The Cornhill Magazine (Vol. I, No. 4, April 1860) (2024)

APRIL, 1860.

CONTENTS.

LONDON:
SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.

LEIPZIG: D. TAUCHNITZ. NEW YORK: WILLMER AND ROGERS.
MELBOURNE: G. ROBERTSON.

THE
CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

APRIL, 1860.

Lovel the Widower.

CHAPTER IV.
A Black Sheep.

The being forwhom myfriend DickBedfordseemed tohave a specialcontemptandaversion,was Mr.Bulkeley,the tall footmanin attendanceupon Lovel’sdear mother-in-law.Oneof the causesof Bedford’swrath, theworthy fellowexplainedto me. In the servants’ hall, Bulkeley was in the habit of speakingin disrespectful and satirical terms of his mistress, enlarging upon hermany foibles, and describing her pecuniary difficulties to the manyhabitués of that second social circle at Shrublands. The hold whichMr. Bulkeley had over his lady lay in a long unsettled account of[386]wages, which her ladyship was quite disinclined to discharge. And, inspite of this insolvency, the footman must have found his profit in theplace, for he continued to hold it from year to year, and to fatten on hisearnings such as they were. My lady’s dignity did not allow her to travelwithout this huge personage in her train; and a great comfort it musthave been to her, to reflect that in all the country houses which she visited(and she would go wherever she could force an invitation), her attendantfreely explained himself regarding her peculiarities, and made his brotherservants aware of his mistress’s embarrassed condition. And yet thewoman, whom I suppose no soul alive respected (unless, haply, she herselfhad a hankering delusion that she was a respectable woman), thought thather position in life forbade her to move abroad without a maid, and thishulking incumbrance in plush; and never was seen anywhere in watering-place,country-house, hotel, unless she was so attended.

Between Bedford and Bulkeley, then, there was feud and mutualhatred. Bedford chafed the big man by constant sneers and sarcasms,which penetrated the other’s dull hide, and caused him frequently to assertthat he would punch Dick’s ugly head off. The housekeeper had frequentlyto interpose, and fling her matronly arms between these men of war; andperhaps Bedford was forced to be still at times, for Bulkeley was nineinches taller than himself, and was perpetually bragging of his skill andfeats as a bruiser. This sultan may also have wished to fling his pocket-handkerchiefto Miss Mary Pinhorn, who, though she loved Bedford’s witand cleverness, might also be not insensible to the magnificent chest,calves, whiskers, of Mr. Bulkeley. On this delicate subject, however, Ican’t speak. The men hated each other. You have, no doubt, remarkedin your experience of life, that when men do hate each other, about awoman, or some other cause, the real reason is never assigned. You say,“The conduct of such and such a man to his grandmother—his behaviourin selling that horse to Benson—his manner of brushing his hair down themiddle”—or what you will, “makes him so offensive to me that I can’tendure him.” His verses, therefore, are mediocre; his speeches in parliamentare utter failures; his practice at the bar is dwindling every year;his powers (always small) are utterly leaving him, and he is repeating hisconfounded jokes until they quite nauseate. Why, only about myself, andwithin these three days, I read a nice little article—written in sorrow, youknow, not in anger—by our eminent confrère Wiggins,[1] deploring thedecay of, &c. &c. And Wiggins’s little article which was not found suitablefor a certain Magazine?—Allons donc! The drunkard says the pickledsalmon gave him the headache; the man who hates us gives a reason,but not the reason. Bedford was angry with Bulkeley for abusing hismistress at the servants’ table? Yes. But for what else besides? I don’tcare—nor possibly does your worship, the exalted reader, for these lowvulgar kitchen quarrels.

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Out of that ground-floor room, then, I would not move in spite of theutmost efforts of my Lady Baker’s broad shoulder to push me out; andwith many grins that evening, Bedford complimented me on my gallantryin routing the enemy at luncheon. I think he may possibly have told hismaster, for Lovel looked very much alarmed and uneasy when we greetedeach other on his return from the city, but became more composed whenLady Baker appeared at the second dinner-bell, without a trace on herfine countenance of that storm which had caused all her waves to heavewith such commotion at noon. How finely some people, by the way, canhang up quarrels—or pop them into a drawer, as they do their work, whendinner is announced, and take them out again at a convenient season!Baker was mild, gentle, a thought sad and sentimental—tenderly interestedabout her dear son and daughter, in Ireland, whom she must go and see—quiteeasy in hand, in a word, and to the immense relief of all of us. Shekissed Lovel on retiring, and prayed blessings on her Frederick. Shepointed to the picture: nothing could be more melancholy or moregracious.

“She go!” says Mr. Bedford to me at night—“not she. She knowswhen she’s well off; was obliged to turn out of Bakerstown before shecame here: that brute Bulkeley told me so. She’s always quarrelling withher son and his wife. Angels don’t grow everywhere as they do atPutney, Mr. B.! You gave it her well to-day at lunch, you did though!”During my stay at Shrublands, Mr. Bedford paid me a regular eveningvisit in my room, set the carte du pays before me, and in his curt wayacquainted me with the characters of the inmates of the house, and theincidents occurring therein.

Captain Clarence Baker did not come to Shrublands on the day whenhis anxious mother wished to clear out my nest (and expel the amiablebird in it) for her son’s benefit. I believe an important fight, which wasto come off in the Essex Marshes, and which was postponed in consequenceof the interposition of the county magistrates, was the occasion, or at anyrate, the pretext of the captain’s delay. “He likes seeing fights betterthan going to ’em, the captain does,” my major-domo remarked. “Hisregiment was ordered to India, and he sold out: climate don’t agree withhis precious health. The captain ain’t been here ever so long, not sincepoor Mrs. L.’s time, before Miss P. came here: Captain Clarence and hissister had a tremendous quarrel together. He was up to all sorts of pranks,the captain was. Not a good lot, by any means, I should say, Mr.Batchelor.” And here Bedford begins to laugh. “Did you ever read,sir, a farce called Raising the Wind? There’s plenty of Jeremy Diddlersnow, Captain Jeremy Diddlers and Lady Jeremy Diddlers too. Have yousuch a thing as half-a-crown about you? If you have, don’t invest it insome folks’ pockets—that’s all. Beg your pardon, sir, if I am botheringyou with talking!”

As long as I was at Shrublands, and ready to partake of breakfast withmy kind host and his children and their governess, Lady Baker had her[388]own breakfast taken to her room. But when there were no visitors inthe house, she would come groaning out of her bedroom to be present atthe morning meal; and not uncommonly would give the little companyanecdotes of the departed saint, under whose invocation, as it were, wewere assembled, and whose simpering effigy looked down upon us, overher harp, and from the wall. The eyes of the portrait followed you about,as portraits’ eyes so painted will; and those glances, as it seemed to me,still domineered over Lovel, and made him quail as they had done in life.Yonder, in the corner, was Cecilia’s harp, with its leathern cover. Ilikened the skin to that drum which the dying Zisca ordered should bemade out of his hide, to be beaten before the hosts of his people andinspire terror. Vous conçevez, I did not say to Lovel at breakfast, as Isat before the ghostly musical instrument, “My dear fellow, that skin ofCordovan leather belonging to your defunct Cecilia’s harp, is like the hidewhich,” &c.; but I confess, at first, I used to have a sort of crawly sensation,as of a sickly genteel ghost flitting about the place, in an exceedinglypeevish humour, trying to scold and command, and finding her defunctvoice couldn’t be heard—trying to re-illume her extinguished leers andfaded smiles and ogles, and finding no one admired or took note. In thegray of the gloaming, in the twilight corner where stands the shroudedcompanion of song—what is that white figure flickering round the silentharp? Once, as we were assembled in the room at afternoon tea, a bird,entering at the open window, perched on the instrument. Pophamdashed at it. Lovel was deep in conversation upon the wine duties witha member of parliament he had brought down to dinner. Lady Baker,who was, if I may use the expression, “jawing,” as usual, and telling oneof her tremendous stories about the Lord Lieutenant to Mr. Bonnington,took no note of the incident. Elizabeth did not seem to remark it: whatwas a bird on a harp to her, but a sparrow perched on a bit of leather-casing!All the ghosts in Putney churchyard might rattle all their bones,and would not frighten that stout spirit!

I was amused at a precaution which Bedford took, and somewhatalarmed at the distrust towards Lady Baker which he exhibited, when,one day on my return from town—whither I had made an excursion offour or five hours—I found my bedroom door locked, and Dick arrivedwith the key. “He’s wrote to say he’s coming this evening, and if hehad come when you was away, Lady B. was capable of turning yourthings out, and putting his in, and taking her oath she believed you wasgoing to leave. The long-bows Lady B. do pull are perfectly awful, Mr.B.! So it was long-bow to long-bow, Mr. Batchelor; and I said youhad took the key in your pocket, not wishing to have your papers disturbed.She tried the lawn window, but I had bolted that, and thecaptain will have the pink room, after all, and must smoke up thechimney. I should have liked to see him, or you, or any one do it inpoor Mrs. L.’s time—I just should!”

During my visit to London, I had chanced to meet my friend Captain[389]Fitzb—dle, who belongs to a dozen clubs, and knows something ofevery man in London. “Know anything of Clarence Baker?” “Ofcourse, I do,” says Fitz; “and if you want any renseignement, my dearfellow, I have the honour to inform you that a blacker little sheep doesnot trot the London pavé. Wherever that ingenious officer’s name isspoken—at Tattersall’s, at his clubs, in his late regiments, in men’ssociety, in ladies’ society, in that expanding and most agreeable circlewhich you may call no society at all—a chorus of maledictions rises up atthe mention of Baker. Know anything of Clarence Baker! My dearfellow, enough to make your hair turn white, unless (as I sometimes fondlyimagine) nature has already performed that process, when of course I can’tpretend to act upon more hair-dye.” (The whiskers of the individual whoaddressed me, innocent, stared me in the face as he spoke, and were dyedof the most unblushing purple.) “Clarence Baker, sir, is a young manwho would have been invaluable in Sparta as a warning against drunkennessand an exemplar of it. He has helped the regimental surgeon tosome most interesting experiments in delirium tremens. He is known, andnot in the least trusted, in every billiard-room in Brighton, Canterbury,York, Sheffield,—on every pavement which has rung with the clink ofdragoon boot-heels. By a wise system of revoking at whist he has lostgames which have caused not only his partners, but his opponents andthe whole club to admire him and to distrust him: long before and sincehe was of age, he has written his eminent name to bills which have beendishonoured, and has nobly pleaded his minority as a reason for decliningto pay. From the garrison towns where he has been quartered, he hascarried away not only the hearts of the milliners, but their gloves,haberdashery, and perfumery. He has had controversies with CornetGreen, regarding horse transactions; disputed turf-accounts with LieutenantBrown; and betting and backgammon differences with CaptainBlack. From all I have heard he is the worthy son of his admirablemother. And I bet you even on the four events, if you stay three daysin a country house with him, which appears to be your present happy idea,—thathe will quarrel with you, insult you, and apologize; that he willintoxicate himself more than once; that he will offer to play cards withyou, and not pay on losing (if he wins, I perhaps need not state what hisconduct will be); and that he will try to borrow money from you, andmost likely from your servant, before he goes away.” So saying, thesententious Fitz strutted up the steps of one of his many club-hauntsin Pall Mall, and left me forewarned, and I trust forearmed againstCaptain Clarence and all his works.

The adversary, when at length I came in sight of him, did not seemvery formidable. I beheld a weakly little man with Chinese eyes, andpretty little feet and hands, whose pallid countenance told of Finishes andCasinos. His little chest and fingers were decorated with many jewels.A perfume of tobacco hung round him. His little moustache was twistedwith an elaborate gummy curl. I perceived that the little hand which[390]twirled the moustache shook woefully: and from the little chest therecame a cough surprisingly loud and dismal.

He was lying on a sofa as I entered, and the children of the housewere playing round him. “If you are our uncle, why didn’t you come tosee us oftener?” asks Popham.

“How should I know that you were such uncommonly nice children?”asks the captain.

“We’re not nice to you,” says Popham. “Why do you cough so?Mamma used to cough. And why does your hand shake so?”

“My hand shakes because I am ill: and I cough because I’m ill.Your mother died of it, and I daresay I shall too.”

“I hope you’ll be good, and repent before you die, uncle, and I willlend you some nice books,” says Cecilia.

“Oh, bother books!” cries Pop.

“And I hope you’ll be good, Popham,” and “You hold your tongue,Miss,” and “I shall,” and “I shan’t,” and “You’re another,” and “I’lltell Miss Prior,”—“Go and tell, telltale,”—“Boo”—“Boo”—“Boo”—“Boo”—andI don’t know what more exclamations came tumultuously andrapidly from these dear children, as their uncle lay before them, a handkerchiefto his mouth, his little feet high raised on the sofa cushions.

Captain Baker turned a little eye towards me, as I entered the room,but did not change his easy and elegant posture. When I came near tothe sofa where he reposed, he was good enough to call out:

“Glass of sherry!”

“It’s Mr. Batchelor; it isn’t Bedford, uncle,” says Cissy.

“Mr. Batchelor ain’t got any sherry in his pocket:—have you, Mr.Batchelor? You ain’t like old Mrs. Prior, always pocketing things, areyou?” cries Pop, and falls a-laughing at the ludicrous idea of my beingmistaken for Bedford.

“Beg your pardon. How should I know, you know?” drawls theinvalid on the sofa. “Everybody’s the same now, you see.”

“Sir!” says I, and “sir” was all I could say. The fact is, I couldhave replied with something remarkably neat and cutting, which wouldhave transfixed the languid little jackanapes who dared to mistake me fora footman; but, you see, I only thought of my repartee some eight hoursafterwards when I was lying in bed, and I am sorry to own that a greatnumber of my best bon mots have been made in that way. So, as I hadnot the pungent remark ready when wanted, I can’t say I said it toCaptain Baker, but I daresay I turned very red, and said “Sir!” and—andin fact that was all.

“You were goin’ to say somethin’?” asked the captain, affably.

“You know my friend, Mr. Fitzboodle, I believe?” said I; the fact is,I really did not know what to say.

“Some mistake—think not.”

“He is a member of the Flag Club,” I remarked, looking my youngfellow hard in the face.

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“I ain’t. There’s a set of cads in that club that will say anything.”

“You may not know him, sir, but he seemed to know you very well.Are we to have any tea, children?” I say, flinging myself down on aneasy chair, taking up a magazine and adopting an easy attitude, thoughI daresay my face was as red as a turkey-co*ck’s, and I was boiling overwith rage.

As we had a very good breakfast and a profuse luncheon at Shrublands,of course we could not support nature till dinner-time without afive-o’clock tea; and this was the meal for which I pretended to ask.Bedford, with his silver kettle, and his buttony satellite, presently broughtin this refection, and of course the children bawled out to him—

“Bedford—Bedford! uncle mistook Mr. Batchelor for you.”

“I could not be mistaken for a more honest man, Pop,” said I. Andthe bearer of the tea-urn gave me a look of gratitude and kindness which,I own, went far to restore my ruffled equanimity.

“Since you are the butler, will you get me a glass of sherry anda biscuit?” says the captain. And Bedford retiring, returned presentlywith the wine.

The young gentleman’s hand shook so, that, in order to drink his wine,he had to surprise it, as it were, and seize it with his mouth, when a shakebrought the glass near his lips. He drained the wine, and held out his handfor another glass. The hand was steadier now.

“You the man who was here before?” asks the captain.

“Six years ago, when you were here, sir,” says the butler.

“What! I ain’t changed, I suppose?”

“Yes, you are, sir.”

“Then, how the dooce do you remember me?”

“You forgot to pay me some money you borrowed of me, one poundfive, sir,” says Bedford, whose eyes slyly turned in my direction.

And here, according to her wont at this meal, the dark-robed MissPrior entered the room. She was coming forward with her ordinarilyerect attitude and firm step, but paused in her walk an instant, and whenshe came to us, I thought, looked remarkably pale. She made a slightcurtsey, and it must be confessed that Captain Baker rose up from his sofafor a moment when she appeared. She then sate down, with her backtowards him, turning towards herself the table and its tea apparatus.

At this board my Lady Baker found us assembled when she returnedfrom her afternoon drive. She flew to her darling reprobate of a son.She took his hand, she smoothed back his hair from his damp forehead.“My darling child,” cries this fond mother, “what a pulse you have got!”

“I suppose, because I’ve been drinking,” says the prodigal.

“Why didn’t you come out driving with me? The afternoon waslovely!”

“To pay visits at Richmond? Not as I knows on, ma’am,” says theinvalid. “Conversation with elderly ladies about poodles, bible-societies,that kind of thing? It must be a doocid lovely afternoon that would make[392]me like that sort of game.” And here comes a fit of coughing, overwhich mamma ejacul*tes her sympathy.

“Kick—kick—killin’ myself!” gasps out the captain, “know I am. Noman can lead my life, and stand it. Dyin’ by inches! Dyin’ by wholeyards, by Jo—ho—hove, I am!” Indeed, he was as bad in health as inmorals, this graceless captain.

“That man of Lovel’s seems a d—— insolent beggar,” he presentlyand ingenuously remarks.

“O uncle, you mustn’t say those words!” cries niece Cissy.

“He’s a man, and may say what he likes, and so will I, when I’m aman. Yes, and I’ll say it now, too, if I like,” cries Master Popham.

“Not to give me pain, Popham? Will you?” asks the governess.

On which the boy says,—“Well, who wants to hurt you, Miss Prior?”

And our colloquy ends by the arrival of the man of the house fromthe city.

What I have admired in some dear women is their capacity for quarrellingand for reconciliation. As I saw Lady Baker hanging round her son’sneck, and fondling his scanty ringlets, I remembered the awful stories withwhich in former days she used to entertain us regarding this reprobate.Her heart was pincushioned with his filial crimes. Under her chesnut fronther ladyship’s real head of hair was grey, in consequence of his iniquities.His precocious appetite had devoured the greater part of her jointure.He had treated her many dangerous illnesses with indifference: had beenthe worst son, the worst brother, the most ill-conducted school-boy, themost immoral young man—the terror of households, the Lovelace of garrisontowns, the perverter of young officers; in fact, Lady Baker did notknow how she supported existence at all under the agony occasioned byhis crimes, and it was only from the possession of a more than ordinarilystrong sense of religion that she was enabled to bear her burden.

The captain himself explained these alternating maternal caresses andquarrels in his easy way.

“Saw how the old lady kissed and fondled me?” says he to hisbrother-in-law. “Quite refreshin’, ain’t it? Hang me, I thought she wasgoin’ to send me a bit of sweetbread off her own plate. Came up to myroom last night, wanted to tuck me up in bed, and abused my brother tome for an hour. You see, when I’m in favour, she always abuses Baker;when he’s in favour she abuses me to him. And my sister-in-law, didn’tshe give it my sister-in-law! Oh! I’ll trouble you! And poor Cecilia—whyhang me, Mr. Batchelor, she used to go on—this bottle’s corked, I’mhanged if it isn’t—to go on about Cecilia, and call her.... Hullo!”

Here he was interrupted by our host, who said sternly—

“Will you please to forget those quarrels, or not mention them here?Will you have more wine, Batchelor?”

And Lovel rises, and haughtily stalks out of the room. To do Loveljustice, he had a great contempt and dislike for his young brother-in-law,which, with his best magnanimity, he could not at all times conceal.

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So our host stalks towards the drawing-room, leaving Captain Clarencesipping wine.

“Don’t go, too,” says the captain. “He’s a confounded rum fellow, mybrother-in-law is. He’s a confounded ill-conditioned fellow, too. Theyalways are, you know, these tradesmen fellows, these half-bred ’uns. Iused to tell my sister so; but she would have him, because he had suchlots of money, you know. And she threw over a fellar she was very fondof; and I told her she’d regret it. I told Lady B. she’d regret it. It wasall Lady B.’s doing. She made Cissy throw the fellar over. He was abad match, certainly, Tom Mountain was; and not a clever fellow, youknow, or that sort of thing; but at any rate, he was a gentleman, andbetter than a confounded sugar-baking beggar out Ratcliff Highway.”

“You seem to find that claret very good!” I remark, speaking, I maysay, Socratically, to my young friend, who had been swallowing bumperafter bumper.

“Claret good! Yes, doosid good!”

“Well, you see our confounded sugar-baker gives you his best.”

“And why shouldn’t he, hang him? Why, the fellow chokes withmoney. What does it matter to him how much he spends? You’re apoor man, I dare say. You don’t look as if you were over-flush of money.Well, if you stood a good dinner, it would be all right—I mean it wouldshow—you understand me, you know. But a sugar-baker with ten thousanda year, what does it matter to him, bottle of claret more—less?”

“Let us go into the ladies,” I say.

“Go into mother! I don’t want to go into my mother,” cried outthe artless youth. “And I don’t want to go into the sugar-baker, hanghim! and I don’t want to go into the children; and I’d rather have aglass of brandy-and-water with you, old boy. Here, you! What’s yourname? Bedford! I owe you five-and-twenty shillings, do I, old Bedford?Give us a good glass of Schnaps, and I’ll pay you! Look here,Batchelor. I hate that sugar-baker. Two years ago I drew a bill onhim, and he wouldn’t pay it—perhaps he would have paid it, but mysister wouldn’t let him. And, I say, shall we go and have a cigar in yourroom? My mother’s been abusing you to me like fun this morning. Sheabuses everybody. She used to abuse Cissy. Cissy used to abuse her—usedto fight like two cats....”

And if I narrate this conversation, dear Spartan youth! if I showthee this Helot maundering in his cups, it is that from his odious examplethou mayest learn to be moderate in the use of thine own. Has the enemywho has entered thy mouth ever stolen away thy brains? Has wine evercaused thee to blab secrets; to utter egotisms and follies? Beware of it.Has it ever been thy friend at the end of the hard day’s work, the cheerycompanion of thy companions, the promoter of harmony, kindness, harmlesssocial pleasure? be thankful for it. Two years since, when the cometwas blazing in the autumnal sky, I stood on the château-steps of a greatclaret proprietor. “Boirai-je de ton vin, O comète?” I said, addressing the[394]luminary with the flaming tail. Shall those generous bunches which youripen yield their juices for me morituro? It was a solemn thought. Ah!my dear brethren! who knows the Order of the Fates? When shall wepass the Gloomy Gates? Which of us goes, which of us waits to drinkthose famous Fifty-eights? A sermon, upon my word! And pray whynot a little homily on an autumn eve over a purple cluster?... Ifthat rickety boy had only drunk claret, I warrant you his tongue wouldnot have blabbed, his hand would not have shaken, his wretched little brainand body would not have reeled with fever.

“’Gad,” said he next day to me, “cut again last night. Have an ideathat I abused Lovel. When I have a little wine on board, always speakmy mind, don’t you know. Last time I was here in my poor sister’s time,said somethin’ to her, don’t quite know what it was, somethin’ confoundedlytrue and unpleasant I daresay. I think it was about a fellow she used togo on with before she married the sugar-baker. And I got orders toquit, by Jove, sir—neck and crop, sir, and no mistake! And we gave itone another over the stairs. O my! we did pitch in!—And that was thelast time I ever saw Cecilia—give you my word. A doosid unforgivingwoman, my poor sister was, and between you and me, Batchelor, as greata flirt as ever threw a fellar over. You should have heard her and myLady B. go on, that’s all!—Well, mamma, are you going out for a drivein the coachy-poachy?—Not as I knows on, thank you, as I before hadthe honour to observe. Mr. Batchelor and me are going to play a littlegame at billiards.” We did, and I won; and, from that day to this, havenever been paid my little winnings.

On the day after the doughty captain’s arrival, Miss Prior, in whoseface I had remarked a great expression of gloom and care, neither madeher appearance at breakfast nor at the children’s dinner. “Miss Prior wasa little unwell,” Lady Baker said, with an air of most perfect satisfaction.“Mr. Drencher will come to see her this afternoon, and prescribe for her, Idaresay,” adds her ladyship, nodding and winking a roguish eye at me.I was at a loss to understand what was the point of humour which amusedLady B., until she herself explained it.

“My good sir,” she said, “I think Miss Prior is not at all averse tobeing ill.” And the nods recommenced.

“As how?” I ask.

“To being ill, or at least to calling in the medical man.”

“Attachment between governess and Sawbones I make bold for topresume?” says the captain.

“Precisely, Clarence—a very fitting match. I saw the affair, evenbefore Miss Prior owned it—that is to say, she has not denied it. Shesays she can’t afford to marry, that she has children enough at home inher brothers and sisters. She is a well-principled young woman, anddoes credit, Mr. Batchelor, to your recommendation, and the educationshe has received from her uncle, the Master of St. Boniface.”

“Cissy to school; Pop to Eton; and Miss Whatdyoucall to grind the[395]pestle in Sawbones’ back-shop: I see!” says Captain Clarence. “Heseems a low, vulgar blackguard, that Sawbones.”

“Of course, my love; what can you expect from that sort of person?”asks mamma, whose own father was a small attorney, in a small Irish town.

“I wish I had his confounded good health,” cries Clarence, coughing.

“My poor darling!” says mamma.

I said nothing. And so Elizabeth was engaged to that great, broad-shouldered,red-whiskered, young surgeon with the huge appetite and thedubious h’s! Well, why not? What was it to me? Why shouldn’tshe marry him? Was he not an honest man, and a fitting match for her?Yes. Very good. Only if I do love a bird or flower to glad me with itsdark blue eye, it is the first to fade away. If I have a partiality for ayoung gazelle it is the first to——paha! What have I to do with thisnamby-pamby? Can the heart that has truly loved ever forget, anddoesn’t it as truly love on to the—stuff! I am past the age of suchfollies. I might have made a woman happy: I think I should. But thefugacious years have lapsed, my Posthumus! My waist is now a good bitwider than my chest, and it is decreed that I shall be alone!

My tone, then, when next I saw Elizabeth, was sorrowful—not angry.Drencher, the young doctor, came punctually enough, you may be sure,to look after his patient. Little Pinhorn, the children’s maid, led theyoung practitioner smiling towards the schoolroom regions. His creakinghighlows sprang swiftly up the stairs. I happened to be in the hall, andsurveyed him with a grim pleasure. “Now he is in the schoolroom,” Ithought. “Now he is taking her hand—it is very white—and feelingher pulse. And so on, and so on. Surely, surely Pinhorn remains in theroom?” I am sitting on a hall-table as I muse plaintively on these things, andgaze up the stairs by which the Hakeem (great, carroty-whiskered cad!)has passed into the sacred precincts of the harem. As I gaze up thestair, another door opens into the hall; a scowling face peeps throughthat door, and looks up the stair, too. ’Tis Bedford, who has slid out ofhis pantry, and watches the doctor. And thou, too, my poor Bedford!Oh! the whole world throbs with vain heart-pangs, and tosses and heaveswith longing, unfulfilled desires! All night, and all over the world,bitter tears are dropping as regular as the dew, and cruel memories arehaunting the pillow. Close my hot eyes, kind Sleep! Do not visit it,dear delusive images out of the Past! Often your figure shimmers throughmy dreams, Glorvina. Not as you are now, the stout mother of manychildren—you always had an alarming likeness to your own mother,Glorvina—but as you were—slim, black-haired, blue-eyed—when yourcarnation lips warbled the Vale of Avoca, or the Angels’ Whisper.“What!” I say then, looking up the stair, “am I absolutely growingjealous of yon apothecary?—O fool!” And at this juncture, out peersBedford’s face from the pantry, and I see he is jealous too. I tie my shoeas I sit on the table; I don’t affect to notice Bedford in the least (who, infact, pops his own head back again as soon as he sees mine). I take my[396]wide-awake from the peg, set it on one side my head, and strut whistlingout of the hall door. I stretch over Putney Heath, and my spirit resumesits tranquillity.

I sometimes keep a little journal of my proceedings, and on referringto its pages, the scene rises before me pretty clearly to which the briefnotes allude. On this day I find noted: “Friday, July, 14.—B.came down to-day. Seems to require a great deal of attendance from Dr.—Rowbetween dowagers after dinner.” “B.,” I need not remark, is Bessy.“Dr.,” of course, you know. “Row between dowagers,” means a battleroyal between Mrs. Bonnington and Lady Baker, such as not unfrequentlyraged under the kindly Lovel’s roof.

Lady Baker’s gigantic menial Bulkeley condescended to wait at thefamily dinner at Shrublands, when perforce he had to put himself underMr. Bedford’s orders. Bedford would gladly have dispensed with theLondon footman, over whose calves, he said, he and his boy were alwaystumbling; but Lady Baker’s dignity would not allow her to part from herown man; and her good-natured son-in-law allowed her, and indeedalmost all other persons, to have their own way. I have reason to fear Mr.Bulkeley’s morals were loose. Mrs. Bonnington had a special horror ofhim; his behaviour in the village public-houses where his powder andplush were for ever visible—his freedom of behaviour and conversationbefore the good lady’s nurse and parlour-maids—provoked her anger andsuspicion. More than once, she whispered to me her loathing of thisflour-besprinkled monster; and, as much as such a gentle creature could,she showed her dislike to him by her behaviour. The flunkey’s solemnequanimity was not to be disturbed by any such feeble indications of displeasure.From his powdered height, he looked down upon Mrs. Bonnington,and her esteem or her dislike was beneath him.

Now on this Friday night the 14th, Captain Clarence had gone to passthe day in town, and our Bessy made her appearance again, the doctor’sprescriptions having, I suppose, agreed with her. Mr. Bulkeley, who washanding coffee to the ladies, chose to offer none to Miss Prior, and I wasamused when I saw Bedford’s heel scrunch down on the flunkey’s rightfoot, as he pointed towards the governess. The oaths which Bulkeley hadto devour in silence must have been frightful. To do the gallant fellowjustice, I think he would have died rather than speak before company ina drawing-room. He limped up and offered the refreshment to the younglady, who bowed and declined it.

“Frederick,” Mrs. Bonnington begins, when the coffee-ceremony isover, “now the servants are gone, I must scold you about the waste atyour table, my dear. What was the need of opening that great bottle ofchampagne? Lady Baker only takes two glasses. Mr. Batchelor doesn’ttouch it.” (No, thank you, my dear Mrs. Bonnington: too old a stager.)“Why not have a little bottle instead of that great, large, immense one?Bedford is a teetotaler. I suppose it is that London footman who likes it.”

“My dear mother, I haven’t really ascertained his tastes,” says Lovel.

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“Then why not tell Bedford to open a pint, dear?” pursues mamma.

“Oh, Bedford—Bedford, we must not mention him, Mrs. Bonnington!”cries Lady Baker. “Bedford is faultless. Bedford has the keys of everything.Bedford is not to be controlled in anything. Bedford is to be atliberty to be rude to my servant.”

“Bedford was admirably kind in his attendance on your daughter,Lady Baker,” says Lovel, his brow darkening: “and as for your man,I should think he was big enough to protect himself from any rudeness ofpoor Dick!” The good fellow had been angry for one moment, at thenext he was all for peace and conciliation.

Lady Baker puts on her superfine air. With that air she had oftenawe-stricken good, simple Mrs. Bonnington; and she loved to use itwhenever city folks or humble people were present. You see she thoughtherself your superior and mine: as de par le monde there are many artlessLady Bakers who do. “My dear Frederick!” says Lady B. then, puttingon her best Mayfair manner, “excuse me for saying, but you don’t knowthe—the class of servant to which Bulkeley belongs. I had him as agreat favour from Lord Toddleby’s. That—that class of servant is notgenerally accustomed to go out single.”

“Unless they are two behind a carriage-perch they pine away, Isuppose,” remarks Mr. Lovel, “as one love-bird does without his mate.”

“No doubt—no doubt,” says Lady B., who does not in the leastunderstand him; “I only say you are not accustomed here—in this kindof establishment, you understand—to that class of——”

But here Mrs. Bonnington could contain her wrath no more. “LadyBaker!” cries that injured mother, “is my son’s establishment not goodenough for any powdered wretch in England? Is the house of a Britishmerchant——”

“My dear creature—my dear creature!” interposes her ladyship,“it is the house of a British merchant, and a most comfortable house too.”

“Yes, as you find it,” remarks mamma.

“Yes, as I find it, when I come to take care of that departed angel’schildren, Mrs. Bonnington!” (Lady B. here indicates the Cecilian effigy)—“ofthat dear seraph’s orphans, Mrs. Bonnington! You cannot. Youhave other duties—other children—a husband, whom you have left athome in delicate health, and who——”

“Lady Baker!” exclaims Mrs. Bonnington, “no one shall say I don’ttake care of my dear husband!”

“My dear Lady Baker!—my dear—dear mother!” cries Lovel, éploré,and whimpers aside to me, “They spar in this way every night, whenwe’re alone. It’s too bad, ain’t it, Batch?”

“I say you do take care of Mr. Bonnington,” Baker blandly resumes(she has hit Mrs. Bonnington on the raw place, and smilingly proceeds tothong again): “I say you do take care of your husband, my dear creature,and that is why you can’t attend to Frederick! And as he is of a veryeasy temper,—except sometimes with his poor Cecilia’s mother,—he allows[398]all his tradesmen to cheat him; all his servants to cheat him; Bedford tobe rude to everybody; and if to me, why not to my servant Bulkeley,with whom Lord Toddleby’s groom of the chambers gave me the veryhighest character?”

Mrs. Bonnington in a great flurry broke in by saying she was surprisedto hear that noblemen had grooms in their chambers: and shethought they were much better in the stables: and when they dined withCaptain Huff, you know, Frederick, his man always brought such a dreadfulsmell of the stable in with him, that——Here she paused. Baker’seye was on her; and that dowager was grinning a cruel triumph.

“He!—he! You mistake, my good Mrs. Bonnington!” says her ladyship.“Your poor mother mistakes, my dear Frederick. You have livedin a quiet and most respectable sphere, but not, you understand, not——”

“Not what, pray, Lady Baker? We have lived in this neighbourhoodtwenty years: in my late husband’s time, when we saw a great deal ofcompany, and this dear Frederick was a boy at Westminster School. Andwe have paid for everything we have had for twenty years; and we havenot owed a penny to any tradesman. And we may not have had powderedfootmen, six feet high, impertinent beasts, who were rude to all the maidsin the place. Don’t—I will speak, Frederick! But servants who lovedus, and who were paid their wages, and who—o—ho—ho—ho!”

Wipe your eyes, dear friends! out with all your pocket-handkerchiefs.I protest I cannot bear to see a woman in distress. Of course Fred Lovelruns to console his dear old mother, and vows Lady Baker meant no harm.

“Meant harm! My dear Frederick, what harm can I mean? I onlysaid your poor mother did not seem to know what a groom of the chamberswas! How should she?”

“Come—come,” says Frederick, “enough of this! Miss Prior, will yoube so kind as to give us a little music?”

Miss Prior was playing Beethoven at the piano, very solemnly andfinely, when our Black Sheep returned to this quiet fold, and, I am sorryto say, in a very riotous condition. The brilliancy of his eye, the purpleflush on his nose, the unsteady gait, and uncertain tone of voice, toldtales of Captain Clarence, who stumbled over more than one chair beforehe found a seat near me.

“Quite right, old boy,” says he, winking at me. “Cut again—doo*shidgood fellosh. Better than being along with you shtoopid-old-fogish.”And he began to warble wild “Fol-de-rol-lolls” in an insaneaccompaniment to the music.

“By heavens, this is too bad!” growls Lovel. “Lady Baker, letyour big man carry your son to bed. Thank you, Miss Prior!”

At a final yell, which the unlucky young scapegrace gave, Elizabethstopped, and rose from the piano, looking very pale. She made hercurtsey, and was departing when the wretched young captain sprang up,looked at her, and sank back on the sofa with another wild laugh. Bessyfled away scared, and white as a sheet.

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“Take the brute to bed!” roars the master of the house, in greatwrath. And scapegrace was conducted to his apartment, whither he wentlaughing wildly, and calling out, “Come on, old sh-sh-shugarbaker!”

The morning after this fine exhibition, Captain Clarence Baker’smamma announced to us that her poor dear suffering boy was too ill tocome to breakfast, and I believe he prescribed for himself devilled drum-stickand soda-water, of which he partook in his bedroom. Lovel,seldom angry, was violently wrath with his brother-in-law; and, almostalways polite, was at breakfast scarcely civil to Lady Baker. I am boundto say that female abused her position. She appealed to Cecilia’s picturea great deal too much during the course of breakfast. She hinted, shesighed, she waggled her head at me, and spoke about “that angel” inthe most tragic manner. Angel is all very well: but your angel broughtin à tout propos; your departed blessing called out of her grave ever somany times a day; when grandmamma wants to carry a point of herown; when the children are naughty, or noisy; when papa betrays aflickering inclination to dine at his club, or to bring home a bachelorfriend or two to Shrublands;—I say your angel always dragged in bythe wings into the conversation loses her effect. No man’s heart put onwider crape than Lovel’s at Cecilia’s loss. Considering the circ*mstances,his grief was most creditable to him: but at breakfast, at lunch, aboutBulkeley the footman, about the barouche or the phaeton, or any trumperydomestic perplexity, to have a Deus intersit was too much. And Iobserved, with some inward satisfaction, that when Baker uttered herpompous funereal phrases, rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, and appealedto that quarter, the children ate their jam and quarrelled and kickedtheir little shins under the table, Lovel read his paper and looked athis watch to see if it was omnibus time; and Bessy made the tea, quiteundisturbed by the old lady’s tragical prattle.

When Baker described her son’s fearful cough and dreadfully feverishstate, I said, “Surely, Lady Baker, Mr. Drencher had better be sent for;”and I suppose I uttered the disgusting dissyllable Drencher with a finesarcastic accent; for once, just once, Bessy’s grey eyes rose through thespectacles and met mine with a glance of unutterable sadness, then calmlysettled down on to the slop-basin again, or the urn in which her palefeatures, of course, were odiously distorted.

“You will not bring anybody home to dinner, Frederick, in my poorboy’s state?” asks Lady B.

“He may stay in his bedroom, I suppose?” replies Lovel.

“He is Cecilia’s brother, Frederick!” cries the lady.

“Conf——” Lovel was beginning. What was he about to say?

