The soft beams of the spring sun gave friendly greeting to the

housewife as she stepped out into the farm-yard, and a light breeze

wafted to her senses the fresh perfumes of awakening nature. Thousands

of birds sang and twittered exultingly amongst the trees; the

woodpecker tapped perseveringly at the dry branches of the oaks; and

over the house, from an almost invisible elevation, was heard the

joyous carol of the lark.

Two children came forth from the garden of the smaller house. A boy of

six or seven years old dragged a child's cart, in which sat a little

girl of three. Both were pictures of health and cheerfulness. The boy

sprang shouting to meet his mother, the cart rattling behind. With a

joyful "Good morning, mother!" he held out his hand. She pressed it,

then stooped down, took the little girl from the cart, kissed her and

put her upon the ground.

"You are early up this morning, dear children!" said she.

"Oh yes, mother," replied the boy, with childish unconcern. "Father

said yesterday this would likely be our last day here, so, before we

went, I thought to take little Margaret a ride round the garden."

"Good boy. But your father was not in earnest. We shall stay here

to-day and many another day besides."

"That is capital! Then I shall have a field to myself, and a strip of

meadow, and I can bring up the foal and calf which father gave me."

"That you can and shall do."

"And I shall have my chicken," cried little Margaret.

"You shall, my dear Margaret."

The woman went with the children into the garden, and sat down on a

bench in an arbour. There she took the little girl upon her lap, whilst

the boy stood beside her, and she gazed alternately at the substantial

farm-house and at the pleasant cottage close at hand.

"How dull you are to-day, mother; is anything the matter?" said the boy.

"Nothing, my child--it will pass away."

Through a wicket in the hedge, a countryman entered the farm-yard. He

looked about him on all sides, and when he saw the woman, he went up

to her.

"Good morning, neighbour. How goes it?"

"Good morning, neighbour. How should it go?"

"I see no preparations as yet. Is not the commissioner coming?"

"I believe not."

"Is your husband at home?"

"He is gone out."

"Do you really believe the gentlemen will not come? Do not rely upon

it. These are bad times."

"They _cannot_ come."

"Don't say that, neighbour. Who can tell what can or cannot happen

now-a-days!"

"Why prophesy evil, neighbour? Ill luck comes fast enough; there is no

need to invoke it."

"Well, well, don't be angry. I meant no offence. It is good to be

prepared for misfortune. And my word for it, these are bad times. The

humble are oppressed; the great nobles have the power; justice is no

more in the land--by the peasant, especially, it is never to be found.

The nobleman and the fisc are too powerful for him."

"But we have laws, neighbour; and the laws govern both rich and poor,

great and small."

"They should, they should! But what is the use of laws, when judges are

not honest? When bailiffs can squeeze us, and tax-gatherers cheat us,

without our daring to make a stir about it."

"But bailiffs and tax-gatherers have their superiors."

"Ay, but all are links of the same chain. All stand by each other.

They dine at each other's tables, and make each other presents. The

bailiff sends the best carriage-horses to the president's stables. The

president is a good friend of the minister's. And the nobleman is hand

and glove with all of them."

The woman rose from her seat. "It is breakfast-time, neighbour

Littlejohn; come in. My husband will soon be back."

They walked toward the farm-house. They were but a few paces from

the door, when two carriages drove into the yard, containing several

persons. On the box of one sat two gendarmes, and upon the other were

two officers of justice.

"There they are," exclaimed Littlejohn. "Keep up your heart, neighbour."

The woman's countenance worked convulsively for a moment, but she

quickly composed herself, and taking little Margaret in her arms, she

stood calm and silent before the door.

The gendarmes and officers got down from the box; the gentlemen

alighted from the carriages. One of the latter, a short, corpulent

person, approached the farmer's wife.

"I come upon a mournful errand, Mrs Oberhage!" said he in a tone of

sympathy, disagreeable because it did not sound sincere.

The woman neither stirred nor replied.

"Our duty, Mrs Oberhage--believe me, it is often very painful; but so

much so as on this occasion I never yet have known it to be."

The woman answered him not.

"Believe me, this is an unhappy day for me."

"To us you have never yet brought happiness, judge," said the woman

bitterly.

One of the other gentlemen now stepped forward. He was tall, thin, and

pompous, and had two orders upon his breast. The judge had but one, in

his button-hole.

"I think we will to business, _Herr Justizrath_," said he to the judge.

"Oh, gentlemen!" said the woman, still calm but earnest, "surely you

will wait. My husband is not yet here, nor our lawyer. I expect them

both immediately."

"What have we to do with either of them?" said the counsellor,[45]

carelessly. "The matter is settled, and admits of no alteration."

"The matter is not yet settled. The day is not yet over!" quickly

replied the woman.

"My good woman, I can make all allowance for your present mood, but

do not cause useless delay. Let us go into the house and begin, _Herr

Justizrath_."

"A little patience, Mrs Oberhage," said the judge, still more blandly

than before.

They went into the house. The other officials followed them. The

gendarmes remained outside.

Meanwhile, a number of neighbours had arrived at the farm, their

countenances expressing the warmest sympathy, mingled with feelings of

rage and bitterness--feelings which they did not scruple to express in

words, notwithstanding the presence of the gendarmes and men of law.

"So it has come to earnest at last, gossip Oberhage," said an old

peasant. "'Tis shame and scandal thus by main force to drive you from

house and home."

"Not yet, Father Hartmann!" said the woman, with great external calm.

"You know we have sent in a memorial. So long as all is not lost,

nothing is lost."

"True enough, but don't be too sure. The world has grown very bad.

Only see yonder false-hearted judge and insolent counsellor. They

it is who have brought the whole misfortune upon you, and now they

are not ashamed to come here and feast their eyes and ears with your

lamentations."

"Not with our lamentations!" said the woman, drawing herself up with a

feeling of pride and courage which would have done honour to a queen.

"It is God's truth," she continued, after a momentary pause, "that

these two men have done their utmost to drive us from the farm, on

which I and my husband, and my forefathers, have dwelt for now more

than two hundred years."

"Ay, ay," said the old peasant, "the little judge was heard to say,

as much as ten years ago, that there were records in the office which

would be your ruin if brought to light."

"He said as much to my husband, that he might buy the papers of him.

And when my husband would not, he came and tried it with me."

"And when you sent him about his business, he went and plotted with the

counsellor, who had then just arrived here from the capital, with an

appointment to the chamber. That is a bad fellow, neighbour Oberhage.

He has feeling for no man, nor for anything but fisc and taxes, impost

and extortion. There is not a farm in the district on which he has not

found means to lay new burthens. Day and night he rummages old records

and registers, to find out new rights for the exchequer, and new means

of oppressing the peasantry. And so he brought forward the old papers,

by which he makes out that your farm is the property of the sovereign.

The fat judge put him up to it."

"That the farm," said the woman by way of amendment, "_had_ belonged to

the sovereign, more than two hundred years ago. My ancestors bought it

of the government, and paid its price. My grandfather had the papers in

his possession, but at his death they were not to be found. My father

was away when he died, so the authorities scaled up the inheritance and

took charge of all documents. Amongst these were the papers proving the

purchase of the farm, and since then we have never seen them. It was

said they were not sealed up with the others, or that they got lost."

"The sly judge knows well enough where they are."

"Who can prove it? We told him as much, but he only laughed, and

threatened us with an action for slander. Thereupon they began

proceedings to turn us out of the farm. The old papers were accepted

as valid; all sorts of laws were brought forward--laws which the

sovereigns themselves had made; and they so twisted and turned the

matter that, at last, house and land were adjudged to the crown. There

is no justice for the poor peasant: justice in this country is a crying

scandal. The judges think only how best to be agreeable to the nobility

and the sovereign, that they may get a bit of ribbon, or an increase,

of salary, or a better place.

"But I have yet one hope left," continued the woman. "We have

addressed a memorial to his Highness, placing plainly before his

eyes the injustice that the tribunals have done us. We have told

him everything--how the judge wanted to bargain with us about the

documents, how he suppressed our papers, how he and the long-legged

counsellor laid their heads together, and plotted, and planned, and

bribed witnesses for our ruin. I expect the answer every minute. If

there be yet one spark of justice in our sovereign's heart, he cannot

and will not suffer them to expel us from our farm."

"Poor woman, build not too much upon _that_."

"But I do build upon it, for I have trust in God and in good men."

"In _good_ men. Good men have a heart for poor people. But where will

you find that amongst those in high places?"

The old peasant's presentiment as to the fruitlessness of the memorial

is well-founded. On the return of the farmer without any reply from

the reigning prince, his wife appeals to the commissioners, who are

busy taking an inventory--preparatory to making over the property into

the hands of an administrator--to suspend execution of the judgment

obtained until the pleasure of the sovereign shall be known.

"Judge," said the woman, "we have petitioned the sovereign; an answer

may come any minute: until then, we need not go."

"But, my dear Mrs Oberhage, think of the judgment rendered. You have

already made all the appeals possible. Justice must have its course."

"Justice!" said the woman bitterly, "we will say nothing about that,

judge. But the sovereign has to decide whether he will have our

property or not. He cannot take the farm, he cannot wish to accept

stolen goods. For his decision you, his servants, are bound to wait:

the farm won't run away.

