CHAPTER II.

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HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

No. VIII.--JANUARY, 1851.--VOL. II.

[Illustration: Robert Southey]

PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND HABITS OF ROBERT SOUTHEY.

BY HIS SON.[1]

Being the youngest of all his children, I had not the privilege of

knowing my father in his best and most joyous years, nor of remembering

Greta Hall when the happiness of its circle was unbroken. Much labor and

anxiety, and many sorrows, had passed over him; and although his natural

buoyancy of spirit had not departed, it was greatly subdued, and I

chiefly remember its gradual diminution from year to year.

In appearance he was certainly a very striking looking person, and in

early days he had by many been considered almost the _beau ideal_ of a

poet. Mr. Cottle describes him at the age of twenty-two as "tall,

dignified, possessing great suavity of manners, an eye piercing, a

countenance full of genius, kindliness, and intelligence;" and he

continues, "I had read so much of poetry, and sympathized so much with

poets in all their eccentricities and vicissitudes, that to see before

me the realization of a character which in the abstract so much absorbed

my regards, gave me a degree of satisfaction which it would be difficult

to express." Eighteen years later Lord Byron calls him a prepossessing

looking person, and, with his usual admixture of satire, says, "To have

his head and shoulders I would almost have written his Sapphics;" and

elsewhere he speaks of his appearance as "Epic," an expression which may

be either a sneer or a compliment.

His forehead was very broad; his height was five feet eleven inches; his

complexion rather dark, the eyebrows large and arched, the eye well

shaped and dark brown, the mouth somewhat prominent, muscular, and very

variously expressive, the chin small in proportion to the upper features

of his face. He always, while in Keswick, wore a cap in his walks, and

partly from habit, partly from the make of his head and shoulders, we

never thought he looked well or like himself in a hat. He was of a very

spare frame, but of great activity, and not showing any appearance of a

weak constitution.

My father's countenance, like his character, seems to have softened down

from a certain wildness of expression to a more sober and thoughtful

cast; and many thought him a handsomer man in age than in youth; his eye

retaining always its brilliancy, and his countenance its play of

expression.

The reader will remember his Republican independency when an

under-graduate at Oxford, in rebelling against the supremacy of the

college barber. Though he did not continue to let his hair hang down on

his shoulders according to the whim of his youthful days, yet he always

wore a greater quantity than is usual; and once, on his arrival in town,

Chantrey's first greetings to him were accompanied with an injunction to

go and get his hair cut. When I first remember it, it was turning from a

rich brown to the steel shade, whence it rapidly became almost snowy

white, losing none of its remarkable thickness, and clustering in

abundant curls over his massive brow.

For the following remarks on his general bearing and habits of

conversation I am indebted to a friend:

"The characteristics of his manner, as of his appearance, were lightness

and strength, an easy and happy composure as the accustomed mood, with

much mobility at the same time, so that he could be readily excited into

any degree of animation in discourse, speaking, if the subject moved him

much, with extraordinary fire and force, though always in light, laconic

sentences. When so moved, the fingers of his right hand often rested

against his mouth, and quivered through nervous susceptibility. But,

excitable as he was in conversation, he was never angry or irritable;

nor can there be any greater mistake concerning him than that into which

some persons have fallen, when they have inferred, from the fiery

vehemence with which he could give utterance to moral anger in verse or

prose, that he was personally ill-tempered or irascible. He was, in

truth, a man whom it was hardly possible to quarrel with or offend

personally and face to face; and in his writings, even on public

subjects in which his feelings were strongly engaged, he will be

observed to have always dealt tenderly with those whom he had once seen

and spoken to, unless, indeed, personally and grossly assailed by them.

He said of himself that he was tolerant of persons, though intolerant of

opinions. But in oral intercourse the toleration of persons was so much

the stronger, that the intolerance of opinions was not to be perceived;

and, indeed, it was only in regard to opinions of a pernicious moral

tendency that it was ever felt.

"He was averse from argumentation, and would commonly quit a subject

when it was passing into that shape, with a quiet and good-humored

indication of the view in which he rested. He talked most and with most

interest about books and about public affairs; less, indeed hardly at

all, about the characters and qualities of men in private life. In the

society of strangers or of acquaintances, he seemed to take more

interest in the subjects spoken of than in the persons present, his

manner being that of natural courtesy and general benevolence without

distinction of individuals. Had there been some tincture of social

vanity in him, perhaps he would have been brought into closer relations

with those whom he met in society; but, though invariably kind and

careful of their feelings, he was indifferent to the manner in which

they regarded him, or (as the phrase is) to his _effect_ in society; and

they might, perhaps, be conscious that the kindness they received was

what flowed naturally and inevitably to all, that they had nothing to

give in return which was of value to him, and that no individual

relations were established.

"In conversation with intimate friends he would sometimes express, half

humorously, a cordial commendation of some production of his own,

knowing that with them he could afford it, and that to those who knew

him well it was well known that there was no vanity in him. But such

commendations, though light and humorous, were perfectly sincere; for he

both possessed and cherished the power of finding enjoyment and

satisfaction wherever it was to be found--in his own books, in the books

of his friends, and in all books whatsoever that were not morally

tainted or absolutely barren."

His course of life was the most regular and simple possible. When it is

said that breakfast was at nine, after a little reading,[2] dinner at

four, tea at six, supper at half-past nine, and the intervals filled up

with reading or writing, except that he regularly walked between two and

four, and took a short sleep before tea, the outline of his day during

those long seasons when he was in full work will have been given. After

supper, when the business of the day seemed to be over, though he

generally took a book, he remained with his family, and was open to

enter into conversation, to amuse and to be amused. It was on such times

that the most pleasant fireside chattings, and the most interesting

stories came forth; and, indeed, it was at such a time (though long

before my day) that The Doctor was originated, as may be seen by the

beginning of that work and the Preface to the new edition.

