautiful
and useful, have a great power to increase and
maintain it, even as the beautiful wife appears to her
devoted husband yet more charming in her most
becoming dress. When young love dreams of
happiness in a cottage it is understood to refer to
a cottage ornee : it is not to the cottage, but to the
homes of those who have the refined taste and the
income wherewith to enjoy its demonstrations that these
modern improvements are so abundantly offered.
There is a remarkable contrast between the homes
of the upper and middle classes as they were
sixty years ago and as we see them now. The
square masses of brickwork and the long lines
of narrow windows, the scanty dark and ponderous
302
Our Homes 303
furniture of our ancestral homes which made them
externally about as picturesque as the front of a
doll's house and as cheerful within as the committee-
room of a hospital or the anteroom of a dentist are
exchanged for the varied outlines and graceful structures
of the modern architect ; for an ample admission of
light, unknown in those dark ages, when glass was
an expensive luxury ; for the superior skill of the
furnisher and decorator, with his rich store of carpets
and papers ; and above all, for the artistic arrangements
of the inmates themselves.
Where shall we find a prettier scene than in
the morning- or drawing-rooms of those who have
the higher appreciations and accomplishments for
which this country is largely indebted to his
Royal Highness Prince Albert, and which since
his day have been so extensively promoted and so
cleverly educated by our schools of art. On the
piano is May's newest fantasia and Cecily's favourite
song ; close by is Bessie's violin and stand ; here on
an easel is Violet's latest sketch ; and elsewhere on
its frame a piece of beautiful embroidery, with other
indications of useful as well as ornamental work.
There are sofas, lounges, and ottomans which would
have evoked the contempt of our grandmothers, who
sat bolt upright on straight-backed chairs till luxury
corrupted the human heart by suggesting that those
chairs might be made " easy." There are little tables
adjacent whereon are new books, magazines appealing
to us by the long white paper-knife upon them " bid
304 Then and Now
me discourse, I will enchant thine ear," writing-tables
with full cases of paper and envelopes fresh from
the stores, with new quills on the unsullied blotter
constraining us to sit down and begin, cc . I have been
longing, dearest, for many weeks to write to you,
but this is my first opportunity," etc., etc., etc.
Here is a case of butterflies and there of foreign
birds exquisitely set up by Ward ; a cabinet with its
shelves of rare china, Oriental, Sevres, and Spode ; a
table for silver and curios, including some of those
lovely miniatures which cause us to regret that we
have not more largely inherited the beauty of our
great-grandmothers or the taste of our great-grand-
fathers in dress ; plants and flowers everywhere
on the stand, in the bay window, in jardinieres,
bowls, and vases ; on the hearthrug the big
Chow dog, John Chinaman, with his lustrous eyes,
his empurpled tongue as though he had fed on
mulberries, his tawny leonine coat and the white
feathery aigrette of his tail ; near him a gay little
fox-terrier, Merry, white with red spots, longing
and listening for some kind pedestrian to take her
to the bracken where the coneys dwell. With a
few choice pictures and engravings on the wall,
what can mortal wish for more ? There is something
to interest and to occupy those who work and those
who play, or, wisest of all, those intelligent beings
who do both in combination, who cannot be quite
happy even in their rest and relaxation without some
work in hand or contemplation.
Our Homes 305
The family and social gatherings of those who enjoy
these advantages and accomplishments are far more
bright and edifying than those of the olden time.
With regard to our dinner-parties, I must say that,
so far as the dinner itself was concerned, it was more
highly appreciated. We had better appetites we had
no meal before breakfast, no elaborate luncheon, and
dined at an earlier hour. We wanted no hors d'auvres
or menus about as long as Leporello's list of Don
Juan's favourites, savouries, and tit-bits. We had
excellent food fish, flesh, and fowl set upon the
table, and deftly carved by the host and the gentleman
who took in the lady of the house, before the art of
carving was lost. The four corner dishes, with their
vessels for hot water underneath, were handed round
in sequence ; and thereby hangs a tale, for when I
see them as they now reappear at the daily breakfasts,
I am reminded of an incident which John Leech was
wont to describe, to the great amusement of his
friends, albeit to his own disgust. He was staying
at a ducal home in which he was delighted with
everything except a small but obese specimen
of the King Charles spaniel, which fed from his
master's plate, and when a footman removed one of
the corner dishes aforesaid, crawled across the table
to warm himself on the vacant space, and continued
his pilgrimage until all the dishes were gone. Leech
was fond of animals, but he never referred to that
particular episode without a shudder. As to our wines,
the champagne was decidedly inferior to the gooseberry
20
306 Then and Now
and ginger vintage prepared by the farmers' wives ;
our claret resembled a second-class burgundy, and was
frequently brought up in the black bottle, that it
might not lose its refreshing chill. But our hocks,
sherries, madeiras, and ports were excellent.
