The Cornhill Magazine (Vol. I, No. 6)

1. The Commissioners appointed to examine and report upon the state of our Coast Defences, have recommended the construction of additional Fortifications at various points, which, it is computed, will involve an outlay of several millions sterling. The defences of the dockyards and arsenals are, very properly, to be strengthened so as to enable them to resist the attacks of steam-ships armed with rifled cannon; and every assailable part of the coast is to be protected against an invading force. The defence of London forms no part of the scheme; that most important topic having been omitted in the Defence Commission. The reason for such an extraordinary omission need not here be discussed: suffice it to say that, while the extremities are guarded, the heart of the country is left exposed. [1] Our first line of defence, the Channel Fleet, is provided to prevent the sudden descent of a hostile force upon our shores. Our second line, consisting of forts on various parts of the coast, will, no doubt, be strengthened by powerful batteries. A third and innermost line of defences, for the protection of the Capital, the seat of Government, the centre of the wealth and commerce of the nation, is wanting. To show how this deficiency may be supplied, speedily, and economically, and at the same time so effectually as to make London impregnable and successful invasion hopeless, is the purpose of this article.

2. If ever an invasion of England be attempted, the point to be aimed at by the invader will be the capture of London; and for the very simple [642] reason that it alone would repay the cost and risks of an attack. If Portsmouth dockyard were destroyed, Devonport would remain; if both were lost, there would be Chatham; give all three to an enemy, and we have Pembroke; let him take all four, and England might still build ships in the Clyde and the Severn and the Mersey by private enterprise: better, perchance, than in royal dockyards, the gun-boat failures notwithstanding. An enemy would not be likely to place himself permanently on Portland Bill, or any other part of England; and certainly no burning of dockyards, or any other similar contingency, would be likely to induce England to capitulate and make terms. What might happen if a conqueror were to get possession of the Bank of England, and appoint a General of Division Governor pro tem. , who would make the bank parlour his head-quarters, and bid his soldiers mount guard over the bullion-vaults, it is difficult to say. With London in a state of siege, a Provost-Marshal installed at the Mansion House, a park of artillery on Tower Hill, the Royal Exchange and Guildhall converted into military posts, and a foreign soldiery quartered upon the inhabitants, there would be no “Quotations” of Consols on the Stock Exchange, nor any of the usual telegrams or leading articles in the newspapers. The Government would be powerless for anything but “making terms” with the invading foe; Parliament would be nowhere; martial law alone would prevail; our glorious old Constitution would be abrogated, and the monarchy itself might be in jeopardy. The day of England’s disgrace and humiliation might inaugurate a saturnalia of brutal soldiery; crime and misery, such as the imagination recoils from conceiving, might desolate our hearths and homes; and destruction of property to the value of untold millions would involve paralysis of commerce, death of credit, stoppage of manufactures, ruin of trade, and the dissolution of every bond of law and society: nay, even this frightful calamity might be heightened by the horrors of the sack of London.

3. But, it may be asked, is such a contingency possible? For there are those who refuse to entertain the idea of an invasion of England ever being attempted. Rather than contemplate the probable consequences of a successful invasion, they ridicule the idea of its probability, and stigmatize as panic-mongers all who regard the possibility of such a disaster. That the idea of England being invaded is not absurd, we have the testimony of Wellington himself, and the call upon the nation for millions of money to prepare against the contingency. And since it is proved that this country is open to invasion, the impossibility of such an attempt being successful should be demonstrated so clearly, by the strength of our defensive preparations, that no foreign foe would dare to make the attempt.

4. As it is, however, the question whether England could be invaded, and London taken and sacked, has been frequently discussed by military engineers on the Continent, and answered by them in the affirmative. [2] [643] The only difference of opinion that exists is as to the best plan of proceeding, the amount of forces required, and the places where troops should be landed. Is it impossible that an enemy, with a fleet nearly matching our own, and able to embark, at any moment, two or three hundred thousand troops in four or five divisions, and launch them against the most assailable parts of our coast, should so lay his plans as to reach London before we could prevent him? Resolved upon an attempt to occupy the metropolis, he could make a number of feints and attacks at different points, with a fair chance of succeeding in one; which would be all that he would want. A naval action might be fought and lost by England; or, if not lost, the fleet might be seriously crippled: even whilst the battle was fighting, or after it was fought, troops might be landed on the coast at quite another part of the country.

5. We would not infer, from the fact of the fortification of London not being named in the National Defence Commission, that the Government shut their eyes to the danger of the metropolis being unprotected; especially as certain incidents bearing upon the subject are well known to have occurred, which were calculated to open the eyes of the most passive and unsuspecting administration. But the remoteness and uncertainty of the possible peril, combined with a prudent desire to avoid the danger of creating a panic by implying a doubt of the durability of peace, may induce even a vigilant executive to postpone precautions which might denote distrust, until it be too late to adopt them with due effect. If this be so, the public voice should demand that the heart of England shall not be left to the chance of an extemporized and therefore inadequate defence, and that the Capital shall be rendered secure against an invading force. Such a demand incessantly and resolutely put forward, would not only strengthen the hands of the Ministry, but supply them with the needful justification to act, as they are, perhaps, already inclined to do. Indeed, the fortification of London is a necessary supplement to the Volunteer force; and the spontaneous offer of our riflemen having been accepted by the Queen and the Government, it is not likely that the voice of the nation, if raised to demand fortifications which the volunteers of the metropolitan districts could defend—and which would so strengthen our national defences as to render successful invasion hopeless, by making London an impregnable stronghold—would be unheeded. For surely no government would refuse a million to insure the safety of the metropolis and frustrate the aim of an invader, especially as the protection of the Capital is of paramount importance in any scheme of National Defences.

6. Again, our fleet might be passed, or even decoyed away, as Nelson’s was; and then there are about 200 miles of our coast on which an enemy [644] could land within four days’ march of London. In those short four days the safety of London would have to be secured, and our work of resistance to the invader be done. Within that time the enemy must be brought to a stand. But how is this to be done? Will he be brought up by clouds of skirmishers, hovering on his flank and rear, and slowly retreating as he advances his tirailleurs ? Can we hope, with any number of irregular riflemen, however perfect may be their practice or superior their intelligence, so to reduce his numbers and disorganize his ranks, as to oblige him to pause in his career?—no more than a man would be stopped by an attack of angry wasps.

7. No! the only stop to an enemy in that hasty rush would be a general action; and if we give ourselves three days out of the four, which is little enough, to collect the various component parts of our motley forces—if we even accomplish this, and are prepared to meet the enemy on the third day, the action must be fought within one day’s march of London.

8. All honour to the volunteers who have so nobly stepped out at their country’s call; but on that day—without apprenticeship to their bloody task, without having ever seen a shot fired in anger—they must match themselves against veteran legions, led on by well-known and well-tried leaders, with all their plans of operation ready prepared, and with the prospect of the sack of the richest city in Europe, and the consummation, perhaps, of long-nourished plans of revenge.

9. What Englishman would not give all that he had to ensure the victory on such a day? Who that has a mother, a sister, a wife, or a daughter living in London, but would make any sacrifice to guard against the possibility of what might happen, if in that day the issue of this battle was to be decided against us?

10. Neither confidence in the justice of our cause, nor reliance on the valour of our defenders, can prevent the mind from growing dizzy at the thought of what may be the result of that action: for all must depend on that . There would be no time nor space for rallying. That one battle would decide the fate of England.

11. But this is a fate against which we may guard, with certainty of success, by adopting precautions which in all cases have been proved to be sufficient.

12. London’s safety may be secured by the same means by which Wellington saved his handful of troops in Spain, when Massena was advancing with his superior army, as it seemed to annihilate him. Napoleon’s order had gone forth to drive “the leopards” into the sea, and there seemed no one who could say it might not be done. What made Massena halt in his advance? Why did he sit down for a whole winter, his army melting away like snow from off those hills on which it had rested so long? Because he came in sight of some poor mounds of earth at Torres Vedras,—little earthen redoubts, thrown up on every vantage ground,—all of which [645] had been rendered impregnable by the very man whom Massena knew that he had sufficient strength to crush in the open field; but who, through this protection, was enabled to brave him, without a moment’s uneasiness, for a whole winter, during which time he recruited his army by rest and by supplies from England. The result was the complete discomfiture of the French army.

13. How was it that, when we had landed in safety in the Crimea, had won the heights of Alma, and were within two days’ march of Sebastopol, the victorious forces of France and England were suddenly brought to a stand and their strength so paralyzed that a year elapsed before we could gain a mile in advance upon an enemy whom we had in a few hours driven from his chosen position in the open field?

14. Why in the late campaign in Italy did the French Emperor so suddenly depart from his programme of “From the Alps to the Adriatic,” and that, too, after his enemy had proved himself so hopelessly inferior in open contest? Whatever was the cause of these sudden pauses of great and conquering armies, it behoves us to know it; for it is this effect which we desire to produce. We may, and probably shall be taken by surprise; we may, as has generally happened, get worsted at the commencement: our volunteers, as well as some of our generals, may require some little apprenticeships; but if we can only gain time , [3] who would for a moment fear the final result?

15. Let us, then, learn a lesson from these three great examples of modern warfare. The means we must employ are defensive as well as offensive resistance, and the science we must call to our aid is Fortification , properly applied to the metropolis, and entrusted to our Volunteers .

16. But before discussing the mode of fortification we will dispose of the superficial arguments brought against such a means of defence. Of course there will be the usual cuckoo cry—“Fortifications! why, have not we strong fortifications at Portsmouth, and Plymouth, and Dover? You don’t think we can fortify all round the coast? Fortification! What is the good of building batteries and throwing up earth-works that will be all out of date and useless in a few years, and at an enormous cost? We can make better use of our money than that.” And the military man will come forward and say that our army is small enough as it is, without locking up a part of it in fortresses which may be masked and passed by; while the engineer will say we can easily throw up hasty field-works at the last moment. These objections are really worthless.

17. There is a hazy kind of national prejudice against fortifying, and especially the metropolis. Yet this was done by the Romans in the middle ages, and even by the Parliamentarians in defence of liberty against despotism. In 1642 the very plan now suggested was followed by Cromwell. Forts were erected at the entrances to the city, and lines and entrenchments connected them together. The Common Council and other chief men of the city, with their wives and families, three thousand porters with their wives, and five thousand shoemakers, six thousand tailors, and five thousand sailors, all worked in the trenches at different days in May and June. “Oh, but we have our wooden walls!” Thank God, we have our wooden walls, and we trust them; but a fleet may be, as it has been, decoyed out of the Channel; indeed, it is possible that even an English fleet might meet with a temporary reverse; and in these days of steam, the time thus gained need not be more than an hour or two to enable the enemy to get the start of us. To an invading force, the fear of their retreat being cut off, and being severed from the base of their operations, would not be thought of. If London is worth attacking, it is worth running the risk of letting an army be left to its own resources, or even of being cut off altogether. Our fleet is a great protection, without doubt; but it does not, and cannot, give that perfect assurance against a sacking of London which is what we demand. The fleet is a right thing, but may not be always in the right place.

18. We must have a new and inner line of defence. “Well,” opponents will say, “we have our great fortresses of Portsmouth and Plymouth, which we are strengthening at this very time.” Portsmouth and Plymouth are most valuable, but not directly as defences of the capital: they are virtually important; but only as naval arsenals, as storehouses, refitting places, or points d’affaires for our navy. No! we may have as many lines as we please, but for our last and great efficient line of defence we must come nearer home. The line, to be well manned, must be short. We must fortify the point that is most liable to attack. London itself must be our Quadrilateral .

19. The military argument that the construction of fortresses necessitates the locking up of a great part of our regular troops, was formerly, no doubt, a strong and valid objection; but it will no longer hold good: whatever hesitation we may have in trusting untried troops for the first time in the field, there can be no doubt that we may safely entrust to them the charge of our fortresses. This is a work, too, which the intelligence and readiness of resources that we are sure to find in troops raised from our middle classes, would render volunteers particularly fitted to perform.

20. If the metropolis were safe, an invader would gain nothing by masking and passing that position: it being itself the goal to which all his efforts were tending. The fortifications of the metropolis would not lock up our troops: they would have a directly contrary effect. In the present state of things, a large covering force must always be employed in keeping guard over London, and the rest of the kingdom thus be left comparatively [647] defenceless: but with London fortified, and in the charge of our volunteers, we could afford to keep almost all our army in the field.

21. The objection that fortifications are becoming out of date, is so puerile as scarcely to deserve refutation. We know that, with the exception of such modifications as have been rendered necessary by improvements in arms and projectiles, the art of fortification has scarcely undergone a change for the better since the days of Marshal Vauban. But are we therefore to reject it until we have a better system? The percussion musket with which we re-armed all our foot soldiers a few years ago has been superseded by the Enfield rifle. The Armstrong gun is rapidly replacing the smooth-bored cannon on our forts and in our ships. And steam has rendered necessary the reconstruction of our navy. Yet we don’t leave our soldiers without rifles, our batteries without guns, or our fleet without steamers, because those we are now constructing may, (or rather will, most certainly) become out of date in a few years.

22. As we shall show hereafter, the cost of fortifying London could be no obstacle: it would be an insignificant premium for such an insurance.

23. Fortification is the art of all others that seems at the present moment fitted to supply our wants. It is the very complement of our volunteer movement . We boast of the talent and intelligence of our volunteer defenders; and shall we neglect the means of turning that talent to the best and most profitable account? If our volunteers, from their superior intelligence, would make the best riflemen, surely these very qualities fit them in a still higher degree for engineers.

24. Fortification seems as if it were specially contrived for the benefit of England and Englishmen; for it makes money to do the work of soldiers. We are the richest country in Europe, with the smallest body of men under arms. Fortification will render irregular troops as good as, nay, even better than, regular. Our regular army is but a handful of men compared with the armies of other great powers; but thanks to our Volunteers, we are rich in perhaps the finest irregular troops in the world. Fortification affords the best guarantee against a coup de main ; and such a mode of attack is precisely that which we have most reason to apprehend. Fortification gives the means of gaining time at the commencement of a campaign; and this of itself is a godsend to the ever unready Saxon.

25. There is every reason why we should largely avail ourselves of a science which above all others distinguishes the educated from the uneducated soldier, the man of intellect from the mere fighting machine.

26. We have shown not only that there is no valid objection to fortifications, but that they are the best means of defence for us, and that our metropolis is the point of all others that seems to stand in need of defence: it is the heart without a breast-plate.

27. We now therefore proceed to the practical application of the argument. How should London be fortified?

28. In the minds of many may rise visions of an immense bulwark, a kind of great wall of China, drawn round London, and provided with ditches, drawbridges, and barred gates; and those who are acquainted with the customs of continental towns will probably connect them with barriers and octrois , and men examining your luggage and poking among your legs for contraband articles. On the contrary, now, thanks to our railways, our long-range guns, and to our volunteers, the fortifications which are necessary to secure London may be so unobtrusive, and so removed from the main highways, that no Londoner, save such as know what fortification really is, would ever realize the fact that they were in any way connected with its defence.

29. We only want half-a-dozen tolerably large forts, well placed, to form, as it were, the salient points of our defence. Let the reader refer to the diagram, and he will see six stars, one on Shooter’s Hill, one on Norwood Hill to the South of the Crystal Palace, one at or near Wimbledon, a fourth somewhere near Harrow, then at Mill Hill, and our last within good range of Enfield Lock. A set of dots (●) then come in about midway between the five spaces.

30. Let us now consider the significance of the stars which denote forts: and first, that on Shooter’s Hill, as the most important.

31. The security of our great arsenal of Woolwich demands (independently of any plea of metropolitan defence) that this important position should be occupied by a work of considerable strength. Such a fortress would answer three purposes, each of them of paramount importance! In the first place, it would remedy the extremely insecure state, and to an enemy the most tempting defencelessness, of our greatest military manufactories and arsenal; secondly, it would, by means of its outworks, effectually bar the Thames from any gun-boat attack; and thirdly, it would form one of the angles of our great polygon of positions for the defence of London. The next of these angles would be at the spur of Norwood Hill; where it would be necessary to construct a considerable fort. The third permanent work would come in the immediate vicinity of Wimbledon, where the range of hills again spurs out to the South; and these three would complete the salient angles of the southern half of the defence of London. Probably two works of a like nature would suffice for the northern division; and a third might be added in the direction of, and perhaps either within range of, or covering Enfield Lock, the great rifle factory for the Army.

32. These five or six forts should be regular permanent works, and of sufficient importance to be secure against a coup de main : in fact, to compel an enemy to sit down before them for a siege of greater or less duration. They should all be armed with heavy long-range guns, and should besides contain surplus stores of both guns and ammunition for the armament of other works, to be hereafter described.

33. Such would be all the extent of fortification necessary to be undertaken at first; but to complete the chain, it would be requisite that plots of ground should be acquired in suitable positions: generally, one between each of the permanent forts; and on each of these pieces of ground should be carefully traced the outline of an earthen work, of extent and form to suit each particular case.

34. The execution of these works could be undertaken by the garrisons of the permanent works, which would be relieved from time to time. They would thus form a series of military industrial schools, in which a large proportion of our troops might learn the all-important and much-neglected art, how to use a spade in their own defence. Perhaps some of our volunteers would not be above taking a few lessons of the same kind. Such as have formed themselves into engineer corps would of course do so, and we should thus be able to place another important mode of defence in the hands of these gentlemen. The outworks of the main forts, indeed, might be executed by the same means, and they could thus be kept continually being increased in strength.

35. The secondary earth-works would either be armed at once, upon the completion of the enceinte , or they might be supplied with guns and ammunition from the main permanent works when occasion might require. In the latter case, their cost would be very trifling, as it would not be necessary to construct permanent magazines or stores.

36. These two sets of works having been completed, it would then merely remain to have the spaces of ground between the several forts carefully considered, with a view to their occupation by a series of smaller works, either enclosed or open to the rear. The latter might in this case be left to be undertaken upon the menace of attack.

37. We should then have London surrounded by a series of strong points of resistance, consisting of chains of detached works, with large intervals between them, through which our regular and irregular troops might advance and retire, and act with a perfect certainty of success.

38. As to the garrisons of the permanent works; we have the Artillery at Woolwich, who would garrison their own fort at Shooter’s Hill, and thus be on the spot to assist in the armament of the secondary works.

39. Now that we have given up the idea of employing our troops as police, we may surely abolish a large proportion of our London barracks, and give the Guards the benefit of suburban quarters. By this means we should do much towards improving the health of the troops, and the sale of the ground on which many of the present barracks are built would go far towards supplying the cost for the construction of those now proposed.

40. As the presence of a considerable strength of engineers would be necessary in the construction of the various secondary works, it would be advisable that one of the large forts should be garrisoned by this force. This would, perhaps, be best accomplished by the removal of our School of Military Engineers from Chatham; and it would be most conveniently located at Wimbledon, where the necessary waste ground could be obtained for practice in earth-works, while the Thames at Richmond would be sufficiently close for practice in hydraulic works and in pontooning. Moreover, the entire force round the metropolis would be able to avail themselves of this additional means of military education: indeed the engineers themselves, however learned or scientific they may be, would be none the worse for being placed within nearer reach of the various meetings of learned and scientific societies which are always taking place in the metropolis.

41. Let us now review the positions that we trust we have established. We have London surrounded by a cordon of detached forts, showing in every direction an armed front. We have water communication from east to west of the position, and ample communication by railway and telegraph in all directions, and to every fort. The leading lines of railway and the river are everywhere barred, and these very lines put us in communication with our great camps at Aldershott, Colchester, and Shorncliffe. Within our circle of forts we have, in material, the whole resources of the nation in artillery, military stores, small-arms, and ammunition; and as regards the personal , we include the head-quarters of the artillery, our picked troops, the Guards, the Engineers, the largest companies of Volunteer corps in the country, and, finally, a population of 8,000,000 from which to recruit: and with such a position to defend, every man might be a soldier. We have also the means of obtaining [651] unlimited supplies of all kinds from the country, and of despatching troops in different directions: for the idea of investing a position of such extent and situation could not for a moment be entertained by any army that could be introduced into this country.

42. With such defences, London might be safely entrusted to the keeping of a garrison of Volunteers, with but a sprinkling of regulars; so that the entire Army and Militia would be left free to take the field. Such a state of things would afford absolute security; for no enemy would then be mad enough to dream of a descent upon the heart of our empire. With London safe, and our army thus reinforced by the covering force that would otherwise be constantly required to defend it, we might, indeed, laugh at the menace of invasion.

43. What, then, should hinder us from at once putting ourselves beyond the probability of surprise? In point of inconvenience to the metropolis, it would be no more than the forts at Dover. The expense would be a mere nothing to what we are spending every day in less important matters. We are annually building large barracks for our troops; we have only to build the next six that we require in these particular positions; so that, with the exception of those to supply the place of the guards’ barracks, the outlay for barracks may be almost omitted from the calculation: and in the case of these, their cost would be met by the sale of their present sites.

44. Again, in calculating the expense, the main works at Shooter’s Hill may be thrown out; as they must, of necessity, be undertaken for the defence of Woolwich, and do not come within the category of works executed solely for the protection of London.

45. What, therefore, remains to be done at once, is to purchase, say, five plots of ground of fifty acres each, and six plots of thirty acres each, in all, 430 acres of land: this, considering that some of the sites are waste land, may possibly be put down at 200 l. per acre = 86,000 l. The main works may, perhaps, be estimated at 80,000 l. each, or 400,000 l. ; so that the entire cost would not exceed half a million sterling, excluding Woolwich, which must be fortified in any case: an amount far less than that which the nation is spending ungrudgingly in constructing iron plated vessels, which, at best, are only experimental, and may prove failures.

46. A sum of half a million spent on the construction of six large Forts, would, in the next twelve months, establish a firm and adequate basis for all future defence. The field-works between the forts might be executed by the garrisons in them, whilst the smaller earth-works need not be thrown up until there was an absolute threat, or an imminent danger of invasion. Surely, the spirit which has evoked the Volunteers, will provide the funds to make London impregnable, and invasion, therefore, hopeless.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Such an omission seems hardly credible; but the Commission published in the London Gazette of 26th August, 1859, recites only that inquiries are to be made “into the present state, condition, and sufficiency of the fortifications existing for the defence of our United Kingdom, and of examining into all works at present in progress for the improvement thereof, and for considering the most effectual means of rendering the same complete, especially all such works of defence as are intended for the protection of our royal arsenals and dockyards in case of any hostile attack being made by foreign enemies both by sea and land.” Not a word about the metropolis.

[2] “Mais si soixante mille Français prenaient terre entre Hastings et Douvres, et qu’une bataille heureuse leur permit de s’avancer jusque sur les borde de la Medway et de la Tamise, ils pourraient, en vingt-quatre heures, détruire plusieurs milliards de matériels et de marchandise, et porter à la fortune de l’Angleterre un coup dont elle aurait peine à se relever.”— Extract of Lieut.-Col. Ardent’s (of the Corps du Génie) paper on “The Defence of the Country south of London,” from papers on subjects connected with the duties of the corps of Royal Engineers. 1849.

[3] “If, in 1814, Paris had possessed a citadel capable of holding out for only eight days, the destinies of the world would have been changed. If, in 1805, Vienna had been fortified, the battle of Ulm would not have decided the war. If, in 1806, Berlin had been fortified, the army beaten at Jena might have rallied there till the Russian army advanced to its relief. If, in 1808, Madrid had been fortified, the French army, after the victories of Espenosa, Indela, and Somosierra, could never have ventured to march upon that capital, leaving the English army in the neighbourhood of Salamanca in its rear.”— Alison’s Europe , c. 37.

CHAPTER VI.
Cecilia’s Successor.

Monsieur et honore Lecteur! I see, as perfectly as if you were sitting opposite to me, the scorn depicted on your noble countenance, when you read my confession that I, Charles Batchelor, Esquire, did burglariously enter the premises of Edward Drencher, Esquire, M.R.C.S.I. (phew! the odious pestle-grinder, I never could bear him!) and break open, and read a certain letter, his property. I may have been wrong, but I am candid. I tell my misdeeds; some fellows hold their tongues. Besides, my good man, consider the temptation, and the horrid insight into the paper which Bedford’s report had already given me. Would you like to be told that the girl of your heart was playing at fast and loose with it, had none of her own, or had given hers to another? I don’t want to make a Mrs. Robin Gray of any woman, and merely because “her mither presses her sair” to marry her against her will. “If Miss Prior,” thought I, “prefers this lint-scraper to me, ought I to balk her? He is younger, and stronger, certainly, than myself. Some people may consider him handsome. (By the way, what a remarkable thing it is about many women, that, in affairs of the heart, they don’t seem to care or understand whether a man is a gentleman or not.) It may be it is my superior fortune and social station which may induce Elizabeth to waver in her choice between me and my bleeding, bolusing, toothdrawing rival. If so, and I am only taken from mercenary considerations, what a pretty chance of subsequent happiness do either of us stand! Take the vaccinator, girl, if thou preferrest him! I know what it is to be crossed in love already. It’s hard, but I can bear it! I ought to know, I must know, I will know what is in that paper!” So saying, as I pace round and round the table where the letter lies flickering [653] white under the midnight taper, I stretch out my hand—I seize the paper—I——well, I own it—there—yes—I took it, and I read it.

Or rather, I may say, I read that part of it which the bleeder and blisterer had flung down. It was but a fragment of a letter—a fragment—oh! how bitter to swallow! A lump of Epsom salt could not have been more disgusting. It appeared (from Bedford’s statement) that Æsculapius, on getting into his gig, had allowed this scrap of paper to whisk out of his pocket—the rest he read, no doubt, under the eyes of the writer. Very likely, during the perusal, he had taken and squeezed the false hand which wrote the lines. Very likely the first part of the precious document contained compliments to him—from the horrible context I judge so—compliments to that vendor of leeches and bandages, into whose heart I daresay I wished ten thousand lancets might be stuck, as I perused the False One’s wheedling address to him! So ran the document. How well every word of it was engraven on my anguished heart. If page three , which I suppose was about the bit of the letter which I got, was as it was—what must page one and two have been? The dreadful document began, then, thus:—

“——dear hair in the locket, which I shall ever wear for the sake of him who gave it ”—(dear hair! indeed—disgusting carrots! She should have been ashamed to call it “dear hair”)—“for the sake of him who gave it, and whose bad temper I shall pardon, because I think, in spite of his faults, he is a little fond of his poor Lizzie! Ah, Edward! how could you go on so the last time about poor Mr. B.! Can you imagine that I can ever have more than a filial regard for the kind old gentleman?” ( Il était question de moi, ma parole d’honneur. I was the kind old gentleman!) “I have known him since my childhood. He was intimate in our family in earlier and happier days; made our house his home; and, I must say, was most kind to all of us children. If he has vanities, you naughty boy, is he the only one of his sex who is vain? Can you fancy that such an old creature (an old muff , as you call him, you wicked, satirical man!) could ever make an impression on my heart? No, sir!” (Aha! So I was an old muff, was I?) “Though I don’t wish to make you vain too, or that other people should laugh at you, as you do at poor dear Mr. B., I think, sir, you need but look in your glass to see that you need not be afraid of such a rival as that . You fancy he is attentive to me? If you looked only a little angrily at him, he would fly back to London. To-day, when your horrid little patient did presume to offer to take my hand, when I boxed his little wicked ears and sent him spinning to the end of the room—poor Mr. Batch was so frightened that he did not dare to come into the room, and I saw him peeping behind a statue on the lawn, and he would not come in until the servants arrived . Poor man! We cannot all of us have courage like a certain Edward , who I know is as bold as a lion . Now, sir, you must not be quarrelling with that wretched little captain for being rude. I have shown him that I can very well take care of myself . I knew the odious thing the first moment I set eyes on him, though he had forgotten [654] me. Years ago I met him, and I remember he was equally rude and tips ——”

Here the letter was torn. Beyond “ tips ” it did not go. But that was enough, wasn’t it? To this woman I had offered a gentle and manly, I may say a kind and tender heart—I had offered four hundred a year in funded property, besides my house in Devonshire Street, Bloomsbury—and she preferred Edward , forsooth, at the sign of the Gallipot: and may ten thousand pestles smash my brains!

You may fancy what a night I had after reading that scrap. I promise you I did not sleep much. I heard the hours toll as I kept vigil. I lay amidst shattered capitals, broken shafts of the tumbled palace which I had built in imagination—oh! how bright and stately! I sate amongst the ruins of my own happiness, surrounded by the murdered corpses of innocent-visioned domestic joys. Tick—tock! Moment after moment I heard on the clock the clinking footsteps of wakeful grief. I fell into a doze towards morning, and dreamed that I was dancing with Glorvina, when I woke with a start, finding Bedford arrived with my shaving water, and opening the shutters. When he saw my haggard face he wagged his head.

“Yes, Dick,” groaned I, out of bed, “I have swallowed it.” And I laughed I may say a fiendish laugh. “And now I have taken it, not poppy nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups in his shop (hang him) will be able to medicine me to sleep for some time to come!”

“She has no heart, sir. I don’t think she cares for t’other chap much,” groans the gloomy butler. “She can’t, after having known us ”—and my companion in grief, laying down my hot-water jug, retreats.

I did not cut any part of myself with my razor. I shaved quite calmly. I went to the family at breakfast. My impression is I was sarcastic and witty. I smiled most kindly at Miss Prior when she came in. Nobody could have seen from my outward behaviour that anything was wrong within. I was an apple. Could you inspect the worm at my core! No, no. Somebody, I think old Baker, complimented me on my good looks. I was a smiling lake. Could you see on my placid surface, amongst my sheeny water-lilies, that a corpse was lying under my cool depths? “A bit of devilled chicken?” “No, thank you. By the way, Lovel, I think I must go to town to-day.” “You’ll come back to dinner, of course?” “Well—no.” “Oh, stuff! You promised me to-day and to-morrow. Robinson, Brown, and Jones are coming to-morrow, and you must be here to meet them.” Thus we prattle on. I answer, I smile, I say, “Yes, if you please, another cup,” or, “Be so good as to hand the muffin,” or what not. But I am dead. I feel as if I am under ground, and buried. Life, and tea, and clatter, and muffins are going on, of course; and daisies spring, and the sun shines on the grass whilst I am under it. Ah, dear me! it’s very cruel: it’s very, very lonely: it’s very odd! I don’t belong to the world any more. I have done with it. I am shelved away. But my spirit returns and flitters [655] through the world, which it has no longer anything to do with: and my ghost, as it were, comes and smiles at my own tombstone. Here lies Charles Batchelor, the Unloved One. Oh! alone, alone, alone! Why, Fate! didst ordain that I should be companionless? Tell me where the Wandering Jew is, that I may go and sit with him. Is there any place at a lighthouse vacant? Who knows where is the Island of Juan Fernandez? Engage me a ship and take me there at once. Mr. R. Crusoe, I think. My dear Robinson, have the kindness to hand me over your goatskin cap, breeches, and umbrella. Go home, and leave me here. Would you know who is the solitariest man on earth? That man am I. Was that cutlet which I ate at breakfast anon, was that lamb which frisked on the mead last week (beyond yon wall where the unconscious cucumber lay basking which was to form his sauce)—I say, was that lamb made so tender, that I might eat him? And my heart, then? Poor heart! wert thou so softly constituted only that women might stab thee? So I am a Muff, am I? And she will always wear a lock of his “dear hair,” will she? Ha! ha! The men on the omnibus looked askance as they saw me laugh. They thought it was from Hanwell, not Putney, I was escaping. Escape? Who can escape? I went into London. I went to the Clubs. Jawkins, of course, was there; and my impression is that he talked as usual. I took another omnibus, and went back to Putney. “I will go back and revisit my grave,” I thought. It is said that ghosts loiter about their former haunts a good deal when they are first dead; flit wistfully among their old friends and companions, and I daresay, expect to hear a plenty of conversation and friendly tearful remark about themselves. But suppose they return, and find nobody talking of them at all? Or suppose, Hamlet (Père, and Royal Dane) comes back and finds Claudius and Gertrude very comfortable over a piece of cold meat, or what not? Is the late gentleman’s present position as a ghost a very pleasant one? Crow, Cocks! Quick, Sun-dawn! Open, Trap-door! Allons : it’s best to pop underground again. So I am a Muff, am I? What a curious thing that walk up the hill to the house was! What a different place Shrublands was yesterday to what it is to-day! Has the sun lost its light, and the flowers their bloom, and the joke its sparkle, and the dish its savour? Why, bless my soul! what is Lizzy herself—only an ordinary woman—freckled certainly—incorrigibly dull, and without a scintillation of humour: and you mean to say, Charles Batchelor, that your heart once beat about that woman? Under the intercepted letter of that cold assassin, my heart had fallen down dead, irretrievably dead. I remember, àpropos of the occasion of my first death, that perpetrated by Glorvina—on my second visit to Dublin—with what a strange sensation I walked under some trees in the Phœnix Park beneath which it had been my custom to meet my False One Number 1. There were the trees—there were the birds singing—there was the bench on which we used to sit—the same, but how different! The trees had a different foliage, exquisite amaranthine; the birds sang a song paradisaical; [656] the bench was a bank of roses and fresh flowers, which young Love twined in fragrant chaplets around the statue of Glorvina. Roses and fresh flowers? Rheumatisms and flannel-waistcoats, you silly old man! Foliage and Song? O namby-pamby driveller! A statue?—a doll, thou twaddling old dullard!—a doll with carmine cheeks, and a heart stuffed with bran——I say, on the night preceding that ride to and from Putney, I had undergone death—in that omnibus I had been carried over to t’other side of the Stygian Shore. I returned but as a passionless ghost, remembering my life-days, but not feeling any more. Love was dead, Elizabeth! Why, the doctor came, and partook freely of lunch, and I was not angry. Yesterday I called him names, and hated him, and was jealous of him. To-day I felt no rivalship; and no envy at his success; and no desire to supplant him. No—I swear—not the slightest wish to make Elizabeth mine if she would. I might have cared for her yesterday—yesterday I had a heart. Psha! my good sir or madam. You sit by me at dinner. Perhaps you are handsome, and use your eyes. Ogle away. Don’t balk yourself, pray. But if you fancy I care a threepenny-piece about you—or for your eyes—or for your bonny brown hair—or for your sentimental remarks, sidelong warbled—or for your praise to (not of) my face—or for your satire behind my back—ah me!—how mistaken you are! Peine perdue, ma chère dame! The digestive organs are still in good working order—but the heart? Caret.