“If you are going to confound your angel in heaven, I have nothingto say, sir!” cries the mother of Clarence.

“Parbleu, madame!” cried Lovel, in French; “if he were not mywife’s brother, do you think I would let him stay here?”

“Parly Français? Oui, oui, oui!” cries Pop. “I know what Pa means!”

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“And so do I know. And I shall lend uncle Clarence some bookswhich Mr. Bonnington gave me, and——”

“Hold your tongue all!” shouts Lovel, with a stamp of his foot.

“You will, perhaps, have the great kindness to allow me the use ofyour carriage—or, at least, to wait here until my poor suffering boy canbe moved, Mr. Lovel?” says Lady B., with the airs of a martyr.

Lovel rang the bell. “The carriage for Lady Baker—at her ladyship’shour, Bedford: and the cart for her luggage. Her ladyship and CaptainBaker are going away.”

“I have lost one child, Mr. Lovel, whom some people seem to forget.I am not going to murder another! I will not leave this house, sir,unless you drive me from it by force, until the medical man has seen myboy!” And here she and sorrow sat down again. She was always givingwarning. She was always fitting the halter and traversing the cart, wasLady B., but she for ever declined to drop the handkerchief and have thebusiness over. I saw by a little shrug in Bessy’s shoulders, what thegoverness’s views were of the matter: and, in a word, Lady B. no morewent away on this day, than she had done on forty previous days whenshe announced her intention of going. She would accept benefits, yousee, but then she insulted her benefactors, and so squared accounts.

That great healthy, florid, scarlet-whiskered, medical wretch came atabout twelve, saw Mr. Baker and prescribed for him: and of course hemust have a few words with Miss Prior, and inquire into the state of herhealth. Just as on the previous occasion, I happened to be in the hallwhen Drencher went upstairs; Bedford happened to be looking out of hispantry-door: I burst into a yell of laughter when I saw Dick’s livid face—thesight somehow suited my savage soul.

No sooner was Medicus gone, when Bessy, grave and pale, in bonnetand spectacles, came sliding downstairs. I do not mean down thebanister, which was Pop’s favourite method of descent, but slim, tall,noiseless, in a nunlike calm, she swept down the steps. Of course, Ifollowed her. And there was Master Bedford’s nose peeping through thepantry-door at us, as we went out with the children. Pray, what business ofhis was it to be always watching anybody who walked with Miss Prior?

“So, Bessy,” I said, “what report does Mr.—hem!—Mr. Drencher—giveof the interesting invalid?”

“Oh, the most horrid! He says that Captain Baker has several timeshad a dreadful disease brought on by drinking, and that he is mad whenhe has it. He has delusions, sees demons, when he is in this state—wantsto be watched.”

“Drencher tells you everything.”

She says meekly: “He attends us when we are ill.”

I remark, with fine irony: “He attends the whole family: he isalways coming to Shrublands!”

“He comes very often,” Miss Prior says, gravely.

“And do you mean to say, Bessy,” I cry, madly cutting off two or[401]three heads of yellow broom with my stick—“do you mean to say a fellowlike that, who drops his h’s about the room, is a welcome visitor?”

“I should be very ungrateful if he were not welcome, Mr. Batchelor,”says Miss Prior. “And call me by my surname, please—and he has takencare of all my family—and——”

“And of course, of course, of course, Miss Prior!” say I, brutally;“and this is the way the world wags; and this is the way we are ill, andare cured; and we are grateful to the doctor that cures us!”

She nods her grave head. “You used to be kinder to me once,Mr. Batchelor, in old days—in your—in my time of trouble! Yes, mydear, that is a beautiful bit of broom! Oh, what a fine butterfly!”(Cecilia scours the plain after the butterfly.) “You used to be kinder tome once—when we were both unhappy.”

“I was unhappy,” I say, “but I survived. I was ill, but I am nowpretty well, thank you. I was jilted by a false, heartless woman. Doyou suppose there are no other heartless women in the world?” And Iam confident, if Bessy’s breast had not been steel, the daggers whichdarted out from my eyes would have bored frightful stabs in it.

But she shook her head, and looked at me so sadly that my eye-daggerstumbled down to the ground at once; for you see, though I am ajealous Turk, I am a very easily appeased jealous Turk; and if I hadbeen Bluebeard, and my wife, just as I was going to decapitate her, hadlifted up her head from the block and cried a little, I should have droppedmy scimitar, and said, “Come, come, Fatima, never mind for the presentabout that key and closet business, and I’ll chop your head off some othermorning.” I say, Bessy disarmed me. Pooh! I say. Women will makea fool of me to the end. Ah! ye gracious Fates! Cut my thread of life ereit grow too long. Suppose I were to live till seventy, and some littlewretch of a woman were to set her cap at me? She would catch me—Iknow she would. All the males of our family have been spoony and soft,to a degree perfectly ludicrous and despicable to contemplate——Well,Bessy Prior, putting a hand out, looked at me, and said,—

“You are the oldest and best friend I have ever had, Mr. Batchelor—theonly friend.”

“Am I, Elizabeth?” I gasp, with a beating heart.

“Cissy is running back with a butterfly.” (Our hands unlock.) “Don’tyou see the difficulties of my position? Don’t you know that ladies areoften jealous of governesses; and that unless—unless they imagined Iwas—I was favourable to Mr. Drencher, who is very good and kind—theladies at Shrublands might not like my remaining alone in the house with—with—youunderstand?” A moment the eyes look over the spectacles:at the next, the meek bonnet bows down towards the ground.

I wonder did she hear the bump—bumping of my heart? O heart!—Owounded heart! did I ever think thou wouldst bump—bump again?“Egl—Egl—izabeth,” I say, choking with emotion, “do, do, do you—te—tellme—you don’t—don’t—don’t—lo—love that apothecary?”

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She shrugs her shoulder—her charming shoulder.

“And if,” I hotly continue, “if a gentleman—if a man of mature agecertainly, but who has a kind heart and four hundred a-year of his own—wereto say to you, ‘Elizabeth! will you bid the flowers of a blighted lifeto bloom again?—Elizabeth! will you soothe a wounded heart?’”——

“Oh, Mr. Batchelor!” she sighed, and then added quickly, “Please,don’t take my hand. Here’s Pop.”

And that dear child (bless him!) came up at the moment, saying,“Oh, Miss Prior! look here! I’ve got such a jolly big toadstool!” Andnext came Cissy, with a confounded butterfly. O Richard the Third!Haven’t you been maligned because you smothered two little nuisances ina Tower? What is to prove to me that you did not serve the little brutesright, and that you weren’t a most humane man? Darling Cissy comingup, then, in her dear, charming way, says, “You shan’t take Mr. Batchelor’shand, you shall take my hand!” And she tosses up her little head, andwalks with the instructress of her youth.

“Ces enfans ne comprennent guère le Français,” says Miss Prior,speaking very rapidly.

“Après lonche?” I whisper. The fact is, I was so agitated, I hardlyknew what the French for lunch was. And then our conversationdropped: and the beating of my own heart was all the sound I heard.

Lunch came. I couldn’t eat a bit: I should have choked. Bessy ateplenty, and drank a glass of beer. It was her dinner, to be sure. YoungBlacksheep did not appear. We did not miss him. When Lady Bakerbegan to tell her story of George IV. at Slane Castle, I went into myown room. I took a book. Books? Paha! I went into the garden.I took out a cigar. But no, I would not smoke it. Perhaps she——manypeople don’t like smoking.

I went into the garden. “Come into the garden, Maud.” I sate bya large lilac bush. I waited. Perhaps, she would come. The morning-roomwindows were wide open on to the lawn. Will she never come?Ah! what is that tall form advancing? gliding—gliding into the chamberlike a beauteous ghost? Who most does like an angel show, you may besure ’tis she. She comes up to the glass. She lays her spectacles down onthe mantel-piece. She puts a slim white hand over her auburn hair andlooks into the mirror. Elizabeth, Elizabeth! I come!

As I came up, I saw a horrid little grinning, debauched face surgeover the back of a great arm-chair and look towards Elizabeth. It wasCaptain Blacksheep, of course. He laid his elbows over the chair. Helooked keenly and with a diabolical smile at the unconscious girl; andjust as I reached the window, he cried out, “Betsy Bellenden, by Jove!”

Elizabeth turned round, gave a little cry, and——but whathappened I shall tell in the ensuing chapter.

If there is one infirmity or defect of those five senses with which weare most of us blest, which more than any other attracts sympathy andclaims compassionate consideration, it is blindness—an inability to knowwhat is beautiful in form or in colour, to appreciate light, or to recognizeand comprehend the varying features of our fellow-men—a perpetual darknessin the midst of a world of light—a total exclusion from the readiest,pleasantest, and most available means of acquiring ideas.

And yet who would suppose that there exists, and is tolerably common,a partial blindness, which has hardly been described as a defect for morethan half a century, and of which it may be said even now that most ofthose who suffer from it are not only themselves ignorant of the fact, butthat those about them can hardly be induced to believe it. The unhappyvictims of this partial blindness (which is real and physical, not moral) areat great pains in learning what to them are minute distinctions of tint,although to the rest of the world they are differences of colour of the mostmarked kind, and, after all, they only obtain the credit of unusual stupidityor careless inattention in reward for their exertions and in sympathyfor their visual defect. We allude to a peculiarity of vision which firstattracted notice in the case of the celebrated propounder of the atomictheory in chemistry, the late Dr. Dalton, of Manchester, who on endeavouringto find some object to compare in colour with his scarlet robe ofdoctor of laws, when at Cambridge, could hit on nothing which betteragreed with it than the foliage of the adjacent trees, and who to match hisdrab coat—for our learned doctor was of the Society of Friends—mightpossibly have selected crimson continuations as the quietest and nearestmatch the pattern-book of his tailor exhibited.

An explanation of this curious defect will be worth listening to, themore so as one of our most eminent philosophers, Sir John Herschel, hasrecently made a few remarks on the subject, directing attention at the sametime to other little known but not unimportant phenomena of colour, whichbear upon and help to explain it.

It is known that white light consists of the admixture of colouredrays in certain proportions, and that the beautiful prismatic colours seen inthe rainbow are produced by the different degree in which the various raysof colour are bent when passing from one transparent substance into anotherof different density. Thus, when a small group of colour-rays, forming asingle pencil or beam of white sunlight, passes into and through the atmosphereduring a partial shower, and falls on a drop of rain, it is first bentaside on entering the drop, then reflected from the inside surface at theback of the drop, and ultimately emerges in an opposite direction to itsoriginal one. During these changes, however, although all the colour-raysforming the white pencil have been bent, each has been bent at adifferent angle—the red most, and the blue least. When therefore they[404]come out of the drop, the red rays are quite separated from the blue, andwhen the beam reaches its destination, the various colours enter the eyeseparately, forming a line of variously coloured light, the upper part redand the lower part blue, instead of a mere point of white light, as the raywould have appeared if seen before it entered the drop. The eye naturallyrefers each part of the ray to the place from whence it appears to come,and thus, with a number of drops falling and the sun not obscured, a rainbowis seen, which represents part of a number of concentric circular linesof colour, the outermost of which is red, the innermost violet, and the intermediateones we respectively name orange, yellow, green, blue, and indigo.

It has also been found by careful experiment, that these are not allpure colours, most of them being mixtures of some few that are reallyprimitive and pure, and necessarily belong to solar light. It is these mixedin due proportion which make up ordinary white light, which is the onlykind seen when the sun’s rays have not undergone this sort of decompositionor separation into elements. The actual primitive colours are generallysupposed to be red, yellow, and blue, and much theoretical as well as practicaldiscussion has arisen as to how these require to be mixed, whatproportion they bear to each other in their power of impressing the humaneye, and many other matters for which we must refer to Mr. Field, Mr.Owen Jones, and others, who have studied the subject and applied it.

In a general way it is found convenient to remember, or rather toassume, that three parts of red, five parts of yellow, and eight parts of blueform together white, and, therefore, that the pencil of white light containsthree rays of red, five of yellow, and eight of blue. To produce the otherprismatic colours, we must mix red with a little yellow to form orange;yellow with some blue to form green; much blue with a little red to formindigo, and a little blue with some red to form violet. In performingexperiments on colour it is convenient, instead of a drop of water, tosubstitute a prism of glass in decomposing the rays of light. We may thusproduce at will a convenient image, called a prismatic spectrum, which,when thrown on a wall, is a broad band of coloured lights, having all thetints of the rainbow in the same order. Looking at this image, the red isat the top and the violet at the bottom, and it may be asked, How does thered get amongst the blue to form violet, if the red rays are bent up to thetop of the spectrum? The answer is, that a quantity of white light notdecomposed, and a part of all the colour rays, reach all parts of the spectrum,however carefully it is sheltered, but that so many more red rays get to thetop, so many more of the yellow to the middle, and so many more blue towhere that colour appears most brilliant, that these are seen nearly pure,whilst where the red and yellow or yellow and blue mix they producedistinct kinds of colour, and where the blue at the bottom is faint, andsome of those red rays fall that do not reach the red part of the spectrum,the violet is produced. In point of fact, therefore, all the colours of thespectrum, as seen, are mixtures of pure colour with white light, while allbut red are mixtures of other pure colours with some red and some yellow[405]as well as white. Primitive and pure colours, therefore, are not obtainedin the spectrum, and a question has arisen as to which really deserve tobe called pure, Dr. Young upholding green against yellow, and evenregarding violet as primitive, and blue a mixed colour. A considerationof the results of this theory would lead us farther than is necessary for thepurpose we have now in view.

We also find philosophers now-a-days calmly discussing a questionwhich most people considered settled very long ago, namely, whether blueand yellow together really make green.

It is of no use for the artist to lift up his eyes with astonishment at anyone being so insane as to question so generally admitted a statement. Invain does he point to his pictures, in which his greens have been actuallyso produced. The strict photologist at once puts him down, by informinghim that he knows little or nothing of the real state of the case: his (theartist’s) colours are negative, or hues of more or less complete darkness;whereas in nature, the colour question is to be decided by positive colours,or hues in which all the light used is of one kind. The meaning of thiswill be best understood by an example: When a ray of white light falls ona green leaf, part of the ray is absorbed and part reflected, and the objectis therefore only seen with the part that is reflected. That which isabsorbed consists of some of each of the colour rays, and the resultingreflected light is nothing more than a mixture of what remains after thispartial absorption. The green we see consists of the original white lightdeprived of a portion of its rays. It is not a pure and absolute green,but only a residual group of coloured rays, and thus in so far the greencolour is negative, or consists of rays not absorbed. It is therefore partialdarkness, and not absolute light. If, however, on the other hand, a ray ofwhite light is passed through a transparent medium (e. g. some chemicalsalt) which has the property of entirely absorbing all but one or more ofthe colour rays, and no part of the remainder, then all the light thatpasses through this medium is of the one colour, or a mixture of theseveral colours that pass: and if such light is thrown on a white ground,the reflected colour will be positive, and not negative, and is far purer aswell as brighter than the colour obtained in the other way. It has beenfound by actual experiment, that when positive blue, thus obtained, isthrown on positive yellow, the resulting reflected colour bears no resemblanceto green. Sir John Herschel considers, that whether green is aprimitive colour—in other words, whether we really have three or fourprimitive colours—remains yet an open question.

It was necessary to explain these matters about colour before directlyreferring to the subject of this paper, namely, blindness to certain colourrays. It should also be clearly understood that the persons subject to thispeculiar condition of vision have not necessarily any mechanical or opticaldefect in the eye as an optical instrument, which may be strong or weak,long-sighted or short-sighted, quite independently of it. Colour blindnessdoes not in any way interfere with the ordinary requirements of vision,[406]nor is there the smallest reason to imagine that it can get worse by neglect,or admit of any improvement by education or treatment.

Assuming that persons of ordinary vision see three simple colours, red,yellow, and blue, and that all the rest of the colours are mixtures of thesewith each other and with white light, let us try to picture to ourselveswhat must be the visual condition of a person who is unable to recognizecertain rays; and as it appears that there is but one kind of colour-blindnessknown, we will assume that the person is unable to recognizethose rays of white light which consist of pure red and nothing else. Inother words, let us investigate the sensations of a person blind so far onlyas pure red is concerned.

All visible objects either reflect the same kind of light as that whichfalls on them, absorbing part and reflecting the rest, or else they absorbmore of some colour rays than others, and reflect only a negative tint,made up of a mixture of all the colour-rays not absorbed. To a colour-blindperson, the mixed light, as it proceeds from the sun, is probablywhite, as seen by those having perfect vision; for, as we have explainedalready, positive blue and yellow (the colour rays when red is excluded)do not make green, and the absence of the red ray is likely to produceonly a slight darkening effect. So far, then, there is no difference. Buthow must it be with regard to colour.

Bearing in mind what has been said above, it is evident that in withdrawingthe red rays from the spectrum, we affect all the colours. Theorange is no longer red and yellow, but darkened yellow; the yellow ispurer, the green is quite distinct, the blue purer, and the indigo and violetno longer red and blue, but blue mingled with more or less of darkness, theviolet being the darkest, as containing least blue in proportion to red, whilethe red part itself, though not seen as a colour, is not absolutely black,inasmuch as its part of the spectrum is faintly coloured with the few mixedrays of blue and yellow and white that escape from their proper place. Thered then ought to be seen as a gray neutral tint, the orange a dingy yellow,the indigo a dirty indigo, and the violet a sickly, disagreeable tint of paleblue, darkened considerably with black and gray.

Next let us take the case of an intelligent person affected with colourblindness, but who is not yet aware of the fact. He has been taught fromchildhood that certain shades, some darker and some brighter, but all ofneutral tint, and not really presenting to him colour at all, are to be calledby various names—scarlet, crimson, pale red, dark red, bright red, darkgreen, dark purple, brown, and others. With all these he can only associatean idea of gray; nor can he possibly know that any one else seesmore than he does. Having been taught the names they are called by,he remembers the names, with more or less accuracy, and thus passesmuster. There is a real difference of tint, because each of these coloursconsists of more or less blue, yellow, and white, mixed with the red; andour friend is enabled to recognize and name them, more or less correctly,according to his acuteness of perception and accuracy of memory.

[407]

If we desire to experiment on such a person, we must ask no nameswhatever, but simply place before him a number of similar objects differentlycoloured. Taking, for example, skeins of coloured wools, let usselect a complete series of shades of tint, from red, through yellow, green,and blue, to violet, and request him to arrange them as well as he is able,placing the darkest shades first, and putting those tints together that aremost like each other. It is curious then to watch the progress of thearrangement. In a case lately tried by the writer of this article, thecolour-blind person first threw aside at once a particular shade of palegreen as undoubted white, and then several dark blues, dark reds, darkgreens, and browns, were put together as black. The yellows and pureblues were placed correctly, as far as name was concerned, by arrangingseveral shades in order of brightness—but the order was very differentfrom that which another person would have selected. The greens weregrouped, some with yellows, and some with blues.

The colours in this experiment were all negative and impure, but wemay also obtain something like the same result with positive colour, transmittedby the aid of polarized light through plates of mica. In a case ofthis kind described by Sir J. Herschel, the only colours seen were blue andyellow, while pale pinks and greens were regarded as cloudy white, finepink as very pale blue, and crimson as blue; white red, ruddy pink, andbrick red were all yellows, and fine pink blue, with much yellow. Darkshades of red, blue, or brown, were considered as merely dark, no colourbeing recognized.

The account of Dr. Dalton’s own peculiarity of vision by himself, offersconsiderable interest. He says, speaking of flowers: “With respect tocolours that were white, yellow, or green, I readily assented to the appropriateterm; blue, purple, pink, and crimson appeared rather less distinguishable,being, according to my idea, all referable to blue. I haveoften seriously asked a person whether a flower was blue or pink, but wasgenerally considered to be in jest.” He goes on further to say, as theresult of his experience: “1st. In the solar spectrum three colours appear,yellow, blue, and purple. The two former make a contrast; the two latterseem to differ more in degree than in kind. 2nd. Pink appears by daylightto be sky-blue a little faded; by candlelight it assumes an orange oryellowish appearance, which forms a strong contrast to blue. 3rd. Crimsonappears muddy blue by day, and crimson woollen yarn is much the same asdark blue. 4th. Red and scarlet have a more vivid and flaming appearanceby candlelight than by daylight” (owing probably to the quantity of yellowlight thrown upon them).

As anecdotes concerning this curious defect of colour vision, we mayquote also the following: “All crimsons appeared to me (Dr. Dalton) tobe chiefly of dark blue, but many of them have a strong tinge of darkbrown. I have seen specimens of crimson claret and mud which were verynearly alike. Crimson has a grave appearance, being the reverse of everyshowy or splendid colour.” Again: “The colour of a florid complexion[408]appears to me that of a dull, opaque, blackish blue upon a white ground.Dilute black ink upon white paper gives a colour much resembling that ofa florid complexion. It has no resemblance to the colour of blood.” Wehave a detailed account of the case of a young Swiss, who did not perceiveany great difference between the colour of the leaf and that of the ripefruit of the cherry, and who confounded the colour of a sea-green paper withthe scarlet of a riband placed close to it. The flower of the rose seemed tohim greenish blue, and the ash gray colour of quick-lime light green. Ona very careful comparison of polarized light by the same individual, theblue, white, and yellow were seen correctly, but the purple, lilac, andbrown were confounded with red and blue. There was in this case aremarkable difference noticed according to the nature and quantity of lightemployed; and as the lad seemed a remarkably favourable example of thedefect, the following curious experiment was tried. A human head waspainted, and shown to the colour-blind person, the hair and eyebrows beingwhite, the flesh brownish, the lips and cheeks green. When asked what hethought of this head? the reply was, that it appeared natural, but that thehair was covered with a nearly white cap, and the carnation of the cheekswas that of a person heated by a long walk.

There is an interesting account in the Philosophical Transactions for1859 (p. 325), which well illustrates the ideas entertained by persons inthis condition with regard to their own state. The author, Mr. W. Pole,a well-known civil engineer, thus describes his case:—“I was about eightyears old when the mistaking of a piece of red cloth for a green leafbetrayed the existence of some peculiarity in my ideas of colour; and asI grew older, continued errors of a similar kind led my friends to suspectthat my eyesight was defective; but I myself could not comprehend this,insisting that I saw colours clearly enough, and only mistook their names.

“I was articled to a civil engineer, and had to go through many years’practice in making drawings of the kind connected with this profession.These are frequently coloured, and I recollect often being obliged to askin copying a drawing what colours I ought to use; but these difficultiesleft no permanent impression, and up to a mature age I had no suspicionthat my vision was different from that of other people. I frequently mademistakes, and noticed many circ*mstances in regard to colours, whichtemporarily perplexed me. I recollect, in particular, having wonderedwhy the beautiful rose light of sunset on the Alps, which threw myfriends into raptures, seemed all a delusion to me. I still, however,adhered to my first opinion, that I was only at fault in regard to thenames of colours, and not as to the ideas of them; and this opinion wasstrengthened by observing that the persons who were attempting to pointout my mistakes, often disputed among themselves as to what certain huesof colour ought to be called.” Mr. Pole adds that he was nearly thirtyyears of age when a glaring blunder obliged him to investigate his caseclosely, and led to the conclusion that he was really colour-blind.

All colour-blind persons do not seem to make exactly the same mistakes,[409]or see colours in the same way; and there are, no doubt, many minordefects in appreciating, remembering, or comparing colours which aresufficiently common, and which may be superadded to the true defect—thatof the optic nerve being insensible to the stimulus of pure red light.It has been asserted by Dr. Wilson, the author of an elaborate work on thesubject, that as large a proportion as one person in every eighteen is colour-blindin some marked degree, and that one in every fifty-five confounds redwith green. Certainly the number is large, for every inquiry brings outseveral cases; but, as Sir John Herschel remarks, were the average anythinglike this, it seems inconceivable that the existence of the defect shouldnot be one of vulgar notoriety, or that it should strike almost all uneducatedpersons, when told of it, as something approaching to absurdity. He alsoremarks, that if one soldier out of every fifty-five was unable to distinguisha scarlet coat from green grass, the result would involve grave inconveniencesthat must have attracted notice. Perhaps the fact that a differenceof tint is recognized, although the eye of the colour-blind person does notappreciate any difference of colour, when red, green, and other colours arecompared together, and that every one is educated to call certain things bycertain names, whether he understands the true meaning of the name or not,may help to explain both the slowness of the defective sight to discover itsown peculiarity, and the unwillingness of the person of ordinary vision toadmit that his neighbour really does not see as red what he agrees to call red.

There is, however, another consideration that this curious subject leads to.It is known that out of every 10,000 rays issuing from the sun, and penetratingspace at the calculated rate of 200,000 miles in each second of time,about one-fifth part is altogether lost and absorbed in passing through theatmosphere, and never reaches the outer envelope of the human eye.It is also known that of the rays that proceed from the sun, some producelight, some heat, and some a peculiar kind of chemical action to which themarvels of photography are due. Of these only the light rays are appreciatedspecially by the eye, although the others are certainly quite asimportant in preserving life and carrying on the business of the world.Who can tell whether, in addition to the rays of coloured light that togetherform a beam of white light, four-fifths of which only pass through theatmosphere, there may not have emanated from the sun other rays altogetherabsorbed and lost? or whether in entering the human eye, or being receivedon the retina at the back of the eye, or made sensitive by the optic nerve,there may not have been losses and absorptions sufficient to shut out from us,who enjoy what we call perfect vision, some other sources of information.How, in a word, do we who see clearly only three or four colours, and theirvarious combinations, together with their combined white light—how do weknow that to beings otherwise organized, the heat, or chemical rays, orothers we are not aware of, may not give distinct optical impressions? Wemay meet one person whose sense of hearing is sufficiently acute to enablehim to hear plainly the shrill night-cry of the bat, often totally inaudible,while his friend and daily companion cannot perhaps distinguish the noise[410]of the grasshopper, or the croaking of frogs, and yet neither of these differssufficiently from the generality of mankind to attract attention, and bothmay pass through life without finding out their differences in organization,or knowing that the sense of hearing of either is peculiar. So undoubtedlyit is with light. There may be some endowed with visual powers extraordinarilyacute, seeing clearly what is generally altogether invisible; andthis may have reference to light generally, or to any of the various parts ofwhich a complete sunbeam is composed. Such persons may habitually seewhat few others ever see, and yet be altogether unaware of their powers, asthe rest of the world would be of their own deficiency.

The case of the colour-blind person is the converse. He sees, it is true,no green in the fields, or on the trees, no shade of pink mantling in thecountenance, no brilliant scarlet in the geranium flower, but still he talksof these things as if he saw them, and he believes he does see them, until bya long process of investigation he finds out that the idea he receives fromthem is very different from that received by his fellows. He often, however,lives on for years, and many have certainly lived out their liveswithout guessing at their deficiency.

These results of physical defects of certain kinds remaining totally unknown,either to the subject of them or his friends, even when all areeducated and intelligent, are certainly very curious; but it will readilybe seen that they are inevitable in the present development of our faculties.In almost everything, whether moral or intellectual, we measure ourfellows by our own standard. He whose faculties are powerful, and whoseintellect is clear, looks over the cloud that hovers over lower natures, andwonders why they, too, will not see truth and right as he sees them. Those,on the other hand, who dwell below among the mists of error and thetrammels of prejudice, will not believe that their neighbour, intellectuallyloftier, sees clearly over the fog and malaria of their daily atmosphere.

In taking leave of the question of colour blindness, it should be mentionedthat hitherto no case has been recorded in which this defect extendsto any other ray than the red.

There seems no reason for this, and possibly, if they were looked for,cases might be found in which the insensibility of the optic nerve hadreference to the blue instead of the red ray—the least instead of the mostrefrangible part of the beam of light. It would also be well worth thetrial if those who have any reason to suppose that they enjoy a superiorityof vision would determine by actual experiment the extent of their unusualpowers, and learn whether they refer to an optical appreciation of thechemical or heat rays, or show any modification of the solar spectrum byenlargement or otherwise.

Lastly, it would be well, when children show an unusual difficulty indescribing colours, to try by some such experiments as those here relatedwhether any defect of colour blindness exists or not. It would clearly beundesirable that such children as have this defect should waste time inlearning accomplishments or professions which they must always be unable[411]to practise. They, their parents and teachers, may thus be saved some ofthat disappointment which is always experienced when presumed tastes andtalents are cultivated or forced contrary to the natural powers of the individual.It must clearly be hopeless to endeavour to obtain good taste incolours, when most of the colours themselves are not seen at all, or are sorecognized as to present appearances altogether different from those seen bythe rest of the world.

Spring.

The mere notion that I was in possession of a room inside Canton—withfreedom to wander through every quarter of that hitherto mysterious city,of which former travellers had only conveyed a notion from glancestaken from the White Cloud Mountain, revealing nothing but an expanseof tiles and trees, with a pagoda-top or two, and a few mandarin flag-poles—wassufficient to banish anything like sleep. And apart from thisconstant wondering at perpetually finding myself where I was—the sharp“tung” of the mosquitoes before settling down for their gory banquet,the calls of the French and English bugles answering each other from thefive-storied pagoda to the joss-house barracks, the terribly breathlessatmosphere, and the grim, gigantic Chinese gods, who sat in the moonlightlike pantomime ogres round my chamber, were quite enough to have keptone awake, and would have done so even if a genius had descended to reada paper on Art, which they might have discussed with him afterwards.

At last the quickly-rising tropical sun fired a ray like a shell into myeyes through a broken pane in the mother-of-pearl window of my joss-hauntedroom. This drove me out of bed, or, rather, off my matting,as quickly as though a real shrapnell had hissed its intention of immediatelyexploding beneath me. For this fearful sun of a Canton summerfalls in red-hot death upon the European whose brain it can reach. Oursoldiers were struck down before it in the White Cloud expedition asthough a crane had dropped a woolsack on their heads.

We have all of us, at some time or another, said, “I never felt sohot in my life!” This has been less with relation to actual caloric thanto a sudden flush of awkwardness attendant upon having asked peopleafter their dead relations, or uncomfortable family affairs; or in expectationof some accidental and unintentional revelation of a circ*mstancein our own lives, of which we were not remarkably proud. Or, moreespecially, on being introduced by a gushing man to an enemy you hadlong since cut, with the assurance that you ought both to know each other.But I find this morning that I feel hotter still. The wind blows againstme as from the door of a glasshouse; and the sun comes straight downlike a red-hot nail, even through my double umbrella (which I am carefulto put up before I venture out on the terrace), and my light but thick pithhat. At such times your claret is self-mulled, and butter becomes thickoil. You cannot find a cool place on your hard-stuffed pillow. The sunapparently twists its rays—sends them round corners, and through venetians,and under porticos; the light being so vivid that its mere reflectionbanishes shade. The swinging punkah—which A-wa, whose pictureyou have seen on cheap grocers’ tea-papers, pulls night and day, awakeand asleep, as though he were a slightly vitalized lever-escapement—this[413]flounced and flirting terror of all bilious people gets up a delusive breeze,and when it stops the heat comes rushing back with double force. Everythingyou wear clings to you; or, if flannel, fetches out the “pricklyheat” until you are beside yourself. In every draught, one side is chilledwhilst the other is burned, as happens at the fireplace of an old countryhouse, where one side is roasted, whilst on the other you are nearly blownup the chimney. And when you are actually out and about, you appearto live and move in the focus of one large burning-glass. It is a deadthick heat, that you fancy might be cut into blocks, and stored in Arcticships for gradual distribution.

The kindness of General Straubenzee had consigned me to a Buddhisttemple for my residence. It was the last costly work of Yeh, on MagazineHill, and was barely finished when we took the city. An elaborate bell,yet unhung, stood sentinel at my door. I afterwards watched its departureto be taken to England, by Captain Maguire, in the Sanspareil,and it may now be seen in the Crystal Palace. Magazine Hill is toCanton what Montmartre is to Paris, and is covered with joss-houses,now all used as barracks for our men. It is to the extreme north of thecity, which it commands, as well as the country outside, and is the onlyhigh ground within the walls, which here come close to it. Gazing fromthis on the open country, one is reminded of the view from the walls ofour own Chester, near the jail, looking over the Roodee towards the Welshmountains. To continue the comparison with places which may be familiarto my readers, the look-out towards the south, comprising the entire city,is marvellously like the eye-stretch over Lyons from the Fourvières, whenthe air is too hazy to see the Alps. There is, however, one localizedobject—a tall pagoda, rising high above the expanse of red roofs. One involuntarythought of Kew Gardens brings one back, for the moment, tohome; and as this pagoda is not considered safe to ascend—on the authorityof Major Luard, who gallantly tried it—and as it promises at somefuture time, if not taken down, to form a gigantic accident (as all columnsand pagodas must do one of these days) the likeness is more perfect.

I found a sturdy little unshod pony waiting for me at the foot of thehill, with a tidy little pigtailed boy to guide him. The pony was forsale for seven dollars—it sounded cheap, but the expense of keep was thegreat question. My little friend made a speech:—“Chin-chin! mytalkee A No. 1 Inglis, all a plopper (proper).” But I found hisvocabulary of even the scanty “Canton English” very limited. I madeout, however, that he was going to London to learn “all sort pigeon;”and he was very much delighted at pointing out to me some signboardsover a few little shops, edging a pond, and reading:—“Best Wash fromHong Kong,” “A No. 1, Washsoap,” &c. And when we passed twoculprits, tied together by their pigtails, and lying full-length upon theground, guarded by an Irishman in front of a baraque, inscribed “Paddy-goose”(a favourite sobriquet at the dram-shops), he roared with laughter,and said:—“Soger hab catchee two piecey pilat, too muchee drunkee—wanchee[414]chokee-pigeon: no loast duck.” This interpreted expressing,with the Chinese substitution of the l for the r, that two pirates had beencaptured by the police in an extreme state of intoxication, and that theywould go to prison, where roast duck would be a novelty.

After passing over a desert of brick rubbish—the remains of housesdestroyed because they formed ambuscades from which the lurking bravescaptured or shot at stragglers on the walls, I was fairly inside Canton.Here the streets are all so exactly alike, that in endeavouring to give a notionof one, I may describe all. The majority appeared to vary from seven toten feet in breadth—the crowded Cranbourn Passage, which runs fromSt. Martin’s Lane to Castle Street could be soon transformed into one, bya handful of theatrical mechanics. The houses are two or three storieshigh, and their signboards, in gaudy paint or gilding, either hang in frontof them, or are set up in stone sockets, and all at right angles to the houses,so that, as the China character is written perpendicularly, they can beread going up or down the street. The manner in which they intrude onthe thoroughfare braves all notices of Commissioners and Boards. Thestreets are all paved with granite in large flags, and this has acquired apeculiarly polished appearance from the absence of all wheel and quadrupedaltraffic, and the constant shuffling along of the soft soles or nakedfeet of the natives. For the Cantonese do not appear to understand the useof wheels, or beasts of burden; everything is carried on bamboo poles bythe intensely hard-working coolie population. Where they can do it, thestreets are shaded with matting.

And now it was that all my childish associations connected with Chinawere on the point of realization. For in the “pigeon” of Lord Elgin andSir Michael Seymour—who must shake hands, and understand how muchand how honestly both are respected by all of us—in the China Mail informationthat Patna opium is at 770 dollars, Malwa dull, and for Turkeyno demand; and that Bank bills are 4s. 9d.; Sycee silver, 5½ per cent.premium, and Shanghai green-tea quotations are unchanged—in a whirlof treaties, and Peiho forts, and conferences totally misunderstood oneither side, from the dismal ignorance of the practical Chinese languageamongst our professed Chinese students (who could translate the greatmetaphysical work of Fo, but would be sadly bothered to decide a simplepolice “row”);—in all this, there is nothing in common with our oldChina. But here these associations crowded on us. Men ran along withslung tea-packages, as they did on the gaily-varnished canisters of the“Canton T Company,” in the High Street of my boyhood. Women withtheir bismuthed faces peered from windows, as they did on the fans andplates from which I formed my earliest notions of what was then called“the Celestial Empire.” And then came another memory, clinging tothat delightful time when a belief in the reality of everything was ourprincipal mental characteristic, extending even to “Bogey” in the cellar,and the dustman who threw sand in the eyes of sleepy little boys on thestaircase, and the black dog in the passage; nay, even to that celebrated silver[415]spade with which the doctor dug up our little baby brother or sister fromout of the parsley-bed—when story-books had that astonishing hold on methat, out of our town, I perfectly established the field along which Christianran with his fingers in his ears when his neighbours tried to call him back.(And if ever there was a case for the parochial authorities of a mandeserting his wife and children, Christian’s was one.) In this happy timeI had associations with China, and they now come back from one of themost charming of the attractive stories in the Arabian Nights Entertainments.I was now looking—practically, with my own eyes—on a Chinesetown, and a group of idle boys playing. A grave stranger of a foreignand travelled aspect was watching them. I should not have been at allsurprised if he had recognized, in one of the urchins, the son of his deadbrother—had clothed him at a ready-made tailor’s, and then introducedhim, by lifting up a stone with a ring in it, to those wonderful nurserygrounds of Hunt and Roskill, and Phillips, and Garrard, where the dewwas all diamonds, and the wall-fruit all stones. And was it not likelythat, in this very street, the stranger might have subsequently passedwhen anxious to exchange his new moderator lamps for any old argands,or solars, or camphines that might be dust-collecting about the house?Here again was an open space of ground, on which that palace mighthave stood, which went away one night in such a hurry. And strange tosay, there was a palace here, and it did disappear one early Januarymorning. It belonged to that old miscreant Yeh, and its sudden absencewas owing rather to the sponging of practical guns than the rubbing ofwonderful lamps. And although I heard nothing, both here and at HongKong, but of Hall of the Calcutta, and Mr. Oliphant; Telesio’s pale ale“chop” (or boat store); John Dent’s French cook’s chow-chow; the arrivalof the Fei-man steamer; Colonel Stevenson’s bamboo balcony on the hill:the 59th; Sir John Bowring and Mr. Chisholm Anstey: and innumerable“shaves:” yet my thoughts ran upon Confucius and pagodas, nodding mandarins,chop-sticks, and the feast of lanterns, and above all, on Aladdin.