In the drawing-room we were rather dull. The
apartment was high and spacious, the foreign woods
and marbles were beautifully carved, there were huge
mirrors and bright damask silks ; the chandeliers, with
their glittering pendants, gave us from an abundance
of wax candles the most cheerful of all artificial light ;
but there was, nevertheless, a pomp and circumstance
which seemed to repress hilarity. The dignity of
the landed interest and the quarter sessions had to
be maintained in a mixed company. There was a
secret sense of superiority and inferiority on the
subject of acreage. One of the guests was some-
times suspected of unsound views about reform ;
another was known to be more attached to the
pheasant than the fox (his coverts had been drawn
blank that very day), and he was therefore regarded
as an abandoned character, capable of any crime.
Sometimes an irritable dame fumed in a corner, and
declined to enter into conversation with the other
guests because, when they were sent in to dinner, her
claims for precedence had not been duly considered,
and she had been associated with a companion whom
she subsequently described as "an obscure person."
One of the daughters of the house gave us an elaborate
performance by Thalberg on the piano, by Collard &
Our Homes 307
Collard, admirably played, but needlessly and tediously
prolonged by the persistent efforts of a gay cavalier
in attendance, who thought that he could read music,
to turn over the leaves in the wrong places. Another
young lady sang to us the pathetic history of " Roland
the brave, the brave Roland," and, encouraged by our
applause, took us into her confidence and gave us a
thrilling account of her meeting her lover at a large
party how he came, and she was unable to breathe
because his eye was upon her. Assured of our
sympathy, she favoured us with a further revelation,
and finally informed us that all her anguish was
brought upon her by her mother, the old lady sitting
quietly by, blandly smiling on her child and evidently
quite incapable of unkind treatment ; whereupon we
betook ourselves to loo, quadrille, and whist, and then,
but not till then, to our cigars.
Society has many fascinations and excitements to
lure us from its more simple and pure enjoyments ;
but when the time of contrast and reflection comes as
it comes to all and old men ask themselves, " When,
where, and with whom did 1 spend my happiest hours,"
then the conviction comes also that they were given
to us in the affectionate intercourse of those nearest
and dearest to us not in the fickle attachments of smart
people, generally bestowed with a view to admiration
or influence, but to the sincerity of the friend who
loveth at all times and the brother born for adversity.
It is then that we have in sweet and grateful remem-
brance the sonata of Beethoven, not the song of the
308 Then and Now
music-hall ; the play from Shakespeare, and not from
the French ; the cricket at Lord's, and not the pigeons
at Hurlingham ; the earnest conversations which we
had with the dear old father or the dear young son
in the garden on the evening of a summer's day or
by the cosy fireside in winter, with the schoolmate,
the comrade in arms, the shipmate, or the old college
friend, not the idle persiflage or the insipid reiterations
of the salon and the stairs.
Passing through the hall as we leave these homes,
we see the implements of the sports and games, old
and new, of which I have written in detail whips,
long and short, for driving and riding ; Alpine
stocks for the mountains and walking-sticks for
the plains ; the bats, stumps, balls and pads, gloves
and nets, belonging to the grandest game of all ;
the footballs and bowls, the nets and racquets of
lawn tennis, the clubs for golf, the bows and the
targets, the hoops and mallets for croquet all bearing
witness that mental and physical culture, mens sana
in corf ore sano, should be kept in close alliance with
each other.
There was a time when a mistaken idea prevailed
that there was no grace of congruity between intellectual
and muscular strength. I remember when the sporting
undergraduate, " the beardless youth who rejoices in
horses and dogs," regarded the scholar as a smug
and a duffer; he heard him with admiration and
astonishment construing a chorus in the lecture-room
from the Agamemnon of .ZEschylus, and knowing that
Our Homes 309
he was equally at home with Aristotle on the Ethics
and Longinus on the Sublime,
still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew,
he nevertheless despised him, with reference to manly
exercises, as a hopeless imbecile. The scholar saw
" young Harry leap on his steed " at the end of
Brasenose Lane "like winged Mercury, to witch the
world with noble horsemanship," and turning to the
Schools hard by, long before the new were built in
the High Street, consoled himself with the thought
how that gallant knight would hereafter be rolled in
the dust after a tilt with the examiners, and what a
doleful sight he would be when he left them after
those wise but cruel ravens had amused themselves
by plucking out the gaudy feathers from his wing.
