Let us never forget that Species have no existence. Only individuals

exist, and these _all vary_ more or less from each other. When the

variations are slight, they have no name; when they are more marked,

and are transmitted from one generation to another, they constitute

particular Faces, or Varieties; when the differences are still more

marked they constitute Sub-species; but, as Mr. Darwin says, “Certainly

no clear line of demarcation has yet been drawn between Species and

Sub-species; that is, the forms which in the opinion of some naturalists

come very near to, but do not quite arrive at the rank of Species; or

again, between Sub-species and well-marked Varieties, or between lesser

Varieties and individual differences. These differences blend into each

other in an insensible series; and a series impresses the mind with the

idea of an actual passage.” But the same process of divergence which

establishes Varieties out of individual differences, and Species out

of Varieties, also serves to establish Genera out of Species, Orders

out of Genera, and Classes out of Orders. It is, doubtless, difficult

to conceive by what process of modification, two animals of distinct

Genera, say a dog and a cat, were produced from a common stock; but

organic analogies in abundance render it easy of belief. If we knew as

much of zoology as we do of embryology, in respect of the affinities

of divergent forms, it would be far less surprising that two different

Genera should arise from a common stock, than that all the various parts

of the skeleton should arise from a common osseous element. We know

that the jaws are identical with arms and legs—both being divergent

modifications of a common osseous structure. We know that the arm of a

man is identical with the fin of a whale, or the wing of a bird. The

differences here in form, size, and function are much greater than the

differences which establish orders and classes in the animal series.

Unless animal forms were modifications of some common type, it would be

difficult to explain their remarkable affinities. As Mr. Darwin says, “It

is a truly wonderful fact—the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from

familiarity—that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space

should be related to each other in group, subordinate to group, in the

manner which we everywhere behold, namely, varieties of the same species

most closely related together, species of the same genus less closely

and unequally related together, forming sections and sub-genera, species

of distinct genera much less closely related, and genera related in

different degrees, forming sub-families, families, orders, sub-classes,

and classes. The several subordinate groups in any class cannot be ranked

in a single file, but seem rather to be clustered round points, and these

round other points, and so on in almost endless circles. On the view that

each species has been independently created, I can see no explanation

of this great fact in the classification of all organic beings; but to

the best of my judgment it is explained through inheritance, and the

complex action of natural selection, entailing extinction and divergence

of character. The affinities of all the beings of the same class have

sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely

speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing

species; and those produced during each former year may represent the

long succession of extinct species. At each period of growth all the

growing twigs have tried to branch out on all sides, and to overtop and

kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the same manner as species

and groups of species have tried to overmaster other species in the great

struggle for life. The limbs divided into great branches, and these into

lesser branches, were themselves once, when the tree was small, budding

twigs; and this connection of the former and present buds by ramifying

branches, may well represent the classification of all extinct and

living species in groups subordinate to groups. Of the many twigs which

flourished when the tree was a mere bush, only two or three, now grown

into great branches, yet survive and bear all the other branches. So with

the species which lived during long-past geological periods, very few now

have living and modified descendants.... As buds give rise by growth to

fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides

many a feebler branch: so by generation, I believe, it has been with the

great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the

crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and

beautiful ramifications.”[14]

It will not be expected that in these brief and desultory remarks

I should touch on all, or nearly all, the important points in the

discussion respecting the Fixity of Species. Mr. Darwin’s book is in

everybody’s hands, and my object has been to facilitate, if possible,

the comprehension of his book, and the adoption of a more philosophical

hypothesis, by pointing out the weakness of the chief argument on the

other side. There is one more argument which may be noticed—the more so

as it is constantly adduced with triumph by the one school, and admitted

as a difficulty by the other. Its force is so great that it prevents

many from accepting the development hypothesis. It is the argument

founded on the alleged impossibility of Hybrids continuing the race.

More than two or three generations of Hybrids, it is said, can never be

maintained; after that, the new form perishes: thus clearly showing how

Nature repudiates such amalgamations, and keeps her species jealously

distinct and invariable. This argument is held to be the touchstone of

the doctrine of species. I wish it were so; because, in that case, the

question would no longer be one of hypothesis, since we have now the

indubitable proof that some Hybrids _are_ fertile unto the thirteenth

generation and onwards.

A history of the various attempts which have been made to prove and

disprove the fertility of Hybrids, would lead us beyond our limits; the

curious reader is referred to the works cited below.[15] One decisive

case alone shall be given here, and no one will dispute that it _is_

decisive.

The hare (_lepus timidus_) is assuredly of a distinct species from the

rabbit (_lepus cuniculus_). So distinct are these species, that any

classification which should range them as one, would violate every

accepted principle. The hare is solitary, the rabbit gregarious; the hare

lives on the surface of the earth, the rabbit burrows under the surface;

the hare makes her home among the bushes, the rabbit makes a sort of nest

for her young in her burrow—keeping them there till they are weaned; the

hare has reddish-brown flesh, the rabbit white flesh; while the odour

exhaled by each, and the flavour of each, are unmistakeably different.

The hare has many anatomical characters differing from those of the

rabbit: such as greater length and strength of the hind legs, larger

body, shorter intestine, thicker skin, firmer hair, and different colour.

The hare breeds only twice or thrice a year, and at each litter has only

two or four; the rabbit will breed eight times a year, and each time has

four, six, seven, and even eight young ones. Finally, the two are violent

foes: the rabbits always destroy the hares, and all sportsmen are aware

that if the rabbits be suffered to multiply on an estate, there will be

small chance of hares.

Nevertheless, between species so distinct as these, a new hybrid race

has been reared by M. Rouy, of Angoulême, who each year sends to market

upwards of a thousand of his _Leporides_, as he calls them. His object

was primarily commercial, not scientific. His experiments, extending

from 1847 to the present time, have not only been of great commercial

value—introducing a new and valuable breed—but have excited the attention

of scientific men, who are now availing themselves of his skill and

experience to help them in the solution of minor problems. It is enough

to note here, that these hybrids of the hare and the rabbit are fertile,

not only with either hares or rabbits, but _with each other_. Thirteen

generations have already been enumerated, and the last remains so

vigorous that no cessation whatever is to be anticipated.

In presence of this case (and others, though less striking, might be

named) there is but one alternative; either we must declare that rabbits

and hares form one and the same species—which is absurd—or we must admit

_that new types may be formed by the union of two existing types_; and

consequently that species _are_ variable. If the doctrine of Fixity

of Species acknowledges the touchstone of hybridity, the fate of the

doctrine is settled for ever.

Although I conceive the doctrine of Fixity of Species to be altogether

wrong, I cannot say that the arguments adduced in favour of the

development hypothesis rise higher than a high degree of probability,

still very far from demonstration; they will leave even the most willing

disciple beset with difficulties and doubts. When stated in general

terms, that hypothesis has a fascinating symmetry and simplicity, but

no sooner do we apply it to particular cases, than a thick veil of

mystery descends, and our pathway becomes a mere blind groping towards

the light. There is nothing but what is perfectly conceivable, and in

harmony with all analogies, in the idea of all animal forms having arisen

from successive modifications of one original form; but there are many

things perfectly conceivable, which have nevertheless no existence;

there are many explanations perfectly probable, which are not true; and

when we come to seek for the evidence of the development hypothesis,

that evidence fails us. It _may_ be true, but we cannot say that it _is_

true. Ten years ago, I espoused the hypothesis, and believed that it

must be the truth; but ten years of study, instead of deepening, have

loosened that conviction: they have strengthened my opposition to the

hypothesis of fixity of species, but they have given greater force to

the difficulties which beset the development hypothesis, and have made

me feel that at present the requisite evidence is wanting. I conclude

with reminding the reader that the question of the origin of species is

at present incapable of a positive answer; of the two hypotheses, that

of development seems the more harmonious with our knowledge; but it

is no more than an hypothesis, and will probably for ever remain one.

Now, an hypothesis, although indispensable as a provisional mode of

grouping together facts, and giving them some sort of explanation, is

after all only a _guess_, and it may be absurdly wide of the truth. In

Natural History, as in all other departments of speculative ingenuity,

there have been a goodly number of outrageously extravagant hypotheses,

gravely propounded, and credulously accepted. Men prefer an absurd guess

to a blank; they would rather have a false opinion than no opinion; and

one of the last developments of philosophic culture, is the power of

_abstaining_ from forming an opinion, where the necessary data are absent.

If you wish to see how easily hypotheses are formed and accepted, you

need only turn over the history of any science. If you want a laugh

at credulity, read a chapter of Pliny’s _Natural History_. Pliny is a

classic, and was for centuries an authority; but looked at with impartial

eyes, he appears the veriest “old woman” that ever wrote in a beautiful

style. He was a mere bookworm, without a particle of scientific insight.

His was not an age when men had much regard to evidence; but to him the

suspicion never seems to have occurred that Gossip Report could be given

to romancing, or that travellers could “see strange things.” No fable is

too monstrous for his credulity.

One of the pretty fables Pliny repeats, is, that pearls are formed by

drops of dew falling into the gaping valves of the oyster. It never

occurred to him to ask whether oysters were ever exposed to the dew?

whether the drops _could_ fall into their valves? whether oysters kept

their valves open, except when under water? or, finally, whether, if the

dew _did_ fall in, it would _remain_ a rounded drop? The drop of dew had

a certain superficial resemblance to the pearl, and that was enough.

Ælian’s hypothesis was somewhat better: he supposed that the pearls were

produced by lightning flashing into the open shells.

Turning from these ancient sages, you will ask how pearls are formed?

And almost any ingenious modern, not a zoologist, will tell you (and

tell you falsely), that the pearl is a disease of the oyster. One is

somewhat fatigued with the merciless frequency with which this notion

has been dragged in, as an illustration of genius issuing out of sorrow

and adversity; and it is time to stop that “damnable iteration” by

discrediting the notion. Know then, that if

“Most wretched men

Are cradled into poetry by wrong:

They learn in suffering what they teach in song”—

it is not true that oysters secrete in suffering what women wear as

necklaces. Disease would be the very worst cradle for pearls. The idea

of disease originated in a fanciful supposition of pearls being to the

oyster and mussel what gall-stones and urinary calculi are to higher and

more suffering animals. Réaumur, to whom we owe so many good observations

and suggestive ideas, came near the truth when, in 1717, he showed that

the structure of pearls was identical with the structure of the shells in

which they grow. He attributed their formation to the morbid effusion of

coagulating shell-material.

I presume you know that shells are formed by a secretion from the

_mantle_? The mantle is that delicate semi-transparent membrane which you

observe, on opening a mussel, lining the whole interior of the shells,

and having at its free margins a sort of fringe of delicate tentacles,

which are sensitive and retractile. A microscopic examination of these

fringes shows them to be glandular in structure—that is, they are

secreting organs. The whole mantle, indeed, is a secreting organ, and

its secretion is the shell-material: the fringes secrete the colouring

matters of the shell, and enlarge its _circumference_; the rest of

the mantle secretes the nacre, or mother-of-pearl, and increases the

_thickness_ of the shell. Now it is obvious that the formation of pearl

nacre, and of pearls, depends on the _healthy_ condition of the mantle,

not on its diseases. If the mantle be injured the nacre is not secreted

at all, or in less quantities.

But, although pearls depend upon the healthy, not the diseased activity

of the mantle, it is clear that there must be some unusual condition

present for their formation; since the secretion of nacre does not

spontaneously assume the form of pearls. What is the unusual condition?

Naturalists are at present divided into two camps, fighting vigorously

for victory. The one side maintains that the origin of a pearl is this—an

egg of the oyster has escaped and strayed under the mantle; or the egg

of a parasite has been _deposited_ there; this egg forms the nucleus,

round which the nacre forms, and thus we have the pearl. The other side

maintains with great positiveness that _anything_ will form a nucleus, a

grain of sand, no less than the egg of a parasite. ’Tis a pretty quarrel,

which we may leave them to settle. Some aver that grains of sand are

more numerous than anything else; but Möbius says that of forty-four

sea pearls, and fifteen fresh-water pearls, examined by him, not one

contained a grain of sand; and Filippi, who has extensively investigated

this subject, denies that a grain of sand ever forms the nucleus of a

true pearl. Both Filippi and Küchenmeister[16] declare that a parasite

gets into the mussel or oyster, and its presence there stimulates an

active secretion of nacre.