I was to join Mr. Parkes at the yamun of the Allied Commissioners,and go with him to pay a visit to Peh-kwei, the Governor of Canton.This yamun had been the palace of the Tartar general, but was nowfilled with English and French officials, soldiers, marines, compradors,coolies, and Chinese rabble, attending the police cases. We here formeda small procession, and our revolvers came into show; for Mr. Parkes wasthe most unpopular man in the city with the Cantonese. They calledhim “the red-bristled barbarian,” and had let fly various jingals at him,at different times, in the streets. But he had the courage of the——anybodyyou please; and the more they annoyed him, the more he wouldride them down, and bang them back into their ambuscades. We wereall on ponies or in chairs, with the exception of our guards; and we rodeso fast along the narrow streets, and through the bustling crowds ofpassengers, and almost over the wares displayed out of doors, that a fire-enginegoing through the Lowther Arcade in a hurry could not have[416]created greater confusion. On entering the first court of Peh-kwei’syamun, we were saluted with guns, and standards were hoisted on themandarin poles. These courts are large paved areas, with a very broadflag-path up the middle, and fine trees at the sides; they are dividedfrom each other by vast wooden buildings, like barns, with Chineseroofs, and stone lions guarding them. The patient ingenuity of themakers is shown in these animals; they have a large ball in theirmouths, which you can turn round behind the teeth, but cannot take out;it has evidently been cut from the solid. We rode through the centreof these barns, up the stairs, to a higher court beyond, but our attendantsfiled off round the sides; and then we dismounted, and were introducedto Peh-kwei. I had often seen him wagging his head, and tongue, andhands, in old china-shops; but now he stood upright, in a long, whitesilk peignoir: and then he and Mr. Parkes began bowing to one anotherin such continuity, that they looked wound up, and minutes elapsed beforeeither of them would take a seat. Then tea was brought in, and for alittle time the talk was exactly like the twaddle that passes at a morningcall in England between people who don’t care a straw about each other,never have, and are never likely to. But Mr. Parkes began to pull someChinese documents from his pocket; and as I had been introduced as “amandarin on his travels,” Peh-kwei made a very lucky suggestion that Ishould see his grounds.

This was just what I wanted—liberty to invade what would have beendeemed a privacy even by the Cantonese; but the acres of unkept, overgrownwilderness, with its rotting pavilions, tumble-down temples, dried-uplakes, crumbling rockwork, and broken seats and tables, formed thespring of all the impressions I afterwards received in and about Canton.Nothing so dreary—not even Vauxhall on a wet Christmas Day—evercould be imagined. It was not the breakdown of acute organic lesion,but the decay of long, long-continued atrophy: and I formed a theory atthe moment, which the appearance of every other yamun, or temple,strengthened, that the Chinese had for ages so jealously shut up theirvaunted city, not from any terror of the barbarians becoming acquaintedwith their secrets of trade, government, or manufacture, but from a positiveidea of shame that any one should see the mouldering neglected“lions” of their southern capital. True to the estimated value of theircurios, everything was in a state of “crackle.” Combine all you can callto mind of dreary places—Miss Linwood’s old room in Leicester Square,and the present aspect of the Square itself; the gaunt, cheerless show-roomsof palaces generally: the “Moated Grange” and “HauntedHouse;” the old pavilion on Monkey Island, and indeed “pavilions”generally, from that in Hans Place to any damp ceiling-stained summer-house,dedicated to friendship or nature, that you know of—mix themtogether, and extract their essence, and then you will not have theleast idea of the general rot and ruin that is spreading, like an ulcer,throughout Canton.

When a cathedral chapter have received their congé d’élire—so runs thepopular and perfectly erroneous tradition—and have made choice of aBishop, the pastor elect simpers, blushes, and says that really he is muchobliged, but that he would rather not accept the proffered dignity. “Noloepiscopari,” he urges in graceful deprecation. Nobody in or out of thechapter believes in his reluctance, and nobody now-a-days believes in theharmless legend. Thus, too, when the Commons elect a Speaker, a traditionwith little more foundation assumes that the right honourable gentlemanapproaches the foot of the Throne, hints in the most delicate manner thathe, the chosen of the Commons, is a blockhead and an impostor, declaresthat he shall make but an indifferent Speaker, and seeks to be relieved fromhis onerous charge. At that same moment, perhaps, Messrs. Adams andEde are embroidering Mr. Speaker’s gold robe; and experienced tonsorsnear Lincoln’s Inn are finishing the last row of curls on the ambrosialhorse-hair which to-morrow will be a wig. When you ask a young lady totake a little more Mayonnaise de homard, or entreat her to oblige the companywith “Entends tu les gondoles?”—that charming Venetian barcarole—doesshe not ordinarily, and up to a certain degree of pressure, refuse—saythat she would rather not, or that she has a cold? Whose health isproposed and drunk amid repeated cheers, but he rises, and assures theassembled guests that he is about the last person in the world who shouldhave been toasted; that he never felt so embarrassed in his life—he leadsat the common law bar, and on breaches of promise is immense—and thathe wants words to, &c. &c.? At the bar mess he is known as “TalkingSmith,” and at school his comrades used to call him “Captain Jaw.” Myfriends, we do not place any faith in these denials; and forthwith clap themitre on the Prelate’s head, bow to the Speaker, help the young lady toarrange the music stool, and intone nine times nine with one cheer more.

It is strange—it is vexatious; but I cannot persuade the ladies andgentlemen who peruse these papers to believe that I am not writing theLife of William Hogarth, and that these are merely discursive Essays onthe Man, the Work, and the Time. People persist in thinking that it iswith him who is now writing a case of nolo episcopari. Indeed it is nosuch thing. I should dearly wish to write myself Biographer. “Fainwould I climb, but that I fear to fall.” I told you in the outset that thisEndeavour was no Life. I disclaimed any possession of exclusive information.I claimed a liberal benefit-of-clergy as to names and dates. I have[418]had no access to muniment rooms. I have explored the contents of nocharter chests. I have disentombed no dusty records, and rescued noparish registers from the degrading fate of serving to singe a goose.I am timorous, and seek not to be heard as one speaking with authority.I am anonymous, and risk no fame. But the north country won’t believeme, and the south and the midland shake their heads incredulously when Isay this is not Hogarth’s Life, but only so much gossip about him and hispictures and times. I say so again; and if the public won’t be enlightened—sivult decipi—all I can add is, Decipiatur.

Now as to the exact date of the expiration of Hogarth’s apprenticeship—whenwas it? I have but an impression. I cannot speak from anycertain knowledge, and assume, therefore, that the expiry was circa 1720.Ireland opines that it was in 1718, William having then attained histwenty-first year. The registers of the Goldsmiths’ Company might bemore explicit, or, better still, Mr. Scott, the chamberlain of London, mightenlighten us all, to a month, and to a day. For of old the chamberlainwas the official Nemesis to the ofttimes unruly ’prentices of London. Theidle, or rebellious, or truant novice, was arraigned before this dreadfunctionary. He had power to relegate the offender to the carcere duroof Bridewell, there to suffer the penance of stripes and a bread-and-waterdiet. For aught I know, the ministrations of the chamberlain may to thisday be occasionally invoked; but it is in his capacity of a recording official,and as having formerly drawn some fees from the attestation and registrationof indentures, that his assistance would be useful to me. WilliamHogarth’s art-and-mystery-parchment may be in the city archives. Whatother strange and curiously quaint things those archives contain we hadan inkling the other day, when the Liber Albus was published. But I havenot the pleasure of Mr. Scott’s acquaintance, and he might say me nay.

Hogarth, I presume, was released from silver servitude in 1718-20.April 29th, 1720, is, as I have elsewhere noted, the date affixed to theshop-card he executed for himself, setting up in business, I hope in friendlyrivalry to Ellis Gamble in Little Cranbourn Alley, hard by the “GoldenAngel.” I stood and mused in Little Cranbourn Alley lately, and tried toconjure up Hogarthian recollections from that well-nigh blind passage.But no ghosts rose from a coffee-shop and a French barber’s, and a murkylittle den full of tobacco-pipes and penny valentines; so, taking nothingby my motion, I sped my slowest to the Sablonière in Leicester Square.Here even my senses became troubled with the odours of French soups,and I could make nothing Hogarthian out of the hostelry, a wing of whichwas once Hogarth’s house.

It is my wish to tell as succinctly as is feasible the story of sevenyears in Hogarth’s progress; seven years during which he was slowly,painfully, but always steadily and courageously, climbing that precipitousladder which we have all in some sort or another striven to climb. At thetop sits Fame kicking her heels, carrying her trumpet mincingly, makingsometimes a feint to put it to her lips and sound it, more frequently looking[419]down superciliously with eyes half closed, and pretending to be unawareof the panting wretch toiling up the weary rungs beneath. Some swarmup this ladder as boys up a pole, hand over hand, a good grip with theknees, a confident, saucy, upward look. Others stop in medio, look round,sigh, or are satisfied, and gravely descend to refresh themselves with breadand cheese for life. Some stagger up, wildly, and tumbling off, areborne, mutilated, to the hospital accident-ward to die. Others there arewho indeed obtain the ladder’s summit, but are doomed to crawl perpetuallyup and down the degrees. These are the unfortunates who carry hods tothose master bricklayers who have bounded up the ladder with airy strides,or better still, have been born at the top of the ladder. Poor hodmen! theymake dictionaries, draw acts of parliament, cram the boy-senator for hismaiden speech, form Phidias’ rough clay-sketch into a shapely, polishedmarble bust, shade with Indian ink Archimedes’ rough draught for the newpump or the tubular bridge, and fill in Sir Joshua’s backgrounds. Somethere are who go to sleep at the ladder’s foot, and some, the few, thefelicitous, who reach the summit, breathless but triumphant, boldly biddingFame blow her loudest blast. Forthwith the venal quean makes theclarion to sound, and all the world is amazed. Lowliness, our Shakspearesays, is “young ambition’s ladder:”

But so did not William Hogarth. He was self-confident and self-consciousenough,[2] when, after many years of toilsome struggling he turned up thetrump-card, and his name was bruited about with loud fanfares to the[420]crowd. He attained the desired end: this Fame, this renown; and tovulgarize the allegory, he managed to snatch that comfortable shoulder ofmutton which surmounts the greasy pole, and which, although we feign tocovet it not, we must have. But he never attempted to conceal the smallnessof his beginnings, to assert that his ancestors came over with theConqueror, or to deny that his father came up to London by the waggon.He sets down in his own black and white, how he fought the battle forbread, how he engraved plates, and painted portraits and conversations andassemblies, in order to obtain the necessary bite and sup; how, with nomoney, he has often “gone moping into the city,” but there receiving “tenguineas for a plate,” has come home, jubilant, “put on his sword,” andswaggered, I doubt it not, with the most dashing bucks in the coffee-houseor on the Mall. I think they are happy traits in the character of thisgood fellow and honest man, that he should have had the courage toaccomplish ten guineas’ worth of graver’s work, without drawing money onaccount, and that he should have had a sword at home for the red-letter daysand sunshiny hours. You, brave young student and fellow-labourer!draw on your corduroys, shoulder your pick and shovel, be off to thediggings; do your work, get paid; and then come home, put on yoursword and be a gentleman. One sees Mr. Beverly or Mr. Telbin slashingaway with a large whitewasher’s brush in a scene-painting room, fa*ggingaway in canvas jackets and over-alls, covered with parti-coloured splashes.Then, the work done, they wash their hands and come forth spruce andradiant, in peg-tops and kid-gloves. When our Prime Minister is atBroadlands, I hear that he stands up writing at a high desk, not seatedlike a clerk, working away bravely at the affairs of the chose publique,as for a wage of five-and-twenty shillings a week, and afterwards enjoys therelaxation of pruning his trees, or riding over his estate. Keep then yourswords at home, and don’t wear them in working hours; but, the labourdone, come out into the open and claim your rank.

I daresay that for a long time twenty-five shillings a week would havebeen a very handsome income to William the engraver. He coveredmany silver salvers and tankards with heraldic devices, but I don’t thinkhe had any “argenterie, bagues et bijouxs,” or other precious stock of his ownon sale. Most probable is it, that his old master gave him work to doafter he had left his service. I wonder if Mr. Gamble, in after days, whenhis apprentice had become a great man, would ever hold forth to taverncoteries on the share he had had in guiding the early efforts of that facilehand! I hope and think so; and seem to hear him saying over histankard: “Yes, sir, I taught the lad. He was bound to me, sir, byhis worthy father, who was as full of book learning as the co*ckpit is ofHanover rats. He could not draw a stroke when he came to me, sir. Hewas good at his graving work, but too quick, too quick, and somewhatrough. Never could manage the delicate tintos or the proper reticulationsof scroll-foliage. But he was always drawing. He drew the dog. Hedrew the cat. He drew Dick, his fellow ’prentice, and Molly the maid,[421]and Robin Barelegs the shoeblack at the corner of Cranbourn Street. Hedrew a pretty configurement of Mistress Gamble, my wife deceased, in herOudenarde tire, and lapels of Mechlin point, and Sunday sack. But therewas ever a leaning towards the caricatura in him, sir. Sure never mortalsince Jacques Callot the Frenchman (whose ‘Habits and Beggars’ he wasmuch given to study) ever drew such hideous, leering satyrs. And hehad a way too, of making the griffins laugh and the lions dance gambadoes,so to speak, on their hind legs in the escocheons he graved, which wouldnever have passed the College of Arms. Sir, the tankard out: what!drawer, there.”

Thus Ellis Gamble mythically seen and heard. But to the realities.In 1720 or ’21, Hogarth’s father, the poor old dominie, was removed to aland where no grammar disputations are heard, and where one dictionaryis as good as another. Hogarth’s sisters had previously kept a “frockshop” in the city; they removed westward after the old man’s death, andprobably occupied their brother’s place of business in Little CranbournAlley, when, giving up a perhaps momentary essay in the vocation of aworking tradesman, he elected to be, instead, a working artist. For Maryand Ann Hogarth he engraved a shop-card, representing the interior of asomewhat spacious warehouse with sellers and customers, and surmountedby the king’s arms. The sisters could not have possessed much capital;and there have not been wanting malevolent spirits—chiefly of the Wilkiteway of thinking—to hint that the Misses Hogarths’ “old frock-shop” wasindeed but a very old slop-, not to say rag-shop, and that the properinsignia for their warehouse would have been not the royal arms, but acertain image, sable, pendent, clad in a brief white garment: a black dollof the genuine Aunt Sally proportions.

William Hogarth out of his apprenticeship is, I take it, a sturdy,ruddy-complexioned, clear-eyed, rather round-shouldered young fellow,who as yet wears his own hair, but has that sword at home—a silver-hiltedor a prince’s metal one—and is not averse to giving his hat a smart co*ck,ay, and bordering it with a narrow rim of orrice when Fortune smiles onhim. Not yet was the ἨΘΟΣ developed in him. It was there, yet latent.But, instead, that quality with which he was also so abundantly gifted, andwhich combined so well with his sterner faculties—I mean the quality ofhumorous observation—must have begun to assert itself. “Engraving oncopper was at twenty years of age my utmost ambition,” he writes himself.Yes, William, and naturally so. The monsters and chimeras of heraldryand Mr. Gamble’s back-shop had by that time probably thoroughly palledon him. Fortunate if a landscape, or building, or portrait had sometimesto be engraved on a silver snuff-box or a golden fan-mount. The restwas a wilderness of apocryphal natural history, a bewildering phantasmagoriaof strange devices from St. Benet’s Hill, expressed in crambo, injargon, and in heraldic romany: compony, gobony, and chequy; lionserased and tigers couped; bucks trippant and bucks vulnèd; eaglessegreiant, and dogs sciant; bezants, plates, torteaux, pomeis, golps,[422]sanguiny-guzes, tawny and saltire.[3] The revulsion was but to be expected—wasindeed inevitable, from the disgust caused by the seven years’ transcriptionof these catalogues of lying wonders, to the contemplation of the reallife that surged about Cranbourn Alley, and its infinite variety of humours,comic and tragic. “Engraving on copper” at twenty might be the utmostambition to a young man mortally sick of silver salvers; but how was itat twenty-one and twenty-two?

“As a child,” writes William, “shows of all kind gave me pleasure.”To a lad of his keen eye and swift perception, all London must havebeen full of shows. Not only was there Bartlemy, opened by solemnprocession and proclamation of Lord Mayor—Bartlemy with its black-puddings,pantomimes, motions of puppets, rope-dancers emulating theachievements of Jacob Hall, sword-swallowing women, fire-eating salamanders,high Dutch conjurors, Alsatian and Savoyard-Dulcamara quacks sellingeye-waters, worm-powders, love-philters, specifics against chincough,tympany, tissick, chrisoms, head-mould-shot, horse-shoe-head, and otherstrange ailments, of which the Registrar-general makes no mentionin his Returns, now-a-days;[4] not only did Southwark, Tottenhamand Mayfair flourish, but likewise Hornfair by Charlton, in Kent, easyof access by Gravesend tilt-boat, which brought to at Deptford Yard,and Hospital Stairs at Greenwich. There were two patent playhouses,Lincoln’s Inn and Drury Lane; and there were Mr. Powell’s puppets at theold Tennis-court, in James Street, Haymarket—mysterious edifice, it lingersyet! looking older than ever, inexplicable, obsolete, elbowed by casinos,poses plastiques, cafés, and American bowling-alleys, yet refusing to budgean inch before the encroachments of Time, who destroys all things, eventennis-courts. It was “old,” we hear, in 1720; I have been told thattennis is still played there. Gramercy! by whom? Surely at night, whenthe wicked neighbourhood is snatching a short feverish sleep, the “oldtennis-courts” must be haunted by sallow, periwigged phantoms of Charles’stime, cadaverous beaux in laced bands, puffed sleeves, and flapped, plumedhats. Bats of spectral wire strike the cobweb-balls; the moonlight canmake them cast no shadows on the old brick-wall. And in the gallery sitsthe harsh-visaged, cynic king, Portsmouth at his side, his little spanielsmumbling the rosettes in his royal shoes.

[423]

In a kind of copartnership with Mr. Powell’s puppets—formerly ofthe Piazza, Covent Garden, was the famous Faux, the legerdemain, orsleight-of-hand conjuror—the Wiljalba Frikell of his day, and whomHogarth mentions in one of his earliest pictorial satires. But Fauxdid that which the Russian magician, to his credit, does not do: hepuffed himself perpetually, and was at immense pains to assure the publicthrough the newspapers that he was not robbed returning from the duch*essof Buckingham’s at Chelsea. From Faux’s show at the “Long-room,”Hogarth might have stepped to Heidegger’s—hideous Heidegger’s masqueradesat the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket, where also were held“ridotti,” and “veglioni”—junketings of an ultra Italian character, andall presented in 1722 by the Middlesex grand jury as intolerable nuisances.Many times, also, did the stern Sir John Gonson (the Harlot’sProgress Gonson), justice of peace, much feared by the Phrynes of thehundreds of Drury, inveigh in his sessions-charges against the sinful ridottiand the disorderly veglioni. Other performances took place at the King’sTheatre. There was struggling for its first grasp on the English taste andthe English pocket—a grasp which it has never since lost—that anomalous,inconsistent, delightful entertainment, the Italian Opera. Hogarth, as atrue-born Briton, hated the harmonious exotic; and from his earliest platesto the grand series of the Rake’s Progress, indulges in frequent flings atHandel (in his Ptolomeo, and before his immortal Oratorio stage), Farinelli,Cuzzoni, Senesino, Faustina, Barrenstadt, and other “soft simperingwhiblins.” Yet the sturdiest hater of this “new taste of the town” couldnot refrain from admiring and applauding to the echo that which wascalled the “miraculously dignified exit of Senesino.” This celebratedsortita must have resembled in the almost electrical effect it produced,the elder Kean’s “Villain, be sure thou prove,” &c. in Othello; JohnKemble’s “Mother of the world—” in Coriolanus; Madame Pasta’s “Io,”in Medea; and Ristori’s world-known “Tu,” in the Italian version of thesame dread trilogy. One of the pleasantest accusations brought againstthe Italian Opera was preferred some years before 1720, in the Spectator,when it was pointed out that the principal man or woman singer sang inItalian, while the responses were given, and the choruses chanted byBritons. Judices, in these latter days, I have “assisted” at the performanceof the Barber of Seville at one of our large theatres, when Figarowarbled in Italian with a strong Spanish accent, when Susanna was aFrenchwoman, Doctor Bartolo an Irishman, and the chorus sang inEnglish, and without any H’s.

More shows remain for Hogarth to take delight in. The quacks, out ofBartlemy time, set up their standings in Moorfields by the madhouse(illustrated by Hogarth in the Rake’s Progress), and in Covent GardenMarket (W. H. in the plate of Morning), by Inigo Jones’s rustic church,which he built for the Earl of Bedford: “Build me a barn,” quoth theearl. “You shall have the bravest barn in England,” returned Inigo, andhis lordship had it. There were quacks too, though the loud-voiced[424]beggars interfered with them, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and on Tower Hill,where the sailors and river-side Bohemians were wont to indulge in theirfavourite diversion of “whipping the snake.” There were grand showswhen a commoner was raised to the peerage or promoted in grade therein—acommon occurrence in the midst of all the corruption entailed by theScottish union and Walpole’s wholesale bribery. On these occasions,deputations of the heralds came from their dusty old college in Doctors’Commons, and in full costume, to congratulate the new peer, the viscountmade an earl, or the marquis elevated to a dukedom, and to claim by theway a snug amount of fees from the newly-blown dignitary. Strangefigures they must have cut, those old kings-at-arms, heralds, and pursuivants!Everybody remembers the anecdote, since twisted into an allusionto Lord Thurlow’s grotesque appearance, of a servant on such anoccasion as I have alluded to, saying to his master, “Please, my lord,there’s a gentleman in a coach at the door would speak with yourlordship; and, saving your presence, I think he’s the knave of spades.”I burst out in unseemly cachinnation the other day at the opening ofParliament, when I saw Rougecroix trotting along the royal gallery ofthe peers, with those table-napkins stiff with gold embroidery pendentback and front of him like heraldic advertisem*nts. The astonishingequipment was terminated by the black dress pantaloons and patent-leatherboots of ordinary life. Je crevais de rire: the Lord Chamberlainwalking backwards was nothing to it; yet I daresay Rougecroix lookednot a whit more absurd than did Bluemantle and Portcullis in 1720 withred heels and paste buckles to their Cordovan shoon, and curly periwigsflowing from beneath their co*cked hats.

Shows, more shows, and William Hogarth walking London streets totake stock of them all, to lay them up in his memory’s ample store-house.He will turn all he has seen to good account some day.There is a show at the museum of the Royal Society, then sittingat Gresham College. The queer, almost silly things, exhibited there!queer and silly, at least to us, with our magnificent museums in GreatRussell Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Brompton. I am turning overthe Royal Society catalogue as I write: the rarities all set down witha ponderous, simple-minded solemnity. “Dr. Grews” is the conscientiouseditor. Here shall you find the “sceptre of an Indian king, a dogwithout a mouth; a Pegue hat and organ; a bird of paradise; a Jewishphylactery; a model of the Temple of Jerusalem; a burning-glass contrivedby that excellent philosopher and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton”(hats off); “three landskips and a catcoptrick paint given by BishopWilkins; a gun which discharges seven times one after the other presently”(was this a revolver?); “a perspective instrument by the ingenious SirChristopher Wren” (hats off again); “a pair of Iceland gloves, a pot ofMacassar poison” (oh! Rowland); “the tail of an Indian cow worshippedon the banks of the river Ganges; a tuft of coralline; the cramp fishwhich by some humour or vapour benumbs the fisherman’s arms,” and so[425]forth. Hogarth will make use of all these “curios” in the fourth scene ofthe Marriage à la Mede, and presently, for the studio of Sidrophel in hisillustrations to Hudibras.

And there are shows of a sterner and crueler order. Now a pick-pocketyelling under a pump; now a half-naked wretch coming alongWhitehall at the tail of a slow-plodding cart, howling under the hangman’slash (that functionary has ceased to be called “Gregory,” from thegreat executioner G. Brandon, and is now, but I have not been able todiscover for what reason, “Jack Ketch”).[5] Now it is a libeller or aperjurer in the pillory at Charing in Eastcheap or at the Royal Exchange.According to his political opinions do the mob—the mob are chiefly of theJacobite persuasion—pelt the sufferer with eggs and ordure, or cheer him,and fill the hat which lies at his foot on the scaffold with halfpence andeven silver. And the sheriffs’ men, if duly fee’d, do not object to a mugof purl or mum, or even punch, being held by kind hands to the sufferer’slips. So, in Hugo’s deathless romance does Esmeralda give Quasimodoon the carcan to drink from her flask. Mercy is as old as the hills, andwill never die. Sometimes in front of “England’s Burse,” or in OldPalace Yard, an odd, futile, much-laughed-at ceremony takes place: andafter solemn proclamation, the common hangman makes a bonfire of suchproscribed books as Pretenders no Pretence, A sober Reply to Mr.Higgs’s Tri-theistical Doctrine. Well would it be if the vindictivenessof the government stopped here; but alas! king’s messengers are inhot pursuit of the unhappy authors, trace them to the tripe-shop inHanging Sword Alley, or the co*ck-loft in Honey Lane Market, where theylie three in a bed; and the poor scribbling wretches are cast into jail, anddelivered over to the tormentors, losing sometimes their unlucky ears.There is the great sport and show every market morning, known as “bullbanking,” a sweet succursal to his Majesty’s bear-garden and Hockley inthe hole. The game is of the simplest; take your bull in a narrowthoroughfare, say, co*ck Hill, by Smithfield; have a crowd of hommes debonne volonté; overturn a couple of hackney coaches at one end of thestreet, a brewer’s dray at the other: then harry your bull up and down,goad him, pelt him, twist his tail, till he roar and is rabid. This is “bull-banking,”and oh! for the sports of merry England! William Hogarthlooks on sternly and wrathfully. He will remember the brutal amusem*ntsof the populace when he comes to engrave the Four Stages ofCruelty. But I lead him away now to other scenes and shows. Thereare the wooden horses before Sadler’s Hall; and westward there stands anuncomfortable “wooden horse” for the punishment of soldiers who arepicketed thereon for one and two hours. This wooden horse is on St.James’s Mall, over against the gun-house. The torture is one of DutchWilliam’s legacies to the subjects, and has been retained and improved on[426]by the slothfully cruel Hanoverian kings. Years afterwards (1745-6),when Hogarth shall send his picture of the March to Finchley to St. James’sfor the inspection of his sacred Majesty King George the Second, thatpotentate will fly into a guard-room rage at the truthful humour of thescene, and will express an opinion that the audacious painter who hascaricatured his Foot Guards, should properly suffer the punishment of thepicket on the “wooden horse” of the Mall.

Further afield. There are literally thousands of shop-signs to be reador stared at. There are prize-fights—predecessors of Fig and Broughtoncontests—gladiatorial exhibitions, in which decayed Life-guardsmen andIrish captains trade-fallen, hack and hew one another with broadsword andbacksword on public platforms. Then the “French prophets,” whom JohnWesley knew, are working sham miracles in Soho, emulating—the impostors!—themarvels done at the tomb of the Abbé, Diacre or Chanoine,Paris, and positively holding exhibitions in which fanatics suffer themselvesto be trampled, jumped upon, and beaten with clubs, for the greater gloryof Molinism;[6] even holding academies, where the youth of both sexes areinstructed in the arts of foaming at the mouth, falling into convulsions,discoursing in unknown tongues, revealing stigmata produced by the aid oflunar caustic, and other moon-struck madnesses and cheats. Such isrevivalism in 1720. William Hogarth is there, observant. He will notforget the French prophets when he executes almost the last and noblest ofhis plates—albeit, it is directed against English revivalists, Credulity,Superstition and Fanaticism. He leaves Soho, and wanders eastwardand westward. He reads Madam Godfrey’s six hundred challenges to thefemale sex in the newspapers; sitting, perhaps, at the “Rose,” withoutTemple Bar; at the “Diapente,” whither the beaux, feeble as Lord Fanny,who could not “eat beef, or horse, or any of those things,” come torecruit their exhausted digestions with jelly-broth. He may look in atmug-houses, where stum, ’quest ales, Protestant masch-beer, and Derbystingo are sold. He may drop in at Owen Swan’s, at the “Black Swan”Tavern in St. Martin’s Lane, and listen to the hack-writers girding atMr. Pope, and at the enormous amount of eating and drinking in HarryHigden’s comedies. He may see the virtuosi at Childs’s, and dozens ofother auctions (Edward Mellington was the George Robins of the precedingage; the famous Cobb was his successor in auction-room eloquenceand pomposity), buying china monsters. He may refect himself with hotfurmity at the “Rainbow” or at “Nando’s,” mingle (keeping his surtoutwell buttoned) with the pickpockets in Paul’s, avoid the Scotch walk on’Change, watch the garish damsels alight from their coaches at the chocolate-houses,mark the gamesters rushing in, at as early an hour as eleven in themorning, to shake their elbows at the “Young Man’s;” gaze at thebarristers as they bargain for wherries at the Temple Stairs to take water[427]for Westminster—a pair of sculls being much cheaper than a hackneycoach—meet the half-pay officers at Whitehall, garrulously discussing theKing of Spain’s last treaty, as the shoeblacks polish their footgear with oiland soot—Day and Martin are yet in embryo: stand by, on HolbornHill, about half-past eleven, as Jack Hall, the chimney sweep, winds hissad way in Newgate cart, his coffin before him, and the ordinary with hisbook and nosegay by his side, towards St. Giles’s Pound, and the ultimatebourne, Tyburn. Jack Hall has a nosegay, too, and wears a white ribbonin his hat to announce his innocence. The fellow has committed ahundred robberies. And Jack Hall is very far gone in burnt brandy.Hogarth marks—does not forget him. Jack Hall—who seems to havebeen a kind of mediocre Jack Sheppard, although his escape from Newgatewas well-nigh as dexterous, and quite as bold as the prison-breakingfeat of the arch rascal, Blueskin’s friend—will soon reappear in one of thefirst of the Hogarthian squibs; and the dismal procession to Tyburn willform the dénoûment to the lamentable career of Tom Idle.

Hogarth must have become poco a poco saturated with such impressionsof street life. From 1730 the tide of reproduction sets in withoutcessation; but I strive to catch and to retain the fleeting image of thisdead London, and it baulks and mocks me:—the sham bail, “duffers”and “mounters,” skulking with straws in their shoes about WestminsterHall; the law offices in Chancery Lane and the “devil’s gap” betweenGreat Queen Street and Lincoln’s Inn Fields; the Templars, the moot-men,and those who are keeping their terms in Lincoln’s and Gray’s Inn,dining in their halls at noon, eating off wooden trenchers, drinking fromgreen earthenware jugs, and summoned to commons by horn-blow;—thefurious stockjobbers at Jonathan’s and Garraway’s, at the sign of the“Fifteen Shillings,” and in Threadneedle Row; the fine ladies buyingperfumery at the “Civet Cat,” in Shire Lane, by Temple Bar—perfumery,now-a-days, is much wanted in that unsavoury locale; the Jacobiteballad-singers growling sedition in Seven Dials; the Hanoverian troubadourscrooning, on their side, worn-out scandal touching “Italian Molly” (Jamesthe Second’s Mary of Modena) and “St. James’s warming-pan” in themost frequented streets; riots and tumults, spy-hunting, foreignermobbing, of not unfrequent occurrence, all over the town;—gangs ofriotous soldiers crowding about Marlborough House, and casting shirtsinto the great duke’s garden, that his grace may see of what rascally stuff—filthydowlas instead of good calico—the contractors have made them.Alas! a wheezing, drivelling, almost idiotic dotard is all that remains ofthe great duke, all that is left of John Churchill. He had just strengthenough at the Bath the season before to crawl home in the dark night, inorder to avoid the expense of a chair. There are fights in the streets,and skirmishes on the river, where revenue cutters, custom-house jerkers,and the “Tartar pink,” make retributive raids on the fresh-water pirates:light and heavy horsem*n, cope-men, scuffle-hunters, lumpers, and game-watermen.There are salt-water as well as fresh-water thieves; and a[428]notable show of the period is the execution of a pirate, and his hanging inchains at Execution dock. All which notwithstanding, it is a consolationto learn that “Captain Hunt, of the Delight,” is tried at Justice Hallfor piracy, and “honourably acquitted.” I know not why, but I rejoiceat the captain’s escape. He seems a bold, dashing spirit; and, when captured,was “drinking orvietan with a horse-officer.” But when I cometo reperuse the evidence adduced on the trial, I confess that the weightof testimony bears strongly against Captain Hunt, and that in reality itwould seem that he did scuttle the “Protestant Betsey,” cause the boatswainand “one Skeggs, a chaplain, transporting himself to the plantations”—atthe request of a judge and jury, I wonder?—to walk the plank, anddid also carbonado the captain with lighted matches and Burgundy pitch,prior to blowing his (the captain’s) brains out. Hunt goes free, but piratesare cast, and sometimes swing. Hogarth notes, comments on, remembersthem. The gibbeted corsairs by the river’s side shall find a place in thethird chapter of the history of Thomas Idle.

So wags the world in 1720. Hogarth practising on copper in the intervalsof arms and crest engraving, and hearing of Thornhill and Laguerre’sstaircase-and-ceiling-painting renown, inwardly longing to be a Painter.Sir George Thorold is lord mayor. Comet Halley is astronomer royal, viceFlamsteed, deceased the preceding year. Clement XI. is dying, and the Jewsof Ferrara deny that they have sacrificed a child at Easter, à la Hugh of Lincoln.The great King Louis is dead, and a child reigns in his stead. TheRegent and the Abbé Dubois are making history one long scandal in Paris.Bernard Lens is miniature painter to the king, in lieu of Benjamin Acland,dead. Mr. Colley Cibber’s works are printed on royal paper. Sheffield, Dukeof Bucks, erects a plain tablet to the memory of John Dryden in WestminsterAbbey: his own name in very large letters, Dryden’s in more moderately-sizedcapitals. Madam Crisp sets a lieutenant to kill a black man, who hasstolen her lapdog. Captain Dawson bullies half the world, and half the worldbullies Captain Dawson: and bullies or is so bullied still to this day.

In disjointed language, but with a very earnest purpose, I have endeavouredto trace our painter’s Prelude,—the growth of his artistic mind,the ripening of his perceptive faculties under the influence of the life hesaw. Now, for the operation of observation, distilled in the retort of hisquaint humour. I record the work he did; and first, in 1720, mention“four drawings in Indian ink” of the characters at Button’s coffee-house.[7][429]In these were sketches of Arbuthnot, Addison, Pope (as it is conjectured),and a certain Count Viviani, identified years afterwards by Horace Walpole,when the drawings came under his notice. They subsequently cameinto Ireland’s possession. Next Hogarth executed an etching, whose subjectwas of more national importance. In 1720-21, as all men know, Englandwent mad, and was drawn, jumping for joy, into the Maëlstrom of theSouth Sea bubble. France had been already desperately insane, in 1719,and Philip, the Regent, with John Law of Lauriston, the Edinburghsilversmith’s son, who had been rake, bully, and soldier, and hadstood his trial for killing Beau Wilson in a duel, had between themgotten up a remarkable mammon-saturnalia in the Palais Royal and theRue Quincampoix. Law lived en prince in the Place Vendôme. Theyshow the window now whence he used to look down upon his dupes. Hedied, a few years after the bursting of his bubble, a miserable bankruptadventurer at Venice. And yet there really was something tangible inhis schemes, wild as they were. The credit of the Royal Bank averted anational bankruptcy in France, and some substantial advantage mighthave been derived from the Mississippi trade. At all events, there actuallywas such a place as Louisiana. In this country, the geographical actualitieswere very little consulted. The English South Sea scheme wasa swindle, pur et simple. Almost everybody in the country caught thischolera-morbus of avarice. Pope dabbled in S. S. S. (South Sea Stock):Lady Mary Wortley Montague was accused of cheating Ruremonde, theFrench wit, out of 500l. worth of stock. Ladies laid aside ombre andbasset to haunt ’Change Alley. Gay “stood to win” enormous sums—at onetime imagined himself, as did Pope also, to be the “lord of thousands,”but characteristically refused to follow a friend’s advice to realize at leastsufficient to secure himself a “clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton everyday for life.” He persisted in holding, and lost all. Mr. Aislabie, theChancellor of the Exchequer, was deeply implicated in S. S. S. transactions,as were also many peers and members of parliament. Theamiable and accomplished Craggs, the postmaster-general, the friend ofall the wits, and for whose tomb Pope wrote so touching an epitaph,tarnished his reputation indelibly by unscrupulous jobbery. He died ofthe small-pox, just in time to avoid disgrace and ruin; but his poor oldfather was sold up, and was borne to the grave shortly afterward, broken-hearted.Lord Stanhope ruptured a blood-vessel in replying to a furiousspeech of the Duke of Wharton (who lived a profligate and died amonk) against S. S., and did not long survive. Samuel Chandler,the eminent Nonconformist divine, was ruined, and had to keep a book-stallfor bread. Hudson, known as “Tom of Ten Thousand,” went starkmad, and moved about ’Change just as the “Woman in Black” and the“Woman in White” (the son of the one, and the brother of the other werehanged for forgery), used to haunt the avenues of the Bank of England.The South Sea Company bribed the Government, bribed the two Houses,and bribed the Court ladies, both of fair and of light fame. Erengard Melusina[430]Schuylenberg, Princess von Eberstein, duch*ess of Munster (1715), andduch*ess of Kendal (1729)—Hogarth engraved the High Dutch hussey’sarms—the Countess of Platen, and her two nieces, and Lady Sunderland,with Craggs and Aislabie, got the major part of the fictitious stock of574,000l. created by the company. The stock rose to thirteen hundredand fifty pounds premium! Beggars on horseback tore through thestreets. There were S. S. coaches with Auri sacra fames painted onthe panels. Hundreds of companies were projected, and “took the town”immensely. Steele’s (Sir Richard’s) Fishpool Company, for bringing thefinny denizens of the deep by sea to London—Puckle’s Defence Gun—theBottomree, the Coral-fishery, the Wreck-fishing companies, were highlyspoken of. Stogden’s remittances created great excitement in the market.There were companies for insurance against bad servants, against theftsand robberies, against fire and shipwreck. There were companies for importingjack-asses from Spain (coals to Newcastle!); for trading in humanhair (started by a clergyman); for fattening pigs; for making pantiles,Joppa and Castile soap; for manufacturing lutestring; “for the wheel ofa perpetual motion;” and for extracting stearine from sunflower-seed.There were Dutch bubbles, and oil bubbles, and water bubbles—bubblesof timber, and bubbles of glass. There were the “sail cloth,” or “Globepermits”—mere cards with the seal of the “Globe” tavern impressedon them, and “permitting” the fortunate holders to acquire shares at someindefinite period in some misty sailcloth factory. These sold for sixtyguineas a piece. There was Jezreel Jones’s trade to Barbary, too, for whichthe permits could not be sold fast enough. Welsh copper and York Buildings’shares rose to cent. per cent. premium. Sir John Blunt, the scrivener,rose from a mean estate to prodigious wealth, prospered, and “whaledirectors ate up all.” There was an S. S. literature—an S. S. anthology.