Notwithstanding that the very mention of "my glass of punch," the one,

temperate, never exceeded glass of punch, may be a stumbling-block to

some of my readers, I am constrained, by the very love of the perfect

picture which the first lines of The Doctor convey of the conclusion of

his evening, to transcribe them in this place. It was written but for a

few, otherwise The Doctor would have been no secret at all; but those

few who knew him in his home will see his very look while they re-peruse

it, and will recall the well-known sound:

"I was in the fourth night of the story of the Doctor and his horse, and

had broken it off, not, like Scheherazade, because it was time to get

up, but because it was time to go to bed. It was at thirty-five minutes

after ten o'clock on the 20th of July, in the year of our Lord 1813. I

finished my glass of punch, tinkled the spoon against its side, as if

making music to my own meditations, and having fixed my eyes upon the

Bhow Begum, who was sitting opposite to me at the head of her own table,

I said, 'It ought to be written in a book.'"

This scene took place at the table of the Bhow Begum,[3] but it may

easily be transferred to his ordinary room, where he sat after supper in

one corner, with the fire on his left hand and a small table on his

right, looking on at his family circle in front of him.

I have said before, as indeed his own letters have abundantly shown,

that he was a most thoroughly domestic man, in that his whole pleasure

and happiness was centred in his home; but yet, from the course of his

pursuits, his family necessarily saw but little of him. He could not,

however he might wish it, join the summer evening walk, or make one of

the circle round the winter hearth, or even spare time for conversation

after the family meals (except during the brief space I have just been

speaking of). Every day, every hour had its allotted employment; always

were there engagements to publishers imperatively requiring punctual

fulfillment; always the current expenses of a large household to take

anxious thoughts for: he had no crops growing while he was idle. "My

ways," he used to say, "are as broad as the king's high road, and my

means lie in an ink-stand."

Yet, notwithstanding the value which every moment of his time thus

necessarily bore, unlike most literary men, he was never ruffled in the

slightest degree by the interruptions of his family, even on the most

trivial occasions; the book or the pen was ever laid down with a smile,

and he was ready to answer any question, or to enter with youthful

readiness into any temporary topic of amusement or interest.

In earlier years he spoke of himself as ill calculated for general

society, from a habit of uttering single significant sentences, which,

from being delivered without any qualifying clauses, bore more meaning

upon their surface than he intended, and through which his real opinions

and feelings were often misunderstood. This habit, as far as my own

observation went, though it was sometimes apparent, he had materially

checked in later life, and in large parties he was usually inclined to

be silent, rarely joining in general conversation. But he was very

different when with only one or two companions; and to those strangers,

who came to him with letters of introduction, he was both extremely

courteous in manner, and frank and pleasant in conversation, and to his

intimates no one could have been more wholly unreserved, more disposed

to give and receive pleasure, or more ready to pour forth his vast

stores of information upon almost every subject.

I might go on here, and enter more at length into details of his

personal character, but the task is too difficult a one, and is perhaps,

after all, better left unattempted. A most intimate and highly-valued

friend of my father's, whom I wished to have supplied me with some

passages on these points, remarks very justly, that "any portraiture of

him, by the pen as by the pencil, will fall so far short both of the

truth and the ideal which the readers of his poetry and his letters will

have formed for themselves, that they would be worse than superfluous."

And, indeed, perhaps I have already said too much. I can not, however,

resist quoting here some lines by the friend above alluded to, which

describe admirably in brief my father's whole character:

"Two friends

Lent me a further light, whose equal hate

On all unwholesome sentiment attends,

Nor whom may genius charm where heart infirm attends.

"In all things else contrarious were these two:

The one a man upon whose laureled brow

Gray hairs were growing! glory ever new

Shall circle him in after years as now;

For spent detraction may not disavow

The world of knowledge with the wit combined,

The elastic force no burden e'er could bow,

The various talents and the single mind,

Which give him moral power and mastery o'er mankind.

"His sixty summers--what are they in truth?

By Providence peculiarly blest,

With him the strong hilarity of youth

Abides, despite gray hairs, a constant guest,

His sun has veered a point toward the west,

But light as dawn his heart is glowing yet--

That heart the simplest, gentlest, kindliest, best,

Where truth and manly tenderness are met

With faith and heavenward hope, the suns that never set."[4]

What further I will venture to say relates chiefly to the external

circumstances of his life at Keswick.

His greatest relaxation was in a mountain excursion or a pic-nic by the

side of one of the lakes, tarns, or streams; and these parties, of which

he was the life and soul, will long live in the recollections of those

who shared them. An excellent pedestrian (thinking little of a walk of

twenty-five miles when upward of sixty), he usually headed the

"infantry" on these occasions, looking on those gentlemen as idle

mortals who indulged in the luxury of a mountain pony; feeling very

differently in the bracing air of Cumberland to what he did in Spain in

1800, when he delighted in being "gloriously lazy," in "sitting sideways

upon an ass," and having even a boy to "propel" the burro.