Indications began to multiply that this antagonism was
a mistake. A reading man had been seen with a gun,
and another on horseback, with the Old Berkshire
Hounds ; boating men took first and second classes
in the schools. Sports and games were acknowledged
as classical " the goddess Diana called aloud for the
chase," and it was discovered that Pegasus could jump,
and that there were woodcocks in the groves of
Parnassus. Apollo bent his bow on Olympus, and not
only undergraduates, but fellows and tutors, ecclesiastics
and learned men, won prizes for archery in the gardens
of St. John's College at Meriden, with the woodmen
of Arden, and with the Toxophilites in Regent's
310 Then and Now
Park ; " Old Blues" appeared on the bench of bishops
and wore the ermine of the judge ; the Lords and
Commons contended with each other at cricket and in
the cross-country race from " point-to-point " ; a Prime
Minister won the Derby ; a statesman of high renown
and great expectations was the champion in the tennis-
court ; the Home Secretary excelled in golf ; the
Secretary for the Colonies was a king among gardeners,
and wore an orchid in his coat ; and authors and men
of science rode to hounds. It was seen more and more
evidently that " the race is not always to the swift
or the battle to the strong," but that something more
than a turn of speed or a biceps muscle was required
for victory ; it must be won " with Brains, sir."
The hall itself suggests a contrast between Then and
Now. Rarely used in former days, except as a repository
for outer garments and for the articles which I have
described, it is now used in many instances after easy
adaptations and additions as a pleasant place for conver-
sation, writing, and reading. Cooler in summer from its
space and shade, and more cheery in winter from the
yule logs glowing on its spacious hearth, it is a charming
rendezvous for the guests in which to recount the
adventures of the day ; and when the light fails in the
gloaming before the dressing-bell rings, it suggests those
stories of mysteries and apparitions about which we all
profess to be sceptics, but know and believe more than
we quite like to tell. The antlers and the heads above,
and the skins below, suggest adventures by flood and
field, and " the walls hung around with pikes and guns,
Our Homes 311
and bows and swords, and good old bucklers that have
stood some good old blows," bring to us sad, tender,
and solemn thoughts, for they not only speak to us of the
brave days of old, of Agincourt and Waterloo u how
are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished! "
but of gallant men who in our own time have gone
forth to fight for England. They remind us especially
when those halls are used, as now so often, for the
worship of Christian households, of the hope which is
given to mourners for all who have died on duty :
Their bones are dust,
Their good swords rust,
Their souls are with the saints, we trust
" Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends."
These changes and improvements in our dwellings
suggest other considerations which may add to the
enjoyment of them. They are for those who dwell
with us as well as for ourselves, and should be made
happy for both. I have known mansions in which the
arrangements were magnificent for those who had rule,
but for those who served they were mean and miserable ;
attics wherein it was impossible to stand upright, and
corners and cupboards which in their dimensions and
furniture were more like prisoners' cells. It would be
wiser in many cases, and would add to the comfort of
all the inmates, if, instead of the new conservatory or
billiard-room, a kitchen were to be built in which the
cook would not be almost as completely broiled as the
312 Then and Now
meat, and which would not diffuse its odours throughout
a large portion of the residence ; and there should be
in every establishment, where it can be had, a cheerful
servants 7 hall.
I do not believe in the railing accusations which we
hear so frequently against the servants of the present
day. On the contrary, I am assured by experience that
where they meet with consideration and sympathy
they will remain doing willing service, and it would
probably add to its length and quality if masters and
mistresses were a little more consistent as well as kind.
Servants have their powers of observation, and can
criticise in turn. They are not impressed by lectures as
to the obligation of saving candle-ends and of receiving
with gratitude inferior and inadequate food from those
who fare sumptuously on expensive dainties every day
of their lives. It appears to them that there is a certain
amount of debility in those homilies which set before
them the immorality of wearing a pretty bonnet on
Sundays, while the preacher is at the same time arrayed
in all the colours or the rainbow. They are not
satisfied with orations on indolence by persons of no
occupation who spend a large portion of their time in
bed. The mandate, " No followers allowed," appears
to them somewhat severe, and they fail to grasp the
horror expressed by their mistress who has seen a soldier
in uniform emerging from the back door, remembering
the daily visits of handsome young gentlemen, and that
one of the young ladies of the house is engaged to an
officer in the Guards
Our Homes 313
Charity begins at home, but it does not stay there ;
it takes outdoor exercise and roams far and wide,
never returning in a more joyful mood *than when
it has made some other home more happy than
before. This enjoyment is offered to us all, from
the generous gifts of the wealthy to the kind words
and helpful actions of the poor. " Wherever there
is a will there is a way." Those who have ample
means and hearts to share them may obtain plain
directions from the curate and the district visitor
where to go, and the butcher and the baker, the
grocer and the draper, and the purveyor of coals
will give them ready and ample instructions en route
how to make their journey a success. As for the
poor, all who know them well can testify how much
they do for each other in times of sickness, sorrow,
and need.