Pshaw! have we not Mr. Ward’s capital picture in the Vernon collection,and hundreds of pamphlets on S. S. in the British Museum? Theend came, and was, of course, irrevocable and immortal smash. Ithuriel’sspear, in the shape of a scire facias in the London Gazette, pierced thisfoully iridescent bubble through and through, producing precisely thesame effect as the publication of Mr. Sparkman’s inexorable railwaystatistics in a supplement to The Times newspaper, A.D. 1845. The citywoke up one morning and found itself ruined. The Sword-blade companywent bankrupt. Knight, the S.S. cashier, fled, but was captured at Tirlemontin Flanders, at the instance of the British resident in Brussels, andthrown into the citadel of Antwerp, from which he presently managed toescape. In an age when almost every one had committed more or lessheinous acts of roguery, great sympathy was evinced for rogues. Athome, however, there were some thoughts of vengeance. Honest men[431]began, for the first time these many months, to show their heads, andtalked of Nemesis and Newgate. Aislabie resigned. The end of the Craggsesyou have heard. Parliament-men were impeached and expelled the House.Patriots inveighed against the injuries which corrupt ministers may inflicton the sovereigns they serve, and quoted the history of Claudian and Sejanus.The directors—such as had not vanished—were examined by secretcommittees, and what effects of theirs could be laid hold of were confiscatedfor the benefit of the thousands of innocent sufferers. I havewaded through many hundred pages of the parliamentary reports of theperiod, and have remarked, with a grim chuckle, the similarities ofswindling between this fraud and later ones. Cooked accounts, torn-outleaves, erasures, and a small green ledger with a brass lock—these areamong the flowers of evidence strewn on the heads of the secret committees.Knight took the key away with him, forgetting the ledger, I presume.The lock was forced, and there came floating out a bubble of fictitiousstock. The old story, gentles and simples. “Comme Charles Dix, commeCharles Dix,” muttered wretched, wigless, Smithified old Louis Philippe,as he fled in a fiacre from the Tuileries in ’48; and this S.S. swindle of1720 was only “Comme Charles Dix,”—the elder brother of 1825 and1845 manias, of Milk Companies, Washing Companies, Poyais Loans, Ball’sPond Railways, Great Diddlesex Junctions, Borough, British, and EasternBanks, and other thieveries which this age has seen.

Did William Hogarth hold any stock? Did he ever bid for a “Globepermit?” Did he hanker after human hair? Did he cast covetous eyestowards the gigantic jack-asses of Iberia? Ignoramus: but we know atleast that he made a dash at the bubble with his sharp pencil. In 1721appeared an etching of The South Sea, an Allegory. It was sold at theprice of one shilling by Mrs. Chilcot, in Westminster Hall, and B. Caldwell,in Newgate Street. The allegory is laboured, but there is a humorouselement diffused throughout the work. The comparatively mechanicalnature of the pursuits from which Hogarth was but just emancipatedshows itself in the careful drawing of the architecture and the comparativeinsignificance of the figures. The Enemy of mankind is cuttingFortune into collops before a craving audience of rich and poor speculators.There is a huge “roundabout,” with “who’ll ride?” as a legend, and athrong of people of all degrees revolving on their wooden hobbies. Inthe foreground a wretch is being broken on the wheel—perhaps a reminiscenceof the terrible fate of Count Horn, in Paris. L. H., a ruffian, isscourging a poor fellow who is turning his great toes up in agony. Theseare to represent Honour and Honesty punished by Interest and Villany.In the background widows and spinsters are crowding up a staircase to a“raffle for husbands,” and in the right-hand corner a Jewish high-priest,a Catholic priest, and a Dissenting minister, are gambling with frenziedavidity. Near them a poor, miserable starveling lies a-dying, and to theleft there looms a huge pillar, with this inscription on the base—“Thismonument was erected in memory of the destruction of the city by South[432]Sea, 1720.” It is to be observed that the figure of the demon hacking atFortune, and the lame swash buckler, half baboon, half imp, that keepsguard over the flagellated man, are copied, pretty literally, from Callot.

You know that I incline towards coincidences. It is surely a not unremarkableone that Callot, a Hogarthian man in many aspects, butmore inclined towards the grotesque-terrible than to the humorous-observant,should have been also in his youth a martyr to heraldry. Hisfather was a grave, dusty old king-at-arms, in the service of the Dukeof Lorraine, at Nancy. He believed heraldry, next to alchemy, to be themost glorious science in the world, and would fain have had his sondevote himself to tabard and escocheon work; but the boy, after manyunavailing efforts to wrestle with these Ephesian wild beasts, with theirimpossible attitudes and preposterous proportions, fairly ran away andturned gipsy, stroller, beggar, picaroon—all kinds of wild Bohemianthings. Had Hogarth been a French boy, he, too, might have run awayfrom Ellis Gamble’s griffins and gargoyles. He must have been a greatadmirer of Callot, and have studied his works attentively, as one cansee, not only from this South Sea plate, but from many of the earlierHogarthian performances, in which, not quite trusting himself yet to runalone, he has had recourse to the Lorrain’s strong arm. Many othersympathetic traits are to be found in the worthy pair. In both a littletoo much swagger and proneness to denounce things that might have hadsome little sincerity in them. The one a thorough foreigner, the other asthorough a foreigner. The herald’s son of Nancy was always “the nobleJacques Callot;” the heraldic engraver’s apprentice of Cranbourn Alleywas, I wince to learn, sometimes called “Bill Hogarth.”

One of Hogarth’s earliest employers was a Mr. Bowles, at the “BlackHorse in Cornhill,” who is stated to have bought his etched worksby weight—at the munificent rate of half-a-crown a pound. This is thesame Mr. Bowles who, when Major the engraver was going to Franceto study, and wished to dispose of some landscapes he had engravedthat he might raise something in aid of his travelling expenses, offeredhim a bright, new, burnished, untouched copper-plate for every engravedone he had by him. This Black Horse Bowles, if the story be true,must have been ancestor to the theatrical manager who asked the authorhow much he would give him if he produced his five-act tragedy; but Iam inclined to think the anecdote a bit of gossip tant soit peu spiteful ofthe eldest Nicholls. Moreover, the offer is stated to have been made“over a bottle.” ’Twas under the same incentive to liberality that anearly patron of the present writer once pressed him to write “a goodpoem, in the Byron style—you know,” and offered him a guinea for it,down. Copper, fit for engraving purposes, was at least two shillingsa pound in Bowles’s time. The half-crown legend, then, may beapocryphal; although we have some odd records of the mode of paymentfor art and letters in those days, and in the preceding time:—Thornhillpainting Greenwich Hall for forty shillings the Flemish ell; Dryden contracting[433]with Left-legged Jacob to write so many thousand lines for somany unclipped pieces of money; and Milton selling the manuscript ofParadise Lost to Samuel Simmons for five pounds.

Mr. Philip Overton at the Golden Buck, over against St. Dunstan’sChurch, in Fleet Street, also published Hogarth’s early plates. He wasthe purchaser, too, but not yet, of the eighteen illustrations to Hudibras.Ere these appeared, W. H. etched the Taste of the Town, the SmallMasquerade Ticket; the Lottery—a very confused and obscure allegory,perhaps a sly parody on one of Laguerre or Thornhill’s flounderingpictorial parables. Fortune and Wantonness are drawing lucky numbers,Fraud tempts Despair, Sloth hides his head behind a curtain; all veryinteresting probably at the time, from the number of contemporaryportraits the plate may have contained, but almost inexplicable andthoroughly uninteresting to us now. The Taste of the Town, whichis otherwise the first Burlington Gate satire (not the Pope and Chandosone) created a sensation, and its author paid the first per-centage onnotoriety, by seeing his work pirated by the varlets who did for art thatwhich Edmund Curll, bookseller and scoundrel, did for literature.

Burlington Gate, No. 1, was published in 1723. Hogarth seems tohave admired Lord Burlington’s love for art, though he might have paidhim a better compliment than to have placarded the gate of his palacewith an orthographical blunder. There is in the engraving “accademy”for academy. The execution is far superior to that of the South Sea,and the figures are drawn with much verve and decision. In the centrestand three little figures, said to represent Lord Burlington, Campbell, the[434]architect, and his lordship’s “postilion.” This is evidently a blunder onthe part of the first commentator. The figure is in co*cked hat, widecuffs, and buckled shoes, and is no more like a postilion than I toHercules. Is it the earl’s “poet,” and not his “postilion,” that is meant?To the right (using showman’s language), sentinels in the peaked shakoesof the time, and with oh! such clumsy, big-stocked brown-besses in theirhands, guard the entrance to the fane where the pantomime of DoctorFaustus is being performed. From the balcony above Harlequin looksout. Faustus was first brought out at the theatre, Lincoln’s Inn Fields,in ’23. It had so prodigious a run, and came into such vogue, thatafter much grumbling about the “legitimate” and invocations of “BenJonson’s ghost” (Hogarth calls him Ben Johnson), the rival CoventGarden managers were compelled to follow suit, and in ’25 came outwith their Doctor Faustus—a kind of saraband of infernal personscontrived by Thurmond the dancing-master. He, too, was the deviserof “Harleykin Sheppard” (or Shepherd), in which the dauntless thiefwho escaped from the Middle Stone-room at Newgate in so remarkable amanner received a pantomimic apotheosis. Quick-witted Hogarth satirizedthis felony-mania in the caricature of Wilks, Booth, and Cibber, conjuringup “Scaramouch Jack Hall.” To return to Burlington Gate. In the centre,Shakspeare and Jonson’s works are being carted away for waste paper.To the left you see a huge projecting sign or show-cloth, containing portraitsof his sacred Majesty George the Second in the act of presenting themanagement of the Italian Opera with one thousand pounds; also of thefamous Mordaunt Earl of Peterborough and sometime general of the armiesin Spain. He kneels, and in the handsomest manner, to Signora Cuzzoni thesinger, saying (in a long apothecary’s label), “Please accept eight thousandpounds!” but the Cuzzoni spurns at him. Beneath is the entrance to theOpera. Infernal persons with very long tails are entering thereto withjoyful countenances. The infernal persons are unmistakeable reminiscencesof Callot’s demons in the Tentation de St. Antoine. There is likewise aplacard relating to “Faux’s Long-room,” and his “dexterity of hand.”

In 1724, Hogarth produced another allegory called the Inhabitants ofthe Moon, in which there are some covert and not very complimentaryallusions to the “dummy” character of royalty, and a whimsical fancy ofinanimate objects, songs, hammers, pieces of money, and the like, beingbuilt up into imitation of human beings, all very ingeniously worked out.By this time, Hogarth, too, had begun to work, not only for the ephemeralpictorial squib-vendors of Westminster Hall—those squibs came in withhim, culminated in Gillray, and went out with H. B.; or were ratherabsorbed and amalgamated into the admirable Punch cartoons of Mr.Leech—but also for the regular booksellers. For Aubry de la Mottraye’sTravels (a dull, pretentious book) he executed some engravings, amongwhich I note A woman of Smyrna in the habit of the country—the woman’sface very graceful, and the Dance, the Pyrrhic dance of the Greek islands,and the oddest fandango that ever was seen. One commentator says that[435]the term “as merry as a grig” came from the fondness of the inhabitantsof those isles of eternal summer for dancing, and that it should be properly“as merry as a Greek.” Quien sabe? I know that lately in the Sessionspapers I stumbled over the examination of one Levi Solomon, aliasco*ckleput, who stated that he lived in Sweet Apple Court, and that he“went a-grigging for his living.” I have no Lexicon Balatronicum athand; but from early researches into the vocabulary of the “High Mung”I have an indistinct impression that “griggers” were agile vagabonds whodanced, and went through elementary feats of posture-mastery in taverns.

In ’24, Hogarth illustrated a translation of the Golden Ass of Apuleius.The plates are coarse and clumsy; show no humour; were mere pot-boilers,gagne-pains, thrusts with the burin at the wolf looking in at theHogarthian door, I imagine. Then came five frontispieces for a translationof Cassandra. These I have not seen. Then fifteen head-pieces forBeaver’s Military Punishments of the Ancients, narrow little slips full offigures in chiaroscuro, many drawn from Callot’s curious martyrology,Les Saincts et Sainctes de l’Année, about three hundred graphic illustrationsof human torture! There was also a frontispiece to the Happy Ascetic,and one to the Oxford squib of Terræ Filius, in 1724, but of the joyousrecluse in question I have no cognizance.

In 1722 (you see I am wandering up and down the years as well asthe streets), London saw a show—and Hogarth doubtless was there to see—whichmerits some lines of mention. The drivelling, avaricious dotard,who, crossing a room and looking at himself in a mirror, sighed and mumbled,“That was once a man:”—this poor wreck of mortality died, andbecame in an instant, and once more, John the great Duke of Marlborough.On the 9th of August, 1722, he was buried with extraordinary pomp inWestminster Abbey. The saloons of Marlborough House, where thecorpse lay in state, were hung with fine black cloth, and garnished withbays and cypress. In the death-chamber was a chair of state surmountedby a “majesty scutcheon.” The coffin was on a bed of state, coveredwith a “fine holland sheet,” over that a complete suit of armour, gilt, butempty. Twenty years before, there would have been a waxen image inthe dead man’s likeness within the armour, but this hideous fantasy ofTussaud-tombstone effigies had in 1722 fallen into desuetude.[8] Thegarter was buckled round the steel leg of this suit of war-harness; onelistless gauntlet held a general’s truncheon; above the vacuous helmetwith its unstirred plumes was the cap of a Prince of the Empire. Theprocession, lengthy and splendid, passed from Marlborough House throughSt. James’s Park to Hyde Park Corner, then through Piccadilly, downSt. James’s Street, along Pall Mall, and by King Street, Westminster, tothe Abbey. Fifteen pieces of cannon rambled in this show. Chelseapensioners, to the number of the years of the age of the deceased, preceded[436]the car. The colours were wreathed in crape and cypress. Guidonwas there, and the great standard, and many bannerols and achievementsof arms. “The mourning horse with trophies and plumades” wasgorgeous. There was a horse of state and a mourning horse, sadly led bythe dead duke’s equerries. And pray note: the minutest details of theprocession were copied from the programme of the Duke of Albemarle’sfuneral (Monk); which, again, was a copy of Oliver Cromwell’s—which,again, was a reproduction, on a more splendid scale, of the obsequies ofSir Philip Sidney, killed at Zutphen. Who among us saw not the greatscarlet and black show of 1852, the funeral of the Duke of Wellington?Don’t you remember the eighty-four tottering old Pensioners, correspondingin number with the years of our heroic brother departed? Whengentle Philip Sidney was borne to the tomb, thirty-one poor men followedthe hearse. The brave soldier, the gallant gentleman, the ripe scholar,the accomplished writer was so young. Arthur and Philip! And socentury shakes hand with century, and the new is ever old, and the lastnovelty is the earliest fashion, and old Egypt leers from a glass-case, or afour thousand year old fresco, and whispers to Sir Plume, “I, too, wore acurled periwig, and used tweezers to remove superfluous hairs.”

In 1726, Hogarth executed a series of plates for Blackwell’s MilitaryFigures, representing the drill and manœuvres of the Honourable ArtilleryCompany. The pike and half-pike exercise are very carefully and curiouslyillustrated; the figures evidently drawn from life; the attitudes very easy.The young man was improving in his drawing; for in 1724, Thornhill hadstarted an academy for studying from the round and from life at his ownhouse, in Covent Garden Piazza; and Hogarth—who himself tells us thathis head was filled with the paintings at Greenwich and St. Paul’s, and towhose utmost ambition of scratching copper, there was now probably addedthe secret longing to be a historico-allegorico-scriptural painter I havehinted at, and who hoped some day to make Angels sprawl on coved ceilings,and Fames blast their trumpets on grand staircases—was one of theearliest students at the academy of the king’s sergeant painter, and memberof parliament for Weymouth. Already William had ventured an opinion,bien tranchée, on high art. In those days there flourished—yes, flourishedis the word—a now forgotten celebrity, Kent the architect, gardener,painter, decorator, upholsterer, friend of the great, and a hundred thingsbesides. This artistic jack-of-all-trades became so outrageously popular,and gained such a reputation for taste—if a man have strong lungs, andpersists in crying out that he is a genius, the public are sure to believehim at last—that he was consulted on almost every tasteful topic, and wasteased to furnish designs for the most incongruous objects. He was consultedfor picture-frames, drinking-glasses, barges, dining-room tables,garden-chairs, cradles, and birth-day gowns. One lady he dressed in apetticoat ornamented with columns of the five orders; to another heprescribed a copper-coloured skirt, with gold ornaments. The man wasat best but a wretched sciolist; but he for a long period directed the[437]“taste of the town.” He had at last the presumption to paint an altar-piecefor the church of St. Clement Danes. The worthy parishioners,men of no taste at all, burst into a yell of derision and horror at thisastounding croûte. Forthwith, irreverent young Mr. Hogarth lungedfull butt with his graver at the daub. He produced an engraving ofKent’s Masterpiece, which was generally considered to be an unmercifulcaricature; but which he himself declared to be an accurate representationof the picture. ’Twas the first declaration of his guerra al cuchilloagainst the connoisseurs. The caricature, or copy, whichever it was, madea noise; the tasteless parishioners grew more vehement, and, at last,Gibson, Bishop of London (whose brother, by the way, had paid his firstvisit to London in the company of Dominie Hogarth), interfered, andordered the removal of the obnoxious canvas. “Kent’s masterpiece”subsided into an ornament for a tavern-room. For many years it was tobe seen (together with the landlord’s portrait, I presume) at the “Crownand Anchor,” in the Strand. Then it disappeared, and faded away fromthe visible things extant.

With another bookseller’s commission, I arrive at another halting-placein the career of William Hogarth. In 1726-7 appeared his eighteenillustrations to Butler’s Hudibras. They are of considerable size, broadlyand vigorously executed, and display a liberal instalment of the vis comica,of which William was subsequently to be so lavish. Ralpho is smug andsanctified to a nicety. Hudibras is a marvellously droll-looking figure,but he is not human, is generally execrably drawn, and has a headpreternaturally small, and so pressed down between the clavicles, that youmight imagine him to be of the family of the anthropophagi, whoseheads do grow beneath their shoulders. There is a rare constable, theperfection of Dogberryism-cum-Bumbledom, in the tableau of Hudibras inthe stocks. The widow is graceful and beautiful to look at. UnlikeWilkie, Hogarth could draw pretty women;[9] the rogue who chucks thewidow’s attendant under the chin is incomparable, and Trulla is a mosttruculent brimstone. The “committee” is a character full study of sourfaces. The procession of the “Skimmington” is full of life and animation;and the concluding tableau, “Burning rumps at Temple Bar,” is a wondrousstreet-scene, worthy of the ripe Hogarthian epoch of The Progresses, TheElection, Beer Street and Gin Lane. This edition of Butler’s immortalsatire had a great run; and the artist often regretted that he had partedabsolutely, and at once, with his property in the plates.

So now then, William Hogarth, we part once more, but soon to meetagain. Next shall the moderns know thee—student at Thornhill’s Academy—asa painter as well as an engraver. A philosopher—quoique tu n’endoutais guère—thou hast been all along.

CHAPTER IV.

An extinct animal recognized by its tooth: how came this to be possible?—The taskof classification.—Artificial and natural methods.—Linnæus, and his baptism of theanimal kingdom: his scheme of classification.—What is there underlying all trueclassification?—The chief groups.—What is a species?—Re-statement of the questionrespecting the fixity or variability of species.—The two hypotheses.—Illustrationdrawn from the Romance languages.—Caution to disputants.

I was one day talking with Professor Owen in the Hunterian Museum, whena gentleman approached with a request to be informed respecting thenature of a curious fossil, which had been dug up by one of his workmen.As he drew the fossil from a small bag, and was about to hand it forexamination, Owen quietly remarked:—“That is the third molar of theunder-jaw of an extinct species of rhinoceros.” The astonishment of thegentleman at this precise and confident description of the fossil, beforeeven it had quitted his hands, was doubtless very great. I know thatmine was; until the reflection occurred that if some one, little acquaintedwith editions, had drawn a volume from his pocket, declaring he hadfound it in an old chest, any bibliophile would have been able to say at aglance: “That is an Elzevir;” or, “That is one of the Tauchnitz classics,stereotyped at Leipzig.” Owen is as familiar with the aspect of the teethof animals, living and extinct, as a student is with the aspect of editions.Yet before that knowledge could have been acquired, before he could saythus confidently that the tooth belonged to an extinct species of rhinoceros,the united labours of thousands of diligent inquirers must have beendirected to the classification of animals. How could he know that therhinoceros was of that particular species rather than another? and whatis meant by species? To trace the history of this confidence would beto tell the long story of zoological investigation: a story too long fornarration here, though we may pause awhile to consider its difficulties.

To make a classified catalogue of the books in the British Museumwould be a gigantic task; but imagine what that task would be if all thetitle-pages and other external indications were destroyed! The firstattempts would necessarily be of a rough approximative kind, merelyendeavouring to make a sort of provisional order amid the chaos, afterwhich succeeding labours might introduce better and better arrangements.The books might first be grouped according to size; but having gotthem together, it would soon be discovered that size was no indication oftheir contents: quarto poems and duodecimo histories, octavo grammarsand folio dictionaries, would immediately give warning that some other[439]arrangement was needed. Nor would it be better to separate the booksaccording to the languages in which they were written. The presence orabsence of “illustrations” would furnish no better guide; while thebindings would soon be found to follow no rule. Indeed, one by one allthe external characters would prove unsatisfactory, and the labourers wouldfinally have to decide upon some internal characters. Having read enoughof each book to ascertain whether it was poetry or prose: and if poetry,whether dramatic, epic, lyric, or satiric; and if prose, whether history,philosophy, theology, philology, science, fiction, or essay: a rough classificationcould be made; but even then there would be many difficulties,such as where to place a work on the philosophy of history—or thehistory of science,—or theology under the guise of science—or essayson very different subjects; while some works would defy classification.

Gigantic as this labour would be, it would be trifling compared withthe labour of classifying all the animals now living (not to mention extinctspecies), so that the place of any one might be securely and rapidlydetermined; yet the persistent zeal and sagacity of zoologists have donefor the animal kingdom what has not yet been done for the library of theMuseum, although the titles of the books are not absent. It has beendone by patient reading of the contents—by anatomical investigation ofthe internal structure of animals. Except on a basis of comparativeanatomy, there could have been no better a classification of animals thana classification of books according to size, language, binding, &c. An unscientificPliny might group animals according to their habitat; but whenit was known that whales, though living in the water and swimming likefishes, were in reality constructed like air-breathing quadrupeds—when itwas known that animals differing so widely as bees, birds, bats, and flyingsquirrels, or as otters, seals, and cuttle-fish, lived together in the sameelement, it became obvious that such a principle of arrangement could leadto no practical result. Nor would it suffice to class animals according totheir modes of feeding; since in all classes there are samples of each mode.Equally unsatisfactory would be external form—the seal and the whaleresembling fishes, the worm resembling the eel, and the eel the serpent.

Two things were necessary: first, that the structure of various animalsshould be minutely studied, and described—which is equivalent to readingthe books to be classified;—and secondly, that some artificial method shouldbe devised of so arranging the immense mass of details as to enable themto be remembered, and also to enable fresh discoveries readily to find aplace in the system. We may be perfectly familiar with the contents of abook, yet wholly at a loss where to place it. If we have to catalogueHegel’s Philosophy of History, for example, it becomes a difficult questionwhether to place it under the rubric of philosophy, or under that of history.To decide this point, we must have some system of classification.

In the attempts to construct a system, naturalists are commonly saidto have followed two methods: the artificial and the natural. The artificialmethod seizes some one prominent characteristic, and groups all the[440]individuals together which agree in this one respect. In Botany theartificial method classes plants according to the organs of reproduction;but this has been found so very imperfect that it has been abandoned, andthe natural method has been substituted, according to which the wholestructure of the plant determines its place. If flying were taken as theartificial basis for the grouping of some animals, we should find insects andbirds, bats and flying squirrels, grouped together; but the natural method,taking into consideration not one character, but all the essential characters,finds that insects, birds, and bats differ profoundly in their organization:the insect has wings, but its wings are not formed like those of the bird,nor are those of the bird formed like those of the bat. The insect doesnot breathe by lungs, like the bird and the bat; it has no internal skeleton,like the bird and the bat; and the bird, although it has many points incommon with the bat, does not, like it, suckle its young; and thus wemay run over the characters of each organization, and find that the threeanimals belong to widely different groups.

It is to Linnæus that we are indebted for the most ingenious and comprehensiveof the many schemes invented for the cataloguing of animalforms; and modern attempts at classification are only improvements on theplan he laid down. First we may notice his admirable invention of thedouble names. It had been the custom to designate plants and animalsaccording to some name common to a large group, to which was added adescription more or less characteristic. An idea may be formed of thenecessity of a reform, by conceiving what a laborious and uncertainprocess it would be if our friends spoke to us of having seen a dog in thegarden, and on our asking what kind of dog, instead of their saying “aterrier, a bull-terrier, or a skye-terrier,” they were to attempt a descriptionof the dog. Something of this kind was the labour of understandingthe nature of an animal from the vague description of it given by naturalists.Linnæus rebaptized the whole animal kingdom upon one intelligibleprinciple. He continued to employ the name common to eachgroup, such as that of Felis for the cats, which became the generic name;and in lieu of the description which was given of each different kind, toindicate that it was a lion, a tiger, a leopard, or a domestic cat, he affixeda specific name: thus the animal bearing the description of a lionbecame Felis leo; the tiger, Felis tigris; the leopard, Felis leopardus;and our domestic friend, Felis catus. These double names, as Vogtremarks, are like the Christian- and sur-names by which we distinguishthe various members of one family; and instead of speaking of Tomkinsonwith the flabby face, and Tomkinson with the square forehead, wesimply say John and William Tomkinson.

Linnæus did more than this. He not only fixed definite conceptionsof Species and Genera, but introduced those of Orders and Classes. Cuvieradded Families to Genera, and Sub-kingdoms (embranchements) to Classes.Thus a scheme was elaborated by which the whole animal kingdom wasarranged in subordinate groups: the sub-kingdoms were divided into classes,[441]the classes into orders, the orders into families, the families into genera,the genera into species, and the species into varieties. The guidingprinciple of anatomical resemblance determined each of these divisions.Those largest groups, which resemble each other only in having what iscalled the typical character in common, are brought together under thefirst head. Thus all the groups which agree in possessing a backboneand internal skeleton, although they differ widely in form, structure, andhabitat, do nevertheless resemble each other more than they resemblethe groups which have no backbone. This great division having beenformed, it is seen to arrange itself in very obvious minor divisions, orClasses—the mammalia, birds, reptiles, and fishes. All mammals resembleeach other more than they resemble birds; all reptiles resemble eachother more than they resemble fishes (in spite of the superficial resemblancebetween serpents and eels or lampreys). Each Class again falls into theminor groups of Orders; and on the same principles: the monkeys beingobviously distinguished from rodents, and the carnivora from the ruminatinganimals; and so of the rest. In each Order there are generallyFamilies, and the Families fall into Genera, which differ from each otheronly in fewer and less important characters. The Genera include groupswhich have still fewer differences, and are called Species; and theseagain include groups which have only minute and unimportant differencesof colour, size, and the like, and are called Sub-species, or Varieties.

Whoever looks at the immensity of the animal kingdom, and observeshow intelligibly and systematically it is arranged in these various divisions,will admit that, however imperfect, the scheme is a magnificent productof human ingenuity and labour. It is not an arbitrary arrangement, likethe grouping of the stars in constellations; it expresses, though obscurely,the real order of Nature. All true Classification should be to forms whatlaws are to phenomena: the one reducing varieties to systematic order,as the other reduces phenomena to their relation of sequence. Now if itbe true that the classification expresses the real order of nature, and notsimply the order which we may find convenient, there will be somethingmore than mere resemblance indicated in the various groups; or, ratherlet me say, this resemblance itself is the consequence of some communityin the things compared, and will therefore be the mark of some deepercause. What is this cause? Mr. Darwin holds that “propinquity ofdescent—the only known cause of the similarity of organic beings—isthe bond, hidden as it is by various degrees of modification, which ispartially revealed to us by our classifications”[10]—“that the characters whichnaturalists consider as showing true affinity between any two or morespecies are those which have been inherited from a common parent, andin so far all true classification is genealogical; that community of descentis the hidden bond which naturalists have been unconsciously seeking, andnot some unknown plan of creation, or the enunciation of general propositions,[442]and the mere putting together and separating objects more orless alike.”[11]

Before proceeding to open the philosophical discussion which inevitablyarises on the mention of Mr. Darwin’s book, I will here set down the chiefgroups, according to Cuvier’s classification, for the benefit of the tyro innatural history, who will easily remember them, and will find the knowledgeconstantly invoked.

There are four Sub-kingdoms, or Branches:—1. Vertebrata. 2. Mollusca.3. Articulata. 4. Radiata.

The Vertebrata consist of four classes:—Mammalia, Birds, Reptiles,and Fishes.

The Mollusca consist of six classes:—Cephalopoda (cuttlefish),Pteropoda, Gasteropoda (snails, &c.), Acephala (oysters, &c.), Brachiopoda,and Cirrhopoda (barnacles).—N.B. This last class is now removedfrom the Molluscs and placed among the Crustaceans.

The Articulata are composed of four classes:—Annelids (worms),Crustacea (lobsters, crabs, &c.), Arachnida (spiders), and Insecta.

The Radiata embrace all the remaining forms; but this group hasbeen so altered since Cuvier’s time, that I will not burden your memoryjust now with an enumeration of the details.

The reader is now in a condition to appreciate the general line ofargument adopted in the discussion of Mr. Darwin’s book, which is atpresent exciting very great attention, and which will, at any rate, aid ingeneral culture by opening to many minds new tracts of thought. Thebenefit in this direction is, however, considerably lessened by the extremevagueness which is commonly attached to the word “species,” as well as bythe great want of philosophic culture which impoverishes the majority of ournaturalists. I have heard, or read, few arguments on this subject whichhave not impressed me with the sense that the disputants really attachedno distinct ideas to many of the phrases they were uttering. Yet it isobvious that we must first settle what are the facts grouped together andindicated by the word “species,” before we can carry on any discussion asto the origin of species. To be battling about the fixity or variability ofspecies, without having rigorously settled what species is, can lead to noedifying result.

It is notorious that if you ask even a zoologist, What is a species?you will almost always find that he has only a very vague answer to give;and if his answer be precise, it will be the precision of error, and willvanish into contradictions directly it is examined. The consequenceof this is, that even the ablest zoologists are constantly at variance as tospecific characters, and often cannot agree whether an animal shall beconsidered of a new species, or only a variety. There could be no suchdisagreements if specific characters were definite: if we knew what speciesmeant, once and for all. Ask a chemist, What is a salt? What an acid?[443]and his reply will be definite, and uniformly the same: what he says, allchemists will repeat. Not so the zoologist. Sometimes he will class twoanimals as of different species, when they only differ in colour, in size, orin the numbers of tentacles, &c.; at other times he will class animals asbelonging to the same species, although they differ in size, colour, shape,instincts, habits, &c. The dog, for example, is said to be one species withmany varieties, or races. But contrast the pug-dog with the greyhound,the spaniel with the mastiff, the bulldog with the Newfoundland, the setterwith the terrier, the sheepdog with the pointer: note the striking differencesin their structure and their instincts: and you will find that they differ aswidely as some genera, and as most species. If these varieties inhabiteddifferent countries—if the pug were peculiar to Australia, and the mastiffto Spain—there is not a naturalist but would class them as of differentspecies. The same remark applies to pigeons and ducks, oxen and sheep.

The reason of this uncertainty is that the thing Species does not exist:the term expresses an abstraction, like Virtue, or Whiteness; not a definiteconcrete reality, which can be separated from other things, and always befound the same. Nature produces individuals; these individuals resembleeach other in varying degrees; according to their resemblances we groupthem together as classes, orders, genera, and species; but these terms onlyexpress the relations of resemblance, they do not indicate the existence ofsuch things as classes, orders, genera, or species.[12] There is a reality indicatedby each term—that is to say, a real relation; but there is no objectiveexistence of which we could say, This is variable, This is immutable.Precisely as there is a real relation indicated by the term Goodness, butthere is no Goodness apart from the virtuous actions and feelings whichwe group together under this term. It is true that metaphysicians inpast ages angrily debated respecting the Immutability of Virtue, and hadno more suspicion of their absurdity, than moderns have who debaterespecting the Fixity of Species. Yet no sooner do we understand thatSpecies means a relation of resemblance between animals, than the questionof the Fixity, or Variability, of Species resolves itself into this: Can therebe any variation in the resemblances of closely allied animals? A questionwhich would never be asked.

No one has thought of raising the question of the fixity of varieties,yet it is as legitimate as that of the fixity of species; and we might alsoargue for the fixity of genera, orders, classes; the fixity of all these beingimplied in the very terms; since no sooner does any departure from thetype present itself, than by that it is excluded from the category; nosooner does a white object become gray, or yellow, than it is excludedfrom the class of white objects. Here, therefore, is a sense in which thephrase “fixity of species” is indisputable; but in this sense the phrasehas never been disputed. When zoologists have maintained that species[444]are variable, they have meant that animal forms are variable; and thesevariations, gradually accumulating, result at last in such differences asare called specific. Although some zoologists, and speculators who werenot zoologists, have believed that the possibility of variation is so greatthat one species may actually be transmuted into another, i.e., that an assmay be developed into a horse,—yet most thinkers are now agreed thatsuch violent changes are impossible; and that every new form becomesestablished only through the long and gradual accumulation of minutedifferences in divergent directions.

It is clear, from what has just been said, that the many angry discussionsrespecting the fixity of species, which, since the days of Lamarck,have disturbed the amity of zoologists and speculative philosophers, wouldhave been considerably abbreviated, had men distinctly appreciated theequivoque which rendered their arguments hazy. I am far fromimplying that the battle was purely a verbal one. I believe there wasa real and important distinction in the doctrines of the two camps; butit seems to me that had a clear understanding of the fact that Species wasan abstract term, been uniformly present to their minds, they would havesooner come to an agreement. Instead of the confusing disputes as towhether one Species could ever become another Species, the questionwould have been, Are animal forms changeable? Can the descendants ofanimals become so unlike their ancestors, in certain peculiarities of structureor instinct, as to be classed by naturalists as a different species?

No sooner is the question thus disengaged from equivoque, than itsdiscussion becomes narrowed within well-marked limits. That animalforms are variable, is disputed by no zoologist. The only question whichremains is this: To what extent are animal forms variable? The answersgiven have been two: one school declaring that the extent of variability islimited to those trifling characteristics which mark the different Varietiesof each Species; the other school declaring that the variability is indefinite,and that all animal forms may have arisen from successive modificationsof a very few types, or even of one type.

Now, I would call your attention to one point in this discussion, whichought to be remembered when antagonists are growing angry and bitterover the subject: it is, that both these opinions are necessarily hypothetical—therecan be nothing like positive proof adduced on either side. Theutmost that either hypothesis can claim is, that it is more consistent withgeneral analogies, and better serves to bring our knowledge of variouspoints into harmony. Neither of them can claim to be a truth whichwarrants dogmatic decision.

Of these two hypotheses, the first has the weight and majority of authoritativeadherents. It declares that all the different kinds of Cats, for example,were distinct and independent creations, each species being originally whatwe see it to be now, and what it will continue to be as long as it exists: lions,panthers, pumas, leopards, tigers, jaguars, ocelots, and domestic cats, beingso many original stocks, and not so many divergent forms of one original[445]stock. The second hypothesis declares that all these kinds of cats representdivergencies of the original stock, precisely as the Varieties of eachkind represent the divergencies of each Species. It is true that eachspecies, when once formed, only admits of limited variations; any causewhich should push the variation beyond certain limits would destroy thespecies,—because by species is meant the group of animals contained withinthose limits. Let us suppose the original stock from which all these kindsof cats have sprung, to have become modified into lions, leopards, andtigers—in other words, that the gradual accumulation of divergencies hasresulted in the whole family of cats existing under these three forms. Thelions will form a distinct species; this species varies, and in the course oflong variation a new species, the puma, rises by the side of it. The leopardsalso vary, and let us suppose their variation at length assumes so markeda form,—in the ocelot,—that we class it as a new species. There is nothingin this hypothesis but what is strictly consonant with analogies; it is onlyextending to Species what we know to be the fact with respect to Varieties;and these Varieties which we know to have been produced from one andthe same Species are often more widely separated from each other thanthe lion is from the puma, or the leopard from the ocelot. Mr. Darwinremarks that “at least a score of pigeons might be chosen, which, ifshown to an ornithologist, and he were told that they were wild birds,would certainly, I think, be ranked by him as well-defined species. Moreover,I do not believe that any ornithologist would place the English carrier, theshort-faced tumbler, the runt, the barb, the pouter and fantail in the samegenus! more especially as in each of these breeds several truly-inheritedsub-breeds or species, as he might have called them, could be shown him.”