"Woman," said counsellor Von Eilenthal pompously, "cherish not vain

delusions. I can tell you the answer you will receive from the royal

cabinet; I know it: the sovereign referred your application to his

excellency the prime-minister, and the minister desired the chamber to

report upon it--I myself made out the report."

"Then is our fate indeed decided!" said the farmer.

"Your own sense of what is right tells it you; justice must have its

free course."

"These are hard times for us poor people," said the woman. "Our

persecutors are set as judges over us, and interpose between the

children of the soil and their sovereign, so that our complaints cannot

be heard. Their voices alone are heard; ours, never."

"My good woman, the officials do but their duty."

"Yes, yes, _Herr Regierungsrath_, that is well known--everyone for

himself. You now have doubtless wellnigh gained your end; you have

reduced enough poor people to yet greater poverty, and may expect a

place in the ministry or a president's chair--that has always been your

aim."

The counsellor turned to the judge: "Let us proceed with our business,"

he said.

All hope had now fled from the breasts of the Oberhages, and departure

was inevitable. The farmer's brother offered him an asylum; the

honest-hearted peasants, indignant at the crying injustice of the

case, and commiserating a misfortune which all felt might some day be

their own, volunteered their carts and their labour to transport such

part of the farmer's property as he was allowed to carry away. This

was but a very limited portion, consisting solely of personal effects.

Farm implements, live and dead stock, the corn and vegetables in the

granaries, the tall stacks of hay and straw, must all be left behind.

They stood upon the inventory, and were the property of the state. But

the severest cut of all, for the frugal and industrious housewife, was

yet to come. Her eldest daughter, a blooming maiden of nineteen, came

up to her, followed by the counsellor, the judge, and the Oberhages'

lawyer. The girl looked pale and frightened.

"Mother," she said, "you sent me to the linen-room, to give out the

linen to be put on the carts."

"Well, what then?" cried the woman in anxious astonishment.

"The gentlemen have taken the key from me, and will not let me have the

linen."

"Who has done that?--who will not?" demanded the woman violently,

flushing crimson with anger. It was plain that her household gods were

attacked.

"His worship the judge."

"His worship the judge? My linen? What have you to do with my linen?"

"Dear Mrs Oberhage, I have already explained to you that you are

allowed to take away from the farm only your own property--your own

personal effects."

"And is not the linen my own property?"

"No."

"And what is it, then?"

"An appurtenance to the farm."

The woman burst into a laugh--a laugh of sudden and terrible rage.

"My linen," she cried--"my linen, for which I and my mother, my

grandmother, and my great-grandmother, and at odd times this girl too,

have spun the yarn--which we ourselves have woven and bleached, and

on whose every thread has fallen a drop of our sweat--my linen, you

say, is an appurtenance of your farm, and belongs to you, or to the

counsellor there." And she looked from the one to the other of the

magistrates. Then, growing calmer, she added scornfully, "take some

other notion into your heads, gentlemen; but my linen you shall not

have."

"It is your treasure, your pride, Mrs Oberhage," replied the judge,

with his everlasting friendliness: "every one knows that; but,

unfortunately, there is no alternative. I am grieved on your account,

but the linen belongs to the farm, and not to you."

The fury of the farmer's wife seemed about again to break out. Her

lawyer stepped forward. "His worship is unfortunately in the right,"

he said. "The store of linen, inasmuch as it does not appear necessary

to the personal wants of yourself and your children, is legally an

appurtenance of the farm. You must make up your mind to give it up."

The woman cast a glance at her husband; but neither in that quarter did

she find succour. He looked straight before him, like one absorbed in

thought.

"Take it then," said she resolutely. And making an energetic effort

to conceal a violent trembling that came over her, she returned to

her work. Aided by her daughter, by the weeping servants, and by the

neighbours, the packing was soon done. The carts, laden with the

whole earthly goods of the expelled farmer, were at the door, ready

to start. The neighbours stood around, deep sympathy and suppressed

anger upon their stern countenances. The farm-servants--men and maids,

big and little, boys who had been but lately taken on, and old men,

bent by labour, who had perhaps served three generations upon that

farm--stood on one side, also silent, but with grief in their faces.

The gentlemen of the commission sat at the long table, under the elm,

and breakfasted. The gendarmes and officers were near at hand.

The farmer, his wife, and children, had remained behind in the house.

Presently they came out: first the farmer, then his wife, with her

youngest child on her arm and leading the boy by the hand; last of all

came the eldest daughter. In the countenances of the parents, as in

that of the daughter, was to be discerned an expression of dignified

resignation to a hard lot.

The man and his wife cast searching glances at the carts, and

apparently found all things in order. They then approached a cart upon

which seats had been reserved for them; and the woman set down the

child upon the ground, the better, as it seemed, to take leave of the

sympathising groups that stood around. She and her husband went first

to the neighbours, then to the servants, and shook hands with every

one. Not a word was spoken.

Whilst this farewell scene occurred, the little girl ran to a flock of

chickens, which were pecking for food in the yard. A snow-white hen,

with a tuft upon its head, came tamely to meet her. She took it up in

her little arms, caressed and played with it.

Suddenly a thought came into the boy's head: he went up to his mother,

who had just concluded her sorrowful leave-taking.

"Are we going away for good, mother?" he said.

"Yes, my child, never to return."

"Shall we not take my foal and calf? You promised me this morning that

I should rear them."

"I did promise you, my child, but they no longer belong to us."

The firm character of the mother already manifested itself in the son.

With scarcely a change of countenance.

"Mother," he said, "will they remain on the farm?"

"They will remain here."

He ran to the farm-servants, and begged them to take care of his calf

and foal, and let them want for nothing. Then he returned contentedly

to his mother's side. For the poor woman, however, yet another trial

was in store.

"I take my white chicken with me, mother!" cried the little girl,

pressing the pretty bird to her bosom.

"Does the fowl also belong to the inventory?" said the woman to the

lawyer, who stood near her amongst the peasants.

"But, Mrs Oberhage, such a trifle!"

"Does the chicken belong to the inventory?"

"Yes."

"Child, we must leave the chicken here. I will give you another."

"I won't leave my chicken; I take my white chicken with me." The child

was crying.

The little fat judge, observant of the incident, rose from his seat.

"Mrs Oberhage, let the child have the chicken. With the permission of

the _Herr Regierungsrath_ I make you a present of it."

The child jumped for joy, and the chicken remained perched upon her

little hands.

For a moment there was a struggle in the breast of the farmer's wife.

She looked at her joyous child, she gazed around her at the house and

farm she was about to quit; then, with sudden resolution, she went to

the little girl, took the bird from her arms, and let it run away.

"Judge," she said, turning to the magistrate, "sorry as I am for the

poor child's sake, I nevertheless can accept nothing, as a gift, from

you and the counsellor."

But she could hardly complete the sentence. The resolute woman's

strength seemed suddenly broken, and hot tears gushed from her eyes.

Snatching up the weeping child, she pressed it to her breast, and hid

her agitated countenance in its rich golden curls.

* * * * *

It was dinner-time. At this hour, it was customary for a dozen poor

persons, old women and grayheaded men, to repair to the farm, where,

for long years past, they had received a daily meal. As usual, they had

made their appearance, and now stood aloof with sad and downcast looks.

The housewife perceived them. This was to be her last sorrow in the

home that had hitherto been hers. She stepped towards them. "I can no

longer give you a dinner," she said; "another master is now here."

An old man limped forward, supported upon crutches. "To-day," he said,

"we are here only to thank you, and to pray God that he may repay you

what you, and your husband, and your children, and your fathers before

you, upon this farm, have given to the poor. We have heard of the

injustice done you; but the injustice of men is the blessing of heaven.

Farewell, go in peace to your new home. And may the Lord bless you

there and for ever."

He hobbled back amidst the group of beggars, who stood praying, with

clasped hands. The housewife gave to every one of them an ample dole.

"The Lord be with you also," she said. Then she went to the cart in

which the children were already seated. Without another word, she got

in. Her husband followed her, and his brother, who accompanied them,

was the last. She took her little girl upon her lap, and drew down her

kerchief far over her face, so that none could distinguish her features.

The cart drove slowly out of the farm-yard. It was met by a servant on

horseback, who dashed past at a gallop, and handed to the Counsellor,

Baron Von Eilenthal, a letter with a large seal. That distinguished

functionary eagerly opened it, as with a foreboding of good news.

The judge looked inquisitively over his shoulder.

"Ah, my humblest congratulations, Herr President. Delighted to be the

first to give you joy. I recommend myself to your further favour."

In front of the house, the beggars struck up in slow and solemn

strains the hymn from the Psalm-book--

"Meine Seele, lass es gehen,

Wie in dieser Welt es geht.

Lass auch gerne das geschehen,

Was Dem Herz hier nicht versteht.

Arme Seele, fromm und stille,

Denk, es waltet Gottes Wille."

We have preserved, as dramatic and characteristic, the terminations

of the two chapters from which we have extracted. The last was worth

giving entire, being perhaps the most carefully finished in the book,

but its length compelled compression. As regards its truthfulness,

and the state of things it is intended to illustrate, we need hardly

inform persons acquainted with the social and political condition of

Germany, that acts of corruption and oppression, similar to those

above set forth, have been of no rare occurrence, up to a very recent

date, in more than one sovereign state of that extensive country. The

time of the story of _Anna Hammer_ is 1830, the period when things

were probably at the worst, before the petty despots of Germany had

been warned and alarmed by the second French revolution, and by other

evidences of the growing spirit, throughout Europe, of resistance to

tyrannical and irresponsible rule. The book hinges on the supposed

existence of a secret association, having extensive ramifications,

for the purpose of establishing constitutional government throughout

Germany. Three of the earliest members of the society have lingered, at

the date of the story's commencement, for five years in a state prison.