We may not be able to render important aid in
the present great anxiety as to the housing of the
working classes ; but we may unite in electing to
Parliament and to our county and municipal councils
those candidates who are not merely politicians, but
philanthropists and patriots, who will do their best
for the welfare of the working men, not only from
motives of benevolence, but because they know
that upon their industry the wealth and commercial
prosperity of this country are mainly dependent, and
never more than now ; making every effort to diminish
their temptations and to maintain their strength, to
provide them with decent homes in a pure atmosphere,
314 Then and Now
education for their children, and provisions for their
old age, with adequate remuneration for those who
try to earn it.
One thought more about houses the House, 11
Duomo, Domus Domorum, Domus Domini* the House
of God. It is only possible for those who saw our
churches sixty years ago in their disgraceful and
almost universal condition of decay and dirt to
realise the marvellous transformation which has taken
place throughout the land. There were differences
of opinion as to structure and symbolism, as to
high altars and side altars, re-tables, rood screens,
open seats and pews, but all were agreed in this,
that for such a sacred purpose there should be the
best material and the best work which could be had.
We Churchmen rejoice with a righteous pride in the
results which have been effected by a persevering
self-denial, and by an expenditure of millions of
money, to which all classes contributed, and I feel
sure that most of our brethren in other Christian
communities will rejoice with us in this splendid
achievement of the faith which we hold in common.
At the same time we must never forget that we
who inherit this blessing are under a solemn obliga-
tion to promote the purpose for which it has been
bestowed a more frequent and reverent worship
and we shall give the best proof of our gratitude,
those of us especially who are pastors, parents, and
teachers, by pressing this invitation upon others, " Come,
for all things are now ready," " Come into these gates
Our Homes 315
with thanksgiving and enter into these courts with
praise," and by our constant and devout attendance
and our consistent lives, shall induce others to seek and
find the comfort and joy of that Presence which is
promised to all those who worship in spirit and in
truth.
CHAPTER XXII
Our Horticulture
He wins all points who pleasingly confounds,
Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds.
POPE.
WHEN I met a friend in whose wisdom and affection
I have great confidence, and to whom I often appeal,
although his remarkable candour and sincerity make
him somewhat more curt than courteous, and told
him that, having written so much about horticul-
ture, I did not propose to revert to it in the book
which I was preparing for the press, he promptly
replied that this omission would be a fraud, and would
render me liable to an action for obtaining money
under false pretences. " Your readers," he said, " have
given you ample proof that they believe in you as
a gardener, and if, when collecting the experiences of
your life, you take no notice of that which interests
them the most, instead of giving them the latest
intelligence, which they have a right to expect, they
will justly resent your ingratitude, and put you and
your books on their Index Expurgatorius"
I was convinced, and I proceed to communicate as
316
Our Horticulture 317
concisely as I can (humbly referring those who may
wish for more minute details to my Book about Roses
and Our Gardens} such results and convictions, such
essential principles and imperative rules, as occur to
me after my long and happy life in my garden, and
may be helpful to my younger brethren. I offer
them to those only who have the enthusiastic zeal,
the ardent ambition, the devout admiration, the in-
flexible determination which are inseparable from the
true gardener and from the full enjoyment of a
garden.
I have met with persons who seem to think that if
they possessed a piece of ground and called it a garden,
and kept a servant whom they called a gardener, they
had done all which they could be expected to do.
They might have been under the, impression that the
seeds ot all things pleasant to the eye and good for
food were hovering in the air, like the down from
the thistle, waiting to descend on any beds which they
might be pleased to prepare for their reception. They
are not disappointed by the result conventional medi-
ocrity and " decent debility " because they have no
definite expectations or ideas of beauty, and because
their friends and neighbours, who are as short-sighted
and colour-blind as themselves, appear to be perfectly
satisfied. There is no criticism, for there is nothing
to criticise, there is nothing to attract or offend the
ordinary spectator. All the arrangements are made
in precise and punctual routine the grass is mown,
the walks are rolled, the weeds are uprooted, the
318 Then and Now
same shrubs become green and yellow and brown,
the same flowers bloom and die. The man who loves
a garden passes by with a calm disdain ; he has
visions of an excellence of which there is here no
glimpse ; he is in search of information of which there
is here no sign.
It does not follow, because a man has a library of
books, regularly dusted by the housemaid, that he
should acquire literary tastes, much less be regarded
as a man of letters ; and he may have a stable of
good horses and a clever stud-groom without any real
enjoyment of the chase or appearing in the same field
with the hounds.