There are pearls, according to Möbius, which consist of three different

systems of layers, like the shells in which they are formed; with this

difference, that these layers are _reversed_: in the shell the nacre

forms the innermost layer, in the pearl it forms the outermost. Hence

the qualities of the pearl depend on the shell, and on the different

proportions of nacre and carbonate of lime.

Since we know how pearls are made, may it not be expected that we should

learn to make them? Ever since the days of Linnæus the hope has been

entertained, and it is now becoming every day more likely to be realized.

Imperfect pearls have been made in abundance. The Chinese have long

practised the art. They simply remove the large fresh-water mussel from

the water, insert a foreign substance under the mantle, and in two or

three years (if I remember rightly) they take the mussels up again, and

find the pearls formed. In this way they make little mother-of-pearl

Josses, which are sold for a penny each; and I remember seeing a couple

of large shells in the Anatomical Museum at Munich, the whole length

of which was occupied by rows of little squab Josses, very comical to

behold. I was informed that a copper chain of these deities had been

inserted under the mollusc’s mantle, and this was the result.

FOOTNOTES

[12] FLOURENS: _Cours de Physiologie Comparée_, 1856, p. 9.

[13] BURDACH: _Physiologie_, ii. 245.

[14] DARWIN: _Origin of Species_, p. 128.

[15] ISIDORE GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE: _Hist. Nat. Générale des Règnes

Organiques_, 1860, iii. 207 _sq._ BROCA: _Mémoire sur l’Hybridité_, in

BROWN-SEQUARD’S _Journal de la Physiologie_, 1859.

[16] See their interesting essays in MÜLLER’S _Archiv._ 1856.

Paterfamilias to the Editor of the “Cornhill Magazine.”

Sir,—To a person returning to England after an absence of many years,

few things can be more striking than the progress which has been made in

the art and practice of education since the commencement of the present

century, the methods and contrivances which have been ingeniously and

mercifully invented for imparting with greater ease the rudiments of

knowledge to the young, and the new books and new devices which really

merit the Old World title of _Reading made Easy_.

Formerly, any old paupers, who could read or write more or less

intelligibly, and who were too worn or too weak to earn their subsistence

in any other manner, used to be considered as perfectly qualified to

instruct the rising generation of the parish to which they belonged

in those necessary arts; and dire used to be the sufferings which the

unhappy village children underwent, solely because their broken-down and

incompetent teachers knew but little themselves, and knew not at all how

to impart that little to others.

To do them justice, however, their pupils were not entirely neglected.

If they could not read fluently, neither could they seat themselves with

any degree of comfort; and if they were backward in summing and spelling,

they seldom failed to return home at night with swollen eyes and scored

palms. The tree of knowledge in those days was only valued on account of

the tough and elastic materials which it furnished for the manufacture of

instruments of childish torture.

The normal aspect of a village school used then to be, an aged crone in

the chimney-corner, spectacles on nose, and rod in hand; a loutish boy,

crowned with a fool’s cap, whining by her side; a class of trembling

dunces before her, endeavouring in vain to shirk unchastised through

lessons which they were as unapt to learn as their mistress was to teach;

and, in the background, the body of the school, ignorant, rude, dirty,

and of evil savour—just such a brutal and unpromising brood as the

incapable old hen who presided over them might be expected to rear.

In the present year of our Lord 1860, a village, nay, a workhouse school,

in any district of England, presents a very different, and a much

pleasanter sight. Order, cleanliness, and intelligence now predominate;

the active and experienced teachers—young men and women in the prime of

life, carefully trained to teach—understand their duties thoroughly,

and are proud of their success in discharging them. Punishments are now

rare, and never cruel; the children have a happy and cultivated look, and

the result of this improved system of school-teaching obtrudes itself

gratefully on the eye and ear of the visitor in well-written copies

and careful drawings, in distinctly enunciated reading, in harmonious

singing, and in arithmetical calculations of surprising accuracy and

rapidity. And all these valuable results have been produced by a very

moderate degree of judicious encouragement and vigilance on the part of

the legislature, which has, in the first place, taught the teachers of

the children of the poor the art of teaching—an art until lately entirely

neglected in this country; and, secondly, has kept them up to their work

by a careful system of school inspection. Every school which now benefits

by a grant of government money is examined and reported on, publicly

and periodically, by the government inspectors of schools, able and

accomplished men, as thoroughly versed in the art of examination as the

teachers they overlook are in the art of teaching.

It is a deplorable and strange fact, that whilst all this care and

forethought has been so properly bestowed on the children of the English

poor, the children of our wealthier classes have been in that respect

altogether neglected. Their teachers are never trained to teach at

all; no government inspector ever reports on the educational merits

or demerits of our old-established upper-class schools, which remain,

for the most part, mere money speculations, in which the welfare and

progress of the pupils are held altogether subservient to the pecuniary

profits of the masters. All is left in those important establishments

to self-interest and to chance; and there would even now be small hope

of a change in their system for the better, were it not for external

circumstances, to which I will presently advert.

Many years ago I was myself a pupil at Harchester College, one of our

most celebrated public schools. It was indeed a pleasant place for a

sturdy, quick-witted boy; though for a boy who was neither sturdy nor

quick-witted, it was neither pleasant nor profitable: clever, studious

boys did very well at it, as clever, studious boys will generally do

anywhere; but boys of average ability and application learnt very little

there, and dull or idle boys learnt positively nothing at all.

Nor were these unsatisfactory results surprising, when the system and the

staff of the school were critically examined. The Harchester tutors were

all Fellows of one small and not very distinguished college at Oxbridge,

which possessed a sort of vested interest in Harchester. They came

thither as masters, not because anybody believed them to be clever men,

or because they were supposed to possess any natural or acquired aptitude

for teaching, but solely as a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence.

They wished to make money rapidly. The profits of a master at Harchester

were known to be very great; and the Fellows of —— college had, according

to their seniority, a prescriptive right to that position, if they

pleased.

Such an arrangement as this was bad enough, but the fact that the

proportion of masters to boys was dishonestly small, was worse; there

were not nearly enough of them even to hear the pupils the daily

tasks which were assigned to them; and as for any moral or social

supervision out of school-hours, none was ever attempted—so perplexed

and overwhelmed were the teachers with the burden of their scholastic

duties. If the elder boys in a tutor’s house chanced to be gentlemanlike

and well-conditioned lads, the juniors had a pretty good time of it,

and fared tolerably; if they chanced to be roughs or snobs, which they

occasionally were, the juniors had a bad time of it, and fared ill. But

the whole thing was a complete matter of chance. A tutor, who from seven

in the morning till ten at night, with very brief intervals for food and

exercise, was occupied in teaching and hearing lessons, in examining

maps, in correcting themes and verses, and who could not in that space

of time hear one-fifth of the lessons his pupils were supposed, by a

wild stretch of tutorial imagination, to learn, was not in a position to

bestow much attention on either the morals or the manners of the boys.

During the daytime they were left entirely to themselves, to ferment,

and purify or corrupt, as the case might be; and at night they were in

some degree supervised and controlled by the confidential servants of the

houses in which they boarded.

The regular business of the school consisted solely in the study of Latin

and Greek, which was taught in the precise manner in which it had been

taught to our fathers and grandfathers; for no newfangled or short cuts

to knowledge found favour in the eyes of the Principal of Harchester: of

modern history, modern geography, modern languages, English composition

and literature, arithmetic, or mathematics, we learnt nothing. There was,

indeed, a slight pretence made of teaching some few of those branches

of education, and French and mathematics figured occasionally as extras

in our bills; but it was but a pretence—they formed no part of what was

termed “the regular business of the school,” and proficiency in them

obtained for a boy neither credit nor position at Harchester. Straws

often show which way the wind blows. The Harchester boys were never

required to touch their hats to the French or the mathematical masters;

whilst to the classical masters, who alone conducted the discipline of

the school, they were required to be always hat in hand.

The insufficient number of masters, and the overwhelming number of

pupils, enabled the latter to shirk their lessons with great facility;

and the consequence was, that the masters, conscious of the evil

practice, yet unequal to prevent it, quieted their consciences by

inflicting corporal punishments to an incredible amount; notwithstanding

which, it is no exaggeration to say, that for one pupil who left

Harchester a fair scholar, a dozen left it with scarcely any education at

all.

But as the Harchester boys had plenty of holidays—as their amusements

were many and varied, and as they were liberally fed and well lodged—they

liked the system and the place well enough. Fives, rackets, cricket,

boating, hockey, and football kept them healthy and active; they dressed

well and expensively, had every opportunity they could desire for running

in debt at the pastrycooks’ and the public-houses of the town, and, I am

sorry to say, equal facilities for becoming initiated into some of the

vices of maturer age.

The masters were scarcely to blame for this; it was the system that was

mainly in fault. They had themselves been brought up under that system;

they sincerely believed in it. They worked from morning till night, and

more could not be expected of mortal men. If they could, they would have

educated all their pupils thoroughly; they would have watched over them

and kept them out of debt and difficulty of all kind; but they could

not—their numbers were so few. It is true that their numbers might have

been doubled, nay, trebled, with undoubted advantage to the school;

but then their profits must have been proportionably diminished; and

it was too much to expect from human nature that a reform, which could

only be attained at such a heavy cost, should be initiated by the very

individuals who would suffer from it. Government inspection would at once

have shown the propriety of such a step, and would have necessitated

its immediate adoption; but to talk of government inspection for such a

distinguished school as Harchester would have been rank sacrilege. It

might do very well for the schools of the poor, but Harchester would

never have submitted to it.

Harchester was a very popular school. The sons of half the nobility

and gentry of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales were sent thither,

because their fathers had been there before them; and because, although

it was known not to be a very good school—for learning—there was no other

upper-class school which was known to be decidedly better. It used to be

hinted, too, that between each generation vast improvements had taken

place in its system. The high social position of the Harchester boys was

sure to obtain for them a remarkably good start in the race of life, and

whenever any one of them distinguished himself signally at college or

in parliament, the admirers of Harchester fondly attributed his success

to the excellence of the Harchester system. It never seemed to occur to

them that the boy might have thriven in spite of that lax and dishonest

system, and not in consequence of it. Harchester men had also a great

reputation for being gentlemanlike, and on that quality they prided

themselves much more than upon their scholarship. But as the sons of the

best noblemen and gentlemen of England all went to Harchester, it was not

very surprising that they should grow up gentlemen. They would probably

have done so had they all been educated anywhere else. At any rate, the

masters could claim no credit for the gentility of their pupils—unless,

indeed, gentility be a plant which is best cultivated by entire neglect.

Numbers of the wealthy of the middle classes sent their sons to

Harchester in imitation of their betters. It was the most expensive

school in England. They imagined that its associations secured to their

boys great advantages in after life; and, in truth, like their betters,

they knew of no other upper-class school that was decidedly superior to

it. Mothers liked it because it was fashionable, and was supposed to

make their boys “gentlemen;” and country squires, who had been educated

there themselves, and were not particularly conscious of their own

deficiencies, were quite satisfied if their sons, after passing four or

five years in happy idleness, left it accomplished oarsmen and expert

cricketers.

Thirty or forty years ago such a system as this did very well for

our governing classes; well or ill educated, the Houses of Lords and

Commons, the Army, and the Civil Service, received with open arms the

children of the powerful and the rich; eldest sons, after a couple of

years’ additional idleness as gentlemen commoners at Oxbridge, went into

parliament and voted all the more steadily with their party, because

they were confirmed and incurable dunces; whilst younger sons obtained

commissions in crack regiments, or stools in the Treasury and Foreign

Office, and rose through the money and the parliamentary influence

their fathers could command, rather than through their own merits and

exertions. From such causes, and for such reasons, did Harchester College

prosper, and set an example which was followed by most of the upper-class

schools in England.