These three men are Anna Hammer's brother-in-law, Madame Von Horberg's

husband, and a certain Count Arnstein, whose son, after passing four

years in the United States, returns to Germany, in the character of an

American, and under the assumed name of Bushby, with the double purpose

of assisting the plans of the conspirators, and of accomplishing his

father's escape. The place of imprisonment of the three political

offenders is, however, a mystery which one of the most active and

intelligent of the confederates has for years been in vain endeavouring

to solve. It is at last discovered by the ingenuity of Geigenfritz, an

old soldier, and trusty agent of the society, who then contrives to

introduce Anna Hammer into the fortress, in the capacity of servant

girl to the commandant's housekeeper. The housekeeper, Miss Bluestone,

who has lived in a military prison until she has acquired the tone,

and much of the appearance, of a grenadier, and her comrade, Corporal

Long, a veteran converted into a gaoler, who divides his affections

between the wine barrel and a huge bunch of keys, are capitally

hit off. The account of Von Horberg's dungeon, and of the means of

communication he contrives with a prisoner lodged in the lower floor

of the tower, in which he occupies an upper cell, is very well done.

Indeed this, the first chapter of the second volume, entitled _Dungeon

Life_, is one of the best of the book, and reminds us not a little

of Baron Treuck's exciting prison narratives. It acquires additional

interest from the circumstance that _Anna Hammer_ is said to have been

written in a prison, where the author was long confined on political

charges, of which he was ultimately found guiltless. Before coming to

the prisons, however, we are taken to court, and are introduced to the

old prince-regnant, to his dissolute grandson and heir, and to his

amiable granddaughter, who is in love with Arnstein _alias_ Bushby.

For a final extract, we select a scene in the grounds of the country

residence of the sovereign, who has just installed himself there for

the fine season, and where two important personages of the novel--the

crown-prince and Geigenfritz--are first brought before the reader.

The park behind the palace was of great extent. Gardens, pieces of

water, slopes planted with vines, thick shrubberies and tracts of

woodland, were there mingled in an apparently wild disorder which was

in reality the result of careful arrangement and consideration. The

whole was surrounded by a lofty wall, in which were three or four small

doors. A thick forest came close up to the outside of the wall, and was

intersected by several roads.

Along one of these roads drove an elegant travelling carriage, drawn

by two extremely swift and powerful horses. A bearded man, of Jewish

aspect, muffled in a huge coachman's coat, sat upon the box. The

shutters of the vehicle were drawn up, so that it could not be seen

into. It stopped at the edge of the forest. The door opened, and a

little man, also of Israelitish appearance, but very richly dressed,

got out. He left the door open.

"Turn round, Abraham!" said he in Jewish jargon to the driver.

The coachman obeyed, so that the horses' heads were in the direction

whence they came.

"Stop!"

The carriage stood still, and the little man walked round it, examining

it minutely on all sides, as if to make sure that it was sound and

complete in every part. With equal attention he inspected the harness

and limbs of the vigorous horses.

"Keep a sharp watch, Abraham, for my return."

"Don't be afraid, Moses."

"The very minute I get in, drive off at full speed. But no sooner--d'ye

hear?--no sooner."

"Why should I sooner?" retorted the coachman sharply, in the same

dialect.

"Not till I am quite safe in the carriage--till you see, till you hear,

that I have shut the door. You must hear it, you must watch with your

ears, for you must not take your eyes off the horses."

"Don't frighten yourself, fool!"

"And, Abraham, quit not the box during my absence, and be sure and

leave the door open, that I may jump in at once on my return."

The coachman answered not.

"And, one thing more. Dear Abraham, will the horses hold out?--six

German miles?--without resting. Are you sure the carriage will not

break down?"

"Begone, fearful fool, and leave carriage and horses to my care!"

The little man looked at his watch.

"Exactly five. It is just the time. Once more, dear Abraham, keep a

sharp look-out, I entreat you."

At a sort of sneaking run, the timid Jew hurried to a door in the park

wall, close to which the road passed. He glanced keenly around him. No

one was in sight, and, producing a key, he hastily unlocked the door,

opening it only just wide enough to allow him to slip through. In an

instant he was in the park, and the door shut behind him.

Completely unseen as the Jew believed himself, there yet was one at

hand whose watchful eye had followed all his movements.

At the exact moment that the coachman turned his carriage, and at a

short distance from the spot, a man emerged from the thicket. His

appearance was very striking. Far above the usual stature, in person

he was extraordinarily spare. Large bones, broad shoulders, a muscular

arm and a hand like a bunch of sinews, indicated that his meagre

frame possessed great strength. His strange figure was accoutred in

a remarkable costume. He wore a short brown jacket of the colour and

coarse material of the cowls of the mendicant friars, short brown

leather breeches, grey linen gaiters and wide strong shoes. His head

was covered with an old misshapen gray hat, whose broad brim was

no longer in a state to testify whether it had once been round or

three-cornered. Across his back was slung a bag, from whose mouth

protruded the neck of an old black fiddle. The man's age was hard to

guess. His thick strong hair was of that sort of mouse-colour which

even very old age rarely alters. His countenance was frightfully

furrowed; but if its furrows were deep, on the other hand its outlines

were of iron rigidity. The eye was very quick. In short, however narrow

the scrutiny, it still remained doubtful to the observer whether the

man was fifty, sixty, or seventy years old.

This person, stepping out of the forest, was on the point of springing

across the road, when he perceived the carriage and the two Jews.

Satisfying himself, by a hasty glance, that he was still unseen, he

drew back within cover of the thicket. Concealed behind a thick screen

of foliage, he watched with profound attention every movement of the

men, who were too distant for him to overhear their words. When one of

them had entered the park, the long brown man made a circuit through

the wood, and again emerged from it at a point where he could not be

seen by the coachman, but which yet was not far distant from the door

through which the Jew had passed. After brief reflection, he approached

this door and tried to open it. It was locked. He turned back, skirting

the wall--but so noiselessly that the sharpest ear, close upon the

other side, could hardly have detected his presence. He paused at a

place where trees and thick bushes, growing within the park, overtopped

the wall. A long branch protruded across, and hung down so low that the

tall stranger could easily reach it. He closely examined this branch,

its length and strength, then the wall--measuring its height with his

eye, and noting its irregularities of surface. Suddenly he seized the

branch with both hands, set his feet against the wall, and swung his

whole body upwards. Before a spectator could have conjectured his

intention, he was seated on a limb of the tree within the park; it was

as if an enormous brown cat had sprung up amongst the branches. In

another second he was on the ground, the slightest possible cracking of

the twigs alone betraying his rapid descent.

He stood in the midst of a thick growth of bushes, the stillness around

him broken only by the voices of birds. Cautiously he made his way

through the tangled growth of branches into a small winding path, which

he followed in the direction of the door. On reaching this he found

himself in a broad carriage road, apparently commencing and terminating

at the palace, after numerous windings through the park. Opposite the

door was an open lawn; to the right were long alleys, through whose

vista the rays of the early morning sun were seen reflected in the

tranquil waters of a lake. To the left was a prolongation of the copse.

Not a living creature was to be seen.

For a minute the man stood undecided as to the direction he should

take. Then he re-entered the copse--making his way through it, with the

same caution and cat-like activity as before, to a little knoll nearly

bare of bushes, and crowned by three lofty fir-trees. He was about to

step out into the open space, when he heard a rustling near at hand. He

stood still, held his breath and looked around him; but he was still

too deep in the bushes and could discern nothing. He saw only leaves

and branches, and, towering above them, the three tall fir-trees, with

the morning wind whispering through their boughs.

The new-comer was the little Jew, who walked uneasily to and fro

beneath the fir-trees, on a narrow footpath which led across the knoll.

He evidently expected some one. From behind a tree the tall man with

the fiddle watched his movements, and listened to his soliloquy.

"Five minutes late," muttered the Jew, looking at his watch. "Am I the

man to be kept waiting? He is not to be relied upon. But I have him

now, fast and sure." He resumed his walk, then again stood still. "A

good affair this! good profit! a made man! But where can he be?" He

paused before the very tree behind which stood the man in the brown

jacket. "He is imprudent," he continued, "light-headed, and reckless.

But am I not the same? I am lost if he deceives me. I have him,

though--I have him."

"Mosey!" said the strong voice of the long brown man, close to his

ear. At the same moment, a heavy hand was clapped roughly on the Jew's

shoulder. He fell to the ground, as though a thunderbolt had struck

him; in falling he caught a view of the stranger. "Geigen--" cried he,

in a horror-stricken voice, leaving the word unfinished.

"Speak the word right out!" said the long man, with a calm, sneering

smile.

The little Jew's recovery was as sudden as his terror. He was already

on his legs, brushing the dust from his clothes.

"How the gentleman frightened me!" he said in a sort of dubious tone.

"Speak the word out, Mosey--the whole word!"

"What should I speak out?--which word? What does the gentleman want?"

"Mosey, speak the word out--Geigenfritz!"

"What is your pleasure?--what is the word to me?"