There is another form of imbecility, another class
of incapable persons, who not only make vain pretence
and false excuse for themselves, but endeavour to
dissuade and discourage others. They profess to
idolise flowers, and would give worlds (of unknown
locality) for a pretty garden, but for them it can
never be. Their climate is detestable drenching rains
and bitter frosts, unknown elsewhere their atmosphere
is polluted by smoke and effluvia from mines and
factories twenty miles away ; their grounds are exposed
to every wind that blows, or they are overshadowed
by hills, houses, or trees ; their soil is mere gravel,
only a few inches from the chalk, or it is cold, heavy
clay, or as peaty as an Irish bog. Horticulture is much
too expensive for their limited means, and they do
hope that the young gardener will not attempt the
impossible and invite a bitter disappointment. But the
Our Horticulture 319
young gardener quickly discovers that these pretenders
have never made the honest endeavours which have
been successful with their neighbours, who, in the
same surroundings, have done their best ; and they
note with regard to pecuniary outlay that these pro-
fessors of economy have always money to spend upon
objects and pursuits which are more congenial to their
tastes and capacities. The gardener who is in earnest
is not deceived by such palpable delusions, which must
be overcome by all who are determined to conquer ;
and I would refer now to three special resolutions
which will be uppermost in his thoughts, guides to
his actions, and from which he will not swerve. It
is his desire and purpose to know what to grow, where
and how to grow it, and he proposes accordingly :
(i) To select and possess the most beautiful trees,
shrubs, and flowers which are suitable to his soil,
situation, and income ;
(ii) To arrange this selection in the most graceful
form which suggests itself after constant studies of
the natural landscape and a personal visit to those
gardens which chiefly attract his admiration ; and
(iii) To bestow upon this collection the thoughtful,
watchful care and culture of a reverent and untiring
love.
How and where shall we find the material from
which he is. to make his choice ? As bees find honey-
by going in search of it. Let him go with his note-
book in his pocket to gardens of renown, public
and private, including, of course, the magnificent and
320 Then and Now
exhaustive collection in the Royal Gardens at Kew,
let him attend floral exhibitions, and let him read
some of our many and reliable horticultural publica-
tions which expatiate on the excellence of older
acquisitions and announce to us introductions of
new and sterling merit. He will find an embarras de
richesse^ for there never was a country and never a
time in which there was such an abundance and
diversity of loveliness for the garden.
The gardener who is in earnest will meet with
kindly receptions in those gardens which he most
desires to see, because the masters or managers,
gardeners by vocation or gardeners by choice, have
the same earnestness, and his enthusiasm will evoke
their own. There is no brotherhood more brotherly,
no class of men more willing to distribute, apt to
communicate, not only hints, but helps, duplicates,
cuttings, buds, and seeds. I can speak from a double
experience both as a pupil and as a teacher, as a
subaltern and as an officer in command. I rejoice
to offer unto others the kind sympathies which I
have so often enjoyed. Since I passed from darkness
to light, from ignorance to knowledge, from agnosticism
to worship, I have been in the constant receipt of
letters from all parts of the world in which roses
are grown from America, India, Australia, Canada,
as well as from my own countrymen asking for
information or recording success. I reply whenever
I can spare the time from more important correspon-
dence, believing it to be a duty, and knowing it to
Our Horticulture 321
be a delight, to share our happiness with others. I
take a parental interest in my ubiquitous family
" sons he had and daughters fair " and it is no'
exaggeration to state that I felt like a father writing;
to a sick child when I recently answered a letter which I
received from a dear little girl in Ireland, who wrote to
tell me that she was a cripple and could not leave her
room, but she had there some roses in pots which she
greatly admired and dearly loved, and that hearing
I was also very fond of her favourite flower, she
thought that she would like to write to me. There
are cases, nevertheless, which, with every inclination,
I am powerless to help. I receive a frail cardboard
box, which appears to have been dropped and trodden
upon by the postman, and which contains a rose in
the last stage of decomposition, the petals loose,
crushed, and discoloured, and I am requested to
communicate the name of the deceased, although it
is quite impossible to identify the remains. Or I am
favoured with the debris of another rose in the same con-
dition, and I am informed that it is a seedling " raised
by our gardener at home/* and would I mind passing it
on to the Floral Committee of the Royal Horticultural
Society for a first-class certificate, and could I kindly
undertake negotiations for the purchase and propa-
gation of the parent plant with some extensive nursery-
man ? The proprietor trusts that I shall be able to
carry out this transaction on advantageous terms, as
she proposes to devote the proceeds to the restoration
of the parish church.
21
322 Then and Now
When the energetic gardener, to whom I have
previously referred and whom I am specially anxious to
assist, has made his selection of plants, he will go to some
of our famous nurseries, annex them, and bring them
home. I do not advise him in making his purchases
to be over-anxious in securing the largest specimens.