I was perfectly civil to Mr. Drencher, and, indeed, wonder to think how in my irritation I had allowed myself to apply (mentally) any sort of disagreeable phrases to a most excellent and deserving and good-looking young man, who is beloved by the poor, and has won the just confidence of an extensive circle of patients. I made no sort of remark to Miss Prior, except about the weather and the flowers in the garden. I was bland, easy, rather pleasant, not too high-spirited, you understand.—No: I vow you could not have seen a nerve wince, or the slightest alteration in my demeanour. I helped the two old dowagers; I listened to their twaddle; I gaily wiped up with my napkin three-quarters of a glass of sherry which Popham flung over my trowsers. I would defy you to know that I had gone through the ticklish operation of an excision of the heart a few hours previously. Heart—pooh! I saw Miss Prior’s lip quiver. Without a word between us, she knew perfectly well that all was over as regarded her late humble servant. She winced once or twice. While Drencher was busy with his plate, the grey eyes cast towards me interjectional looks of puzzled entreaty. She , I say, winced; and I give you my word I did not care a fig whether she was sorry, or pleased, or happy, or going to be hung. And I can’t give a better proof of my utter indifference about the matter, than the fact that I wrote two or three copies of verses descriptive of my despair. They appeared, you may perhaps remember, in one of the annuals of those days, and were generally attributed to one of the most sentimental of our young poets. I remember the reviews said they were “replete with emotion,” “full of [657] passionate and earnest feeling,” and so forth. Feeling, indeed!—ha! ha! “Passionate outbursts of a grief-stricken heart!”—Passionate scrapings of a fiddlestick, my good friend. “Lonely,” of course, rhymes with “only,” and “gushes” with “blushes,” and “despair” with “hair,” and so on. Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you. Hair is false: hearts are false. Grapes may be sour, but claret is good, my masters. Do you suppose I am going to cry my eyes out, because Chloe’s are turned upon Strephon? If you find any whimpering in mine, may they never wink at a bee’s-wing again.

When the doctor rose presently, saying he would go and see the gardener’s child, who was ill, and casting longing looks at Miss Prior, I assure you I did not feel a tittle of jealousy, though Miss Bessy actually followed Mr. Drencher into the lawn, under the pretext of calling back Miss Cissy, who had run thither without her bonnet.

“Now, Lady Baker, which was right? you or I?” asks bonny Mrs. Bonnington, wagging her head towards the lawn where this couple of innocents were disporting.

“You thought there was an affair between Miss Prior and the medical gentleman,” I say, smiling. “It was no secret, Mrs. Bonnington?”

“Yes, but there were others who were a little smitten in that quarter too,” says Lady Baker, and she in turn wags her old head towards me.

“You mean me?” I answer, as innocent as a new-born babe. “I am a burnt child, Lady Baker; I have been at the fire, and am already thoroughly done, thank you. One of your charming sex jilted me some years ago; and once is quite enough, I am much obliged to you.”

This I said, not because it was true; in fact, it was the reverse of truth; but if I choose to lie about my own affairs, pray, why not? And though a strictly truth-telling man generally, when I do lie, I promise you, I do it boldly and well.

“If, as I gather from Mrs. Bonnington, Mr. Drencher and Miss Prior like each other, I wish my old friend joy. I wish Mr. Drencher joy with all my heart. The match seems to me excellent. He is a deserving, a clever, and a handsome young fellow; and I am sure, ladies, you can bear witness to her goodness, after all you have known of her.”

“My dear Batchelor,” says Mrs. Bonnington, still smiling and winking, “I don’t believe one single word you say—not one single word!” And she looks infinitely pleased as she speaks.

“Oh!” cries Lady Baker, “my good Mrs. Bonnington, you are always match-making—don’t contradict me. You know you thought——”

“I will. She thought, Mr. Batchelor, she actually thought that our son, that my Cecilia’s husband, was smitten by the governess. I should like to have seen him dare!” and her flashing eyes turn towards the late Mrs. Lovel’s portrait, with its faded simper leering over the harp. “The idea that any woman could succeed that angel indeed!”

“You don’t mean, Batchelor, that my Frederick would not make any woman happy?” cries the Bonnington. “He is only seven-and-thirty, very young for his age, and the most affectionate of creatures. I’m surprised, and it’s most cruel, and most unkind of you, to say that you don’t envy any woman that marries my boy!”

“Why, when his late wife was alive,” goes on Mrs. B. sobbing, “you know with what admirable sweetness and gentleness he bore her—her—bad temper—excuse me, Lady Baker!”

“Oh, pray, abuse my departed angel!” cries the Baker; “say that your son should marry and forget her—say that those darlings should be made to forget their mother. She was a woman of birth, and a woman of breeding, and a woman of family, and the Bakers came in with the Conqueror, Mrs. Bonnington——”

“And to say that a Baker is not worthy of a Lovel is pretty news indeed! Do you hear that , Clarence?”

“Hear what, ma’am?” says Clarence, who enters at this juncture. “You’re speakin’ loud enough—though blesht if I hear two sh-shyllables.”

“Shmoking—haven’t I?” says Clarence with a laugh; “and I’ve been at the Five Bells, and I’ve been having a game of billiards with an old friend of mine,” and he lurches towards a decanter.

“I’m as sober as a judge, I tell you. You leave so precious little in the bottle at dinner, that I must get it when I can, mustn’t I, Batchelor, old boy? We had a row yesterday, hadn’t we? No, it was sugar-baker. I’m not angry—you’re not angry. Bear no malish. Here’s your health, old boy!”

The unhappy gentleman drank his bumper of sherry, and, tossing his hair off his head, said—“Where’s the governess—where’s Bessy Bellenden? Who’s that kickin’ me under the table, I say?”

“Bessy Bellenden—the governess—that’s her real name. Known her these ten years. Used to dansh at Prinsh’s Theatre. Remember her in the corps de ballet. Ushed to go behind the shenes. Dooshid pretty girl!” maunders out the tipsy youth; and as the unconscious subject of his mischievous talk enters the room, again he cries out, “Come and sit by me, Bessy Bellenden, I say!”

The matrons rose with looks of horror in their faces. “A ballet dancer!” cries Mrs. Bonnington. “A ballet dancer!” echoes Lady Baker. “Young woman, is this true?”

“The Bulbul and the Roshe—hay?” laughs the captain. “Don’t you remember you and Fosbery in blue and shpangles? Always all right, [659] though, Bellenden was. Fosbery washn’t: but Bellenden was. Give you every credit for that, Bellenden. Boxsh my earsh. Bear no malish—no—no—malish! Get some more sherry, you—whatsh your name—Bedford, butler—and I’ll pay you the money I owe you;” and he laughs his wild laugh, utterly unconscious of the effect he is producing. Bedford stands staring at him as pale as death. Poor Miss Prior is as white as marble. Wrath, terror, and wonder are in the countenances of the dowagers. It is an awful scene!

“Mr. Batchelor knows that it was to help my family I did it,” says the poor governess.

“Yes, by George! and nobody can say a word against her,” bursts in Dick Bedford, with a sob; “and she is as honest as any woman here!”

“And you knew that this person was on the stage, and you introduced her into my son’s family? Oh, Mr. Batchelor, Mr. Batchelor, I didn’t think it of you! Don’t speak to me, Miss!” cries the flurried Bonnington.

“You brought this woman to the children of my adored Cecilia?” calls out the other dowager. “Serpent, leave the room! Pack your trunks, viper! and quit the house this instant. Don’t touch her, Cissy. Come to me, my blessing. Go away, you horrid wretch!”

“She ain’t a horrid wretch; and when I was ill she was very good to us,” breaks in Pop, with a roar of tears: “and you shan’t go, Miss Prior—my dear, pretty Miss Prior. You shan’t go!” and the child rushes up to the governess, and covers her neck with tears and kisses.

“Leave her, Popham, my darling blessing!—leave that woman!” cries Lady Baker.

“I won’t, you old beast!—and she sha-a-ant go. And I wish you was dead—and, my dear, you shan’t go, and Pa shan’t let you!”—shouts the boy.

“O, Popham, if Miss Prior has been naughty, Miss Prior must go!” says Cecilia, tossing up her head.

“Spoken like my daughter’s child!” cries Lady Baker: and little Cissy, having flung her little stone, looks as if she had performed a very virtuous action.

But Bessy stooped down sadly, and kissed him. “Yes, I must, dear,” she said.

“Don’t touch him! Come away, sir! Come away from her this moment!” shrieked the two mothers.

“I nursed him through the scarlet fever, when his own mother would not come near him,” says Elizabeth, gently.

“I’m blest if she didn’t,” sobs Bedford—“and—bub—bub—bless you, Master Pop!”

“That child is wicked enough, and headstrong enough, and rude enough already!” exclaims Lady Baker. “I desire, young woman, you will not pollute him farther!”

“There’s very little the matter with Maxwell’s child—only teeth. What on earth has happened? My dear Lizzy—my dear Miss Prior—what is it?” cries the doctor, who enters from the garden at this juncture.

“Nothing has happened, only this young woman has appeared in a new character ,” says Lady Baker. “My son has just informed us that Miss Prior danced upon the stage, Mr. Drencher; and if you think such a person is a fit companion for your mothers and sisters, who attend a place of Christian worship, I believe—I wish you joy.”

“She’s as honest as any woman here,” calls out Bedford. “She gave all the money to her family.”

“It wasn’t fair not to tell me. It wasn’t fair,” sobs the doctor. And he gives her a ghastly parting look, and turns his back.

“I say, you—Hi! What-d’-you-call-’em? Sawbones!” shrieks out Captain Clarence. “Come back, I say. She’s all right, I say. Upon my honour, now, she’s all right.”

“Miss P. shouldn’t have kept this from me. My mother and sisters are dissenters, and very strict. I couldn’t ask a party into my family who has been—who has been——I wish you good morning,” says the doctor, and stalks away.

“And now, will you please to get your things ready and go, too,” continues Lady Baker. “My dear Mrs. Bonnington, you think——”

“Don’t go till Lovel comes home, Miss. These ain’t your mistresses. Lady Baker don’t pay your salary. If you go, I go, too. There!” calls out Bedford, and mumbles something in her ear about the end of the world.

“You go, too; and a good riddance, you insolent brute!” exclaims the dowager.

“I don’t know what the doose all the sherry—all the shinty’s about,” says the captain, playing with the empty decanter. “Gal’s a very good [661] gal—pretty gal. If she choosesh dansh shport her family, why the doosh shouldn’t she dansh shport a family?”

“That is exactly what I recommend this person to do,” says Lady Baker, tossing up her head. “And now I will thank you to leave the room. Do you hear?”

As poor Elizabeth obeyed this order, Bedford darted after her; and I know ere she had gone five steps he had offered her his savings and everything he had. She might have had mine yesterday. But she had deceived me. She had played fast and loose with me. She had misled me about this doctor. I could trust her no more. My love of yesterday was dead, I say. That vase was broke, which never could be mended. She knew all was over between us. She did not once look at me as she left the room.

The two dowagers—one of them, I think, a little alarmed at her victory—left the house, and for once went away in the same barouche. The young maniac who had been the cause of the mischief staggered away, I know not whither.

About four o’clock, poor little Pinhorn, the child’s maid, came to me, well nigh choking with tears, as she handed me a letter. “She’s goin’ away—and she saved both them children’s lives, she did. And she’ve wrote to you, sir. And Bedford’s a-goin’. And I’ll give warnin’, I will, too!” And the weeping handmaiden retires, leaving me, perhaps somewhat frightened, with the letter in my hand.

“Dear Sir,” she said—“I may write you a line of thanks and farewell. I shall go to my mother. I shall soon find another place. Poor Bedford, who has a generous heart, told me that he had given you a letter of mine to Mr. D. I saw this morning that you knew everything. I can only say now that for all your long kindnesses and friendship to my family I am always your sincere and grateful—E. P.”

Yes: that was all. I think she was grateful. But she had not been candid with me, nor with the poor surgeon. I had no anger: far from it: a great deal of regard and goodwill, nay admiration, for the intrepid girl who had played a long, hard part very cheerfully and bravely. But my foolish little flicker of love had blazed up and gone out in a day; I knew that she never could care for me. In that dismal, wakeful night, after reading the letter, I had thought her character and story over, and seen to what a life of artifice and dissimulation necessity had compelled her. I did not blame her. In such circumstances, with such a family, how could she be frank and open? Poor thing! poor thing! Do we know anybody? Ah! dear me, we are most of us very lonely in the world. You who have any who love you, cling to them, and thank God. I went into the hall towards evening: her poor trunks and packages were there, and the little nurserymaid weeping over them. The sight unmanned me; and I believe I cried myself. Poor Elizabeth! And with these small chests you recommence your life’s lonely voyage! I gave the girl a couple of sovereigns. She sobbed a God bless me! and burst [662] out crying more desperately than ever. Thou hast a kind heart, little Pinhorn!

“‘Miss Prior—to be called for.’ Whose trunks are these?” says Lovel, coming from the city. The dowagers drove up at the same moment.

“Didn’t you see us from the omnibus, Frederick?” cries her ladyship, coaxingly. “We followed behind you all the way!”

“We were in the barouche, my dear,” remarks Mrs. Bonnington, rather nervously.

“Whose trunks are these?—what’s the matter?—and what’s the girl crying for?” asks Lovel.

“Miss Prior going? Is this your doing, my Lady Baker?—or yours, mother?” the master of the house says, sternly.

“She is going, my love, because she cannot stay in this family,” says mamma.

“That woman is no fit companion for my angel’s children, Frederick!” cries Lady B.

“Clarence, love! come down, dear! Tell Mr. Lovel everything. Come down and tell him this moment,” cries Lady Baker to her son, who at this moment appears on the corridor which was round the hall.

“What’s the row now, pray?” And Captain Clarence descends, breaking his shins over poor Elizabeth’s trunks, and calling down on them his usual maledictions.

“Tell Mr. Lovel, where you saw that—that person, Clarence! Now, sir, listen to my Cecilia’s brother!”

“Saw her—saw her, in blue and spangles, in the Rose and the Bulbul , at the Prince’s Theatre—and a doosed nice-looking girl she was too!”—says the captain.

“Mercy! you ask, What then, Frederick? Do you know what a theatre is? Tell Frederick what a theatre is, Mr. Batchelor, and that my grandchildren must not be educated by——”

“My grandchildren—my Cecilia’s children,” shrieks the other, “must not be poll-luted by——”

“Silence!” I say. “Have you a word against her—have you, pray, Baker?”

“No. ’Gad! I never said a word against her,” says the captain. “No, hang me, you know—but——”

“But suppose I knew the fact the whole time?” asks Lovel, with rather a blush on his cheek. “Suppose I knew that she danced to give [663] her family bread? Suppose I knew that she toiled and laboured to support her parents, and brothers, and sisters? Suppose I know that out of her pittance she has continued to support them? Suppose I know that she watched my own children through fever and danger? For these reasons I must turn her out of doors, must I? No, by Heaven!—No!—Elizabeth!—Miss Prior!—Come down!—Come here, I beg you!”

The governess arrayed as for departure at this moment appeared on the corridor running round the hall. As Lovel continued to speak very loud and resolute, she came down looking deadly pale.

Still much excited, the widower went up to her and took her hand. “Dear Miss Prior!” he said—“dear Elizabeth! you have been the best friend of me and mine. You tended my wife in illness, you took care of my children in fever and danger. You have been an admirable sister, daughter in your own family—and for this, and for these benefits conferred upon us, my relatives—my mother-in-law—would drive you out of my doors! It shall not be!—by Heavens, it shall not be!”

You should have seen little Bedford sitting on the governess’s box, shaking his fist, and crying “Hurrah!” as his master spoke. By this time the loud voices and the altercation in the hall had brought a half-dozen of servants from their quarters into the hall. “Go away, all of you!” shouts Lovel; and the domestic posse retires, Bedford being the last to retreat, and nodding approval at his master as he backs out of the room.

“You are very good, and kind, and generous, sir,” says the pale Elizabeth, putting a handkerchief to her eyes. “But without the confidence of these ladies, I must not stay, Mr. Lovel. God bless you for your goodness to me. I must, if you please, return to my mother.”

The worthy gentleman looked fiercely round at the two elder women, and again seizing the governess’s hand, said—“Elizabeth! dear Elizabeth! I implore you not to go! If you love the children——”

“Oh, sir!” (A cambric veil covers Miss Prior’s emotion, and the expression of her face, on this ejaculation.)

“If you love the children,” gasps out the widower, “stay with them. If you have a regard for—for their father”—(Timanthes, where is thy pocket handkerchief?)—“remain in this house, with such a title as none can question. Be the mistress of it.”

“His mistress—and before me!” screams Lady Baker. “Mrs. Bonnington, this depravity is monstrous!”

“Be my wife! dear Elizabeth,” the widower continues. “Continue to watch over the children, who shall be motherless no more.”

“Frederick! Frederick! haven’t they got us ?” shrieks one of the old ladies.

And they both go down on their knees, and I heard a boohoo of a guffaw behind the green-baized servants’ door, where I have no doubt Mons. Bedford was posted.

“Ah! Batchelor, dear Batchelor, speak to him!” cries good Mrs. Bonny. “We are praying this child, Batchelor—this child whom you used to know at College, and when he was a good, gentle, obedient boy. You have influence with my poor Frederick. Exert it for his heart-broken mother’s sake; and you shall have my bubble-uble-essings, you shall.”

“Send for Doctor Straightwaist! Order him to pause in his madness,” cries Baker; “or it is I, Cecilia’s mother, the mother of that murdered angel, that shall go mad.”

“Angel! Allons , I say. Since his widowhood, you have never given the poor fellow any peace. You have been for ever quarrelling with him. You took possession of his house; bullied his servants, spoiled his children—you did, Lady Baker.”

“Sir,” cries her ladyship, “you are a low, presuming, vulgar man! Clarence, beat this rude man!”

“Nay,” I say, “there must be no more quarrelling to-day. And I am sure Captain Baker will not molest me. Miss Prior, I am delighted that my old friend should have found a woman of good sense, good conduct, good temper—a woman who has had many trials, and borne them with very great patience, to take charge of him, and make him happy. I congratulate you both. Miss Prior has borne poverty so well that I am certain she will bear good fortune, for it is good fortune to become the wife of such a loyal, honest, kindly gentleman as Frederick Lovel.”

After such a speech as that, I think I may say, liberavi animam . Not one word of complaint, you see, not a hint about “Edward,” not a single sarcasm, though I might have launched some terrific shots out of my quiver, and have made Lovel and his bride-elect writhe before me. But what is the need of spoiling sport? Shall I growl out of my sulky manger, because my comrade gets the meat? Eat it, happy dog! and be thankful. Would not that bone have choked me if I had tried it? Besides, I am accustomed to disappointment. Other fellows get the prizes which I try for. I am used to run second in the dreary race of love. Second? Psha! Third, Fourth. Que sçais-je? There was the Bombay captain in Bess’s early days. There was Edward. Here is Frederick. Go to, Charles Batchelor; repine not at fortune; but be content to be Batchelor still. My sister has children. I will be an uncle, a parent to them. Isn’t Edward of the scarlet whiskers distanced? Has not poor Dick Bedford lost the race—poor Dick, who never had a chance, and is the best of us all? Besides, what fun it is to see Lady Baker deposed: think of Mrs. Prior coming in and reigning over her! The purple-faced old fury of a Baker, never will she bully, and rage, and trample more. She must pack up her traps, [665] and be off. I know she must. I can congratulate Lovel, sincerely, and that’s the fact.

And here at this very moment, and as if to add to the comicality of the scene, who should appear but mother-in-law No. 2, Mrs. Prior, with her blue-coat boy and two or three of her children, who had been invited, or had invited themselves, to drink tea with Lovel’s young ones, as their custom was whenever they could procure an invitation. Master Prior had a fine “copy” under his arm, which he came to show to his patron Lovel. His mamma, entirely ignorant of what had happened, came fawning in with her old poke-bonnet, her old pocket, that vast depository of all sorts of stores, her old umbrella, and her usual dreary smirk. She made her obeisance to the matrons,—she led up her blue-coat boy to Mr. Lovel, in whose office she hoped to find a clerk’s place for her lad, on whose very coat and waistcoat she had designs whilst they were yet on his back: and she straightway began business with the dowagers—

“My lady, I hope your ladyship is quite well?” (a curtsey.) “Dear, kind Mrs. Bonnington! I came to pay my duty to you, mum. This is Louisa, my lady, the great girl for whom your ladyship so kindly promised the gown. And this is my little girl, Mrs. Bonnington, mum, please; and this is my big Blue. Go and speak to dear, kind Mr. Lovel, Gus, our dear good friend and protector,—the son and son-in-law of these dear ladies. Look, sir, he has brought his copy to show you; and it’s creditable to a boy of his age, isn’t it, Mr. Batchelor? You can say, who know so well what writing is, and my kind services to you, sir,—and—Elizabeth, Lizzie, my dear! where’s your spectacles, you—you——”

Here she stopped, and looking alarmed at the group, at the boxes, at the blushing Lovel, at the pale countenance of the governess, “Gracious goodness!” she said, “what has happened? Tell me, Lizzy, what is it?”

“Insolence, your ladyship? What—what is it? What are these boxes—Lizzy’s boxes? Ah!” the mother broke out with a scream, “you’ve not sent the poor girl away? Oh! my poor child—my poor children!”

The mother clasps her meagre hands. “It wasn’t the darling’s fault. It was to help her poor father in poverty. It was I who forced her to it. O ladies! ladies!—don’t take the bread out of the mouth of these poor orphans!”—and genuine tears rained down her yellow cheeks.

“Enough of this,” says Mr. Lovel, haughtily. “Mrs. Prior, your daughter is not going away. Elizabeth has promised to stay with me, and never to leave me—as governess no longer, but as—” and here he takes Miss Prior’s hand.

At this the old woman flung down her umbrella, and uttering a fine scream, folds Elizabeth in her arms, and then runs up to Lovel; “My son!” my son! says she (Lovel’s face was not bad, I promise you, at this salutation and salute). “Come here, children!—come, Augustus, Fanny, Louisa, kiss your dear brother, children! And where are yours, Lizzy? Where are Pop and Cissy? Go and look for your little nephew and niece, dears: Pop and Cissy in the schoolroom, or in the garden, dears. They will be your nephew and niece now. Go and fetch them, I say.”

As the young Priors filed off, Mrs. Prior turned to the two other matrons, and spoke to them with much dignity: “Most hot weather, your ladyship, I’m sure! Mr. Bonnington must find it very hot for preaching, Mrs. Bonnington! Lor! There’s that little wretch beating my Johnny on the stairs. Have done, Pop, sir! How ever shall we make those children agree, Elizabeth?”

Quick, come to me, some skillful delineator of the British dowager, and draw me the countenances of Lady Baker and Mrs. Bonnington!

“I call this a jolly game, don’t you, Batchelor, old boy?” remarks the captain to me. “Lady Baker, my dear, I guess your ladyship’s nose is out of joint.”

“O Cecilia—Cecilia! Don’t you shudder in your grave?” cries Lady B. “Call my people, Clarence—call Bulkeley—call my maid! Let me go, I say, from this house of horror!” and the old lady dashed into the drawing room, where she uttered, I know not what, incoherent shrieks and appeals before that calm, glazed, simpering portrait of the departed Cecilia.

Now this is a truth, for which I call Lovel, his lady, Mrs. Bonnington and Captain Clarence Baker, as witnesses. Well, then, whilst Lady B. was adjuring the portrait, it is a fact that a string of Cecilia’s harp—which has always been standing in the corner of the room under its shroud of Cordovan leather—a string, I say, of Cecilia’s harp cracked, and went off with a loud bong , which struck terror into all beholders. Lady Baker’s agitation at the incident was awful; I do not like to describe it—not having any wish to say anything tragic in this narrative—though that I can write tragedy, plays of mine (of which envious managers never could be got to see the merit) I think will prove, when they appear in my posthumous works.

Baker has always averred that at the moment when the harp-string broke, her heart broke too. But as she lived for many years, and may be alive now for what I know; and as she borrowed money repeatedly from Lovel—he must be acquitted of the charge which she constantly brings against him of hastening her own death, and murdering his first wife Cecilia. “The harp that once in Tara’s Halls” used to make such a piteous feeble thrumming, has been carted off I know not whither; and Cecilia’s portrait, though it has been removed from the post of honour (where, you [667] conceive, under present circumstances it would hardly be àpropos ) occupies a very reputable position in the pink room up-stairs, which that poor young Clarence inhabited during my visit to Shrublands.

All the house has been altered. There’s a fine organ in the hall, on which Elizabeth performs sacred music very finely. As for my old room, it would trouble you to smoke there under the present government. It is a library now, with many fine and authentic pictures of the Lovel family hanging up in it, the English branch of the house with the wolf crest, and Gare à la louve for the motto, and a grand posthumous portrait of a Portuguese officer (Gandish), Elizabeth’s late father.

As for dear old Mrs. Bonnington, she, you may be sure, would be easily reconciled to any live mortal who was kind to her, and any plan which should make her son happy; and Elizabeth has quite won her over. Mrs. Prior, on the deposition of the other dowagers, no doubt expected to reign at Shrublands, but in this object I am not very sorry to say was disappointed. Indeed, I was not a little amused, upon the very first day of her intended reign—that eventful one of which we have been describing the incidents—to see how calmly and gracefully Bessy pulled the throne from under her, on which the old lady was clambering.

Mrs. P. knew the house very well, and everything which it contained; and when Lady Baker drove off with her son and her suite of domestics, Prior dashed through the vacant apartments, gleaning what had been left in the flurry of departure—a scarlet feather out of the dowager’s room, a shirt stud and a bottle of hair-oil, the captain’s property. “And now they are gone, and as you can’t be alone with him, my dear, I must be with you,” says she, coming down to her daughter.

“And there is the pink room, and the blue room, and the yellow room for the boys—and the chintz boudoir for me—I can put them all away, oh, so comfortably!”

“I can come and share Louisa’s room, mamma,” says Bessy. “It will not be proper for me to stay here at all—until afterwards, you know. Or I can go to my uncle at St. Boniface. Don’t you think that will be best, eh, Frederick?”

“And I daresay there will be some little alterations made in the house. You talked, you know, of painting, Mr. Lovel; and the children can go to their grandmamma Bonnington. And on our return when the alterations are made we shall always be delighted to see you , Mr. Batchelor—our kindest old friend. Shall we not, a—Frederick?”

“Come, children, come to your teas,” calls out Mrs. P., in a resolute voice.

“Dear Pop, I’m not going away—that is, only for a few days, dear,” says Bessy, kissing the boy; “and you will love me, won’t you?”

“All right,” says the boy. But Cissy said, when the same appeal [668] was made to her: “I shall love my dear mamma!” and makes her new mother-in-law a very polite curtsey.

“I think you had better put off those men you expect to dinner to-morrow, Fred?” I say to Lovel.

“And when the children have had their tea I will go with mamma. My boxes are ready, you know,” says arch Bessy.

“And you will stay, and dine with Mr. Lovel, won’t you, Mr. Batchelor?” asks the lady.

It was the dreariest dinner I ever had in my life. No undertaker could be more gloomy than Bedford, as he served us. We tried to talk politics and literature. We drank too much, purposely. Nothing would do. “Hang me, if I can stand this, Lovel,” I said, as we sat mum over our third bottle. “I will go back, and sleep at my chambers. I was not a little soft upon her myself, that’s the truth. Here’s her health, and happiness to both of you, with all my heart.” And we drained a great bumper apiece, and I left him. He was very happy I should go.

Bedford stood at the gate, as the little pony-carriage came for me in the dusk. “God bless you, sir,” says he. “I can’t stand it; I shall go too.” And he rubbed his hands over his eyes.

He married Mary Pinhorn, and they have emigrated to Melbourne; whence he sent me, three years ago, an affectionate letter, and a smart gold pin from the diggings.

A month afterwards, a cab might have been seen driving from the Temple to Hanover Square: and a month and a day after that drive, an advertisement might have been read in the Post and Times : “Married, on Thursday, 10th, at St. George’s, Hanover Square, by the Reverend the Master of St. Boniface College, Oxbridge, uncle of the bride, Frederick Lovel, Esquire, of Shrublands, Roehampton, to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the late Captain Montagu Prior, K.S.F.”

We may hear of Lovel Married some other day, but here is an end of Lovel the Widower . Valete et plaudite , you good people, who have witnessed the little comedy. Down with the curtain; cover up the boxes; pop out the gas-lights. Ho! cab. Take us home, and let us have some tea, and go to bed. Good night, my little players. We have been merry together, and we part with soft hearts and somewhat rueful countenances, don’t we?

II.—“THE OMEN COMING ON.” [4]

I was set down at the great gate of Hilton Hall, in which I was to reside for some indefinite period as tutor to the children of Lord Hilton. I walked up the broad avenue, through the final arch of which, as through a huge Gothic window, I saw the hall in the distance. Everything was rich, lovely, and fairylike about me. Accustomed to the scanty flowers and diminutive wood of my own country, I looked upon all around me with a feeling of majestic plenty, which I can recall at will, but which I have never experienced again. Beyond the trees which formed the avenue, I saw a shrubbery, composed entirely of flowering plants, almost all strange to me. Issuing from the avenue, I found myself amid open, wide, lawny spaces, in which the flower-beds lay like islands of colour. A statue on a pedestal, the only white thing in the surrounding green of the lawn and the avenue, caught my eye. I had seen scarcely any sculpture; and this, attracting my attention by a favourite contrast of colour, retained it by its own beauty. It was a Dryad, or some nymph of the woods, who looked as if she had just glided from the solitude of the trees behind, and had sprung upon the pedestal to look wonderingly around her. A few large brown leaves lay beneath it, left there, no doubt, by the eddying around its base of some wind that had torn them from the trees behind. As I gazed, absorbed in a new pleasure, a drop of rain upon my face made me look up. From a gray fleecy cloud, with sun-whitened border, lo! a light, gracious, plentiful rain was falling. A rainbow sprang across the sky, and the statue stood within the rainbow. At the same moment, from the base of the pedestal, rose a figure in white, graceful as the Dryad above, and neither running, nor appearing to walk with rapid steps, glided swiftly past me at a few paces’ distance, fleet as a ghost; and, keeping in a straight line for the main entrance of the Hall, entered and vanished. All that I saw of her was, that she was young, very pale, and dressed in white.

I followed in the direction of the mansion, which was large, and of several styles and ages. One wing appeared especially ancient. It seemed neglected and out of repair, and had in consequence a desolate, almost sepulchral look, heightened by a number of large cypresses growing along its line. I went up to the central door and knocked. It was opened by a grave elderly butler. I passed under its flat arch, as if into the midst of the waiting events of my story. As I glanced around the hall, my consciousness was suddenly saturated, if I may be allowed the expression, with [671] that strange feeling—known to every one, and yet so strange—that I had seen it before; that, in fact, I knew it perfectly. But what was yet more strange, and far more uncommon, was, that, although the feeling with regard to the hall faded and vanished instantly, and although I could not in the least surmise the appearance of any of the regions into which I was about to be ushered, I yet followed the butler with a kind of indefinable expectation of seeing something which I had seen before; and every room or passage in that mansion affected me, on entering it for the first time, with the same sensation of previous acquaintance which I had experienced with regard to the hall. This sensation, in every case, died away at once, leaving that portion as strange both to eyes and mind as it might naturally be expected to look to one who had never before crossed the threshold of the hall. I was received by the housekeeper, a little prim benevolent old lady, with colourless face and antique head-dress, who led me to the room which had been prepared for me. To my surprise, I found a large wood fire burning on the hearth; but the feeling of the place revealed at once the necessity for it; and I scarcely needed to be informed that the room, which was upon the ground floor, and looked out upon a little solitary grass-grown and ivy-mantled court, had not been used for years, and required to be thus prepared for an inmate. The look of ancient mystery about it, was to me incomparably more attractive than any elegance or comfort of an ordinary kind. My bedroom was a few paces down a passage to the right.