But in the present day, circumstances have arisen which must ere long

shake the time-honoured Harchester system to its very foundations. The

improvements which have of late years taken place in English education,

have, indeed, been first made manifest in the schools of the poor; but

they are swiftly surging upwards, and if Harchester, and our other

great public schools, are to maintain the position which they have

hitherto held, the sooner they call in the government inspector the

better for them. Middle-class schools are rising around them—in London,

in Liverpool, at Cheltenham, at Bradley, at Marlborough, at Bradfield,

and elsewhere—which are readily adapting themselves to the altered

requirements of the age; and unless Harchester means to be left in the

lurch, that venerable establishment must conform also.

No boy can now enter the Army or the Civil Service until he has proved

by an examination before government examiners, not only that his parents

have paid for a good education for him, but that he has profited by it.

The standard of education which has been erected by the Civil Service

Commissioners and the Board of Military Education, is, indeed, a low one;

but it has been constructed by the advice and with the concurrence of the

masters of our largest schools, it is firmly based upon public opinion,

and it is far more likely to be heightened than to be reduced. And there

it will henceforward remain—a sure though not a severe test of the

honesty and abilities of masters as well as of scholars. From a youth of

seventeen or eighteen years of age it requires but little, but it insists

that that little shall be well and thoroughly learnt. A correct knowledge

of his mother tongue and of arithmetic, a fair acquaintance with history,

geography, mathematics, and French, as well as with Latin and with Greek,

if the candidate volunteers the latter, is all that is asked; and if an

upper-class school does not teach that much to a boy between the age

of twelve and eighteen, it is not unreasonable to inquire what it does

teach him? But these are just the educational items which Harchester has

hitherto evaded teaching. They are not yet part of the Harchester “school

business;” the sooner they are, the better for the future prosperity of

Harchester.

As matters now stand, what happens to a Harchester boy the moment he

receives the promise of a commission or a clerkship, is just this: he is

hastily removed from that celebrated school, and is handed over to “a

crammer”—an educational empiric—who can have no pride in his calling;

who deals only with full-grown and avowed dunces; and who undertakes

to teach them in a few months what it is shameful to their teachers

that they should not have learnt years before. The “crammer” teaches at

a manifest disadvantage; he and his pupil are strangers to each other;

he knows nothing of his constitution, his disposition, his capacity, or

his temper; he has, and can have, no influence or control over him; all

he can do, all he undertakes to do, is to hustle him, by fair means or

by foul, over the low educational barrier which debars the youth from

entering the profession of his choice. Sometimes he succeeds—generally

after one or two mortifying failures; but very often the poor lad has

been allowed to become so incurably idle as to be unable to acquire

at eighteen those rudimentary parts of education, which ought to have

been imparted to him when he was a child, and in which the sons of his

father’s tradesmen are now mostly proficient; and he is in consequence

shut out from the career to which he and his parents have for years been

looking forward with eager satisfaction. In either case his friends are

unfairly exposed to great expense, anxiety, and mortification. And all

this happens because our old public school system is too deeply rooted in

vested interests to accommodate itself readily to the altered habits and

requirements of the age.

I know very well that I shall be told that our public school system is

not what it used to be, and that what I have here written refers rather

to what _was_ than to what _is_. I am prepared to test the justice of

this reproof in the manner most disadvantageous to my argument. I have

before me the statistics of half-a-dozen of our largest upper-class

schools; I will take up those of the most costly, the most renowned, the

largest. They are those of Eton.

I find that that school lately contained between 800 and 900 boys. To

teach them everything, save mathematics and French, there were twenty-one

masters. But of those, one, the head master, takes no pupils: nor does

the assistant master in college teach any of the boys. Upwards of 800

boys, therefore, are taught by nineteen masters. Now much economy of

scholastic labour may undoubtedly be effected by teaching boys in large

droves; but I am assured that the system of instruction at Eton is rather

wasteful than economical of scholastic labour. All the teaching is done

out of school, in the private houses of the tutors, and the boys only go

into school to repeat what they have previously learnt, and to exhibit

exercises that have been already examined and corrected. Therefore, as

each master has a few pupils in every class in the school, each master is

compelled every day to go through the entire business of every class in

the school; and some of them undertake single-handed the private tuition

of as many as seventy boys!

It seems absolutely impossible, under such conditions, that nineteen

masters can do justice to 800 or 900 boys; and the questions naturally

arise,—Do they do justice to them? Can they do justice to them? And if

they do not, and cannot, why are their numbers not doubled or trebled at

once? Ought not the liberal sum paid for the education of an Eton boy to

ensure to him the fullest educational advantages? Ought any “crammer” to

be required to prepare him for his appearance before the Civil Service

Commissioners or the Board of Military Education?

Of late years we have been told that the study of modern languages has

been much more attended to at our public schools than formerly; and

H.R.H. the Prince Consort has kindly and thoughtfully encouraged it

by offering prizes for the best scholars in that branch of knowledge

at Eton. But the authorities at that school do not appear, from

their published statistics, to be sensible of the importance of such

acquirements, although they absolutely constitute the only current coin

which will be received at the educational turnpike which the government

has recently erected, and through which every boy entering on public life

as a soldier or a civil servant must now pass. At that turnpike Greek and

Roman money is no longer exclusively taken.

The class of youths who are educated at Eton can scarcely be said to

have received the education of gentlemen, if at seventeen or eighteen

they have not acquired a moderate knowledge of French. Yet to teach

800 or 900 boys French, but one master has hitherto been provided by

the authorities of that school; and for their fractional share in his

services, his pupils each pay 10_l._ 10_s._ a year _extra_. At King’s

College, London,—one of the best of our middle-class schools—there are

three French masters kept to instruct 880 boys, without any _extra_

charge. At Charter-House—which enjoys the advantage of the independent

supervision of its distinguished governors—there is one classical master

to every twenty boys; and French—not an _extra_—is as well cared for as

it is at King’s College; whilst at Eton there is not one classical master

to every forty boys. I will, however, enter into no further comparisons

of this kind. I am fearful of falling into technical errors, which might

weaken the force of what I wish to say. I have no right to suppose that

Eton is a bit worse than others of our public schools, or that it is

not better than many of them: but I do say that the statistics to which

I have here adverted call for immediate attention and explanation. It

is of the utmost importance to every man in England that the schools at

which our future legislators are educated should be good schools, and

that the governors of this country should be at least as well educated as

the governed. If they are not, in the course of a few years deplorable

results must ensue.

I will now relate the accident which has decided me on calling, through

your means, public attention to this matter.

Some months ago I visited one of our newly established schools, where

about one hundred and fifty boys were receiving their education. The

principal of it, a very distinguished man, well known for his energetic

intelligence in the cause of education, told me that he felt he could

not do justice to his boys unless he had one master to every twelve of

them. I inquired what he paid his masters, and I found his maximum was

about 800_l._ a year, and his minimum 300_l._, board included. For these

sums, he assured me, he secured the best men the universities produced.

All the arrangements of his school appeared to me excellent; and the

conveniences and opportunities for cricket, football, and other athletic

amusements, were quite equal to those we used to enjoy at Harchester.

The principal himself took no part in the teaching—he merely exercised a

general superintendence over the whole. I should much like to name this

admirable establishment; but as I have not his permission to do so, I

forbear.

Shortly afterwards I chanced to read in _The Times_ the list of the

successful competitors at one of the highest open examinations held by

the Government Examiners. The boy whose name stood at the head of that

list was named as having been educated at this gentleman’s school, and as

having come direct from thence into the public examination room. He had

won in a canter, as the number of marks assigned to him proved. Last but

one on the list of sixty was the only Etonian candidate, and to his name

was added, “Educated at Eton, _and at subsequent private tutors’_.”

In conclusion, sir, I will offer a suggestion. I do so with extreme

diffidence, and with entire deference to those who are, I know, more

competent to judge of educational questions than I am. I merely throw it

out for consideration.

Compulsory inspection of our great schools is, I imagine, out of the

question; but I would ask whether a voluntary system could not be devised

which should place at the disposal of such schoolmasters as chose to

avail themselves of it, accredited government inspectors, who, being

invited, should repair to a school, examine its system and its pupils,

and report formally and publicly upon both.

Supposing that at this moment Eton, or any other great school, confident

in its system and its educational integrity, were to avail itself of this

privilege, and that the government inspectors should report that they had

examined that establishment; that its educational staff was abundant;

that its fifth and sixth forms were generally not only good classical

scholars, but so well grounded in English, French, arithmetic, and

mathematics as to be able to present themselves without the intervention

of “crammers” for examination for the Army or the Civil Service, with

every prospect of success—what an advantage such a report as that would

be to the school and to the pupils: what a load it would remove from the

bosoms of hundreds of doubting and anxious parents: what a stimulus it

would give to other less faithfully conducted educational establishments!

And if the inspectors’ report should happen to be not quite so favourable

to its existing system,—if it recommended that the number of tutors

should be at least trebled, and that modern languages, arithmetic, and

mathematics, should be made part of the “regular business” of the school,

would not its publicity render immediate improvement and reform the best

policy—no matter at what present pecuniary sacrifice?

My suggestion is, perhaps, a crude one; nevertheless, I earnestly commend

it to the attention of H.R.H. Prince Albert, and of those in authority

who interest themselves in the education of this great country.

I am, Sir, your humble servant,

PATERFAMILIAS.

The Outcast Mother.

I’ve seen this dell in July’s shine,

As lovely as an angel’s dream;

Above—Heaven’s depth of blue divine,

Around—the evening’s golden beam.

I’ve seen the purple heather-bell

Look out by many a storm-worn stone;

And, oh! I’ve known such music swell,—

Such wild notes wake these passes lone—

So soft, yet so intensely felt;

So low, yet so distinctly heard;

My breath would pause, my eyes would melt,

And tears would dew the green heath-sward.

I’d linger here a summer day,

Nor care how fast the hours flew by;

Nor mark the sun’s departing ray

Smile sadly from the dark’ning sky.

Then, then, I might have laid me down,

And dreamed my sleep would gentle be;

I might have left thee, darling one,

And thought thy God was guarding thee!

But now there is no wand’ring glow,

No gleam to say that God is nigh;

And coldly spreads the couch of snow,

And harshly sounds thy lullaby.

Forests of heather, dark and long,

Wave their brown branching arms above;

And they must soothe thee with their song,

And they must shield my child of love.

Alas! the flakes are heavily falling,

They cover fast each guardian crest;

And chilly white their shroud is palling

Thy frozen limbs and freezing breast.

Wakes up the storm more madly wild,

The mountain drifts are tossed on high;

Farewell, unbless’d, unfriended child,

I cannot bear to watch thee die!

E. J. BRONTË.

HAWORTH, _July 12th, 1839_.

The Portent.

I.—ITS LEGEND.

[As the sole return which I have it in my power to make for

a friendship and a skill which have greatly alleviated my

sufferings, I accede to the request of Dr. —— to commit to

writing one or two passages in a history which has had more

than the ordinary share of the marvellous in its composition. I

write them with reluctance, yet with the feeling that I owe him

the narration. It will serve, it may be, if not to explain, yet

to account for some of the anomalies which he confesses have

perplexed him in the treatment of my case. I leave it entirely

to him to direct, by will or otherwise, what is to be the fate

of these papers, after his and my decease.]

Except a few acres of arable land at its foot, a bare hill formed almost

the whole of my father’s possessions. The sheep ate over it, and found

it good for food; I raced and bounded over it, and thought it a kingdom.