The development of numerous specific forms, widely distinguishedfrom each other, out of one common stock, is not a whit more improbablethan the development of numerous distinct languages out of a commonparent language, which modern philologists have proved to be indubitablythe case. Indeed, there is a very remarkable analogy between philologyand zoology in this respect: just as the comparative anatomist traces theexistence of similar organs, and similar connections of these organs,throughout the various animals classed under one type, so does the comparativephilologist detect the family likeness in the various languagesscattered from China to the Basque provinces, and from Cape Comorinacross the Caucasus to Lapland—a likeness which assures him that theTeutonic, Celtic, Windic, Italic, Hellenic, Iranic, and Indic languages areof common origin, and separated from the Arabian, Aramean, and Hebrewlanguages, which have another origin. Let us bring together a Frenchman,a Spaniard, an Italian, a Portuguese, a Wallachian, and a Rhætian,and we shall hear six very different languages spoken, the speakersseverally unintelligible to each other, their languages differing so widelythat one cannot be regarded as the modification of the other; yet weknow most positively that all these languages are offshoots from the Latin,which was once a living language, but which is now, so to speak, a fossil.[446]The various species of cats do not differ more than these six languagesdiffer: and yet the resemblances point in each case to a common origin.Max Müller, in his brilliant essay on Comparative Mythology,[13] has said:—

“If we knew nothing of the existence of Latin—if all historical documentsprevious to the fifteenth century had been lost—if tradition, even,was silent as to the former existence of a Roman empire, a mere comparisonof the six Roman dialects would enable us to say, that at sometime there must have been a language from which all these moderndialects derived their origin in common; for without this supposition itwould be impossible to account for the facts exhibited by these dialects.Let us look at the auxiliary verb. We find:—

It is clear, even from a short consideration of these forms, first, thatall are but varieties of one common type; secondly, that it is impossibleto consider any one of these six paradigms as the original from which theothers had been borrowed. To this we may add, thirdly, that in none ofthe languages to which these verbal forms belong, do we find the elementsof which they could have been composed. If we find such forms asj’ai aimé, we can explain them by a mere reference to the radical meanswhich French has still at its command, and the same may be said even ofcompounds like j’aimerai, i.e. je-aimer-ai, I have to love, I shall love.But a change from je suis to tu es is inexplicable by the light of Frenchgrammar. These forms could not have grown, so to speak, on Frenchsoil, but must have been handed down as relics from a former period—musthave existed in some language antecedent to any of the Romandialects. Now, fortunately, in this case, we are not left to a mere inference,but as we possess the Latin verb, we can prove how, by phoneticcorruption, and by mistaken analogies, every one of the six paradigms isbut a national metamorphosis of the Latin original.

“Let us now look at another set of paradigms:—

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“From a careful consideration of these forms, we ought to drawexactly the same conclusions; firstly, that all are but varieties of onecommon type; secondly, that it is impossible to consider any of them asthe original from which the others have been borrowed; and thirdly,that here again, none of the languages in which these verbal forms occurpossess the elements of which they are composed.”

All these languages resemble each other so closely that they point tosome more ancient language which was to them what Latin was to thesix Romance languages; and in the same way we are justified in supposingthat all the classes of the vertebrate animals point to the existence of someelder type, now extinct, from which they were all developed.

I have thus stated what are the two hypotheses on this question.There is only one more preliminary which it is needful to notice here,and that is, to caution the reader against the tendency, unhappily toocommon, of supposing that an adversary holds opinions which are transparentlyabsurd. When we hear an hypothesis which is either novel, orunacceptable to us, we are apt to draw some very ridiculous conclusionfrom it, and to assume that this conclusion is seriously held by its upholders.Thus the zoologists who maintain the variability of species are sometimesasked if they believe a goose was developed out of an oyster, or arhinoceros from a mouse? the questioner apparently having no misgivingas to the candour of his ridicule. There are three modes of combatinga doctrine. The first is to point out its strongest positions, and then showthem to be erroneous or incomplete; but this plan is generally difficult,and sometimes impossible; it is not, therefore, much in vogue. Thesecond is to render the doctrine ridiculous, by pretending that it includescertain extravagant propositions, of which it is entirely innocent. Thethird is to render the doctrine odious, by forcing on it certain conclusions,which it would repudiate, but which are declared to be “the inevitableconsequences” of such a doctrine. Now it is undoubtedly true that menfrequently maintain very absurd opinions; but it is neither candid, norwise, to assume that men who otherwise are certainly not fools, holdopinions the absurdity of which is transparent.

Let us not, therefore, tax the followers of Lamarck, Geoffroy St.Hilaire, or Mr. Darwin with absurdities they have not advocated; butrather endeavour to see what solid argument they have for the basis oftheir hypothesis.

CHAPTER X.
Lucy Robarts.

And now how was he to tell his wife? That was the consideration heavyon Mark Robarts’ mind when last we left him; and he turned the matteroften in his thoughts before he could bring himself to a resolution. Atlast he did do so, and one may say that it was not altogether a bad one,if only he could carry it out.

He would ascertain in what bank that bill of his had been discounted.He would ask Sowerby, and if he could not learn from him, he would goto the three banks in Barchester. That it had been taken to one of themhe felt tolerably certain. He would explain to the manager his convictionthat he would have to make good the amount, his inability to doso at the end of the three months, and the whole state of his income; andthen the banker would explain to him how the matter might be arranged.He thought that he could pay 50l. every three months with interest. Assoon as this should have been concerted with the banker, he would let hiswife know all about it. Were he to tell her at the present moment,while the matter was all unsettled, the intelligence would frighten herinto illness.

But on the next morning there came to him tidings by the hands ofRobin postman, which for a long while upset all his plans. The letterwas from Exeter. His father had been taken ill, and had very quicklybeen pronounced to be in danger. That evening—the evening on whichhis sister wrote—the old man was much worse, and it was desirable thatMark should go off to Exeter as quickly as possible. Of course he wentto Exeter—again leaving the Framley souls at the mercy of the Welshlow Churchman. Framley is only four miles from Silverbridge, and atSilverbridge he was on the direct road to the west. He was therefore atExeter before nightfall on that day.

But nevertheless he arrived there too late to see his father againalive. The old man’s illness had been sudden and rapid, and he expiredwithout again seeing his eldest son. Mark arrived at the house ofmourning just as they were learning to realize the full change in theirposition.

The doctor’s career had been on the whole successful, but neverthelesshe did not leave behind him as much money as the world hadgiven him credit for possessing. Who ever does? Dr. Robarts hadeducated a large family, had always lived with every comfort, and hadnever possessed a shilling but what he had earned himself. A physician’sfees come in, no doubt, with comfortable rapidity as soon as rich oldgentlemen and middle-aged ladies begin to put their faith in him; but[450]fees run out almost with equal rapidity when a wife and seven childrenare treated to everything that the world considers most desirable. Mark,we have seen, had been educated at Harrow and Oxford, and it may besaid, therefore, that he had received his patrimony early in life. ForGerald Robarts, the second brother, a commission had been bought in acrack regiment. He also had been lucky, having lived and become acaptain in the Crimea; and the purchase-money was lodged for hismajority. And John Robarts, the youngest, was a clerk in the Petty BagOffice, and was already assistant private secretary to the Lord PettyBag himself—a place of considerable trust, if not hitherto of largeemolument; and on his education money had been spent freely, for inthese days a young man cannot get into the Petty Bag Office withoutknowing at least three modern languages; and he must be well up intrigonometry too, in bible theology, or in one dead language—at hisoption.

And the doctor had four daughters. The two elder were married,including that Blanche with whom Lord Lufton was to have fallen in loveat the vicar’s wedding. A Devonshire squire had done this in the lord’splace; but on marrying her it was necessary that he should have a fewthousand pounds, two or three perhaps, and the old doctor had managedthat they should be forthcoming. The elder also had not been sent awayfrom the paternal mansion quite empty-handed. There were therefore atthe time of the doctor’s death two children left at home, of whom oneonly, Lucy, the younger, will come much across us in the course ofour story.

Mark stayed for ten days at Exeter, he and the Devonshire squirehaving been named as executors in the will. In this document it wasexplained that the doctor trusted that provision had been made for mostof his children. As for his dear son Mark, he said, he was aware that heneed be under no uneasiness. On hearing this read Mark smiled sweetly,and looked very gracious; but, nevertheless, his heart did sink somewhatwithin him, for there had been a hope that a small windfall, coming nowso opportunely, might enable him to rid himself at once of that dreadfulSowerby incubus. And then the will went on to declare that Mary,and Gerald, and Blanche, had also, by God’s providence, been placedbeyond want. And here, looking into the squire’s face, one might havethought that his heart fell a little also; for he had not so full a commandof his feelings as his brother-in-law, who had been so much more beforethe world. To John, the assistant private secretary, was left a legacy ofa thousand pounds; and to Jane and Lucy certain sums in certain fourper cents., which were quite sufficient to add an efficient value to thehands of those young ladies in the eyes of most prudent young would-beBenedicts. Over and beyond this there was nothing but the furniture,which he desired might be sold, and the proceeds divided among them all.It might come to sixty or seventy pounds a piece, and pay the expensesincidental on his death.

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And then all men and women there and thereabouts said that old Dr.Robarts had done well. His life had been good and prosperous, and hiswill was just. And Mark, among others, so declared,—and was so convincedin spite of his own little disappointment. And on the thirdmorning after the reading of the will Squire Crowdy, of CreamclottedHall, altogether got over his grief, and said that it was all right. Andthen it was decided that Jane should go home with him,—for there was abrother squire who, it was thought, might have an eye to Jane;—andLucy, the younger, should be taken to Framley Parsonage. In a fortnightfrom the receipt of that letter Mark arrived at his own house with hissister Lucy under his wing.

All this interfered greatly with Mark’s wise resolution as to theSowerby-bill incubus. In the first place he could not get to Barchesteras soon as he had intended, and then an idea came across him that possiblyit might be well that he should borrow the money of his brother John,explaining the circ*mstances of course, and paying him due interest.But he had not liked to broach the subject when they were there in Exeter,standing, as it were, over their father’s grave, and so the matter was postponed.There was still ample time for arrangement before the bill wouldcome due, and he would not tell Fanny till he had made up his mindwhat that arrangement would be. It would kill her, he said to himselfover and over again, were he to tell her of it without being able totell her also that the means of liquidating the debt were to be forthcoming.

And now I must say a word about Lucy Robarts. If one might onlygo on without those descriptions, how pleasant it would all be! ButLucy Robarts has to play a forward part in this little drama, and those whocare for such matters must be made to understand something of her formand likeness. When last we mentioned her as appearing, though not inany prominent position, at her brother’s wedding—she was only sixteen;but now, at the time of her father’s death, somewhat over two yearshaving since elapsed, she was nearly nineteen. Laying aside for the sakeof clearness that indefinite term of girl—for girls are girls from the age ofthree up to forty-three, if not previously married—dropping that genericword, we may say that then, at that wedding of her brother, she was achild; and now, at the death of her father, she was a woman.

Nothing, perhaps, adds so much to womanhood, turns the child soquickly into a woman, as such death-bed scenes as these. Hitherto butlittle had fallen to Lucy to do in the way of woman’s duties. Of moneytransactions she had known nothing, beyond a jocose attempt to make herannual allowance of twenty-five pounds cover all her personal wants—anattempt which was made jocose by the loving bounty of her father. Hersister, who was three years her elder—for John came in between them—hadmanaged the house; that is, she had made the tea and talked to thehousekeeper about the dinners. But Lucy had sat at her father’s elbow,had read to him of evenings when he went to sleep, had brought him his[452]slippers and looked after the comforts of his easy-chair. All this she haddone as a child; but when she stood at the coffin head, and knelt at thecoffin side, then she was a woman.

She was smaller in stature than either of her three sisters, to all ofwhom had been acceded the praise of being fine women—a eulogy whichthe people of Exeter, looking back at the elder sisters, and the generalremembrance of them which pervaded the city, were not willing to extendto Lucy. “Dear—dear!” had been said of her; “poor Lucy is not like aRobarts at all; is she, now, Mrs. Pole?”—for as the daughters had becomefine women, so had the sons grown into stalwart men. And then Mrs.Pole had answered: “Not a bit; is she, now? Only think what Blanchewas at her age. But she has fine eyes, for all that; and they do say sheis the cleverest of them all.”

And that, too, is so true a description of her, that I do not know thatI can add much to it. She was not like Blanche; for Blanche had abright complexion, and a fine neck, and a noble bust, et vera incessu patuitDea—a true goddess, that is, as far as the eye went. She had a grandidea, moreover, of an apple-pie, and had not reigned eighteen months atCreamclotted Hall before she knew all the mysteries of pigs and milk,and most of those appertaining to cider and green geese. Lucy had noneck at all worth speaking of,—no neck, I mean, that ever producedeloquence; she was brown, too, and had addicted herself in nowise, asshe undoubtedly should have done, to larder utility. In regard to theneck and colour, poor girl, she could not help herself; but in that otherrespect she must be held as having wasted her opportunities.

But then what eyes she had! Mrs. Pole was right there. Theyflashed upon you—not always softly; indeed not often softly, if you werea stranger to her; but whether softly or savagely, with a brilliancy thatdazzled you as you looked at them. And who shall say of what colour theywere? Green probably, for most eyes are green—green or grey, if greenbe thought uncomely for an eye-colour. But it was not their colour,but their fire, which struck one with such surprise.

Lucy Robarts was thoroughly a brunette. Sometimes the dark tint ofher cheek was exquisitely rich and lovely, and the fringes of her eyeswere long and soft, and her small teeth, which one so seldom saw, werewhite as pearls, and her hair, though short, was beautifully soft—by nomeans black, but yet of so dark a shade of brown. Blanche, too, wasnoted for fine teeth. They were white and regular and lofty as a newrow of houses in a French city. But then when she laughed she was allteeth; as she was all neck when she sat at the piano. But Lucy’steeth!—it was only now and again, when in some sudden burst of wondershe would sit for a moment with her lips apart, that the fine finished linesand dainty pearl-white colour of that perfect set of ivory could be seen.Mrs. Pole would have said a word of her teeth also but that to her they hadnever been made visible.

“But they do say that she is the cleverest of them all,” Mrs. Pole[453]had added, very properly. The people of Exeter had expressed such anopinion, and had been quite just in doing so. I do not know how ithappens, but it always does happen, that everybody in every small townknows which is the brightest-witted in every family. In this respectMrs. Pole had only expressed public opinion, and public opinion wasright. Lucy Robarts was blessed with an intelligence keener than thatof her brothers or sisters.

“To tell the truth, Mark, I admire Lucy more than I do Blanche.”This had been said by Mrs. Robarts within a few hours of her havingassumed that name. “She’s not a beauty I know, but yet I do.”

“My dearest Fanny!” Mark had answered in a tone of surprise.

“I do then; of course people won’t think so; but I never seem tocare about regular beauties. Perhaps I envy them too much.”

What Mark said next need not be repeated, but everybody may besure that it contained some gross flattery for his young bride. Heremembered this, however, and had always called Lucy his wife’s pet.Neither of the sisters had since that been at Framley; and though Fannyhad spent a week at Exeter on the occasion of Blanche’s marriage, itcould hardly be said that she was very intimate with them. Nevertheless,when it became expedient that one of them should go to Framley, theremembrance of what his wife had said immediately induced Mark tomake the offer to Lucy; and Jane, who was of a kindred soul with Blanche,was delighted to go to Creamclotted Hall. The acres of Heavybed House,down in that fat Totnes country, adjoined those of Creamclotted Hall, andHeavybed House still wanted a mistress.

Fanny was delighted when the news reached her. It would of coursebe proper that one of his sisters should live with Mark under their presentcirc*mstances, and she was happy to think that that quiet little bright-eyedcreature was to come and nestle with her under the same roof. Thechildren should so love her—only not quite so much as they loved mamma;and the snug little room that looks out over the porch, in which the chimneynever smokes, should be made ready for her; and she should be allowedher share of driving the pony—which was a great sacrifice of self on thepart of Mrs. Robarts, and Lady Lufton’s best good-will should be bespoken.In fact Lucy was not unfortunate in the destination that waslaid out for her.

Lady Lufton had of course heard of the doctor’s death, and had sentall manner of kind messages to Mark, advising him not to hurry home byany means until everything was settled at Exeter. And then she wastold of the new-comer that was expected in the parish. When she heardthat it was Lucy, the younger, she also was satisfied; for Blanche’s charms,though indisputable, had not been altogether to her taste. If a secondBlanche were to arrive there what danger might there not be for youngLord Lufton!

“Quite right,” said her ladyship, “just what he ought to do. I[454]think I remember the young lady; rather small, is she not, and veryretiring?”

“Rather small and very retiring. What a description!” said LordLufton.

“Never mind, Ludovic; some young ladies must be small, andsome at least ought to be retiring. We shall be delighted to make heracquaintance.”

“I remember your other sister-in-law very well,” said Lord Lufton.“She was a beautiful woman.”

“I don’t think you will consider Lucy a beauty,” said Mrs.Robarts.

“Small, retiring, and—” so far Lord Lufton had gone, when Mrs.Robarts finished by the word, “plain.” She had liked Lucy’s face, butshe had thought that others probably did not do so.

“Upon my word,” said Lady Lufton, “you don’t deserve to have asister-in-law. I remember her very well, and can say that she is not plain.I was very much taken with her manner at your wedding, my dear; andthought more of her than I did of the beauty, I can tell you.”

“I must confess I do not remember her at all,” said his lordship. Andso the conversation ended.

And then at the end of the fortnight Mark arrived with his sister.They did not reach Framley till long after dark—somewhere between sixand seven, and by this time it was December. There was snow on theground, and frost in the air, and no moon, and cautious men when theywent on the roads had their horses’ shoes co*cked. Such being the state ofthe weather Mark’s gig had been nearly filled with cloaks and shawlswhen it was sent over to Silverbridge. And a cart was sent for Lucy’sluggage, and all manner of preparations had been made. Three times hadFanny gone herself to see that the fire burned brightly in the little roomover the porch, and at the moment that the sound of the wheels was heardshe was engaged in opening her son’s mind as to the nature of an aunt.Hitherto papa and mamma and Lady Lufton were all that he had known,excepting, of course, the satellites of the nursery.

And then in three minutes Lucy was standing by the fire. Thosethree minutes had been taken up in embraces between the husband andthe wife. Let who would be brought as a visitor to the house, after afortnight’s absence, she would kiss him before she welcomed any oneelse. But then she turned to Lucy, and began to assist her with hercloaks.

“Oh, thank you,” said Lucy; “I’m not cold,—not very at least.Don’t trouble yourself: I can do it.” But here she had made a falseboast, for her fingers had been so numbed that she could do nor undoanything.

They were all in black, of course; but the sombreness of Lucy’s clothesstruck Fanny much more than her own. They seemed to have swallowedher up in their blackness, and to have made her almost an emblem of[455]death. She did not look up, but kept her face turned towards the fire,and seemed almost afraid of her position.

“She may say what she likes, Fanny,” said Mark, “but she is verycold. And so am I,—cold enough. You had better go up with herto her room. We won’t do much in the dressing way to-night; eh,Lucy?”

In the bedroom Lucy thawed a little, and Fanny, as she kissed her,said to herself that she had been wrong as to that word “plain.” Lucy, atany rate, was not plain.

“You will be used to us soon,” said Fanny, “and then I hope weshall make you comfortable.” And she took her sister-in-law’s hand andpressed it.

Lucy looked up at her, and her eyes then were tender enough. “Iam sure I shall be happy here,” she said, “with you. But—but—dearpapa!” And then they got into each other’s arms, and had a great boutof kissing and crying. “Plain,” said Fanny to herself, as at last shegot her guest’s hair smoothed and the tears washed from her eyes—“plain!She has the loveliest countenance that I ever looked at inmy life!”

“Your sister is quite beautiful,” she said to Mark, as they talked herover alone before they went to sleep that night.

“No, she’s not beautiful; but she’s a very good girl, and cleverenough too, in her sort of way.”

“I think her perfectly lovely. I never saw such eyes in my lifebefore.”

“I’ll leave her in your hands then; you shall get her a husband.”

“That mayn’t be so easy. I don’t think she’d marry anybody.”

“Well, I hope not. But she seems to me to be exactly cut out for anold maid;—to be aunt Lucy for ever and ever to your bairns.”

“And so she shall, with all my heart. But I don’t think she will,very long. I have no doubt she will be hard to please; but if I were aman I should fall in love with her at once. Did you ever observe herteeth, Mark?”

“I don’t think I ever did.”

“You wouldn’t know whether any one had a tooth in their head, Ibelieve.”

“No one, except you, my dear; and I know all yours by heart.”

“You are a goose.”

“And a very sleepy one; so, if you please, I’ll go to roost.” And thusthere was nothing more said about Lucy’s beauty on that occasion.

For the first two days Mrs. Robarts did not make much of her sister-in-law.Lucy, indeed, was not demonstrative; and she was, moreover,one of those few persons—for they are very few—who are contented to goon with their existence without making themselves the centre of anyspecial outward circle. To the ordinary run of minds it is impossible notto do this. A man’s own dinner is to himself so important that he cannot[456]bring himself to believe that it is a matter utterly indifferent to every oneelse. A lady’s collection of baby-clothes, in early years, and of houselinen and curtain-fringes in later life, is so very interesting to her owneyes, that she cannot believe but what other people will rejoice to beholdit. I would not, however, be held as regarding this tendency as evil. Itleads to conversation of some sort among people, and perhaps to a kindof sympathy. Mrs. Jones will look at Mrs. White’s linen-chest, hopingthat Mrs. White may be induced to look at hers. One can only pour outof a jug that which is in it. For the most of us, if we do not talk ofourselves, or at any rate of the individual circles of which we are thecentres, we can talk of nothing. I cannot hold with those who wish toput down the insignificant chatter of the world. As for myself, I amalways happy to look at Mrs. Jones’s linen, and never omit an opportunityof giving her the details of my own dinners.

But Lucy Robarts had not this gift. She had come there as a strangerinto her sister-in-law’s house, and at first seemed as though she would becontented in simply having her corner in the drawing-room and her place atthe parlour table. She did not seem to need the comforts of condolence andopen-hearted talking. I do not mean to say that she was moody, that shedid not answer when she was spoken to, or that she took no notice of thechildren; but she did not at once throw herself and all her hopes andsorrows into Fanny’s heart, as Fanny would have had her do.

Mrs. Robarts herself was what we call demonstrative. When she wasangry with Lady Lufton she showed it. And as since that time her love andadmiration for Lady Lufton had increased, she showed that also. Whenshe was in any way displeased with her husband, she could not hide it,even though she tried to do so, and fancied herself successful;—no morethan she could hide her warm, constant, overflowing woman’s love. Shecould not walk through a room hanging on her husband’s arm withoutseeming to proclaim to every one there that she thought him the best manin it. She was demonstrative, and therefore she was the more disappointedin that Lucy did not rush at once with all her cares into heropen heart.

“She is so quiet,” Fanny said to her husband.

“That’s her nature,” said Mark. “She always was quiet as achild. While we were smashing everything, she would never crack ateacup.”

“I wish she would break something now,” said Fanny, “and thenperhaps we should get to talk about it.” But she did not on this accountgive over loving her sister-in-law. She probably valued her the more,unconsciously, for not having those aptitudes with which she herself wasendowed.

And then after two days Lady Lufton called; of course it may besupposed that Fanny had said a good deal to her new inmate about LadyLufton. A neighbour of that kind in the country exercises so large aninfluence upon the whole tenor of one’s life, that to abstain from such talk[457]is out of the question. Mrs. Robarts had been brought up almost underthe dowager’s wing, and of course she regarded her as being worthy ofmuch talking. Do not let persons on this account suppose that Mrs. Robartswas a tuft-hunter, or a toadeater. If they do not see the difference theyhave yet got to study the earliest principles of human nature.

Lady Lufton called, and Lucy was struck dumb. Fanny was particularlyanxious that her ladyship’s first impression should be favourable,and to effect this, she especially endeavoured to throw the two togetherduring that visit. But in this she was unwise. Lady Lufton, however,had woman-craft enough not to be led into any egregious error byLucy’s silence.

“And what day will you come and dine with us?” said Lady Lufton,turning expressly to her old friend Fanny.

“Oh, do you name the day. We never have many engagements, youknow.”

“Will Thursday do, Miss Robarts? You will meet nobody youknow, only my son; so you need not regard it as going out. Fannyhere will tell you that stepping over to Framley Court is no more goingout, than when you go from one room to another in the parsonage. Isit, Fanny?”

Fanny laughed and said that that stepping over to Framley Court certainlywas done so often that perhaps they did not think so much aboutit as they ought to do.

“We consider ourselves a sort of happy family here, Miss Robarts,and are delighted to have the opportunity of including you in the ménage.”

Lucy gave her ladyship one of her sweetest smiles, but what she saidat that moment was inaudible. It was plain, however, that she could notbring herself even to go as far as Framley Court for her dinner justat present. “It was very kind of Lady Lufton,” she said to Fanny;“but it was so very soon, and—and—and if they would only go withouther, she would be so happy.” But as the object was to go with her—expresslyto take her there—the dinner was adjourned for a short time—sinedie.

CHAPTER XI.
Griselda Grantly.

It was nearly a month after this that Lucy was first introduced to LordLufton, and then it was brought about only by accident. During thattime Lady Lufton had been often at the parsonage, and had in a certaindegree learned to know Lucy; but the stranger in the parish had neveryet plucked up courage to accept one of the numerous invitations that hadreached her. Mr. Robarts and his wife had frequently been at FramleyCourt, but the dreaded day of Lucy’s initiation had not yet arrived.

She had seen Lord Lufton in church, but hardly so as to know him,[458]and beyond that she had not seen him at all. One day, however—orrather, one evening, for it was already dusk—he overtook her and Mrs.Robarts on the road walking towards the vicarage. He had his gun onhis shoulder, three pointers were at his heels, and a gamekeeper followed alittle in the rear.

“How are you, Mrs. Robarts?” he said, almost before he had overtakenthem. “I have been chasing you along the road for the last halfmile. I never knew ladies walk so fast.”

“We should be frozen if we were to dawdle about as you gentlemendo,” and then she stopped and shook hands with him. She forgot at themoment that Lucy and he had not met, and therefore she did not introducethem.

“Won’t you make me known to your sister-in-law?” said he, takingoff his hat, and bowing to Lucy. “I have never yet had the pleasure ofmeeting her, though we have been neighbours for a month and more.”

Fanny made her excuses and introduced them, and then they went ontill they came to Framley Gate, Lord Lufton talking to them both, andFanny answering for the two, and there they stopped for a moment.

“I am surprised to see you alone,” Mrs. Robarts had just said; “Ithought that Captain Culpepper was with you.”

“The captain has left me for this one day. If you’ll whisper I’lltell you where he has gone. I dare not speak it out loud, even to thewoods.”

“To what terrible place can he have taken himself? I’ll have nowhisperings about such horrors.”

“He has gone to—to—but you’ll promise not to tell my mother?”

“Not tell your mother! Well now you have excited my curiosity!where can he be?”

“Do you promise, then?”

“Oh, yes! I will promise, because I’m sure Lady Lufton won’t askme as to Captain Culpepper’s whereabouts. We won’t tell; will we,Lucy?”

“He has gone to Gatherum Castle for a day’s pheasant-shooting. Now,mind you must not betray us. Her ladyship supposes that he is shut upin his room with a toothache. We did not dare to mention the nameto her.”

And then it appeared that Mrs. Robarts had some engagement whichmade it necessary that she should go up and see Lady Lufton, whereasLucy was intending to walk on to the parsonage alone.

“And I have promised to go to your husband,” said Lord Lufton;“or rather to your husband’s dog, Ponto. And I will do two othergood things, I will carry a brace of pheasants with me, and protectMiss Robarts from the evil spirits of the Framley roads.” And soMrs. Robarts turned in at the gate, and Lucy and his lordship walked offtogether.

Lord Lufton, though he had never before spoken to Miss Robarts, had[459]already found out that she was by no means plain. Though he hadhardly seen her except at church, he had already made himself certainthat the owner of that face must be worth knowing, and was not sorry tohave the present opportunity of speaking to her. “So you have anunknown damsel shut up in your castle,” he had once said to Mrs. Robarts.“If she be kept a prisoner much longer, I shall find it my duty tocome and release her by force of arms.” He had been there twicewith the object of seeing her, but on both occasions Lucy had managed toescape. Now we may say she was fairly caught, and Lord Lufton, takinga pair of pheasants from the gamekeeper, and swinging them over hisshoulder, walked off with his prey.

“You have been here a long time,” he said, “without our having hadthe pleasure of seeing you.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Lucy. Lords had not been frequent amongher acquaintance hitherto.

“I tell Mrs. Robarts that she has been confining you illegally, andthat we shall release you by force or stratagem.”

“I—I—I have had a great sorrow lately.”

“Yes, Miss Robarts; I know you have; and I am only joking, youknow. But I do hope that now you will be able to come amongst us. Mymother is so anxious that you should do so.”

“I am sure she is very kind, and you also—my lord.”

“I never knew my own father,” said Lord Lufton, speakinggravely. “But I can well understand what a loss you have had.”And then, after pausing a moment, he continued, “I remember Dr.Robarts well.”

“Do you, indeed?” said Lucy, turning sharply towards him, andspeaking now with some animation in her voice. Nobody had yet spokento her about her father since she had been at Framley. It had been asthough the subject were a forbidden one. And how frequently is this thecase! When those we love are dead, our friends dread to mention them,though to us who are bereaved no subject would be so pleasant as theirnames. But we rarely understand how to treat our own sorrow or thoseof others.

There was once a people in some land—and they may be still therefor what I know—who thought it sacrilegious to stay the course of araging fire. If a house were being burned, burn it must, even thoughthere were facilities for saving it. For who would dare to interfere withthe course of the god? Our idea of sorrow is much the same. We thinkit wicked, or at any rate heartless, to put it out. If a man’s wife be dead,he should go about lugubrious, with long face, for at least two years, orperhaps with full length for eighteen months, decreasing gradually duringthe other six. If he be a man who can quench his sorrow—put out hisfire as it were—in less time than that, let him at any rate not show hispower!

“Yes: I remember him,” continued Lord Lufton. “He came twice[460]to Framley while I was a boy, consulting with my mother about Mark andmyself,—whether the Eton floggings were not more efficacious than thoseat Harrow. He was very kind to me, foreboding all manner of good thingson my behalf.”

“He was very kind to every one,” said Lucy.

“I should think he would have been—a kind, good, genial man—justthe man to be adored by his own family.”

“Exactly; and so he was. I do not remember that I ever heard anunkind word from him. There was not a harsh tone in his voice. Andhe was generous as the day.” Lucy, we have said, was not generallydemonstrative, but now, on this subject, and with this absolute stranger,she became almost eloquent.

“I do not wonder that you should feel his loss, Miss Robarts.”

“Oh, I do feel it. Mark is the best of brothers, and, as for Fanny,she is too kind and too good to me. But I had always been specially myfather’s friend. For the last year or two we had lived so much together!”

“He was an old man when he died, was he not?”

“Just seventy, my lord.”

“Ah, then he was old. My mother is only fifty, and we sometimescall her the old woman. Do you think she looks older than that? Weall say that she makes herself out to be so much more ancient than sheneed do.”

“Lady Lufton does not dress young.”

“That is it. She never has, in my memory. She always used towear black when I first recollect her. She has given that up now; butshe is still very sombre; is she not?”

“I do not like ladies to dress very young, that is, ladies of—of——”

“Ladies of fifty, we will say?”

“Very well; ladies of fifty, if you like it.”

“Then I am sure you will like my mother.”

They had now turned up through the parsonage wicket, a little gatethat opened into the garden at a point on the road nearer than the chiefentrance.

“I suppose I shall find Mark up at the house?” said he.

“I daresay you will, my lord.”

“Well, I’ll go round this way, for my business is partly in the stable.You see I am quite at home here, though you never have seen me before.But, Miss Robarts, now that the ice is broken, I hope that we may befriends.” He then put out his hand, and when she gave him hers hepressed it almost as an old friend might have done.

And, indeed, Lucy had talked to him almost as though he were an oldfriend. For a minute or two she had forgotten that he was a lord and astranger—had forgotten also to be stiff and guarded as was her wont.Lord Lufton had spoken to her as though he had really cared to knowher; and she, unconsciously, had been taken by the compliment. LordLufton, indeed, had not thought much about it—excepting as thus, that[461]he liked the glance of a pair of bright eyes, as most other young men dolike it. But, on this occasion, the evening had been so dark, that he hadhardly seen Lucy’s eyes at all.

“Well, Lucy, I hope you liked your companion,” Mrs. Robarts said,as the three of them clustered round the drawing-room fire before dinner.

“Oh, yes; pretty well,” said Lucy.

“That is not at all complimentary to his lordship.”

“I did not mean to be complimentary, Fanny.”

“Lucy is a great deal too matter-of-fact for compliments,” said Mark.

“What I meant was, that I had no great opportunity for judging,seeing that I was only with Lord Lufton for about ten minutes.”

“Ah! but there are girls here who would give their eyes for tenminutes of Lord Lufton to themselves. You do not know how he’svalued. He has the character of being always able to make himselfa*greeable to ladies at half a minute’s warning.”

“Perhaps he had not the half minute’s warning in this case,” saidLucy,—hypocrite that she was.

“Poor Lucy,” said her brother; “he was coming up to see Ponto’sshoulder, and I am afraid he was thinking more about the dog thanyou.”

“Very likely,” said Lucy; and then they went into dinner.

Lucy had been a hypocrite, for she had confessed to herself, whiledressing, that Lord Lufton had been very pleasant; but then it is allowedto young ladies to be hypocrites when the subject under discussion is thecharacter of a young gentleman.

Soon after that, Lucy did dine at Framley Court. Captain Culpepper,in spite of his enormity with reference to Gatherum Castle, was stillstaying there, as was also a clergyman from the neighbourhood of Barchesterwith his wife and daughter. This was Archdeacon Grantly, agentleman whom we have mentioned before, and who was as well knownin the diocese as the bishop himself,—and more thought about by manyclergymen than even that illustrious prelate.

Miss Grantly was a young lady not much older than Lucy Robarts, andshe also was quiet, and not given to much talking in open company. Shewas decidedly a beauty, but somewhat statuesque in her loveliness. Herforehead was high and white, but perhaps too like marble to gratify thetaste of those who are fond of flesh and blood. Her eyes were large andexquisitely formed, but they seldom showed much emotion. She, indeed,was impassive herself, and betrayed but little of her feelings. Her nosewas nearly Grecian, not coming absolutely in a straight line from herforehead, but doing so nearly enough to entitle it to be consideredas classical. Her mouth, too, was very fine—artists, at least, said so,and connoisseurs in beauty; but to me she always seemed as though shewanted fulness of lip. But the exquisite symmetry of her cheek andchin and lower face no man could deny. Her hair was light, and beingalways dressed with considerable care, did not detract from her appearance;[462]but it lacked that richness which gives such luxuriance to feminineloveliness. She was tall and slight, and very graceful in her movements;but there were those who thought that she wanted the ease and abandonof youth. They said that she was too composed and stiff for her age, andthat she gave but little to society beyond the beauty of her form andface.

There can be no doubt, however, that she was considered by mostmen and women to be the beauty of Barsetshire, and that gentlemen fromneighbouring counties would come many miles through dirty roads on themere hope of being able to dance with her. Whatever attractions she mayhave lacked, she had at any rate created for herself a great reputation.She had spent two months of the last spring in London, and even there shehad made a sensation; and people had said that Lord Dumbello, LadyHartletop’s eldest son, had been peculiarly struck with her.

It may be imagined that the archdeacon was proud of her, and soindeed was Mrs. Grantly—more proud, perhaps, of her daughter’sbeauty, than so excellent a woman should have allowed herself to be ofsuch an attribute. Griselda—that was her name—was now an onlydaughter. One sister she had had, but that sister had died. There weretwo brothers also left, one in the church and the other in the army.That was the extent of the archdeacon’s family, and as the archdeacon wasa very rich man—he was the only child of his father, who had beenBishop of Barchester for a great many years; and in those years it hadbeen worth a man’s while to be Bishop of Barchester—it was supposed thatMiss Grantly would have a large fortune. Mrs. Grantly, however, hadbeen heard to say, that she was in no hurry to see her daughter establishedin the world;—ordinary young ladies are merely married, but thoseof real importance are established:—and this, if anything, added to thevalue of the prize. Mothers sometimes depreciate their wares by an unduesolicitude to dispose of them.

But to tell the truth openly and at once—a virtue for which a novelistdoes not receive very much commendation—Griselda Grantly was, to acertain extent, already given away. Not that she, Griselda, knew anythingabout it, or that the thrice happy gentleman had been made awareof his good fortune; nor even had the archdeacon been told. But Mrs.Grantly and Lady Lufton had been closeted together more than once, andterms had been signed and sealed between them. Not signed on parchment,and sealed with wax, as is the case with treaties made by kings anddiplomats,—to be broken by the same; but signed with little words, andsealed with certain pressings of the hand,—a treaty which between twosuch contracting parties would be binding enough. And by the terms ofthis treaty Griselda Grantly was to become Lady Lufton.

Lady Lufton had hitherto been fortunate in her matrimonial speculations.She had selected Sir George for her daughter, and Sir George, withthe utmost good nature, had fallen in with her views. She had selectedFanny Monsell for Mr. Robarts, and Fanny Monsell had not rebelled[463]against her for a moment. There was a prestige of success about herdoings, and she felt almost confident that her dear son Ludovic must fallin love with Griselda.