Though they may have been, as is usually the case,
frequently transplanted, there will be more peril than
with those which have not attained such a hold upon the
ground. Then will follow a consideration of supreme im-
portance the arrangement. And I am here constrained,
looking back from Now to Then, to express a conviction
which I know will be received with rebuke, and even
with ridicule, but which I affirm boldly and without
hesitation, because I know I have the best of our
landscape gardeners, past and present, and of our
most able writers and accomplished workers, on my
side I mean that the gardens of our forefathers sixty
years ago were more pleasingly and gracefully, because
more naturally, laid out and occupied than are our
gardens now. When I remember the long walks which
curved around and within the shrubberies, filled with
grand specimens of flowering shrubs, the almond and
the Judas-tree, the cherry, the pyrus, and the crab,
the lilacs and laburnum, and bordered with perennial
flowers ; the lawns, the alleys, the slopes and the
glades, the nooks and corners, the sun-trap, which
caught and kept the first warmth of spring, the
bowers and the arbours, and the great weeping- trees
which screened us from the summer heat the infinite
Our Horticulture 323
variety of outline and colour, of light and shade and
when I am taken into a parallelogram with four straight
walks around, glowing with brilliant colours, which
dazzle and delight for about three minutes, and then,
like some handsome woman, gaudily dressed, but
without mind or expression, lose all their power to
please ; why, then, if my body could go with my
thoughts, I should leave those pelargoniums without
a sigh, and rejoice to find myself among the old summer
flowers, which never cease to charm with their fresh,
fragrant, luxuriant growth of blossom and of leaf, not
packed and pinched, but wandering where they will,
and producing those exquisite combinations and contrasts
which art delights to copy, but only nature can create.
Our fathers rejoiced to watch the sequence of beauty,
ever changing, which came to them throughout the
year, from the snowdrop to the Christmas rose, from
the primal verdure of the spring to the last golden
leaves of autumn. Their children have changed the
form and features of these gardens, have in many
instances levelled their undulations and cut down their
groves, that they might substitute a simultaneous display
of those more brilliant flowers which bloom only in the
summer time.
Is this horticulture ? It is told of a famous master
of a famous college at Cambridge that when he saw the
members of a ladies' college in the vicinity, the " sweet
girl graduates with their golden hair " roving through
his grounds, personally conducted by his own disciples,
he felt that it was his duty in the interests of education
324 Then and Now
to intimate to their lady superior that his gardens were
for horticulture, not for husbandry. It seems to me
that a large number of gardens elsewhere are neither for
one nor the other, neither for science nor for sentiment.
Not for horticulture : the youngest apprentice in the
bothy can strike cuttings in boxes by the mile, protect
them from frost, pot them, and plant them to order
There is neither horticulture nor " husbandry." The
modern garden does not suggest the initiations or
encourage the declarations of the tender passion ; the
whole of the flat open expanse is in full view from the
windows of the house. There is no arbour for Celia ;
no place in which Lorenzo would invite Jessica to sit
and admire the " floor of heaven " ; no fruit-tree or
any other tree-tops tipped with silver such as Romeo
saw.
I am not referring to the outskirts of towns or to
suburban villas, where the space available for a garden
is so very small that these summer flowers, after the
bulbs have bloomed, may be most suitable, convenient,
and economical, and they may be also the most
eligible for those public parks and promenades where
we cannot have the privacy of an ideal garden ; but
where there is ample space for the most beautiful
shrubs and flowers in cultivation to be tastefully dis-
posed and to be grown permanently, not annually
wheeled in and out, I indignantly protest against the
misappropriation of this goodly ground to the feeble
and formal system which is commonly described as
' bedding out."
Our Horticulture 325
He who really loves a garden has no such limitations ;
his admirations are infinite and can no more be satisfied
by one particular phase of floral beauty than a painter
would be satisfied by one colour, however exquisite,
or a musician by the sound of a single instrument or
the constant repetition of a tune.
We have accompanied the gardener in his acquisition
of material ; let us attend him now as he proceeds to
arrange it. Let us go with him first to Divine examples
to those gardens of Creation, those fair landscapes of
forests and fields, hills and valleys, which we call the
scenery of nature. Let us admire them together, and
then compare them with the two gardens which we
have just described the one arranged on the English
or natural the other on the Italian or formal system.
After what I have said of the true gardener it is
superfluous to add that there can be no hesitation in
his choice.
I have seen elaborate designs, drawn and coloured
in the autumn in order to secure the preparation of
the plants required to bloom when summer came.