Left alone, I proceeded to make a more critical survey of my room. It was large and low, panelled in oak throughout, which was black with age, and worm-eaten in many parts—otherwise entire. Both the windows looked into the little court or yard before mentioned. All the heavier furniture of the room was likewise of black oak, but the chairs and couches were covered with faded tapestry and tarnished gilding, and seemed to be the superannuated members of the general household of seats. I could give an individual description of each variety, for every atom in that room large enough to be possessed of discernible shape or colour seems branded into my brain. If I happen to have the least feverishness upon me, the moment I fell asleep, I am in that room.

When the bell rang for dinner, I found my way, though with difficulty, to the drawing-room, where were assembled Lady Hilton, a girl of about thirteen, and the two boys, my pupils. Lady Hilton would have been pleasant, could she have been as natural as she wished to appear. She received me with some degree of kindness; but the half-cordiality of her manner towards me was evidently founded on the impassableness of the gulf between us. I knew at once that we should never be friends; that she would never come down from the lofty tableland upon which she walked; and that if, after being years in the house, I should happen to be dying, she would send the housekeeper to me. All right, no doubt; I only say that it was so. She introduced to me my pupils; fine, open-eyed, manly English boys, with something a little [672] overbearing in their manner, which speedily disappeared in relation to me. They have so little to do with my tale, that I shall scarcely have occasion to mention them again. Lord Hilton was not at home. Lady Hilton led the way to the dining-room; the elder boy gave his arm to his sister, and I was about to follow with the younger; when from one of the deep bay windows glided out, still in white, the same figure which had passed me upon the lawn. I started, and drew back. With a slight bow, she preceded me, and followed the others down the great staircase. Seated at table, I had leisure to make my observations upon them all; but I must say most of my glances found their way to the lady who, twice that day, had affected me like an apparition. Alas! what was she ever to me but an apparition! What is time, but the airy ocean in which ghosts come and go! She was about twenty years of age, rather above the middle height, somewhat slight in form, with a complexion rather white than pale; her face being only less white than the deep marbly whiteness of her most lovely arms. Her eyes were large, and full of liquid night—a night throbbing with the light of invisible stars. Her hair seemed raven-black, and in quantity profuse. Lady Hilton called her Lady Alice; and she never addressed Lady Hilton but in the same ceremonious style.

I afterwards learned from the old housekeeper—who was very friendly, and used to sit with me sometimes of an evening when I invited her—that Lady Alice’s position in the family was a very peculiar one. Distantly connected with Lord Hilton’s family on the mother’s side, she was the daughter of the late Lord Glendarroch, and step-daughter to Lady Hilton, who had become Lady Hilton within a year after Lord Glendarroch’s death. Lady Alice, then quite a child, had accompanied her step-mother, to whom she was moderately attached, and who, perhaps, from the peculiarities of Lady Alice’s mind and disposition, had been allowed to retain undisputed possession of her. Probably, however, she had no near relatives, else the fortune reported to be at her disposal would most likely have roused contending claims to the right of guardianship. Although in many respects very kindly treated by her step-mother, the peculiarities to which I have already referred tended to an isolation from the family engagements and pleasures. Lady Alice had no accomplishments, and never could be taught any. She could neither sing, nor play, nor draw, nor dance. As for languages, she could neither spell, nor even read aloud, her own. Yet she seemed to delight in reading to herself, though, for the most part, what Mrs. Wilson characterized as very odd books. I knew her voice, when she spoke, had a quite indescribable music in it; and her habitual motion was more like a rhythmical gliding than an ordinary walk. Mrs. Wilson hinted at other and even more serious peculiarities, which she either could not, or would not describe; always shaking her head gravely and sadly, and becoming quite silent when I pressed her for further explanation; so that, at last, I gave up all attempts to arrive at an understanding of the [673] mystery, at least by her means. I could not, however, avoid speculating on the subject myself. One thing soon became evident to me: that she was considered by her family to be not merely deficient in the power of intellectual acquirement, but to be—intellectually considered—in a quite abnormal condition. Of this, however, I could see no signs: though there was a peculiarity, almost oddity in some of her remarks, which was evidently not only misunderstood, but misinterpreted with relation to her mental state. Such remarks Lady Hilton generally answered by an elongation of the lips intended to represent a smile. To me, they appeared to indicate a nature closely allied to genius, if not identical with it—a power of regarding things from an original point of view, which perhaps was the more unfettered in its operation from the fact that it was impossible for her to look at them in the ordinary commonplace way. It seemed to me sometimes as if her point of observation was outside of the sphere within which the thing observed took place; and as if what she said had sometimes a relation to things and thoughts and mental conditions familiar to her, but at which not even a definite guess could be made by me. With such utterances as these, however, I am compelled to acknowledge, now and then others mingled, silly enough for any drawing-room young lady; but they seemed to be accepted as proofs that she was not altogether out of her right mind. She was gentle and loving to her brothers and sister, and they seemed reasonably fond of her.

Taking my leave for the night, after making arrangements for commencing my instruction in the morning, I returned to my own room, intent upon completing with more minuteness the survey I had commenced in the morning: several cupboards in the wall, and one or two doors, apparently of closets, had especially attracted my attention. The fire had sunk low, and lay smouldering beneath the white ashes, like the life of the world beneath the snow, or the heart of a man beneath cold and gray thoughts. The room, instead of being brightened, when I lighted the candles which stood upon the table, looked blacker than before, for the light revealed its essential blackness.

Casting my eyes around me as I stood with my back to the hearth (on which, for mere companionship sake, I had heaped fresh wood), a slight shudder thrilled through all my frame. I felt as if, did it last a moment longer, I should be sufficiently detached from the body to become aware of a presence besides my own in the room; but happily for me it ceased before it reached that point; and I, recovering my courage, remained ignorant of the causes of my threatened fear, if any there were, other than the nature of the room itself. With a candle in one hand, I proceeded to open the various cupboards and closets. I found nothing remarkable in any of them. The latter were quite empty, except the last I came to, which had a piece of very old elaborate tapestry hanging at the back of it. Lifting this up, I perceived at first nothing more than a panelled wall, corresponding to those which formed the room; but on [674] looking more closely, I soon discovered that the back of the closet was, or had been, a door. There was nothing unusual in this, especially in such an old house; but it roused in me a strong curiosity to know what was behind it. I found that it was secured only by an ordinary bolt, the handle which had withdrawn it having been removed. Soothing my conscience with the reflection that I had a right to know what doors communicated with my room, I soon succeeded, by the help of my deer-knife, in forcing back the rusty bolt; and though from the stiffness of the hinges I dreaded a crack, they yielded at last. The opening door revealed a large waste hall, empty utterly, save of dust and cobwebs which festooned it in all quarters. The now familiar feeling, that I had seen it before, filled my mind in the first moment of seeing it, and passed away the next. A broad right-angled staircase of oak, with massive banisters, no doubt once brilliantly polished, rose from the middle of the hall. Of course this could not have originally belonged to the ancient wing which I had observed on my first approach to the hall, being much more modern; but I was convinced, from the observations I had made with regard to the situation of my room, that I was bordering upon, if not within, the oldest portion of the pile. In sudden horror, lest I should hear a light footfall upon the awful stair, I withdrew hurriedly, and having secured both the doors, betook myself to my bedroom; in whose dingy four-post bed, reminding me of a hearse with its carving and plumes, I was soon ensconced amidst the snowiest linen, with the sweetest and cleanest odour of lavender. In spite of novelty, antiquity, speculation, and dread, I was soon fast asleep; becoming thereby a fitter inhabitant of such regions than when I moved about with restless and disturbing curiosity in the midst of their ancient and death-like repose. I made no use of my discovered door for some time; not even although, in talking about the building to Lady Hilton, I found that I was at perfect liberty to ramble over the deserted portions as I pleased. I scarcely ever saw Lady Alice, except at dinner, or by accidental meeting in the grounds and passages of the house; and then she took the slightest possible notice of me—whether from pride or shyness, I could not tell.

I found the boys teachable, and therefore my occupation was pleasant. Their sister frequently came to me for help, as there happened to be just then an interregnum of governesses: soon she settled into a regular pupil.

In a few weeks, Lord Hilton returned. Though my room was so far from the great hall, I heard the clank of his spurs on its pavement. I trembled; for it suggested the sound of the broken shoe. But I shook off the influence in a moment, heartily ashamed of its power over me. Soon I became familiar enough both with the sound and its cause; for his lordship rarely went anywhere except on horseback, and was booted and spurred from morning till night. He received me with some appearance of interest, which instantly stiffened and froze. He began to shake hands with me as if he meant it, but immediately dropped my hand, as if it had [675] stung him. His nobility was of that sort which always seems to stand in need of repair. Like a weakly constitution, it required keeping up, and his lordship could not be said to neglect it; for he seemed to find his principal employment in administering to his pride almost continuous doses of obsequiousness. His rank, like a coat made for some large ancestor, hung loose upon him; and he was always trying to persuade himself that it was an excellent fit, but ever with an unacknowledged misgiving. This misgiving might have done him good, had he not met it with constantly revived efforts at looking that which he feared he was not. Yet this man, so far from being weak throughout, was capable of the utmost persistency in carrying out any scheme he had once devised. But enough of him for the present: I seldom came into contact with him.

I found many books to my mind in the neglected library of the hall. One night, I was sitting in my own room, devouring an old romance. It was late; my fire blazed brightly, but the candles were nearly burnt out, and I grew rather sleepy over the volume, romance as it was. Suddenly I found myself springing to my feet, and listening with an agony of intension. Whether I had heard anything, I could not tell; but it was in my soul as if I had. Yes: I was sure of it. Far away—somewhere in the great labyrinthine pile, I heard a voice, a faint cry. Without a moment’s reflection, as if urged by instinct, or some unfelt but operative attraction, I flew to the closet door, entered, lifted the tapestry, unfastened the inner door, and stood in the great echoing hall, amid the touches, light and ghostly, of the crowds of airy cobwebs set in motion by the storm of my sudden entrance.

A soiled moonbeam fell on the floor, and filled the place around it with an ancient, dream-like light, which seemed to work strangely on my brain,—filling it, too, as if it were but a sleepy deserted house, haunted by old dreams and memories. Recollecting myself, I re-entered my room, but the candles were both flickering in the sockets, and I was compelled to trust to the moonlight for guidance. I easily reached the foot of the staircase, and began to ascend: not a board creaked, not a banister shook—the whole seemed as solid as rock. I was compelled to grope, for here was no moonlight—only the light, through one window, of the moonlit sky and air. Finding at last no more stairs to ascend, I groped my way on, in some trepidation, I confess; for how should I find my way back? But then the worst result likely to ensue was, that I should have to spend the night without knowing where; for with the first glimmer of morning, I should be able to return to my room. At length, after wandering about, in and out of rooms, my hand fell on the latch of a door, on opening which, I entered a long corridor, with many windows on one side. Broad strips of moonlight lay slantingly across the narrow floor, with regular intervals of shade.

I started, and my heart grew thick, for I thought I saw a movement somewhere—I could neither tell where, nor of what: I only seemed to [676] have been aware of motion. I stood in the first shadow, and gazed, but saw nothing. I sped across the stream of light to the next shadow, and stood again, looking with fearful fixedness of gaze towards the far end of the corridor. Suddenly a white form glimmered and vanished. I crossed to the next shadow—again a glimmer and a vanishing, but nearer. Nerving myself with all my strength, I ceased my stealthy motion, and went straight forward, slowly but steadily. A tall form, apparently of a woman, dressed in a long white loose robe, emerged into one of the streams of light, threw its arms over its head, gave a wild cry—which, notwithstanding its wildness and force, sounded as if muffled by many intervening folds, either of matter or space—and fell at full length along the moonlight track. In the midst of the thrill of agony which shook me at the cry, as a sudden wind thrills from head to foot the leaves of a tree, I rushed forward, and kneeling beside the prostrate figure, soon discovered that, however unearthly the scream which had preceded her fall, it was, in reality, the Lady Alice. Again I trembled, but the tremor was not the same as that which preceded. I saw the fact in a moment: the Lady Alice was a somnambulist. Startled by the noise of my advance, she had awaked; and the usual terror and fainting had followed. She was cold and motionless as death. What was to be done? If I called aloud, the probability was that no one would hear me; or if any one should hear,—but I need not follow the train of thoughts that passed through my mind, as I fruitlessly tried to recover the poor girl. Suffice it to say, that I shrank most painfully, both for her sake and my own, from being found, by common-minded domestics, in such a situation, in the dead of the night.

While I knelt by her side, hesitating as to what I should do, a horror, as from the presence of death suddenly recognized—akin to that feeling which a child experiences when he looks up and sees that his mother, to whom he thought he had been talking for minutes past, is not in the room—fell upon me. I thought she must be dead. At the same moment, I heard, or seemed to hear (how should I know?) the rapid gallop of a horse, and the clank of a loose shoe.

In an agony of fear, which yet I cannot consider cowardice, I caught her up in my arms, and as one carries a sleeping child, sped with her towards that end of the corridor whence I had come. Her head hung back over my arm, and her hair, which had got loose, trailed on the ground. As I fled, I trampled upon it and stumbled. She moaned, and I shuddered. That instant the gallop ceased. Somewhat relieved, I lifted her up across my shoulder, and carried her more easily. How I found my way to the stairs I cannot tell. I know that I groped about for some time, like one in a dream with a ghost in his arms; but at last I reached it, and descending, entered my room, laid her upon one of the old couches, secured the doors, and began to breathe—and think. The first thing that suggested itself was, to try to make her warm—she was so ice-cold. I covered her with my plaid and my [677] dressing-gown, pulled the couch near the fire, and considered what to do next.

But while I hesitated, Nature had her own way, and Lady Alice opened her eyes with a deep-drawn sigh. Never shall I forget the look of mingled bewilderment, alarm, and shame, with which her great dark eyes met mine. In a moment her expression changed to anger. Her eyes flashed; a cloud of roseate wrath grew in her face, till it glowed with the opaque red of a camellia; and she all but started from the couch to her feet. Apparently, however, she discovered the unsuitableness of her dress, for she checked her impetuosity, and remained leaning on her elbow. After a moment’s pause, in which, overcome by her anger, her beauty, and my own confusion, I knelt before her, unable to speak, or to withdraw my eye from hers, she began to question me like a queen, and I to reply like a culprit.

“’Tis impossible. I see. Your prying and my infirmity have brought this disgrace upon me.”

“Why did you not leave me where I suppose I fell? You had done enough to injure me by discovering my weakness, without rudely breaking my trance, and, after that, taking advantage of the consequences to bring me here.”

Now I found words. “Lady Alice, how could I leave you lying in the moonlight? Before the sun rose, the terrible moon might have distorted your beautiful face.”

“And the wind, Lady Alice, was blowing through the corridor windows, keen and cold, as if it were sister-spirit of the keen and cold moonlight. How could I leave you?”

“I knew not whom I should rouse, if any one. And forgive me, Lady Alice, if I erred in thinking you would rather command the silence of a gentleman to whom an evil accident had revealed your secret, than be exposed to the domestics whom a call for help might have gathered round us.”

“But, besides, Lady Alice,” I cried, springing to my feet, in distress, “I heard the horse with the clanking shoe, and I caught you up in terror [678] and fled with you, almost before I knew what I did. And I hear it now—I hear it now!”

The angry glow faded from her face, and the paleness grew almost ghastly with dismay.

“Do you hear it!” she said, throwing back the coverings I had laid over her, and rising from the couch. “I do not.”

She stood listening, with wide distended eyes, as if they were the gates by which such sounds could enter.

“I do not hear it,” she said, after a pause; “it must be gone now.” Then, turning towards me, she laid her hand on my arm, and looked at me. Her black hair, disordered and entangled, wandered all over her white robe down to her knees. Her face was paler than ever, and she fixed her dark eyes on mine, so wide open that I could see the white all round the unusually large iris.

“Did you hear it? No one ever heard it before but me. I must forgive you—you could not help it. I will trust you too. Help me to my room.”

Without a word of reply, I took my plaid and wrapped it about her; prevailed upon her to put on a pair of slippers which I had never worn; and, opening the doors, led her out of the room, aided by the light of my bedroom candle.

“How is this? Why do you take me this way! I do not know this part of the house in the least.”

“This is the way I brought you in, Lady Alice; and I can promise to find your way no farther than to the spot where I found you. Indeed, I shall have some difficulty even in that, for I groped my way there for the first time this night or morning—whichever it may be.”

“It is past midnight, but not morning yet,” she replied; “I always know by my sensations. But there is another way from your room, of course?”

“There is; but we should have to pass the housekeeper’s door, and she sleeps but lightly.”

“Are we near the housekeeper’s room? Perhaps I could walk alone. I fear it would surprise none of the household to see, or even to meet me. They would say—‘It is only Lady Alice.’ Yet I cannot tell you how I shrink from being seen by them. No—I will try the way I came, if you do not mind accompanying me.”

This conversation passed between us in hurried words, and in a low tone. It was scarcely finished when we found ourselves at the foot of the staircase. Lady Alice trembled a good deal, and drew my plaid close around her. We ascended, and with little difficulty found the corridor. When we left it, she was, as I had expected, rather bewildered as to the right direction; but at last, after looking into several of the rooms, empty all, except for stray articles of ancient furniture, she said, as she entered one, and, taking the candle out of my hand, held it above her head—

By the dim light I caught only a darkling glimpse of a large room, apparently quite furnished; but how, except from the general feeling of antiquity and mustiness, I could not tell. Little did I think then what memories—sorrowful and old now as the ghosts that along with them haunt that old chamber, but no more faded than they—would ere long find their being and take their abode in that ancient room, to forsake it never, never more—the ghosts and the memories flitting together through the spectral moonlight, and weaving strange mystic dances in and out of the storied windows and the tapestried walls. At the door of this room she expressed her wish to leave me, asking me to follow to the spot where she should put down the light, that I might take it back; adding—“I hope you are not afraid of being left so near the haunted room.” Then, with a smile that made me strong enough to meet all the ghosts in or out of Hades, she turned, went on a few paces, and disappeared. The light, however, remained; and, advancing, I found the candle, with my plaid and slippers, deposited on the third or fourth step down a short flight, in a passage at right angles to that she had left. I took them up, made my way back to my room, lay down on the couch on which she had lain so shortly before, and neither went to bed nor slept that night. Before the morning I had fully entered that phase of individual development commonly called love ; of which the real nature is as great a mystery to me now, as at any period previous to its evolution in myself.

I will not linger on the weary fortnight that passed before I even saw her again. I could teach, but not learn. My duties were not irksome to me, because they kept me near her; but my thoughts were beyond my control. It was not love only, but anxiety also, lest she were ill from the adventures of that night, that caused my distress. As the days went on, and no chance word about her reached me, I felt the soul within me beginning to droop. In vain, at night, I tried to read, in my own room. Nothing could fix my attention. I read and re-read the same page again and again; but although I seemed to understand every word and phrase as I read, I found when I had reached the close of the paragraph, that there lingered in my mind no ghost of the idea embodied in the words. It was just what one experiences in attempting to read when half-asleep. I tried Euclid, and fared a little better with that. A very simple equation I found I could manage, but when I attempted a more complex one—one in which a little imagination, or something bordering upon it, was necessary to find out the undefined object for which to substitute the unknown symbol, that it might be dealt with by thought—I found that the necessary power of concentrating was itself a missing factor.

But it is foolish to dwell upon an individual variety of an almost universal stage in the life-fever.

One night, as I sat in my room, I found, as usual, that it was impossible to read; and throwing the book aside, relapsed into that sphere of thought which now filled my soul, having for its centre the Lady Alice. I recalled her form as she lay on the couch, and a longing to see her, almost unbearable, arose within me.

In the confluence of idleness, distraction, and vehement desire, I found myself, before I knew what I was about, concentrating and intensifying within me, until it almost rose to a command, the operative volition (if I may be allowed the phrase) that Lady Alice should come to me. Suddenly I trembled at the sense of a new power which sprang into being within me. I had not foreseen it, when I gave way to such extravagant and apparently helpless wishes. I now actually awaited the fulfilment of my desire, but in a condition ill fitted to receive it; for the effort had already exhausted me to such a degree, that every nerve seemed in a conscious tremor. Nor had I to wait long. I heard no sound of approach. The closet-door in my room folded back, and in glided, open-eyed, but sightless, pale as death, and clad in white, ghostly-pure and saint-like, the Lady Alice. I shuddered from head to foot at what I had done. She was more terrible to me in that moment, than any pale-eyed ghost could have been. She passed me, walking round the table at which I was seated, went to the couch, laid herself upon it, a little on one side, with her face towards me, and gradually closed her eyes. She lay in something deeper than sleep, and yet not death. I rose, and once more knelt beside her, but dared not touch her. In what far realms of mysterious life might the lovely soul be straying? Thoughts unutterable rose in me, culminated, and sank like the stars of heaven, as I gazed on the present symbol of an absent life—a life that I loved by means of the symbol; a symbol that I loved because of the life. How long she lay thus, how long I gazed upon her thus, I do not know.

Gradually, but without my being able to distinguish the gradations of the change, her countenance altered to that of one who sleeps. But the change did not end there. The slightest possible colour tinged her lips, and deepened to a pale rose; then her cheek seemed to share in the hue, then her brow and her neck, as the cloud the farthest from the sunset yet acknowledges the rosy atmosphere. I watched, as it were, the dawn of a soul on the horizon of the material. As I watched, the first approaches of its far-off flight were manifest; and I saw it come nearer and nearer, till its great, silent, speeding pinions were folded, and it looked forth, a calm, beautiful, infinite woman, from the face and form sleeping beside me. But the world without entering, ruffled its calmness, dimmed its beauty, and dashed its sky with the streaks of earthly vapours. I knew that she was awake for some moments before she opened her eyes. When at last those depths of darkness disclosed themselves, slowly uplifting their white cloudy portals, the same consternation [681] she had manifested on the former occasion, followed by yet greater anger, was the consequence.

“Yet again! Am I your slave, because I am weak?” She rose in the majesty of wrath, and moved towards the door.

“Lady Alice, I have not touched you. Yet I am to blame, though not as you think. Could I help longing to see you? And if the longing passed, ere I was aware, into a will that you should come, and you obeyed it, forgive me.”

I hid my face in my hands, overcome by conflicting emotions. A kind of stupor came over me. When, recovering, I lifted my head, she was standing by the closet-door.

“Do not utter it, Lady Alice. I know what it is; and I give you my word and solemn promise that I will never do so again.” She thanked me, smiled most sweetly, and vanished.

What nights I had after this, in watching and striving lest unawares I should be led to the exercise of my new power! I allowed myself to think of her as much as I pleased in the daytime, or at least as much as I dared; for when occupied with my pupils, I dreaded lest any abstraction should even hint that I had a thought to conceal. I knew that I could not hurt her then; for that only in the night did she enter that state of existence in which my will could exercise authority over her. But at night—at night—when I knew she lay there, and might be lying here; when but a thought would bring her, and that thought was fluttering its wings, ready to wake from the dreams of my heart; then the struggle was fearful. “Bring her yet once, and tell her all—tell her how madly, hopelessly you love her—she will forgive you,” said a voice within me; but I heard it as the voice of the tempter, and kept down the thought which might have grown to the will.

FOOTNOTES

[4] Hamlet , Act 1, Scene i.

CHAPTER VI.

Every organism a colony—What is a paradox?—An organ is an independent individual, and a dependent one—A branch of coral—A colony of polypes—The Siphonophora—Universal dependence—Youthful aspirings—Our interest in the youth of great men—Genius and labour—Cuvier’s college life; his appearance in youth; his arrival in Paris—Cuvier and Geoffrey St. Hilaire—Causes of Cuvier’s success—One of his early ambitions—M. le Baron— Omnia vincit labor —Conclusion.

That an animal Organism is made up of several distinct organs, and these the more numerous in proportion to the rank of the animal in the scale of beings, is one of those familiar facts which have their significance concealed from us by familiarity. But it is only necessary to express this fact in language slightly altered, and to say that an animal Organism is made up of several distinct individuals , and our attention is at once arrested. Doubtless, it has a paradoxical air to say so; but Natural History is full of paradoxes; and you are aware that a paradox is far from being necessarily an absurdity, as some inaccurate writers would lead us to suppose: the word meaning simply, “contrary to what is thought,”—a meaning by no means equivalent to “contrary to what is the fact.” It is paradoxical to call an animal an aggregate of individuals; but it is so because our thoughts are not very precise on the subject of individuality—one of the many abstractions which remain extremely vague. To justify this application of the word individual to every distinct organ would be difficult in ordinary speech, but in philosophy there is ample warrant for it.

An organ, in the physiological sense, is an instrument whereby certain functions are performed. In the morphological sense, it arises in a differentiation , or setting apart, of a particular portion of the body for the performance of particular functions—a group of cells, instead of being an exact repetition of all the other cells, takes on a difference and becomes distinguished from the rest as an organ. [5]

Combining these two meanings, we have the third, or philosophical sense of the word, which indicates that every organ is an individual existence, dependent more or less upon other organs for its maintenance and activity, yet biologically distinct. I do not mean that the heart will live independent of the body—at least, not for long, although it does continue [683] to live and manifest its vital activity for some time after the animal’s death; and, in the cold-blooded animals, even after removal from the body. Nor do I mean that the legs of an animal will manifest vivacity after amputation; although even the legs of a man are not dead for some time after amputation; and the parts of some of the lower animals are often vigorously independent. Thus I have had the long tentacles of a Terebella (a marine worm) living and wriggling for a whole week after amputation. [6] In speaking of the independence of an organ, I must be understood to mean a very dependent independence: because, strictly speaking, absolute independence is nowhere to be found; and, in the case of an organ, it is of course dependent on other organs for the securing, preparing, and distributing of its necessary nutriment. The tentacles of my Terebella could find no nutriment, and they perished from the want of it, as the Terebella itself would have perished under like circumstances. The frog’s heart now beating on our table with such regular systole and diastole, as if it were pumping the blood through the living animal, gradually uses up all its force; and since this force is not replaced, the beatings gradually cease. A current of electricity will awaken its activity, for a time; but, at last, every stimulus will fail to elicit a response. The heart will then be dead, and decomposition will begin.

Dependent, therefore, every organ must be on some other organs. Let us see how it is also independent; and for this purpose we glance, as usual, at the simpler forms of Life to make the lesson easier. Here is a branch of coral, which you know to be in its living state a colony of polypes. Each of these multitudinous polypes is an individual, and each exactly resembles the other. But the whole colony has one nutritive fluid in common. They are all actively engaged in securing food, and the labours of each enrich all. It is animal Socialism of the purest kind—there are no rich and no poor, neither are there any idlers. Formerly, the coral-branch was regarded as one animal—an individual; and a tree was and is commonly regarded as one plant—an individual. But no zoologist now is unaware of the fact that each polype on the branch is a distinct individual, in spite of its connections with the rest; and philosophic botanists are agreed that the tree is a colony of individual plants—not one plant.

Let us pass from the coral to the stem of some other polype, say a Campanularia. Here is the representation of such a stem, of the natural [684] size, and beside it a tiny twig much magnified. You observe the ordinary polype issuing from one of the capsules, and expanding its coronal of tentacles in the water. The food it secures will pass along the digestive tract to each of the other capsules. Under the microscope, you may watch this oscillation of the food. But your eye detects a noticeable difference between this polype in its capsule, and the six semi-transparent masses in the second capsule: although the two capsules are obviously identical, they are not the same: a differentiation has taken place. Perhaps you think that six polypes are here crowding into one capsule? Error! If you watch with patience, or if you are impatient yet tolerably dexterous, you may press these six masses out, and then will observe them swim away, so many tiny jelly-fish. Not polypes at all, but jelly-fish, are in this capsule: and these in due time will produce polypes, like that one now waving its tentacles.

Having made this observation, it will naturally occur to you that the polype stem which bore such different capsules as are represented by these two, may perhaps be called a colony, but it is a colony of different individuals. While they have all one skeleton in common, nutrition in common, and respiration in common, they have at least one differentiation, or setting apart for a particular purpose, and that is, the reproductive capsule. This is an individual, as much as any of the others, but it is an individual that does nothing for the general good; it takes upon itself the care of the race, and becomes an “organ” for the community; the others feed it, and it is absolved from the labour of nutrition, as much as the arm or the brain of a man are.

From this case, let us pass to the group of jelly-fish called Siphonophora (siphonbearers) by naturalists, and we shall see this union of very different individualities into one inseparable colony still more strikingly exhibited: there are distinct individuals to feed the colony, individuals to float it through the water, individuals to act as feelers, and to keep certain parts distended with fluid, and finally reproductive individuals. All these are identical in origin, and differ only by slight differentiations. [7] Here we have obviously an approach to the more complex organism in which various distinct organs perform the several functions; only no one calls the Organism a colony.

The individuals composing one of these Siphonophora are so manifestly analogous to organs, that their individuality may, perhaps, be disputed, the more so as they do not live separately. But the gradations of separation are very fine. You would never hesitate to call a bee, or an ant, an individual, yet no bee or ant could exist if separated from its colony. So great is “the physiological division of labour,” which has taken place among these insects, that one cannot get food, another cannot feed itself, but it will fight for [685] the community; another cannot work, but it will breed for the community; another cannot breed, but it will work. Each of these is little more than separated organs of the great insect-Organism; as the heart, stomach, and brain are united organs of the human-Organism. Remove one of these insects from the community, and it will soon perish, for its life is bound up with the whole.

We are dependent on the air, the earth, the sunlight, the flowers, the plants, the animals, and all created things, directly or indirectly. Nor is the moral dependence less than the physical. We cannot isolate ourselves if we would. The thoughts of others, the sympathies of others, the needs of others,—these too make up our life; without these we should quickly perish.

It was a dream of the youth Cuvier, that a History of Nature might be written which would systematically display this universal interdependence. I know few parts of biography so interesting as those which show us great men in their early aspirings, when dreams of achievements vaster than the world has seen, fill their souls with energy to achieve the something they do afterwards achieve. It is, unhappily, too often but the ambition of youth we have to contemplate; and yet the knowledge that after-life brought with it less of hope, less of devotion, and less of generous self-sacrifice, renders these early days doubly interesting. Let the abatement of high hopes come when it may, the existence of an aspiration is itself important. I have been lately reading over again the letters of Cuvier when an obscure youth, and they have given me quite a new feeling with regard to him.

There is a good reason why novels always end with the marriage of the hero and heroine: our interest is always more excited by the struggles, than by the results of victory. So long as the lovers are unhappy, or apart, and are eager to vanquish obstacles, our sympathy is active; but no sooner are they happy, than we begin to look elsewhere, for other strugglers on whom to bestow our interest. It is the same with biography. We follow the hero through the early years of struggle with intense interest, and as long as he remains unsuccessful, baffled by rivals or neglected by the world, we stand by him and want him to succeed; but the day after he is recognized by the world our sympathy begins to slacken.

It is this which gives Cuvier’s Letters to Pfaff [8] their charm. I confess that, M. le Baron Cuvier, administrator, politician, academician, professor, dictator, has always had but a very tepid interest for me; probably because his career early became a continuous success, and Europe [686] heaped rewards upon him; whereas, his unsuccessful rival, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, claims my sympathy to the close. If, however, M. le Baron is a somewhat dim figure in my biographical gallery, it is far otherwise with the youth Cuvier, as seen in his letters; and, as at this present moment there is nothing under our Microscope which can seduce us from the pleasant volume, suppose we let our “Studies” take a biographical direction.

“Genius,” says Carlyle, “means transcendent capacity for taking trouble, first of all.” There are many young gentlemen devoutly persuaded of their own genius, and yet candidly avowing their imperfect capacity for taking trouble, who will vehemently protest against this doctrine. Without discussing it here, let us say that genius, or no genius, success of any value is only to be purchased by immense labour; and in science, assuredly, no one will expect success without first paying this price. In Cuvier’s history may be seen what “capacity for taking trouble” was required before his success could be achieved; and this gives these Lettres à Pfaff a moral as well as an interest.

It was in the Rittersaal of the Academia Carolina of Stuttgardt that Pfaff, the once famous supporter of Volta, and in 1787, the fellow-student of Cuvier, first became personally acquainted with him. Although they had been three years together at the same university, the classification of students there adopted had prevented any personal acquaintance. Pupils were admitted at the age of nine, and commenced their studies with the classic languages. Thence they passed to the philosophical class, and from that they went to one of the four faculties: Law, Medicine, Administration, and Military Science. Each faculty, of course, was kept distinct; and as Pfaff was studying philosophy at the time Cuvier was occupied with the administrative sciences, they never met, the more so as the dormitories and hours of recreation were different. The academy was organized on military principles. The three hundred students were divided into six classes, two of which comprised the nobles, and the other four the bourgeoisie. Each of these classes had its own dormitory, and was placed under the charge of a captain, a lieutenant, and two inferior officers. These six classes in which the students were entered according to their age, size, and time of admission, were kept separate in their recreations, as in their studies. But those of the students who particularly distinguished themselves in the public examinations were raised to the rank of knights, and had a dormitory to themselves, besides dining at the same table with the young princes who were then studying at the university. Pfaff and Cuvier were raised to this dignity at the same time, and here commenced their friendship.