As to the lady herself, nothing, Lady Lufton thought, could be muchbetter than such a match for her son. Lady Lufton, I have said, was agood churchwoman, and the archdeacon was the very type of that branchof the church which she venerated. The Grantlys, too, were of a goodfamily,—not noble indeed; but in such matters Lady Lufton did not wanteverything. She was one of those persons who, in placing their hopes ata moderate pitch, may fairly trust to see them realized. She would fainthat her son’s wife should be handsome; this she wished for his sake, thathe might be proud of his wife, and because men love to look on beauty. Butshe was afraid of vivacious beauty, of those soft, sparkling feminine charmswhich are spread out as lures for all the world, soft dimples, laughing eyes,luscious lips, conscious smiles, and easy whispers. What if her son shouldbring her home a rattling, rapid-spoken, painted piece of Eve’s flesh suchas this? Would not the glory and joy of her life be over, even thoughsuch child of their first mother should have come forth to the present dayennobled by the blood of two dozen successive British peers?

And then, too, Griselda’s money would not be useless. Lady Lufton,with all her high-flown ideas, was not an imprudent woman. She knewthat her son had been extravagant, though she did not believe that he hadbeen reckless; and she was well content to think that some balsam fromthe old bishop’s coffers should be made to cure the slight wounds which hisearly imprudence might have inflicted on the carcase of the family property.And thus, in this way, and for these reasons, Griselda Grantlyhad been chosen out from all the world to be the future Lady Lufton.

Lord Lufton had met Griselda more than once already; had met herbefore these high contracting parties had come to any terms whatsoever,and had evidently admired her. Lord Dumbello had remained silent onewhole evening in London with ineffable disgust, because Lord Lufton hadbeen rather particular in his attentions; but then Lord Dumbello’s mutenesswas his most eloquent mode of expression. Both Lady Hartletop andMrs. Grantly, when they saw him, knew very well what he meant. Butthat match would not exactly have suited Mrs. Grantly’s views. TheHartletop people were not in her line. They belonged altogether toanother set, being connected, as we have heard before, with the Omniuminterest—“those horrid Gatherum people,” as Lady Lufton would say toher, raising her hands and eyebrows, and shaking her head. Lady Luftonprobably thought that they ate babies in pies during their midnight orgiesat Gatherum Castle; and that widows were kept in cells, and occasionallyput on racks for the amusem*nt of the duke’s guests.

When the Robarts’s party entered the drawing-room the Grantlyswere already there, and the archdeacon’s voice sounded loud and imposingin Lucy’s ears, as she heard him speaking while she was yet on thethreshold of the door.

[464]

“My dear Lady Lufton, I would believe anything on earth abouther—anything. There is nothing too outrageous for her. Had sheinsisted on going there with the bishop’s apron on, I should not havebeen surprised.” And then they all knew that the archdeacon was talkingabout Mrs. Proudie, for Mrs. Proudie was his bugbear.

Lady Lufton after receiving her guests introduced Lucy to GriseldaGrantly. Miss Grantly smiled graciously, bowed slightly, and thenremarked in the lowest voice possible that it was exceedingly cold. Alow voice, we know, is an excellent thing in woman.

Lucy, who thought that she was bound to speak, said that it was cold, butthat she did not mind it when she was walking. And then Griselda smiledagain, somewhat less graciously than before, and so the conversationended. Miss Grantly was the elder of the two, and having seen most ofthe world, should have been the best able to talk, but perhaps she wasnot very anxious for a conversation with Miss Robarts.

“So, Robarts, I hear that you have been preaching at Chaldicotes,” saidthe archdeacon, still rather loudly. “I saw Sowerby the other day, andhe told me that you gave them the fa*g end of Mrs. Proudie’s lecture.”

“It was ill-natured of Sowerby to say the fa*g end,” said Robarts.“We divided the matter into thirds. Harold Smith took the first part,I the last——”

“And the lady the intervening portion. You have electrified thecounty between you; but I am told that she had the best of it.”

“I was so sorry that Mr. Robarts went there,” said Lady Lufton,as she walked into the dining-room leaning on the archdeacon’s arm.

“I am inclined to think he could not very well have helped himself,”said the archdeacon, who was never willing to lean heavily on a brotherparson, unless on one who had utterly and irrevocably gone away fromhis side of the church.

“Do you think not, archdeacon?”

“Why, no: Sowerby is a friend of Lufton’s——”

“Not particularly,” said poor Lady Lufton, in a deprecating tone.

“Well, they have been intimate; and Robarts, when he was asked topreach at Chaldicotes, could not well refuse.”

“But then he went afterwards to Gatherum Castle. Not that I amvexed with him at all now, you understand. But it is such a dangeroushouse, you know.”

“So it is.—But the very fact of the duke’s wishing to have a clergymanthere, should always be taken as a sign of grace, Lady Lufton. Theair was impure, no doubt; but it was less impure with Robarts there thanit would have been without him. But, gracious heavens! what blasphemyhave I been saying about impure air? Why, the bishop was there!”

“Yes, the bishop was there,” said Lady Lufton, and they bothunderstood each other thoroughly.

Lord Lufton took out Mrs. Grantly to dinner, and matters were somanaged that Miss Grantly sat on his other side. There was no management[465]apparent in this to anybody; but there she was, while Lucy wasplaced between her brother and Captain Culpepper. Captain Culpepperwas a man with an enormous moustache, and a great aptitude for slaughteringgame; but as he had no other strong characteristics, it was notprobable that he would make himself very agreeable to poor Lucy.

She had seen Lord Lufton once, for two minutes, since the day of thatwalk, and then he had addressed her quite like an old friend. It had beenin the parsonage drawing-room, and Fanny had been there. Fanny nowwas so well accustomed to his lordship, that she thought but little of this,but to Lucy it had been very pleasant. He was not forward or familiar,but kind, and gentle, and pleasant; and Lucy did feel that she likedhim.

Now, on this evening, he had hitherto hardly spoken to her; but thenshe knew that there were other people in the company to whom he wasbound to speak. She was not exactly humble-minded in the usual senseof the word; but she did recognize the fact that her position was lessimportant than that of other people there, and that therefore it wasprobable that to a certain extent she would be overlooked. But not theless would she have liked to occupy the seat to which Miss Grantly hadfound her way. She did not want to flirt with Lord Lufton; she wasnot such a fool as that; but she would have liked to have heard thesound of his voice close to her ear, instead of that of Captain Culpepper’sknife and fork.

This was the first occasion on which she had endeavoured to dressherself with care since her father had died; and now sombre though shewas in her deep mourning, she did look very well.

“There is an expression about her forehead that is full of poetry,”Fanny had said to her husband.

“Don’t you turn her head, Fanny, and make her believe that she is abeauty,” Mark had answered.

“I doubt it is not so easy to turn her head, Mark. There is more inLucy than you imagine, and so you will find out before long.” It wasthus that Mrs. Robarts prophesied about her sister-in-law. Had she beenasked she might perhaps have said that Lucy’s presence would be dangerousto the Grantly interest at Framley Court.

Lord Lufton’s voice was audible enough as he went on talking to MissGrantly—his voice but not his words. He talked in such a way that therewas no appearance of whispering, and yet the person to whom he spoke,and she only, could hear what he said. Mrs. Grantly the while conversedconstantly with Lucy’s brother, who sat at Lucy’s left hand. She neverlacked for subjects on which to speak to a country clergyman of theright sort, and thus Griselda was left quite uninterrupted.

But Lucy could not but observe that Griselda herself seemed to havevery little to say,—or at any rate to say very little. Every now andthen she did open her mouth, and some word or brace of words wouldfall from it. But for the most part she seemed to be content in the fact[466]that Lord Lufton was paying her attention. She showed no animation, butsat there still and graceful, composed and classical, as she always was.Lucy, who could not keep her ears from listening or her eyes from looking,thought that had she been there she would have endeavoured to take amore prominent part in the conversation. But then Griselda Grantlyprobably knew much better than Lucy did how to comport herself in sucha situation. Perhaps it might be that young men, such as Lord Lufton,liked to hear the sound of their own voices.

“Immense deal of game about here,” Captain Culpepper said to hertowards the end of the dinner. It was the second attempt he had made;on the former he had asked her whether site knew any of the fellows ofthe 9th.

“Is there?” said Lucy. “Oh! I saw Lord Lufton the other day witha great armful of pheasants.”

“An armful! Why we had seven cartloads the other day atGatherum.”

“Seven carts full of pheasants!” said Lucy, amazed.

“That’s not so much. We had eight guns, you know. Eight gunswill do a deal of work when the game has been well got together.They manage all that capitally at Gatherum. Been at the duke’s,eh?”

Lucy had heard the Framley report as to Gatherum Castle, and saidwith a sort of shudder that she had never been at that place. After this,Captain Culpepper troubled her no further.

When the ladies had taken themselves to the drawing-room Lucyfound herself hardly better off than she had been at the dinner table.Lady Lufton and Mrs. Grantly got themselves on to a sofa together, andthere chatted confidentially into each other’s ears. Her ladyship hadintroduced Lucy and Miss Grantly, and then she naturally thought thatthe young people might do very well together. Mrs. Robarts did attemptto bring about a joint conversation, which should include the three, andfor ten minutes or so she worked hard at it. But it did not thrive. MissGrantly was monosyllabic, smiling however at every monosyllable; andLucy found that nothing would occur to her at that moment worthy ofbeing spoken. There she sat still and motionless, afraid to take up abook, and thinking in her heart how much happier she would have beenat home at the parsonage. She was not made for society; she felt sure ofthat; and another time site would let Mark and Fanny come to FramleyCourt by themselves.

And then the gentlemen came in, and there was another stir in theroom. Lady Lufton got up and bustled about; she poked the fire andshifted the candles, spoke a few words to Dr. Grantly, whispered somethingto her son, patted Lucy on the cheek, told Fanny, who was a musician,that they would have a little music; and ended by putting her twohands on Griselda’s shoulders and telling her that the fit of her frock wasperfect. For Lady Lufton, though she did dress old herself, as Lucy had[467]said, delighted to see those around her neat and pretty, jaunty andgraceful.

“Dear Lady Lufton!” said Griselda, putting up her hand so as topress the end of her ladyship’s fingers. It was the first piece of animationshe had shown, and Lucy Robarts watched it all.

And then there was music. Lucy neither played nor sang; Fannydid both, and for an amateur did both well. Griselda did not sing, butshe played; and did so in a manner that showed that neither her ownlabour nor her father’s money had been spared in her instruction. LordLufton sang also, a little, and Captain Culpepper a very little; so thatthey got up a concert among them. In the meantime the doctor andMark stood talking together on the rug before the fire; the two motherssat contented, watching the billings and the cooings of their offspring—andLucy sat alone, turning over the leaves of a book of pictures. Shemade up her mind fully, then and there, that she was quite unfitted bydisposition for such work as this. She cared for no one, and no one caredfor her. Well, she must go through with it now; but another time shewould know better. With her own book and a fireside she never feltherself to be miserable as she was now.

She had turned her back to the music, for she was sick of seeing LordLufton watch the artistic motion of Miss Grantly’s fingers, and was sittingat a small table as far away from the piano as a long room would permit,when she was suddenly roused from a reverie of self-reproach by a voiceclose behind her: “Miss Robarts,” said the voice, “why have you cutus all?” and Lucy felt that though she heard the words plainly, nobodyelse did. Lord Lufton was now speaking to her as he had before spokento Miss Grantly.

“I don’t play, my lord,” said Lucy, “nor yet sing.”

“That would have made your company so much more valuable tous, for we are terribly badly off for listeners. Perhaps you don’t likemusic?”

“I do like it,—sometimes very much.”

“And when are the sometimes? But we shall find it all out intime. We shall have unravelled all your mysteries, and read all yourriddles, by—when shall I say?—by the end of the winter. Shall wenot?”

“I do not know that I have got any mysteries.”

“Oh, but you have! It is very mysterious in you to come and sithere, with your back to us all——”

“Oh, Lord Lufton; if I have done wrong——!” and poor Lucyalmost started from her chair, and a deep flush came across her dark cheek.

“No—no; you have done no wrong. I was only joking. It is wewho have done wrong in leaving you to yourself—you who are thegreatest stranger among us.”

“I have been very well, thank you. I don’t care about being leftalone. I have always been used to it.”

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“Ah! but we must break you of the habit. We won’t allow you tomake a hermit of yourself. But the truth is, Miss Robarts, you don’tknow us yet, and therefore you are not quite happy among us.”

“Oh! yes, I am; you are all very good to me.”

“You must let us be good to you. At any rate, you must let me beso. You know, don’t you, that Mark and I have been dear friends sincewe were seven years old. His wife has been my sister’s dearest friendalmost as long; and now that you are with them, you must be a dearfriend too. You won’t refuse the offer; will you?”

“Oh, no,” she said, quite in a whisper; and, indeed, she couldhardly raise her voice above a whisper, fearing that tears would fall fromher tell-tale eyes.

“Dr. and Mrs. Grantly will have gone in a couple of days, and thenwe must get you down here. Miss Grantly is to remain for Christmas,and you two must become bosom friends.”

Lucy smiled, and tried to look pleased, but she felt that she andGriselda Grantly could never be bosom friends—could never have anythingin common between them. She felt sure that Griselda despisedher, little, brown, plain, and unimportant as she was. She herself couldnot despise Griselda in turn; indeed she could not but admire MissGrantly’s great beauty and dignity of demeanour; but she knewthat she could never love her. It is hardly possible that the proud-heartedshould love those who despise them; and Lucy Robarts was veryproud-hearted.

“Don’t you think she is very handsome?” said Lord Lufton.

“Oh, very,” said Lucy. “Nobody can doubt that.”

“Ludovic,” said Lady Lufton—not quite approving of her son’s remainingso long at the back of Lucy’s chair—“won’t you give us anothersong—Mrs. Robarts and Miss Grantly are still at the piano?”

“I have sung away all that I knew, mother. There’s Culpepper has nothad a chance yet. He has got to give us his dream—how he ‘dreamt thathe dwelt in marble halls!’”

“I sang that an hour ago,” said the captain, not over pleased.

“But you certainly have not told us how ‘your little loverscame!’”

The captain, however, would not sing any more. And then the partywas broken up, and the Robarts’s went home to their parsonage.

CHAPTER XII.
The Little Bill.

Lucy, during those last fifteen minutes of her sojourn in the FramleyCourt drawing-room, somewhat modified the very strong opinion she hadbefore formed as to her unfitness for such society. It was very pleasant[469]sitting there in that easy chair, while Lord Lufton stood at the back of itsaying nice, soft, good-natured words to her. She was sure that in alittle time she could feel a true friendship for him, and that she could doso without any risk of falling in love with him. But then she had aglimmering of an idea that such a friendship would be open to all mannerof remarks, and would hardly be compatible with the world’s ordinaryways. At any rate it would be pleasant to be at Framley Court, if hewould come and occasionally notice her. But she did not admit to herselfthat such a visit would be intolerable if his whole time were devoted toGriselda Grantly. She neither admitted it, nor thought it; but nevertheless,in a strange unconscious way, such a feeling did find entrance inher bosom.

And then the Christmas holidays passed away. How much of thisenjoyment fell to her share, and how much of this suffering she endured,we will not attempt accurately to describe. Miss Grantly remained atFramley Court up to Twelfth Night, and the Robarts’s also spent most ofthe season at the house. Lady Lufton, no doubt, had hoped that everythingmight have been arranged on this occasion in accordance with herwishes, but such had not been the case. Lord Lufton had evidentlyadmired Miss Grantly very much; indeed, he had said so to his motherhalf-a-dozen times; but it may almost be questioned whether the pleasureLady Lufton derived from this was not more than neutralized by anopinion he once put forward that Griselda Grantly wanted some of thefire of Lucy Robarts.

“Surely, Ludovic, you would never compare the two girls,” said LadyLufton.

“Of course not. They are the very antipodes to each other. MissGrantly would probably be more to my taste; but then I am wise enoughto know that it is so because my taste is a bad taste.”

“I know no man with a more accurate or refined taste in suchmatters,” said Lady Lufton. Beyond this she did not dare to go. Sheknew very well that her strategy would be vain should her son once learnthat she had a strategy. To tell the truth, Lady Lufton was becomingsomewhat indifferent to Lucy Robarts. She had been very kind to thelittle girl; but the little girl seemed hardly to appreciate the kindness asshe should do—and then Lord Lufton would talk to Lucy, “which was sounnecessary, you know;” and Lucy had got into a way of talking quitefreely with Lord Lufton, having completely dropped that short, spasmodic,ugly exclamation of “my lord.”

And so the Christmas festivities were at an end, and January woreitself away. During the greater part of this month Lord Lufton did notremain at Framley, but was nevertheless in the county, hunting with thehounds of both divisions, and staying at various houses. Two or threenights he spent at Chaldicotes; and one—let it only be told in an undervoice—at Gatherum Castle! Of this he said nothing to Lady Lufton.“Why make her unhappy?” as he said to Mark. But Lady Lufton knew[470]it, though she said not a word to him—knew it, and was unhappy. “Ifhe would only marry Griselda, there would be an end of that danger,” shesaid to herself.

But now we must go back for a while to the vicar and his little bill.It will be remembered, that his first idea with reference to that trouble,after the reading of his father’s will, was to borrow the money from hisbrother John. John was down at Exeter at the time, and was to stay onenight at the parsonage on his way to London. Mark would broach thematter to him on the journey, painful though it would be to him to tellthe story of his own folly to a brother so much younger than himself,and who had always looked up to him, clergyman and full-blown vicar ashe was, with a deference greater than that which such difference in agerequired.

The story was told, however; but was told all in vain, as Mark foundout before he reached Framley. His brother John immediately declaredthat he would lend him the money, of course—eight hundred, if hisbrother wanted it. He, John, confessed that, as regarded the remainingtwo, he should like to feel the pleasure of immediate possession. As forinterest, he would not take any—take interest from a brother! of coursenot. Well, if Mark made such a fuss about it, he supposed he musttake it; but would rather not. Mark should have his own way, and dojust what he liked.

This was all very well, and Mark had fully made up his mind thathis brother should not be kept long out of his money. But then arosethe question, how was that money to be reached? He, Mark, wasexecutor, or one of the executors under his father’s will, and, therefore,no doubt, could put his hand upon it; but his brother wanted fivemonths of being of age, and could not therefore as yet be put legally inpossession of the legacy.

“That’s a bore,” said the assistant private secretary to the Lord PettyBag, thinking, perhaps, as much of his own immediate wish for readycash as he did of his brother’s necessities. Mark felt that it was a bore,but there was nothing more to be done in that direction. He must nowfind out how far the bankers could assist him.

Some week or two after his return to Framley he went over to Barchester,and called there on a certain Mr. Forrest, the manager of one ofthe banks, with whom he was acquainted; and with many injunctions asto secrecy told this manager the whole of his story. At first, he concealedthe name of his friend Sowerby, but it soon appeared that no suchconcealment was of any avail. “That’s Sowerby, of course,” said Mr.Forrest. “I know you are intimate with him; and all his friends gothrough that, sooner or later.”

It seemed to Mark as though Mr. Forrest made very light of the wholetransaction.

“I cannot possibly pay the bill when it falls due,” said Mark.

“Oh, no, of course not,” said Mr. Forrest. “It’s never very convenient[471]to hand out four hundred pounds at a blow. Nobody will expectyou to pay it!”

“But I suppose I shall have to do it sooner or later?”

“Well, that’s as may be. It will depend partly on how you managewith Sowerby, and partly on the hands it gets into. As the bill hasyour name on it, they’ll have patience as long as the interest is paid, andthe commissions on renewal. But no doubt it will have to be met someday by somebody.”

Mr. Forrest said that he was sure that the bill was not in Barchester;Mr. Sowerby would not, he thought, have brought it to a Barchesterbank. The bill was probably in London, but, doubtless, would be sentto Barchester for collection. “If it comes in my way,” said Mr. Forrest,“I will give you plenty of time, so that you may manage about therenewal with Sowerby. I suppose he’ll pay the expense of doingthat.”

Mark’s heart was somewhat lighter as he left the bank. Mr. Forresthad made so little of the whole transaction that he felt himself justifiedin making little of it also. “It may be as well,” said he to himself, ashe drove home, “not to tell Fanny anything about it till the three monthshave run round. I must make some arrangement then.” And in thisway his mind was easier during the last of those three months than it hadbeen during the two former. That feeling of over-due bills, of billscoming due, of accounts overdrawn, of tradesmen unpaid, of generalmoney cares, is very dreadful at first; but it is astonishing how soonmen get used to it. A load which would crush a man at first becomes,by habit, not only endurable, but easy and comfortable to the bearer.The habitual debtor goes along jaunty and with elastic step, almost enjoyingthe excitement of his embarrassments. There was Mr. Sowerbyhimself; who ever saw a cloud on his brow? It made one almost inlove with ruin to be in his company. And even now, already, MarkRobarts was thinking to himself quite comfortably about this bill;—howvery pleasantly those bankers managed these things. Pay it! No; noone will be so unreasonable as to expect you to do that! And thenMr. Sowerby certainly was a pleasant fellow, and gave a man somethingin return for his money. It was still a question with Mark whether LordLufton had not been too hard on Sowerby. Had that gentleman fallenacross his clerical friend at the present moment, he might no doubt havegotten from him an acceptance for another four hundred pounds.

One is almost inclined to believe that there is something pleasurablein the excitement of such embarrassments, as there is also in the excitementof drink. But then, at last, the time does come when the excitementis over, and when nothing but the misery is left. If there be an existenceof wretchedness on earth it must be that of the elderly, worn-out roué,who has run this race of debt and bills of accommodation and acceptances,—ofwhat, if we were not in these days somewhat afraid of good broadEnglish, we might call lying and swindling, falsehood and fraud—and[472]who, having ruined all whom he should have loved, having burnt upevery one who would trust him much, and scorched all who would trusthim a little, is at last left to finish his life with such bread and water asthese men get, without one honest thought to strengthen his sinking heart,or one honest friend to hold his shivering hand! If a man could onlythink of that, as he puts his name to the first little bill, as to which he isso good-naturedly assured that it can easily be renewed!

When the three months had nearly run out, it so happened thatRobarts met his friend Sowerby. Mark had once or twice ridden withLord Lufton as far as the meet of the hounds, and may, perhaps, havegone a field or two farther on some occasions. The reader must notthink that he had taken to hunting, as some parsons do; and it is singularenough that whenever they do so they always show a special aptitude forthe pursuit, as though hunting were an employment peculiarly congenialwith a cure of souls in the country. Such a thought would do our vicarinjustice. But when Lord Lufton would ask him what on earth couldbe the harm of riding along the roads to look at the hounds, he hardlyknew what sensible answer to give his lordship. It would be absurd tosay that his time would be better employed at home in clerical matters,for it was notorious that he had not clerical pursuits for the employmentof half his time. In this way, therefore, he had got into a habit oflooking at the hounds, and keeping up his acquaintance in the county,meeting Lord Dumbello, Mr. Green Walker, Harold Smith, and othersuch like sinners; and on one such occasion, as the three months werenearly closing, he did meet Mr. Sowerby.

“Look here, Sowerby; I want to speak to you for half a moment.What are you doing about that bill?”

“Bill—bill! what bill?—which bill? The whole bill, and nothingbut the bill. That seems to be the conversation now-a-days of all men,morning, noon, and night.”

“Don’t you know the bill I signed for you for four hundred pounds?”

“Did you, though? Was not that rather green of you?”

This did seem strange to Mark. Could it really be the fact thatMr. Sowerby had so many bills flying about that he had absolutely forgottenthat occurrence in the Gatherum Castle bedroom. And then tobe called green by the very man whom he had obliged!

“Perhaps I was,” said Mark, in a tone that showed that he was somewhatpiqued. “But all the same I should be glad to know how it willbe taken up.”

“Oh, Mark, what a ruffian you are to spoil my day’s sport in thisway. Any man but a parson would be too good a Christian for suchintense cruelty. But let me see—four hundred pounds? Oh, yes—Tozerhas it.”

“And what will Tozer do with it?”

“Make money of it; whatever way he may go to work he will dothat.”

[473]

“But will Tozer bring it to me on the 20th?”

“Oh, Lord, no! Upon my word, Mark, you are deliciously green.A cat would as soon think of killing a mouse directly she got it into herclaws. But, joking apart, you need not trouble yourself. Maybe youwill hear no more about it; or, perhaps, which no doubt is more probable,I may have to send it to you to be renewed. But you need do nothingtill you hear from me or somebody else.”

“Only do not let any one come down upon me for the money.”

“There is not the slightest fear of that. Tally-ho, old fellow! He’saway. Tally-ho! right over by Gossetts’ barn. Come along, and nevermind Tozer—‘Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.’” And awaythey both went together, parson and member of parliament.

And then again on that occasion Mark went home with a sort of feelingthat the bill did not matter. Tozer would manage it somehow; and itwas quite clear that it would not do to tell his wife of it just at present.

On the 21st of that month of February, however, he did receive areminder that the bill and all concerning it had not merely been a farce.This was a letter from Mr. Sowerby, dated from Chaldicotes, though notbearing the Barchester post-mark, in which that gentleman suggested arenewal—not exactly of the old bill, but of a new one. It seemed toMark that the letter had been posted in London. If I give it entire, Ishall, perhaps, most quickly explain its purport:

[474]

When Mark had read it through he looked down on his table to seewhether the old bill had fallen from the letter; but no, there was noenclosure, and had been no enclosure but the new bill. And then heread the letter through again, and found that there was no word about theold bill,—not a syllable, at least, as to its whereabouts. Sowerby did noteven say that it would remain in his own hands.

Mark did not in truth know much about such things. It might be thatthe very fact of his signing this second document would render that firstdocument null and void; and from Sowerby’s silence on the subject, itmight be argued that this was so well known to be the case, that he hadnot thought of explaining it. But yet Mark could not see how thisshould be so.

But what was he to do? That threat of cost and lawyers, andspecially of the newspapers, did have its effect upon him—as no doubtit was intended to do. And then he was utterly dumfounded bySowerby’s impudence in drawing on him for 500l. instead of 400l.,“covering,” as Sowerby so good-humouredly said, “sundry little outstandingtrifles.”

But at last he did sign the bill, and sent it off, as Sowerby had directed.What else was he to do?

Fool that he was. A man always can do right, even though he hasdone wrong before. But that previous wrong adds so much difficultyto the path—a difficulty which increases in tremendous ratio, till aman at last is choked in his struggling, and is drowned beneath thewaters.

And then he put away Sowerby’s letter carefully, locking it up fromhis wife’s sight. It was a letter that no parish clergyman should havereceived. So much he acknowledged to himself. But nevertheless it wasnecessary that he should keep it. And now again for a few hours thisaffair made him very miserable.

Wandering one morning into the Lowther Arcade, I found myself behindan old man and a little girl. The man was very feeble and tottering inhis steps, and the child was very young. It was near the Christmasseason, and many children, richly dressed, in the care of mothers, sisters,and nursery governesses, were loading themselves with all kinds ofamusing and expensive toys. The vaulted roof re-echoed with thesounds of young voices, shrill whistles, wiry tinklings of musical gocarts,the rustling of paper, and the notes of cornopeans or pianos. It was theExhibition of 1851 repeated, in miniature; the toys of manhood beingexchanged for the toys of youth.

My old man and my little girl were not amongst the happy buyers, orthe richly dressed, for they were evidently very poor. They had wanderedinto the bazaar to feast upon its sights, and it was difficult to say whichwas the more entranced of the two. The old man gazed about him, witha vacant, gratified smile upon his face, and the child was too young toknow that any barrier existed to prevent her plucking the tempting fruitwhich she saw hanging in clusters on every side. This barrier—the old,thick, black, impassable barrier of poverty—though invisible to the child,was not invisible to me; and I blamed the old man for turning her stepsinto such a glittering enchanted cavern, whose walls were really lined, toher, with bitterness and despair.

“Why don’t we live here, gran’da?” asked the child. The old mangave no other answer than a weak laugh.

“Why don’t I have a house like that?” continued the child, pointingto a bright doll’s-house displayed upon a stall, and trying to drag herguardian towards it.

The old man still only laughed feebly, as he shuffled past the attraction,and before the thought had struck me that I might have purchased acheap pleasure by giving this house to the child, they were both lost inthe pushing, laughing crowd.

This incident naturally set me thinking about toys, and their effect inincreasing the amount of human happiness. I asked myself if I, ——,a respectable, middle-aged man of moderate means, was free from theinfluence of these powerful trifles. I was compelled, in all the cheaphonesty of self-examination, to answer “No.” I felt, upon reflection, that Iwas even weaker than the poor child I had just seen. The chief toy thatI was seeking for was an ideal house that I had never been able to find.I was led away by a vague sentiment about the poetry of neighbourhoods—asecret consuming passion for red-brick—a something that couldhardly be weighed or spanned; the echo of an old song; the mists ofa picture; the shadow of a dream. She was led away by no suchunsubstantial phantoms. Her eyes had suddenly rested, for a few[476]moments, upon her childish paradise, and a few shillings would havemade her happy. I, on the contrary, had exhausted years in searchingfor my paradise, but without a prospect of success.

The fact is, I have got an unfortunate habit of looking back. I amfond of the past, though only in a dreamy, unsystematic way. My historyis a little out of order, and I am no authority upon dates; but I like tohover about places. I cannot tell the day, the hour, or even the year inwhich the battle of Sedgemoor occurred; but I have gloated over the oldroadside mill from which the Duke of Monmouth watched his losingcontest, and the old houses at Bridgewater, whose roofs were then probablycrowded with women and children. I have even been through thestraggling village of Weston Zoyland, and into the sanded tavern wherethe late Lord Macaulay resided for weeks while he wrote this portion ofhis history. I have heard the landlord’s proud account of his distinguishedguest, and how “he worrited about the neighbourhood.” This interestingfact, so I am informed, is duly recorded, upon my authority, in the latestedition of Men of the Time. My only objection to the late Lord Macaulayis, that he was one of these men of the time—of my own time. If Gibbonhad been the careful historian of Sedgemoor, the village pothouse wouldhave had a finer old crusted flavour, to my taste. The sentiment thatgoverns me scarcely blooms under a hundred years, neither more nor less.I cannot learn to love the Elizabethan times—they are too remote. I haveno more real sympathy with fifteen hundred and fifty, than with eighteenhundred and fifty. I can tolerate the seventeenth century; but theeighteenth always “stirs my heart, like a trumpet.”

Notwithstanding all this, I am not an obstructive man; I am not a“fogey.” I take the good the gods provide me. I have no prejudicesagainst gas; though I wish it could be supplied without so much parochialquarrelling. It may generate poison, as certain chemists assert; but itcertainly generates too many pamphlets and public meetings. I use theelectric telegraph; I travel by the railway; and I am thankful to theirinventors and originators. The moment, however, I leave the railway, Iplunge rapidly into the past. I never linger, for a moment, at the bright,new, damp, lofty railway hotel (I hate the name of hotel, although Iknow it springs from hostelry); nor amongst the mushroom houses thatrally round the station. My course is always through the distant trees,beyond the dwarfish, crumbling church, whose broad low windows seemto have taken root amongst the flat, uneven tombstones, into the old townor village, into its very heart—its market-place—and up to the brown olddoor of its oldest inn. I know everything that can be said against suchplaces. They are very yellow; they have too strong a flavour of staletobacco-smoke; their roofs are low, and their floors have a leaning eitherto one side or the other. Their passages are dark, and often built onvarious levels; so that you may tumble down into your bed-chamber, ortumble up into your sitting-room, shaking every tooth in your head, orpossibly biting your tongue. These may be serious drawbacks to some[477]people, but they are not so serious to me, and I am able to find manycompensating advantages. The last vestige of the real old able-bodiedport lingers only in such nooks and corners, and is served out by matronlyservants, like housekeepers in ancient families. I know one inn of thekind where the very “boots” looks positively venerable. He wears avelvet skull-cap that Cardinal Wolsey might have been proud of; he hassaved ten thousand pounds in his humble servitude, and is a large landedproprietor in the county. Prosperity has not made him inattentive. Noone will give your shoes such an enduring polish, or call you up for anearly train with such unerring punctuality.

With these sentiments, fancies, and prejudices in favour of the past,joined to a fastidious, quaintly luxurious taste, and limited funds, it ishardly to be wondered at that I have searched long and vainly for myideal dwelling. I might, perhaps, have found it readily enough in thecountry, but my habits only allowed me to seek it in town. I am a Londonman—London born and London bred—a genuine co*ckney, I hope, ofthe school of Dr. Johnson and Charles Lamb. I cannot tear myself awayfrom old taverns, old courts and alleys, old suburbs (now standing in thevery centre of the town), old print-shops, old mansions, old archways, andold churches. I must hear the London chimes at midnight, or life wouldnot be worth a jot. I hear them, as they were heard a century and moreago, for they are the last things to change; but forty or fifty years haveplayed sad havoc with land, and brick, and stone. Fire has done something;metropolitan improvements have done more. Not only do Imourn over what is lost, but what is gained. The town grows newerevery day that it grows older. I know it must be so; I know it oughtto be so; I know it is a sign of increased prosperity and strength. Isee this with one half of my mind, while I abhor it with the other. Icannot love New Oxford Street, while St. Giles’s Church and oldHolborn still remain. I have no affection for Bayswater and Notting-hill,but a tender remembrance of Tyburn Gate. I feel no sensation ofdelight when I hear the name of St. John’s Wood or the Regent’s Park;and Camden Town is a thing of yesterday that I treat with utter contempt.If I allow my footsteps to wander along Piccadilly and through Knightsbridge,they turn down, on one side, into Chelsea, or up, on the other side,into Kensington, leaving Brompton unvisited in the middle. I am nevertired of sitting under the trees in Cheyne Walk; of walking round the redbricks and trim gravel pathways of Chelsea Hospital; of peeping throughthe railings at Gough House, or watching the old Physic Garden from aboat on the river. I am never weary of roaming hand-in-hand with anamiable, gossiping companion, like Leigh Hunt, listening to stories at everydoorstep in the old town, and repeopling faded, half-deserted streets withthe great and little celebrities of the past. I never consider a day ill spentthat has ended in plucking daisies upon Kew Green, or in wasting an houror two in the cathedral stillness of Charter-House Square. I am fond oftracing resemblances, perhaps imaginary, between Mark Lane and Old[478]Highgate, and of visiting old merchants’ decayed mansions far away in tarryPoplar. I could add a chapter to Leigh Hunt’s pleasant essay upon Citytrees,[14] and tell of many fountains and flower-gardens that stand under thewindows of dusky counting-houses.

Humanizing as such harmless wandering ought to be, it seems only tomake me break a commandment. I am sorely afraid that I covet myneighbour’s house. When I find the nearest approach to my ideal—myday-dream—my toy dwelling—it is always in the occupation of steady,unshifting people. Such habitations, in or near London, seem to descendas heirlooms from generation to generation. They are never to be let;they are seldom offered for sale; and the house agent—the showman of“eligible villas”—is not familiar with them. I will describe the rarity.

It must be built of red brick, not earlier than 1650, not later than1750, picked out at the edges with slabs of yellow stone. It must not betoo lofty, and must be equally balanced on each side of its doorway. Itmust stand detached, walled in on about an acre of ground, well surroundedby large old trees. Its roof must be sloping, and if crowned witha bell-turret, so much the better. Its outer entrance must be a lofty gateof flowered ironwork, supported on each side by purple-red brick columns,each one surmounted by a globe of stone. Looking through the traceryof this iron gate, you must see a few broad white steps leading up tothe entrance-hall. The doorway of this hall must be dark and massive,the lower half wood and the upper half window-framed glass. Overthe top must be a projecting hood-porch filled with nests of wood-carving,representing fruit, flowers, and figures, brown with age. Lookingthrough the glass of the hall-door, you must see more carving like this alongthe lofty walls; and a broad staircase with banisters, dark as ebony, leadingup to a long narrow window, shaded by the rich wings of a spreadingcedar-tree. The rooms of this mansion will necessarily be in keepingwith its external features, presenting many unexpected, irregular closetsand corners, with, perhaps, a mysterious double staircase leading down tothe cellars, to which a romantic, unauthenticated story is attached. Suchhouses are none the worse for being filled with legends; for havingone apartment, at least, with a reputed murder-stain upon its floor; andfor being generally alluded to as Queen Elizabeth’s palaces, although probablynot built for nearly a century after that strong-minded monarch’sdeath. The window-shutters are none the worse for being studded withalarm-bells, as thick as grapes upon a fruitful vine; as an additionalcomfort is derived from the security of the present, when we are made toreflect upon the dangers of the past. A few rooks will give an additionalcharm to the place; and it will be pleasant, when a few crumbs are thrownupon the gravel, to see a fluttering cloud of sparrows dropping down fromthe sheltering eaves.

With regard to the neighbourhood in which such a house should stand,[479]it must be essentially ripe. Better that it should be a little faded; a littledeserted; a little unpopular, and very unfashionable; than so dreadfullyraw and new. It should have a flavour of old literature, old politics, andold art. If it is just a little obstructive and High Tory—inclined to standupon the ancient ways—no sensible man of progress should blame it,but smile blandly and pass on. It will, at least, possess the merit, in hiseyes, of being self-supporting; asking for, or obtaining no governmentaid. While Boards of Works are freely supplied with funds to constructthe new, there is no board but unorganized sentiment to maintainthe old.

This house and this neighbourhood should not be far from London—fromthe old centre of the old town. They should stand in Soho, or inLincoln’s Inn Fields, or in Westminster, like Queen’s Square, near St.James’s Park; or even in Lambeth, like the Archbishop’s Palace. Betterstill if in the Strand, like Northumberland House; or in Fleet Street,like the Temple Gardens. What luxury would there be, almost equal toanything we read of in the Arabian Nights, in turning on one side fromthe busy crowd, unlocking a dingy door that promised to lead to nothingbut a miserable court, and passing, at once, into a secret, secluded garden!What pleasures would be equal to those of hearing the splash of coolfountains; the sighing of the wind through lofty elms and broad beeches;of standing amongst the scent and colours of a hundred growing flowers;of sitting in an oaken room with a tiled fireplace, surrounded by old chinain cabinets, old folios upon carved tables, old portraits of men and womenin the costume of a bygone time, and looking out over a lawn of grassinto a winding vista of trees, so contrived as to shut out all signs of citylife, while the mellow hum of traffic came in at the open window, orthrough the walls, and you felt that you were within a stone’s throw ofTemple Bar!