"Old rogue! old Moses Amschel! what is the word to you? what is

Geigenfritz to you?--your old friend?"

"I know no Geigenfritz; I know no Moses Amschel. You are mistaken. And

now go your ways--do you hear?" He had become quite bold and saucy.

The brown man looked at him with a smile of scornful pity. "Mosey," he

said, "shall I reckon up the prisons and houses of correction in which

I have seen you? You have grown a great man, it seems. I have heard of

you. You are a rich banker: noblemen associate with you, and princes

are your debtors. You are a baron, I believe, and you live in luxury;

but you are not the less Moses Amschel, my old comrade. I knew you

directly, and your rascal of a brother, too, who is outside with the

carriage."

The Jew's confidence left him as he listened to this speech. He made

one more effort to assume a bold countenance, but his voice trembled as

he muttered, "You are mistaken. I have business here: leave me, or I

will have you arrested."

Geigenfritz laughed. "You have business here, I doubt not. But arrest

me! Your business will hardly bear daylight, and my arrest would

interfere with it."

The truth of these words produced a terrible effect on the little Jew.

He stood for a moment helplessly gazing around him; then he looked

sharply at his interlocutor, whilst his right hand fumbled in his

breast, as though seeking something. But he drew it forth empty, and

let it fall by his side, whilst his eyes sought the ground. "Well,

Geigenfritz," he said, in a low tone, "leave me for a while. Go and

wait by the carriage with my brother; I will soon be back, and we will

speak further."

"Not so, old sinner. You said you had business here. You and I have

done business together more than once."

"This time there is nothing for you to do."

"That is not for you to decide."

"Don't spoil trade, Geigenfritz."

"What trade is it?"

"You shall know by-and-by."

"Immediately, I expect."

"Impossible."

"I have but to remain here."

Moses Amschel grew very anxious. "I swear to you, Geigenfritz, you ruin

me by remaining. The business can't be done in your presence."

"We shall see."

The obstinacy of Geigenfritz was not to be overcome. Moses Amschel ran

to and fro, wringing his hands, and straining his eyes to see into

the park. Suddenly his anxiety increased to a paroxysm. Geigenfritz

followed the direction of his eyes. With extreme swiftness a man ran

along one of the alleys, in the direction of the mound on which they

both stood.

"For God's sake, go, leave me!" exclaimed Moses Amschel, in abject

supplication.

"Fellow, 'tis the Crown-prince. What dealings have you with him?"

"Go, I implore you, go."

"Not a step, till you answer me."

"I have business with him."

"What business?"

"You shall know afterwards; go, I can't escape you."

"What business?"

"Jewel business. But now go, go!"

"You are right; you cannot escape me." And Geigenfritz disappeared

amongst the bushes.

Moses Amschel had had barely time to recover breath and composure, when

a third person joined him. This was a slender young man, of elegant

appearance, and handsome but dissipated countenance. His rich dress was

disordered.

"Who was here, Jew?"

"No one. Who should be here. Who would I bring with me?"

"I heard talking; who was with you?"

"No one, your highness."

"Name not my name, Jew, and speak the truth."

"I wish I may die, if a creature, was with me!"

The young man looked suspiciously on all sides, and then drew from

under his coat an object enveloped in a silk handkerchief, and handed

it to Amschel.

"Here, Jew, and now away with you!"

Moses Amschel would have unfolded the handkerchief, to look at its

contents.

"Scoundrel! do you think I cheat you? In three months."

He took a step to depart, but again returned.

"To America, to New York! Not to London, d'ye hear?"

"I know."

At the top of his speed, as he had come, the stranger departed. Moses

Amschel unrolled the handkerchief, glanced at its contents, again

carefully wrapped it up, and stole swiftly and cautiously to the

park-door, which he hastily unlocked, and as hastily relocked behind

him. But, as he turned to regain the carriage, his movements were

arrested by the iron arm of Geigenfritz, who rose, like an apparition,

from a ditch at his side.

"How you frighten me!--I am not going to run away."

"Because you can't. Now, comrade, halves!"

"Are you mad?"

"Not I, but you, if you think you are not in my power."

Moses Amschel looked around him, but help there was none, and the

brown man held him so tightly that he could not stir. The carriage,

certainly, was near at hand, but the horses were as skittish as they

were good, and the driver must not leave them.

"Show it me," said Geigenfritz.

Resistance was impossible. Tardily and unwillingly the Jew untied

the handkerchief, and revealed a diamond diadem of extraordinary

magnificence. Notwithstanding his alarm, his eyes sparkled at the sight.

"Old rogue! who stole that?"

"Stole! Nonsense."

"What is it worth?"

"Worth?--a couple of hundred dollars."

"Do you take me for a child?"

"Well, perhaps a couple of thousand."

"More than a million."

"You frighten me."

"No matter--halves!"

"But I must sell it first; you shall have your share of the price."

"Of the price? You don't take _me_ in. We will divide at once."

"How is that possible?"

"Very easy. I break the crown into two halves; you take one, I the

other. Give it here."

Moses Amschel shook with terror, and clutched the glittering ornament

convulsively with both bands. It was in vain: the iron hand of

Geigenfritz detached his fingers, one after the other, like those of

a child. With the last remains of his exhausted strength, the Jew

still clung to his treasure, which, in another second, would have been

wrested from him, when suddenly a broad knife, thrust over the shoulder

of Geigenfritz, inflicted a swift deep cut across the back of the hand

with which he grasped the diadem. Involuntarily, Geigenfritz relaxed

his hold both of Jew and jewels.

Moses Amschel and the coachman Abraham, who, having seen from his box

his brother's peril, had thus opportunely come to his aid, ran away

laughing. The one jumped into the carriage, the other resumed the

reins, and they drove off at a gallop.

The prince has stolen the diadem from his own wife, in such a manner

as to cast suspicion upon others, and the Jew is to sell it to furnish

supplies for the extravagance of this dissolute heir to the crown.

Geigenfritz's knowledge of the shameful transaction is afterwards made

instrumental in procuring the release of Von Horberg and the other

prisoners. Convinced that the time is not yet ripe for the realisation

of their schemes of political regeneration, they emigrate to the United

States. There, a postscript informs the reader, Von Horberg, divorced

from his unworthy wife--who during his imprisonment, has become the

mistress of the prince-royal--is married to Anna Hammer. The interest

of the story is throughout well sustained.

_Anna Hammer_ will probably soon be, if it be not already, in the

hands of the translators. Rendered into English with a little care, by

equivalents, instead of with that painful literalness and abundance

of foreign idioms which too frequently shock us in translations of

German books, it would be very pleasant reading. Notwithstanding its

defects, its occasional carelessness and slight improbabilities, it

better deserves a translation than many of the foreign novels to which

that compliment has been paid within the last few years, and than some

which have been lauded to the skies and largely read. And we take this

opportunity to express our surprise that no member of the industrious

corps of translators from the German has directed his or her attention

to the writings of a man, who, for originality and genius, perception

of character and power of description, is very far superior even to

those of his German cotemporaries who have enjoyed the highest favour

in England. We refer to the gifted author of the German-American

Romances. Miss Bremer--although a Swede, we here class her amongst

German writers, her works having been done into English from the latter

language--has been translated at every price, and in every form, from

expensive octavo to shilling pamphlets. Not a bookshop or railway

station but is, or has been, crowded with her works. Without in the

least depreciating the talents of a lady who has written some very

pleasing tales and sketches, we should yet be greatly flattering her

did we place her on a level with such a writer as Charles Sealsfield.

Styles so opposite scarcely admit of comparison; but we apprehend there

are few readers to whom the best of her books will not appear tame and

insipid, when contrasted with the vigorous and characteristic pages of

such works as _The Cabin Book_, _The Viceroy and the Aristocracy_, or

_Pictures of Life in both Hemispheres_. Yet Sealsfield has been read

in England only to the limited extent of some short extracts in this

Magazine,[46] and of some yet briefer ones in a defunct Review.[47]

In the States he is better known and appreciated. There he has been

translated and re-translated in volumes, pamphlets and newspapers,

but in a style, if we may judge from one or two specimens that have

reached us, which does him grievous injustice. Many of his works, and

especially the three above-named, richly deserve the utmost pains a

translator could bestow, and would assuredly attain high popularity in

any country into whose language they should be rendered.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] _Neue Deutsche Zeitbilder._ _Erste Abtheilung: Anna Hammer, Ein

Roman der Gegenwart_, in 3 Bänden. Eisleben, Kuhnt: 1850. London:

Williams & Norgate.

[45] In the original, _Regierungsrath_--a member of the council of

government. _Justizrath_, counsellor of justice, is a title accorded to

certain judges in Germany.

[46] See Volumes 54 to 59.

[47] Foreign Quarterly Review, No. LXXIV.

ALTON LOCKE, TAILOR AND POET: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.[48]

Our renowned contributor, Mansie Wauch, tailor in Dalkeith, has,

for a long time past, retired from the cares of active business.