What a charm there is in school friendships, when youth is not less eager to communicate its plans and hopes, than to believe in the plans and hopes of others; when studies are pursued in common, opinions frankly interchanged, and the superiority of a friend is gladly acknowledged, even becoming a source of pride, instead of being, as in after [687] years, a thorn in the side of friendship! This charm was felt by Cuvier and Pfaff, and a small circle of fellow-students who particularly devoted themselves to Natural History. They formed themselves into a society, of which Cuvier drew up the statutes and became the president. They read memoirs, and discussed discoveries with all the gravity of older societies, and even published, among themselves, a sort of Comptes Rendus . They made botanical, entomological, and geological excursions; and, still further to stimulate their zeal, Cuvier instituted an Order of Merit, painting himself the medallion: it represented a star, with the portrait of Linnæus in the centre, and between the rays various treasures of the animal and vegetable world. And do you think these boys were not proud when their president awarded them this medal for some happy observation of a new species, or some well-considered essay on a scientific question?

At this period Cuvier’s outward appearance was as unlike M. le Baron, as the grub is unlike the butterfly. Absorbed in his multifarious studies, he was careless about disguising the want of elegance in his aspect. His face was pale, very thin, and long, covered with freckles, and encircled by a shock of red hair. His physiognomy was severe and melancholy. He never played at any of the boys’ games, and seemed as insensible of all that was going on around him as a somnambulist. His eye seemed turned inwards; his thoughts moved amid problems and abstractions. Nothing could exceed the insatiable ardour of his intellect. Besides his special administrative studies, he gave himself to Botany, Zoology, Philosophy, Mathematics, and the history of literature. No work was too voluminous, or too heavy for him. He was reading all day long, and a great part of the night. “I remember well,” says Pfaff, “how he used to sit by my bedside going regularly through Bayle’s Dictionary. Falling asleep over my own book, I used to awake, after an hour or two, and find him motionless as a statue, bent over Bayle.” It was during these years that he laid the basis of that extensive erudition which distinguished his works in after life, and which is truly remarkable when we reflect that Cuvier was not in the least a bookworm, but was one of the most active workers , drawing his knowledge of details from direct inspection whenever it was possible, and not from the reports of others. It was here also that he preluded to his success as a professor, astonishing his friends and colleagues by the clearness of his exposition, which he rendered still more striking by his wonderful mastery with the pencil. One may safely say that there are few talents which are not available in Natural History; a talent for drawing is pre-eminently useful, since it not only enables a man to preserve observations of fugitive appearances, but sharpens his faculty of observation by the exercise it gives. Cuvier’s facile pencil was always employed: if he had nothing to draw for his own memoirs, or those of his colleagues, he amused himself with drawing insects as presents to the young ladies of his acquaintance—an entomologist’s gallantry, which never became more sentimental.

In 1788, that is in his nineteenth year, Cuvier quitted Stuttgardt, and became tutor in a nobleman’s family in Normandy, where he remained till 1795, when he was discovered by the Abbé Tessier, who wrote to Parmentier, “I have just found a pearl in the dunghill of Normandy;” to Jussieu he wrote—“Remember it was I who gave Delambre to the academy; in another department this also will be a Delambre.” Geoffroy St. Hilaire, already professor at the Jardin des Plantes, though younger than Cuvier, was shown some of Cuvier’s manuscripts, which filled him with such enthusiasm that he wrote to him, “Come and fill the place of Linnæus here; come and be another legislator of natural history.” Cuvier came, and Geoffroy stood aside to let his great rival be seen.

Goethe, as I have elsewhere remarked, has noticed the curious coincidence of the three great zoologists successively opening to their rivals the path to distinction: Buffon called Daubenton to aid him; Daubenton called Geoffroy; and Geoffroy called Cuvier. Goethe further notices that there was the same radical opposition in the tendencies of Buffon and Daubenton as in those of Geoffroy and Cuvier—the opposition of the synthetical and the analytical mind. Yet this opposition did not prevent mutual esteem and lasting regard. Geoffroy and Cuvier were both young, and had in common ambition, love of science, and the freshness of unformed convictions. For, alas! it is unhappily too true, that just as the free communicativeness of youth gives place to the jealous reserve of manhood, and the youth who would only be too pleased to tell all his thoughts and all his discoveries to a companion, would in after years let his dearest friend first see a discovery in an official publication; so, likewise, in the early days of immature speculation, before convictions have crystalized enough to present their sharp angles of opposition, friends may discuss and interchange ideas without temper. Geoffroy and Cuvier knew no jealousy then. In after years it was otherwise.

Geoffroy had a position—he shared it with his friend; he had books and collections—they were open to his rival; he had a lodging in the museum—it was shared between them. Daubenton, older and more worldly wise, warned Geoffroy against this zeal in fostering a formidable rival; and one day placed before him a copy of Lafontaine open at the fable of The Bitch and her Neighbour . But Geoffroy was not to be daunted, and probably felt himself strong enough to hold his own. And so the two happy, active youths pursued their studies together, wrote memoirs conjointly, discussed, dissected, speculated together, and “never sat down to breakfast without having made a fresh discovery,” as Cuvier said, truly enough, for to them every step taken was a discovery.

Cuvier became almost immediately famous on his arrival at Paris, and his career henceforward was one uninterrupted success. Those who wish to gain some insight into the causes of this success should read the letters to Pfaff, which indicate the passionate patience of his studies during the years 1788-1795, passed in obscurity on the Norman coast. Every animal he can lay hands on is dissected with the greatest care, and [689] drawings are made of every detail of interest. Every work that is published of any note in his way is read, analyzed, and commented on. Lavoisier’s new system of chemistry finds in him an ardent disciple. Kielmeyer’s lectures open new vistas to him. The marvels of marine life, in those days so little thought of, he studies with persevering minuteness, and with admirable success. He dissects the cuttlefish, and makes his drawings of it with its own ink. He notes minute characters with the patience of a species-monger, whose sole ambition is to affix his name to some trifling variation of a common form; yet with this minuteness of detail he unites the largeness of view necessary to a comparative anatomist.

“Your reflections on the differences between animals and plants,” he writes, “in the passage to which I previously referred, will be the more agreeable to me because I am at present working out a new plan of a general natural history. I think we ought carefully to seek out the relation of all existences with the rest of nature, and above all, to show their part in the economy of the great All. In this work I should desire that the investigator should start from the simplest things, such as air and water, and after having spoken of their influence on the whole, he should pass gradually to the compound minerals, from these to plants, and so on; and that at each stage he should ascertain the exact degree of composition, or, which is the same thing, the number of properties it presents over and above those of the preceding stage, the necessary effects of these properties, and their usefulness in creation. Such a work is yet to be executed. The two works of Aristotle, De Historia Animalium , and De Partibus Animalium , which I admire more each time that I read them, contain a part of what I desire, namely, the comparison of species, and many of the general results. It is, indeed, the first scientific essay at a natural history. For this reason it is necessarily incomplete, contains many inaccuracies, and is too far removed from a knowledge of physical laws.” He passes on from Aristotle to Pliny, Theophrastus, Discorides, Aldovrandus, Gesner, Gaspar Bauhin, and Ray, rapidly sketching the history of natural history as a science; and concluding with this criticism on these attempts at a nomenclature which neglected real science:—“These are the dictionaries of natural history; but when will the language be spoken?”

No one who reads these letters attentively, will be surprised at the young Cuvier’s taking eminent rank among the men of science in France; and Pfaff, on arriving in Paris six years afterwards, found his old fellow-student had become “a personage.” The change in Cuvier’s appearance was very striking. He was then at his maturity, and might pass for a handsome man. His shock of red hair was now cut and trimmed in Parisian style; his countenance beamed with health and satisfaction; his expression was lively and engaging; and although the slight tinge of melancholy which was natural to him had not wholly disappeared, yet the fire and vivacity of his genius overcame it. His dress was that of the [690] fashion of the day, not without a little affectation. Yet his life was simple, and wholly devoted to science. He had a lodging in the Jardin des Plantes, and was waited on by an old housekeeper, like any other simple professor.

On Pfaff’s subsequent visit, things were changed. Instead of the old housekeeper, the door was opened by a lackey in grand livery. Instead of asking for “Citizen Cuvier,” he inquired for Monsieur Cuvier; whereupon, the lackey politely asked, whether he wished to see M. le Baron Cuvier, or M. Fréderic, his brother? “I soon found where I was,” continues Pfaff. “It was the baron, separated from me by that immense interval of thirty years, and by those high dignities which an empire offers to the ambition of men.” He found the baron almost exclusively interested in politics, and scarcely giving a thought to science. The “preparations” and “injections” which Pfaff had brought with him from Germany, as a present to Cuvier, were scarcely looked at, and were set aside with an indifferent “that’s good,” and “very fine;” much to Pfaff’s distress, who doubtless thought the fate of the Martignac ministry an extremely small subject of interest compared with these injections of the lymphatics.

But it is not my purpose to paint Cuvier in his later years. It is to the studies of his youth that I would call your attention, to read there, once again, the important lesson that nothing of any solid value can be achieved without entire devotion. Nothing is earned without sweat of the brow. Even the artist must labour intensely. What is called “inspiration” will create no works, but only irradiate works with felicitous flashes; and even inspiration mostly comes in moments of exaltation produced by intense work of the mind. In science, incessant and enlightened labour is necessary, even to the smallest success. Labour is not all; but without it, genius is nothing.

With this homily, dear reader, may be closed our First Series of Studies; to be resumed hereafter, let me hope, with as much willingness on your part as desire to interest you on mine.

FOOTNOTES

[5] See on this point what was said in our first Chapter, No. I. p. 67.

[6] Seaside Studies , 2nd edit. p. 59, sq.

[7] Compare Leuckart : Ueber den Polymorphismus der Individuen . Gegenbaur : Grundzüge der Vergleichende Anatomie ; and Huxley ’s splendid monograph on the Oceanic Hydrozoa , published by the Ray Society.

[8] Lettres de Georges Cuvier à C. M. Pfaff , 1788-92. Traduites de l’Allemand, par Louis Marchant, 1858.

CHAPTER XVI.
Mrs. Podgens’ Baby.

The hunting season had now nearly passed away, and the great ones of the Barsetshire world were thinking of the glories of London. Of these glories Lady Lufton always thought with much inquietude of mind. She would fain have remained throughout the whole year at Framley Court, did not certain grave considerations render such a course on her part improper in her own estimation. All the Lady Luftons of whom she had heard, dowager and anti-dowager, had always had their seasons in London, till old age had incapacitated them for such doings—sometimes for clearly long after the arrival of such period. And then she had an idea, perhaps not altogether erroneous, that she annually imported back with her into the country somewhat of the passing civilization of the times:—may we not say an idea that certainly was not erroneous? for how otherwise is it that the forms of new caps and remodelled shapes for women’s waists find their way down into agricultural parts, and that the rural eye learns to appreciate grace and beauty? There are those who think that remodelled waists and new caps had better be kept to the towns; but such people, if they would follow out their own argument, would wish to see ploughboys painted with ruddle and milkmaids covered with skins.

For these and other reasons Lady Lufton always went to London in April, and stayed there till the beginning of June. But for her this was usually a period of penance. In London she was no very great personage. She had never laid herself out for greatness of that sort, and did not shine as a lady-patroness or state secretary in the female cabinet of fashion. She was dull and listless, and without congenial pursuits in London, and spent her happiest moments in reading accounts of what was being done at Framley, and in writing orders for further local information of the same kind.

But on this occasion there was a matter of vital import to give an interest of its own to her visit to town. She was to entertain Griselda Grantly, and as far as might be possible to induce her son to remain in Griselda’s society. The plan of the campaign was to be as follows. Mrs. Grantly and the archdeacon were in the first place to go up to London for a month, taking Griselda with them; and then, when they returned to Plumpstead, Griselda was to go to Lady Lufton. This arrangement was not at all points agreeable to Lady Lufton, for she knew that Mrs. Grantly did not turn her back on the Hartletop people quite as cordially as she should do, considering the terms of the Lufton-Grantly family treaty. [692] But then Mrs. Grantly might have alleged in excuse the slow manner in which Lord Lufton proceeded in the making and declaring of his love, and the absolute necessity which there is for two strings to one’s bow, when one string may be in any way doubtful. Could it be possible that Mrs. Grantly had heard anything of that unfortunate Platonic friendship with Lucy Robarts?

There came a letter from Mrs. Grantly just about the end of March, which added much to Lady Lufton’s uneasiness, and made her more than ever anxious to be herself on the scene of action and to have Griselda in her own hands. After some communications of mere ordinary importance with reference to the London world in general and the Lufton-Grantly world in particular, Mrs. Grantly wrote confidentially about her daughter:

“It would be useless to deny,” she said, with a mother’s pride and a mother’s humility, “that she is very much admired. She is asked out a great deal more than I can take her, and to houses to which I myself by no means wish to go. I could not refuse her as to Lady Hartletop’s first ball, for there will be nothing else this year like them; and of course when with you, dear Lady Lufton, that house will be out of the question. So indeed would it be with me, were I myself only concerned. The duke was there, of course, and I really wonder Lady Hartletop should not be more discreet in her own drawing-room when all the world is there. It is clear to me that Lord Dumbello admires Griselda much more than I could wish. She, dear girl, has such excellent sense that I do not think it likely that her head should be turned by it; but with how many girls would not the admiration of such a man be irresistible? The marquis, you know, is very feeble, and I am told that since this rage for building has come on, the Lancashire property is over two hundred thousand a year!! I do not think that Lord Dumbello has said much to her. Indeed it seems to me that he never does say much to any one. But he always stands up to dance with her, and I see that he is uneasy and fidgetty when she stands up with any other partner whom he could care about. It was really embarrassing to see him the other night at Miss Dunstable’s, when Griselda was dancing with a certain friend of ours. But she did look very well that evening, and I have seldom seen her more animated!”

All this, and a great deal more of the same sort in the same letter, tended to make Lady Lufton anxious to be in London. It was quite certain—there was no doubt of that, at any rate—that Griselda would see no more of Lady Hartletop’s meretricious grandeur when she had been transferred to Lady Lufton’s guardianship. And she, Lady Lufton, did wonder that Mrs. Grantly should have taken her daughter to such a house. All about Lady Hartletop was known to all the world. It was known that it was almost the only house in London at which the Duke of Omnium was constantly to be met. Lady Lufton herself would almost as soon think of taking a young girl to Gatherum Castle; and on these [693] accounts she did feel rather angry with her friend Mrs. Grantly. But then perhaps she did not sufficiently calculate that Mrs. Grantly’s letter had been written purposely to produce such feelings—with the express view of awakening her ladyship to the necessity of action. Indeed in such a matter as this Mrs. Grantly was a more able woman than Lady Lufton—more able to see her way and to follow it out. The Lufton-Grantly alliance was in her mind the best, seeing that she did not regard money as everything. But failing that, the Hartletop-Grantly alliance was not bad. Regarding it as a second string to her bow, she thought that it was not at all bad.

Lady Lufton’s reply was very affectionate. She declared how happy she was to know that Griselda was enjoying herself; she insinuated that Lord Dumbello was known to the world as a fool, and his mother as——being not a bit better than she ought to be; and then she added that circumstances would bring herself up to town four days sooner than she had expected, and that she hoped her dear Griselda would come to her at once. Lord Lufton, she said, though he would not sleep in Bruton Street—Lady Lufton lived in Bruton Street—had promised to pass there as much of his time as his parliamentary duties would permit.

O Lady Lufton! Lady Lufton! did it not occur to you, when you wrote those last words, intending that they should have so strong an effect on the mind of your correspondent, that you were telling a——tarradiddle? Was it not the case that you had said to your son, in your own dear, kind, motherly way: “Ludovic, we shall see something of you in Bruton Street this year, shall we not? Griselda Grantly will be with me, and we must not let her be dull—must we?” And then had he not answered, “Oh, of course, mother,” and sauntered out of the room, not altogether graciously? Had he, or you, said a word about his parliamentary duties? Not a word! O Lady Lufton! have you not now written a tarradiddle to your friend?

In these days we are becoming very strict about truth with our children; terribly strict occasionally, when we consider the natural weakness of the moral courage at the ages of ten, twelve, and fourteen. But I do not know that we are at all increasing the measure of strictness with which we, grown-up people, regulate our own truth and falsehood. Heaven forbid that I should be thought to advocate falsehood in children; but an untruth is more pardonable in them than in their parents. Lady Lufton’s tarradiddle was of a nature that is usually considered excusable—at least with grown people; but, nevertheless, she would have been nearer to perfection could she have confined herself to the truth. Let us suppose that a boy were to write home from school, saying that another boy had promised to come and stay with him, that other having given no such promise—what a very naughty boy would that first boy be in the eyes of his pastors and masters!

That little conversation between Lord Lufton and his mother—in which nothing was said about his lordship’s parliamentary duties—took place on the evening before he started for London. On that occasion he certainly [694] was not in his best humour, nor did he behave to his mother in his kindest manner. He had then left the room when she began to talk about Miss Grantly; and once again in the course of the evening, when his mother, not very judiciously, said a word or two about Griselda’s beauty, he had remarked that she was no conjuror, and would hardly set the Thames on fire.

“If she were a conjuror!” said Lady Lufton, rather piqued, “I should not now be going to take her out in London. I know many of those sort of girls whom you call conjurors; they can talk for ever, and always talk either loudly or in a whisper. I don’t like them, and I am sure that you do not in your heart.”

“Griselda Grantly is a lady, and as such I shall be happy to have her with me in town. She is just the girl that Justinia will like to have with her.”

“Exactly,” said Lord Lufton. “She will do exceedingly well for Justinia.”

Now this was not good-natured on the part of Lord Lufton; and his mother felt it the more strongly, inasmuch as it seemed to signify that he was setting his back up against the Lufton-Grantly alliance. She had been pretty sure that he would do so in the event of his suspecting that a plot was being laid to watch him; and now it almost appeared that he did suspect such a plot. Why else that sarcasm as to Griselda doing very well for his sister?

And now we must go back and describe a little scene at Framley which will account for his lordship’s ill-humour and suspicions, and explain how it came to pass that he so snubbed his mother. This scene took place about ten days after the evening on which Mrs. Robarts and Lucy were walking together in the Parsonage garden, and during those ten days Lucy had not once allowed herself to be entrapped into any special conversation with the young peer. She had dined at Framley Court during that interval, and had spent a second evening there; Lord Lufton had also been up at the Parsonage on three or four occasions, and had looked for her in her usual walks; but, nevertheless, they had never come together in their old familiar way, since the day on which Lady Lufton had hinted her fears to Mrs. Robarts.

Lord Lufton had very much missed her. At first he had not attributed this change to a purposed scheme of action on the part of any one; nor, indeed, had he much thought about it, although he had felt himself to be annoyed. But as the period fixed for his departure grew near, it did occur to him as very odd that he should never hear Lucy’s voice unless when she said a few words to his mother, or to her sister-in-law. And then he made up his mind that he would speak to her before he went, and that the mystery should be explained to him.

And he carried out his purpose, calling at the Parsonage on one special afternoon; and it was on the evening of the same day that his [695] mother sang the praises of Griselda Grantly so inopportunely. Robarts, he knew, was then absent from home, and Mrs. Robarts was with his mother down at the house, preparing lists of the poor people to be specially attended to in Lady Lufton’s approaching absence. Taking advantage of this, he walked boldly in through the Parsonage garden; asked the gardener, with an indifferent voice, whether either of the ladies were at home, and then caught poor Lucy exactly on the doorstep of the house.

“Well, I was going out,” said Lucy; and she began to consider how best she might get quit of any prolonged encounter.

“Well, Lord Lufton, not exactly, seeing that I am about to pay a visit to our near neighbour, Mrs. Podgens. Perhaps, you have no particular call towards Mrs. Podgens’ just at present, or to her new baby?”

“Yes, and especially to Baby Podgens. Baby Podgens is a real little duck—only just two days old.” And Lucy, as she spoke, progressed a step or two, as though she were determined not to remain there talking on the doorstep.

A slight cloud came across his brow as he saw this, and made him resolve that she should not gain her purpose. He was not going to be foiled in that way by such a girl as Lucy Robarts. He had come there to speak to her, and speak to her he would. There had been enough of intimacy between them to justify him in demanding, at any rate, as much as that.

“Miss Robarts,” he said, “I am starting for London to-morrow, and if I do not say good-bye to you now, I shall not be able to do so at all.”

“Good-bye, Lord Lufton,” she said, giving him her hand, and smiling on him with her old genial, good-humoured, racy smile. “And mind you bring into parliament that law which you promised me for defending my young chickens.”

He took her hand, but that was not all that he wanted. “Surely Mrs. Podgens and her baby can wait ten minutes. I shall not see you again for months to come, and yet you seem to begrudge me two words.”

“Not two hundred if they can be of any service to you,” said she, walking cheerily back into the drawing-room; “only I did not think it worth while to waste your time, as Fanny is not here.”

She was infinitely more collected, more master of herself than he was. Inwardly, she did tremble at the idea of what was coming, but outwardly she showed no agitation—none as yet; if only she could so possess herself as to refrain from doing so, when she heard what he might have to say to her.

He hardly knew what it was for the saying of which he had so resolutely come thither. He had by no means made up his mind that he [696] loved Lucy Robarts; nor had he made up his mind that, loving her, he would, or that, loving her, he would not, make her his wife. He had never used his mind in the matter in any way, either for good or evil. He had learned to like her and to think that she was very pretty. He had found out that it was very pleasant to talk to her; whereas, talking to Griselda Grantly, and, indeed, to some other young ladies of his acquaintance, was often hard work. The half hours which he had spent with Lucy had always been satisfactory to him. He had found himself to be more bright with her than with other people, and more apt to discuss subjects worth discussing; and thus it had come about that he thoroughly liked Lucy Robarts. As to whether his affection was Platonic or anti-Platonic he had never asked himself; but he had spoken words to her, shortly before that sudden cessation of their intimacy, which might have been taken as anti-Platonic by any girl so disposed to regard them. He had not thrown himself at her feet, and declared himself to be devoured by a consuming passion; but he had touched her hand as lovers touch those of women whom they love; he had had his confidences with her, talking to her of his own mother, of his sister, and of his friends; and he had called her his own dear friend Lucy.

All this had been very sweet to her, but very poisonous also. She had declared to herself very frequently that her liking for this young nobleman was as purely a feeling of mere friendship as was that of her brother; and she had professed to herself that she would give the lie to the world’s cold sarcasms on such subjects. But she had now acknowledged that the sarcasms of the world on that matter, cold though they may be, are not the less true; and having so acknowledged, she had resolved that all close alliance between herself and Lord Lufton must be at an end. She had come to a conclusion, but he had come to none; and in this frame of mind he was now there with the object of reopening that dangerous friendship which she had had the sense to close.

“And so you are going to-morrow?” she said, as soon as they were both within the drawing-room.

“Yes: I’m off by the early train to-morrow morning, and Heaven knows when we may meet again.”

“Yes, for a day or two, I suppose. I do not know whether I shall pass another winter here. Indeed, one can never say where one will be.”

“No, one can’t; such as you, at least, cannot. I am not of a migratory tribe myself.”

“I’m not a bit obliged to you. Your nomade life does not agree with young ladies.”

“I think they are taking to it pretty freely, then. We have unprotected young women all about the world.”

“No; I like it. The more we can get out of old-fashioned grooves [697] the better I am pleased. I should be a radical to-morrow—a regular man of the people,—only I should break my mother’s heart.”

“That is why I have liked you so much,” he continued, “because you get out of the grooves.”

“Yes; and go along by yourself, guiding your own footsteps; not carried hither and thither, just as your grandmother’s old tramway may chance to take you.”

“Do you know I have a strong idea that my grandmother’s old tramway will be the safest and the best after all? I have not left it very far, and I certainly mean to go back to it.”

“That’s impossible! An army of old women, with coils of ropes made out of time-honoured prejudices, could not drag you back.”

“No, Lord Lufton; that is true. But one——” and then she stopped herself. She could not tell him that one loving mother, anxious for her only son, had sufficed to do it. She could not explain to him that this departure from the established tramway had already broken her own rest, and turned her peaceful happy life into a grievous battle.

“I know that you are trying to go back,” he said. “Do you think that I have eyes and cannot see? Come, Lucy, you and I have been friends, and we must not part in this way. My mother is a paragon among women. I say it in earnest;—a paragon among women: and her love for me is the perfection of motherly love.”

“I should be worse than a brute did I not do so; but, nevertheless, I cannot allow her to lead me in all things. Were I to do so, I should cease to be a man.”

“But, nevertheless, I must rule myself. I do not know whether my suspicions may be perfectly just, but I fancy that she has created this estrangement between you and me. Has it not been so?”

“Certainly not by speaking to me,” said Lucy, blushing ruby-red through every vein of her deep tinted face. But though she could not command her blood, her voice was still under her control—her voice and her manner.

“I will tell you nothing on this matter, Lord Lufton, whether true or false. It is a subject on which it does not concern me to speak.”

“Ah! I understand,” he said; and rising from his chair, he stood against the chimney-piece with his back to the fire. “She cannot leave me alone to choose for myself my own friends, and my own——;” but he did not fill up the void.

“No! I am not to choose my own friends, though they be among the [698] best and purest of God’s creatures. Lucy, I cannot think that you have ceased to have a regard for me. That you had a regard for me, I am sure.”

She felt that it was almost unmanly of him thus to seek her out, and hunt her down, and then throw upon her the whole weight of the explanation that his coming thither made necessary. But, nevertheless, the truth must be told, and with God’s help she would find strength for the telling of it.

“Yes, Lord Lufton, I had a regard for you—and have. By that word you mean something more than the customary feeling of acquaintance which may ordinarily prevail between a gentleman and lady of different families, who have known each other so short a time as we have done?”

“Yes, and warmer, and dearer, and more worthy of two human creatures who value each other’s minds and hearts.”

“Some such closer regard I have felt for you—very foolishly. Stop! You have made me speak, and do not interrupt me now. Does not your conscience tell you that in doing so I have unwisely deserted those wise old grandmother’s tramways of which you spoke just now? It has been pleasant to me to do so. I have liked the feeling of independence with which I have thought that I might indulge in an open friendship with such as you are. And your rank, so different from my own, has doubtless made this more attractive.”

“Ah! but it has. I know it now. But what will the world say of me as to such an alliance?”

“Yes, the world! I am not such a philosopher as to disregard it, though you may afford to do so. The world will say that I, the parson’s sister, set my cap at the young lord, and that the young lord had made a fool of me.”

“Ah I but it will. You can no more stop it, than King Canute could the waters. Your mother has interfered wisely to spare me from this; and the only favour that I can ask you is, that you will spare me also.” And then she got up as though she intended at once to walk forth to her visit to Mrs. Podgens’ baby.

“It must not be Lucy any longer, Lord Lufton; I was madly foolish when I first allowed it.”

“By heavens! but it shall be Lucy—Lucy before all the world. My Lucy, my own Lucy—my heart’s best friend, and chosen love. Lucy, there is my hand. How long you may have had my heart, it matters not to say now.”

The game was at her feet now, and no doubt she felt her triumph. [699] Her ready wit and speaking lip, not her beauty, had brought him to her side; and now he was forced to acknowledge that her power over him had been supreme. Sooner than leave her he would risk all. She did feel her triumph; but there was nothing in her face to tell him that she did so.

As to what she would now do she did not for a moment doubt. He had been precipitated into the declaration he had made, not by his love, but by his embarrassment. She had thrown in his teeth the injury which he had done her, and he had then been moved by his generosity to repair that injury by the noblest sacrifice which he could make. But Lucy Robarts was not the girl to accept a sacrifice.

He had stepped forward as though he were going to clasp her round the waist, but she receded, and got beyond the reach of his hand. “Lord Lufton!” she said, “when you are more cool you will know that this is wrong. The best thing for both of us now is to part.”

“Not the best thing, but the very worst, till we perfectly understand each other.”

“I mean that I shall not try. Do not persevere in this, or you will have to hate yourself for your own folly.”

“But I will persevere, till you accept my love, or say, with your hand on your heart, that you cannot and will not love me.”

“Then I must beg you to let me go,” and having so said, she paused while he walked once or twice hurriedly up and down the room. “And, Lord Lufton,” she continued, “if you will leave me now, the words that you have spoken shall be as though they had never been uttered.”

“I care not who knows that they have been uttered. The sooner that they are known to all the world, the better I shall be pleased, unless indeed——”

“What can I do better than give her as a daughter the best and sweetest girl I have ever met? When my mother really knows you, she will love you as I do. Lucy, say one word to me of comfort.”

“I will say no word to you that shall injure your future comfort. It is impossible that I should be your wife.”

“You have no right to press me any further,” she said; and sat down upon the sofa, with an angry frown upon her forehead.

“By heavens,” he said, “I will take no such answer from you till you put your hand upon your heart, and say that you cannot love me.”

“Why! because my happiness depends upon it; because it behoves me to know the very truth. It has come to this, that I love you with my whole heart, and I must know how your heart stands towards me.”

“Lord Lufton,” she said, “I cannot love you,” and as she spoke she did put her hand, as he had desired, upon her heart.

“Then God help me! for I am very wretched. Good-bye, Lucy,” and he stretched out his hand to her.

“No, no, no!” and without further speech he left the room and the house, and hurried home. It was hardly surprising that he should that evening tell his mother that Griselda Grantly would be a companion sufficiently good for his sister. He wanted no such companion.

And when he was well gone—absolutely out of sight from the window—Lucy walked steadily up to her room, locked the door, and then threw herself on the bed. Why—oh! why had she told such a falsehood? Could anything justify her in a lie? Was it not a lie—knowing as she did that she loved him with all her loving heart?

But, then, his mother! and the sneers of the world, which would have declared that she had set her trap, and caught the foolish young lord! Her pride would not have submitted to that. Strong as her love was, yet her pride was, perhaps, stronger—stronger at any rate during that interview.

CHAPTER XVII.
Mrs. Proudie’s Conversazione.

It was grievous to think of the mischief and danger into which Griselda Grantly was brought by the worldliness of her mother in those few weeks previous to Lady Lufton’s arrival in town—very grievous, at least, to her ladyship, as from time to time she heard of what was done in London. Lady Hartletop’s was not the only objectionable house at which Griselda was allowed to reap fresh fashionable laurels. It had been stated openly in the Morning Post that that young lady had been the most admired among the beautiful at one of Miss Dunstable’s celebrated soirées , and then she was heard of as gracing the drawing-room at Mrs. Proudie’s conversazione.

Of Miss Dunstable herself Lady Lufton was not able openly to allege any evil. She was acquainted, Lady Lufton knew, with very many people of the right sort, and was the dear friend of Lady Lufton’s highly conservative and not very distant neighbours, the Greshams. But then she was also acquainted with so many people of the bad sort. Indeed, she was intimate with everybody, from the Duke of Omnium to old Dowager Lady Goodygaffer, who had represented all the cardinal virtues for the [701] last quarter of a century. She smiled with equal sweetness on treacle and on brimstone; was quite at home at Exeter Hall, having been consulted—so the world said, probably not with exact truth—as to the selection of more than one disagreeably Low Church bishop; and was not less frequent in her attendance at the ecclesiastical doings of a certain terrible prelate in the Midland counties, who was supposed to favour stoles and vespers, and to have no proper Protestant hatred for auricular confession and fish on Fridays. Lady Lufton, who was very stanch, did not like this, and would say of Miss Dunstable that it was impossible to serve both God and Mammon.

But Mrs. Proudie was much more objectionable to her. Seeing how sharp was the feud between the Proudies and the Grantlys down in Barsetshire, how absolutely unable they had always been to carry a decent face towards each other in church matters, how they headed two parties in the diocese, which were, when brought together, as oil and vinegar, in which battles the whole Lufton influence had always been brought to bear on the Grantly side;—seeing all this, I say, Lady Lufton was surprised to hear that Griselda had been taken to Mrs. Proudie’s evening exhibition. “Had the archdeacon been consulted about it,” she said to herself, “this would never have happened.” But there she was wrong, for in matters concerning his daughter’s introduction to the world the archdeacon never interfered.

On the whole, I am inclined to think that Mrs. Grantly understood the world better than did Lady Lufton. In her heart of hearts Mrs. Grantly hated Mrs. Proudie—that is, with that sort of hatred one Christian lady allows herself to feel towards another. Of course Mrs. Grantly forgave Mrs. Proudie all her offences, and wished her well, and was at peace with her, in the Christian sense of the word, as with all other women. But under this forbearance and meekness, and perhaps, we may say, wholly unconnected with it, there was certainly a current of antagonistic feeling which, in the ordinary unconsidered language of every day, men and women do call hatred. This raged and was strong throughout the whole year in Barsetshire, before the eyes of all mankind. But, nevertheless, Mrs. Grantly took Griselda to Mrs. Proudie’s evening parties in London.