Upon first coming down to the Lakes he rather undervalued the pleasures

of an al-fresco repast, preferring chairs and tables to the greensward

of the mountains, or the moss-grown masses of rock by the lake shore;

but these were probably the impressions of a cold, wet summer, and

having soon learned thoroughly to appreciate these pleasures, he had his

various chosen places which he thought it a sort of duty annually to

revisit. Of these I will name a few, as giving them, perhaps, an added

interest to some future tourists. The summit of Skiddaw he regularly

visited, often three or four times in a summer, but the view thence was

not one he greatly admired. Sea-Fell and Helvellyn he ranked much

higher, but on account of their distance did not often reach. Saddleback

and Causey Pike, two mountains rarely ascended by tourists, were great

favorites with him, and were the summits most frequently chosen for a

grand expedition; and the two tarns upon Saddleback, Threlkeld and

Bowscale tarns, were among the spots he thought most remarkable for

grand and lonely beauty. This, too, was ground rendered more than

commonly interesting, by having been the scenes of the childhood and

early life of Clifford the Shepherd Lord. The rocky streams of

Borrowdale, high up beyond Stonethwaite and Seathwaite, were also places

often visited, especially one beautiful spot, where the river makes a

sharp bend at the foot of Eagle Crag. The pass of Honistar Crag, leading

from Buttermere to Borrowdale, furnished a longer excursion, which was

occasionally taken with a sort of rustic pomp in the rough market carts

of the country, before the cars which are now so generally used had

become common, or been permitted by their owners to travel that worst of

all roads. Occasionally there were grand meetings with Mr. Wordsworth,

and his family and friends, at Leatheswater (or Thirlmere), a point

about half way between Keswick and Rydal; and here as many as fifty

persons have sometimes met together from both sides of the country.

These were days of great enjoyment, not to be forgotten.

[Illustration: VALE OF WATENLATH.]

There was also an infinite variety of long walks, of which he could take

advantage when opportunity served, without the preparation and trouble

of a preconcerted expedition: several of these are alluded to in his

Colloquies. The circuit formed by passing behind Barrow and Lodore to

the vale of Watenlath, placed up high among the hills, with its own

little lake and village, and the rugged path leading thence down to

Borrowdale, was one of the walks he most admired. The beautiful vale of

St. Johns, with its "Castle Rock" and picturesquely placed little

church, was another favorite walk; and there were a number of springs of

unusual copiousness situated near what had been apparently a deserted,

and now ruined village, where he used to take luncheon. The rocky bed of

the little stream at the foot of Causey Pike was a spot he loved to rest

at; and the deep pools of the stream that flows down the adjoining

valley of New Lands--

"Whose pure and chrysolite waters

Flow o'er a schistose bed,"

formed one of his favorite resorts for bathing.

Yet these excursions, although for a few years he still continued to

enjoy them, began in later life to wear to him something of a melancholy

aspect. So many friends were dead who had formerly shared them, and his

own domestic losses were but too vividly called to mind with the

remembrance of former days of enjoyment, the very grandeur of the

scenery around many of the chosen places, and the unchanging features of

the "everlasting hills," brought back forcibly sad memories, and these

parties became in time so painful that it was with difficulty he could

be prevailed upon to join in them.

He concealed, indeed, as the reader has seen, beneath a reserved manner,

a most acutely sensitive mind, and a warmth and kindliness of feeling

which was only understood by few, indeed, perhaps, not thoroughly by

any. He said, speaking of the death of his uncle, Mr. Hill, that one of

the sources of consolation to him was the thought that perhaps the

departed might then be conscious how truly he had loved and honored him;

and I believe the depth of his affection and the warmth of his

friendship was known to none but himself. On one particular point I

remember his often regretting his constitutional bashfulness and

reserve; and that was, because, added to his retired life and the nature

of his pursuits, it prevented him from knowing any thing of the persons

among whom he lived. Long as he had resided at Keswick, I do not think

there were twenty persons in the lower class whom he knew by sight; and

though this was in some measure owing to a slight degree of

short-sightedness, which, contrary to what is usual, came on in later

life, yet I have heard him often lament it as not being what he thought

right; and after slightly returning the salutation of some passer by, he

would again mechanically lift his cap as he heard some well-known name

in reply to his inquiries, and look back with regret that the greeting

had not been more cordial. With those persons who were occasionally

employed about the house he was most familiarly friendly, and these

regarded him with a degree of affectionate reverence that could not be

surpassed.

It may perhaps be expected by some readers that a more accurate account

of my father's income should be given than has yet appeared; but this is

not an easy matter, from its extreme variableness, and this it was that

constituted a continual source of uneasiness both to others and to

himself, rarely as he acknowledged it. A common error has been to speak

of him as one to whom literature has been a mine of wealth. That his

political opponents should do this is not so strange; but even Charles

Lamb, who, if he had thought a little, would hardly have written so

rashly, says, in a letter to Bernard Barton, recently published, that

"Southey has made a fortune by book drudgery." What sort of a "fortune"

that was which never once permitted him to have one year's income

beforehand, and compelled him almost always to forestall the profit of

his new works, the reader may imagine.

His only certain source of income[5] was his pension, from which he

received L145, and the Laureateship, which was L90: the larger portion

of these two sums, however, went to the payment of his life-insurance,

so that not more than L100 could be calculated upon as available, and

the Quarterly Review was therefore for many years his chief means of

support. He received latterly L100 for an article, and commonly

furnished one for each number. What more was needful had to be made up

by his other works, which as they were always published upon the terms

of the publisher taking the risk and sharing the profits, produced him

but little, considering the length of time they were often in

preparation, and as he was constantly adding new purchases to his

library, but little was to be reckoned upon this account. For the

Peninsular War he received L1000, but the copyright remained the

property of the publisher.

With regard to his mode of life, although it was as simple and

inexpensive as possible, his expenditure was with difficulty kept within

his income, though he had indeed a most faithful helpmate, who combined

with a wise and careful economy a liberality equal to his own in any

case of distress. One reason for this difficulty was, that considerable

sums were, not now and then, but regularly, drawn from him by his less

successful relatives.