In the still autumn morning, the wide moor lay outstretched in its

stillness, high uplifted towards the heaven. The dew hung on every stalk

in tiny drops, which, as the sun arose, sparkled and burned with all the

hues shared by the whole family of gems. Here and there a bird gave a

cry: all else was silence. It is strange, but I never see the statue of

the Roman youth, praying with outstretched arms, and open, empty, level

palms, as if waiting to receive and hold the blessing of the gods, but

that outstretched barren heath rises before me, as if it meant the same

thing as the statue,—or were, at least, the fit room in the middle space

of which to set the praying and expectant youth. There was one spot upon

the hill, half-way between the valley and the moorland above, which was

my favourite haunt. This part of the hill was covered with great blocks

of stone, of all shapes and sizes—here crowded together, like the slain

where the battle was fiercest; there parting asunder from a space covered

with the delicate green of the sweetest, softest grass. In the centre of

one of these green spots, on a steep part of the hill, were three huge

rocks—two projecting out of the hill, rather than standing up from it,

and one, likewise projecting from the hill, but lying across the tops of

the two others, so as to form a little cave, the back of which was the

side of the hill. This was my refuge, my home within a home, my study,

and, in the hot noons, often my sleeping chamber, and my house of dreams.

If the wind blew cold on the hill-side, a hollow of lulling warmth was

there, scooped as it were out of the body of the blast, which swept

around, and whistled keen and thin through the cracks and crannies of the

great rocky chaos that lay all about, and in which the wind plunged, and

flowed, and eddied and withdrew, as the sea-waves on the cliffy shores

or the unknown rugged bottoms. When I lifted my eyes, before me lay, but

at some miles’ distance, behind another hill, which on the opposite side

of the valley ran parallel to mine, a great mountain; not like that on

which I was seated, but a mighty thing, a chieftain of the race, seamed

and scarred, featured with chasms, and precipices, and overleaning rocks,

themselves huge as hills; here blackened with shade, there overspread

with glory; interlaced with the silvery lines of many falling streams,

which, hurrying from heaven to earth, cared not how they went, so it

were downwards. Fearful stories were told of many an awful gulf, many a

sullen pool, and many a dread and dizzy height upon that terror-haunted

mountain. But, except in storms, when the wind roared like thunder in

its caverns and along the jagged sides of its cliffs, no sound from that

uplifted land—uplifted, yet secret and full of dismay—ever reached my

ears. Did I say no sound? But I must not anticipate.

[Illustration: LEGEND OF THE PORTENT.]

I will now describe that peculiarity to which I have referred. I have

some reason to believe that I have inherited it from a far-off ancestor.

It seemed to have its root in an unusual delicacy of hearing, which

often conveyed to me sounds inaudible to those about me. This I had many

opportunities of proving. It likewise, however, brought me sounds which

I could never trace back to their origin; but which, notwithstanding,

may have arisen from some natural operation which I had not perseverance

or mental acuteness sufficient to discover. From this, or, it may be,

from some deeper cause with which this was associated, arose a certain

kind of fearfulness connected with the sense of hearing, of which I have

never heard a corresponding instance, but which I think I can easily

make you understand. Full as my mind was of the wild and sometimes

fearful tales of a Highland nursery, fear never entered my mind by the

eyes; nor, when I brooded over tales of terror, and fancied new and yet

more frightful embodiments of horror, did I shudder at any imaginable

spectacle, or tremble lest the fancy should become fact, and from behind

the whin-bush or the elder-hedge should glide forth the tall swaying

form of the Boneless. Indeed, when I was alone in bed, I used to lie

awake, and look out into the room, peopling it with the forms of all the

persons who had died within the scope of my memory and acquaintance.

These fancied forms were vividly present to my imagination. I pictured

them pale, with dark circles around their hollow eyes, visible by a

light which glimmered within them; not the light of life, but a pale

greenish phosphorescence, generated by the decay of the brain inside.

Their garments were white and trailing, but torn and soiled, as if by

trying often in vain to get up out of the buried coffin. So far from

being terrified by these imaginings, I used to delight in them; and even,

when on a long winter evening I did not happen to have any book to read

that interested me sufficiently, to look forward with expectation to the

hour when, laying myself straight upon my back, as if my bed were my

coffin, I could call up from underground all who had passed away, and

see how they fared, yea even what progress they had made towards final

dissolution of form;—but, observe, all the time with my fingers pushed

hard into my ears, lest any the faintest sound should invade the silent

citadel of my soul. If by chance I removed one of my fingers, the agony

of terror I instantly experienced was such as to be, by me at least,

indescribable. I can compare it to nothing but the rushing in upon my

brain of a whole churchyard of spectres. The very possibility of hearing

a sound in such a mood, and at such a time, was enough to torture me.

So I could scare myself in broad daylight, on the open hill-side, by

imaginary unintelligible sounds; and my imagination was both original

and fertile in the invention of such. But my mind was too active to be

often subjected to such influences. Indeed life would have been hardly

endurable, had these moods been of more than occasional occurrence. As I

grew older, I almost outgrew them. Yet sometimes one awful dread would

seize me—that, perhaps, the prophetic power manifest in the gift of

second sight, which had belonged to several of my ancestors, according to

the testimony of my old nurse, had been in my case transformed in kind,

without losing its nature, and had transferred its abode from the sight

to the hearing, whence resulted its keenness, and my fear and suffering.

One summer evening, I had lingered longer than usual in my rocky retreat:

I had lain half-dreaming in the mouth of the cave, till the shadows of

evening had fallen, and the gloaming had deepened half-way towards the

night. But the night had no more terrors for me than the day. Indeed,

in such regions there is a solitude, for the recognition of which there

almost seems to exist a peculiar sense in the human mind, and upon

which the shadows of night seem to sink with a strange relief, closing

in around, and hiding from the eye the wide space which yet they throw

more open to the imagination. When I lifted my head, a star here and

there caught my eye; but when I looked intently into the depths of blue

gray, I saw that they were crowded with twinkles. The mountain rose

before me a huge mass of gloom; but its several peaks stood out against

the sky with a clear, pure, sharp outline, and seemed nearer than the

chaos from which they rose heavenwards. One star trembled and throbbed

upon the very tip of the loftiest, the central peak, which seemed the

spire of a mighty temple, where the light was worshipped—crowned,

therefore, in the darkness, with the emblem of the day. This fancy was

still in my thought, when I heard, clear, though faint and far away, the

sound as of the iron-shod hoofs of a horse, in furious gallop along an

uneven rocky surface. It was more like a distinct echo than an original

sound. It seemed to come from the face of the mountain, where I knew

no horse could go at that speed, even if its rider courted his certain

destruction. There was a peculiarity too in the sound—a certain tinkle,

or clank, which seemed only to mingle with the body of the sound, and

which I fancied myself able, by auricular analysis, to separate from it,

assigning to it a regular interval of recurrence. Supposing the sound to

be caused by the feet of a horse, the peculiarity was just such as would

result from one of the shoes being loose. A strange terror seized me, and

I hastened home. The sounds gradually died away as I descended the hill.

I could not account for them, except on the supposition that they were an

echo from the precipice. But I knew of no road lying so that, if a horse

were galloping upon it, the sounds would be reflected from the mountain

to me.

The next day, in one of my rambles, I found myself near the cottage of

my old foster-mother, who was distantly related to us, and was a trusted

servant in the family at the time I was born. On the death of my mother,

which took place almost immediately after my birth, she took the entire

charge of me, and brought me up, though with difficulty; for she used

to tell me I should never be either folk or fairy. For some years she

had lived alone in a cottage, which lay at the bottom of a deep green

circular hollow, upon which one came with a sudden surprise in walking

over a heathy table-land. I was her frequent visitor. She was a tall,

thin, aged woman, with eager eyes, and well-defined, clear-cut features.

Her voice was harsh, but with an undertone of great tenderness. She was

scrupulously careful in her attire, which was rather above her station.

Altogether she had much the bearing of a gentlewoman. Her devotion to me

was quite motherly. Never having had any family of her own, although she

had been the wife of one of my father’s shepherds, the whole maternity of

her nature was expended upon me; but this without much show of affection,

compared with what would be expected in a more southern climate. She was

always my first resource in any perplexity, for I was sure of all the

help she could give me. And as she had much influence with my father, who

was rather severe in his notions, I had now and then occasion to beg her

interference in regard to some slight aberration or other from what he

considered the path of strict decorum. Nothing of the sort, however, led

to my visit on the present occasion.

I ran down the side of the basin and entered the little cottage. Nurse

was seated on a chair by the wall, with her usual knitting, a stocking,

in one hand; but her hands were motionless, and her eyes wide open and

fixed. I knew that the neighbours stood rather in awe of her, on the

ground that she had the second sight; but although she often told us

frightful enough stories, she never alluded to such a gift as being in

her possession. Now I concluded at once that she was _seeing_. I was

confirmed in this conclusion when, seeming to come to herself suddenly,

she covered her head with her plaid, and sobbed audibly, in spite of her

efforts to command herself. But I did not dare to ask her any questions,

nor did she attempt any excuse for her behaviour. After a few moments,

she unveiled herself, rose, and welcomed me with her usual kindness;

then got me some refreshment, and began to question me about matters at

home. After a pause, she said suddenly: “When are you going to get your

commission, Duncan, do you know?” I replied, that I had heard nothing

of it; that I did not think my father had influence or money enough to

procure me one, and that I feared I should have no such good chance of

distinguishing myself. She did not answer, but nodded her head three

times, slowly and with compressed lips, apparently as much as to say, “I

know better.”

Just as I was leaving her, it occurred to me to mention that I had heard

an odd sound the night before. She turned full towards me, and looked at

me fixedly. “What was it like, Duncan, my dear?”

“Like a horse galloping with a loose shoe,” I replied.

“Duncan, Duncan, my darling,” she said, with a low, trembling voice, but

with passionate earnestness, “you did not hear it? Tell me that you did

not hear it! You only want to frighten poor old nurse: some one has been

telling you the story!”

It was my turn to be frightened now; for the matter became at once

associated with my fears as to the possible nature of my auricular

peculiarities. I assured her that nothing was farther from my intention

than to frighten her; that, on the contrary, she had rather alarmed me;

and I begged her to explain. But she sat down white and trembling, and

did not speak. Presently, however, she rose again, and saying, “I have

known it happen sometimes without anything very bad following,” began to

put away the basin and plate I had been eating and drinking from, as if

she would compel herself to be calm before me. I renewed my entreaties

for an explanation, but without avail; for she begged me to be content

for a few days, as she was quite unable to tell the story at present. She

promised, however, of her own accord, that before I left home, she would

tell me all she knew about it. The next day a letter arrived announcing

the death of a distant relation, by whose influence my father had had a

lingering hope of obtaining an appointment for me. There was nothing left

but to look out for a situation as tutor.

I was now nineteen. I had completed the usual curriculum of study at

one of the Scotch universities; and, possessed of a fair knowledge of

mathematics and physics, and what I considered rather more than a good

foundation of classical and metaphysical acquirement, I resolved to apply

for the first suitable situation that offered. But I was spared even

this trouble in the matter. Through a circuitous channel, a certain Lord

Hilton, an English nobleman, residing in one of the southern counties of

England, having heard that one of my father’s sons was desirous of such a

situation, wrote to him, offering me the post of tutor to his two boys,

of the ages of ten and twelve. He had himself been partly educated at a

Scotch university; and this, it may be, had prejudiced him in favour of

a Scotch tutor; while an ancient alliance of the families by marriage

was supposed by my nurse to be the cause of his offering me the post.

Of this connection, however, my father said nothing to me, and it went

for nothing in my anticipations. I was to receive a hundred pounds a

year, and to hold in the family the position of a gentleman; which might

mean anything or nothing, according to the disposition of the heads of

the family. Preparations for my departure were immediately commenced;

and I set out one evening for the cottage of my old nurse, to bid her

good-bye for many months, or probably years. I was to leave the next day

for Edinburgh, on my way to London, whence I had to repair by coach to

my new abode—almost to me like the land beyond the grave, so little did

I know about it, and so wide was the separation between it and my home.