In these days Mrs. Proudie considered herself to be by no means the least among bishops’ wives. She had opened the season this year in a new house in Gloucester Place, at which the reception rooms, at any rate, were all that a lady bishop could desire. Here she had a front drawing-room of very noble dimensions, a second drawing-room rather noble also, though it had lost one of its back corners awkwardly enough, apparently in a jostle with the neighbouring house; and then there was a third—shall we say drawing-room, or closet?—in which Mrs. Proudie delighted to be seen sitting, in order that the world might know that there was a third room; altogether a noble suite, as Mrs. Proudie herself said in confidence to more than one clergyman’s wife from Barsetshire. “A noble [702] suite, indeed, Mrs. Proudie!” the clergymen’s wives from Barsetshire would usually answer.

For some time Mrs. Proudie was much at a loss to know by what sort of party or entertainment she would make herself famous. Balls and suppers were of course out of the question. She did not object to her daughters dancing all night at other houses—at least, of late she had not objected, for the fashionable world required it, and the young ladies had perhaps a will of their own—but dancing at her house—absolutely under the shade of the bishop’s apron—would be a sin and a scandal. And then as to suppers—of all modes in which one may extend one’s hospitality to a large acquaintance, they are the most costly.

“It is horrid to think that we should go out among our friends for the mere sake of eating and drinking,” Mrs. Proudie would say to the clergymen’s wives from Barsetshire. “It shows such a sensual propensity.”

“Indeed it does, Mrs. Proudie; and is so vulgar too!” those ladies would reply.

But the elder among them would remember with regret the unsparing, open-handed hospitality of Barchester palace in the good old days of Bishop Grantly—God rest his soul! One old vicar’s wife there was whose answer had not been so courteous—

“When we are hungry, Mrs. Proudie,” she had said, “we do all have sensual propensities.”

“It would be much better, Mrs. Athill, if the world would provide for all that at home,” Mrs. Proudie had rapidly replied; with which opinion I must here profess that I cannot by any means bring myself to coincide.

But a conversazione would give play to no sensual propensity, nor occasion that intolerable expense which the gratification of sensual propensities too often produces. Mrs. Proudie felt that the word was not all that she could have desired. It was a little faded by old use and present oblivion, and seemed to address itself to that portion of the London world that is considered blue, rather than fashionable. But, nevertheless, there was a spirituality about it which suited her, and one may also say an economy. And then as regarded fashion, it might perhaps not be beyond the power of a Mrs. Proudie to regild the word with a newly burnished gilding. Some leading person must produce fashion at first hand, and why not Mrs. Proudie?

Her plan was to set the people by the ears talking, if talk they would, or to induce them to show themselves there inert if no more could be got from them. To accommodate with chairs and sofas as many as the furniture of her noble suite of rooms would allow, especially with the two chairs and padded bench against the wall in the back closet—the small inner drawing-room, as she would call it to the clergymen’s wives from Barsetshire—and to let the others stand about upright, or “group themselves,” as she described it. Then four times during the two hours’ period [703] of her conversazione tea and cake was to be handed round on salvers. It is astonishing how far a very little cake will go in this way, particularly if administered tolerably early after dinner. The men can’t eat it, and the women, having no plates and no table, are obliged to abstain. Mrs. Jones knows that she cannot hold a piece of crumbly cake in her hand till it be consumed without doing serious injury to her best dress. When Mrs. Proudie, with her weekly books before her, looked into the financial upshot of her conversazione, her conscience told her that she had done the right thing.

Going out to tea is not a bad thing, if one can contrive to dine early, and then be allowed to sit round a big table with a tea urn in the middle. I would, however, suggest that breakfast cups should always be provided for the gentlemen. And then with pleasant neighbours,—or more especially with a pleasant neighbour, the affair is not, according to my taste, by any means the worst phase of society. But I do dislike that handing round, unless it be of a subsidiary thimbleful when the business of the social intercourse has been dinner.

And indeed this handing round has become a vulgar and an intolerable nuisance among us second-class gentry with our eight hundred a year—there or thereabouts;—doubly intolerable as being destructive of our natural comforts, and a wretchedly vulgar aping of men with large incomes. The Duke of Omnium and Lady Hartletop are undoubtedly wise to have everything handed round. Friends of mine who occasionally dine at such houses tell me that they get their wine quite as quickly as they can drink it, that their mutton is brought to them without delay, and that the potato-bearer follows quick upon the heels of carnifer. Nothing can be more comfortable, and we may no doubt acknowledge that these first-class grandees do understand their material comforts. But we of the eight hundred can no more come up to them in this than we can in their opera-boxes and equipages. May I not say that the usual tether of this class, in the way of carnifers, cup-bearers, and the rest, does not reach beyond neat-handed Phyllis and the greengrocer? and that Phyllis, neat-handed as she probably is, and the greengrocer, though he be ever so active, cannot administer a dinner to twelve people who are prohibited by a Medo-Persian law from all self-administration whatever? And may I not further say that the lamentable consequence to us eight hundreders dining out among each other is this, that we too often get no dinner at all. Phyllis, with the potatoes, cannot reach us till our mutton is devoured, or in a lukewarm state past our power of managing; and Ganymede, the greengrocer, though we admire the skill of his necktie and the whiteness of his unexceptionable gloves, fails to keep us going in sherry.

Seeing a lady the other day in this strait, left without the small modicum of stimulus which was no doubt necessary for her good digestion, I ventured to ask her to drink wine with me. But when I bowed my head at her, she looked at me withall her eyes, struck with amazement. Had I suggested that she should join me in a wild Indian war-dance, [704] with nothing on but my paint, her face could not have shown greater astonishment. And yet I should have thought she might have remembered the days when Christian men and women used to drink wine with each other.

God be with the good old days when I could hobnob with my friend over the table as often as I was inclined to lift my glass to my lips, and make a long arm for a hot potato whenever the exigencies of my plate required it.

I think it may be laid down as a rule in affairs of hospitality, that whatever extra luxury or grandeur we introduce at our tables when guests are with us, should be introduced for the advantage of the guest and not for our own. If, for instance, our dinner be served in a manner different from that usual to us, it should be so served in order that our friends may with more satisfaction eat our repast than our everyday practice would produce on them. But the change should by no means be made to their material detriment in order that our fashion may be acknowledged. Again, if I decorate my sideboard and table, wishing that the eyes of my visitors may rest on that which is elegant and pleasant to the sight, I act in that matter with a becoming sense of hospitality; but if my object be to kill Mrs. Jones with envy at the sight of all my silver trinkets, I am a very mean-spirited fellow. This, in a broad way, will be acknowledged; but if we would bear in mind the same idea at all times,—on occasions when the way perhaps may not be so broad, when more thinking may be required to ascertain what is true hospitality, I think we of the eight hundred would make a greater advance towards really entertaining our own friends than by any rearrangement of the actual meats and dishes which we set before them.

Knowing, as we do, that the terms of the Lufton-Grantly alliance had been so solemnly ratified between the two mothers, it is perhaps hardly open to us to suppose that Mrs. Grantly was induced to take her daughter to Mrs. Proudie’s by any knowledge which she may have acquired that Lord Dumbello had promised to grace the bishop’s assembly. It is certainly the fact that high contracting parties do sometimes allow themselves a latitude which would be considered dishonest by contractors of a lower sort; and it may be possible that the archdeacon’s wife did think of that second string with which her bow was furnished. Be that as it may, Lord Dumbello was at Mrs. Proudie’s, and it did so come to pass that Griselda was seated at the corner of a sofa close to which was a vacant space in which his lordship could—“group himself.”

They had not been long there before Lord Dumbello did group himself. “Fine day,” he said, coming up and occupying the vacant position by Miss Grantly’s elbow.

“Deuced cold,” said Lord Dumbello, and then he adjusted his white [705] cravat and touched up his whiskers. Having got so far, he did not proceed to any other immediate conversational efforts; nor did Griselda. But he grouped himself again as became a marquis, and gave very intense satisfaction to Mrs. Proudie.

“This is so kind of you, Lord Dumbello,” said that lady, coming up to him and shaking his hand warmly; “so very kind of you to come to my poor little tea-party.”

“Uncommon pleasant, I call it,” said his lordship. “I like this sort of thing—no trouble, you know.”

“No; that is the charm of it: isn’t it? no trouble, or fuss, or parade. That’s what I always say. According to my ideas, society consists in giving people facility for an interchange of thoughts—what we call conversation.”

“Not in eating and drinking together—eh, Lord Dumbello? And yet the practice of our lives would seem to show that the indulgence of those animal propensities can alone suffice to bring people together. The world in this has surely made a great mistake.”

“Oh, yes, of course—of course. I am by no means one of those who would pretend to preach that our tastes have not been given to us for our enjoyment. Why should things be nice if we are not to like them?”

“A man who can really give a good dinner has learned a great deal,” said Lord Dumbello, with unusual animation.

“An immense deal. It is quite an art in itself; and one which I, at any rate, by no means despise. But we cannot always be eating—can we?”

“No,” said Lord Dumbello, “not always.” And he looked as though he lamented that his powers should be so circumscribed.

And then Mrs. Proudie passed on to Mrs. Grantly. The two ladies were quite friendly in London; though down in their own neighbourhood they waged a war so internecine in its nature. But nevertheless Mrs. Proudie’s manner might have showed to a very close observer that she knew the difference between a bishop and an archdeacon. “I am so delighted to see you,” said she. “No, don’t mind moving; I won’t sit down just at present. But why didn’t the archdeacon come?”

“It was quite impossible; it was indeed,” said Mrs. Grantly. “The archdeacon never has a moment in London that he can call his own.”

“A good deal longer than we either of us like, I can assure you. London life is a perfect nuisance to me.”

“But people in a certain position must go through with it, you know,” said Mrs. Proudie. “The bishop, for instance, must attend the house.”

“Must he?” asked Mrs. Grantly, as though she were not at all well [706] informed with reference to this branch of a bishop’s business. “I am very glad that archdeacons are under no such liability.”

“Oh, no; there’s nothing of that sort,” said Mrs. Proudie, very seriously. “But how uncommonly well Miss Grantly is looking! I do hear that she has quite been admired.”

This phrase certainly was a little hard for the mother to bear. All the world had acknowledged, so Mrs. Grantly had taught herself to believe, that Griselda was undoubtedly the beauty of the season. Marquises and lords were already contending for her smiles, and paragraphs had been written in newspapers as to her profile. It was too hard to be told, after that, that her daughter had been “quite admired.” Such a phrase might suit a pretty little red-cheeked milkmaid of a girl.

“She cannot, of course, come near your girls in that respect,” said Mrs. Grantly, very quietly. Now the Miss Proudies had not elicited from the fashionable world any very loud encomiums on their beauty. Their mother felt the taunt in its fullest force, but she would not essay to do battle on the present arena. She jotted down the item in her mind, and kept it over for Barchester and the chapter. Such debts as those she usually paid on some day, if the means of doing so were at all within her power.

“But there is Miss Dunstable, I declare,” she said, seeing that that lady had entered the room; and away went Mrs. Proudie to welcome her distinguished guest.

“And so this is a conversazione, is it?” said that lady, speaking, as usual, not in a suppressed voice. “Well, I declare, it’s very nice. It means conversation, don’t it, Mrs. Proudie?”

“Well, but don’t it? and tea and cake? and then, when we’re tired of talking, we go away,—isn’t that it?”

“Oh, I’m never tired of talking; all the world knows that. How do, bishop? A very nice sort of thing this conversazione, isn’t it now?”

The bishop rubbed his hands together and smiled, and said that he thought it was rather nice.

“Mrs. Proudie is so fortunate in all her little arrangements,” said Miss Dunstable.

“Yes, yes,” said the bishop. “I think she is happy in these matters. I do flatter myself that she is so. Of course, Miss Dunstable, you are accustomed to things on a much grander scale.”

“I! Lord bless you, no! Nobody hates grandeur so much as I do. Of course I must do as I am told. I must live in a big house, and have three footmen six feet high. I must have a coachman with a top-heavy wig, and horses so big that they frighten me. If I did not, I should be made out a lunatic and declared unable to manage my own affairs. But as for grandeur, I hate it. I certainly think that I shall have some of these conversaziones. I wonder whether Mrs. Proudie would come and put me up to a wrinkle or two.”

The bishop again rubbed his hands, and said that he was sure she would. He never felt quite at his ease with Miss Dunstable, as he rarely could ascertain whether or no she was earnest in what she was saying. So he trotted off, muttering some excuse as he went, and Miss Dunstable chuckled with an inward chuckle at his too evident bewilderment. Miss Dunstable was by nature kind, generous, and open-hearted; but she was living now very much with people on whom kindness, generosity, and open-heartedness were thrown away. She was clever also, and could be sarcastic; and she found that those qualities told better in the world around her than generosity and an open heart. And so she went on from month to month, and year to year, not progressing in a good spirit as she might have done, but still carrying within her bosom a warm affection for those she could really love. And she knew that she was hardly living as she should live,—that the wealth which she affected to despise was eating into the soundness of her character, not by its splendour, but by the style of life which it had seemed to produce as a necessity. She knew that she was gradually becoming irreverent, scornful, and prone to ridicule; but yet, knowing this and hating it, she hardly knew how to break from it.

She had seen so much of the blacker side of human nature that blackness no longer startled her as it should do. She had been the prize at which so many ruined spendthrifts had aimed; so many pirates had endeavoured to run her down while sailing in the open waters of life, that she had ceased to regard such attempts on her money-bags as unmanly or over-covetous. She was content to fight her own battle with her own weapons, feeling secure in her own strength of purpose and strength of wit.

Some few friends she had whom she really loved,—among whom her inner self could come out and speak boldly what it had to say with its own true voice. And the woman who thus so spoke was very different from that Miss Dunstable whom Mrs. Proudie courted, and the Duke of Omnium fêted, and Mrs. Harold Smith claimed as her bosom friend. If only she could find among such one special companion on whom her heart might rest, who would help her to bear the heavy burdens of her world! But where was she to find such a friend?—she with her keen wit, her untold money, and loud laughing voice. Everything about her was calculated to attract those whom she could not value, and to scare from her the sort of friend to whom she would fain have linked her lot.

And then she met Mrs. Harold Smith, who had taken Mrs. Proudie’s noble suite of rooms in her tour for the evening, and was devoting to them a period of twenty minutes. “And so I may congratulate you,” Miss Dunstable said eagerly to her friend.

“No, in mercy’s name do no such thing, or you may too probably have to uncongratulate me again; and that will be so unpleasant.”

“But they told me that Lord Brock had sent for him yesterday.” Now at this period Lord Brock was Prime Minister.

“So he did, and Harold was with him backwards and forwards all the day. But he can’t shut his eyes and open his mouth, and see what God will send him, as a wise and prudent man should do. He is always for bargaining, and no Prime Minister likes that.”

“I would not be in his shoes if, after all, he has to come home and say that the bargain is off.”

“Ha, ha, ha! Well, I should not take it very quietly. But what can we poor women do, you know? When it is settled, my dear, I’ll send you a line at once.” And then Mrs. Harold Smith finished her course round the rooms, and regained her carriage within the twenty minutes.

“Beautiful profile, has she not?” said Miss Dunstable, somewhat later in the evening, to Mrs. Proudie. Of course, the profile spoken of belonged to Miss Grantly.

“Yes, it is beautiful, certainly,” said Mrs. Proudie. “The pity is that it means nothing.”

“I am not sure of that. She has no conversation, you see; not a word. She has been sitting there with Lord Dumbello at her elbow for the last hour, and yet she has hardly opened her mouth three times.”

Mrs. Proudie thought that her own daughter Olivia would undoubtedly be able to do so, if only she could get the opportunity. But, then, Olivia had so much conversation.

And while the two ladies were yet looking at the youthful pair, Lord Dumbello did speak again. “I think I have had enough of this now,” said he, addressing himself to Griselda.

“Oh, yes; and I believe I shall go to Lady Clantelbrocks.” And then he took his departure. No other word was spoken that evening between him and Miss Grantly beyond those given in this chronicle, and yet the world declared that he and that young lady had passed the evening in so close a flirtation as to make the matter more than ordinarily particular; and Mrs. Grantly, as she was driven home to her lodgings, began to have doubts in her mind whether it would be wise to discountenance so great an alliance as that which the head of the great Hartletop family now seemed so desirous to establish. The prudent mother had not yet spoken a word to her daughter on these subjects, but it might soon become necessary to do so. It was all very well for Lady Lufton to hurry up to town, but of what service would that be, if Lord Lufton were not to be found in Bruton Street?

CHAPTER XVIII.
The New Minister’s Patronage.

At that time, just as Lady Lufton was about to leave Framley for London, Mark Robarts received a pressing letter, inviting him also to go up to the metropolis for a day or two—not for pleasure, but on business. The letter was from his indefatigable friend Sowerby.

This was certainly very good-natured on the part of Mr. Sowerby, and showed that he had a feeling within his bosom that he owed something to his friend the parson for the injury he had done him. And such was in truth the case. A more reckless being than the member for West Barsetshire could not exist. He was reckless for himself, and reckless for all others with whom he might be concerned. He could ruin his friends with as little remorse as he had ruined himself. All was fair game that came in the way of his net. But, nevertheless, he was good-natured, and willing to move heaven and earth to do a friend a good turn, if it came in his way to do so.

He did really love Mark Robarts as much as it was given him to love any among his acquaintance. He knew that he had already done him an almost irreparable injury, and might very probably injure him still deeper before he had done with him. That he would undoubtedly do so, if it came in his way, was very certain. But then, if it also came in his way to repay his friend by any side blow, he would also undoubtedly do that. Such an occasion had now come, and he had desired his sister to give the new Lord Petty Bag no rest till he should have promised to use all his influence in getting the vacant prebend for Mark Robarts.

This letter of Sowerby’s Mark immediately showed to his wife. How lucky, thought he to himself, that not a word was said in it about those accursed money transactions! Had he understood Sowerby better he would have known that that gentleman never said anything about money transactions until it became absolutely necessary. “I know you don’t like Mr. Sowerby,” he said; “but you must own that this is very good-natured.”

“But what shall I do now, Fanny? As he says, why should not I have the stall as well as another?”

“Not in the least, at the distance at which we are. I did think of giving up old Jones; but if I take this, of course I must keep a curate.”

His wife could not find it in her heart to dissuade him from accepting promotion when it came in his way—what vicar’s wife would have so persuaded her husband? But yet she did not altogether like it. She feared that Greek from Chaldicotes, even when he came with the present of a prebendal stall in his hands. And then what would Lady Lufton say?

“Oh, certainly; that is, if I intend to accept Harold Smith’s kind offices in the matter.”

“I suppose it will be better to accept them,” said Fanny, feeling perhaps that it would be useless in her to hope that they should not be accepted.

“Prebendal stalls, Fanny, don’t generally go begging long among parish clergymen. How could I reconcile it to the duty I owe to my children to refuse such an increase to my income?” And so it was settled that he should at once drive to Silverbridge and send off a message by telegraph, and that he should himself proceed to London on the following day. “But you must see Lady Lufton first, of course,” said Fanny, as soon as all this was settled.

Mark would have avoided this if he could have decently done so, but he felt that it would be impolitic, as well as indecent. And why should he be afraid to tell Lady Lufton that he hoped to receive this piece of promotion from the present government? There was nothing disgraceful in a clergyman becoming a prebendary of Barchester. Lady Lufton herself [711] had always been very civil to the prebendaries, and especially to little Dr. Burslem, the meagre little man who had just now paid the debt of nature. She had always been very fond of the chapter, and her original dislike to Bishop Proudie had been chiefly founded on his interference with the cathedral clergy,—on his interference, or on that of his wife or chaplain. Considering these things Mark Robarts tried to make himself believe that Lady Lufton would be delighted at his good fortune. But yet he did not believe it. She at any rate would revolt from the gift of the Greek of Chaldicotes.

“Oh, indeed,” she said, when the vicar had with some difficulty explained to her all the circumstances of the case. “Well, I congratulate you, Mr. Robarts, on your powerful new patron.”

“You will probably feel with me, Lady Lufton, that the benefice is one which I can hold without any detriment to me in my position here at Framley,” said he, prudently resolving to let the slur upon his friends pass by unheeded.

“Well, I hope so. Of course, you are a very young man, Mr. Robarts, and these things have generally been given to clergymen more advanced in life.”

“What my advice to you might be if you really came to me for advice, I am hardly prepared to say at so very short a notice. You seem to have made up your mind, and therefore I need not consider it. As it is, I wish you joy, and hope that it may turn out to your advantage in every way.”

“Oh, I thought it had been offered to you: I thought you spoke of this new minister as having all that in his own hand.”

“Oh, dear, no. What may be the amount of his influence in that respect, I do not at all know. But my correspondent assures me——”

“Mr. Sowerby assures me that Mr. Smith will ask for it; and thinks it most probable that his request will be successful.”

“Oh, of course. Mr. Sowerby and Mr. Harold Smith together would no doubt be successful in anything. They are the sort of men who are successful nowadays. Well, Mr. Robarts, I wish you joy.” And she gave him her hand in token of her sincerity.

Mark took her hand, resolving to say nothing further on that occasion. That Lady Lufton was not now cordial with him, as she used to be, he was well aware; and sooner or later he was determined to have the matter out with her. He would ask her why she now so constantly met him with a taunt, and so seldom greeted him with that kind old affectionate smile which he knew and appreciated so well. That she was honest and true, he was quite sure. If he asked her the question plainly, she would answer him openly. And if he could induce her to say that she would [712] return to her old ways, return to them she would in a hearty manner. But he could not do this just at present. It was but a day or two since Mr. Crawley had been with him; and was it not probable that Mr. Crawley had been sent thither by Lady Lufton? His own hands were not clean enough for a remonstrance at the present moment He would cleanse them, and then he would remonstrate.

“Would you like to live part of the year in Barchester?” he said to his wife and sister that evening.

“I think that two houses are only a trouble,” said his wife. “And we have been very happy here.”

“I have always liked a cathedral town,” said Lucy; “and I am particularly fond of the close.”

“And Barchester-close is the closest of all closes,” said Mark. “There is not a single house within the gateways that does not belong to the chapter.”

“But if we are to keep up two houses, the additional income will soon be wasted,” said Fanny prudently.

“But I must take my residence as the terms come,” said the vicar; “and I certainly should not like to be away from Framley all the winter; I should never see anything of Lufton.” And perhaps he thought of his hunting, and then thought again of that cleansing of his hands.

“I should not a bit mind being away during the winter,” said Lucy, thinking of what the last winter had done for her.

“But where on earth should we find money to furnish one of those large, old-fashioned houses? Pray, Mark, do not do anything rash.” And the wife laid her hand affectionately on her husband’s arm. In this manner the question of the prebend was discussed between them on the evening before he started for London.

Success had at last crowned the earnest effort with which Harold Smith had carried on the political battle of his life for the last ten years. The late Lord Petty Bag had resigned in disgust, having been unable to digest the Prime Minister’s ideas on Indian Reform, and Mr. Harold Smith, after sundry hitches in the business, was installed in his place. It was said that Harold Smith was not exactly the man whom the Premier would himself have chosen for that high office; but the Premier’s hands were a good deal tied by circumstances. The last great appointment he had made had been terribly unpopular,—so much so as to subject him, popular as he undoubtedly was himself, to a screech from the whole nation. The Jupiter , with withering scorn, had asked whether vice of every kind was to be considered, in these days of Queen Victoria, as a passport to the cabinet. Adverse members of both Houses had arrayed themselves in a pure panoply of morality, and thundered forth their sarcasms with the indignant virtue and keen discontent of political Juvenals; and even his own friends had held up their hands in dismay. Under these circumstances [713] he had thought himself obliged in the present instance to select a man who would not be especially objectionable to any party. Now Harold Smith lived with his wife, and his circumstances were not more than ordinarily embarrassed. He kept no race-horses; and, as Lord Brock now heard for the first time, gave lectures in provincial towns on popular subjects. He had a seat which was tolerably secure, and could talk to the House by the yard if required to do so. Moreover, Lord Brock had a great idea that the whole machinery of his own ministry would break to pieces very speedily. His own reputation was not bad, but it was insufficient for himself and that lately selected friend of his. Under all these circumstances combined, he chose Harold Smith to fill the vacant office of Lord Petty Bag.

And very proud the Lord Petty Bag was. For the last three or four months, he and Mr. Supplehouse had been agreeing to consign the ministry to speedy perdition. “This sort of dictatorship will never do,” Harold Smith had himself said, justifying that future vote of his as to want of confidence in the Queen’s government. And Mr. Supplehouse in this matter had fully agreed with him. He was a Juno whose form that wicked old Paris had utterly despised, and he, too, had quite made up his mind as to the lobby in which he would be found when that day of vengeance should arrive. But now things were much altered in Harold Smith’s views. The Premier had shown his wisdom in seeking for new strength where strength ought to be sought, and introducing new blood into the body of his ministry. The people would now feel fresh confidence, and probably the House also. As to Mr. Supplehouse—he would use all his influence on Supplehouse. But, after all, Mr. Supplehouse was not everything.

On the morning after our vicar’s arrival in London he attended at the Petty Bag office. It was situated in the close neighbourhood of Downing Street and the higher governmental gods; and though the building itself was not much, seeing that it was shored up on one side, that it bulged out in the front, was foul with smoke, dingy with dirt, and was devoid of any single architectural grace or modern scientific improvement, nevertheless its position gave it a status in the world which made the clerks in the Lord Petty Bag’s office quite respectable in their walk in life. Mark had seen his friend Sowerby on the previous evening, and had then made an appointment with him for the following morning at the new Minister’s office. And now he was there a little before his time, in order that he might have a few moments’ chat with his brother.

When Mark found himself in the private secretary’s room he was quite astonished to see the change in his brother’s appearance which the change in his official rank had produced. Jack Robarts had been a well-built, straight-legged, lissome young fellow, pleasant to the eye because of his natural advantages, but rather given to a harum-skarum style of gait, and occasionally careless, not to say slovenly, in his dress. But now he was the very pink of perfection. His jaunty frock-coat fitted him [714] to perfection; not a hair of his head was out of place; his waistcoat and trousers were glossy and new, and his umbrella, which stood in the umbrella-stand in the corner, was tight, and neat, and small, and natty.

“I don’t know much about that,” said John; “but I find that I have an enormous deal of fagging to go through.”

“Do you mean work? I thought you had about the easiest berth in the whole Civil Service.”

“Ah! that’s just the mistake that people make. Because we don’t cover whole reams of foolscap paper at the rate of fifteen lines to a page, and five words to a line, people think that we, private secretaries, have got nothing to do. Look here,” and he tossed over scornfully a dozen or so of little notes. “I tell you what, Mark; it is no easy matter to manage the patronage of a cabinet minister. Now I am bound to write to every one of these fellows a letter that will please him; and yet I shall refuse to every one of them the request which he asks.”

“Difficult is no word for it. But, after all, it consists chiefly in the knack of the thing. One must have the wit ‘from such a sharp and waspish word as No to pluck the sting.’ I do it every day, and I really think that the people like it.”

“I don’t mean that at all. We, private secretaries, have all to do the same thing. Now, would you believe it? I have used up three lifts of notepaper already in telling people that there is no vacancy for a lobby messenger in the Petty Bag office. Seven peeresses have asked for it for their favourite footmen. But there—there’s the Lord Petty Bag!”

A bell rang and the private secretary, jumping up from his notepaper, tripped away quickly to the great man’s room.

“He’ll see you at once,” said he, returning. “Buggins, show the Reverend Mr. Robarts to the Lord Petty Bag.”

Buggins was the messenger for whose not vacant place all the peeresses were striving with so much animation. And then Mark, following Buggins for two steps, was ushered into the next room.

If a man be altered by becoming a private secretary, he is much more altered by being made a cabinet minister. Robarts, as he entered the room, could hardly believe that this was the same Harold Smith whom Mrs. Proudie bothered so cruelly in the lecture-room at Barchester. Then he was cross, and touchy, and uneasy, and insignificant. Now, as he stood smiling on the hearthrug of his official fireplace, it was quite pleasant to see the kind, patronizing smile which lighted up his features. He delighted to stand there, with his hands in his trousers’ pocket, the great man of the place, conscious of his lordship, and feeling himself every inch a minister. Sowerby had come with him, and was standing a little in the background, from which position he winked occasionally at the parson over the minister’s shoulder.

“Ah, Robarts, delighted to see you. How odd, by-the-by, that your brother should be my private secretary!”

Hereupon Mr. Sowerby struck in, making it apparent by his explanation that Mr. Robarts himself by no means intended to ask for anything; but that, as his friends had thought that this stall at Barchester might be put into his hands with more fitness than in those of any other clergyman of the day, he was willing to accept the piece of preferment from a man whom he respected so much as he did the new Lord Petty Bag.

The minister did not quite like this, as it restricted him from much of his condescension, and robbed him of the incense of a petition which he had expected Mark Robarts would make to him. But, nevertheless, he was very gracious.

“He could not take upon himself to declare,” he said, “what might be Lord Brock’s pleasure with reference to the preferment at Barchester which was vacant. He had certainly already spoken to his lordship on the subject, and had perhaps some reason to believe that his own wishes would be consulted. No distinct promise had been made, but he might perhaps go so far as to say that he expected such result. If so, it would give him the greatest pleasure in the world to congratulate Mr. Robarts on the possession of the stall—a stall which he was sure Mr. Robarts would fill with dignity, piety, and brotherly love.” And then, when he had finished, Mr. Sowerby gave a final wink, and said that he regarded the matter as settled.

“It’s the same thing,” rejoined Sowerby. “We all know what all that flummery means. Men in office, Mark, never do make a distinct promise,—not even to themselves of the leg of mutton which is roasting before their kitchen fires. It is so necessary in these days to be safe; is it not, Harold?”

“Most expedient,” said Harold Smith, shaking his head wisely. “Well, Robarts, who is it now?” This he said to his private secretary, who came to notice the arrival of some bigwig. “Well, yes. I will say good morning, with your leave, for I am a little hurried. And remember, Mr. Robarts, I will do what I can for you; but you must distinctly understand that there is no promise.”

“Oh, no promise at all,” said Sowerby—“of course not.” And then, as he sauntered up Whitehall towards Charing Cross, with Robarts on his arm, he again pressed upon him the sale of that invaluable hunter, who was eating his head off his shoulders in the stable at Chaldicotes.

As one, Reader, who concludes haply, through hearsay, that his uncle William has left him a ten pound legacy; but, going afterwards to Doctors’ Commons, paying his shilling, and reading that said uncle’s will,—receiving letters from stately lawyers, full of congratulation, at seventy pence a piece,—being bowed and kotoued to by people who were wont to cut him, and overwhelmed with offers of unlimited credit by tradesfolk who yesterday would not trust to the extent of a pair of woollen hose—discovers that he has inherited a fine fortune; so may an author scarcely help feeling who has commenced a modest little series of papers in the hope that they would fill a gap and serve a turn, and who finds himself, now, roaming through a vast country, inexhaustible in fertility, undermined with treasure, and overstocked with game: of all which he is expected to give a faithful and accurate report. Yes, the world Hogarthian is all before me, where to choose. Facilities for “opening up” the teeming territory present themselves on every side. Authorities accumulate; microscopes and retrospective spy-glasses are obligingly lent. The Chamberlain of London politely throws open his archives. I am permitted to inspect a Hogarth-engraved silver-plate, forming part of the paraphernalia of the famous past-Overseer’s box of St. Margaret’s, Westminster. Father Prout sends me from Paris an old Hogarth etching he has picked up on the Quai Voltaire, and, withal, more humour and learning in a sheet of letter-paper than ever I shall have in my head in a lifetime. A large-minded correspondent in Cheshire insists on tearing a portrait and biography of W. H. from an old book in his possession, and sending the fragments to me. From the blue shadows of the Westmoreland Fells comes, by book-post, a copy of “Aid Hoggart’s” poems. A friend promises to make interest with the authorities of the Painters’ Company for any Hogarthian memorabilia their records may contain. Another friend advises that I should straightway memorialise the Benchers of the Honourable Society of Lincolns’ Inn, for information relative to W. H’s entertainment by the “Sages de la Ley,” A.D. 1750. I am bidden to remember that I should visit the Foundling Hospital, to see the March to Finchley ; that there are original Hogarths in Sir John Soane’s Museum, and in the church of St. Mary Redclyffe, Bristol. [9] And, upon my word, I have a [717] collection of correspondence about Hogarth that reads like an excerpt from the Clergy List . Their reverences could not be more prolific of pen and ink were I a heterodox Bampton Lecturer. How many times I have been clerically reminded of a blunder I committed (in No. I.) in assigning a wrong county as the locality of St. Bee’s College. How many times I have been enlightened as to the derivation of the hangman’s appellation of Jack Ketch. From rectories, parsonages, endowed grammar schools, such corrections, such explanations, have flowed in amain. Not to satiety, not to nausea, on the part of their recipient. To him it is very good and pleasant to think that some familiar words on an old English theme can interest cultivated and thoughtful men. It is doubly pleasant to be convinced that he was not in error when, in the first section of these essays, he alluded to the favour with which William Hogarth had ever been held by the clergy of the Church of England.