In such a house, on such a spot, a man might live, and his life besomething more than a weary round of food and sleep. His naturewould become subdued to what it rested in: the clay would happily takethe shape of the mould. I believe more in the influence of dwellingsupon human character, than in the influence of authority on matters ofopinion. The man may seek the house; or the house may form theman; but in either case the result is the same. A few yards of earth,even on this side of the grave, will make all the difference between lifeand death. If our dear old friend Charles Lamb was now alive (and weall must wish he was, if only that he might see how every day is bringinghim nearer the crown that belongs only to the Prince of BritishEssayists), there would be something singularly jarring to the humannerves in finding him at Dalston; but not so jarring in finding hima little farther off, at Hackney. He would still have drawn nourishmentin the Temple and in Covent Garden; but he must surely haveperished if transplanted to New Tyburnia. I cannot imagine him livingat Pentonville (I cannot, in my uninquiring ignorance, imagine who[480]Penton was that he should name a ville!), but I can see a certain appropriateoddity in his cottage at Colebrook Row, Islington. In the firstplace, we may agree that this London suburb is very old, without goinginto the vexed question of whether it was really very “merry.” In thesecond place, this same Colebrook Row was built a few years before ourdear old friend was born—I believe, in seventeen hundred and seventy.In the third place, it was called a “Row,” though “Lane” or “Walk”would have been as old and as good; but “Terrace” or “Crescent”would have rendered it unbearable. The New River flowed calmly past,the cottage walls—as poor George Dyer found to his cost—bringing withit fair memories of Izaak Walton and the last two centuries. The houseitself had also certain peculiarities to recommend it. The door was soconstructed that it opened into the chief sitting-room; and this, thoughpromising much annoyance, was really a source of fun and enjoyment toour dear old friend. He was never so delighted as when he stood on thehearthrug receiving many congenial visitors, as they came to him on themuddiest-boot, and the wettest-of-umbrella days. His immediate neighbourhoodwas also peculiar. It was there that weary wanderers came toseek the waters of oblivion. Suicide could pitch upon no spot so favourablefor its sacrifices as the gateway leading into the river enclosure beforeCharles Lamb’s cottage. Waterloo Bridge had not long been built, andwas not then a fashionable theatre for self-destruction. The drags werealways kept ready in Colebrook Row, and are still so kept at a smalltavern a few doors from the cottage. The landlord’s ear, according tohis own account, had become so sensitive by repeated practice, that whenaroused at night by a heavy splash in the water, he could tell by the soundwhether it was an accident, or a wilful plunge. He never believed thatpoor George Dyer tumbled in from carelessness, though it was no businessof his to express an opinion on the matter. After the eighth suicide,within a short period, Charles Lamb began to grow restless.

“Mary,” he said to his sister, “I think it’s high time we left thisplace;” and so they went to Edmonton. Those who are painfullyfamiliar with the unfortunate mental infirmity under which they bothlaboured, will see a sorrowful meaning in words like these. Those who,like me, can see an odd harmony between our dear old friend and ColebrookRow, will lament, the sad necessity which compelled them to partcompany.

Without wishing for a moment to erect my eccentric taste in housesas an unerring guide for my fellow-creatures (especially as the ancientLondon dwellings are growing fewer every day, and I am still seekingmy ideal toy), I must still be allowed to wonder at that condition of mindwhich can settle down, with seeming delight, in the new raw buildingsthat I see springing up on every side. I am not speaking of those whoare compelled to practise economy (I am compelled to practise it myself),nor of those whose business arrangements require them to keep within aparticular circle; but of those who have the power, to a certain extent, of[481]choosing their ground, and choose it upon some principle that I am unableto understand.

I have a sensitive horror of regularity, of uniformity, of straight lines,of obtrusive geometrical forms. I prefer a winding alley to a directstreet. I detest a modern, well-advertised building estate. The water-coloursketch of such a place is meant to be very fascinating and attractiveas it hangs in the great house-agent’s office or window, but it hasno charms for me. My theory is that a man must be perpetually strugglingif he wishes to preserve his individuality in such a settlement. Thewater may be pure; the soil may be gravelly; the neighbourhood maybe well supplied with all kinds of churches and chapels; the “red book”may not pass it by as being out of the fashionable circle; blue books mayrefer to it approvingly as a model of perfect drainage; it may be warmedup by thorough occupation; perambulators may be seen in its bare newsquares; broughams may stand by the side of its bright level kerbstones;but the demon of sameness, in my eyes, would always be brooding overit. I should feel that when I retired to rest, perhaps eight hundredmasters of households were slumbering in eight hundred bedchambersexactly the same size and the same shape as my own. When I took abath, or lingered over the breakfast-table, I should be haunted by theknowledge that eight hundred people might probably be taking similarbaths and similar breakfasts in precisely similar apartments. My library,my dining-room, and my drawing-room would correspond in shape andsize with eight hundred other receptacles devoted to study, refreshment,and recreation. If I gazed from a window, or stood at a doorway, Ishould see hundreds of other windows, and hundreds of other doorways,that matched mine in relative position and design. I should look downupon the same infant shrubs, and the same even, level walls, or up atthe same long, level parapets, without break, the same regular army ofchimney-pots, without variety,—until I should feel as if I had settled in afashionable penitentiary, to feed upon monotony for the rest of my days.My dreams at night would probably be a mixture of the past and thepresent, of my old tastes and my new sufferings. The builder, whosetrowel seemed ever ringing in my ears, would dance over me in hoops andpatches; and the whitewasher, whose brush seemed always flopping abovemy head, would be mixing his composition in my favourite punch-bowl.My old books, my old prints, my old china, my old furniture, my oldservants, would pine away in such a habitation; and I should have tosurround myself with fresh faces and fresh voices, according to the latestmodel. Finally, I should die of a surfeit of stucco, and be the first lodgerentered in the records of the adjoining bleak, unfinished cemetery.

If I have little sympathy with those people who dwell in such tents asthese,—who neither belong to the town nor the country,—who hang uponthe skirts of London in mushroom suburbs that blend as inharmoniouslywith the great old city as a Wandsworth villa would blend with RochesterCastle,—I am totally unable to understand the character of those other[482]people whose love for the modern carries them even farther than this,and who take a pride in planting damp and comfortless homes in the verycentre of wild, unfinished neighbourhoods. Who are they? Have theyhuman form and shape, with minds and hearts; or are they, as I haveoften suspected, merely window-blinds? If they are not policemen andlaundresses in charge of bare walls and echoing passages; if they are nothired housekeepers put in to bait the trap, and catch unwary tenants; ifthey are not restless spirits, who, for an abatement of rent, are alwayswilling to lead the advanced posts in suburban colonization,—whencesprings that singular ambition which is always anxious to be literallyfirst in the field, and the oldest inhabitant in a settlement of yesterday?Surely, there can be little pleasure in living, for months, amongst heapsof brick-dust, shavings, mortar and wet clay; in staring at hollow shopsthat are boarded up for years until they are wanted, and at undecidedmansions which may turn out to be public-houses; or in being stared at,in a tenfold degree, by rows of spectral carcases and yawning cellars?There can be little pleasure in contemplating cold stucco porticos of amongrel Greek type, that crack and fall to pieces in rain and frost; orgaping gravel-pits; or stagnant ponds; or lines of oven-like foundationswaiting for more capital and more enterprise to cover them with houses.There can be just as little pleasure in seeing your scanty pavementbreaking suddenly off before your door, and your muddy, hilly roadtapering away in a few rotten planks that lead into a marshy, grasslessfield, where you may stand and easily fancy yourself the last man at theend of a melancholy, unsuccessful, deserted world, looking into space,with no one person or thing behind you.

The old places that I shall always cling to are unhappily often visitedby decay; but it is the decay of ripe old age, which is always venerable. Myideal toy-house—the nearest approach to it that I can find—may becomeuninhabitable in the fulness of years, but it will still be picturesque; andthose who may despise it as a dwelling will admire it upon canvas. Inthis form it is often brought within my humble reach, and I secure theshadow if I cannot obtain the substance. I still, however, look longinglyat the reality, as my little girl looked at her toy-house in her morning’swalk; and, like her, I shall doubtless be swept past it, still looking back,until I am sucked into that countless crowd from which there is noreturning.

Not many days since I went to visit a house where in former years Ihad received many a friendly welcome. We went in to the owner’s—anartist’s—studio. Prints, pictures, and sketches hung on the walls as I hadlast seen and remembered them. The implements of the painter’s artwere there. The light which had shone upon so many, many hours ofpatient and cheerful toil, poured through the northern window upon printand bust, lay figure and sketch, and upon the easel before which thegood, the gentle, the beloved Leslie laboured. In this room the busybrain had devised, and the skilful hand executed, I know not how manyof the noble works which have delighted the world with their beauty andcharming humour. Here the poet called up into pictorial presence, andinformed with life, grace, beauty, infinite friendly mirth and wondrousnaturalness of expression, the people of whom his dear books told him thestories,—his Shakspeare, his Cervantes, his Molière, his Le Sage. Therewas his last work on the easel—a beautiful fresh smiling shape of Titania,such as his sweet guileless fancy imagined the Midsummer Night’s queento be. Gracious, and pure, and bright, the sweet smiling image glimmerson the canvas. Fairy elves, no doubt, were to have been grouped aroundtheir mistress in laughing clusters. Honest Bottom’s grotesque headand form are indicated as reposing by the side of the consummatebeauty. The darkling forest would have grown around them, withthe stars glittering from the midsummer sky: the flowers at the queen’sfeet, and the boughs and foliage about her, would have been peopledwith gambolling sprites and fays. They were dwelling in the artist’smind no doubt, and would have been developed by that patient, faithful,admirable genius: but the busy brain stopped working, the skilful handfell lifeless, the loving, honest heart ceased to beat. What was sheto have been—that fair Titania—when perfected by the patient skill ofthe poet, who in imagination saw the sweet innocent figure, and withtender courtesy and caresses, as it were, posed and shaped and traced thefair form? Is there record kept anywhere of fancies conceived, beautiful,unborn? Some day will they assume form in some yet undevelopedlight? If our bad unspoken thoughts are registered against us, and arewritten in the awful account, will not the good thoughts unspoken, the loveand tenderness, the pity, beauty, charity, which pass through the breast,and cause the heart to throb with silent good, find a remembrance, too?A few weeks more, and this lovely offspring of the poet’s conceptionwould have been complete—to charm the world with its beautiful mirth.May there not be some sphere unknown to us where it may have anexistence? They say our words, once out of our lips, go travelling inomne ærum, reverberating for ever and ever. If our words, why not ourthoughts? If the Has Been, why not the Might Have Been?

[486]

Some day our spirits may be permitted to walk in galleries of fanciesmore wondrous and beautiful than any achieved works which at presentwe see, and our minds to behold and delight in masterpieces which poets’and artists’ minds have fathered and conceived only.

With a feeling much akin to that with which I looked upon thefriend’s—the admirable artist’s—unfinished work, I can fancy manyreaders turning to these—the last pages which were traced by CharlotteBrontë’s hand. Of the multitude that has read her books, who has notknown and deplored the tragedy of her family, her own most sad anduntimely fate? Which of her readers has not become her friend? Whothat has known her books has not admired the artist’s noble English,the burning love of truth, the bravery, the simplicity, the indignation atwrong, the eager sympathy, the pious love and reverence, the passionatehonour, so to speak, of the woman! What a story is that of that familyof poets in their solitude yonder on the gloomy northern moors! Atnine o’clock at night, Mrs. Gaskell tells, after evening prayers, when theirguardian and relative had gone to bed, the three poetesses—the threemaidens, Charlotte, and Emily, and Anne—Charlotte being the “motherlyfriend and guardian to the other two”—“began, like restless wild animals,to pace up and down their parlour, “making out” their wonderful stories,talking over plans and projects, and thoughts of what was to be theirfuture life.”

One evening, at the close of 1854, as Charlotte Nicholls sat with herhusband by the fire, listening to the howling of the wind about the house,she suddenly said to her husband, “If you had not been with me, I musthave been writing now.” She then ran upstairs, and brought down, andread aloud, the beginning of a new tale. When she had finished, herhusband remarked, “The critics will accuse you of repetition.” Shereplied, “Oh! I shall alter that. I always begin two or three timesbefore I can please myself.” But it was not to be. The trembling littlehand was to write no more. The heart, newly awakened to love andhappiness, and throbbing with maternal hope, was soon to cease to beat;that intrepid outspeaker and champion of truth, that eager, impetuousredresser of wrong, was to be called out of the world’s fight and struggle,to lay down the shining arms, and to be removed to a sphere where evena noble indignation cor ulterius nequit lacerare, and where truth complete,and right triumphant, no longer need to wage war.

I can only say of this lady, vidi tantum. I saw her first just as I roseout of an illness from which I had never thought to recover. I rememberthe trembling little frame, the little hand, the great honest eyes. Animpetuous honesty seemed to me to characterize the woman. Twice Irecollect she took me to task for what she held to be errors in doctrine.Once about Fielding we had a disputation. She spoke her mind out. Shejumped too rapidly to conclusions. (I have smiled at one or two passagesin the Biography, in which my own disposition or behaviour forms thesubject of talk.) She formed conclusions that might be wrong, and built[487]up whole theories of character upon them. New to the London world,she entered it with an independent, indomitable spirit of her own; andjudged of contemporaries, and especially spied out arrogance or affectation,with extraordinary keenness of vision. She was angry with her favouritesif their conduct or conversation fell below her ideal. Often she seemedto me to be judging the London folk prematurely: but perhaps the cityis rather angry at being judged. I fancied an austere little Joan of Arcmarching in upon us, and rebuking our easy lives, our easy morals. Shegave me the impression of being a very pure, and lofty, and high-mindedperson. A great and holy reverence of right and truth seemed to be withher always. Such, in our brief interview, she appeared to me. As onethinks of that life so noble, so lonely—of that passion for truth—of thosenights and nights of eager study, swarming fancies, invention, depression,elation, prayer; as one reads the necessarily incomplete, though mosttouching and admirable history of the heart that throbbed in this onelittle frame—of this one amongst the myriads of souls that have livedand died on this great earth—this great earth?—this little speck in theinfinite universe of God,—with what wonder do we think of to-day, withwhat awe await to-morrow, when that which is now but darkly seen shallbe clear! As I read this little fragmentary sketch, I think of the rest. Isit? And where is it? Will not the leaf be turned some day, and thestory be told? Shall the deviser of the tale somewhere perfect the historyof little Emma’s griefs and troubles? Shall Titania come forth completewith her sportive court, with the flowers at her feet, the forest around her,and all the stars of summer glittering overhead?

How well I remember the delight, and wonder, and pleasure withwhich I read Jane Eyre, sent to me by an author whose name and sexwere then alike unknown to me; the strange fascinations of the book; andhow with my own work pressing upon me, I could not, having taken thevolumes up, lay them down until they were read through! Hundreds ofthose who, like myself, recognized and admired that master-work of agreat genius, will look with a mournful interest and regard and curiosityupon this, the last fragmentary sketch from the noble hand which wroteJane Eyre.

W. M. T.

Emma.
(A FRAGMENT OF A STORY BY THE LATE CHARLOTTE BRONTË.)

CHAPTER I.

We all seek an ideal in life. A pleasant fancy began to visit me in acertain year, that perhaps the number of human beings is few who do notfind their quest at some era of life for some space more or less brief.I had certainly not found mine in youth, though the strong belief I heldof its existence sufficed through all my brightest and freshest time to keepme hopeful. I had not found it in maturity. I was become resigned[488]never to find it. I had lived certain dim years entirely tranquil andunexpectant. And now I was not sure but something was hovering roundmy hearth which pleased me wonderfully.

Look at it, reader. Come into my parlour and judge for yourself whetherI do right to care for this thing. First, you may scan me, if you please.We shall go on better together after a satisfactory introduction and dueapprehension of identity. My name is Mrs. Chalfont. I am a widow.My house is good, and my income such as need not check the impulse eitherof charity or a moderate hospitality. I am not young, nor yet old. There isno silver yet in my hair, but its yellow lustre is gone. In my face wrinklesare yet to come, but I have almost forgotten the days when it wore anybloom. I married when I was very young. I lived for fifteen years a lifewhich, whatever its trials, could not be called stagnant. Then for five years Iwas alone, and, having no children, desolate. Lately Fortune, by a somewhatcurious turn of her wheel, placed in my way an interest and a companion.

The neighbourhood where I live is pleasant enough, its sceneryagreeable, and its society civilized, though not numerous. About a milefrom my house there is a ladies’ school, established but lately—not morethan three years since. The conductresses of this school were of myacquaintances; and though I cannot say that they occupied the veryhighest place in my opinion—for they had brought back from somemonths’ residence abroad, for finishing purposes, a good deal that wasfantastic, affected, and pretentious—yet I awarded them some portion ofthat respect which seems the fair due of all women who face life bravely,and try to make their own way by their own efforts.

About a year after the Misses Wilcox opened their school, when thenumber of their pupils was as yet exceedingly limited, and when, no doubt,they were looking out anxiously enough for augmentation, the entrance-gateto their little drive was one day thrown back to admit a carriage—“avery handsome, fashionable carriage,” Miss Mabel Wilcox said, innarrating the circ*mstance afterwards—and drawn by a pair of reallysplendid horses. The sweep up the drive, the loud ring at the door-bell,the bustling entrance into the house, the ceremonious admission to thebright drawing-room, roused excitement enough in Fuchsia Lodge. MissWilcox repaired to the reception-room in a pair of new gloves, andcarrying in her hand a handkerchief of French cambric.

She found a gentleman seated on the sofa, who, as he rose up, appeareda tall, fine-looking personage; at least she thought him so, as he stoodwith his back to the light. He introduced himself as Mr. Fitzgibbon,inquired if Miss Wilcox had a vacancy, and intimated that he wishedto intrust to her care a new pupil in the shape of his daughter. This waswelcome news, for there was many a vacancy in Miss Wilcox’s schoolroom;indeed, her establishment was as yet limited to the select numberof three, and she and her sisters were looking forward with anything butconfidence to the balancing of accounts at the close of their first half-year.Few objects could have been more agreeable to her then, than that to which,[489]by a wave of the hand, Mr. Fitzgibbon now directed her attention—thefigure of a child standing near the drawing-room window.

Had Miss Wilcox’s establishment boasted fuller ranks—had sheindeed entered well on that course of prosperity which in after years anundeviating attention to externals enabled her so triumphantly to realize—anearly thought with her would have been to judge whether the acquisitionnow offered was likely to answer well as a show-pupil. She wouldhave instantly marked her look, dress, &c., and inferred her value fromthese indicia. In those anxious commencing times, however, MissWilcox could scarce afford herself the luxury of such appreciation: anew pupil represented 40l. a year, independently of masters’ terms—and40l. a year was a sum Miss Wilcox needed and was glad to secure;besides, the fine carriage, the fine gentleman, and the fine name gave gratifyingassurance, enough and to spare, of eligibility in the proffered connection.It was admitted, then, that there were vacancies in Fuchsia Lodge; thatMiss Fitzgibbon could be received at once; that she was to learn all thatthe school prospectus proposed to teach; to be liable to every extra; inshort, to be as expensive, and consequently as profitable a pupil, as anydirectress’s heart could wish. All this was arranged as upon velvet,smoothly and liberally. Mr. Fitzgibbon showed in the transaction noneof the hardness of the bargain-making man of business, and as little ofthe penurious anxiety of the straitened professional man. Miss Wilcoxfelt him to be “quite the gentleman.” Everything disposed her to bepartially inclined towards the little girl whom he, on taking leave, formallycommitted to her guardianship; and as if no circ*mstance should bewanting to complete her happy impression, the address left written ona card served to fill up the measure of Miss Wilcox’s satisfaction—ConwayFitzgibbon, Esq., May Park, Midland County. That very daythree decrees were passed in the new-comer’s favour:—

1st. That she was to be Miss Wilcox’s bed-fellow.

2nd. To sit next her at table.

3rd. To walk out with her.

In a few days it became evident that a fourth secret clause had beenadded to these, viz. that Miss Fitzgibbon was to be favoured, petted, andscreened on all possible occasions.

An ill-conditioned pupil, who before coming to Fuchsia Lodge hadpassed a year under the care of certain old-fashioned Misses Sterling, ofHartwood, and from them had picked up unpractical notions of justice,took it upon her to utter an opinion on this system of favouritism.

“The Misses Sterling,” she injudiciously said, “never distinguished anygirl because she was richer or better dressed than the rest. They wouldhave scorned to do so. They always rewarded girls according as theybehaved well to their school-fellows and minded their lessons, not accordingto the number of their silk dresses, and fine laces and feathers.”

For it must not be forgotten that Miss Fitzgibbon’s trunks, when opened,disclosed a splendid wardrobe; so fine were the various articles of apparel,[490]indeed, that instead of assigning for their accommodation the painted dealdrawers of the school bedroom, Miss Wilcox had them arranged in amahogany bureau in her own room. With her own hands, too, she wouldon Sundays array the little favourite in her quilted silk pelisse, her hat andfeathers, her ermine boa, and little French boots and gloves. And veryself-complacent she felt when she led the young heiress (a letter fromMr. Fitzgibbon, received since his first visit, had communicated theadditional particulars that his daughter was his only child, and would bethe inheritress of his estates, including May Park, Midland County)—whenshe led her, I say, into the church, and seated her stately by her side atthe top of the gallery-pew. Unbiassed observers might, indeed, havewondered what there was to be proud of, and puzzled their heads to detectthe special merits of this little woman in silk—for, to speak truth, MissFitzgibbon was far from being the beauty of the school: there weretwo or three blooming little faces amongst her companions lovelier thanhers. Had she been a poor child, Miss Wilcox herself would not haveliked her physiognomy at all: rather, indeed, would it have repelledthan attracted her; and, moreover—though Miss Wilcox hardly confessedthe circ*mstance to herself, but, on the contrary, strove hard not to beconscious of it—there were moments when she became sensible of a certainstrange weariness in continuing her system of partiality. It hardly camenatural to her to show this special distinction in this particular instance.An undefined wonder would smite her sometimes that she did not takemore real satisfaction in flattering and caressing this embryo heiress—thatshe did not like better to have her always at her side, under her specialcharge. On principle Miss Wilcox continued the plan she had begun.On principle, for she argued with herself: This is the most aristocratic andrichest of my pupils; she brings me the most credit and the most profit:therefore, I ought in justice to show her a special indulgence; which shedid—but with a gradually increasing peculiarity of feeling.

Certainly, the undue favours showered on little Miss Fitzgibbonbrought their object no real benefit. Unfitted for the character of playfellowby her position of favourite, her fellow-pupils rejected her company asdecidedly as they dared. Active rejection was not long necessary; it wassoon seen that passive avoidance would suffice; the pet was not social.No: even Miss Wilcox never thought her social. When she sent for herto show her fine clothes in the drawing-room when there was company,and especially when she had her into her parlour of an evening to be herown companion, Miss Wilcox used to feel curiously perplexed. She wouldtry to talk affably to the young heiress, to draw her out, to amuse her.To herself the governess could render no reason why her efforts soonflagged; but this was invariably the case. However, Miss Wilcox wasa woman of courage; and be the protégée what she might, the patronessdid not fail to continue on principle her system of preference.

A favourite has no friends; and the observation of a gentleman, whoabout this time called at the Lodge and chanced to see Miss Fitzgibbon,[491]was, “That child looks consummately unhappy:” he was watching MissFitzgibbon, as she walked, by herself, fine and solitary, while her school-fellowswere merrily playing.

“Who is the miserable little wight?” he asked.

He was told her name and dignity.

“Wretched little soul!” he repeated; and he watched her pace downthe walk and back again; marching upright, her hands in her erminemuff, her fine pelisse showing a gay sheen to the winter’s sun, her largeLeghorn hat shading such a face as fortunately had not its parallel on thepremises.

“Wretched little soul!” reiterated this gentleman. He opened thedrawing-room window, watched the bearer of the muff till he caught hereye, and then summoned her with his finger. She came; he stooped hishead down to her; she lifted her face up to him.

“Don’t you play, little girl?”

“No, sir.”

“No! why not? Do you think yourself better than other children?”

No answer.

“Is it because people tell you you are rich, you won’t play?”

The young lady was gone. He stretched his hand to arrest her, but shewheeled beyond his reach, and ran quickly out of sight.

“An only child,” pleaded Miss Wilcox; “possibly spoiled by herpapa, you know; we must excuse a little pettishness.”

“Humph! I am afraid there is not a little to excuse.”

CHAPTER II.

Mr. Ellin—the gentleman mentioned in the last chapter—was a manwho went where he liked, and being a gossiping, leisurely person, he likedto go almost anywhere. He could not be rich, he lived so quietly; andyet he must have had some money, for, without apparent profession, hecontinued to keep a house and a servant. He always spoke of himself ashaving once been a worker; but if so, that could not have been very longsince, for he still looked far from old. Sometimes of an evening, under alittle social conversational excitement, he would look quite young; buthe was changeable in mood, and complexion, and expression, and hadchamelion eyes, sometimes blue and merry, sometimes grey and dark, andanon green and gleaming. On the whole he might be called a fair man, ofaverage height, rather thin and rather wiry. He had not resided morethan two years in the present neighbourhood; his antecedents wereunknown there; but as the Rector, a man of good family and standing,and of undoubted scrupulousness in the choice of acquaintance, hadintroduced him, he found everywhere a prompt reception, of whichnothing in his conduct had yet seemed to prove him unworthy. Somepeople, indeed, dubbed him “a character,” and fancied him “eccentric;”but others could not see the appropriateness of the epithets. He alwaysseemed to them very harmless and quiet, not always perhaps so perfectly[492]unreserved and comprehensible as might be wished. He had a discomposingexpression in his eye; and sometimes in conversation an ambiguousdiction; but still they believed he meant no harm.

Mr. Ellin often called on the Misses Wilcox; he sometimes took teawith them; he appeared to like tea and muffins, and not to dislike thekind of conversation which usually accompanies that refreshment; he wassaid to be a good shot, a good angler.—He proved himself an excellentgossip—he liked gossip well. On the whole he liked women’s society, anddid not seem to be particular in requiring difficult accomplishments orrare endowments in his female acquaintance. The Misses Wilcox, forinstance, were not much less shallow than the china saucer which heldtheir teacups; yet Mr. Ellin got on perfectly well with them, and hadapparently great pleasure in hearing them discuss all the details of theirschool. He knew the names of all their young ladies too, and would shakehands with them if he met them walking out; he knew their examinationdays and gala days, and more than once accompanied Mr. Cecil, the curate,when he went to examine in ecclesiastical history.

This ceremony took place weekly, on Wednesday afternoons, afterwhich Mr. Cecil sometimes stayed to tea, and usually found two or threelady parishioners invited to meet him. Mr. Ellin was also pretty sureto be there. Rumour gave one of the Misses Wilcox in anticipatedwedlock to the curate, and furnished his friend with a second in the sametender relation; so that it is to be conjectured they made a social, pleasantparty under such interesting circ*mstances. Their evenings rarely passedwithout Miss Fitzgibbon being introduced—all worked muslin andstreaming sash and elaborated ringlets; others of the pupils would alsobe called in, perhaps to sing, to show off a little at the piano, or sometimesto repeat poetry. Miss Wilcox conscientiously cultivated display in heryoung ladies, thinking she thus fulfilled a duty to herself and to them,at once spreading her own fame and giving the children self-possessedmanners.

It was curious to note how, on these occasions, good, genuine naturalqualities still vindicated their superiority to counterfeit, artificial advantages.While “dear Miss Fitzgibbon,” dressed up and flattered as she was, couldonly sidle round the circle with the crestfallen air which seemed naturalto her, just giving her hand to the guests, then almost snatching it away,and sneaking in unmannerly haste to the place allotted to her at MissWilcox’s side, which place she filled like a piece of furniture, neithersmiling nor speaking the evening through—while such was her deportment,certain of her companions, as Mary Franks, Jessy Newton, &c.,handsome, open-countenanced little damsels—fearless because harmless—wouldenter with a smile of salutation and a blush of pleasure, make theirpretty reverence at the drawing-room door, stretch a friendly little hand tosuch visitors as they knew, and sit down to the piano to play their well-practisedduet with an innocent, obliging readiness which won all hearts.

There was a girl called Diana—the girl alluded to before as having once[493]been Miss Sterling’s pupil—a daring, brave girl, much loved and a littlefeared by her comrades. She had good faculties, both physical and mental—wasclever, honest, and dauntless. In the schoolroom she set her youngbrow like a rock against Miss Fitzgibbon’s pretensions; she found alsoheart and spirit to withstand them in the drawing-room. One evening,when the curate had been summoned away by some piece of duty directlyafter tea, and there was no stranger present but Mr. Ellin, Diana had beencalled in to play a long, difficult piece of music which she could executelike a master. She was still in the midst of her performance, when—Mr.Ellin having for the first time, perhaps, recognized the existence of theheiress by asking if she was cold—Miss Wilcox took the opportunityof launching into a strain of commendation on Miss Fitzgibbon’s inanimatebehaviour, terming it lady-like, modest, and exemplary. Whether MissWilcox’s constrained tone betrayed how far she was from really feelingthe approbation she expressed, how entirely she spoke from a sense of duty,and not because she felt it possible to be in any degree charmed by thepersonage she praised—or whether Diana, who was by nature hasty, hada sudden fit of irritability—is not quite certain, but she turned on hermusic-stool:—

“Ma’am,” said she to Miss Wilcox, “that girl does not deserve somuch praise. Her behaviour is not at all exemplary. In the schoolroomshe is insolently distant. For my part I denounce her airs; there is notone of us but is as good or better than she, though we may not be asrich.”

And Diana shut up the piano, took her music-book under her arm,curtsied, and vanished.

Strange to relate, Miss Wilcox said not a word at the time; norwas Diana subsequently reprimanded for this outbreak. Miss Fitzgibbonhad now been three months in the school, and probably the governess hadhad leisure to wear out her early raptures of partiality.

Indeed, as time advanced, this evil often seemed likely to right itself;again and again it seemed that Miss Fitzgibbon was about to fall to herproper level, but then, somewhat provokingly to the lovers of reason andjustice, some little incident would occur to invest her insignificance withartificial interest. Once it was the arrival of a great basket of hothousefruit—melons, grapes, and pines—as a present to Miss Wilcox in MissFitzgibbon’s name. Whether it was that a share of these luscious productionswas imparted too freely to the nominal donor, or whether she hadhad a surfeit of cake on Miss Mabel Wilcox’s birthday, it so befel, thatin some disturbed state of the digestive organs Miss Fitzgibbon took tosleep-walking. She one night terrified the school into a panic by passingthrough the bedrooms, all white in her night-dress, moaning and holdingout her hands as she went.

Dr. Percy was then sent for; his medicines, probably, did not suit thecase; for within a fortnight after the somnambulistic feat, Miss Wilcoxgoing upstairs in the dark, trod on something which she thought was the[494]cat, and on calling for a light, found her darling Matilda Fitzgibboncurled round on the landing, blue, cold, and stiff, without any light inher half-open eyes, or any colour in her lips, or movement in her limbs.She was not soon roused from this fit; her senses seemed half scattered;and Miss Wilcox had now an undeniable excuse for keeping her allday on the drawing-room sofa, and making more of her than ever.

There comes a day of reckoning both for petted heiresses and partialgovernesses.

One clear winter morning, as Mr. Ellin was seated at breakfast, enjoyinghis bachelor’s easy chair and damp, fresh London newspaper, a note wasbrought to him marked “private,” and “in haste.” The last injunctionwas vain, for William Ellin did nothing in haste—he had no haste in him;he wondered anybody should be so foolish as to hurry; life was shortenough without it. He looked at the little note—three-cornered, scented,and feminine. He knew the handwriting; it came from the very ladyRumour had so often assigned him as his own. The bachelor took out amorocco case, selected from a variety of little instruments a pair of tinyscissors, cut round the seal, and read:—“Miss Wilcox’s complimentsto Mr. Ellin, and she should be truly glad to see him for a few minutes,if at leisure. Miss W. requires a little advice. She will reserve explanationstill she sees Mr. E.”

Mr. Ellin very quietly finished his breakfast; then, as it was a veryfine December day—hoar and crisp, but serene, and not bitter—he carefullyprepared himself for the cold, took his cane, and set out. He likedthe walk; the air was still; the sun not wholly ineffectual; the path firm,and but lightly powdered with snow. He made his journey as long as hecould by going round through many fields, and through winding, unfrequentedlanes. When there was a tree in the way conveniently placedfor support, he would sometimes stop, lean his back against the trunk,fold his arms, and muse. If Rumour could have seen him, she would haveaffirmed that he was thinking about Miss Wilcox; perhaps when hearrives at the Lodge his demeanour will inform us whether such an ideabe warranted.

At last he stands at the door and rings the bell; he is admitted, andshown into the parlour—a smaller and a more private room than thedrawing-room. Miss Wilcox occupies it; she is seated at her writing-table;she rises—not without air and grace—to receive her visitor.This air and grace she learnt in France; for she was in a Parisian schoolfor six months, and learnt there a little French, and a stock of gesturesand courtesies. No: it is certainly not impossible that Mr. Ellin mayadmire Miss Wilcox. She is not without prettiness, any more than areher sisters; and she and they are one and all smart and showy. Brightstone-blue is a colour they like in dress; a crimson bow rarely fails to bepinned on somewhere to give contrast; positive colours generally—grass-greens,red violets, deep yellows—are in favour with them; all harmoniesare at a discount. Many people would think Miss Wilcox, standing there[495]in her blue merino dress and pomegranate ribbon, a very agreeablewoman. She has regular features; the nose is a little sharp, the lips alittle thin, good complexion, light red hair. She is very business-like,very practical; she never in her life knew a refinement of feeling or ofthought; she is entirely limited, respectable, and self-satisfied. She has acool, prominent eye; sharp and shallow pupil, unshrinking and inexpansive;pale irid; light eyelashes, light brow. Miss Wilcox is a very proper anddecorous person; but she could not be delicate or modest, because she isnaturally destitute of sensitiveness. Her voice, when she speaks, has novibration; her face no expression; her manner no emotion. Blush ortremor she never knew.

“What can I do for you, Miss Wilcox?” says Mr. Ellin, approachingthe writing-table, and taking a chair beside it.

“Perhaps you can advise me,” was the answer; “or perhaps you cangive me some information. I feel so thoroughly puzzled, and really fearall is not right.”

“Where? and how?”

“I will have redress if it be possible,” pursued the lady; “but how toset about obtaining it! Draw to the fire, Mr. Ellin; it is a cold day.”

They both drew to the fire. She continued:—

“You know the Christmas holidays are near?”

He nodded.

“Well, about a fortnight since, I wrote, as is customary, to the friendsof my pupils, notifying the day when we break up, and requesting that, ifit was desired that any girl should stay the vacation, intimation should besent accordingly. Satisfactory and prompt answers came to all the notesexcept one—that addressed to Conway Fitzgibbon, Esquire, May Park,Midland County—Matilda Fitzgibbon’s father, you know.”

“What? won’t he let her go home?”

“Let her go home, my dear sir! you shall hear. Two weeks elapsed,during which I daily expected an answer; none came. I felt annoyed atthe delay, as I had particularly requested a speedy reply. This verymorning I had made up my mind to write again, when—what do you thinkthe post brought me?”

“I should like to know.”

“My own letter—actually my own—returned from the post-office, withan intimation—such an intimation!—but read for yourself.”

She handed to Mr. Ellin an envelope; he took from it the returnednote and a paper—the paper bore a hastily-scrawled line or two. It said,in brief terms, that there was no such place in Midland County as MayPark, and that no such person had ever been heard of there as ConwayFitzgibbon, Esquire.

On reading this, Mr. Ellin slightly opened his eyes.

“I hardly thought it was so bad as this,” said he.

“What? you did think it was bad then? You suspected that somethingwas wrong?”

[496]

“Really! I scarcely knew what I thought or suspected. How very odd,no such place as May Park! The grand mansion, the grounds, the oaks,the deer, vanished clean away. And then Fitzgibbon himself! But yousaw Fitzgibbon—he came in his carriage?”

“In his carriage!” echoed Miss Wilcox; “a most stylish equipage, andhimself a most distinguished person. Do you think, after all, there is somemistake?”

“Certainly, a mistake; but when it is rectified I don’t think Fitzgibbonor May Park will be forthcoming. Shall I run down to Midland Countyand look after these two precious objects?”

“Oh! would you be so good, Mr. Ellin? I knew you would be sokind; personal inquiry, you know—there’s nothing like it.”

“Nothing at all. Meantime, what shall you do with the child—thepseudo-heiress, if pseudo she be? Shall you correct her—let her knowher place?”

“I think,” responded Miss Wilcox, reflectively—“I think not exactly asyet; my plan is to do nothing in a hurry; we will inquire first. If afterall she should turn out to be connected as was at first supposed, one hadbetter not do anything which one might afterwards regret. No; I shallmake no difference with her till I hear from you again.”

“Very good. As you please,” said Mr. Ellin, with that coolness whichmade him so convenient a counsellor in Miss Wilcox’s opinion. In hisdry laconism she found the response suited to her outer worldliness. Shethought he said enough if he did not oppose her. The comment hestinted so avariciously she did not want.

Mr. Ellin “ran down,” as he said, to Midland County. It was an errandthat seemed to suit him; for he had curious predilections as well aspeculiar methods of his own. Any secret quest was to his taste; perhapsthere was something of the amateur detective in him. He could conductan inquiry and draw no attention. His quiet face never looked inquisitive,nor did his sleepless eye betray vigilance.

He was away about a week. The day after his return, he appeared inMiss Wilcox’s presence as cool as if he had seen her but yesterday.Confronting her with that fathomless face he liked to show her, he firsttold her he had done nothing.