How far more worthily would thought and time be
disposed on selections from our abundant and beautiful
hardy plants to be placed in groups with broad sur-
roundings of grass in our gardens ! The combinations
and contrasts e.g., Prunus Pisardi with the double-
flowering cherry would be inexhaustible ; the taller
trees in the centre with the climbing roses and
clematis of all colours, the gold and silver hollies, the
iunipers, euonymus, Japanese maples, reeds and grasses,
326 Then and Now
surrounded by shrubs of lower growth and lovely-
perennials, bordered by dwarf and creeping plants,
ivies and Alpines nestling among small fragments of
grey stone, so that no bare ground should be seen.
Some prevision of the effect might be had from the
collections which we see at our floral exhibitions of
" plants staged for effect," but al fresco groups,
when experience has corrected mistakes, would be
infinitely more real and attractive. There would
be something to be specially admired in every season
of the year, and a few of these beds on a large scale,
irregularly placed at intervals, so as " to surprise, to
vary, and conceal the bounds," would by themselves
make a beautiful garden. Other beds restricted to
particular varieties, with here and there a single
specimen of some rare tree, with a pergola leading to
a rosary or a rock-garden, might be added in accord-
ance with the ambitions of the owner and with his
balance at the bank.
We come now to the third rule and obligation,
which is of such supreme importance that unless it
receives a willing obedience all else has been done in
vain. The garden must have the personal, practical,
perpetual supervision of the gardener to whom it
belongs.
The difference between the man who only professes
and the man who performs, between the man who
fancies that he should like to be, and the man who
has made up his mind to be, a gardener, is this : the
one walks about with his hands in his pockets, the other
Our Horticulture 327
takes off his coat. I heard a veteran say of a recruit,
" I think young So and So will make a gardener ; I
met him the other day coming out of his garden,
and I do not remember to have seen an individual
with more dirt upon his hands and boots. His limp
shirt collar and wristbands were also full of promise."
The commentator seemed to think that a gardener's
motto should be Dum perspiro spero.
It was my privilege to visit not long ago in one
of our eastern counties the most charming private
collection of rare and beautiful trees which I have ever
seen deciduous, evergreen, coniferous, of every size
and form, and from almost every clime. How was
this perfection accomplished ? By that appreciation
of the beautiful, personal investigation, and diligent
inquiry which enabled the purchaser to make a selec-
tion of the best, and by that earnest admiration which
for fifty years after they were planted ensured for them
all the advantage of his skilful culture and care.
On the other hand, the waste and desolation which
result from apathy and neglect may be seen through-
out the land, in dwarfage, deformity, and death, where
for want of room and attention trees and shrubs
have disfigured and destroyed each other. I have
seen the leader of a beautiful conifer emerging from
a thicket in a shrubbery, and have found on examination
beneath a mere skeleton of dry bones desinit in
pi seem muller formosa super ne. What a massacre of
young growth there has been simultaneously among
the flowering plants, burnt to death by drought
328 Then and Now
when they might have been saved by a few cans
of water, or starved to death by frost when they
might have been preserved by a barrow load of
mulching or by a couple of mats !
You cannot attain success by deputy, you cannot buy
it with gold ; and so it comes to pass that you may
leave the grand mansion of the nouveau riche, with
its acres of garden and glass, without seeing anything
which tempts you to covet and desire other men's
goods, and may find at the vicarage hard by a
treasury of gems something of everything, old and
new, and that something always good. Here are
precious possessions which "were never heard of,"
or "would not grow" in the gardens from which
you have come, from the tall Eremurus to the
tiniest plant on the rockery, the Kasmpferi iris,
the new lilies, narcissus, carnations, roses. Ask
the priest how he has achieved so much in so
small a space and with so little help, and he will
tell you : " I sang Cor Paratum, and set to work/*
And thus I became a rosarian. There was a time
when, although I had taken the degree of Bachelor of
Arts, if I had gone for an examination into a school
of botany and had been requested to write a description
of the distinctive features of the peony, the dahlia,
and the rose, the most lenient examiner must inevitably
have torn my paper into shreds ; and yet as soon
as I became overpowered by the conviction that the
rose was the loveliest of all the flowers and had
steadfastly resolved to devote myself to its culture
Our Horticulture 329
"When first I saw thy face I resolved to honour
and renown thee" from that time every effort which
I made to acquire and apply information inspired
me with a stronger determination and with a more
confident hope. I read every book I could find on
the rose, and every catalogue, making choice of
.addenda. If I heard of a garden in which roses were
grown, I went to see they were few and far between
in those days, but I had youth and horses on my
side, and I rode and drove any distance. Indeed,
these visits were only preliminary to the longer
expeditions which I made soon after to the great
rose nurseries and to our famous rosarians.