The house which for so many years was his residence at Keswick, though

well situated both for convenience and for beauty of prospect, was

unattractive in external appearance, and to most families would have

been an undesirable residence. Having originally been two houses,

afterward thrown together, it consisted of a good many small rooms,

connected by long passages, all of which with great ingenuity he made

available for holding books, with which indeed the house was lined from

top to bottom. His own sitting-room, which was the largest in the house,

was filled with the handsomest of them, arranged with much taste,

according to his own fashion, with due regard to size, color, and

condition; and he used to contemplate these, his carefully accumulated

and much prized treasures, with even more pleasure and pride than the

greatest connoisseur his finest specimens of the old masters: and

justly, for they were both the necessaries and the luxuries of life to

him; both the very instruments whereby he won, hardly enough, his daily

bread, and the source of all his pleasures and recreations--the pride of

his eyes and the joy of his heart.

His Spanish and Portuguese collection, which at one time was one of the

best, if not itself the best to be found in the possession of any

private individual, was the most highly-prized portion of his library.

It had been commenced by his uncle, Mr. Hill, long prior to my father's

first visit to Lisbon; and having originated in the love Mr. Hill

himself had for the literature of those countries, it was carried

forward with more ardor when he found that his nephew's taste and

abilities were likely to turn it to good account. It comprised a

considerable number of manuscripts, some of them copied by Mr. Hill from

rare MSS. in private and convent libraries.

Many of these old books being in vellum or parchment bindings, he had

taken much pains to render them ornamental portions of the furniture of

his shelves. His brother Thomas was skillful in calligraphy; and by his

assistance their backs were painted with some bright color, and upon it

the title placed lengthwise in large gold letters of the old English

type. Any one who had visited his library will remember the

tastefully-arranged pyramids of these curious-looking books.

Another fancy of his was to have all those books of lesser value, which

had become ragged and dirty, covered, or rather bound, in colored cotton

prints, for the sake of making them clean and respectable in their

appearance, it being impossible to afford the cost of having so many put

into better bindings.

Of this task his daughters, aided by any female friends who might be

staying with them, were the performers; and not fewer than from 1200 to

1400 volumes were so bound by them at different times, filling

completely one room, which he designated as the Cottonian library. With

this work he was much interested and amused, as the ladies would often

suit the pattern to the contents, clothing a Quaker work or a book of

sermons in sober drab, poetry in some flowery design, and sometimes

contriving a sly piece of satire at the contents of some well-known

author by their choice of its covering. One considerable convenience

attended this eccentric mode of binding--the book became as well known

by its dress as by its contents, and much more easily found.

With respect to his mode of acquiring and arranging the contents of a

book, it was somewhat peculiar. He was as rapid a reader as could be

conceived, having the power of perceiving by a glance down the page

whether it contained any thing which he was likely to make use of--a

slip of paper lay on his desk, and was used as a marker, and with a

slight penciled S he would note the passage, put a reference on the

paper, with some brief note of the subject, which he could transfer to

his note-book, and in the course of a few hours he had classified and

arranged every thing in the work which it was likely he would ever want.

It was thus, with a remarkable memory (not so much for the facts or

passages themselves, but for their existence and the authors that

contained them), and with this kind of index, both to it and them, that

he had at hand a command of materials for whatever subject he was

employed upon, which has been truly said to be "unequaled."

Many of the choicest passages he would transcribe himself at odds and

ends of times, or employ one of his family to transcribe for him; and

these are the extracts which form his "Commonplace Book," recently

published; but those of less importance he had thus within reach in case

he wished to avail himself of them. The quickness with which this was

done was very remarkable. I have often known him receive a parcel of

books one afternoon, and the next have found his mark throughout perhaps

two or three different volumes; yet, if a work took his attention

particularly, he was not rapid in its perusal; and on some authors, such

as the Old Divines, he "fed," as he expressed it, slowly and carefully,

dwelling on the page and taking in its contents deeply and

deliberately--like an epicure with his "wine searching the subtle

flavor."

His library at his death consisted of about 14,000 volumes; probably the

largest number of books ever collected by a person of such limited

means. Among these he found most of the materials for all he did, and

almost all he wished to do; and though sometimes he lamented that his

collection was not a larger one, it is probable that it was more to his

advantage that it was in some degree limited. As it was, he collected an

infinitely greater quantity of materials for every subject he was

employed upon than ever he made use of, and his published Notes give

some idea, though an inadequate one, of the vast stores he thus

accumulated.

On this subject he writes to his cousin, Herbert Hill, at that time one

of the librarians of the "Bodleian:"--"When I was at the British Museum

the other day, walking through the rooms with Carey, I felt that to have

lived in that library, or in such a one, would have rendered me

perfectly useless, even if it had not made me mad. The sight of such

countless volumes made me feel how impossible it would be to pursue any

subject through all the investigations into which it would lead me, and

that therefore I should either lose myself in the vain pursuit, or give

up in despair, and read for the future with no other object than that of

immediate gratification. This was an additional reason for being

thankful for my own lot, aware as I am that I am always tempted to

pursue a train of inquiry too far."

The reader need not be told that the sorrows and anxieties of the last

few years of my father's life had produced, as might be expected, a very

injurious effect upon his constitution, both as to body and mind.

Acutely sensitive by nature, deep and strong in his affections, and

highly predisposed to nervous disease, he had felt the sad affliction

which had darkened his latter years far more keenly than any ordinary

observer would have supposed, or than even appears in his letters. He

had, indeed, then, as he expressed himself in his letter declining the

Baronetcy, been "shaken at the root;" and while we must not forget the

more than forty years of incessant mental application which he had

passed through, it was this stroke of calamity which most probably

greatly hastened the coming of the evil day, if it was not altogether

the cause of it, and which rapidly brought on that overclouding of the

intellect which soon unequivocally manifested itself.

This, indeed, in its first approaches, had been so gradual as to have

almost escaped notice; and it was not until after the sad truth was

fully ascertained, that indications of failure (some of which I have

already alluded to) which had appeared some time previously, were called

to mind. A loss of memory on certain points, a lessening acuteness of

the perceptive faculties, an occasional irritability (wholly unknown in

him before); a confusion of time, place, and person; the losing his way

in well-known places--all were remembered as having taken place, when

the melancholy fact had become too evident that the powers of his mind

were irreparably weakened.