The evening was sultry when I began my walk, and before I arrived at

nurse’s cottage, the clouds rising from all quarters of the horizon, and

especially gathering around the peaks of the mountain, betokened the near

approach of a thunder-storm. This was a great delight to me. Gladly would

I take leave of my home with the memory of a last night of tumultuous

magnificence, followed, probably, by a day of weeping rain, well suited

to the mood of my own heart in bidding farewell to the best of parents

and the dearest of homes. Besides, in common with most Scotchmen who

are young and hardy enough to be unable to realize to themselves the

existence of coughs and rheumatic fevers, it was a positive pleasure to

me to be out in rain, hail, or snow.

“I am come to bid you good-bye, Margaret, and to hear the story which you

promised to tell me before I left home: I go to-morrow.”

“Do you go so soon, my darling? Well, it will be an awful night to tell

it in; but, as I promised, I suppose I must.”

At the moment, down the wide chimney fell two or three great drops of

rain, with slight explosions upon the clear turf-fire, the first of the

storm.

“Yes, indeed you must,” I replied; and she commenced. Of course it was

all told in Gaelic; and I translate from my recollection of the Gaelic;

or, perhaps, rather from the impression left upon my mind, than from any

recollection of the words. We sat a little way back from the fire, which

we had reason to fear would soon be put out by the falling rain.

“How old the story is, I do not know. It has come down through many

generations. My grandmother told it to me, as I tell it to you; and her

mother and my mother sat beside, never interrupting, but nodding their

heads at every turn. Almost it ought to begin like the fairy tales, _Once

upon a time_,—it took place so long ago; but it is too dreadful and too

true to tell like a fairy tale. There were two brothers, sons of the

chief of our clan, but as different in appearance and disposition, as

two men could be. The elder was fair-haired and strong, much given to

hunting and fishing; fighting too, upon occasion, I daresay, when they

made a foray upon the Saxon, to get back a mouthful of their own. But he

was gentleness itself to every one about him, and the very soul of honour

in all his doings. The younger was very dark in complexion, and tall

and slender compared to his brother. He was very fond of book-learning,

which, they say, was an uncommon taste in those times. He did not care

for any sports or bodily exercises but one, and that too, was unusual in

these parts. It was horsemanship. He was a fierce rider, and seemed as

much at home in the saddle as in his study chair. You may think that,

so long ago, there was not much fit room for riding hereabouts; but,

fit or not fit, he rode. From his reading and riding, the neighbours

looked doubtfully upon him, and whispered about the black art. He usually

bestrode a great powerful black horse, without a white hair on him; and

people said it was either the devil himself, or a demon-horse from the

devil’s own stud. What favoured this notion was, that the brute would let

no other than his master go near him, in or out of the stable. Indeed no

one would venture, after he had already killed two men, and grievously

maimed a third, tearing him with his teeth and hoofs like a wild beast.

But to his master he was obedient as a hound, and was sometimes seen to

tremble in his presence.

“The youth’s temper corresponded to his habits. He was both gloomy and

passionate. Prone to anger, he had never been known to forgive. Debarred

from anything on which he had set his heart, he would have gone mad

with longing if he had not gone mad with rage. His soul was like the

night around us now, dark and sultry and silent, but lighted up by the

red levin of wrath, and torn by the bellowings of thunder passion. He

must have his will: hell might have his soul. Imagine then the rage and

malice in his heart, when he suddenly became aware that an orphan girl,

distantly related to them, who had lived with them for nearly two years,

and whom he had loved for almost all that period, was loved by his elder

brother, and loved him in return. He flung his right hand above his head,

swore a terrible oath that if he might not his brother should not, rushed

out of the house, and galloped off among the hills.

“The orphan was a beautiful girl, tall, pale, and slender, with plentiful

dark hair, which, when released from the snood, rippled down below her

knees. Her appearance consequently formed a strong contrast with that

of her favoured lover, and of course there was some resemblance between

her and the other. This fact seemed, to the fierce selfishness of the

younger, to be ground for a prior claim.

“It may seem strange that a man like him should not have had instant

recourse to his superior and hidden knowledge, by means of which he might

have got rid of his rival with far more certainty and less risk; but I

presume that for the moment his passion overwhelmed his consciousness

of skill. Yet I do not suppose that he foresaw the mode in which his

hatred was about to operate. At the moment when he learned their mutual

attachment, probably through a domestic, the lady was on her way to meet

her lover as he returned from the day’s sport. The appointed place was

on the edge of a deep rocky ravine, down in whose dark bosom brawled and

foamed a little mountain torrent. You know the place, Duncan, my dear, I

daresay.”

(Here she gave me a minute description of the spot, with directions how

to find it.)

“Whether any one saw what I am about to relate, or whether it was put

together afterwards, partly from conjecture, I cannot tell. The story is

like an old tree—so old that it has lost the marks of its growth. But

this is how my grandmother told it to me. An evil chance led him in the

right direction. The lovers, startled by the sound of the approaching

horse, parted in opposite directions along a narrow mountain-path on the

edge of the ravine. Into this path he struck at a point near where the

lovers had met, but to opposite sides of which they had now receded; so

that he was between them on the path. Turning his horse up the course

of the stream, he soon came in sight of his brother on the ledge before

him. With a suppressed scream of rage, he rode headlong at him, and ere

he had time to make the least defence, hurled him over the precipice.

The weakness of the strong man was uttered in one single despairing cry

as he shot into the abyss. Then all was still. The sound of his fall

could not reach the edge of the gulf. Divining in a moment that the

lady, whose name was Elsie, must have fled in the opposite direction, he

reined his steed on his haunches. He could touch the precipice with his

bridle hand half outstretched; his sword hand outstretched would have

dropped a stone to the bottom of the ravine. There was no room to wheel.

One desperate practicability alone remained. Turning his horse’s head

towards the edge, he compelled him by means of the powerful bit alone, to

rear till he stood almost erect; and so, his body swaying over the gulf,

with quivering and straining muscles to turn on his hind-legs. Having

completed the half-circle, he let him drop on all fours, and urged him

furiously in the opposite direction. It must have been by the devil’s own

care that he was able to continue his gallop along that ledge of rock.

“He soon caught sight of the maiden, as she leaned half-fainting against

the precipice. She had heard her lover’s last cry, and although it

conveyed no suggestion of his voice to her ear, she trembled from head to

foot, and her limbs could bear her no farther. He checked his speed, rode

gently up to her, lifted her unresisting, laid her across the shoulders

of his reeking horse, and riding carefully till he reached a more open

path, dashed again wildly along the mountain-side. The lady’s long hair

was shaken loose, and dropped trailing on the ground. The horse trampled

upon it, and stumbled, half dragging her from the saddle-bow. He caught

her, lifted her up, and looked at her face. She was dead. I suppose he

went mad. He laid her again across the saddle before him, and rode on,

reckless whither. Horse and man and maiden were found the next day,

lying at the foot of a cliff, dashed to pieces. It was observed that a

hind-shoe of the horse was loose and broken. Whether this had been the

cause of his fall, could not be told; but ever when he races, as race

he will, till the day of doom, along that mountain side, his gallop is

mingled with the clank of the loose and broken shoe. For the punishment

is awful like the sin: he shall carry about for ages the phantom-body of

the girl, knowing that her soul is away, sitting with the soul of his

brother, down in the deep ravine, or scaling with his the topmost crags

of the towering mountain-peaks. There are some who see him from time to

time, careening along the face of the mountain, with the lady hanging

across the steed; and they say it always betokens a storm, such as this

which is now raving all about us.”

I had not noticed till now, so absorbed had I been in her tale, that the

storm had risen to a very ecstasy of fury.

“They say, likewise, that the lady’s hair is still growing; for, every

time they see her, it is longer than before; and that now, such is its

length and the headlong speed of the horse, it floats and streams out

behind like one of those curved clouds that lie like a comet’s tail far

up in the sky; only the cloud is white, and the hair dark as night. And

they say it will go on growing till the Last Day, when the horse will

falter and fall, and her hair will gather in, and twist, and twine,

and wreathe itself like a mist of threads about him, and blind him to

everything but her. Then the body will rise up within it, face to face

with him, animated by a fiend, who, twining _her_ arms around him, will

drag him down to the bottomless pit.”

I may just mention here one little occurrence which seemed to have a

strange effect on my old nurse; and which illustrates the assertion that

we see around us only what is within us: marvellous things enough will

show themselves to the marvellous mood. During a short lull in the storm,

we heard the sound of iron-shod hoofs approaching the cottage. There was

no bridleway into the glen. A knock came to the door, and, on opening it,

we saw an old man seated on a horse, with a long slenderly-filled sack

lying across the saddle before him. He said he had lost his way in the

storm, and seeing the light, had scrambled down to inquire his way. I

saw at once from the scared and mysterious look of the old woman’s eyes,

that to her dying day nothing would persuade her that this appearance

had not something to do with the awful rider, the terrific storm, and

myself who had heard the sound of the phantom-hoofs. She looked after him

as he again ascended the hill, with wide and pale but unshrinking eyes;

and turning in, shut and locked the door behind her, as by a natural

instinct. Then, after two or three of her significant nods, accompanied

by the compression of her lips, she said:—

“He need not think to take me in, wizard as he is, with his disguises. I

can see him through them all. Duncan, my dear, when you suspect anything,

do not be too incredulous. This human demon is of course a wizard still;

and knows how to make himself, and anything he has to do with, take quite

different appearances from their real ones; only the appearances must

always bear some resemblance, however distant, to the natural forms. That

man you saw at the door was the phantom of which I have been telling you.

What he is after now, of course I cannot tell; but you must keep a bold

heart, and a firm and wary foot, as you go home to-night.”

I showed some surprise, I do not doubt, and, perhaps, some fear as well;

but only said, “How do you know him, Margaret?”

“I can hardly tell you,” she replied; “but I do know him. I think he

hates me. Often, of a wild night, when there is moonlight enough by fits,

I see him tearing around this little valley, just on the top edge, all

round; the lady’s hair and the horse’s mane and tail driving far behind,

and mingling, vaporous, with the stormy clouds. About he goes, in wild

careering gallop; now lost as the moon goes in, then visible far round

when she looks out again—an airy, pale gray spectre, which few eyes could

see but mine. There is no sound, except now and then a clank from the

broken shoe. But I did not mean to tell you that I had ever seen him. I

am not a bit afraid of him. He cannot do more than he may. His power is

limited, else ill enough would he work, the miscreant.”

“But,” said I, “what has all this, terrible as it is, to do with the

fright you were put in, by my telling you that I had heard the sound of

the broken shoe? Surely you are not afraid of only a storm?”

“No, my boy; I fear no storm. But the fact is, that that sound is seldom

heard, and never, as far as I know, by any of the blood of that wicked

man, without betokening some ill that will happen to one of the family,

and most probably to the one who hears it. But I am not quite sure about

that. Only some evil it does portend, although a long time may elapse

before it shows itself; and I have a hope it may mean some one else than

you.”

“Do not wish that,” I replied. “I know no one better able to bear it than

I am; and I will hope, whatever it may be, that I only shall have to meet

it. It must surely be something serious to be so foretold—it can hardly

be connected with my disappointment in being compelled to be a pedagogue

instead of a soldier.”

“Do not trouble yourself about that, Duncan,” replied she; “a soldier you

must be. The same day you told me of the clank of the broken horse-shoe,

I saw you return wounded from battle, and, in the street of a great

city, fall fainting from your horse—only fainting, thank God. But I have

particular reasons for being uneasy at your hearing that boding sound.

Can you tell me the day and hour of your birth?”

“No,” I replied. “It seems very odd when I think of it, but I really do

not know even the day.”

“Nor any one else, which is stranger still,” she answered.

“How does that happen, nurse?”