Let Mr. Ellin be as enigmatical as he would, he never puzzled MissWilcox. She never saw enigma in the man. Some people feared,because they did not understand, him; to her it had not yet occurred tobegin to spell his nature or analyze his character. If she had an impressionabout him, it was, that he was an idle but obliging man, notaggressive, of few words, but often convenient. Whether he were cleverand deep, or deficient and shallow, close or open, odd or ordinary, she sawno practical end to be answered by inquiry, and therefore did not inquire.

“Why had he done nothing?” she now asked.

“Chiefly because there was nothing to do.”

“Then he could give her no information?”

[497]

“Not much: only this, indeed—Conway Fitzgibbon was a man of straw;May Park a house of cards. There was no vestige of such man ormansion in Midland County, or in any other shire in England. Traditionherself had nothing to say about either the name or the place. The Oracleof old deeds and registers, when consulted, had not responded.

“Who can he be, then, that came here, and who is this child?”

“That’s just what I can’t tell you:—an incapacity which makes mesay I have done nothing.”

“And how am I to get paid?”

“Can’t tell you that either.”

“A quarter’s board and education owing, and masters’ terms besides,”pursued Miss Wilcox. “How infamous! I can’t afford the loss.”

“And if we were only in the good old times,” said Mr. Ellin, “wherewe ought to be, you might just send Miss Matilda out to the plantationsin Virginia, sell her for what she is worth, and pay yourself.”

“Matilda, indeed, and Fitzgibbon! A little impostor! I wonderwhat her real name is?”

“Betty Hodge? Poll Smith? Hannah Jones?” suggested Mr. Ellin.

“Now,” cried Miss Wilcox, “give me credit for sagacity! It’s veryodd, but try as I would—and I made every effort—I never could reallylike that child. She has had every indulgence in this house; and I amsure I made great sacrifice of feeling to principle in showing her muchattention; for I could not make any one believe the degree of antipathyI have all along felt towards her.”

“Yes. I can believe it. I saw it.”

“Did you? Well—it proves that my discernment is rarely at fault.Her game is up now, however; and time it was. I have said nothing toher yet; but now—”

“Have her in whilst I am here,” said Mr. Ellin. “Has she known ofthis business? Is she in the secret? Is she herself an accomplice, or amere tool? Have her in.”

Miss Wilcox rang the bell, demanded Matilda Fitzgibbon, and the falseheiress soon appeared. She came in her ringlets, her sash, and herfurbelowed dress adornments—alas! no longer acceptable.

“Stand there!” said Miss Wilcox, sternly, checking her as sheapproached the hearth. “Stand there on the farther side of the table.I have a few questions to put to you, and your business will be to answerthem. And mind—let us have the truth. We will not endure lies.”

Ever since Miss Fitzgibbon had been found in the fit, her face hadretained a peculiar paleness and her eyes a dark orbit. When thusaddressed, she began to shake and blanch like conscious guilt personified.

“Who are you?” demanded Miss Wilcox. “What do you knowabout yourself?”

A sort of half-interjection escaped the girl’s lips; it was a soundexpressing partly fear, and partly the shock the nerves feel when an evil,very long expected, at last and suddenly arrives.

[498]

“Keep yourself still, and reply, if you please,” said Miss Wilcox, whomnobody should blame for lacking pity, because nature had not made hercompassionate. “What is your name? We know you have no rightto that of Matilda Fitzgibbon.”

She gave no answer.

“I do insist upon a reply. Speak you shall, sooner or later. So youhad better do it at once.”

This inquisition had evidently a very strong effect upon the subject ofit. She stood as if palsied, trying to speak, but apparently not competentto articulate.

Miss Wilcox did not fly into a passion, but she grew very stern andurgent; spoke a little loud; and there was a dry clamour in her raisedvoice which seemed to beat upon the ear and bewilder the brain. Herinterest had been injured—her pocket wounded—she was vindicating herrights—and she had no eye to see, and no nerve to feel, but for the pointin hand. Mr. Ellin appeared to consider himself strictly a looker-on; hestood on the hearth very quiet.

At last the culprit spoke. A low voice escaped her lips. “Oh, my head!”she cried, lifting her hands to her forehead. She staggered, but caughtthe door and did not fall. Some accusers might have been startled bysuch a cry—even silenced; not so Miss Wilcox. She was neither cruelnor violent; but she was coarse, because insensible. Having just drawnbreath, she went on, harsh as ever.

Mr. Ellin, leaving the hearth, deliberately paced up the room as if hewere tired of standing still, and would walk a little for a change. Inreturning and passing near the door and the criminal, a faint breathseemed to seek his ear, whispering his name—

“Oh, Mr. Ellin!”

The child dropped as she spoke. A curious voice—not like Mr. Ellin’s,though it came from his lips—asked Miss Wilcox to cease speaking, andsay no more. He gathered from the floor what had fallen on it. Sheseemed overcome, but not unconscious. Resting beside Mr. Ellin, in a fewminutes she again drew breath. She raised her eyes to him.

“Come, my little one; have no fear,” said he.

Reposing her head against him, she gradually became reassured. It didnot cost him another word to bring her round; even that strong tremblingwas calmed by the mere effects of his protection. He told Miss Wilcox,with remarkable tranquillity, but still with a certain decision, that thelittle girl must be put to bed. He carried her upstairs, and saw her laidthere himself. Returning to Miss Wilcox, he said:

“Say no more to her. Beware, or you will do more mischief than youthink or wish. That kind of nature is very different from yours. It isnot possible that you should like it; but let it alone. We will talk moreon the subject to-morrow. Let me question her.”

Most people take an interest in any authentic account of the mode inwhich important surgical operations are performed, whenever opportunityis offered of gratifying their very natural curiosity. Such opportunitiesare however somewhat rare. The columns of the newspaper press notunfrequently supply brief, and sometimes curiously incorrect, particulars ofthe injuries resulting from “an appalling accident” of the night previous,to some unfortunate workman who has fallen from a scaffold, or beenmutilated by a railway train. Scraps of hearsay are eagerly gathered upby the penny-a-liner, who, like the fireman’s dog of notorious ubiquity, isalways first on the spot after the occurrence of a catastrophe; and aremarkable combination of technical phrases culled from the brief remarksof the surgeon in attendance, and from the slender stock which hasaccumulated in the reporter’s brain from previous experiences, makes itsappearance in to-morrow’s daily journals, and is certain to be reproducedin all the weeklies of Saturday next. Then it is the great public learnswith profound horror that some poor victim’s shoulder-joint has beendislocated in three places, that the carotid artery was pronounced (surgeonsare invariably said to “pronounce”) to be fractured, or that there wasgreat contusion and ecchymosis (always a trying word for the compositor)about the spine, and that amputation would probably be necessary.

But sometimes it happens that an over-prying public, with a curiositynot much in this instance to be commended, peeps within the pages of themedical press, hoping to unravel some of the mysteries of professional craft.Ten to one that it gets nothing but error for its pains. The technicalitieswhich medical men must necessarily employ when writing for each other,are instructive only to the initiated, and are pregnant with blunders for thesimple reader. And few people make more mistakes than our medicalamateur who, on the strength of a weekly perusal of The Lancet at his club,sets up as an authority in the social circle on questions of physiology andphysic.

Occasionally, moreover, after dinner, when the ladies have left thetable, and the men alone remain to empty decanters and derange a dessert,one has the gratification of meeting some very young gentleman, who, theweek before last, presented his proud father with the diploma of “thecollege,” elegantly framed and glazed, in return for an education which hascost five years and a thousand pounds, and who astonishes his elderlyassociates with a highly-tinted sketch of some operative achievement, inwhich perchance he assisted at the hospital. As he surveys the auditory,silent and absorbed by his heart-stirring description, and complacentlywitnesses the admiration which such evidence of his own familiarity withharrowing scenes, and of his apparent absence of emotion, elicits, it is to befeared that its influence, associated with that of the port, a beverage appreciated[500]by our young friend, if one may judge by the quantity he imbibes,tends to render the information obtained, as one may say almost at firsthand, not so absolutely trustworthy as a man of fact is accustomed to desire.

After a due survey then of the varied sources from which most peopleobtain information respecting the topics in question, and after some observationof the character and quality of the knowledge so acquired, we haveformed the deliberate conclusion that they possess very erroneous, and veryinadequate notions about the nature of a surgical operation. No doubt alladmire the sang-froid and skill, possession of which is necessary to makea good surgical operator—qualities, by the way, which are perhaps morefrequently developed by training, than found already existing as anatural inheritance. But it is germane to our purpose to rememberthat everybody has a direct practical concern in the existence of anavailable supply of the necessary talent to meet a certain demand on thepart of the body politic, for no one knows how soon his own personalnecessities may not be such as to give him the strongest possibleinterest in its exercise: a demand that is absolutely inevitable;—forbe assured that, without any wish to alarm you, gentle reader, MrNeison will, if requested to make the calculation, inform us at oncewhat the numerical chances are that your own well-proportionednether limb will, or will not, fall before the surgeon’s knife, or that thatundoubtedly hard and well-developed cranium may not yet be scientificallyexplored by “trepan” or “trephine.” He will estimate with unerringcertainty the probability (to nine places of decimals, if you demand it) thatyour own fair person may become the subject of some unpleasing excrescence;and also what the chances are that you must seek the surgeon’said to remove it. While Mr. Buckle will stoutly maintain, and you willfind it hard to gainsay him, that, given the present conditions of existence,a certain ascertainable number of tumours, broken legs, and natural-borndeformities will regularly make their appearance every year among thehuman family. And he will probably add, that it is perfectly within theprovince of possibility to calculate, if we had all the required data, theexact number of individuals who have the requisite courage to submit tooperation; as of those who will not have heart to do so, and who willinevitably die without benefit of surgery; together with the exact per-centageto the population of those who will, and who will not, put faithin the blessed boon of chloroform.

It is a blessed boon; and in olden times the possessor of such a secretwould have been the most potent wizard of which the earth has yet heardtell. What miracles might not have been performed by it! What dogmasmight not have been made divine and true by its influence! Happy wasit that those great powers, the magic of chemical and electrical discovery,have been brought to light in a time when they can be used mainly toenlighten and bless, and not to darken and oppress mankind!

But that word chloroform is happily significant that it is to no scene ofsuffering that we would introduce our readers. There is no need to shrink,[501]or to question the taste which exhibits the details of a surgical operation tothe vulgar eye. It is not designed, even in this stirring time, after thefashion of ancient Rome, to deaden our sensibilities, or to accustom our youthto witness deeds of blood and violence without shrinking. No trace ofsuffering will be visible in the picture which shall pass before us. So greatis the triumph which modern surgical art displays, so great the boonwhich it has conferred upon humanity! It is this which we propose toillustrate, by describing the single and simple process involved in cuttingoff a leg.

Permit us first, however, to cast a passing glance, by way of contrast, tothe established and orthodox fashion of performing that operation somecenturies ago. Bear with us but a moment, and in imagination hope thatthen, when painless surgery was unknown, no patient lacked support in hishour of trial (long hours then, in truth!) from that great and never-failingsource which flows, unmeasured and unfathomable, for all humanity, alikein every age.

Until the last three or four hundred years, amputation of a limb wasvery rarely performed, except when, from injury or disease, its extremityhad begun to mortify; and then, few surgeons ventured to make incisionsin the sound portion, but limited themselves to an operation through thetissues which had already lost their vitality. This timidity was due to thefact that they were unacquainted with any effectual means of stopping thebleeding from the larger arteries divided by the knife. Certain and easyas is the control of such bleeding now, by the simple process of tying apiece of thread or silk round the extremity of the bleeding vessel (as weshall hereafter see), it was unknown, at all events as applicable to amputation,to any surgical writer from Hippocrates, 400 B.C., or from Celsus,who flourished in the first Christian century, to the fifteenth. Consequently,the numerous instances of injury and disease, in which life is now savedby a timely resort to amputation, were then always fatal. Hence, also,arose the various expedients which the more adventurous operators of thetime resorted to, in order to stop fatal bleeding, with the effect only ofincreasing the patient’s torture, and with the attainment of no good result.Thus the incisions were performed with a red-hot knife, that the dividedvessels, seared and charred by the horrible contact, might contract, or becomeplugged, and so be prevented from bleeding (Albucasis, 11th century).Effective for the instant, the force of the circulation quickly overpoweredthe slender obstruction, and fatal hæmorrhage, sooner or later, took place.Yet this plan continued more or less in vogue down to the discovery of theligature in the 16th century, and was practised even later in Germany bythe celebrated Hildanus (1641); although he subsequently adopted thenew method. According to another fashion, the surgeon, after making atedious division of the flesh down to the bone, with studied endeavour notto divide the arteries until the last moment, relied on applications of red-hotirons, or of some styptic fluid, usually a powerful acid or astringent,to arrest the bleeding. If these were not successful, a vessel of boiling[502]pitch was at hand, ready prepared, into which the bleeding stump wasplunged. Between Scylla and Charybdis, the patient rarely escaped withlife; either he died from loss of blood in a few hours, or less; or if thedreadful remedies succeeded, he survived a day or two, to die of fever orexhaustion. After an earlier method, that of Guido di Caulico (1363), abandage of plaster was made to encircle the member so tightly thatmortification attacked all the parts below, which then, after the lapse ofmonths, dropped off, a horribly loathsome and offensive mass. Anothersurgeon, Botalli (1560), invented a machine to sever the limb in an instantby a single stroke; and it was not uncommon at this period to effect thesame purpose by the hatchet, or by a powerful mallet and chisel.

It is to Ambrose Paré, the great French surgeon, who flourished in the16th century, that we owe the application of the ligature (used long beforein ordinary wounds) to the bleeding arteries in amputation. He discardedthe use of the red-hot cautery, and of all the frightful adjuncts alreadydescribed; and accomplished his purpose by carrying the thread round thevessel by means of a needle passed through the soft parts adjacent—amethod of adjustment which, although still in use, is now employed onlyin exceptional instances. Richard Wiseman, sometimes styled the fatherof English surgery, who practised about the middle of the 17th century,is believed to have been the first to employ the ligature in our owncountry, and to relinquish the application of heated irons. At this eraalso, the circulation of the blood was discovered by the renownedHarvey, and the distinction between arteries and veins being thenceforthclearly understood, the value of the ligature was rendered more thanever obvious.

But enough of this: let us soothe our ruffled nerves by seeing how thething is done to-day. We will take a quiet post of observation in the areaof the operating theatre at one of our metropolitan hospitals, in this year ofour Lord 1860. Notice is posted that amputation of the thigh will beperformed at 2 o’clock P.M., and we occupy our seat ten minutes before thehour.

The area itself is small, of a horse-shoe form, and surrounded byseats rising on a steep incline one above another, to the number of eight ornine tiers. From 100 to 150 students occupy these, and pack prettyclosely, especially on the lower rows, whence the best view is obtained.For an assemblage of youths between eighteen and twenty-five years, whohave nothing to do but to wait, they are tolerably well-behaved and quiet.Three or four practical jokers, however, it is evident, are distributed amongthem, and so the time passes all the quicker for the rest. The clock hasnot long struck two, when the folding-doors open, and in walk two or threeof the leading surgeons of the hospital, followed by a staff of dressers, anda few professional lookers-on; the latter being confined to seats reservedfor them on the lowest and innermost tier. A small table, covered withinstruments, occupies a place on one side of the area; water, sponges,towels, and lint, are placed on the opposite. The surgeon who is about to[503]operate, rapidly glances over the table, and sees that his instruments are allthere, and in readiness. He requests a colleague to take charge of thetourniquet, and with a word deputes one assistant to “take the flaps,”another to hold the limb, a third to hand the instruments, and the last totake charge of the sponges. This done, and while the patient is inhalingchloroform in an adjoining apartment, under the care of a gentleman whomakes that his special duty, the operator gives to the now hushed andlistening auditory, a brief history of the circ*mstances which led to anincurable disease of the left knee-joint, and the reasons why he decides onthe operation about to be performed. He has scarcely closed, when theunconscious patient is brought in by a couple of sturdy porters, and laidupon the operating table, a small, but strong and steady erection, four feetlong by two feet wide, which stands in the centre of the area. The leftbeing the doomed leg, the right is fastened by a bandage to one of thesupports of the table, so as to be out of harm’s way; while the dresser,who has special charge of the case, is seated on a low stool at the foot ofthe table, and supports the left. The surgeon who assists, encircles theupper part of the thigh with the tourniquet, placing its pad over thefemoral artery, the chief vessel which supplies the limb with blood, andprepares to screw up the instrument, thus to make sure that no considerableamount of the vital fluid can be lost. The operator, standing onthe left side of the corresponding leg, and holding in his right hand anarrow, straight knife, of which the blade is at least ten inches long, andlooks marvellously bright and sharp, directs his eye to him who gives thechloroform, and awaits the signal that the patient has become perfectlyinsensible. All is silence profound: every assistant stands in his place,which is carefully arranged so as not to intercept the view of those around.

The words “quite ready” are no sooner whispered, than the operator,grasping firmly with his left hand the flesh which forms the front part ofthe patient’s thigh, thrusts quietly and deliberately the sharp bladehorizontally through the limb, from its outer to its inner side, so that thethigh is transfixed a little above its central axis, and in front of the bone.He next cuts directly downwards, in the plane of the limb, for about fourinches, and then obliquely outwards, so as to form a flap, which is seizedand turned upwards out of the way by the appointed assistant. Asimilar transfixion is again made, commencing at the same spot, butthe knife is this time carried behind the bone; a similar incision follows,and another flap is formed and held away as before. Lastly, with a rapidcircular sweep round the bone he divides all left uncut; and handing theknife to an assistant, who takes it, and gives a saw in return, the operatordivides the bone with a few workmanlike strokes, and the limb is severedfrom the body. A rustling sound of general movement and deeperbreathing is heard among the lookers-on, who have followed with strainingand critical eyes every act which has contributed to the accomplishment ofthe task; and some one of the younger students is heard to whisper to hisneighbour, “Five and thirty seconds: not bad, by Jove!”

[504]

The operator now seats himself on the stool just vacated by the dresser,who has carried away the leg, and seeks in the cut surfaces before him theend of the main artery on which to place a ligature. There is no flow of blood,only a little oozing, for the tourniquet holds life’s current hard and fast.Only five minutes’ uncontrolled flow of the current from that great arterynow so perfectly compressed, and our patient’s career in this world would beclosed for ever. How is it permanently held in check? and what have weto substitute now for the hissing, sparkling, and sputtering iron, and theboiling pitch? The operator takes hold of the cut end of the artery with aslender, delicately made pair of forceps, and draws it out a little, while anassistant passes round the end so drawn out a ligature of exceedingly finewhipcord, fine but strong, and carefully ties it there with double knot, andso effectually closes the vessel. A similar process is applied to perhaps sixor seven other but smaller vessels, the tourniquet is removed, and nobleeding ensues. Altogether the patient has lost little more than half-a-pintof blood! The flaps are placed in apposition, the bone is well coveredby them, a few stitches are put through their edges, some cool wet lint isapplied all around the stump, and the patient, slumbering peacefully, iscarried off to a comfortable bed ready prepared in some adjacent ward.Half an hour hence that patient will regain consciousness, and probably thefirst observation he makes will be, “I am quite ready for the operation,when is it going to begin?” And it takes no little repetition of theassurance that all is over to make him realize the happy truth.

So it is that he who loses the limb knows less about the process thanany one concerned; infinitely less, my gentle reader, than you who haveshared with us the quiet corner, and have seen all without losing consciousness,or fainting. It was an early day in the medical session, and manynew men were there; one at least was observed to become very—very pale,and then slowly disappear: no one knows how or where, for neither we inthe area nor those elsewhere had leisure or care to inquire.

What might have happened to somebody else had he been witnessbefore these blessed days of chloroform, can, in the nature of things,be only a matter for speculation. It may even be surmised by sometheorist, and without hazarding a very improbable guess, that a similarcatastrophe might, perhaps, under such aggravating circ*mstances, and ata greener age, have rendered utterly futile, on his part, any attempt todescribe what modern skill and science now accomplish in cutting off theleg of a patient Under Chloroform.

On a windy, unpleasant day in 1746, a great mathematician and philosopherwas exhibiting to a select company in the gardens of the Charterhousehis skill in shooting round a corner with a bent gun-barrel. If hehad requested the editor of the Cornhill Magazine of the day to publishhis experiments, it is probable that he would have been refused. Now,when every morning paper informs us at breakfast, in its best type, of howfar off we may be killed, and the evening papers analyze the same withthe commencement of a hot debate on the French Treaty, to give us apleasing subject for our dreams, we think that perhaps our unprofessionalreaders may like to know the how and the why of these far-reachingorgans of peace on earth and good-will among faithful allies.

Supposing, then, reader—for it is to such that this article is addressed—thatyou are wholly ignorant of the science of gunnery, and of itsprincipal establisher, Benjamin Robins, and have, therefore, been laughingat him, the poor silly philosopher,—if you will read the followingextract from his work on Gunnery, you will see that if he did a foolishthing, he certainly sometimes wrote a wise one:—“I shall, therefore, closethis paper with predicting that whatever State shall thoroughly comprehendthe nature and advantages of rifled-barrel pieces, and, having facilitatedand completed their construction, shall introduce into their armiestheir general use, with a dexterity in the management of them, they willby this means acquire a superiority which will almost equal anything thathas been done at any time by the particular excellence of any one kind ofarms; and will, perhaps, fall but little short of the wonderful effects whichhistories relate to have been formerly produced by the first inventors offire-arms.”

Now to our distinguished countryman, Mr. Benjamin Robins, is duethe credit of having first pointed out the reasons why smooth bores—andsmooth bore is now almost as great a term of reproach with us riflevolunteers as dog is with a Turk—were constantly, in fact, universally, inthe habit of shooting round corners, and the experiment mentioned wasonly a means of bringing the fact more strikingly before the obtusefaculties of the Royal Society, whom we may imagine to have been intenseadmirers of brown-bess—also now a term of reproach in constant use.Mr. Robins did more; he pointed out the advantage of elongated riflebullets; showed us how to determine—and partially, as far as his limitedmeans permitted, himself determined—the enormous resistance of the atmosphereto the motion of projectiles; in fact, smoothed the way for all ourpresent discoveries; and, treason though it be to say so, left the science ofgunnery much as we have it now. Though principally from increased mechanicalpowers of construction, better material and improved machinery,we have advanced considerably in the Art or practice of destruction.

[506]

Let us endeavour, first, to understand something of the movement ofgun-shots in their simplest form. A gun-barrel, consisting of a bar ofmetal thicker at one end (where it has to withstand the first shock of thegunpowder) than at the other, is bored out throughout its length into asmooth hollow cylinder; this cylinder is closed at one end by the breech,which has a small opening in it, through which the charge is ignited.A charge of powder is placed in the closed end, and on the top of this theball, say, a spherical one, such as our ancestors in their simplicity consideredthe best. The powder being ignited, rapidly, though not instantaneously,becomes converted into gas, and the permanent gases generatedwill, at the temperature estimated to be produced by the combustion(3,000° Fahr.), occupy a volume under the pressure of the atmospherealone of over 2,000 times that of the bulk of the powder. This point, aswell as the elasticity of the gases, both of the permanent ones and of thevapour of water or steam from the moisture in the powder, has neverbeen accurately determined,[15] and various estimates have been formed; butif we take Dr. Hutton’s—a rather low one, viz.—that the first force of firedgunpowder was equal to 2,000 atmospheres (30,000 lbs. on the squareinch), and that, as Mr. Robins computed, the velocity of expansion wasabout 7,000 feet per second, we shall have some idea of the enormousforce which is exerted in the direction of the bullet to move it, of thebreech of the gun to make it kick, and of the sides of the barrel to burst it.Notwithstanding Mr. Robins’ advice, we certainly never, till very lately,made the most of the power of committing homicide supplied by thispowerful agent; but we used it in the most wasteful and vicious manner.All improvements—and many were suggested at different times to remedydefects, which he principally pointed out, like the inventions of printingand of gunpowder itself—lay fallow for long before they were taken up.They were premature. If our fathers had killed men clumsily, whyshould we not do the same? No one cared much, except the professionals,whether it required 100 or 1,000 bullets, on an average, to kill a man at100 yards’ distance. Now we take more interest in such amusem*nts;every one’s attention is turned to the best means of thinning his fellow-creatures;and we are not at all content with the glorious uncertainty whichformerly prevailed when every bullet found its own billet: we like to killour particular man, not his next neighbour, or one thirty yards off.

In order to see why we are so much more certain with our Whitworth,or Enfield, or Armstrong, of hitting the man we aim at, let us firstexamine how a bullet flies; and then by understanding how (badly) ourfathers applied the force we have described to make it fly, we shall beable to appreciate how well we do it ourselves.

In consequence of the sudden generation of this enormous quantity ofgas, then, in the confined space of the barrel, the bullet is projected into[507]the air, and if it were not acted on by any other force, would proceed forever in the line in which it started; gravity, however, at once asserts itssway, and keeps pulling it down towards the earth. These two forcestogether would make it describe a curve, known as the parabola. Thereis, however, another retarding influence, the air; and though Galileo, andNewton in particular, pointed out the great effect it would have, severalphilosophers, in fact the majority, still believed that a parabola was thecurve described by the path of a shot. It remained for Mr. Robins toestablish this point and to prove the great resistance the air offered: to thiswe shall have to recur again presently. Let us first see how a shot is projected.If the bullet fitted the bore of the gun perfectly, the whole forcein that direction would be exerted on it; but in order that the gunmight be more easily loaded—and this was more especially the case withcannon—the bullet was made somewhat smaller than the bore or interiorcylinder; a space was therefore left between the two, termed windage,and through this windage a great deal of gas rushed out, and waswasted; but the bad effect did not stop there: rushing over the top ofthe bullet, as it rested on the bottom of the bore, it pressed it downhard—hard enough in guns of soft metal, as brass, after a few roundsto make a very perceptible dint—and forcing it along at the same timemade it rebound first against one side and then the other of the bore,and hence the direction in which it left the bore was not the axis orcentral line of the cylinder, but varied according to the side it strucklast. This was one cause of inaccuracy, and could, of course, be obviatedto a great extent, though at the cost of difficulty in loading, by makingthe bullet fit tight; but another and more important cause of deflectionwas the various rotatory or spinning motions the bullet received fromfriction against the sides of the bore, and also from its often not being ahom*ogeneous sphere; that is, the density of the metal not being the samethroughout, the centre of gravity did not coincide with the centre of thesphere as it should have done.

Let us try to understand the effect of this rotation. A bullet inmoving rapidly through the air, separates it; and if its velocity is at allgreater than the velocity with which the air can refill the space fromwhich it has been cleared behind it, it must createa more or less complete vacuum. Now when thebarometer stands at thirty inches, air will rush intoa vacuum at the rate of 1,344 feet per second; andif the bullet is moving at a greater velocity thanthis, there will be a total vacuum behind it. Butit can be easily understood that even when movingwith a less velocity, there will be a greaterdensity of air before than behind. If the bullet berotating on a vertical axis—that is, spinning likea top, point downwards, as in the diagram No. 1, from left to right, inthe direction indicated by the crooked arrow, at the same time that[508]it is moving forward (sideways it would be in the top) as indicated bythe straight arrow,—it is evident that the left half rotates with thegeneral motion of translation of the bullet, and the right half backwardsagainst this motion, and therefore that on the left side it is movingquicker relatively to the air through which it is passing than on the rightside. And its rough surface preventing the air escaping round it on thatside, while it, as it were, assists it on the other side, the air becomes denserwhere shown by the dark lines, and tends to deflect the bullet in the otherdirection, that is, in the direction in which the anterior or front surface ismoving.[16]

If the bullet rotate on a horizontal axis at right angles to the directionof its motion of translation (that is, like a top thrown spinning with its pointsideways, when it would strike the object thrown at with its side), shown inthe diagram No. 2; if the anterior portion bemoving, as shown by the arrow, from abovedownwards, it is evident, for the same reasons,that the air will become denser, as shown,and assist the action of gravity in bringingthe ball to the ground—that is, decreasethe range. A spherical bullet resting on thebottom of the bore of a gun would alwayshave a greater tendency to rotate in thismanner than in a contrary direction; for thefriction against the bore would be augmented by the weight of the ball instriking against the bottom, and diminished by it when striking againstthe top.

Shot were constructed in 1851 to try the effect of rotation in theabove-mentioned and in the opposite directions. They were made excentric,that is, lop-sided, by taking out a portion of the metal on one side, andreplacing it either with a heavier or lighter body. The manner in whichthey would rotate was, therefore, known; for, not to use too scientificlanguage, the light side moved first, and according to the relative positionsof the heavy and light side when placed against the charge so the rotationtook place. Thus, when the light side was resting against the bore ofthe gun, the rotation was exactly contrary to the direction shown in diagramNo. 2; and a range of 5,566 yards was obtained from a 10-inchgun, being 916 yards farther than with a concentric shot from the samegun. The deflections to the right and left were proportionately large,according as the light side was placed to the left or right.

We need not specify further; this will be sufficient to show the reasonwhy the smooth bore with a spherical bullet never made a straight long[509]shot, for it was not only that the bullet did not go in the direction inwhich it was aimed, but it did not even follow the direction in whichit started. This was well shown by Mr. Robins in the experimentwe commenced with. He bent the end of a gun barrel to the left, andaimed by the straight part. As would be naturally expected, the shotpassed through the first tissue-paper screen 1½ inches to the left of thetrack of a bullet, which had been previously fired from a straight barrel inthe same line with which the crooked barrel had been aimed, and 3 inchesto the left on the second screen; but as he had predicted, and as the companycould hardly have expected, on the wall which was behind, the bulletstruck 14 inches to the right of the track, showing that though it had goneat first as directed by the bent portion of the barrel, yet as the bullet inbeing turned had rolled against the right-hand side of this portion of thebarrel, it had a rotatory motion impressed upon it, by which the anteriorportion moved from left to right, and the bullet, after moving away from,turned back and crossed the track of the other bullet again, or was incurvatedto the right.

We now see why spherical bullets from a smooth bore, though theymay fly almost perfectly accurately a short distance, cannot be dependedon in the least for a long distance, as the bullet which might strike within1 inch at 100 yards would not strike within 2 inches at 200 yards,and still less within 3 inches at 300 yards of the mark at which it wasfired.

The cause of these deflections we have seen is almost wholly rotationor spin. The object of the rifle is to place this rotation under our control,and if the bullet must spin, to make it spin always in the same direction,and in the way which will suit our purpose best. With this object theinterior of the cylindrical bore which we have been considering as smooth,is scored or indented with spiral grooves or furrows. As we are merelyconcerned with the principles, and not with the constructive details, weneed only mention that the number of these grooves varies in differentrifles from two to forty; that their shape and size, though dependent oncertain conditions, is, we might almost say, a matter of fashion; and thatMr. Whitworth, in his almost perfect rifle, uses a hexagonal bore, andMr. Lancaster makes a smooth oval-bored rifle; but that in all, the deviationsfrom the circle of the interior cylinder do not pass straight from endto end of the barrel, but spirally, and constitute, in fact, a female screw.The bullet, fitting tight and entering the grooves, is constrained to rotatewhile being forced out of the barrel by the gunpowder, in the samemanner that a screw is necessarily twisted while being drawn out of a holeor nut; and this rotation or spin being impressed upon it by the sameforce which projects it from the barrel, continues during the flight. Thisspin is different in direction from those we have been considering previously;it is like the spin of a top thrown point foremost, the axis ofrotation coincident with the line of flight. While it remains in thisposition (coinciding with the line of flight) none of the deflecting effects[510]of the air we have mentioned can come into operation, as the resistance isequal on all sides; and not only that, but if there are any irregularities onthe surface of the ball, as they are brought rapidly first on one side andthen on the other of the point or pole of rotation, they can have no effectin deflecting it to one side more than to the other. Hence the accuracy,or straight shooting, of our modern gun, the rifle.

We have before mentioned that Robins pointed out the enormouseffect of the resistance of the atmosphere to the passage of a shot; and“because,” as he says, “I am fully satisfied that the resistance of the air isalmost the only source of the numerous difficulties which have hithertoembarrassed that science,” viz. gunnery, he considered it above all thingsnecessary to determine its amount; for which purpose he invented theBallistic Pendulum and Whirling Machine. His experiments were madeprincipally with small bullets; but a more extended series of experimentswas made by Dr. Hutton with the same machines, and on the Continentand in America by Major Mordecai, with a ballistic pendulum of improvedconstruction. It appears from these that when a ball of two inchesdiameter is moving with a great velocity, it meets with a resistance ofwhich the following examples will give an idea: at a velocity of 1,800feet per second the resistance is 85½ lbs., and at a velocity of 2,000feet, 102 lbs. If we wish to increase the range, then, we must overcomethis resistance in some way. As the resistance is nearly proportionateto the surface, that is, twice as great on a surface of two squareinches as on a surface of one square inch, we must do so by increasingthe weight of the shot. For it is evident that if two shot of differentweights start with the same velocity, and meet with the same resistance,the heavier one, having the greater momentum, will maintain its velocitythe longest. Throw a cork and a stone of the same size with the sameforce—the cork will only go a few yards, while the stone will go perhaps tentimes as far. In the smooth-bored cannon this could only be effectedpartially by increasing the size of the shot, when the surface exposed tothe resistance of the air increased only as the square of the diameter,while the weight increased in a greater ratio, as the cube of the diameter.Hence the longer range and greater penetration of heavy guns. As, however,with a rotating body the tendency is always for the axis of rotationto remain parallel to its original direction—thus a top while spinning maymove about the floor, but remains upright on its point, and does not falltill the spin is exhausted—we have with rifles a means by which we cankeep a bullet always in the same direction. In order to comply with thecondition, then, of exposing a small surface to the resistance of the airwhile the bullet’s weight is increased, we reject the spherical form, andmake it a long cylinder; and to make it the more easily cut through theair, we terminate it with a conical point.

Thus compare Mr. Whitworth’s 3-pounder with the ordinary or old3-pounder; the shot weigh the same, but the diameter of Mr. Whitworth’s3-pounder shot is 1·5 or 1½ inches, while the diameter of the old[511]3-pounder shot is 2·91 inches, or nearly three inches; and the surfacesthey expose to the resistance of the air are 2·25, or 2¼ square inches, and8·47 nearly, or nearly 8½ square inches; that is, Mr. Whitworth’s bullet,with the same weight to overcome it, meets with a resistance of a littlemore than a quarter that which the old bullet met with, and has theadvantage of a sharp point to boot. Hence the enormous range attained,—9,688yards.

The very same causes which make the fire of a rifle accurate, tendalso to make it inaccurate, paradoxical as it may seem; but this inaccuracybeing to a certain extent regular and known beforehand, is not ofso much consequence, though it is a decided disadvantage. It may—not tobe too mathematical—be explained thus:—The axis of rotation having, aswe said, a tendency always to remain parallel to its original direction, whena rifle bullet or picket (the long projectile we have described) is fired at ahigh angle of elevation—that is, slanting upwards into the air, in order thatbefore it fells it may reach a distant object,—it is evident from the diagram,that if the direction of the axis of rotation remains, as shown by the linesp p p, which represent the shot at different portions of the range parallelto the original direction in the gun, the bullet or picket will not alwaysremain with its point only presented in the direction in which it ismoving, but one side of the bullet will be partially opposed to theresistance of the air. The air on that side (in front) will be denser thanbehind, and the disturbing or deflecting influences before described willcome into operation, the two opposite tendencies described in the text andthe note to a certain extent counteracting one another. While at thesame time the resistance of the air has a tendency to turn the bullet fromthe sideways position in which it is moving with respect to the line offlight (and the effect of this is the greater the less spin the bullet hasto constrain it to keep its original direction), the result of which force,conspiring with the force described in the note, is to give it a slightangular rotation round another axis, and deflect the bullet by constantlychanging its general direction (this second axis of rotation) to the side towhich the rifling turns. This was exemplified in the late practice withMr. Whitworth’s gun. When firing at the very long range of 9,000 yardsthe 3-pounder threw constantly to the right from 32 to 89 yards.

The rotation of the earth about its axis tends to throw the projectilealways to the right of the object aimed at. Space will not permit of[512]our entering on this subject; but the principle is the same as that whichin M. Foucault's experiment with the vibrating pendulum caused itsplane of vibration apparently to constantly deviate to the right.

The time of flight of the shot from Mr. Whitworth’s 3-pounder gun isunknown to us; we are unable, therefore, to calculate the deflection dueon this account, but as an illustration we may give this deflection, calculatedfor the long range attained with the 10-inch gun (5,600 yards), fromCaptain Boxer’s, R.A., Treatise on Artillery. He finds it to be verynearly 11 yards.

Windage, one of the faults of the spherical bullet, permitting a greatescape of the gas, and therefore wasting the force of the powder, hasbeen overcome in various ways in the cylindro-conical picket. TheMinié principle consists in hollowing out the base of the ball conically,placing in this hollow an iron cup or piece of wood, which being drivenforward by the explosion of the charge further into the conical hollow,enlarges or expands the ball, and makes it fit tight and take the impressionof the grooves, though the bullet, when put into the gun, is smallenough to be easily rammed down. It is now found that the conical hollowalone, without the cup or plug, is almost equally effective in expandingthe ball. We have termed this the Minié principle; Captain Norton, however,undoubtedly has a prior claim (which has been allowed by the BritishGovernment, we believe) to this invention. He was before his time.There was no cause for, and therefore the shooting mania was not strongupon us.

With breech-loaders, doing away with windage and making the bullettake the rifling, is an easy matter. The breech into which the bullet isput at once, without being passed through the muzzle, is made slightlylarger than the rest of the bore; the bullet on being pushed forward by theforce of the powder is squeezed into the narrower portion, and effectuallyprevents all escape of gas. It is thus with the Armstrong gun. Robins saidof the breech-loaders of his day, “And, perhaps, somewhat of this kind,though not in the manner now practised, would be, of all others, the mostperfect method for the construction of these barrels.” Mr. Whitworth,on the other hand, uses—well, we have avoided details thus far, andevery newspaper has described them so fully, that our readers must bethoroughly acquainted with them. Let us conclude, as we began, withRobins, and hope that his prediction that “they,” the armies of theenlightened nations which perfect rifles, “will by this means acquire asuperiority which will almost equal anything that has been done at anytime.”