We fear that, in his case, as in others which we could name, the

glory and emolument resulting from distinguished literary success

were the means of depriving two or three parishes of the services

of a decent fabricator of small-clothes. Mansie, like Jeshurun,

grew fat and kicked. Even before his autobiography had reached its

sixth edition--now a traditionary epoch, as the nine-and-thirtieth

is exhausted, and the trade clamorous for a new supply--Wauch began

to turn up his nose at moleskin, and to exhibit a singular degree of

indifference to orders for agricultural gaiters. He would still apply,

with somewhat of his pristine science, the principles of sartorian

mathematics to plush when ordered from the Palace, and was once known

to devote three entire days to the exquisite finishing of a pair of

buckskins for Mr Williamson, that famous huntsman, whose celebrity is

so great, that the mere mention of his name is equivalent to a page

of panegyric. And it was acknowledged, on all hands, that Mansie did

his work well. The plush fitted admirably; and as for the buckskins,

the master of the hounds averred, with a harmless oath, that they were

as easy as a kid glove. But those testimonials, however satisfactory

and unchallenged, did not avail our contributor as a perfect verdict

of acquittal, discharging him from the bar of public opinion, as

constituted in Dalkeith, without a stain upon his reputation as an

eydent man and a tailor. Mr Hamorgaw, the precentor of the New Light

Seceding Anti-pulpit Congregation, esteemed that Mansie acted under

the influence of the Old Adam, in declining to reverse, _propriis

manibus_, an ancient garment, dignified by the name of a coat, which

had already been three times refreshed in the dyeing-tub, for the

beautifying of him, the Hamorgaw: and Deacon Cansh, the leading

Radical of the place, was sorely nettled to learn that our friend

had intrusted the architecture of his new wrap-rascal to the tender

mercies of his firstborn Benjamin. Not that Benjie was a bad hand

at the goose, which indeed he drove with amazing celerity, sending

it along at a rate nearly equal to the progress of a Parliamentary

train; but his style of cutting was somewhat composite and florid, not

distinguished by that severe simplicity of manner which was the glory

of the earlier masters. In the hands of a Piercie Shafton, Benjamin

might have proved a veritable treasure; Sir Thomas Urquhart would have

descanted with enthusiasm on the quaint and oblique diversity of his

shears, which seemed instinctively to dissever good broad-cloth into

quincunxes more or less outrageous; but the age of Euphuism was gone,

and neither elder, deacon, nor precentor, was in favour of slashed

doublets. Benjamin was not only a tailor but a poet, and we fear it

is a lamentable fact that the two trades are irreconcilable. The

perpetrator of distichs is usually a bungler at cross-stitch: there

is no analogy between the measurement of trousers and the measure of

a Spenserian stanza. It will therefore be readily credited, that the

business, when devolved upon Benjie, did not prosper as of old; and

though Mansie did, in his advanced age, make one effort to retrieve

the character of his firm by inventing a kind of paletot, which he

denominated "a Fascinator," we have not been given to understand

that the males of the royal family adopted it to the exclusion of

all other upper garments of similar cut and pretension. Moreover,

the prevailing influence and tendency of the age began to be felt in

Dalkeith. Competition, as a maxim of political economy, was generally

practised and understood: and a young schneider, who had served his

apprenticeship with Mr Place of Westminster celebrity, opened an

establishment for ready-made clothes, with a Greek title which would

have puzzled an Homeric commentator. In process of time the Greek was

opposed by a Hebrew, who ought to have been an especial favourite with

his people, seeing that if any afflicted person had a fancy for rending

his clothes, the garments supplied by Aaron and Son would have yielded

to the slightest compulsion. A Polish emigrant next opened shop, and

to the astonishment of the Dalkeithians, transferred their breeches'

pockets from the waistband to the neighbourhood of their knees, and

suggested frogs and braiding. Against this tide of innovation honest

Mansie found it impossible to make head. Fortunately, being a saving

creature, he had amassed a considerable sum of money, which, still more

fortunately, he had abstained from investing in the Loanhead and Roslin

Junction; and his annual income was such as to justify him in retiring

from business to a pleasant villa on the banks of the Esk, where he now

grows cabbages of such magnitude as to be recorded in an occasional

newspaper paragraph, and cucumbers which have carried off the prize

at several horticultural exhibitions. On the whole, Mr Wauch is a man

decidedly to be envied, not only by those of his own trade, but by many

of us who, in the vanity of our hearts, have been accustomed to look

down, somewhat disparagingly, upon the gallant knights of the needle.

In his retirement Mansie Wauch has not altogether abandoned the

pursuits of literature. He has, it is true, ceased, for a good while,

to favour us with a continuation of those passages of his personal

history which once took Christendom by storm; nor can we charge our

memory with his having offered us any article for several years, beyond

an elaborate and learned critique upon Mr Carlyle's _Sartor Resartus_,

which, though decidedly able, was rather too technical for our columns.

But Mr Wauch is a gluttonous reader, especially of novels and suchlike

light gear; and very frequently is kind enough to favour us, by word of

mouth, with his opinion touching the most noted ephemera of the season.

We need hardly say that we set great store by the judgment of the

excellent old man. His fine natural instinct enables him to perceive

at a glance, what more erudite critics might overlook, the fitness and

propriety of the tale, and the capability of the writer to deal with

the several topics which he professes to handle. He can tell at once

whether a man really knows his subject, or whether he is writing, as

too many authors do now-a-days, in absolute ignorance of the character

which he assumes, or the scenes which he selects for illustration.

So, the other day, on receipt of a couple of volumes, entitled _Alton

Locke, Tailor and Poet: an Autobiography_, we thought that we could

hardly discharge our critical duty better than by despatching the same

forthwith to Mansie, with a request that he would communicate to us his

candid and unbiassed opinion.

Mr Locke we understand to be no more. He died upon his voyage to

Texas, after having been concerned in the Chartist demonstration of

1848, and therefore his feelings cannot be aggrieved by the strictures

of his Dalkeith brother. Were it otherwise, we certainly should have

hesitated before recording in print the verdict of the indignant

Mansie, expressed in the succinct phrase of "awfu' havers!" written at

the close of the second volume, with a running commentary of notes on

the margin, by no means complimentary to the practical acquirements

or the intellectual calibre of the author. These we have diligently

deciphered, and we find that friend Mansie's wrath has been especially

excited by the discovery that it is no autobiography at all, nor

anything like one, but a barefaced and impudent assumption of a

specific character and profession by a person who never handled a goose

in his life, and who knows no more about tailoring or slop-selling

than he has learned from certain letters which lately appeared in

the columns of the _Morning Chronicle_. Mr Wauch is very furious at

the deception which he conceives has been practised on the public;

and argues, with good show of reason, that any work, professing to

set forth the hardships of any particular trade, and yet diverging

so evidently into the wildest kind of romance--as to render its

acceptance as an actual picture of life impossible--is calculated to do

harm instead of good to the interests of the class in question, because

no one can receive it as truth; neither can it possibly be acknowledged

as an accurate picture of the age, or the state or feelings of that

society which at present exists in Great Britain. "Who would have

bought MY Autobiography," quoth Mansie, "if I had said that I was in

love with a Countess, had been admitted to her society, and my passion

partially returned? Or what think ye o' Benjie, fresh from the garret,

and smelling of the goose, arguing conclusions wi' Dean Buckland about

the Mosaic account o' the creation, and chalking out a new kind o'

faith as glibly as he would chalk out auld Harrigle's measure on a new

web o' claith for a Sunday's coat? The man that wrote you, take my word

for it, never crookit his heugh-bane on a board; and the hail buik

appears to me to be a pack o' wearifu' nonsense."

Notwithstanding Mr Wauch's anathema, we have perused the book; and,

while agreeing with him entirely in his strictures regarding its

artistical construction, and admitting that, as an autobiography--which

it professes to be--it is so palpably absurd in its details, as to

diminish the effect of the lesson which it is meant to convey, we yet

honour and respect the feeling which has dictated it, and our warmest

sympathy is enlisted in the cause which it intends to advocate. No

man with a human heart in his bosom, unless that heart is utterly

indurated and depraved by the influence of mammon, can be indifferent

to the welfare of the working-classes. Even if he were not urged to

consider the awful social questions which daily demand our attention

in this perplexing and bewildered age, by the impulses of humanity,

or by the call of Christian duty, the lower motive of interest alone

should incline him to serious reflection on a subject which involves

the wellbeing, both temporal and eternal, of thousands of his

fellow-creatures, and possibly the permanence of order and tranquillity

in this realm of Great Britain. Our civil history during the last

thirty years of peace resembles nothing which the world has yet seen,

or which can be found in the records of civilisation. The progress

which has been made in the mechanical sciences is of itself almost

equivalent to a revolution. The whole face of society has been altered;

old employments have become obsolete, old customs have been abrogated

or remodelled, and old institutions have undergone innovation. The

modern citizen thinks and acts differently from his fathers. What to

them was object of reverence is to him subject for ridicule; what

they were accustomed to prize and honour, he regards with undisguised

contempt. All this we style improvement, taking no heed the whilst

whether such improvement has fulfilled its primary condition of

contributing to and increasing the welfare and prosperity of the

people. Statistical books are written to demonstrate how enormously we

have increased in wealth; and yet, side by side with Mr Porter's bulky

tomes, you will find pamphlets containing ample and distinct evidence

that hundreds of thousands of our industrious fellow-countrymen are

at this moment famishing for lack of employment, or compelled to sell

their labour for such wretched remuneration that the pauper's dole

is by many regarded with absolute envy. Dives and Lazarus elbow one

another in the street; and our political economists select Dives as the

sole type of the nation. Sanitary commissioners are appointed to whiten

the outside of the sepulchre; and during the operation, their souls are

made sick by the taint of the rottenness from within. The reform of

Parliament is, comparatively speaking, a matter of yesterday, and yet

the operatives are petitioning for the Charter!