On his way home in the year 1839, he passed a few days in London, and

then his friends plainly saw, what, from the altered manner of the very

few and brief letters he had latterly written, they had already feared,

that he had so failed as to have lost much of the vigor and activity of

his faculties. The impressions of one of his most intimate friends, as

conveyed at the time by letter, may fitly be quoted here. "I have just

come home from a visit which affected me deeply.... It was to Southey,

who arrived in town to-day from Hampshire with his wife.... He is (I

fear) much altered. The animation and peculiar clearness of his mind

quite gone, except a gleam or two now and then. What he said was much in

the spirit of his former mind as far as the matter and meaning went, but

the tone of strength and elasticity was wanting. The appearance was that

of a placid languor, sometimes approaching to torpor, but not otherwise

than cheerful. He is thin and shrunk in person, and that extraordinary

face of his has no longer the fire and strength it used to have, though

the singular cast of the features, and the habitual expressions, make it

still a most remarkable phenomenon. Upon the whole, I came away with a

troubled heart." ... After a brief account of the great trials of my

father's late years, the writer continues: "He has been living since his

marriage in Hampshire, where he has not had the aid of his old habits

and accustomed books to methodize his mind. All this considered, I think

we may hope that a year or two of quiet living at his own home may

restore him. His easy, cheerful temperament will be greatly in his

favor. You must help me to hope this, for I could not bear to think of

the decay of that great mind and noble nature--at least not of its

premature decay. Pray that this may be averted, as I have this

night."[6]

On the following day the same friend writes: "I think I am a little

relieved about Southey to-day. I have seen him three times in the course

of the day, and on each occasion he was so easy and cheerful that I

should have said his manner and conversation did not differ, in the most

part, from what it would have been in former days, if he had happened to

be very tired. I say for the most part only, though, for there was once

an obvious confusion of ideas. He lost himself for a moment; he was

conscious of it, and an expression passed over his countenance which was

exceedingly touching--an expression of pain and also of resignation. I

am glad to learn from his brother that he is aware of his altered

condition, and speaks of it openly. This gives a better aspect to the

case than if he could believe that nothing was the matter with him.

Another favorable circumstance is, that he will deal with himself wisely

and patiently. The charm of his manner is perhaps even enhanced at

present (at least when one knows the circumstances), by the gentleness

and patience which pervade it. His mind is beautiful even in its

debility."

Much of my father's failure in its early stages was at first ascribed by

those anxiously watching him, to repeated attacks of the influenza--at

that time a prevailing epidemic--from which he had suffered greatly, and

to which he attributed his own feelings of weakness; but alas! the

weakness he felt was as much mental as bodily (though he had certainly

declined much in bodily strength), and after his return home it

gradually increased upon him. The uncertain step--the confused

manner--the eye once so keen and so intelligent, now either wandering

restlessly or fixed as it were in blank contemplation--all showed that

the over-wrought mind was worn out.

One of the plainest signs of this was the cessation of his accustomed

labors; but while doing nothing (with him how plain a proof that nothing

could be done), he would frequently anticipate a coming period of his

usual industry. His mind, while any spark of its reasoning powers

remained, was busy with its old day-dreams--the History of Portugal--the

History of the Monastic Orders--the Doctor--all were soon to be taken in

hand in earnest--all completed, and new works added to these.

For a considerable time after he had ceased to compose, he took pleasure

in reading, and the habit continued after the power of comprehension was

gone. His dearly-prized books, indeed, were a pleasure to him almost to

the end, and he would walk slowly round his library looking at them, and

taking them down mechanically.

In the earlier stages of his disorder (if the term may be fitly applied

to a case which was not a perversion of the faculties, but their decay)

he could still converse at times with much of his old liveliness and

energy. When the mind was, as it were, set going upon some familiar

subject, for a little time you could not perceive much failure; but if

the thread was broken, if it was a conversation in which new topics were

started, or if any argument was commenced, his powers failed him at

once, and a painful sense of this seemed to come over him for the

moment. His recollection first failed as to recent events, and his

thoughts appeared chiefly to dwell upon those long past, and as his mind

grew weaker, these recollections seemed to recede still farther back.

Names he could rarely remember, and more than once, when trying to

recall one which he felt he ought to know, I have seen him press his

hand upon his brow and sadly exclaim, "Memory! memory! where art thou

gone?"

But this failure altogether was so gradual, and at the same time so

complete, that I am inclined to hope and believe there was not on the

whole much painful consciousness of it; and certainly for more than a

year preceding his death, he passed his time as in a dream, with little,

if any knowledge of what went on around him.

One circumstance connected with the latter years of his life deserves to

be noticed as very singular. His hair, which previously was almost snowy

white, grew perceptibly darker, and I think, if any thing, increased in

thickness and a disposition to curl.

But it is time I drew a vail over these latter scenes. They are too

painful to dwell on.

"A noble mind in sad decay,

When baffled hope has died away,

And life becomes one long distress

In pitiable helplessness.

Methinks 'tis like a ship on shore,

That once defied the Atlantic's roar,

And gallantly through gale and storm

Hath ventured her majestic form;

But now in stranded ruin laid,

By winds and dashing seas decayed,

Forgetful of her ocean reign,

Must crumble into earth again."[7]

In some cases of this kind, toward the end, some glimmering of reason

re-appears, but this must be when the mind is obscured or upset, not, as

in this case, apparently worn out. The body gradually grew weaker, and

disorders appeared which the state of the patient rendered it almost

impossible to treat properly; and, after a short attack of fever, the

scene closed on the 21st of March, 1843, and a second time had we cause

to feel deeply thankful, when the change from life to death, or more

truly from death to life, took place.