“We were in terrible anxiety about your mother at the time. So ill was

she, after you were just born, in a strange, unaccountable way, that you

lay almost neglected for more than an hour. In the very act of giving

birth to you, she seemed to the rest around her to be out of her mind,

so wildly did she talk; but I knew better. I knew that she was fighting

some evil power; and what power it was, I knew full well; for, three

times, during her pains, I heard the click of the horse-shoe. But no one

could help her. After her delivery, she lay as if in a trance, neither

dead, nor at rest, but as if frozen to ice, and conscious of it all the

while. Once more I heard the terrible sound of iron; and at the moment

your mother started from her trance, screaming, ‘My child! my child!’ We

suddenly became aware that no one had attended to the child; and rushed

to the place where he lay, wrapped in a blanket. On uncovering him,

he was black in the face, and spotted with dark spots upon the throat.

I thought he was dead; but with great and almost hopeless pains, we

succeeded in making him breathe, and he gradually recovered. But his

mother continued dreadfully exhausted. It seemed as if she had spent her

life for her child’s defence and birth. That was you, Duncan, my dear. I

was in constant attendance upon her.

“About a week after your birth, as near as I can guess, just in the

gloaming, I heard yet again the awful clank—only once. Nothing followed

till about midnight. Your mother slept, and you lay asleep beside her. I

sat by the bedside. A horror fell upon me suddenly, though I neither saw

nor heard anything. Your mother started from her sleep with a cry, which

sounded as if it came from far away, out of a dream, and did not belong

to this world. My blood curdled with fear. She sat up in bed, with wide

staring eyes, and half-open rigid lips, and, feeble as she was, thrust

her arms straight out before her with great force, her hands open and

lifted up, with the palms outwards. The whole action was of one violently

repelling another. She began to talk wildly as she had done before you

were born, but though I seemed to hear and understand it all at the time,

I could not recall a word of it afterwards. It was as if I had listened

to it when half-asleep. I attempted to soothe her, putting my arms round

her, but she seemed quite unconscious of my presence, and my arms seemed

powerless upon the fixed muscles of hers. Not that I tried to constrain

her, for I knew that a battle was going on of some kind or other, and

my interference might do awful mischief. All the time I was in a state

of indescribable cold and suffering; whether more bodily or mental I

could not tell. But at length I heard yet again the clank of the shoe. A

sudden peace seemed to fall upon my mind—or was it a warm, odorous wind

that filled the room? Your mother dropped her arms, and turned feebly

towards her baby. She saw that he slept a blessed sleep. She smiled like

a glorified spirit, and fell back exhausted on the pillow. I went to

the other side of the room to get a cordial, but when I returned to the

bedside, I saw at once that she was dead. Her face smiled still, with an

expression of the uttermost bliss.”

Nurse ceased, trembling as if overcome by the recollection; and I was too

much moved and awed to speak. At length, resuming the conversation, she

said: “You see it is no wonder, Duncan, my dear, if, after all this, I

should find, when I wanted to fix the date of your birth, that I could

not determine the day or the hour when it took place. All was confusion

in my poor brain. But it was strange that no one else could, any more

than I. One thing only I can tell you about it. As I carried you across

the room to lay you down, for I assisted at your birth, I happened to

look up to the window, and then saw what I did not forget, although I

did not think of it again till many days after,—that a bright star shone

within the half-circle of the thin crescent moon.”

“Oh, then,” said I, “it will be quite easy to determine the exact day and

the very hour when my birth took place.”

“See the good of book-learning,” replied she. “When you work it out, just

let me know, my dear, that I may remember it.”

“That I will.”

A silence of some moments followed. Margaret resumed:

“I am afraid you will laugh at my foolish fancies, Duncan; but in

thinking over all these things, as you may suppose I often do, lying

awake in my lonely bed, the notion sometimes comes to me: What if my

Duncan be the spirit of the youth whom his wicked brother hurled into the

ravine, come again in a new body to live out yet his life on the earth,

cut short by his brother’s hatred? If so, then his persecution of you,

and of your mother for your sake, would be easily understood. And if so,

you will never be able to rest till you find your mate, wherever she may

have been born on the face of the wide earth. For born she must be, long

ere now, for you to find. I misdoubt me much, however, should this be

the case, whether you will find her without great conflict and suffering

between, for the Powers of Darkness will be against you; though I have

good hope that you will overcome at last. You must forgive the fancies of

a foolish old woman, my dear.”

I will not try to describe the strange feelings, almost sensations, that

arose in me while listening to these extraordinary utterances, lest it

should be supposed I was ready to believe all that Margaret narrated or

concluded. I could not help doubting her sanity; but no more could I

help feeling very peculiarly moved by her narrative. Few more words were

spoken on either side.

After receiving renewed exhortations to carefulness on my way home, I

said good-bye to dear old nurse, considerably comforted, I must confess,

that I was not doomed to be a tutor all my days; for I never questioned

the truth of nurse’s vision and consequent prophecy. I went home in the

full ecstasy of the storm, through the alternating throbs of blackness

and radiance; now the possessor of no more room than what my body filled,

and now isolated in world-wide space—and the thunder filled it all.

Absorbed in the story I had heard, I took my way, as I thought,

homewards. The whole country was well known to me. I should have said,

before that night, that I could have gone home blindfold. Whether the

lightning bewildered me and made me take a false turn, I cannot tell; for

the hardest thing to understand, in moral as well as physical mistakes,

is how we came to go wrong. But after wandering for some time, plunged

in meditation, and with no warnings whatever of the presence of inimical

powers, a most brilliant lightning-flash showed me that at least I was

not near home. The flash was prolonged by a slight electric pulsation,

which continued for a second or two; and by that I distinguished a wide

space of blackness on the ground in front of me. Once more wrapt in the

folds of a thick darkness, I dared not move. Suddenly it occurred to me

what the blackness was, and whither I had wandered. It was a huge quarry,

of great depth, long disused, and half filled with water. I knew the

place perfectly. A few more steps would have carried me over the brink.

I stood still, waiting for the next flash, that I might be quite sure

of the direction I was taking before I dared to move. While I stood, I

fancied that I heard a single hollow plunge in the black water far below.

When the lightning came, I turned, and took my way back. After walking

for some time across the heath, I stumbled, and to my horror found I was

falling. The fall soon became a roll, however, and down a steep declivity

I went, over and over, arriving at the bottom uninjured.

Another flash soon showed me where I was—in the hollow valley, within a

couple of hundred yards from nurse’s cottage. I made my way towards it.

There was no light in it, except the feeblest glow from the embers. “She

is in bed,” I said to myself, “and I will not disturb her; ”yet something

drew me to look in at the little window. At first@ I could see nothing.

At length, as I kept gazing, I saw something, indistinct in the darkness,

like an outstretched human form.

By this time the storm had lulled. The moon had been up for some time,

but had been quite concealed by tempestuous clouds. Now, however, these

had begun to break up; and, while I looked into the cottage, they

scattered away from the face of the moon, and a faint vapoury gleam of

her light, entering the cottage through a window opposite that at which

I stood, fell directly on the face of my old nurse, as she lay on her

back outstretched upon chairs, pale as death, and with her eyes closed.

A stranger to her habits would have thought she was dead; but she had so

much of the same appearance as she had had in a former instance which I

have described, that I concluded at once she was in one of her trances.

Having often heard that persons in such a condition ought not to be

disturbed, and feeling quite sure she knew best how to manage herself,

I turned, though reluctantly, and left the lone cottage in the stormy

night, with the death-like woman lying motionless in the midst of it. I

found my way home without any further difficulty, and went to bed, where

I soon fell asleep, thoroughly wearied, more by the mental excitement I

had been experiencing, than by the amount of bodily exercise I had gone

through.

My sleep was tormented with awful dreams; yet, strange to say, I awoke

in the morning refreshed and fearless. The sun was shining through

several chinks in my shutters, and making, even upon the gloomy curtains,

streaks and bands of golden brilliancy. I had dressed and completed my

preparations long before I heard the steps of the servant who came to

call me.

What a wonderful thing waking is! The time of the ghostly moonshine—we

sleep it by; and the great positive sunlight comes: it fills me with

thoughts. As with a man who dreams, and knows that he is dreaming, and

thinks he knows what waking is, but knows it so little that he mistakes,

one after another, many a vague and dim change in his dream for an

awaking, and when the true waking comes at last, is filled and overflowed

with the power of its reality: so shall it be with us when we wake from

this dream of life into the truer life beyond, and find all our present

notions of being, thrown back as into a dim vapoury region of dreamland,

where yet we thought we knew, and whence we looked forward into the

present: as (to use another likeness) a who, in the night, when another

is about to cause light in the room, lies trying to conceive, with all

the force of his imagination, what the light will be like, is yet, when

most successful, seized as by a new and unexpected thing, different from

and beyond all his imagining, when the reality flames up before him, and

he feels as if the darkness were cast to an infinite distance behind him.

This must be what Novalis means when he says: Our life is not a dream;

but it may become a dream, and perhaps ought to become one.

I left my home, and have never since revisited it. When I next heard the

sound of the clanking iron, although it affected me with irresistible

terror, I little anticipated the influence of the event with which

it was associated. Before many years had elapsed, my foster-mother’s

prevision of my fall from a horse in the street of a city, was fulfilled:

this, too, was immediately preceded by the ominous sound, easily

distinguishable by me from the innumerable strokes of iron-shod hoofs

upon the stones around me. But both of these occasions are connected with

a period of my history involving such events, that the thought of writing

it makes me tremble.

Roundabout Papers—No. III.

ON RIBBONS.

[Illustration]

The uncle of the present Sir Louis N. Bonaparte, K.G., &c., inaugurated

his reign as Emperor over the neighbouring nation by establishing

an Order, to which all citizens of his country, military, naval,

and civil—all men most distinguished in science, letters, arts, and

commerce—were admitted. The emblem of the Order was but a piece of

ribbon, more or less long or broad, with a toy at the end of it.

The Bourbons had toys and ribbons of their own, blue, black, and

all-coloured; and on their return to dominion such good old Tories would

naturally have preferred to restore their good old Orders of Saint Louis,

Saint Esprit, and Saint Michel: but France had taken the ribbon of the

Legion of Honour so to her heart that no Bourbon sovereign dared to pluck

it thence.

In England, until very late days, we have been accustomed rather to

pooh-pooh national Orders, to vote ribbons and crosses tinsel gewgaws,

foolish foreign ornaments, and so forth. It is known how the Great Duke

(the breast of whose own coat was plastered with some half-hundred

decorations) was averse to the wearing of ribbons, medals, clasps,

and the like, by his army. We have all of us read how uncommonly

distinguished Lord Castlereagh looked at Vienna, where he was the only

gentleman present without any decoration whatever. And the Great Duke’s

theory was, that clasps and ribbons, stars and garters, were good and

proper ornaments for himself, for the chief officers of his distinguished

army, and for gentlemen of high birth, who might naturally claim to wear

a band of garter blue across their waistcoats; but that for common people

your plain coat, without stars and ribbons, was the most sensible wear.

And no doubt you and I are as happy, as free, as comfortable; we can walk

and dine as well; we can keep the winter’s cold out as well, without

a star on our coats, as without a feather in our hats. How often we

have laughed at the absurd mania of the Americans for dubbing their

senators, members of Congress, and States’ representatives, Honourable!

We have a right to call _our_ privy councillors Right Honourable, our

lords’ sons Honourable, and so forth: but for a nation as numerous, well

educated, strong, rich, civilized, free as our own, to dare to give

its distinguished citizens titles of honour—monstrous assumption of

low-bred arrogance and _parvenue_ vanity! Our titles are respectable,

but theirs absurd. Mr. Jones, of London, a chancellor’s son, and a

tailor’s grandson, is justly honourable, and entitled to be Lord Jones

at his noble father’s decease: but Mr. Brown, the senator from New York,

is a silly upstart for tacking Honourable to his name, and our sturdy

British good sense laughs at him. Who has not laughed (I have myself) at

Honourable Nahum Dodge, Honourable Zeno Scudder, Honourable Hiram Boake,

and the rest? A score of such queer names and titles I have smiled at in

America. And, _mutato nomine_? I meet a born idiot, who is a peer and

born legislator. This drivelling noodle and his descendants through life

are your natural superiors and mine-your and my children’s superiors. I

read of an alderman kneeling and knighted at court: I see a gold-stick

waddling backwards before majesty in a procession, and if we laugh, don’t

you suppose the Americans laugh too?