These are stern realities--grim facts which it is impossible to

gainsay. What may be the result of them, unless some adequate remedy

can be provided, it is impossible with certainty to predict; but unless

we are prepared to deny the doctrine of that retribution which has

been directly revealed to us from above, and of which the history of

neighbouring states affords us so many striking examples, we can hardly

expect to remain unpunished for what is truly a national crime. The

offence, indeed, according to all elements of human calculation, is

likely to bring its own punishment. It cannot be that society can exist

in tranquillity, or order be permanently maintained, so long as a large

portion of the working-classes, of the hard-handed men whose industry

makes capital move and multiply itself, are exposed to the operation

of a system which renders their position less tolerable than that of

the Egyptian bondsman. To work is not only a duty but a privilege; but

to work against hope, to toil under the absolute pressure of despair,

is the most miserable lot that the imagination can possibly conceive.

It is, in fact, a virtual abrogation of that freedom which every

Briton is taught to consider as his birthright; but which now, however

well it may sound as an abstract term, is practically, in the case of

thousands, placed utterly beyond their reach.

We shall not probably be suspected of any intention to inculcate

Radical doctrines. We have no sympathy, but the reverse, with the

quacks, visionaries, and agitators, who make a livelihood by preaching

disaffection in our towns and cities, and who are the worst enemies

of the people whose cause they affect to advocate. We detest the

selfish views of the Manchester school of politicians, and we loathe

that hypocrisy which, under the pretext of reforming, would destroy

the institutions of the country. But if it be true--as we believe

it to be--that the working and producing classes of the community

are suffering unexampled hardship, and that not of a temporary and

exceptional kind, but from the operation of some vicious and baneful

element which has crept into our social system, it then becomes our

duty to attempt to discover the actual nature of the evil; and having

discovered that, to consider seriously what cure it is possible to

apply. That there is a cure for every evil, social, moral, or physical,

it is worse than cowardice to doubt. And we need not be surprised

if, in our search, we find ourselves compelled to arrive at some

conclusions totally hostile to the plans which the so-called Liberals

have encouraged--nay, so hostile, that beneath that mask of Liberalism

we can plainly descry the features of greedy and ravenous Mammon,

enticing his victims by a novel lure, and gloating and grinning in

triumph over their unsuspicious credulity.

The author of _Alton Locke_ is at least no vulgar theorist, though a

warm imagination and great enthusiasm have led him occasionally to

appear most vague and theoretical. He has had recourse to fiction, as

the most agreeable, and probably the most efficacious mode of bringing

his peculiar social views under the notice of the public; but in doing

so, he has fallen into an error very common with recent novelists, who

have undertaken to depict certain phases of society, with ulterior

views beyond the mere amusement of the reader. He has not studied, or

he does not understand, what has been fitly termed the properties of

a composition: he allows himself in almost every chapter to outrage

probability; his situations are often ludicrously incongruous; and the

language of his characters, as well as that employed throughout the

narrative, is totally out of keeping with the quality and circumstances

of the interlocutors. That a young and gifted tailor, who for the

whole day has been pent up in a stifling garret, with the symptoms of

consumptive disease unmistakeably developed in his constitution, should

also devote the moiety of his hours of rest to the acquisition of the

Latin language, and become in three months' time a perfect master of

Virgil, is not an impossibility, though we opine that such instances

of suicidal exertion are comparatively rare; but when we find the same

young man, not only versed in the classics, but tolerably acquainted

with the Italian and German poets, a fluent speaker of French, an

accurate historian, a proficient in divinity, in metaphysics, and

in natural science--a disciple of Tennyson in verse, and a pupil

of Emerson in style--the draft upon our credulity is somewhat too

large, and we must necessarily decline to honour it. The world has

only beheld one Admirable Crichton; and even he is rather a myth

than a reality--seeing that we can merely judge of the extent of his

acquirements by the vague report of contemporaries, and the collections

of an amusing coxcomb, who, out of very slender materials, has

contrived to construct a ponderous and bombastic romance.[49] Crichton

has not left us one scrap of writing to prove that his attainments were

more than the results of a gigantic memory, aided by a singularly acute

and logical intellect. But Alton Locke altogether eclipses Crichton.

The latter had, at all events, the full benefit of the schools: the

former was wholly devoid of such instruction. Crichton spent his days

at least in the College; Alton sat stitching on the shop-board. So that

the existence of such a phenomenon becomes worse than problematical,

especially when we find that, after abandoning paletots and launching

into a literary career, Mr Locke could find no more profitable

employment than that of writing articles for a Chartist newspaper,

which articles, moreover, were by no means invariably inserted. We take

this to be the leading fault of the book, because it is infinitely

more glaring than even exaggerated incident. In the hands of such a

writer as Defoe, the story of _Alton Locke_ would have assumed the

aspect of woeful and sad reality. Not an expression would have been

allowed to enter which could betray the absolute and irreconcilable

difference between the mental powers, habits, and acquirements of the

author and his fictitious hero: we should have had no idealism, at

least of the transcendental kind; and no dreams, decidedly of a tawdry

and uninterpretable description, which bear internal evidence of having

been copied at second-hand from Richter.

Let it, however, be understood, that these remarks of ours are not

intended to detract from the genius, the learning, or the descriptive

powers of the writer. Where excellencies such as these exist, even

though they may be of rare occurrence, anything approaching to

absurdity or incongruity is far more painfully, or rather provokingly,

apparent than in the work of a common hackneyed novelist, from whom

we expect no better things: and the error is peculiarly felt when it

is calculated in any degree to convey the notion that the pictures

shadowed forth upon the canvass are rather ideal than true. This mode

of dealing with a subject is by no means the best to insure sympathy.

Men are naturally incredulous of pain, and unwilling to believe in

suffering, more especially when it is said to exist in their own

vicinity, and may be the effect of their own indifference or caprice.

Many persons will read _Alton Locke_, not unmoved by the wretchedness

which it depicts--not without feeling a thrill of indignation at the

bondage under which the operative is said to labour from the ruthless

system of competition--and yet lay down the book unconvinced of the

actual existence of such misery, and no more inclined to bestir

themselves for its remedy than if they had been the spectators of a

tragedy, the scene of which was laid in another country, and the period

indicated as occurring in the middle ages. Nor is it possible to blame

them for this; for, as the whole tenor of the work belies its assumed

character, it is hard to expect that any one shall give credence to

mere details, or such qualified credence as shall enable him to accept

them as accurate representations of existing facts, in the face of the

evident obstacle which meets him at the beginning. The usefulness of

many clever books in this range of literature has been impaired by the

authors' wanton neglect, or rather wilful breach, of the leading rules

of propriety. Few people will accept Mr D'Israeli's novel of _Sybil_

as containing an accurate representation of the state of the people of

England in the middle of the nineteenth century, simply because the

writer is chargeable with the same error; and yet recent disclosures

have abundantly proved that many of the social pictures contained in

_Sybil_ were drawn with extreme accuracy, and without any attempt at

exaggeration.

We shall now attempt to sketch out the story of _Alton Locke_, in order

that our readers may comprehend the nature of the book with which we

are dealing--less, we admit, on account of the book itself, than for

the sake of the subject which it is manifestly intended to illustrate.

By no other method can we do justice to the topic; and if situations

should occur which may seem to justify the strictures of Mr Wauch, and

to provoke a smile, we ask indulgence for the sake of a cause which is

here most earnestly advocated--according to the best of his ability--by

a man of no common acquirements, zeal, energy, and purity of purpose,

though the warmth of his heart may very frequently overpower the

discretion of his head.

Alton Locke, the subject of this autobiography, is the son of poor

parents. His father had failed in business as a grocer, having

imprudently started a small shop, without adequate capital, in an

obscure district of London, where indeed there were far too many such

already, and died, "as many small tradesmen do, of bad debts and a

broken heart, and left us beggars." Alton's mother was a woman of a

sterner mood. Reared in the most rigid tenets of the Baptist sect, and

steeped in the austerest Calvinism, she regarded this world necessarily

as a place of tribulation and inevitable woe, and fought and struggled

on right earnestly, mortifying every natural affection in her bosom,

except love to her children, and exhibiting that only through the

medium of severity and restraint.

"My mother," says Alton, "moved by rule and method; by God's law,

as she considered, and that only. She seldom smiled. Her word

was absolute. She never commanded twice without punishing. And

yet there were abysses of unspoken tenderness in her, as well as

clear, sound, womanly sense and insight. But she thought herself

as much bound to keep down all tenderness as if she had been some

ascetic of the middle ages--so do extremes meet! It was 'carnal,'

she considered. She had as yet no right to have any 'spiritual

affection' for us. We were still 'children of wrath and of the

devil'--not yet 'convinced of sin,' 'converted, born again.' She

had no more spiritual bond with us, she thought, than she had with

a heathen or a Papist. She dared not even pray for our conversion,

earnestly as she prayed on every other subject. For though the

majority of her sect would have done so, her clear logical sense

would yield to no such tender inconsistency. Had it not been

decided from all eternity? We were elect, or we were reprobate.

Could her prayers alter that?"