It was a dark and stormy morning when he was borne to his last

resting-place, at the western end of the beautiful church-yard of

Crosthwaite. There lies his dear son Herbert--there his daughters Emma

and Isabel--there Edith, his faithful helpmate of forty years. But few

besides his own family and immediate neighbors followed his remains. His

only intimate friend within reach, Mr. Wordsworth, crossed the hills

that wild morning to be present.

Soon after my father's death, various steps were taken with a view to

erecting monuments to his memory; and considerable sums were quickly

subscribed for that purpose, the list including the names of many

persons, not only strangers to him personally, but also strongly opposed

to him in political opinion. The result was that three memorials were

erected. The first and principal one, a full length recumbent figure,

was executed by Lough, and placed in Crosthwaite church, and is

certainly an excellent likeness, as well as a most beautiful work of

art. The original intention and agreement was, that it should be in Caen

stone, but the sculptor, with characteristic liberality, executed it in

white marble, at a considerable sacrifice.

[Illustration: SOUTHEY'S TOMB.]

The following lines, by Mr. Wordsworth, are inscribed upon the base:

"Ye vales and hills, whose beauty hither drew

The poet's steps, and fixed him here; on you

His eyes have closed; and ye loved books, no more

Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore,

To works that ne'er shall forfeit their renown

Adding immortal labors of his own--

Whether he traced historic truth with zeal

For the state's guidance or the church's weal,

Or fancy disciplined by curious art

Informed his pen, or wisdom of the heart,

Or judgments sanctioned in the patriot's mind

By reverence for the rights of all mankind.

Wide were his aims, yet in no human breast

Could private feelings meet in holier rest.

His joys--his griefs--have vanished like a cloud

From Skiddaw's top; but he to Heaven was vowed

Through a life long and pure, and steadfast faith

Calmed in his soul the fear of change and death."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: From an unpublished chapter of the Life and Correspondence

of Robert Southey, now in press by Harper and Brothers.]

[Footnote 2: During the several years that he was partially employed

upon the Life of Dr. Bell, he devoted two hours before breakfast to it

in the summer, and as much time as there was daylight for, during the

winter months, that it might not interfere with the usual occupations of

the day. In all this time, however, he made but little progress in it;

partly from the nature of the materials, partly from the want of

sufficient interest in the subject.]

[Footnote 3: Miss Barker, the Senhora of earlier days, who was living at

that time in a house close to Greta Hall.]

[Footnote 4: Notes to Philip Van Artevelde, by Henry Taylor.]

[Footnote 5: I speak of a period prior to his receiving his last

pension, which was granted in 1835.]

[Footnote 6: August 24, 1839.]

[Footnote 7: Robert Montgomery. The fourth line is altered from the

original.]

[Illustration: MADAME CAMPAN.]

MADAME CAMPAN.[8]

Jane Louisa Henrietta Campan was born at Paris, 1752. She was the

daughter of M. Genet, first clerk in the office of the Minister of

Foreign Affairs. He was fond of literature, and communicated a taste for

it to his daughter, who early displayed considerable talents. She

acquired a knowledge of foreign languages, particularly the Italian and

English, and was distinguished for her skill in reading and recitation.

These acquisitions procured for her the place of reader to the French

princesses, daughters of Louis XV. On the marriage of Marie-Antoinette

to the Dauphin, afterward Louis XVI., Mademoiselle Genet was attached to

her suite, and continued, for twenty years, to occupy a situation about

her person.

Her general intelligence and talent for observation, enabled Madame

Campan, in the course of her service, to collect the materials for her

"Memoirs of the Private Life of the Queen of France," first published in

Paris, and translated and printed in London, 1823, in two volumes. This

work is not only interesting for the information it affords, but is also

very creditable to the literary talents of the authoress. Soon after the

appointment at court, Mademoiselle Genet was married to M. Campan, son

of the Secretary of the queen's closet. When Marie-Antoinette was made a

prisoner, Madame Campan begged to be permitted to accompany her royal

mistress, and share her imprisonment, which was refused. Madame Campan

was with the queen at the storming of the Tuilleries, on the 10th of

August, when she narrowly escaped with her life: and, under the rule of

Robespierre, she came near being sent to the guillotine. After the fall

of that tyrant, she retired to the country, and opened a private

seminary for young ladies, which she conducted with great success.

Josephine Beauharnais sent her daughter, Hortense, to the seminary of

Madame Campan. She had also the sisters of the emperor under her care.

In 1806, Napoleon founded the school of Ecouen, for the daughters and

sisters of the officers of the Legion of Honor, and appointed Madame

Campan to superintend it. This institution was suppressed at the

restoration of the Bourbons, and Madame Campan retired to Nantes, where

she partly prepared her "Memoirs," and other works. She died in 1822,

aged seventy. After her decease, her "Private Journal" was published;

also, "Familiar Letters to her Friends," and a work, which she

considered her most important one, entitled "Thoughts on Education." We

will give extracts from these works.

From the "Private Journal."

MESMER AND HIS MAGNETISM.

At the time when Mesmer made so much noise in Paris with his magnetism,

M. Campan, my husband, was his partisan, like almost every person who

moved in high life. To be magnetized was then a fashion; nay, it was

more, it was absolutely a rage. In the drawing-rooms, nothing was talked

of but the brilliant discovery. There was to be no more dying; people's

heads were turned, and their imaginations heated in the highest degree.