Yes, stars, garters, orders, knighthoods, and the like are folly. Yes,

Bobus, citizen and soap-boiler, is a good man, and no one laughs at

him or good Mrs. Bobus, as they have their dinner at one o’clock. But

who will not jeer at Sir Thomas on a melting day, and Lady Bobus, at

Margate, eating shrimps in a donkey-chaise? Yes, knighthood is absurd:

and chivalry an idiotic superstition: and Sir Walter Manny was a zany:

and Nelson, with his flaming stars and cordons, splendent upon a day of

battle, was a madman: and Murat, with his crosses and orders, at the

head of his squadrons charging victorious, was only a crazy mountebank,

who had been a tavern-waiter, and was puffed up with absurd vanity

about his dress and legs. And the men of the French line at Fontenoy,

who told Messieurs de la Garde to fire first, were smirking French

dancing-masters; and the Black Prince, waiting upon his royal prisoner,

was acting an inane masquerade; and Chivalry is naught; and Honour is

humbug; and Gentlemanhood is an extinct folly; and Ambition is madness;

and desire of distinction is criminal vanity; and glory is bosh; and fair

fame is idleness; and nothing is true but two and two; and the colour of

all the world is drab; and all men are equal; and one man is as tall as

another; and one man is as good as another—and a great dale betther, as

the Irish philosopher said.

Is this so? Titles and badges of honour are vanity; and in the American

Revolution you have his Excellency General Washington sending back, and

with proper spirit sending back, a letter in which he is not addressed

as Excellency and General. Titles are abolished; and the American

Republic swarms with men claiming and bearing them. You have the French

soldier cheered and happy in his dying agony, and kissing with frantic

joy the chief’s hand who lays the little cross on the bleeding bosom. At

home you have the dukes and earls jobbing and intriguing for the Garter;

the military knights grumbling at the civil knights of the Bath; the

little ribbon eager for the collar; the soldiers and seamen from India

and the Crimea marching in procession before the queen, and receiving

from her hands the cross bearing her royal name. And, remember, there

are not only the cross wearers, but all the fathers and friends; all the

women who have prayed for their absent heroes; Harry’s wife, and Tom’s

mother, and Jack’s daughter, and Frank’s sweetheart, each of whom wears

in her heart of hearts afterwards the badge which son, father, lover has

won by his merit; each of whom is made happy and proud, and is bound to

the country by that little bit of ribbon.

I have heard, in a lecture about George the Third, that, at his

accession, the king had a mind to establish an Order for literary men. It

was to have been called the Order of Minerva—I suppose with an Owl for

a badge. The knights were to have worn a star of sixteen points, and a

yellow ribbon; and good old Samuel Johnson was talked of as President,

or Grand Cross, or Grand Owl, of the society. Now about such an order

as this there certainly may be doubts. Consider the claimants, the

difficulty of settling their claims, the rows and squabbles amongst the

candidates, and the subsequent decision of posterity! Dr. Beattie would

have ranked as first poet, and twenty years after the sublime Mr. Hayley

would, no doubt, have claimed the Grand Cross. Mr. Gibbon would not have

been eligible on account of his dangerous freethinking opinions; and her

sex, as well as her republican sentiments, might have interfered with the

knighthood of the immortal Mrs. Catharine Macaulay. How Goldsmith would

have paraded the ribbon at Madame Cornelys’s, or the Academy dinner! How

Peter Pindar would have railed at it! Fifty years later, the noble Scott

would have worn the Grand Cross and deserved it; but Gifford would have

had it; and Byron, and Shelley, and Hazlitt, and Hunt would have been

without it; and had Keats been proposed as officer, how the Tory prints

would have yelled with rage and scorn! Had the star of Minerva lasted to

our present time——but I pause, not because the idea is dazzling, but too

awful. Fancy the claimants, and the row about their precedence! Which

philosopher shall have the grand cordon?—which the collar?—which the

little scrap no bigger than a buttercup? Of the historians—A, say,—and

C, and F, and G, and S, and T,—which shall be Companion and which Grand

Owl? Of the poets, who wears, or claims, the largest and brightest

star? Of the novelists, there is A, and B and C D; and E (star of first

magnitude, newly discovered), and F (a magazine of wit), and fair G,

and H, and I, and brave old J, and charming K, and L, and M, and N,

and O (fair twinklers), and I am puzzled between three P’s—Peacock,

Miss Pardoe, and Paul Pry—and Queechy, and R, and S, and T, _mère et

fils_, and very likely U, O gentle reader, for who has not written his

novel now-a-days?—who has not a claim to the star and straw-coloured

ribbon?—and who shall have the biggest and largest? Fancy the struggle!

Fancy the squabble! Fancy the distribution of prizes!

Who shall decide on them? Shall it be the sovereign? shall it be the

minister for the time being? and has Lord Palmerston made a deep study

of novels? In this matter the late ministry, to be sure, was better

qualified; but even then, grumblers who had not got their canary cordons,

would have hinted at professional jealousies entering the cabinet; and,

the ribbons being awarded, Jack would have scowled at his because Dick

had a broader one; Ned been indignant because Bob’s was as large: Tom

would have thrust his into the drawer, and scorned to wear it at all.

No—no: the so-called literary world was well rid of Minerva and her

yellow ribbon. The great poets would have been indifferent, the little

poets jealous, the funny men furious, the philosophers satirical,

the historians supercilious, and, finally, the jobs without end.

Say, ingenuity and cleverness are to be rewarded by State tokens and

prizes—and take for granted the Order of Minerva is established—who shall

have it? A great philosopher? no doubt, we cordially salute him G.C.M. A

great historian? G.C.M. of course. A great engineer? G.C.M. A great poet?

received with acclamation G.C.M. A great painter? oh! certainly, G.C.M.

If a great painter, why not a great novelist? Well, pass, great novelist,

G.C.M. But if a poetic, a pictorial, a story-telling or music-composing

artist, why not a singing artist? Why not a basso-profondo? Why not

a primo tenore? And if a singer, why should not a ballet-dancer come

bounding on the stage with his cordon, and cut capers to the music of

a row of decorated fiddlers? A chemist puts in his claim for having

invented a new colour; an apothecary for a new pill; the cook for a new

sauce; the tailor for a new cut of trowsers. We have brought the star of

Minerva down from the breast to the pantaloons. Stars and garters! can we

go any farther; or shall we give the shoemaker the yellow ribbon of the

Order for his shoetie?

When I began this present Roundabout excursion, I think I had not quite

made up my mind whether we would have an Order of all the Talents or not:

I think I rather had a hankering for a rich ribbon and gorgeous star, in

which my family might like to see me at parties in my best waistcoat.

But then the door opens, and there come in, and by the same right too,

Sir Alexis Soyer! Sir Alessandro Tamburini! Sir Agostino Velluti! Sir

Antonio Paganini (violinist)! Sir Sandy McGuffog (piper to the most noble

the Marquis of Farintosh)! Sir Alcide Flicflac (premier danseur of H.M.

Theatre)! Sir Harley Quin and Sir Joseph Grimaldi (from Covent Garden)!

They have all the yellow ribbon. They are all honourable, and clever,

and distinguished artists. Let us elbow through the rooms, make a bow to

the lady of the house, give a nod to Sir George Thrum, who is leading

the orchestra, and go and get some champagne and seltzer-water from Sir

Richard Gunter, who is presiding at the buffet. A national decoration

might be well and good: a token awarded by the country to all its

_bene-merentibus_: but most gentlemen with Minerva stars would, I think,

be inclined to wear very wide breast-collars to their coats. Suppose

yourself, brother penman, decorated with this ribbon, and looking in the

glass, would you not laugh? Would not wife and daughters laugh at that

canary-coloured emblem?

But suppose a man, old or young, of figure ever so stout, thin, stumpy,

homely, indulging in looking-glass reflections with that hideous

ribbon and cross called V. C. on his coat, would he not be proud? and

his family, would not they be prouder? For your noblemen there is the

famous old blue garter and star, and welcome. If I were a marquis—if I

had thirty—forty thousand a year (settle the sum, my dear Alnaschar,

according to your liking), I should consider myself entitled to my seat

in parliament and to my garter. The garter belongs to the Ornamental

Classes. Have you seen the new magnificent _Pavo Spicifer_ at the

Zoological Gardens, and do you grudge him his jewelled coronet and the

azure splendour of his waistcoat? I like my lord mayor to have a gilt

coach; my magnificent monarch to be surrounded by magnificent nobles:

I huzzay respectfully when they pass in procession. It is good for Mr.

Briefless (50, Pump Court, fourth floor) that there should be a Lord

Chancellor, with a gold robe and fifteen thousand a year. It is good

for a poor curate that there should be splendid bishops at Fulham and

Lambeth: their lordships were poor curates once, and have won, so to

speak, their ribbon. Is a man who puts into a lottery to be sulky because

he does not win the twenty thousand pounds prize? Am I to fall into a

rage, and bully my family when I come home, after going to see Chatsworth

or Windsor, because we have only two little drawing-rooms? Welcome to

your garter, my lord, and shame upon him _qui mal y pense_!

So I arrive in my roundabout way near the point towards which I have been

trotting ever since we set out.

In a voyage to America, some nine years since, on the seventh or eighth

day out from Liverpool, Captain L—— came to dinner at eight bells as

usual, talked a little to the persons right and left of him, and helped

the soup with his accustomed politeness. Then he went on deck, and was

back in a minute, and operated on the fish, looking rather grave the

while.

Then he went on deck again; and this time was absent, it may be, three

or five minutes, during which the fish disappeared, and the _entrées_

arrived, and the roast beef. Say ten minutes passed—I can’t tell after

nine years.

Then L—— came down with a pleased and happy countenance this time, and

began carving the sirloin: “We have seen the light,” he said. “Madam, may

I help you to a little gravy, or a little horse-radish?” or what-not?

I forget the name of the light; nor does it matter. It was a point of

Newfoundland for which he was on the look-out, and so well did the

_Canada_ know where she was, that, between soup and beef, the captain had

sighted the headland by which his course was lying.

And so through storm and darkness, through fog and midnight, the ship

had pursued her steady way over the pathless ocean and roaring seas, so

surely that the officers who sailed her knew her place within a minute

or two, and guided us with a wonderful providence safe on our way. Since

the noble Cunard Company has run its ships, but one accident, and that

through the error of a pilot, has happened on the line.

By this little incident (hourly of course repeated, and trivial to all

sea-going people) I own I was immensely moved, and never can think of

it but with a heart full of thanks and awe. We trust our lives to these

seamen, and how nobly they fulfil their trust! They are, under heaven, as

a providence for us. Whilst we sleep, their untiring watchfulness keeps

guard over us. All night through that bell sounds at its season, and

tells how our sentinels defend us. It rang when the _Amazon_ was on fire,

and chimed its heroic signal of duty, and courage, and honour. Think of

the dangers these seamen undergo for us: the hourly peril and watch; the

familiar storm; the dreadful iceberg; the long winter nights when the

decks are as glass, and the sailor has to climb through icicles to bend

the stiff sail on the yard. Think of their courage and their kindnesses

in cold, in tempest, in hunger, in wreck! “The women and children to the

boats,” says the captain of the _Birkenhead_, and, with the troops formed

on the deck, and the crew obedient to the word of glorious command, the

immortal ship goes down. Read the story of the _Sarah Sands_:—

“SARAH SANDS.”