Yes, I have come into a fine fortune, and the balance at the banker’s is prodigious. But how if the cheque book be lost? if the pen sputter, if the ink turn pale and washy, or thick and muddy? Alnaschar! it is possible to kick over that basket full of vitreous ware. Rash youth of Siamese extraction, it may have pleased your imperial master to present you with a white elephant. Woe! for the tons of rice and sugar that the huge creature consumes, the sweet and fresh young greenstuff for which he unceasingly craves;—and you but a poor day labourer? You must have elephants, must you? Better to have gone about with a white mouse and a hurdy-gurdy: the charitable might have flung you coppers. Shallow, inept, and pretentious, to what a task have you not committed yourself! Thus to me have many sincere friends—mostly anonymous—hinted. These are the wholesome raps on the knuckles a man gets who attempts without being able to accomplish; who inherits, and lacks the capacity to administer. Many a fine fortune is accompanied by as fine a lawsuit—remember the legatee cobbler in Pickwick —and dire is the case of the imprudent wight who finds himself some fine morning in contempt, with Aristarchus for a Lord Chancellor! But I have begun a journey. The descent of Avernus is as facile as sliding down a Montagne Russe ;— sed revocare gradum :—no, one mustn’t revoke, nor in the game of life, nor in the game of whist. We will go on, if you please; and I am your very humble servant to command.

The stir made by the publication of the set of engravings from the six pictures of the Harlot’s Progress was tremendous. Twelve hundred copies of the first impression were sold. Miniature copies of some of the scenes were engraved on fan-mounts. Even, as occurred with George Cruikshank’s Bottle , the story was dramatised, and an interlude called The Jew Decoyed; or, a Harlot’s Progress , had a most successful “run.” It is worthy of observation that the perverse and depraved taste of the town took it as rather a humorous thing that the courtezan, splendidly kept by a Hebrew money-lender, should decoy and betray her keeper. The Jew Decoyed . Ho! ho! it was a thing to laugh at. Who sympathizes [718] with M. Géronte in the farce—the poor, feeble, old dotard—when Arlechino runs off with his daughter, and Pierrot the gracioso half cuts his nose off while he is shaving him, picking his pocket, and treading on his tenderest corns, meanwhile? The tradesmen and lodging-house keepers who are swindled and robbed by clown and pantaloon in the pantomime; the image boys, fishmongers, and greengrocers whose stock in trade is flung about the stage; the peaceable watchmaker, who tumbles over on the slide artfully prepared in front of his own door with fresh butter, by the miscreant clown; the grenadier bonneted with his own Busby; the young lady bereft of her bustle; the mother of the baby that is sate upon, swung round by the legs, and crammed into a letter-box: is any pity evoked for those innocent and ill-used persons? I am afraid there is none. I have seen a policeman in the pit roaring with laughter at the pummelling and jostling his simulated brother receives on the stage. It is remarkable to watch the keen delight with which exhibitions of petty cruelty and petty dishonesty, of a gay, lively description, are often regarded. I can understand the pickpocket detected by Charles the Second’s keen eye in annexing a snuff-box at court, laying his finger by the side of his nose, and taking the monarch into his confidence. I can understand cynic Charles keeping the rogue’s secret for the humour of the thing. And, verily, when I see children torturing animals, and senseless louts grinning and jeering, and yelling “Who shot the dog!” after a gentleman in the street, because he happens to wear the honourable uniform of a volunteer, and persons who are utter strangers to one belated runaway joining in the enlivening shout and chase of “Stop thief!” I can begin to understand the wicked wisdom of the American Diogenes who coolly indited this maxim: “If you see a drowning man, throw a rail at him.”

Hogarth’s engravings of the adventures of Kate Hackabout were extensively and grossly pirated. In those days, as in these, there were pictorial Curlls in the land. The author of the foregoing has had the honour to see some early and trifling pictorial performances of his own pirated upon pocket-handkerchiefs and shirt-fronts; but, dear me, what a legal pother would have arisen at Manchester if any one had pirated those beautiful patent cylinders on which the piracies must have been so neatly engraved! Some vile imitations of Hackabout were even cut on wood; and I should dearly like to know if any impressions of those blocks are extant. Mr. Ottley hits none in his History of Chalcography ; but a series of woodcuts so long after Albert Durer and Maso Fineguerra, so long before Bewick the revivalist’s time, would be deeply interesting. [10] [719] Hogarth smarted under this injury, as well he might. The artist had always a strong admixture of the British tradesman in his composition, and, as was his wont when injured, he bellowed lustily. He moved the Lords of the Treasury. He moved the Houses of Lords and Commons; and, at last (1735), he obtained an Act of Parliament, specially protecting his copyright in his prints. As usual, too, he celebrated the victory with a loud and jubilant cock-crow, and complimented Parliament on their recognition of the principles of truth and right, in an allegorical etching, with a flowery inscription. It is good to learn that the Legislature were tender to this artist even after his death, and that his widow, Jane Hogarth, obtained, by another special act, a renewal of his copyrights for her sole use and benefit. In this age of photography and electro-printing, do we not need a law of artistic copyright somewhat more definite and more stringent than the loose statutes that lawyers quibble about and interpret different ways?

Ere I quit the subject of the Harlot’s Progress , it is meet to advert to a little dictum of good Mr. Fuseli, the ambidextrous Anglo-Swiss, who painted the Lazar-house and other horrifying subjects, who used to swear so dreadfully at the clerks in Coutt’s banking-house, and who called for his umbrella when he went to see Mr. Constable’s showery pictures. “The characteristic discrimination and humorous exuberance,” says Fuseli, in a lecture, “which we admire in Hogarth, but which, like the fleeting passion of a day, every hour contributes something to obliterate, will soon be unintelligible by time or degenerate into caricature: the chronicle of scandal, and the history book of the vulgar.” I have the highest respect for the learning and acumen of Fuseli; but I think he is wholly wrong in assuming that Hogarth’s humour or discrimination will ever become “unintelligible by time,” or will “degenerate into caricature.” Look at this Harlot’s Progress . Who cares to know, now, that Charteris continues to rot; that he was guilty of every vice but prodigality and hypocrisy—being a monster of avarice and a paragon of impudence; that he was condemned to death for a dreadful crime, and only escaped the halter by the interest of aristocratic friends; that he was a liar, a cheat, a gambler, a usurer, and a profligate; that he amassed an estate of ten thousand a year; that he was accused while living, and that the populace almost tore his body from his remote grave in Scotland? Who cares to know how many times Mother Needham was carted—although you may be sure they were not half so frequent as she deserved. Is it important to know exactly whether the Caucasian financier was intended for Sir Henry Furnese, or for Rafael Mendez, or Israel Vanderplank. The quack Misaubin [11] [720] and his opponent are forgotten. Stern Sir John Gonson [12] and his anti-Cyprian crusades are forgotten. For aught we can tell, the Bridewell gaoler, the Irish servant, the thievish harridan, the Fleet parson, the glowering undertaker, may all be faithful portraits of real personages long since gone to dust. It boots little even to know if Kate were really Kate or Mary Hackabout, or Laïs, or Phryne, or Doll Common. She is dead, and will sin and suffer stripes no more. But the humour and discrimination of the painter yet live, the types he pourtrayed endure to this hour. I saw Charteris the day before yesterday, tottering about in shiny boots beneath the Haymarket Colonnade. The quacks live and prosper, drive mail-phætons, and enter horses for the Derby. The Jew financier calls himself Mr. Montmorenci de Levyson, and lends money at sixty per cent., or as Julius McHabeas, Gent., one of her Majesty’s attorneys-at-law, issues a writ at the suit of his friend and father-in-law Levyson. And Kate decoys and cozens the financier every day in a cottage ornée at Brompton or St. John’s Wood. Kate! there is her “miniature brougham” gliding through Albert Gate. There is her barouche on the hill at Epsom. There she is at the play, or in the garden, flaunting among the coloured lamps. There she is in the Haymarket, in the Strand, in the New Cut, in the workhouse, in the police cell, in the hospital. There she is on Waterloo Bridge, and there—God help her!—in the cold, black river, having accomplished her “progress.” Take away the whipping-post from Bridewell; and for the boudoir paid for by the Jew, substitute the garish little sitting-room that Mr. Holman Hunt painted in his wonderful picture of the Awakened Conscience , and one can realize the “humour” and “discrimination” of Hogarth in a tale as sad that progresses around us every day.

Every one who has the most superficial acquaintance with a Hogarthian biography has heard the story of how Mrs. Hogarth, or her mamma, Dame Alice Thornhill, placed the six pictures of the Harlot’s Progress in Sir [721] James’s breakfast-parlour one morning, ready for the knight on his coming down. “Very well, very well,” cried the king’s sergeant painter, rubbing his hands, and well nigh pacified: “the man who can paint like this wants no dowry with my daughter.” I am glad to believe the story; but I don’t believe, as some malevolent commentators have insinuated, that Sir James Thornhill made his son-in-law’s talent an excuse for behaving parsimoniously to the young couple after he had forgiven them. There is nothing to prove that Sir James Thornhill was a stingy man. He had a son who was a great crony of Hogarth, accompanied him on the famous journey to Rochester and Sheerness, and afterwards became sergeant-painter to the navy. I fancy that he was a wild young man, and cost his father large sums. It is certain, however, that Sir James frequently and generously assisted his daughter and son-in-law. He set them up in their house in Leicester Fields; and he appears to have left Hogarth a considerable interest in his house at 104, St. Martin’s Lane, whither he had removed from Covent Garden, and the staircase of which he had painted, according to his incorrigible custom, with “allegories.” The great artists of those days used to employ one another to paint the walls and ceilings of each other’s rooms. Thus Kneller gave commissions to the elder Laguerre, and Thornhill himself employed Robert Brown, the painter who was so famous for “crimson curtains,” and who justified having painted two signs for the Paul’s Head Tavern, in Cateaton Street, on the ground that Correggio had painted the sign of the “Muleteer.” Be it mentioned likewise, to Thornhill’s honour, that he fruitlessly endeavoured to persuade Lord Halifax to found a Royal Academy in the King’s Mews, Charing Cross. It would be better, perhaps, in this place to make an end of goodman Thornhill. Besides Worlidge’s portrait, there is one by Hogarth, in oil, of which a vigorous etching was executed by Samuel Ireland. The portrait was purchased of Mrs. Hogarth, in 1781, and was deemed by her an excellent likeness. Thornhill died at his seat, “Thornhill,” near Weymouth, in 1734. [13] He had transferred his academy or drawing-school, call it what you will, from Covent Garden to St. Martin’s Lane; and to Hogarth he bequeathed all his casts and bustos, all [722] his easels and drawing-stools, all the paraphernalia of his studio. These William ultimately presented to the academy held in St. Peter’s Court St. Martin’s Lane, in premises that had formerly been the studio of Roubiliac the sculptor.

I told you that at about the time of his marriage our artist took summer lodgings at Vauxhall, and first made the acquaintance of Mr. Jonathan Tyers, the “enterprizing” lessee of the once famous “Royal Property.” With Tyers he ever maintained a fast friendship, and he materially and generously assisted him in the decoration of the gardens; for, frugal tradesman as Hogarth was, and sturdily determined to have the rights he had bargained for, he was continually giving away something. We have noticed his donation to the Petro-Roubiliac Academy; to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, of which he was a governor, he gave the picture of the Pool of Bethesda ; and the governors of the Foundling Hospital know how nobly munificent was this honest Christian man to the nascent charity. He gave them handsome pictures; he gave them a large proportion in the shares of other picture-auctions—shares as good as money: he painted a splendid portrait of Thomas Coram, the grand old sea-captain, who spent his fortune in cherishing deserted children, and in his old age was not ashamed to confess that he had spent his all in doing good; that his fortune was funded in Heaven—let us trust he is drawing his dividends now; and that here below he was destitute. [14] His example incited many more notable artists to contribute pictures to the charity: and the halls of the Foundling became the chief art-lounge in London. The Royal Academy Exhibition, even, with its annual revenue of infinite shillings, sprang from this odd germ. The Foundling Hospital, I have heard, has wandered from its original purpose; and few of its first attributes are now recognizable in its constitution; but I hope they still teach every little boy and girl foundling to murmur a prayer for Thomas Coram and William Hogarth.

For the embellishment of the supper-boxes at Vauxhall, William made several designs; but there is not much evidence to prove that he painted any of them with his own hand. The paintings were mostly executed by Hogarth’s fast friend, Frank Hayman, and perhaps by Lanscroon, singer and scene-painter, son of old Lanscroon, Riario’s condisciple with Laguerre’s son-in-law Tijou, and the author of a meritorious set of prints illustrating Hob at the Well . For Vauxhall, Hogarth made the designs of the Four Parts of the Day , which he afterwards himself engraved, and which had great success.

Most of us have seen a very ugly, tasteless mezzotinto engraving representing Henry VIII. in an impossible attitude, leering at a coarse Anne Boleyn. I am always sorry to see the words “ Hogarth, pinxit ,” in the left-hand corner of this inelegant performance, and sorrier to know that he did indeed achieve that daub; and that the picture was hung in the “old great room at the right hand of entry into the gardens.” Indeed it is a barbarous thing. The background is, I suppose, intended to represent an apartment in Cardinal Wolsey’s sumptuous mansion at York Place; but it would do better for a chamber at the “Rose,” or at the “Three Tuns,” in Chandos Street. I can speak of it no more with patience. Why paint it, William? Yet it had all the honours of the mezzotint scraper; it is engraved likewise in line; and Allan Ramsay—“Gentle Shepherd” Ramsay—who should have known better, wrote some eulogistic verses by way of epigraph. Nor did Jonathan Tyers of Vauxhall look the gift horse in the mouth. He was glad to hang the sorry canvas in his old great room; and in testimony of many kindnesses received from the painter, who had “summer lodgings at South Lambeth,” presented him with a perpetual ticket of admission to the gardens for himself and friends. Fancy being on the free-list of Vauxhall for ever! The ticket was of gold, and bore this inscription:—

Hogarth was a frequent visitor at the “Spring Gardens,” Vauxhall. There, I will be bound, he and his pretty young wife frequently indulged in that cool summer evening’s stroll which the French call prendre le frais . There he may have had many a bowl of arrack punch with Harry Fielding—he was to live to be firm friends with the tremendous author of “ Tom Jones ;” there I think he may have met a certain Ferdinand Count Fathom, and a Somersetshire gentleman of a good estate but an indifferent temper and conversation, by name Western, together with my Lady Bellaston (in a mask and a cramoisy grogram sack, laced with silver), and, once in a way, perhaps, Mr. Abraham Adams, clerk. There is an authentic anecdote, too, of Hogarth standing one evening at Vauxhall listening to the band, and of a countryman pointing to the roll of paper with which the conductor was beating time, and asking what musical instrument “that white thing was?” “Friend,” answered William, “ it is a single handed drum ”—not a very bright joke, certainly; but then, as has been pertinently observed, a quibble can be excused to Hogarth, if a conundrum can be pardoned to Swift.

We would paint our pictures and our progresses in 1730-1-2-3. We were gaining fame. The Lords of the Treasury, as related by old under-Secretary Christopher Tilson, could examine and laugh over our plates even at the august council board, in the cockpit, and, adjourning, forthwith proceed to purchase impressions at Bakewell’s shop, near Johnson’s Court, in Fleet Street. “Frances Lady Byron”—more of her lord hereafter—was sitting to us for her portrait. Theophilus Cibber had pantomimised us. “Joseph Gay”—the wretched pseudonym of some Grub Street, gutter-blood rag-galloper—had parodied in “creaking couplets” the picture-poem of Kate Hackabout . [15] Vinny Bourne had headed his “hendecasyllables,” ad Gulielmum Hogarth Παραινετικον. Somerville, author of the Chase had dedicated his Hobbinol to us; we were son-in-law to a knight and M.P., but we were not yet quite emancipated from struggles, and hardship and poverty. As yet we were very badly paid, and our small earnings were gnawed away by the villanous pirates soon to succumb to the protective act of Parliament which Huggins was to draw—how strangely and frequently that detested name turns up—and draw not too efficiently on the model of the old literary copyright statute of Queen [725] Anne. Morris had paid us the thirty pounds adjudged for the Element of Earth : but no munificent, eccentric old maid had as yet arisen to gratify us with sixty guineas for a single comic design: Taste in High Life . We were poor, albeit not lowly. The wolf was not exactly at the door. He didn’t howl from morning to night; but, half-tamed, he built himself a kennel in the porch, and snarled sometimes over the threshold. Let it be told again that we, William, were “a punctual paymaster.” So it behoved us to paint as many portraits and conversations as we could get commissions for, and do an occasional stroke of work on copper-plate for the booksellers. Coypel and Vandergucht, both approved high Dutch draughtsmen of the time, shared the patronage of the better class of booksellers with us; but none of us worked for the polecat Edmund Curll.

One of us, however, made a smart onslaught about this time on Edmund Curll’s most rancorous foe, Alexander Pope. Many pages ago I hinted at this attack, as almost the only one that could be traced directly to Hogarth; although many claim to discern little portraits in disparagement of Pope Alexander in the print of the Lottery , in Rich’s Triumphal Entry to Covent Garden (in which a suppositious Pope beneath the piazza is maltreating a copy of the Beggars’ Opera —why? had he not a hand in it?), and in the Characters at Button’s Coffee-house . There can be no mistake, however, about the Pope in the print known as False Taste , or the second Burlington Gate . There is no need that I should trench on the province of Mr. Carruthers, who, in his edition of Pope, has so admirably narrated the ins and outs of the quarrel between the poet and the magnificent Duke of Chandos, further than to express an opinion that the duke had treated the little man of Twickenham with, at least, courtesy; and that Pope’s description of “Timon’s villa,” was at best somewhat lacking in courtesy. Hogarth took the Chandos side in the squabble—the malevolent still hint in deference to Sir James Thornhill and his old grudge against Kent, the Corinthian petticoat man, and protégé of Lord Burlington. In the print you see Pope perched on a scaffolding, and, as he whitewashes Burlington Gate, bespattering the passing coach of the Duke of Chandos. It would have been well for William to have avoided these partisan personalities. They never brought him anything but grief. He should have remembered Vinny Bourne’s allocution—

Rogues, and rakes, and misers, and fanatics, and quacks, were his quarry. It was his to scourge the vices of the great; aye, and to laugh at their foibles. He has, indeed, well generalized the mansion and villa building mania in the courtyard perspective of the Marriage à la Mode , but he should have had nothing directly to do with Burlington Gate or with Canons.

The real scope and bent of his genius were to be triumphantly manifested at this very period by his wonderful composition The Modern Midnight Conversation . I don’t think there is a single artistic design [726] extant which exemplifies to the spectator so forcibly and so rapidly the vices of a coarse and sensual epoch. Most of us have seen that grand picture in the Luxembourg at Paris, the Décadence des Romains of Coutuse, with those stern citizens of the old Brutus stamp gazing in moody sorrow on the enervated patricians, crowned with flowers, golden-sandalled, purple-robed, rouged, and perfumed, lapped in feasting and luxury, and the false smiles of meretricious women; listening to dulcet music; sipping the Chian and the Falernian, babbling the scandal of the bath to their freedmen, or lisping sophisms in emasculated Greek to their hireling philosophers. One has but to glance at that picture to know that the empire is in a bad way; that certain Germanic barbarians are sharpening short swords or whittling clubs into shape far away, and that the Roman greatness is in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. I remember once seeing in an old curiosity shop of the Rue Lafitte a water-colour drawing, probably limned by some rapin for some Sophie Arnould of the quarter, and sold at one of her periodical boudoir-and-alcove auctions—a drawing almost as eloquent and as suggestive as the Décadence . A group of ragged little boys, in the peasant costume of Louis the Well-Beloved’s time, have lifted up a heavy curtain. You see, beyond, the interior of a petite maison . Farmers general, marquises, abbés, are junketing with the Sophie Arnoulds of the epoch. The uplifted table-cloth shows the keys of a harpsichord beneath, on which one of the fair dames is tinkling. There are no servants to disturb the company; the dainty dishes rise through noiseless traps. Artificial flowers, champagne, wax candles, Sèvres china and vermeil plate, diamonds, and embroidery: of all these there is an abundance. Outside, where the little ragged hungry boys are, you see snow and naked trees, and a little dead baby in a dead mother’s arms. A fanciful performance, and too violently strained, perhaps; yet one that tells, undeniably, that the age is going wrong ; that this champagne will one day turn red as blood; that these wax candles will light a flame not to be put out, but that will burn the petite maison about the ears of Farmers general, Sophie Arnoulds, and company; that the strumming of yonder harpsichord will be inaudible when the dreadful tocain begins to boom. I need but allude to the Dutch Kermesses of Teniers, and Ostade, and Jan Steen, and the camp-life pictures of Wouvermans and Dick Stoop, for those acquainted with those masters to understand the marvellous and instantaneous concentration of all the low, sordid, brutal passions and pastimes of the epoch; the daily life and sports and duties of the boor who swigs the beer and smokes the pipe; of the vraw, who peels the carrots, swaddles the child, and beats the servant maid with a broomstick; of the ruffian soldier, rubbing down his eternal white horse, braying away with his trumpet, gambling under the tilt of his tent, or brabbling with the baggage-waggon woman, who reclines yonder among her pots and kettles. These things come upon us at once; and we are seized and possessed with the life of the time; but the force and suggestiveness of the works I have named become weak and ambiguous when compared with this Modern [727] Midnight Conversation , this picture paraphrase of the immortal “ Prospos des Buveurs ” of Francois Rabelais. You see an epoch of dull, brutish, besotted revelry: an epoch when my lord duke was taken home drunk in his sedan from the Rose to his mansion in Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields; his chair-men and flambeau-men very probably as drunk as he; and his chaplain and groom of the chambers receiving him with bloodshot eyes and hiccuping speech;—when Jemmy Twitcher lay in the kennel as drunk as my lord duke; only, there was nobody to take him home; when there were four thousand ginshops in London; and a grave publicist issued a broadsheet, giving “two hundred and sixty plain and practical reasons” for the legislative suppression of the trade in “the dreadful liquor called Geneva.” I wish I could persuade the temperance societies that this is in comparison a sober age; and that 130 years ago, not only did wine and punch slay their thousands among the upper classes, but gin and brandy—both of which were horribly cheap—slew their tens of thousands among the populace. Wait till we come to the Hogarthian tableaux of Beer Street and Gin Lane. In this Modern Midnight Conversation , everybody is tipsy. The parson, the doctor, the soldier, the gambler, and the bully—the very drawer himself—are all intoxicated. Few of the company can see out of more than one eye. Pipes are lighted, and go out again for want of sober puffing. Songs are commenced, and the second couplet forgotten. Wigs are pushed awry, or quite fall off. The furniture is overturned; rivulets of punch flow over the table, and on to the puddled ground. Men, losing the reins of reason, not only see, but think double; take their own cracked voices for those of interlocutors; quarrel with themselves; give each other the lie, and vow they will draw upon themselves if they, themselves, say something—they know not what—again. This is the drunkenness that cankered, and bloated, and corrupted Church and State, in the debased reigns of the two first Brunswickers; that sent the king fuddled to Heidegger’s masquerade, and the minister reeling in his blue ribbon to the House, and made tavern roysterers of the young nobles of Britain. When one has had to wade through the minor chronicles of this time, it becomes distressingly easy to recognize the terrible truth of the Modern Midnight Conversation . [16]

Now, although William Hogarth, now in his thirty-fifth year, was [728] passably virtuous, and I have heard no instance of his indulging in any modern conversation at midnight or other times, to the extent of becoming overtaken in strong drinks—there were plenty of cakes and ale in the Hogarthian philosophy. He was a brisk man, liberal and hospitable in his own house, and not averse from moderate conviviality abroad, sometimes partaking of the nature of the hilarious gambols known as “High Jinks.” Brother, we must die. It needs not the digging Trappist to tell us so. It needs not the moralist with “ Disce mori! ” It needs not the looking-glass that shows us the wrinkled brow and grizzled locks. We must die; and we are gravelled, and worn, and sick, and sorry; and in the night we pray for morning, and in the morning cry out that it were night. But they need not be grim ghosts, those memories of the old pleasant follies and “High Jinks.” They did not all belong to the folly and recklessness of wayward youth. They were jovial and exuberant, and merry and light-hearted; trivial, certainly, and, maybe, undignified as when you, John Kemble, rode the hippopotamus at early dawn among the cabbages in Covent Garden; as when you, grave senator and reverend seignior, danced the Irish jig over the crossed broomsticks; as when you, now stately dowager, then sprightly maid of honour, disguised yourself as a buy-a-broom girl; as when you, grave philosopher, condescended, “on that occasion only,” to lead the donkey that was the Rosinante of a fifth of November “Guy.” But you didn’t do any harm. You didn’t exactly bring your parents’ grey hair with sorrow to the grave when you broke the half-crown’s worth of crockeryware; nor were you ever brought to the pass of biting your mamma’s ear off on the Place de Grève, because she didn’t flay you alive for partaking of apples which you had not precisely acquired according to the “vendors and purchasers” doctrines of wise Lord St. Leonards. I say, that I hope we shall not all be brought to judgment for all the rejoicings of our youth; for the assize would surely be too black, and shuddering Mercy would tear the calendar.

In 1732 there must have been “high jinks” on foot from time to time at the Bedford Coffee House, Covent Garden. Now, where was the Bedford Coffee House? Was it at that Bedford Hotel, under the piazza, so unceremoniously elbowed by that monstrous glasshouse called the “Floral Hall”—the Bedford of which Mrs. Warner is so urbane a hostess? Or was it the “Bedford Head,” in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, a hostelry, where to this day a club of bookworm men meet to lay the dust of ancient lore with frugal libations, and talk about Hogarth, and Fielding, and Johnson, and the brave deeds and the brave men of the days that shall be no more? I confess that I incline to the “Bedford Head,” and that I have purposely avoided taking counsel of London antiquaries more learned than myself on the point, lest I should be undeceived. Moreover, Tothall lived at the corner of Tavistock Court, Tavistock Street, which, as everybody knows, is over against Maiden Lane. It was nearer to Leicester Fields, where Hogarth dwelt, than the Bedford under the piazza, and Hogarth and Tothall , with Thornhill , Forrest , and Scott , were [729] the immortal Five who, on the morning of Saturday, the 27th of May, 1732, set out on a Kentish pilgrimage, of which the aim and end were “High Jinks.”

A word as to the Pilgrims. A famous English writer in some lectures on the “English Humourists,” familiar to us all, has described the pilgrimage as that of a “jolly party of tradesmen engaged at high jinks.” Now with the exception of Tothall, who had been pretty nearly everything, and a woollen draper, among multifarious other callings, [17] the party were all professional men. What Hogarth was, you know. He had come to the days when he could wear his sword and bag. Thornhill was Sir James’s son and heir. He was afterwards sergeant-painter to the navy, and preserved a good estate in the west. Scott was a marine painter, said by Lord Orford to be second only to Vandevelde; and Forrest’s poetic narrative of the Tour, in “Hudibrastic verse,” is so fluent, and often so witty, as to show a capacity and a facility very uncommon in those days among tradesmen. The curiosity is that these five accomplished men should have taken delight in diversions of the plainest and most inelegant kind. As my author quoted above justly remarks, this was [730] indeed a “jolly party of tradesmen,” at least, of merrymakers who behaved as we should expect tradesmen to do; but I suspect that the real London tradesman of the time would have been frightened out of his life at such wild doings; and that these jovial Kentish jinks were engaged in by the five Bedfordians through sheer humorous eccentricity, tinged by that inherent coarseness and love of horseplay of the age, which we discover, not only in such holiday jaunts, but in such almost inconceivable frolics as that of George the Second, the Duke of Montague, with Heidegger at the masquerade; the escapade of Lord Middlesex and his friends of the Calves’ Head Club, and the hideous practical joke played off by Pope on Curll. Educated men seemed to share in those days the yearning of the French actress—the besoin de s’encanailler —the desire to disport themselves in a pigsty, more or less Epicurean; and but for the knowledge of this prevalent low tone in cultivated society it is difficult to realize the fact of Hogarth going back to his lady wife, and Thornhill to the powdered and bewigged grandee, his papa.

Forrest’s narrative of the tour, which began, as I have said, on the twenty-seventh, and finished on the thirty-first of May, is far too elaborate for me to give anything beyond a very brief reflex of it here. I will quote, however, the opening lines:—

It appears that their hearts were light, and those nether garments, now fallen almost into desuetude, save among grooms, footmen, blackrods, and members of the diplomatic service, were thin. They started, singing after a carouse, during the small hours of the morning, and went down the river to Billingsgate. At the noted “Dark-house” they met the same sort of company as Mr. Edward Ward introduces us to in the London Spy , and Hogarth took a portrait, unfortunately not preserved, of a waterside humorist, known as the “Duke of Puddledock.”

Thence they went to Gravesend in the tilt-boat with a “mackrel gale,” chanting lustily, and regaling on “biscuit, beef, and gin.” At Gravesend they put up at “Mrs. Bramble’s.” They had previously seen at Purfleet three men-of-war, the Dursley Galley, the Gibraltar, and the Tartar Pink, the pilot of which last vessel begged them to “lend him a cast.” Thence they walked to Rochester, and saw in the cathedral “th’ unknown person’s monument.” Pendente lite , they drank six pots of ale. They saw “Watt’s Charity,” and eulogized its hospitality, remarking only

marvelling much as to the origin of the distaste conceived by Master Watts against “proctors.” For dinner at the Crown at Strood they had “soles and flounders, with crab sauce;” a stuffed and roasted calf’s head “with purt’nance minced and liver fried;” and by way of a second course, roast leg of mutton and green peas. Peas were early, alas! in May, ’32.

At Chatham they went aboard two men-of-war, the Royal Sovereign and the Marlborough. In the churchyard at Hoo they found a curious epitaph, written by a “servant maid turned poetaster,” in honour of her master, who had left her all his money, and which Forrest thus, literally, transcribed——

How they lay two in a bed, drawing lots who should be the fifth, fortunate enough to sleep “without a chum;” how they were tormented with gnats, and tossed and tumbled, and, waking up in the morning, told their dreams, and could make nothing of them; how Hogarth and Scott played at “Scotch-hop” in the Town Hall, Rochester; how they pelted and bemired one another in country lanes and churchyards; how they perambulated the “Isle of Greane” and the “Isle of Shepey,” and came upon a party of men-’o-war’s men, who had been left without provisions by their midshipman, and learnt how the same midshipman had afterwards got into dire disgrace for philandering with a married lady of Queensborough; how they ate cockles with the sailors, and sent to the alehouse for beer to regale them; and treated a loquacious man of Queensborough to “t’other pot,” whereat the loquacious man began to abuse the mayor of that mighty borough as a mere custom-house officer; how they found the Market-place

how they abode at the “Swans,” and the landlady threatened to have Scott up before the mayor; how they heard the famous Isle of Sheppey legend of “Horse Church” and the wicked Lord of Shorland, so graphically narrated in our own days by Thomas Ingoldsby in the story beginning “‘He won’t,’ said the Baron. ‘Then bring me my boots.’” How at last they got back to Gravesend, put up at Mrs. Bramble’s again, and returned per tilt-boat very tired and jovial to London. All these notable incidents are set down with a charming simplicity, and an unflagging humour and good nature. Forrest, as I have said, kept the journal. Hogarth and Scott illustrated it. Thornhill made the map, and Tothall was the [732] treasurer. The original drawings, done with a pen and washed with indian ink, and not unlike some of old Rowlandson’s rough sketches, are now in the Print Room of the British Museum. I believe this very interesting memorial of an English artist, this homely Liber Veritatis , was secured for our National Collection at the cost of a hundred pounds. Some of the drawings are capital; though all are of the very slightest. These boon companions were too much bent on enjoying themselves to work very hard. There is a view of Queensborough Market-place and Hôtel de Ville, the manner of taking the draught of which is thus described:—

There is certainly nothing very elevated in good Mr. Forrest’s Hudibrastics; yet the jingle of his verse is by no means disagreeable; and from his simple description it is easy to form a definite notion of sturdy little Will Hogarth “sitting in much state” in the great wooden chair borrowed from the “Swans” at Queensborough, and gravely sketching with the tagrag and bobtail staring open-mouthed around him.

A still better word-picture by Forrest illustrates Hogarth’s drawing of Shaving in the Isle of Sheppey :

There is also a very droll tailpiece of Hogarth’s design, and freely, vigorously and racily touched.

The “Hudibrastics,” when the accounts were duly audited—and a rare chronicle these accounts are of pots of ale, cans of flip, bowls of punch, lobsters and tobacco—were handsomely bound to be preserved as a perpetual memorial of this famous expedition. By way of motto, Forrest prefixed to his poem a quotation of the inscription over Dulwich college porch, Abi tu, et fac similiter .