To accomplish this object, it was necessary to bewilder the

understanding; and Mesmer, with his singular language, produced that

effect. To put a stop to the fit of public insanity was the grand

difficulty; and it was proposed to have the secret purchased by the

court. Mesmer fixed his claims at a very extravagant rate. However, he

was offered fifty thousand crowns. By a singular chance, I was one day

led into the midst of the somnambulists. Such was the enthusiasm of the

spectators, that, in most of them, I could observe a wild rolling of the

eye, and a convulsed movement of the countenance. A stranger might have

fancied himself amidst the unfortunate patients of Charenton. Surprised

and shocked at seeing so many people almost in a state of delirium, I

withdrew, full of reflections on the scene which I had just witnessed.

It happened that about this time my husband was attacked with a

pulmonary disorder, and he desired that he might be conveyed to Mesmer's

house. Being introduced into the apartment occupied by M. Campan, I

asked the worker of miracles what treatment he proposed to adopt; he

very coolly replied, that to ensure a speedy and perfect cure, it would

be necessary to lay in the bed of the invalid, at his left side, one of

three things, namely, a young woman of brown complexion; a black hen; or

an empty bottle.

"Sir," said I, "if the choice be a matter of indifference, pray try the

empty bottle."

M. Campan's side grew worse; he experienced a difficulty of breathing

and a pain in his chest. All magnetic remedies that were employed

produced no effect. Perceiving his failure, Mesmer took advantage of the

periods of my absence to bleed and blister the patient. I was not

informed of what had been done until after M. Campan's recovery. Mesmer

was asked for a certificate, to prove that the patient had been cured by

means of magnetism only; and he gave it. Here was a trait of enthusiasm!

Truth was no longer respected. When I next presented myself to the queen

(Marie-Antoinette), their majesties asked what I thought of Mesmer's

discovery. I informed them of what had taken place, earnestly expressing

my indignation at the conduct of the barefaced quack. It was immediately

determined to have nothing more to do with him.

THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER'S VISIT TO MADAME CAMPAN'S SCHOOL.

The emperor inquired into the most minute particulars respecting the

establishment at Ecouen; and I felt great pleasure in answering his

questions. I recollect having dwelt on several points which appeared to

me very important, and which were in their spirit hostile to

aristocratical principles. For example, I informed his majesty that the

daughters of distinguished and wealthy individuals, and those of the

humble and obscure, were indiscriminately mingled together in the

establishment. If, said I, I were to observe the least pretension on

account of the rank or fortune of parents, I should immediately put an

end to it. The most perfect equality is preserved; distinction is

awarded only to merit and industry. The pupils are obliged to cut and

make all their own clothes. They are taught to clean and mend lace; and

two at a time, they by turns, three times a week, cook and distribute

victuals to the poor of the village. The young ladies who have been

brought up in my boarding-school are thoroughly acquainted with every

thing relating to household business; and they are grateful to me for

having made it a part of their education. In my conversations with them,

I have always taught them that _on domestic management depends the

preservation or dissipation of their fortunes_. I impress on their minds

the necessity of regulating with attention the most trifling daily

expenses; but at the same time I recommend them to avoid making domestic

details the subject of conversation in the drawing-room, for that is a

most decided mark of ill-breeding. It is proper that all should know how

to do and to direct; but it is only for ill-educated women to talk about

their carriages, servants, washing, and cooking.

These are the reasons, sire, why my pupils are generally superior to

those brought up in other establishments. All is conducted on the most

simple plan; the young ladies are taught every thing of which they can

possibly stand in need; and they are consequently as much at their ease

in the brilliant circles of fashion, as in the most humble condition of

life. Fortune confers rank, but education teaches how to support it

properly.

From the "Letters," &c.

TO HER ONLY SON.

You are now, my dear Henry, removed from my fond care and instruction;

and young as you are, you have entered upon the vast theatre of the

world. Some years hence, when time shall have matured your ideas, and

enabled you to take a clear, retrospective view of your steps in life,

you will be able to enter into my feelings, and to judge of the anxiety

which at this moment agitates my heart.

When first a beloved child, releasing itself from its nurse's arms,

ventures its little tottering steps on the soft carpet, or the smoothest

grass-plot, the poor mother scarcely breathes; she imagines that these

first efforts of nature are attended with every danger to the object

most dear to her. Fond mother, calm your anxious fears! Your infant son

can, at the worst, only receive a slight hurt, which, under your tender

care, will speedily be healed. Reserve your alarms, your heart-beatings,

your prayers to Providence, for the moment when your son enters upon the

scene of the world to select a character, which, if sustained with

dignity, judgment, and feeling, will render him universally esteemed and

approved; or to degrade himself by filling one of those low,

contemptible parts, fit only for the vilest actors in the drama of life.

Tremble at the moment when your child has to choose between the rugged

road of industry and integrity, leading straight to honor and happiness;

and the smooth and flowery path which descends, through indolence and

pleasure, to the gulf of vice and misery. It is then that the voice of a

parent, or of some faithful friend, must direct the right course....

Surrounded as you doubtless are, by thoughtless and trifling companions,

let your mother be the rallying point of your mind and heart; the

confidant of all your plans....

Learn to know the value of money. This is a most essential point. The

want of economy leads to the decay of powerful empires, as well as

private families. Louis XVI. perished on the scaffold for a deficit of

fifty millions. There would have been no debt, no assemblies of the

people, no revolution, no loss of the sovereign authority, no tragical

death, but for this fatal deficit. States are ruined through the

mismanagement of millions, and private persons become bankrupts and end

their lives in misery through the mismanagement of crowns worth six

livres. It is very important, my dear son, that I lay down to you these

first principles of right conduct, and impress upon your mind the

necessity of adhering to them. Render me an account of the expenditure

of your money, not viewing me in the light of a rigid preceptress, but

as a friend who wishes to accustom you to the habit of accounting to

yourself....

Let me impress upon you the importance of attentive application to

business; for that affords certain consolation, and is a security

against lassitude, and the vices which idleness creates....