A gruesome carline this, and a revolting contrast to dear old Mause

Headrigg, who not only prayed morning and night, but never doubted as

to the destiny of Cuddie! Mrs Locke's conversation, however, had its

charms; for we find that, in a small way, she was fond of entertaining

ministers of her own persuasion at tea, and Alton's ire was early

kindled by the precipitancy with which on such occasions the sugar and

muffins disappeared. The old lady, moreover, had a kind of ancestral

pride, being traditionally descended from a Cambridgeshire puritan who

had turned out under Cromwell; and of a winter night she would tell the

children long stories about the glorious times when Englishmen arose

to smite kings and prelates. Of course these things had their effect.

Little Alton did not become a fanatic, for this kind of religious

training is never palatable to the young: he became, indeed, a sceptic

as soon as he could think for himself, with a nice little germ of

radicalism ready to expand whenever circumstances would permit of its

development.

That period quickly arrived. Alton's paternal uncle had been as

fortunate in business as his brother was unlucky, and was now a kind of

city magnate--purse-proud, yet not altogether oblivious of his poorer

kith and kin. He had an only son, who was to be the inheritor of his

wealth, and who, being destined for the Church, was undergoing the

necessary education. To this relative, who made her an annual petty

allowance, Mrs Locke applied for advice regarding her son, now a

cadaverous lad of fifteen, with a weak constitution, and a tendency to

the manufacture of verse; and by his advice and recommendation, Alton

was introduced to a tailoring establishment at the West End. Uncle

certainly might have done something better for him; but perhaps he had

George Barnwell in his eye: and, moreover, any superior settlement

would probably have spoilt the story. Here is his first entry into the

new scene:

"I stumbled after Mr Jones up a dark, narrow, iron staircase, till

we emerged through a trap-door into a garret at the top of the

house. I recoiled with disgust at the scene before me; and here I

was to work--perhaps through life! A low lean-to room, stifling me

with the combined odours of human breath and perspiration, stale

beer, the sweet sickly smell of gin, and the sour and hardly less

disgusting one of new cloth. On the floor, thick with dust and

dirt, scraps of stuff and ends of thread, sat some dozen haggard,

untidy, shoeless men, with a mingled look of care and wretchedness

that made me shudder. The windows were tight-closed, to keep out

the cold winter air: and the condensed breath ran in streams down

the panes, chequering the dreary look-out of chimney-tops and

smoke. The conductor handed me over to one of the men."

This is intended, or at all events given, as an accurate picture

of a respectable London tailoring establishment, where the men

receive decent wages. Such a house is called an "honourable" one,

in contradistinction to others, now infinitely the more numerous,

which are springing up in every direction under the fostering care of

competition. As it is most important that no doubt should be left in

the minds of any as to the actual condition of the working classes, we

quote, not from Alton Locke, but from one pamphlet out of many which

are lying before us, a few sentences explanatory of the system upon

which journeymen tailors in London are compelled to work. The pamphlet,

for aught we know, may be written by the author of the novel; but it is

clear, specific, and apparently well-vouched.

"It appears that there are two distinct tailor trades--the

'honourable' trade, now almost confined to the West End, and

rapidly dying out there; and the 'dishonourable' trade of the

show-shops and slop-shops--the plate-glass palaces, where

gents--and, alas! those who would be indignant at that name--buy

their cheap-and-nasty clothes. The two names are the tailors'

own slang: slang is new and expressive enough though, now and

then. The honourable shops in the West End number only sixty; the

dishonourable, four hundred and more; while at the East End the

dishonourable trade has it all its own way. The honourable part

of the trade is declining at the rate of one hundred and fifty

journeymen per year; the dishonourable increasing at such a rate,

that in twenty years it will have absorbed the whole tailoring

trade, which employs upwards of twenty-one thousand journeymen.

At the honourable shops the work is done, as it was universally

thirty years ago, on the premises, and at good wages. In the

dishonourable trade, the work is taken home by the men, to be done

at the very lowest possible prices, which decrease year by year,

almost month by month. At the honourable shops, from 36s. to 24s.

is paid for a piece of work for which the dishonourable shop pays

from 22s. to 9s. _But not to the workman_; happy is he if he really

gets two-thirds or half of that. For at the honourable shops the

master deals directly with his workmen; while at the dishonourable

ones, the greater part of the work, if not the whole, is let out

to contractors, or middle men--'_sweaters_,' as their victims

significantly call them--who in their turn let it out again,

sometimes to the workmen, sometimes to fresh middlemen; so that out

of the price paid for labour on each article, not only the workmen,

but the sweater, and perhaps the sweater's sweater, and a third,

and a fourth, and a fifth have to draw their profit. And when the

labour price has been already beaten down to the lowest possible,

how much remains for the workmen after all these deductions, let

the poor fellows themselves say!"[50]

These sweaters are commonly Jews, to which persuasion also the majority

of the dishonourable proprietors belong. Few people who emerge from

the Euston Square Station are left in ignorance as to the fact, it

being the insolent custom of a gang of hook-nosed and blubber-lipped

Israelites to shower their fetid tracts, indicating the localities of

the principal dealers of their tribe, into every cab as it issues from

the gate. These are, in plain terms, advertisements of a more odious

cannibalism than exists in the Sandwich Islands. Very often have we

wished that the miscreant who so assailed us were within reach of our

black-thorn cudgel, that we might have knocked all ideas of fried fish

out of his head for at least a fortnight to come! In these days of

projected Jewish emancipation, the sentiment may be deemed an atrocious

one, but we cannot retract it. Shylock was and is the true type of his

class; only that the modern London Jew is six times more personally

offensive, mean, sordid, and rapacious than the merchant of the Rialto.

And why should we stifle our indignation? Dare any one deny the truth

of what we have said? It is notorious to the whole world that these

human leeches acquire their wealth, not by honest labour and industry,

but by bill-broking, sweating, discounting, and other nefarious arts,

which inevitably lead the unfortunate victims who have once trafficked

with the tribe of Issachar, to the spunging houses of which they have

the monopoly; nor can the former escape from these loathsome dens--if

they ever escape at all--without being stripped as entirely as any

turkey when prepared for the spit at the genial season of Christmas.

Talk of Jewish legislation indeed! We have had too much of it already

in our time, from the days of Ricardo, the instigator of Sir Robert

Peel's earliest practices upon the currency, down to those of Nathan

Rothschild, the first Baron of Jewry, for whose personal character and

upright dealings the reader is referred to Mr Francis' Chronicles of

the Stock Exchange.

It is little wonder if men who know not what a scruple of conscience

is, should amass enormous fortunes. It is much to be regretted that

our present state of society affords them such ample opportunities. We

allude not now to the plundering of heirs expectant, or the wheedling

of young men just fresh from the colleges, and launched upon the

town, to their ruin--to fraudulent dodges for affecting unnatural

oscillations of stocks, or those more deliberate schemes which result

in important public changes being effected for the private emolument of

a synagogue. Bad as these things are--shameful and abhorrent as they

must be to every mind alive to the ordinary feelings of rectitude--they

are not yet so bad or so shameful as the deliberate rapine which is

exercised upon the poor by the off-scourings of the Caucasian race.

Read the following account by a working tailor of their doings, and

then settle the matter with your conscience, whether it is consistent

with the character of a Christian gentleman to have dealings with such

inhuman vampires:--

"In 1844 I belonged to the honourable part of the trade. Our house

of call supplied the present show-shop with men to work on the

premises. The prices then paid were at the rate of 6d. per hour.

For the same driving-capes that they paid 18s. then, they give only

12s. now. For the dress and frock coats they gave 15s. then, and

now they are 14s. The paletots and shooting coats were 12s.; there

was no coat made on the premises under that sum. At the end of the

season they wanted to reduce the paletots to 9s. The men refused to

make them at that price when other houses were paying as much as

15s. for them. The consequence of this was, the house discharged

all the men, and got a Jew middleman from the neighbourhood of

Petticoat Lane to agree to do them all at 7s. 6d. a piece. The

Jew employed all the poor people who were at work for the slop

warehouses in Houndsditch and its vicinity. This Jew makes on an

average 500 paletots a week. The Jew gets 2s. 6d. profit out of

each; and having no sewing trimmings allowed to him, he makes the

workpeople find them. The saving in trimmings alone to the firm,

since the workmen left the premises, must have realised a small

fortune to them. Calculating men, women, and children, I have heard

it said that the cheap house at the West End employs 1000 hands.

The trimmings for the work done by these would be about 6d. a week

per head, so that the saving to the house since the men worked on

the premises has been no less than £1300 a year; and all this is

taken out of the pockets of the poor. The Jew who contracts for

making the paletots is no tailor at all. A few years ago he sold

sponges in the street, and now he rides in his carriage. The Jew's

profits are 500 half-crowns, or £60 odd per week; that is upwards

of £3000 a-year."

The salary of a puisne judge of the Court of Session in Scotland! A

profitable commencement of life that of dealing in sponges, seeing

that it endows the vender with the absorbent qualities of the marine

vegetable! And mark the consequences which may befall those who

connive at such iniquity by their custom! We still quote from the same

pamphlet, not to deaf ears we trust, while telling them of the calamity

which such conduct may bring home to their own hearths, as it has done

already to that of hundreds who worship Cheapness as a god.