“The screw steam-ship _Sarah Sands_, 1,330 registered tons,

was chartered by the East India Company in the autumn of 1858,

for the conveyance of troops to India. She was commanded by

John Squire Castle. She took out a part of the 54th Regiment,

upwards of 350 persons, besides the wives and children of some

of the men, and the families of some of the officers. All went

well till the 11th November, when the ship had reached lat. 14

S., longitude 56 E., upwards of 400 miles from the Mauritius.

“Between three and four p.m. on that day a very strong smell of

fire was perceived arising from the after-deck, and upon going

below into the hold, Captain Castle found it to be on fire, and

immense volumes of smoke arising from it. Endeavours were made

to reach the seat of the fire, but in vain; the smoke and heat

were too much for the men. There was, however, no confusion.

Every order was obeyed with the same coolness and courage with

which it was given. The engine was immediately stopped. All

sail was taken in, and the ship brought to the wind, so as to

drive the smoke and fire, which was in the after-part of the

ship, astern. Others were, at the same time, getting fire-hoses

fitted and passed to the scene of the fire. The fire, however,

continued to increase, and attention was directed to the

ammunition contained in the powder magazines, which were

situated one on each side the ship immediately above the fire.

The starboard magazine was soon cleared. But by this time the

whole of the after-part of the ship was so much enveloped in

smoke that it was scarcely possible to stand, and great fears

were entertained on account of the port magazine. Volunteers

were called for, and came immediately, and, under the guidance

of Lieutenant Hughes, attempted to clear the port magazine,

which they succeeded in doing, with the exception, as was

supposed, of one or two barrels. It was most dangerous work.

The men became overpowered with the smoke and heat, and fell;

and several, whilst thus engaged, were dragged up by ropes

senseless.

“The flames soon burst up through the deck, and running rapidly

along the various cabins, set the greater part on fire.

“In the meantime Captain Castle took steps for lowering the

boats. There was a heavy gale at the time, but they were

launched without the least accident. The soldiers were mustered

on deck;—there was no rush to the boats;—and the men obeyed the

word of command as if on parade. The men were informed that

Captain Castle did not despair of saving the ship, but that

they must be prepared to leave her if necessary. The women and

children were lowered into the port lifeboat, under the charge

of Mr. Very, third officer, who had orders to keep clear of the

ship until recalled.

“Captain Castle then commenced constructing rafts of spare

spars. In a short time, three were put together, which would

have been capable of saving a great number of those on board.

Two were launched overboard, and safely moored alongside, and

then a third was left across the deck forward, ready to be

launched.

“In the meantime the fire had made great progress. The whole

of the cabins were one body of fire, and at about 8.30 p.m.,

flames burst through the upper deck, and shortly after the

mizen rigging caught fire. Fears were entertained of the ship

paying off, in which case the flames would have been swept

forwards by the wind; but fortunately the after-braces were

burnt through, and the main-yard swung round, which kept the

ship’s head to wind. About nine p.m., a fearful explosion took

place in the port magazine, arising, no doubt, from the one or

two barrels of powder which it had been impossible to remove.

By this time the ship was one body of flame, from the stern to

the main rigging, and thinking it scarcely possible to save

her, Captain Castle called Major Brett (then in command of the

troops, for the colonel was in one of the boats) forward, and,

telling him that he feared the ship was lost, requested him

to endeavour to keep order amongst the troops till the last,

but, at the same time, to use every exertion to check the fire.

Providentially, the iron bulkhead in the after part of the ship

withstood the action of the flames, and here all efforts were

concentrated to keep it cool.

“‘No person,’ says the captain, ‘can describe the manner in

which the men worked to keep the fire back; one party were

below, keeping the bulkhead cool, and when several were

dragged up senseless, fresh volunteers took their places, who

were, however, soon in the same state. At about ten p.m., the

maintopsail-yard took fire. Mr. Welch, one quartermaster,

and four or five soldiers, went aloft with wet blankets, and

succeeded in extinguishing it, but not until the yard and mast

were nearly burnt through. The work of fighting the fire below

continued for hours, and about midnight it appeared that some

impression was made; and after that, the men drove it back,

inch by inch, until daylight, when they had completely got it

under. The ship was now in a frightful plight. The after-part

was literally burnt out—merely the shell remaining—the port

quarter blown out by the explosion: fifteen feet of water in

the hold.’

“The gale still prevailed, and the ship was rolling and

pitching in a heavy sea, and taking in large quantities of

water abaft: the tanks, too, were rolling from side to side in

the hold.

“As soon as the smoke was partially cleared away, Captain

Castle got spare sails and blankets aft to stop the leak,

passing two hawsers round the stem, and setting them up. The

troops were employed baling and pumping. This continued during

the whole morning.

“In the course of the day the ladies joined the ship. The boats

were ordered alongside, but they found the sea too heavy to

remain there. The gig had been abandoned during the night, and

the crew, under Mr. Wood, fourth officer, had got into another

of the boats. The troops were employed the remainder of the

day baling and pumping, and the crew securing the stern. All

hands were employed during the following night baling and

pumping, the boats being moored alongside, where they received

some damage. At daylight, on the 13th, the crew were employed

hoisting the boats, the troops were working manfully baling and

pumping. Latitude at noon, 13 deg. 12 min. south. At five p.m.,

the foresail and foretopsail were set, the rafts were cut away,

and the ship bore for the Mauritius. On Thursday, the 19th, she

sighted the island of Rodrigues, and arrived at Mauritius on

Monday the 23rd.”

[Illustration: STERN OF THE STEAM-SHIP “SARAH SANDS.”

Showing the state in which she arrived at Mauritius.

(_From a Photograph taken at the time._)]

The Nile and Trafalgar are not more glorious to our country, are not

greater victories than these won by our merchant seamen. And if you look

in the captains’ reports of any maritime register, you will see similar

acts recorded every day. I have such a volume, for last year, now lying

before me. In the second number, as I open it at hazard, Captain Roberts,

master of the ship _Empire_, from Shields to London, reports how on the

14th ult. (the 14th December, 1859), he, “being off Whitby, discovered

the ship to be on fire between the main hold and boilers: got the hose

from the engine laid on, and succeeded in subduing the fire; but only

apparently; for at seven, the next morning, the _Dudgeon_ bearing S. S.

E. seven miles’ distance, the fire again broke out, causing the ship to

be enveloped in flames on both sides of midships: got the hose again into

play and all hands to work with buckets to combat with the fire. Did not

succeed in stopping it till four p.m., to effect which, were obliged to

cut away the deck and top sides, and throw overboard part of the cargo.

The vessel was very much damaged and leaky: determined to make for the

Humber. Ship was run on shore, on the mud, near Grimsby harbour, with

five feet water in her hold. The donkey-engine broke down. The water

increased so fast as to put out the furnace fires and render the ship

almost unmanageable. On the tide flowing, a tug towed the ship off the

mud, and got her into Grimsby to repair.”

On the 2nd of November, Captain Strickland, of the _Purchase_ brigantine,

from Liverpool to Yarmouth, U. S., “encountered heavy gales from

W.N.W. to W.S.W, in lat. 43° N., long. 34° W., in which we lost jib,

foretopmast, staysail, topsail, and carried away the foretopmast stays,

bobstays and bowsprit, headsails, cut-water and stern, also started the

wood ends, which caused the vessel to leak. Put her before the wind

and sea, and hove about twenty-five tons of cargo overboard to lighten

the ship forward. Slung myself in a bowline, and by means of thrusting

2½-inch rope in the opening, contrived to stop a great portion of the

leak.

“_December 16th._—The crew, continuing night and day at the pumps,

could not keep the ship free; deemed it prudent for the benefit of

those concerned to bear up for the nearest port. On arriving in lat.

48° 45′ N., long. 23° W., observed a vessel with a signal of distress

flying. Made towards her, when she proved to be the barque _Carleton_,

water-logged. The captain and crew asked to be taken off. Hove to, and

received them on board, consisting of thirteen men: and their ship was

abandoned. We then proceeded on our course, the crew of the abandoned

vessel assisting all they could to keep my ship afloat. We arrived at

Cork harbour on the 27th ult.”

Captain Coulson, master of the brig _Othello_, reports that his brig

foundered off Portland, December 27;—encountering a strong gale, and

shipping two heavy seas in succession, which hove the ship on her

beam-ends. “Observing no chance of saving the ship, took to the long

boat, and within ten minutes of leaving her saw the brig founder. We

were picked up the same morning by the French ship _Commerce de Paris_,

Captain Tombarel.”

Here, in a single column of a newspaper, what strange, touching pictures

do we find of seamen’s dangers, vicissitudes, gallantry, generosity! The

ship on fire—the captain in the gale slinging himself in a bowline to

stop the leak—the Frenchman in the hour of danger coming to his British

comrade’s rescue—the brigantine, almost a wreck, working up to the barque

with the signal of distress flying, and taking off her crew of thirteen

men: “We then proceeded on our course, _the crew of the abandoned vessel

assisting all they could to keep my ship afloat_.” What noble, simple

words! What courage, devotedness, brotherly love! Do they not cause the

heart to beat, and the eyes to fill?

This is what seamen do daily, and for one another. One lights

occasionally upon different stories. It happened, not very long since,

that the passengers by one of the great ocean steamers were wrecked,

and, after undergoing the most severe hardships, were left, destitute

and helpless, at a miserable coaling port. Amongst them were old men,

ladies, and children. When the next steamer arrived, the passengers by

that steamer took alarm at the haggard and miserable appearance of their

unfortunate predecessors, and actually _remonstrated with their own

captain, urging him not to take the poor creatures on board_. There was

every excuse, of course. The last-arrived steamer was already dangerously

full: the cabins were crowded; there were sick and delicate people on

board—sick and delicate people who had paid a large price to the company

for room, food, comfort, already not too sufficient. If fourteen of us

are in an omnibus, will we hear three or four women say, “Come in,”

because this is the last ’bus, and it rains? Of course not: but think

of that remonstrance, and of that Samaritan master of the _Purchase_

brigantine!

In the winter of ’53, I went from Marseilles to Civita Vecchia, in one

of the magnificent P. and O. ships, the _Valetta_, the master of which

subsequently did distinguished service in the Crimea. This was his first

Mediterranean voyage, and he sailed his ship by the charts alone, going

into each port as surely as any pilot. I remember walking the deck at

night with this most skilful, gallant, well-bred, and well-educated

gentleman, and the glow of eager enthusiasm with which he assented, when

I asked him whether he did not think a RIBBON or ORDER would be welcome

or useful in his service.

Why is there not an ORDER OF BRITANNIA for British seamen? In the

Merchant and the Royal Navy alike, occur almost daily instances and

occasions for the display of science, skill, bravery, fortitude in

trying circumstances, resource in danger. In the First Number of our

_Magazine_, a friend contributed a most touching story of the M’Clintock

expedition, in the dangers and dreadful glories of which he shared; and

the writer was a merchant captain. How many more are there (and, for the

honour of England, may there be many like him!)—gallant, accomplished,

high-spirited, enterprising masters of their noble profession! Can our

Fountain of Honour not be brought to such men? It plays upon captains

and colonels in seemly profusion. It pours forth not illiberal rewards

upon doctors and judges. It sprinkles mayors and aldermen. It bedews a

painter now and again. It has spirted a baronetcy upon two, and bestowed

a coronet upon one noble man of letters. Diplomatists take their Bath in

it as of right; and it flings out a profusion of glittering stars upon

the nobility of the three kingdoms. Cannot Britannia find a ribbon for

her sailors? The Navy, royal or mercantile, is _a Service_. The command

of a ship, or the conduct of her, implies danger, honour, science, skill,

subordination, good faith. It may be a victory, such as that of the

_Sarah Sands_; it may be discovery, such as that of the _Fox_; it may be

heroic disaster, such as that of the _Birkenhead_; and in such events

merchant seamen, as well as royal seamen, take their share.

Why is there not, then, an Order of Britannia? One day a young officer

of the _Euryalus_ may win it; and, having just read the memoirs of LORD

DUNDONALD, I know who ought to have the first Grand Cross.