I gradually increased my store from a dozen to five
hundred, and for every one of these I selected a place
and planted with my own hands. The latter perform-
ance was a solemn function. There was a procession ;
first came in a wheelbarrow the new arrival of roses
in their round basket, denuded of their matting and
sticks ; then came the gardener with another barrow
containing the prepared soil loam, leaf-mould, Reigate
sand, etc. and on that a " skep " (small basket)
which held a mixture of which it was only revealed
to me that it was " a bit o' fine." There was evidently
some mysterious secret which was not to be divulged ;
it was handled with such veneration by my dear old
Yorkshire gardener that it might have been a souvenir
of affection from some departed friend. He dealt it
out so sparingly that it seemed to be as precious as
fine gold. I never presumed to ask any questions,
330 Then and Now
and all that I could discover from personal observation
was a pungent odour not suggestive of the attar of the
rose.
We began the ceremony. I held the rose-tree over
the aperture prepared to receive it, the roots were
carefully spread, the " bit o' fine " was thinly but
deferentially applied for the encouragement of early
growth in spring, the rest of the soil was filled in
and compressed, the stake, if necessary, was attached,
and we felt and assumed an importance which could
hardly have been exceeded if we had just launched
a ship or taken a child for the first time to school.
I superintended the enrichment of the soil from the
farmyard in December ; I pruned in March ; and
when I became an exhibitor, I cut every rose,
arranged every collection, travelled with my boxes
five miles by road to the station and thence in all
directions, often through the night, to the place of
the show. I have more than once arrived at the
Crystal Palace, one hundred and twenty miles from my
home, in the early morning before the doors were
opened. I was not only an exhibitor, but a judge
in the supreme court, that is in the nursery-men's
classes. I won many prizes and cups. I suggested
and organised the first National Rose Show, the first
show of roses only. I have been for many years,
since its institution, the President of the National
Rose Society, and in that capacity I had the honour
to be in attendance on two Queens when, in July
last (1901), at the exhibition of the Society in the
Our Horticulture 331
Temple Gardens, the Queen of England came to
visit the Queen of Flowers. I owe my progress as
a rosarian to my observance of the rule which I
made at its commencement, and which I earnestly
commend to all young gardeners to rely on my
own exertions and always to do my best.
I will only add to my remarks on horticulture
the invitation of Tennyson's famous song, u Come
into the garden " the invitation which the boy
gives to his little sister as he stands with the
miniature spade in his hand, which the lover gives
to his sweetheart, the husband to his wife, the father
to his daughter. " Come into the garden " for
healthful exercise, for the most delightful of all
work, because the labour we delight in physics pain,
and because there is all round us the fair promise of
reward. " Come into the garden " for the peaceful
rest of the body and for the pure refreshment of the
spirit, for meditation, for praise and hope. Let
us laud and honour those generous men who,
believing in this gracious influence, have purchased
and prepared pleasant places for resort and rest
adjoining our cities and towns, and have presented
them as a free gift to the public, giving this same
invitation, " Come into the garden," to all ; and
let us heartily sympathise with those landowners
and others in authority who are endeavouring, by
the improvement of cottage gardens and the increase
of allotments, and by teaching in elementary schools,
to encourage horticulture.
CONCLUSION
"THE old order changeth, yielding place to new,'*
and "-God fulfils Himself in many ways." Discussions
and comparisons as to the advantages and disadvan-
tages of Old and New, of Then and Now, the
superior merits of this or that generation, are but
vain disputations presumptuous, if not profane. I
have heard some vigorous debates on this subject,
but I have not noticed any change of conviction,
any modification of prejudice, or signs of mutual
concession. No good can come from extravagant
praise or disparagement, from sarcasm or self-assertion ;
but of this I am sure, that when young men hear
old men speak happily and thankfully of the past,
they will think more bravely and hopefully of the
future, and will be more willing to hear us when we
tell them that they must attribute their failures and
disappointments, not to their surroundings, but to them-
selves ; that the lot is fallen unto them in a fair ground,
but that they may make it a wilderness ; that the Spirit
i? given to every man to profit withal, but that they
may resist and quench it ; that they will have their
opportunities, to use or to neglect, their temptations,
with a way to escape. Above all, we may hope from our
332
Conclusion 333
experience to strengthen their faith in that Infinite Love
which is present always to guide and to comfort, to
pity, to pardon, and to save.
I have heard and read many excellent sermons, but
very few have impressed me so much as that which was
preached by an old Scotch shepherd to some tourists of
the baser sort, who, when they had vexed his righteous
soul by their maledictions of the weather which was
gone, inquired of him what he thought of the weather
which was going to be. He replied that it was going
to be the weather which should please them most ; and
when they asked derisively how he knew, " Because/'
he said, " it is going to be such weather as it shall
please God to send, and that which He sends is best."
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and WILKIE COLLINS'S A ROGUE'S LIFE. In one
volume.
31. BURNEY'S HISTORY OF THE BUCCANEERS
OF AMERICA.
LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW
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