"Men ought to know the condition of those by whose labour they

live. Had the question been the investment of a few pounds in a

speculation, these gentlemen would have been careful enough about

good security. Ought they to take no security, when they invest

their money in clothes, that they are not putting on their backs

accursed garments, offered in sacrifice to devils, reeking with the

sighs of the starving, tainted--yes, tainted indeed, _for it now

comes out that diseases numberless are carried home in these same

garments, from the miserable abodes where they are made_. Evidence

to this effect was given in 1844; but Mammon was too busy to attend

to it. These wretched creatures, when they have pawned their own

clothes and bedding, will use as a substitute the very garments

they are making. So Lord ----'s coat has been seen covering a

group of children blotched with smallpox. The Rev. D---- suddenly

finds himself unrepresentable from a cutaneous disease, little

dreaming that the shivering dirty being who made his coat, has been

sitting with his arms in the sleeves for warmth, while he stitched

at the tails. The charming Miss C---- is swept off by typhus or

scarlatina, and her parents talk about 'God's heavy judgment and

visitation:' had they tracked the girl's new riding-habit back

to the stifling undrained hovel where it served as a blanket to

the fever-stricken slop-worker, they would have seen _why_ God

had visited them, seen that His judgments are true judgments, and

give His plain opinion of the system, which 'speaketh good of the

covetous whom God abhorreth'--a system, to use the words of the

_Morning Chronicle's_ correspondent, 'unheard of and unparalleled

in the history of any country--a scheme so deeply laid for the

introduction and supply of under-paid labour in the market, that it

is impossible for the working man not to sink and be degraded by it

into the lowest depths of wretchedness and infamy'--a system which

is steadily and gradually increasing, and sucking more and more

victims out of the honourable trade, who are really intelligent

artisans, living in comparative comfort and civilisation, into

the dishonourable or sweating trade, in which the slopworkers are

generally almost brutified by their incessant toil, wretched pay,

miserable food, and filthy homes."

But we must return to Alton Locke, whom we left speechless with

astonishment and overpowered with nausea on his first admission to

the sight and odours of a stitching Pandemonium. We are told, and we

believe it to be true, that of late years several of the first-rate

London tradesmen of the West End have effected important and salutary

improvements as regards the accommodation of their men, and that the

men themselves have assumed a better tone. We must, however, accept the

sketch as given; and of a truth it is no ways savoury. Some of Alton's

comrades are distinct Dungs--drunken, lewd, profane wretches; but there

is at least one Flint among them, a certain John Crossthwaite, who,

beneath a stolid manner and within a stunted body, conceals a noble

heart, beating strongly with the fiercest Chartist sentiments; and

beside this diminutive Hercules, Alton crooks his thigh. Crossthwaite,

like all little chaps, has a good conceit of himself, and an intense

contempt for thews and sinews, stature, chest, and the like points,

which excite the admiration of the statuary. On one occasion, when

incensed, as tailors are apt to be, by the sight of a big bulky

Life-guardsman, who could easily have crammed him into his boot,

Alton's new friend thus develops his ideas:--

"'Big enough to make fighters?' said he, half to himself; 'or

strong enough, perhaps?--or clever enough?--and yet Alexander was a

little man, and the Petit Caporal, and Nelson, and Cæsar, too; and

so was Saul of Tarsus, and weakly he was into the bargain. Æsop was

a dwarf, and so was Attila; Shakspeare was lame; Alfred a rickety

weakling; Byron club-footed; so much for body versus spirit--brute

force versus genius--genius!'"

We had no previous idea that the fumes generated by cabbage produced

an effect so nearly resembling that which is consequent on the

inhalation of chloroform. Crossthwaite, however, is a learned man

in his way, and can quote Ariosto when he pleases--indeed, most of

the workmen who figure in these volumes seem to be adepts in foreign

tongues and literature. From Crossthwaite, Alton Locke derives his

first lesson as regards the rights of man, and becomes conscious,

as he tells us, that "society had not given him his rights." From

another character, Sandy Mackaye, a queer old Scotsman, who keeps a

book-stall, he receives his first introduction to actual literature.

Sandy is a good sketch--perhaps the best in the book. He is a Radical

of course, and, like the Glasgow shoemaker, whom the late Dr Chalmers

once visited, "a wee bit in the deistical line;" but he has a fine

heart, warm sympathies, and, withal, some shrewdness and common sense,

which latter quality very few indeed of the other characters exhibit.

We are left in some obscurity as to Sandy's early career, but from

occasional hints we are led to believe that he must have been honoured

with the intimacy of Messrs Muir and Palmer, and not improbably got

into some scrape about pike-heads, which rendered it convenient for him

to remove beyond the jurisdiction of the High Court of Justiciary. On

one occasion he seems to have averred that he was even older, alluding

to a conversation he had with "Rab Burns ance, sitting up a' canty at

Tibbie Shiels' in Meggot Vale." This is a monstrous libel against our

excellent friend Tibbie, at whose well-known hostelry of the Lochs it

was our good fortune, as usual, to pass a pleasant week no later than

the bygone spring; the necessary inference being that she has pursued

her present vocation for nearly three quarters of a century! The author

might have stated, with equal propriety, that he had the honour of an

interview with Ben Jonson, in a drawing-room of Douglas's hotel! But

Sandy's age is quite immaterial to the story. He may have been out in

the Forty-five for anything we care. It is enough to know that he takes

a particular fancy to the young tailor; lends him books; puts him in

the way of learning Latin, as we have already hinted, in three months;

and, finally, receives him under his own roof when he is ejected from

that of his mother on account of his having proclaimed himself, in her

presence, a rank and open unbeliever.

Alton stitches on till he is nearly twenty, educating himself at spare

hours as well as he can, by the aid of Sandy Mackaye, until he acquires

a certain reputation among his comrades as an uncommonly clever fellow.

The old bookdealer having some mysterious acquaintanceship with Alton's

uncle, informs that gentleman of the prodigy to whom he is related,

whereupon there is an interview, and the nephew is presented with five

shillings. Cousin George now comes, for the first time, on the _tapis_,

tall, clean-limbed, and apparently good-humoured, but, as is shown in

the sequel, selfish and a tuft-hunter. His maxim is to make himself

agreeable to everybody, because he finds it pay: and he gives Alton a

sample of his affability, by proposing a visit to the Dulwich Gallery.

At this point the story becomes deliciously absurd. Young Snip, to whom

pictures were a novelty, instantly fastens upon Guido's St Sebastian,

of which he is taking mental measure, when he is accosted by a young

lady. Although we have little space to devote to extracts, we cannot

refuse ourselves the gratification of transcribing a passage which

beats old Leigh Hunt's account of the interviews between Ippolito de

Buondelmonte and Dianora d'Amerigo hollow. This artist, indeed, has

evidently dipped his pencil in the warmest colours of the Cockney

School.

"A woman's voice close to me, gentle, yet of deeper tone than most,

woke me from my trance.

"'You seem to be deeply interested in that picture?'

"I looked round, yet not at the speaker. My eyes, before they could

meet hers, were caught by an apparition the most beautiful I had

ever yet beheld. And what--what--have I seen equal to her since?

Strange that I should love to talk of her. Strange that I fret at

myself now because I cannot set down upon paper, line by line, and

hue by hue, that wonderful loveliness of which--But no matter. Had

I but such an imagination as Petrarch, or rather, perhaps, had I

his deliberate cold, self-consciousness, what volumes of similes

and conceits I might pour out, connecting that peerless face and

figure with all lovely things which heaven and earth contain. As

it is, because I cannot say all, I will say nothing, but repeat

to the end, again and again, Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,

beyond all statue, picture, or poet's dream. Seventeen--slight,

but rounded, a masque and features delicate and regular, as if

fresh from the chisel of Praxiteles. I must try to describe, after

all, you see--a skin of alabaster, (privet-flowers, Horace and

Ariosto would have said, more true to nature,) stained with the

faintest flush; auburn hair, with that peculiar crisped wave seen

in the old Italian pictures, and the warm, dark, hazel eyes which

so often accompany it; lips like a thread of vermillion, somewhat

too thin, perhaps--but I thought little of that then; with such

perfect finish and grace in every line and hue of her features and

her dress, _down to the little fingers and nails, which showed

through their thin gloves_, that she seemed to my fancy fresh from

the innermost chamber of some enchanted palace, 'where no air

of heaven could visit her cheek too roughly.' I dropped my eyes

quite dazzled. The question was repeated by a lady who stood with

her, whose face I remarked then--as I did to the last, alas!--too

little, dazzled at the first by outward beauty, perhaps because so

utterly unaccustomed to it.

"'It is indeed a wonderful picture.' I said timidly. 'May I ask

what is the subject of it?'

"'Oh! don't you know?' said the young beauty, with a smile that

thrilled through me. 'It is St Sebastian.'

"'I--I am very much ashamed,' I answered, colouring up; 'but I do

not know who St Sebastian was. Was he a Popish saint?'

"A tall, stately old man, who stood with the two ladies, laughed

kindly. 'No, not till they made him one against his will, and, at

the same time, by putting him into the mill which grinds old folks

young again, converted him from a grizzled old Roman tribune into

the young Apollo of Popery.'

"'You will puzzle your hearer, my dear uncle,' said the same

deep-toned woman's voice which had first spoken to me. 'As you

volunteered the Saint's name, Lillian, you shall also tell his

history.'

"Simply and shortly, with just feeling enough to send through me a

fresh thrill of delighted interest, without trenching the least on

the most stately reserve, she told me the well-known history of the

Saint's martyrdom.