The great success of the Harlot’s Progress had naturally incited William Hogarth with a strong and almost fierce desire to accomplish some other work of the same satirical force, of the same breadth of morality with that excellent performance. He determined that there should be on record a sequel, or at least a pendant to the drama whose lamentable action his pencil had just so poignantly narrated. He felt that it was in him, that it was his vocation, his duty to follow step by step the career of human vice, to point, with unerring finger whither tend the crooked roads, to demonstrate as clearly as ever did mathematician—much more explicitly than ever did logician—that as surely as the wheels of the cart follow the [734] hoofs of the horse, so surely will punishment follow sin. He was as yet but at the commencement of his trilogy: Clytemnestra might begin; Orestes might succeed; but the Eumenides had to come at last. He saw before him a whole ocean, seething, weltering, bubbling of pravities and impostures, and deadly lies, and evil passions. He heard the thorns crackling under the pot. He saw vice, not only stalking about with hungered looks, ragged garb and brandished bludgeon; now robbing Dr. Mead’s chariot in Holborn; now stopping the Bristol mail; now cutting Jonathan Wild’s throat on the leads before the Sessions House, and being pressed to death for it; now with sooty face and wild disguise of skins, stealing deer in the king’s forests, and rioting in caves on surreptitious venison and smuggled Nantz; [18] now being ducked for pocket-picking in the horse-pond behind the King’s Mews, Charing Cross; now cutting throats in night-cellars; now going filibustering, and suffering death for piracy, to be afterwards gibbeted at Halfway Creek and the Triptoptrees; but Vice in embroidery and Mechlin lace, with a silver-hilted sword, and a snuff-box enamelled by Rouquet, at its side; vice, painted and patched, whispering over fans, painted with Hogarth’s own “Progress” at Heidegger’s masquerade; vice punting at the “Young Man’s,” stock-jobbing in the Alley, brawling with porters and common bullies at the Rose, chaffering with horse-jockeys at Newmarket, clustered round the Cock-pit, applauding Broughton the ex-yeoman of the guard, pugilist, and lending its fine Holland shirt to Mr. Figg the prize-fighter after a bout at back or broadsword, [19] dancing attendance on the impudent and ugly German women, for whom the kings of England forsook their lawful wives, duelling in Hyde Park, and taking bribes in the very lobby of the Parliament House. William Hogarth knew that he was enjoined to mark this duplex vice, to burn it in the hand, to force it into the pillory, to pile the hundredweights of his indignation upon it in his own pressyard, to scathe and strangle it, and hang it as high as Haman, to be the loathing and the scorn of better-minded men. Between the summer lodgings at South Lambeth and other lodgings he took at Isleworth, between the portraits and conversations, and the book-plates and the benefit-tickets; odds and ends of artists’ work, done in the way of business for the lords and gentlemen who were good enough to employ him; shop-bills, “illustrating the commerce of Florence;” “breaking-up” tickets for Tiverton School; scenes from Paradise Lost ; busts of Hesiod; tickets for Figg the prize-fighter, for Milward, Jemmy Spiller, Joe Miller, and other comedians; coats of arms for his friend George Lambert; caricatures of Orator Henley; benefit cards even for Harry Fielding, illustrating scenes from Pasquin and the [735] Mock Doctor ; between high jinks and suburban jaunts, and pleasant evening strolls in Vauxhall Gardens; between 1733 and 1735, he was planning, and maturing, and brooding over the Rake’s Progress . The experiment was a dangerous one. The public are averse from tolerating Paradise Regained after Paradise Lost , the Drunkard’s Children after the Bottle , the Marriage of Figaro after the Barber of Seville . And who has not yawned and rubbed his eyes over the second Faust ? But William Hogarth saw his way clearly before him, and was determined to pursue it. The pictures, eight in number, were painted by the end of 1733. In 1734, the proposals of subscription to the plates were issued. The subscription ticket was the well-known etching of the Laughing Audience . The sums were one guinea and a half for nine plates; the ninth promised being The Humours of a Fair —no other than the far-famed Southwark .

Thus I sweep the stage, and sound the whistle for the curtain to draw up on the drama of The Rake’s Progress , closing this paper with the form of receipt given by Hogarth to his subscribers:

FOOTNOTES

[9] I was at Bristol in the summer of 1858; but the fine old church was then in process of restoration, and the Hogarths, I heard, had been temporarily removed. Have those curious altar-pieces been since restored?

[10] There is a mania just now for giving excessive prices for steel and copper engravings. There is a millennium for artists’ proofs. The auctioneers only know what a genuine Marc Antonio Raimondi is worth; but I am told that a “Sunday” proof of the March to Finchley —the original plate was dated on a Sunday, but the dies non was subsequently erased by Hogarth—will fetch thirty guineas in the market. The price seems as exorbitant as those sometimes given for a “breeches” or a “vinegar” Bible.

[11] Dr. Misaubin lived at 96, St. Martin’s lane. Of his staircase, painted by Clermont, the Frenchman, I have already spoken. Those were the days when “Mrs. Powell, the colourman’s mother, used to make a pipe of wine every year from the vines that grew in the garden in St Martin’s Lane.” Traces of its old rurality may also be found in the name of one of its noisomest offshoots—the “Hop Gardens.” Dr. Misaubin “flourished” in 1732. He was not a Frenchman born, but of French Huguenot extraction. He was an arrant and impudent quack, but a good-natured man, and dispensed the huge fortune he amassed liberally enough. More anent him when he grows older and more wrinkled, in the Marriage à la Mode . All this man’s gold, however, turned in the end to dry leaves. His grandson, Angiband, dissipated the pill and nostrum fortune, and died of Geneva-on-the-brain in St. Martin’s Workhouse. Engraver Smith (J. T.) says that Misaunbin’s father was a Protestant clergyman, and mentions a “family picture” representing the Doctor in all his glory, with his son on his knees, and his reverend papa at a table behind, and arrayed in full canonicals.

[12] Everybody seems to have had Latin verses, eulogistic or abusive, addressed to him in those days. Thus the “Sapphics” of Mr. Loveling, a young gentleman of the university, to the rigorous Middlesex Justice:—

“Pellicum, Gonsone, animosus hostis,

Per minus castus Druriæ tabernas

Lenis incedens, abeas Diones

Æquus Alumnis!”

And so forth.

[13] He sat for Melcombe Regis in the two last parliaments of George the First. The borough was then a mere pocket one, in the gift of the backstairs. Thornhill’s “employments” were continued to him for some time by George the Second; but, like his predecessor, Sir Christopher Wren, he was removed to make way for place-men who, without any very high attainments, could be useful to the Ministry. Thenceforth, the “goodman” amused himself by painting easel-pictures. He was taken for death in an access of gout, and died in his chair on the 4th of May, and was buried at Stalbridge on the 13th. He had greatly beautified the ancestral mansion and estate, and had erected, on an adjacent hill, an obelisk to the memory of George the First, which was visible to all the country side. Hogarth himself records the death of his father-in-law, in Sylvanus Urban’s obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine —then a very young publication, indeed. He says that he was “the greatest history painter this age has seen;” and states, that as king’s sergeant painter he had to decorate all his majesty’s coaches, barges, and “the royal navy.” Are we to understand from this that Thornhill was expected to carve and gild the figure heads of three-deckers!

[14] Thomas Coram was born in 1668. He had amassed a competence in following the sea, and lived at Rotherhithe, like Captain Lemuel Gulliver, and that greater mariner, Captain Cuttle. In his way to and from the maritime districts of the town, his honest heart was frequently afflicted by the sight of destitute and abandoned children. Probably he had never heard of St. Vincent de Paul—this rough tarry-breeks of the Benbow and Cloudesley Shovel era—but he set about doing the selfsame work as that for which the foreign philanthropist was canonized. Coram had already effected much good by procuring an Act granting a bounty on naval stores imported to Georgia—where the colonists were frequently left destitute—and by devising an admirable scheme for the education of Indian girls. The Foundling Hospital was, however, his great work. He obtained the charter of incorporation for it, A.D. 1739. These were the words, of which I have given the sense above:—“I have not wasted the little wealth of which I was formerly possessed in self-indulgence or vain expense; and am not ashamed to confess, that in this, my old age, I am poor.” They raised a pension of a hundred a year for the benevolent veteran; Sir Sampson Gideon and Dr. Brocklesby being chief managers of the fund. Captain Coram did not live long to enjoy the pension; and at his death, it was continued to poor old Leveridge, to whose volume of songs William Hogarth contributed a frontispiece.

[15] One moment ere I leave the male and female naughtinesses in this drama for good. Charteris, Hackabout, brother and sister, James Dalton, the highwayman, whose “wig-box” you see in plate iii. of the H. P. , and Mother Needham, who continued the traditions of Dryden’s Mother Dulake (“Wild Gallant”), to Foote’s Mother Cole , all faded into space before 1733. The colonel “Don Francisco”—as people with a snigger called Charteris—was very nearly being hanged. He was cast for death; but being immensely rich, and having, moreover, and luckily, a lord of the land, the Earl of Wemyss, for his son-in-law, he managed to escape. Not, indeed, Scot-free. He was compelled to make a handsome settlement on his victim, one Ann Bond, prosecutrix in the case for which Don Francisco had so close a riddance of “ sus per coll ” being written against his name. The sheriffs of London, and the high bailiff of Westminster, had, moreover, made a seizure of his rich goods and chattels, immediately after his conviction. He had to compound with them for the restitution of his effects, and this cost him nearly nine thousand pounds. The profligate old miser had to sell his South Sea stock, to raise the amount; a fact which the newspapers of the day record with much exultation. But Nemesis was not yet satisfied. The colonel’s wife came back from Scotland on purpose to reproach her lord. The wretched man on his part fled to Scotland, and died in Edinburgh soon afterwards. Dalton, of the “wig-box,” having been “boned,” “habbled,” or “snabbled,” and confined for some time in the “Rumbo,” or “Whid,” finished his career at the “nubbing cheat,” at the top of the Edgware Road. In other words—the first are the elegant terms used by the City marshal in his controversial pamphlet the Regulator , written in disparagement of Mr. Jonathan Wild the great—Mr. James Dalton was arrested, and after lying some time in Newgate, was duly tried, sentenced, and hanged. “He was a thief from his cradle, and imbibed the principles of his art with his mother’s milk.” He went between his father’s legs in the cart to his fatal exit at Tyburn. Sic itur ad astra ; and thus Plutarch in the shape of the ordinary of Newgate. As for Mother Needham, she was sentenced to stand twice in the pillory. The first ordeal she underwent close to her own house, in Park Place, St. James’. She was very ill, and lay “all along” under these Caudine forks, “thus evading the law, which required that her face should be exposed.” Two days afterwards, “complaining of the ingratitude of the publick”—the mob had pelted her pitilessly—“and dreading the second pillorying to which, in Old Palace Yard, she was doomed, she gave up the ghost.”

[16] The Modern Midnight Conversation had a great vogue abroad, and is still, perhaps, one of the best known of Hogarth’s works. Copies, adaptations, paraphrases of it have been multiplied to a vast extent in Germany. There is a well-known French version, Société nocturne, nommée communément Cotterie de Débauche en Punch ; and a collection of heads from the Conversation , catalogued as Têtes des onze membres, gravées par M. Riepenhausen . One ingenious artist even formed a gallery of small wax models of the principal figures. And finally, I have seen the French Cotterie enamelled on a porcelain at Leipsic, and on a golden snuffbox in the museum of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg. There is a humorous modern lithograph, representing a party of sapient-looking bibbers, assembled in solemn conclave over a hogshead of Rhine wine in a cellar; and the hint for this—albeit, the grossness is softened down—is evidently taken from the M. M. C.

[17] Tothall’s career was a most curious one. He was the son of an apothecary, was left an orphan, taken care of by an uncle. He ran away to sea; went to the West Indies, Newfoundland, and Honduras; was on one occasion captured by hostile Spaniards, and marched “up the country,” with no other clothing but a woollen cap and a brown waistcoat—a costume almost as primitive as that of an unhappy French governess taken prisoner by some followers of Schamyl, in a raid on the Russians, and driven before them to their mountain home, the poor lady having nothing on but a pair of blue satin corsets. Tothall had his picture painted in the brown waistcoat. Coming afterwards to England, he entered the service of a woollen draper, in Tavistock Court; who, after some time, told him he was a very honest fellow, and that as he the draper only sold cloth, Tothall might have half the shop to sell shalloons and trimmings. He lent him money to buy stock, and recommended him to his chapmen. By and bye, a relative of Tothall in the West Indies sent him a puncheon of rum as a present. The recipient was about to sell the alcohol for what it would fetch—perhaps to the landlord of the Bedford Head—when his master interposed. “I have no use for my cellar,” quoth this benevolent woollen draper. “Do you open the door to the street; tap your puncheon, and draw it off in twopennyworths.” Spirit licences were not yet known. Tothall followed the draper’s advice, speedily sold all his rum at a good profit; sent to the West Indies for more, and drove a merry trade in rum, shalloons, and trimmings, till it occurred to the woollen draper to inform him one morning that he intended to retire, that he might have all his stock at prime cost, and pay him as he could. Why are there no such woollen-drapers now-a-days? Between the shop and the cellar Tothall contrived to realize a very considerable fortune. All this time, this odd man had been assiduously collecting fossils, minerals, and shells, of which he had, at last, a handsome museum. He retired to Dover, and, true to his old adventurous habits, entered into large speculations, in what his biographer modestly calls the “smuggling branch of business.” But a “byeboat,” laden with horses, in which he was interested, having been lost between Flushing and Ostend, and some other speculations turning out disastrously, Tothall became in his later days somewhat straitened in his circumstances. Hogarth used frequently to visit him at a little village near Dover, whither he retired, and where he died four years after our painter. He left 1,500 l. in cash, and his collection of shells, &c. sold for a handsome sum.

[18] Vide the statutes at largo for the “Black Act,” by which poaching in disguise was made a felony, punishment death; and the curious relation of the gentleman who fell among a gang of “Blacks,” and was courteously entreated by them, and regaled at a rich supper, at which the solids were composed exclusively of venison, on condition, only, of never revealing the place of these sooty poachers’ retreat.

[19] Figg fought much more with the sword than with his fists.

Neither a gipsy nor an Austrian employé has any country. They both lead a nomadic life, without home or fixed habitation; and when the gipsy has stolen what the neighbours had to lose, and the Austrian employé has exhausted all the squeezable properties of his office, they both move off—the gipsy whither he likes best, the Austrian employé most frequently whither he likes least.

The Austrian employé seldom administers in the town or province to which he belongs. The sages of the Austrian empire had one wise axiom, on which rested the whole of the government machinery. This axiom, sowed hatred and distrust in the fertile plains of Hungary and the pleasant gardens of Italy, in the homesteads of the Tyrolese and in the cottages of the half-starved Silesians: and soon thousands of hirelings were needed to help cut the rank ears, and bring the poisonous harvest home. And what harvests did not Austria bring home in 1848 and 1849! The axiom is “ Divide et impera ;” and forms the secret of Austrian policy. Government appoints no Austrian subject to any post or office in his native place. He would have friends and relations there, with whom he would be tender in the matter of extortion; and Austria wants money, not friends. If an Italian were suffered to administer in Lombardy, where would the ducats and the spies come from? He would naturally seek to gain the love and confidence of his compatriots; but the Government who have standing armies and above 500,000 employés to pay, would rather have the ducats than the love—it wants spies, not confidence. Therefore must the Hungarian Radetsky suck the golden fluid from the veins of Lombardy, no matter what blood or tears may be shed; the Bohemian Windischgrätz must rule in Hungary; a garrison of Slavonians must hold the fortresses of Silesia; a soldier must judge civilians; a council of lords promote the interests of plebeians; and a celibatarian priest decide on causes matrimonial.

Consequent upon these regulations, the writer’s father, a native of Bohemia married to a Viennese lady, was sent to Hungary, to deal with a people of whose language he knew nothing, and of whose customs he knew worse than nothing: having scraped what little information he possessed from books which told him everything of Hungary but the truth.

An Austrian employé has no country. No sooner has he arrived at a place, than all his endeavours are bent on how to get away again. Of freedom he has less than any man in the town. He dares do nothing, however innocent, on which suspicion could by possibility fasten. He dares not visit his fellow employés: that would be plotting; he dares not openly offer a pinch of snuff to his superiors: that would be bribery; if he is in the money department, he must not have father, brother, or far-away [737] cousin in the same office, for fear of connivance. For the Austrian Government has the worst possible opinion of its bureaucratic members; saying “ quibbet præsumitur ,” a thief—“ donec probetur ,” the contrary. If the employé is an inferior, he is condemned to starvation; if a superior, he is surrounded by a swarm of inferiors, who wait for his place, like carrion crows waiting for the carcase on which the vultures are feeding.

When such a place is vacant, what an uproar! what whisperings and shruggings of shoulders, what calculations and intrigues, hopes, energies, expectations and disappointments, among the office-seeking crowd! Early in the morning the candidate’s wife, if she is young, or his daughters, if they are pretty, go about from office to office canvassing for votes. Courtesies are proffered, promises are made, tears are shed, and family miseries related again and again; variegated, however, in pattern and direction, to suit the exigencies of the moment: sentimental with the amiable, humble with the proud, pleading poverty to the rich, and the rapid increase of a family to the bachelor, the fair petitioners always close with the same formulæ—“generous protector,” “just appreciator of the meanest merit,” “your great influence,” and “eternal gratitude.” And sometimes the candidate opens the small chest where, in spite of multitudinous christenings and many doctors’ bills, he has managed to keep a few articles of family plate or ancestral vertù , and, with a heavy sigh, wraps perhaps his silver candelabra in tissue paper, and sends them to the chief power among the electors—an incorruptible man, whom he does not attempt to bribe, but whose choice he seeks to enlighten. In this scramble two men only come off well—the chief elector, whom everybody propitiates, and the successful candidate: unless, indeed, his place has cost him more than it is worth: which is not a rare occurrence in bribing, money-loving Austria.

An Austrian employé, is nothing but an animated copying machine: for in Austria nothing is ever said or done; everything is written. Heaven only knows what they all write, and where those thousands of reams go to at last; but every one writes, from nine in the morning to late at night, and all the year round alike. Bent low over their desks, with black fingers, black looks, and blackest ennui , without hope either of an early promotion or a late dinner, there they sit and write, till their brains are muddled and their hands are weary: head, heart, and life are equally exhausted and dried up. Whole reams of foolscap are written out for Section A, and duplicates thereof made for Section B. These duplicates are copied for the Register’s Office; the copy is copied for the Chancellor; an extract of the original copy is to be sent to Section D; copy of the copy, and duplicate thereof, are to be carefully written out again on foolscap, and sent to the so-called Court Office “Hofkammer,” and there all is again written, copied, labelled, registered, and numbered; the documents are then thrust away into the proper pigeon-holes, where, for the most part, they get worm-eaten and are forgotten.

After an Austrian employé has written, from the 1st of January to [738] the 31st of December, what no one will ever want to read, he must set a day aside whereon to fill up, in his own handwriting, the blanks left in a printed form called Comptabilitäts Tabelle . The following are the questions which he must answer there:—1. Name, age, birthplace? 2. Of what religion? 3. Where and what he has studied? what languages he speaks? what capabilities he possesses? 4. When he entered his Majesty’s service? what different situations he has held? and what situation he holds now while writing this abridged autobiography? 5. Is he husband, bachelor, or widower? father or childless? 6. Has he any private fortune?

This last question is answered truthfully only by the very poor; for, as the Government grants no pensions to the widows and orphans of employés who have had a private income of 20 l. per annum, it naturally follows that very few employés are to be found who own to the fraction of a zwanziger. At the foot of the paper a broad margin is left, headed by the inoffensive title “Special Remark.” This margin is secretly filled up by the employé’s immediate superior, who there inscribes his own private opinion of the man who, throughout all the preceding answers, has sought to place himself in the best light possible. This opinion is never stated openly, but is, on the contrary, so carefully concealed that the employé never knows what his chief thinks of him, nor what report he makes to the greater chiefs above. The “special remark” is the indication which the high officials consult: it is the shadow of him who is remarked on, following him with noiseless step wherever he goes, and looming behind him, black and threatening, when he stands in the sunlighted prospect of a hoped-for promotion. An adverse remark is the stumbling-block, the pierre d’échopment of every Austrian bureaucrat: he cannot get over it; unless, indeed, he is able to leap over the head of the special remarker, and so change places and functions with him.

Yet, in spite of all these disagreeables, and notwithstanding the absence of salary for the first years of service, a place in a Government office is much sought after, and very difficult to procure. The curriculum, too, leading to it, is not a light one. Neither in Hungary nor in Bohemia, neither in Croatia nor in Corinthia, can a man obtain a Government office unless he has studied Latin and philosophy, logic and the exact sciences. Not that he is ever required to make use of his knowledge; but it is decreed that the knowledge should be acquired. The “course” takes eight years—the term prescribed by Government as absolutely necessary for the completion of an employé’s polite education. And when, after these eight years of hard study—after the numberless fees and presents, flatteries, bowings, and scrapings, initiatory to an appointment—the young man has at last wormed himself into the service, what is he to the Government? Not more than a sharp lad who writes a good hand is to the grocer at the corner. Indeed not so much; for the grocer would have to pay the sharp lad for his services, while the paternal Government would not dream of such an extravagance. No young man can hope for an [739] apprenticeship who expects anything beyond the honour of being allowed to serve for love—and the future! This paternal Government—this national huckster which deals only in paper—paper diet, paper constitution, paper money, paper reform, neutrality, or amnesty—keeps its highly-educated apprentice of twenty-five somewhat longer than Laban kept Jacob waiting for his daughter. Ten, fifteen, and even twenty-five years he may have to serve for his Rachel,—an appointment with a salary; which, however, turns out most frequently to be only a Leah after all.

But it may be asked, how does the government manage to get so much gratuitous service? In a country where a man must eat, drink, and clothe himself handsomely, how can a paternal government be served for nothing? Is all service in Austria gratuitous? Does the employé receive from the butcher and baker and tailor the equivalent of what he bestows on the state? Not quite so. A paternal government which gets its allies to fight its battles for nothing, is clever enough to secure the support of its employés by their fathers. The fathers pay their sons for the services which these render to the state. The father of an employé expectant must give a promissory note to government, undertaking to supply his son with all things needful for the young man’s maintenance, if government, in return, will be generous enough to accept his son’s time and energies, and provide him with a place on some official treadmill. And the period for such an undertaking is—“during the emperor’s pleasure.”

The mode in which this magnificent appointment is applied for is much in the following manner: “The humble undersigned, who, according to testimonial annexed sub literâ A. has been born and baptized; who, according to school testimonials sub literis B. C. D. E. has studied with good success, and pursued the course of philosophy, and has also heard about law; who, according to medical testimonial sub literâ F. has been vaccinated with equally good success; who, according to promissory note sub literâ G. has a father who is willing to give him, for the duration of his (the son’s) apprenticeship, the weekly stipend of 1 l. ; most humbly begs a well-born, most praiseworthy Chamber to overwhelm him with the inestimable favour of making him honorary apprentice to such and such an office. Should the undersigned be so happy as to be accepted, he will be ready to pass the usual examinations in three months’ time.”

Remark, that the writer of this request speaks of himself in the third person singular. This is one of the many peculiarities in the Austrian official style. The third person, singular, is usually employed only in contempt. The officer addresses the private, the master the servant, the magistrate the criminal, all as He. A humble petitioner, therefore, must adopt the same formula when speaking of his own unworthy self to a well-born Court Chamber. This self-denying request granted, the candidate enters, as a probationary, the bureau in which he hopes to become hereafter an integral particle. Here he learns to fawn upon his chief in the proper official manner, to write confused reports about things of which he [740] knows nothing, to make copies—reams of copies—of worthless original compositions; and after three months of these labours he is examined by the Director, who asks him nothing, but awards him a first-class testimonial—on the recommendation of the Chief. This first-class testimonial gives the poor mean-spirited youth the privilege of writing a second request, informing the Chamber of his good success, and expressing his ardent desire to leave the list of Honoraries and become an Ordinary.

Arrived at this Chimborazo of his wishes, the youth dresses himself in full evening costume, and at nine o’clock in the morning goes to the office to take the oath of allegiance to his Imperial, Royal, Apostolic Majesty. All his colleagues assemble there, with solemn faces. A crucifix and two lighted wax tapers are on the table in the middle of the room, and the novice, going up to the table, repeats slowly after his Chief the oath of allegiance; which is, in fact, a solemn promise to be an early riser and a quick penman, never to divulge an official secret, and to be incorruptible, generally and particularly.

The first promise is easily kept. The sooner a man rises and is out of the house, the sooner he is out of the way of his duns; for an unpaid Austrian employé is continually haunted by his creditors. The second of those two promises he fulfils by habit. Who would not be a swift and expert penman when writing all day and every day? The third no one asks him to break, for no one cares what he writes during all the weary hours of the day; his official secrets, if he has any, are safe from every one’s curiosity. As for the fourth, it is not kept at all. An Austrian employé accepts everything: money and trinkets; playthings for his boy, and gifts for his wife; hams and tongues; opera tickets and theatre stalls—he takes them all; and in return he may help the donor over some slippery pass, by dragging him out of the straight road into the crooked path leading to legal safety and moral dishonesty. Government gets off with its interests somewhat sacrificed; but the gain on one side makes up for the loss on the other. “ Donis semper aperta est ,” is the invisible inscription written on the Austrian office. It is forbidden to give or to receive; and he who gives runs as great a risk as he who receives; but both giver and receiver, running swiftly and keeping time and step together, generally manage to outstrip the stumbling march of the detective.

“Do not praise the day till it is over,” says the proverb; and, following the spirit of the adage, the maxim of the employé is, Do not condemn the Austrian Government till you are rid of it: that is, till you are dead. Nay, even then the paternal government steps in, to take care, not of the widows and orphans, but of more precious things; namely, the dead employé’s goods and chattels. Widows and orphans may shift for themselves; goods and chattels must be taken care of. So government sends an officer to take a list of all the employé’s effects remaining, and specially to search for money. In the case of any being found—a case as rare as the sight of a white elephant in Europe—the widow and orphans must give government a part: for government is co-heir whenever there is an [741] official inheritance to be had. Then this same wise and liberal government refuses to grant a pension to the widow or orphan, if a private income of twenty pounds per annum is found among the reliquiæ. If nothing is found, and if the employé has been more than ten years an official, and more than three years in matrimonial bondage, government grants a pension of ten or twenty pounds yearly. If he has served for a less term, or been married for only two years and three quarters, the pension is forfeited.

But to look on the bright side. If the employé has died insolvent, the sorrowing matron, who was bowed down to earth with grief and tears, rises consoled. She is a female pensioner. Her husband is gone, her home, her love, her independence,—all are gone; but she herself must stay. Government has bought her. She has become its property, and cannot now leave the country, unless she likes to leave her pension behind her. Austria turns her paper money into chains, by which she holds her poor pensioner, as a boy holds a bird or a cockchafer by a string. See this ward of government, clad in a rusty black dress of doubtful condition; on her head a black bonnet that has seen its best days, from which hangs a long black veil; on her arm hangs a long black reticule; on her pale lips a long tale of privation and misery. This is her picture at she goes every three months to draw her pitiful allowance—proving by the attestation of the parish rector that she is alive, that she is herself, and none other. Just the same, too, is she when she goes her new year’s rounds to her late husband’s Chiefs and colleagues, and to those members of the Imperial family most notorious for their benevolence. On these annual occasions she carries needlework and trifles to be raffled for, and thinks herself happy if she can buy an extra log for her stove, or a pound of meat for her broth, from the proceeds. Thus she drags on her weary life, barely escaping, as pauvre honteuse , the misery, shame, and degradation of downright beggary.

Such is the career of an Austrian employé; and this sketch is equally characteristic of every employé in the Austrian service, whether civil or military, or under whatever denomination he serves. In each and every case the salary of the officials are so utterly inadequate to their wants, that they are urged by the necessities of their position to devote all their talents and energies to make money by any means in their power. Their official rank and influence are available to extort a bribe and to screen the guilty parties. Where all are corrupt who is to denounce the offender?

This too faithful picture of an Austrian official will serve as a clue to unravel the mystery of those enormous defalcations which have recently come to light in the Austrian administration. Startling as they are to English readers, those who are acquainted with the secret practices of Austrian bureaucracy can only wonder that the late astounding frauds were discovered at all—so intricate and wide-spread is the network of chicanery and intrigue which enmeshes the Austrian system of administration.

Not long ago, it was discovered that our prisons are palaces, that the treadmill is as pleasant as waltzing, that picking oakum is not more difficult than potichomanie, and that if any one desires to fare luxuriously every day, without expense to himself, he has only to turn thief, and be sentenced to two years’ confinement. Unfortunately, the life of a prison is attended with a few disadvantages. We are not all fitted for a life of monastic seclusion; silence is not always agreeable; restraint very soon becomes irksome. In spite of these drawbacks, however—which those who have long battled with the world, and whose spirits are drooping under the fell influence of adversity, might well be content to endure for the sake of peace and plenty—the condemned cell seemed a blessed refuge for the distressed, a pretty little chamber in the Castle of Indolence and Many Delights. In one point, especially, the House of Correction, it was supposed, might inspire all prisoners to sing with Dr. Watts—

At all events, the poor man began to imagine that there was no such potluck for him as he could get every day of the year in any penitentiary throughout the land. He and his little ones were starving on a crust of bread, and cast envious looks at the tabby waiting about the area gate for the daily visit of the cats’-meat-man. Why should he not have as good a dinner as the felon who had broken into the house with his centre-bit, or had broken the bank with his frauds? Why should he pace homewards day after day, pale-cheeked, hollow-eyed, with sinking heart and hungry blood, all for the crime of being honest? A cry of indignation rose throughout the country. If people did not go the length of supposing that our prisoners are fed on turtle-soup, and sleep on feather-beds, they declared at least that the management of prisons is such as to place a heavy premium on crime. The criminal is not punished, but rewarded. Our philanthropy has gone too far. We are milksops. Gaolers are gentlemen; turnkeys are bland as the angels that opened the prison doors; they take care that hinges never grate harshly on the ear, and they shoot the bolts sweetly, softly, solemnly, as dying falls of music. Success to swindling! When swindlers are thus petted, who would not go to prison? Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. Let us have jolly dinners with shut doors in preference to empty [746] stomachs under the open sky. Instead of plenty to do, and nothing to eat, let us have the crank on Christian principles—that is, in a fine combination of texts of scripture and boiled beef. After all, there is not a little attraction in the fleshpots of Egypt, and for the sake of the garlic, the leeks and the feast of fat things, with which their souls are satisfied, the chosen Israel long to enter once more the house of bondage, rather than serve God in the wilderness on a diet of sparrows—for what else are quails, at least according to the London experience? Lost in those deserts of brick and mortar, which all great cities are—famished and faint as he treads “the stony-hearted Oxford Street”—the British workman is fain to enter the house of his bondage for the sake of the daily allowance of cooked meat—three ounces, without bone.

In these flattering descriptions of prison discipline there is a good deal of exaggeration, but there is truth enough to perplex many worthy people who are anxious for the wellbeing of the working classes. The authorities may point to the fact that the fare of our penitentiaries is barely sufficient to keep the prisoners from losing flesh; but this is not a fact which appeals to the popular imagination. We see men feeding sometimes voraciously, and yet never gaining in flesh; while others, who are very spare eaters, grow fat in spite of themselves. Therefore, granting that, scientifically, the weighing machine is a fair test of what a man ought to eat, yet, practically, it is not a standard to which the common sense of mankind can submit. There is a fallacy in these measurements which never imposes upon the poor man. He says—“Nobody takes the trouble to weigh me. I have as little fresh air, and as little liberty as those fellows. I am confined in a close workshop all day. I breathe a stifling atmosphere, which the prisoners do not. My whole manner of life requires even more than these convicts do, a nourishing diet. But neither for myself, nor for my family, can I get such excellent or such abundant food as the greatest scoundrel in England obtains every day from his warders. It is a frightful shame—it is a national crime. Your weighing machine is a grand imposture.”

And what is the nature of this food which excites so much envy? Between one prison and another there are differences, and it must be remembered that in all prisons there is established a considerable difference between criminals confined for short, and those committed for long periods. Prisoners are divided into classes—generally three. First-class prisoners are the aristocracy of crime, who are at the top of their profession, who are in for more than a couple of months, and who are entitled to first-class fare. The second-class are those who have been sentenced to less than two months, but more than a fortnight; while the third and lowest class includes those who have been committed for a fortnight and under. Not to make the prisons too attractive to petty offenders, those in the second and third classes, who may be described as the fluctuating population of our bridewells, get the very commonest fare. Those in the second get but a very small portion of animal food; these in [747] the third get none at all. It is the class who are confined for lengthened terms, and who may almost be described as the permanent population of our prisons, that get the sort of fare which has caused so much envy.

We may take the dietary table of the House of Correction at Cold Bath Fields as a fair example of the mode in which first-class prisoners are fed. They get three meals a day—breakfast, dinner, and supper. At the first of these, every prisoner gets six ounces and two-thirds of bread, together with a pint of cocoa. The bread, it is true, is brown, and our lower classes have a prejudice against loaves made from coarse flour; but the prejudice is an absurd one. The man of wealth regards brown bread as a luxury; it is the most wholesome, nourishing, and palatable form of the staff of life; and those who begin by making faces at it very soon come to enjoy it. Every day a loaf is given to each prisoner, about the size for which we pay twopence in the shops. With two cuts of a knife, it is divided into three parts; it is then placed in a bag and handed to each prisoner, being his allowance for the day. He eats a third at breakfast, a third at dinner, and the remainder at supper. We are still at breakfast, however, and wish to know about that pint of cocoa which is handed to each man. The general way in which the ingredients are mixed is this:—In every hundred pints of the article, as it issues from the kitchen, there ought to be three pounds two ounces of cocoa, eight pounds of molasses, or four pounds of raw sugar, and twelve and a-half pints of milk. So that the allowance to each man, in his pint of cocoa, is half-an-ounce of cocoa, half-a-gill of milk, and either one ounce and a-third of molasses, or two-thirds of an ounce of sugar—the rest being water. If this is not a very luxurious breakfast, still it is not a bad one, and many an honest man would be glad if he could command it for himself and his family.

Dinner comes at two o’clock. The men sit down on narrow benches, before long strips of table. A table-cloth is laid for each; it is a piece of brown paper somewhat less than the size of the present page. Upon this the salt, to which the prisoner is allowed to help himself in any quantity, or his bread, or anything else, is deposited, and after dinner he pockets the paper, for he will receive a new table-cloth on the morrow. His quantity of bread I have already mentioned. It is a third part of the little loaf which is handed to him in a numbered bag, and for each meal weighs six ounces and two-thirds. The foundation of the dinner, however, is animal food. On four days of the week, the prisoners get meat and potatoes; on three they get soup. The meat (though not the soup) has the disadvantage of being served up cold; but this is unavoidable when a great quantity of beef or mutton has to be divided simultaneously into small pieces for a thousand prisoners, who commence their meal at one and the same moment. Each man gets six ounces of meat and half a pound of potatoes. During the winter half of the year the meat is beef and mutton alternate fortnights; during the summer half it is beef entirely. In some prisons the allowance is as low as three ounces of cooked meat without bone; but [748] as provisions are probably dearer in London than anywhere else, it is worth while for the purposes of comparison, to confine our attention to the rations permitted in the Houses of Correction at Clerkenwell and Westminster. We shall then be able to put the case against the prisons in the strongest light. The sufficiency of the prison diet will be equally seen if we now turn to examine the nature of the dinner on the three days of the week, which are allotted to soup, with the usual modicum of bread. Each man gets a pint and a half of soup. This mess is so prepared that in every hundred pints of it there are stewed down two ox-heads, three pounds of barley, six pounds of peas, three pounds of rice, one pound of salt, and two ounces of pepper, with a due proportion of such vegetables as are in season—carrots, leeks, turnips. This is the Westminster receipt. In other prisons the receipt varies a little. At Lewes, for example, every quart of soup contains six ounces of meat without bone, five ounces of potatoes, two ounces of oatmeal and flour mixed, a sufficient quantity of leeks or onions, and a little parsley or thyme. At Horsemonger Lane, it is made from pot liquor of the boiling beef, and contains per pint, an ounce of chopped beef, two ounces of peas or barley, and vegetables seasoned with pepper and salt. At other prisons the mess is made into a sort of Irish stew, that besides containing plenty of nourishment, is rendered palatable by mint or other pot herbs. On the whole it will be admitted that the dinner, if it is of a very plain character, is also substantial, and that no one who can command such fare need starve or complain. There are thousands of poor men who would say that the meal requires but one thing to make it perfect, and that is the glass of beer which is allowed in the Munich prison.

Supper is the meal for which fastidious appetites will have least inclination, for it consists of the usual quantity of bread, together with a pint of gruel. What is this gruel which has such an evil reputation? It contains about one and a half ounces of oatmeal to the pint, and is seasoned with salt or sugar, as the case may be. Now, from the time when Dr. Johnson in his dictionary defined oats to be the substance on which horses are fed in England, and men in Scotland, to the present day, this very fattening article of diet has been the object of innumerable sneers. Lord Kames, with that audacious patriotism for which his countrymen are distinguished, retorted with not a little wit—“Yes, and where can you find such horses and such men?” These matters are very much under the shadow of prejudice. The Hebrew declines ham, and the Englishman can never become partial to frogs and snails. A Scotchman is astonished to find that turnip-tops are eaten in England, and we were all very much surprised when the illustrious Soyer told us not long ago, that the nettle is one of the most delicious green vegetables—fit for the table of a prince, though the poor man can pluck it by the road-side. About this oatmeal, it was but recently that we had some of our public men pronouncing upon its merits in the most dogmatic terms. Mr. Bright described oatmeal porridge as a horrible mess, and seemed to think it one of the grievances [749] of the lower classes in Scotland that they are condemned to feed upon it. The Scotch were at once in arms against him, and they had some right on their side. First of all rose the Duke of Argyll, and declared emphatically that oatmeal porridge is capital food. Then came Dr. Guthrie, who did battle for another preparation of oatmeal, called sowens. “I stand up for Scotland and oatmeal porridge!” he said. “Clearly Mr. Bright knew nothing of what he was speaking about when he disparaged them.” (The Scotch, it will be observed, have a respectful habit of designating their food in the plural number. As kings and editors are always “we,” broth and porridge are always “they.”) “I have heard the case of a countryman of his somewhat in point, who was fain to say a good word for something with less substance. Travelling in the Highlands, he got tired; he got bemisted; he got, what an Englishman, is very apt to do, hungry, and so cast himself upon the hospitality of a cottage he stumbled on. The good woman had no English, and he had no Gaelic; but by the language of signs she came to understand what he wanted. She had no oatmeal in the house—nothing better than what we call sowens. Now sowens, you know, are very good and palatable when they are manufactured; but before that process they bear a remarkable resemblance to dirty water. That the man thankfully swallowed them I make no doubt—for he went home and told his friends that he had been the object of the most remarkable providence that ever befell a human being. Quoth he, after telling the first part of the story, the woman took some dirty water and put it into a pot, and, by the blessing of God, it came out a pudding!” There is certainly one mode of preparing oatmeal which all Englishmen relish—namely, when the finer qualities of the meal are baked into those thin cakes, which are obtained in perfection only in the north of Scotland; and with regard to the gruel at which Mr. Bright and other members of “the bloated aristocracy,” turn up their noses, it is, even in its simplest form, not to be despised by hungering men; while, by the addition of some cheap condiment, it can always be made agreeable to the taste. The prisoners, at all events, partake of it heartily; and a little butter, milk, or treacle, helps it wonderfully.

The conclusion which is drawn from all this is, that prisoners are well fed, that the diet provided is beyond the means of many poor families and that there must be something wrong if criminals are so much better off than the honest artisan who is starving with his family on a pittance of 20 s. a week. That there is something wrong it is not necessary to deny. But the question may be raised, whether the wrong lies in our system of prison discipline. If the fare which is provided for our criminals is good and ample, is even generous, there is this also to be remembered, at the same time, that it is dirt-cheap. It is so cheap that when the cost of it is mentioned, everybody will at once admit that the idea of lowering the price still further would be a ridiculous meanness. At the Clerkenwell House of Correction the diet which we have described is provided to each prisoner at the cost of certainly not more than 4 d. a day. The average [750] cost of feeding all the prisoners in that gaol during the year 1859 was 2 s. a week for each man; but as this average is struck so as to include the second and third-class prisoners, there will be a difference in the calculation if we take account only of the first-class prisoners receiving first-class fare. That difference, however, must be very slight, as, among the 1,200 daily inmates of the prison, there is but a sprinkling of the second and third-class criminals. We are clearly within the mark if we put down 4 d. a day for each man. At the Ely House of Correction the charge is 3¼ d. for each. At the Salford New Bailey the daily cost of food is 2¾ d. a head. For the whole of England the average cost of each prisoner’s diet is 3¾ d. a day. There is a very curious and instructive table in one of our blue-books, which shows the total average cost per annum of each prisoner; and when people talk of the luxury of prisons, we may ask them to read this table, and then to say what they think:—

	£.	s.	d.
Prison diet, &c.	5	12	5¼
Clothing, bedding, and straw	1	7	2
Medicines, &c.	0	1	7¼
Wine, beer, and spirits	0	0	10
Washing and cooking	0	1	7
Fuel, soap, candles, oil, and gas	1	17	11
Stationary, printing, and books	0	6	3¾
Furniture	0	4	11¼
Rents, rates, and taxes	0	2	6¾
Officers’ salaries	9	19	7¾
Pensions to retired officers	0	7	10¼
Support of prisoners removed under contract to other jurisdictions	0	3	10½
Removal of prisoners to and from trial	0	8	11¼
Removing transported convicts	0	5	0
Repairs, alterations, and additions	2	9	5
Sundry contingencies not enumerated	1	1	9¾
Annual repayment of principal or interest of money borrowed for alterations or rebuilding of prison	2	12	9¾
	£26	19	8½

It should be stated with regard to this return, although it does not in the least affect the general argument, that it is an average with which what are called the Government prisons have nothing to do. The above average is derived from a comparison of the county and borough prisons. In the government establishments, which hold the criminals that under the old system would be sentenced to transportation, the cost of each prisoner may be one or two pounds more. If we must be exact, let the figures be quoted, and from these it will be found that in 1856, the gross total cost for each prisoner was 28 l. 5 s. , and that this sum was reduced to 16 l. 5 s. 4 d. by setting against it the value of prisoners’ labour. Putting these prisons then aside, as not affecting the general argument, and looking simply at the ordinary houses of correction to be found in every county in England, what do we discover? We discover in the first place, that every prisoner costs the county at the rate of 27 l. a year, or a trifle over ten shillings a week. If we take into consideration the numerous items which that sum [751] covers, it does not appear that this is a vary exorbitant sum. But when we turn our attention to the first six items of the foregoing list, which include the diet, the clothing, the bedding, medicines, wine, beer and spirits, washing, cooking, fuel, soap, candles, oil and gas, everybody must be astonished at the smallness of the amount sufficient to meet what may be described as the personal wants of the prisoner. He is fed and clothed, he is warmed and lighted, he is washed and doctored throughout the year for 9 l. 1 s. , 6½ d. These first six items which constitute the expense of living, are covered by sixpence a day. The one article of diet is, I have already stated, covered by the sum of threepence-three-farthings a day.

What is the inference to be deduced from such a fact? Will any body say that our prisoners are extravagantly fed? Will anybody undertake to keep them in life, on a smaller sum? It is surely palpable that if a comparison with the diet of prisoners, the fare of our honest poor looks meagre enough; that if a premium seems to be placed on crime by the goodness of the penitentiary kitchen, there may be a wrong somewhere, but it is certainly not in the system of prison discipline. Surely the wrong is not that prisoners are so well fed, but that honest men are worse fed. Why should they be worse fed? They pay far more than fourpence a day for their food, and that food is not nearly so nice, nor so wholesome, as that which every pick-pocket obtains. The proper inference is that in prisons these things are managed well, while in the poor man’s dwelling they are managed badly. It is entirely an affair of management.

There are two great losses which the poor man suffers from. In the first place he has to buy from the retail dealer, and consequently pays more for every article that he requires. He has to pay so much indeed for each item, that a number of little delicacies which he has to buy fresh every day in order to give a flavour to his food—such as parsley, cost him far more than they are worth—cost it may be two or three hundred per cent. beyond their real value. In the second place, after he has got all his articles of food together, there is a great deal of waste because things are prepared on a small scale. He will buy bone with his meat, but he is unable to turn the bone to account. Or he gets too much fat with his meat, and he has either to cut it off, or to throw it into the pot so as to spoil the dinner. Besides which, in nine cases out of ten, his wife is a vile cook, and would spoil the best of food. What with buying his things dear, buying what he cannot turn to any use, and having to trust to the tender mercies of those culinary artists who are said to be chiefly provided by the enemy of mankind, the working man’s teeth enjoy but poor practice. The remedy for the startling contrast between the dinner-tables of the thief in prison and honesty in a garret, is not to place the felon on shorter commons, but to teach honesty the art of combination, and to bring that system of the division of labour which in manufactures has achieved the most splendid results, to bear upon the ordinary economy of human life.

The wild theories of communists have unfortunately brought discredit on the principle of combination as applied to the domestic life. But there [752] was wisdom in the idea of a common kitchen, if not of a common purse. How will the poor man ever be able to command twenty ounces of bread, six ounces of cooked meat, eight ounces of potatoes, a pint of cocoa and a pint of gruel, all for fourpence (indeed less than fourpence), except by combination of some sort? In the manufacturing towns of the north, the workmen form themselves into a sort of joint-stock company, purchase their provisions wholesale, sell them to the members of the company at a profit barely sufficient to cover the expenses, and so contrive to live at a comparatively cheap rate. There are other schemes of a similar description afoot, which have been more or less successful; and it may be that in time the working classes will establish institutions for cooking, for brewing, and for providing themselves with all the necessaries of life. Such institutions as these must be left to spring up spontaneously among themselves; but, in the meantime, it seems to us that something may be done to show the lower classes what is in their power if they only set about it in the right way. As a general rule, the establishment of large kitchens for the purpose of victualling the poor must be left to private enterprise. They will be established by persons who see their way to make a moderate profit in providing wholesome food at a cheaper rate than has yet been possible. If anybody sneers at cheapness, and suggests a doubt whether such undertakings can ever be sustained except by charitable contributions, there is a very good answer at hand in the success of the model lodging-houses. It was said that model lodging-houses would never pay. But they pay so well, that Mr. Newson, who has built a couple of such houses at the back of Berkeley Square (and they are well worth going to see), has declared his readiness to build similar houses in the City, say about Farringdon Street, if he can only get the ground at a moderate rent. The accommodation which in this way he gives to the families of the working classes for 3 s. 6 d. or 4 s. 6 d. a week, is perfectly marvellous. And what an enterprising builder has thus accomplished in providing house-room, enterprising victuallers will emulate in providing cheap, wholesome, palatable food, and in making a profit out of the transaction. The idea is not worth much unless it will pay. It can have no genuine vitality unless it will be self-supporting. If Clerkenwell House of Correction can feed 1,200 prisoners daily at fourpence each, surely it is within the bounds of probability that as many customers can be well served with food for eightpence or ninepence a day, and a tolerable margin of profit be left to the account?

But those who hold strenuously, as we do, that schemes of this sort must pay their own way, and should be left to the enterprize of individuals—that they are purely a question of commerce, with which charity and patronage have nothing to do—may nevertheless think that, in the first instance, an example has to be set, and that trade, which is always suspicious of new projects, is not likely to set the example in a hurry. It was not the instincts of trade that started the model lodging-houses; but, once started, the tradesman is glad to keep up the game. So it is not likely [753] that the mere instinct of trade will in a moment set cheap kitchens afloat; and in these matters the example has generally to be given by persons who are willing to act together on philanthropic grounds. On public grounds, a committee of noblemen and gentlemen, headed by Prince Albert, started the Crystal Palace, ran all the risk of failure, carried the scheme to a successful issue, and inspired the directors of the palace at Sydenham to follow the example, under certain modifications, with pounds, shillings, and pence as the motive power. Perhaps a poor man’s kitchen ought not to be mentioned in the same page with crystal palaces; but perhaps, also, it is capable of producing as much real good as acres of glass and miles of iron pillars. And surely there are many gentlemen in this metropolis who take an interest in the poor of our great cities, who only require that such facts as the foregoing should be brought under their notice, in order to follow them up to a practical conclusion, and whose names would be certain to obtain from the public the small sum of money necessary to erect the cooking apparatus, and to put the scheme in motion.

The working-classes have lately exhibited such a talent for organization, that there is every likelihood of their speedily learning the lesson. The builders have but lately concluded a strike for more pay. It is demonstrable that they can, by their own exertions, obtain all that they demand. If they have failed in obtaining more wages, it is still possible for them to achieve what comes to the same thing—to make the actual amount of wages go as far as the increased rate which they desire. Why should not Messrs. Potter and Co. turn their formidable powers of organization in this direction? It is surely more feasible, as well as more laudable, for trade unions to provide their members with cheap and nourishing food, than to aim at the intimidation of masters, and of men not belonging to the society. The unions are anxious to embrace every member of the particular trades to which they are attached. Could any machinery be established more certain to bring about that result, than the institution of kitchens connected with each trade? Every member of the union, on presenting his ticket, would get his rations at cost price, while those, not members of the union, would get the same rations if they chose to pay a little more. That slight increase of price would be a screw that would act effectually in inducing all workmen to belong to a society. The advantages which a trades’ union holds forth to the members are, for the most part, contingent. If a union workman is sick, he will have an allowance in his sickness; if he dies, his family will have a claim on the society; should he innocently get into trouble with his employers, he will be backed by all the funds and influence of his fellow members. But many workmen cannot bring themselves to anticipate such contingencies. They are not sick; they are not going to die; nobody is troubling them. Why should they join a society? But offer them every day a cheaper and a better dinner than they can get, save as being enrolled in the union, and they will join to a man. The unions, which in spite of the illegal and tyrannical purposes they have been made to [754] serve, are a most valuable institution, which no man of sense would wish to take away from the working man, would then produce greater good than they have yet accomplished; they would fill the poor man’s mouth, and it generally happens that when the mouth has done all that it wants to do in the way of eating it is not inclined to do much in the way of sedition.

It is a very humiliating reflection that eating and drinking occupy more of our thoughts than anything else in heaven above or in the earth beneath. We are not yet as the lilies that take no thought of such matters. Man is like the lower animals in this respect that with the vast majority of our race, the struggle for existence is a struggle for dinner. We have all somewhat of the Tartar Khan in us, and after we ourselves have dined, are ready to proclaim that the whole world may dine also. But we first. Nobody shall dine with our good will, if we are starving. Who can count all the wars, murders and quarrels that have arisen out of this one question of dinner—the question of questions? How many of the piteous cases that come before Sir Cresswell Cresswell are to be explained by deficiency of food, badness of cooking, and fits of indigestion? There is no such irritant as hunger and deranged gastronomy. If we could only get at the wisdom which is supposed to lie in ancient fables we should probably find that Pandora’s box, the source of every mischief, was an empty oven or larder, or some such receptacle. The poor man especially feels the truth of this doctrine. He conspires against the rich, because he never gets a dinner, and on that point he feels with the Great Cham. He beats his wife, because with his hard won earnings she can place only bad food before him. He drinks beer, and drowns himself in gin, because no meat that he can get is half so pleasant. People imagine that by introducing the light wines of France into this country we shall put a stop to drunkenness. It is a great mistake. The French are a sober people, not because they drink wine, but because they are good cooks. Where you have bad cookery and good liquor, depend upon it the liquor will carry the day. And we shall not stop the rage for liquor in this country by making it still better—by turning the gin into Cognac, and by turning the beer into Bordeaux. The cure lies rather in restoring the balance between meat and drink. Put the meat more on a par with the drink, and then see what the result will be. Either teach the poor man to cook, or give him his meat well cooked. Let the Temperance Leagues and Alliances look to it. They will accomplish far more good by improving the working man’s edibles than by meddling with his potables—by seconding that natural law which makes a man chiefly dependent on his food, rather than by attempting to place artificial barriers in the way of his getting whatever drink he may require. The best cure for the drunkenness of the lower classes is not a Maine Liquor Law—but soup and sausages, pudding and pies; is not to shut the beershops, but to open the poor man’s kitchen.

ON SOME LATE GREAT VICTORIES.

On the 18th day of April last I went to see a friend in a neighbouring Crescent, and on the steps of the next house beheld a group something like that here depicted. A news-boy had stopped in his walk, and was reading aloud the journal which it was his duty to deliver; a pretty orange girl, with a heap of blazing fruit, rendered more brilliant by one of those great blue papers in which oranges are now artfully wrapped, leant over the railing and listened; and opposite the nympham discentem there was a capering and acute eared young satirist of a crossing-sweeper, who had left his neighbouring professional avocation and chance of profit, in order to listen to the tale of the little news-boy.

That intelligent reader, with his hand following the line as he read it out to his audience, was saying:—“And—now—Tom—coming up smiling—after his fall—dee—delivered a rattling clinker upon the Benicia Boy’s—potatoe-trap—but was met by a—punisher on the nose—which,” &c. &c.; or words to that effect. Betty at 52 let me in, while the boy was reading his lecture; and, having been some twenty minutes or so in the house and paid my visit, I took leave.

The little lecturer was still at work on the 51 doorstep, and his audience had scarcely changed their position. Having read every word of the battle myself in the morning, I did not stay to listen further; but if the gentleman who expected his paper at the usual hour that day experienced delay and a little disappointment I shall not be surprised.

I am not going to expatiate on the battle. I have read in the correspondent’s letter of a Northern newspaper, that in the midst of the company assembled the reader’s humble servant was present, and in a very polite society, too, of “poets, clergymen, men of letters, and members of both Houses of Parliament.” If so, I must have walked to the station in my sleep, paid three guineas in a profound fit of mental abstraction, and returned to bed unconscious, for I certainly woke there about the time when history relates that the fight was over. I do not know whose colours I wore—the Benician’s, or those of the Irish champion; nor remember where the fight took place, which, indeed, no somnambulist is bound to recollect. Ought Mr. Sayers to be honoured for being brave, or punished for being naughty? By the shade of Brutus the elder, I don’t know.

In George II.’s time, there was a turbulent navy lieutenant (Handsome Smith he was called—his picture is at Greenwich now, in brown velvet, and gold and scarlet; his coat handsome, his waistcoat exceedingly handsome; but his face by no means the beauty)—there was, I say, a turbulent young lieutenant who was broke on a complaint of the French ambassador, for obliging a French ship of war to lower her topsails to his ship at Spithead. But, by the King’s orders, Tom was next day made Captain Smith. Well, if I were absolute king, I would send Tom Sayers to the mill for a month, and make him Sir Thomas on coming out of Clerkenwell. You are a naughty boy, Tom! but then, you know, we ought to love our brethren, though ever so naughty. We are moralists, and reprimand you; and you are hereby reprimanded accordingly. But in case England should ever have need of a few score thousand champions, who laugh at danger; who cope with giants; who, stricken to the ground, jump up and gaily rally, and fall, and rise again, and strike, and die rather than yield—in case the country should need such men, and you should know them, be pleased to send lists of the misguided persons to the principal police stations, where means may some day be found to utilize their wretched powers, and give their deplorable energies a right direction. Suppose, Tom, that you and your friends are pitted against an immense invader—suppose you are bent on holding the ground, and dying there, if need be—suppose it is life, freedom, honour, home, you are fighting for, and there is a death-dealing sword or rifle in your hand, with which you are going to resist some tremendous enemy who challenges your championship on your native shore? Then, Sir Thomas, resist him to the death, and it is all right: kill him, and heaven bless you. Drive him into the sea, and there destroy, smash, and drown him; and let us sing, Laudamus . In these national cases, you see, we override the indisputable first laws of morals. Loving your neighbour is very well, but suppose your neighbour comes over from Calais and Boulogne to rob you of your laws, your liberties, your newspapers, your parliament (all of which some dear neighbours of ours have given up in the most self-denying manner): suppose any neighbour were to cross the water and propose this kind of thing to us? Should we not be justified in humbly trying to pitch him into the water? If it were [757] the King of Belgium himself we must do so. I mean that fighting, of course, is wrong; but that there are occasions when &c.—I suppose I mean that that one-handed fight of Sayers is one of the most spirit-stirring little stories ever told: and, with every love and respect for Morality—my spirit says to her, “Do, for goodness’ sake, my dear madam, keep your true, and pure, and womanly, and gentle remarks for another day. Have the great kindness to stand a leetle aside, and just let us see one or two more rounds between the men. That little man with the one hand powerless on his breast facing yonder giant for hours, and felling him, too, every now and then! It is the little Java and the Constitution over again!”

I think it is a most fortunate event for the brave Heenan, who has acted and written since the battle with a true warrior’s courtesy, and with a great deal of good logic too, that the battle was a drawn one. The advantage was all on Mr. Sayers’s side. Say a young lad of sixteen insults me in the street, and I try and thrash him, and do it. Well, I have thrashed a young lad. You great, big tyrant, couldn’t you hit your own size? But say the lad thrashes me? In either case I walk away discomfited: but in the latter, I am positively put to shame. Now, when the ropes were cut from that death-grip, and Sir Thomas released by the recognized, the Eu-rope-an laws—the gentleman of Benicia was confessedly blind of one eye, and speedily afterwards was blind of both. Could Mr. Sayers have held out for three minutes, for five minutes, for ten minutes more? He says he could. So we say we could have held out, and did, and had beaten off the enemy at Waterloo, even if the Prussians hadn’t come up. The opinions differ pretty much according to the nature of the opinants. I say the Duke and Tom could have held out, that they meant to hold out, that they did hold out, and that there has been fistifying enough. That crowd which came in and stopped the fight ought to be considered like one of those divine clouds which the gods send in Homer:

It is the best way of getting the godlike Trojan out of the scrape, don’t you see. The nodus is cut; Tom is out of chancery; the Benicia Boy not a bit the worse, nay, better than if he had beaten the little man. He has not the humiliation of conquest. He is greater, and will be loved more hereafter by the gentle sex. Suppose he had overcome the godlike Trojan? Suppose he had tied Tom’s corpse to his cab-wheels, and driven to Farnham, smoking the pipe of triumph? Faugh! the great, hulking conqueror! Why did you not hold your hand from yonder hero? Everybody, I say, was relieved by that opportune appearance of the British gods, protectors of native valour, who interfered, and “withdrew” their champion.

Now, suppose six-feet-two conqueror, and five-feet-eight beaten; would Sayers have been a whit the less gallant and meritorious? If Sancho had been allowed really to reign in Barataria, I make no doubt [758] that, with his good sense and kindness of heart, he would have devised some means of rewarding the brave vanquished, as well as the brave victors in the Baratarian army, and that a champion who had fought a good fight would have been a knight of King Don Sancho’s orders, whatever the upshot of the combat had been. Suppose Wellington overwhelmed on the plateau of Mount St. John; suppose Washington attacked and beaten at Valley Forge—and either supposition is quite easy—and what becomes of the heroes? They would have been as brave, honest, heroic, wise; but their glory, where would it have been? Should we have had their portraits hanging in our chambers? have been familiar with their histories? have pondered over their letters, common lives, and daily sayings? There is not only merit, but luck which goes to making a hero out of a gentleman. Mind, please you, I am not saying that the hero is after all not so very heroic; and have not the least desire to grudge him his merit because of his good fortune.

Have you any idea whither this Roundabout Essay on some late great victories is tending? Do you suppose that by those words I mean Trenton, Brandywine, Salamanca, Vittoria, and so forth? By a great victory I can’t mean that affair at Farnham, for it was a drawn fight. Where then are the victories, pray, and when are we coming to them?

My good sir, you will perceive that in this Nicæan discourse I have only as yet advanced as far as this—that a hero, whether he wins or loses, is a hero; and that if a fellow will but be honest and courageous, and do his best, we are for paying all honour to him. Furthermore, it has been asserted that Fortune has a good deal to do with the making of heroes; and thus hinted for the consolation of those who don’t happen to be engaged in any stupendous victories, that, had opportunity so served, they might have been heroes too. If you are not, friend, it is not your fault, whilst I don’t wish to detract from any gentleman’s reputation who is. There. My worst enemy can’t take objection to that. The point might have been put more briefly perhaps; but, if you please, we will not argue that question.

Well, then. The victories which I wish especially to commemorate in this the last article of our first volume, are the six great, complete, prodigious, and undeniable victories, achieved by the corps which the editor of the Cornhill Magazine has the honour to command. When I seemed to speak disparagingly but now of generals, it was that chief I had in my I (if you will permit me the expression), I wished him not to be elated by too much prosperity; I warned him against assuming heroic imperatorial airs, and cocking his laurels too jauntily over his ear. I was his conscience, and stood on the splash-board of his triumph-car, whispering, “ Hominem memento te .” As we rolled along the way, and passed the weathercocks on the temples, I saluted the symbol of the goddess Fortune with a reverend awe. “We have done our little endeavour,” I said, bowing my head, “and mortals can do no more. But we might have fought bravely, and not won. We might have cast the coin, calling [759] ‘Head,’ and, lo! Tail might have come uppermost.” Oh! thou Ruler of Victories!—thou awarder of Fame!—thou Giver of Crowns (and shillings)—if thou hast smiled upon us, shall we not be thankful? There is a Saturnine philosopher, standing at the door of his book-shop, who, I fancy, has a pooh-pooh expression as the triumph passes. (I can’t see quite clearly for the laurels, which have fallen down over my nose.) One hand is reining in the two white elephants that draw the car; I raise the other hand up to—to the laurels, and pass on, waving him a graceful recognition. Up the Hill of Ludgate—around the Pauline Square—by the side of Chepe—until it reaches our own Hill of Corn—the procession passes. The Imperator is bowing to the people; the captains of the legions are riding round the car, their gallant minds struck by the thought, “Have we not fought as well as yonder fellow, swaggering in the chariot, and are we not as good as he?” Granted, with all my heart, my dear lads. When your consulship arrives, may you be as fortunate. When these hands, now growing old, shall lay down sword and truncheon, may you mount the car, and ride to the temple of Jupiter. Be yours the laurel then. Neque me myrtus dedecet , looking cosily down from the arbour where I sit under the arched vine.

I fancy the Imperator standing on the steps of the temple (erected by Titus) on the Mons Frumentarius, and addressing the citizens: “Quirites!” he says “in our campaign of six months, we have been engaged six times, and in each action have taken near upon a hundred thousand prisoners . Go to! What are other magazines compared to our magazine? (Sound, trumpeter!) What banner is there like that of Cornhill? You, philosopher yonder? (he shirks under his mantle). Do you know what it is to have a hundred and ten thousand readers? A hundred thousand readers? a hundred thousand buyers !’ (Cries of No!—Pooh! Yes, upon my honour! Oh, come! and murmurs of applause and derision)—‘I say more than a hundred thousand purchasers—and I believe as much as a million readers! (Immense sensation.) To these have we said an unkind word? We have enemies; have we hit them an unkind blow? Have we sought to pursue party aims, to forward private jobs, to advance selfish schemes? The only persons to whom wittingly we have given pain are some who have volunteered for our corps—and of these volunteers we have had thousands [20] (Murmurs and grumbles.) What commander, citizens, could place all these men—could make officers of all these men? (cries of No—no! and laughter)—could say ‘I accept this recruit, though he is too short for our standard, because he is poor and has a mother at home who wants bread? could enrol this other, who is too weak to bear arms, because he says, ‘Look, sir, I shall be stronger anon.’ The leader of such an army as ours must select his men, not because they are good and virtuous, but because [760] they are strong and capable. To these our ranks are ever open, and in addition to the warriors—who surround me—(the generals look proudly conscious)—I tell you, citizens, that I am in treaty with other and most tremendous champions, who will march by the side of our veterans to the achievement of fresh victories. Now, blow trumpets! Bang, ye gongs! and drummers, drub the thundering skins! Generals and chiefs, we go to sacrifice to the Gods.”

Crowned with flowers, the captains enter the temple, the other magazines walking modestly behind them. The people huzza; and, in some instances, kneel and kiss the fringes of the robes of the warriors. The Philosopher puts up his shutters, and retires into his shop, deeply moved. In ancient times, Pliny ( apud Smith) relates it was the custom of the Imperator “to paint his whole body a bright red;” and, also, on ascending the Hill, to have some of the hostile chiefs led aside “to the adjoining prison, and put to death.” We propose to dispense with both these ceremonies.

FOOTNOTES

[20] The average of contributions has been for the last two months 100 a-week; and we beseech candidates to bear the above fact in mind, and consider that it is impossible to reply personally to all of them; or give special reasons why such and such an article is not suited to the Magazine.— Ed. C. H. M.

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	PAGE
London the Stronghold of England	641
Lovel the Widower. (With an Illustration.)	652
Chapter VI. — Cecilia’s Successor.
The Maiden’s Lover	669
The Portent	670
II.—“The Omen Coming on.”
Studies in Animal Life	682
Chapter VI. — Every organism a colony—What is a paradox?—An organ is an independent individual, and a dependent one—A branch of coral—A colony of polypes—The Siphonophora—Universal dependence—Youthful aspirings—Our interest in the youth of great men—Genius and labour—Cuvier’s college life; his appearance in youth; his arrival in Paris—Cuvier and Geoffrey St. Hilaire—Causes of Cuvier’s success—One of his early ambitions—M. le Baron—Omnia vincit labor—Conclusion.
Framley Parsonage. (With an Illustration.)	691
Chapter XVI. — Mrs. Podgens’ Baby.
” XVII.— Mrs. Proudie’s Conversazione.
” XVIII.— The New Minister’s Patronage.
William Hogarth: Painter, Engraver, and Philosopher. Essays on the Man, the Work, and the Time	716
V.—Between London and Sheerness.
An Austrian Employé	736
Sir Self and Womankind. By William Duthie	742
The Poor Man’s Kitchen	745
Roundabout Papers.—No. 4	755
On Some late Great Victories.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Cornhill Magazine (Vol. I, No. 6, June 1860)

THE
CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

CONTENTS.

NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.