Be cautious how you form connections; and hesitate not to break them off

on the first proposition to adopt any course which your affectionate

mother warns you to avoid, as fatal to your real happiness, and to the

attainment of that respect and esteem which it should be your ambition

to enjoy....

Never neglect to appropriate a certain portion of your time to useful

reading; and do not imagine that even half an hour a day, devoted to

that object, will be unprofitable. The best way of arranging and

employing one's time is by calculation; and I have often reflected that

half an hour's reading every day, will be one hundred and eighty hours'

reading in the course of the year. Great fortunes are amassed by little

savings; and poverty as well as ignorance are occasioned by the

extravagant waste of money and time....

My affection for you, my dear Henry, is still as actively alive as when,

in your infancy, I removed, patiently, every little stone from a certain

space in my garden, lest, when you first ran alone, you might fall and

hurt your face on the pebbles. But the snares now spread beneath your

steps are far more dangerous. They are strengthened by seductive

appearances, and the ardor of youth would hurry you forward to the

allurement; but that my watchful care, and the confidence you repose in

me, serve to counteract the influence of this twofold power. Your bark

is gliding near a rapid current; but your mother stands on the shore,

and with her eyes fixed on her dear navigator, anxiously exclaims, in

the moment of danger, "Reef your sails; mind your helm." Oh! may you

never forget, or cease to be guided by these warnings, which come from

my inmost heart.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 8: From Mrs. Hale's Female Biography, now in the press of

Harper & Brothers.]

PROCRASTINATION.

BY CHARLES MACKAY.

If fortune with a smiling face

Strew roses on our way,

When shall we stoop to pick them up?

_To-day, my love, to-day._

But should she frown with face of care,

And talk of coming sorrow,

When shall we grieve, if grieve we must?

_To-morrow, love, to-morrow._

If those who've wrong'd us own their fault,

And kindly pity pray,

When shall we listen, and forgive?

_To-day, my love, to-day._

But if stern Justice urge rebuke,

And warmth from Memory borrow,

When shall we chide, if chide we dare?

_To-morrow, love, to-morrow._

If those to whom we owe a debt

Are harmed unless we pay,

When shall we struggle to be just?

_To-day, my love, to-day._

But if our debtor fail our hope,

And plead his ruin thorough,

When shall we weigh his breach of faith?

_To-morrow, love, to-morrow._

If love estranged should once again

Her genial smile display,

When shall we kiss her proffered lips?

_To-day, my love, to-day._

But if she would indulge regret,

Or dwell with bygone sorrow,

When shall we weep, if weep we must?

_To-morrow, love, to-morrow._

For virtuous acts and harmless joys

The minutes will not stay;

We've always time to welcome them,

_To-day, my love, to-day._

But care, resentment, angry words,

And unavailing sorrow,

Come far too soon, if they appear

_To-morrow, love, to-morrow._

[Illustration: BONA LOMBARDI.]

BRUNORO.[9]

Bona Lombardi, was born in 1417, in Sacco, a little village in

Vattellina. Her parents were obscure peasants, of whom we have but

little information. The father, Gabriel Lombardi, a private soldier,

died while she was an infant; and her mother not surviving him long, the

little girl was left to the charge of an aunt, a hard-working

countrywoman, and an uncle, an humble curate.

Bona, in her simple peasant station, exhibited intelligence, decision of

character, and personal beauty, which raised her to a certain

consideration in the estimation of her companions; and the neighborhood

boasted of the beauty of Bona when an incident occurred which was to

raise her to a most unexpected rank. In the war between the Duke of

Milan and the Venetians, the latter had been routed and driven from

Vattellina. Piccinino, the Milanese general, upon departing to follow up

his advantages, left Captain Brunoro, a Parmesan gentleman, to maintain

a camp in Morbegno, as a central position, to maintain the conquered

country. One day, after a hunting party, he stopped to repose himself,

in a grove where many of the peasants were assembled for some rustic

festival; he was greatly struck with the loveliness of a girl of about

fifteen. Upon entering into conversation with her, he was surprised at

the ingenuity and spirited tone of her replies. Speaking of the

adventure on his return home, every body told him that Bona Lombardi had

acknowledged claims to admiration.

Brunoro, remaining through the summer in that district, found many

opportunities of seeing the fair peasant; becoming acquainted with her

worth and character, he at last determined to make her the companion of

his life; their marriage was not declared at first, but, to prevent a

separation, however temporary, Bona was induced to put on the dress of

an officer. Her husband delighted in teaching her horsemanship, together

with all military exercises. She accompanied him in battle, fought by

his side, and, regardless of her own safety, seemed to be merely an

added arm to shield and assist Brunoro. As was usual in those times,

among the condottieri, Brunoro adopted different lords, and fought

sometimes in parties to which, at others, he was opposed. In these

vicissitudes, he incurred the anger of the King of Naples, who, seizing

him by means of an ambuscade, plunged him into a dungeon, where he would

probably have finished his days, but for the untiring and well-planned

efforts of his wife. To effect his release, she spared no means;

supplications, threats, money, all were employed, and, at last, with

good success. She had the happiness of recovering her husband.

Bona was not only gifted with the feminine qualities of domestic

affection and a well-balanced intellect; in the hottest battles, her

bravery and power of managing her troops were quite remarkable; of these

feats there are many instances recorded. We will mention but one. In the

course of the Milanese war, the Venetians had been, on one occasion,

signally discomfited in an attack upon the Castle of Povoze, in Brescia.

Brunoro himself was taken prisoner, and carried into the castle. Bona

arrived with a little band of fresh soldiers; she rallied the routed

forces, inspired them with new courage, led them on herself, took the

castle, and liberated her husband, with the other prisoners. She was,

however, destined to lose her husband without possibility of recovering

him; he died in 1468. When this intrepid heroine, victor in battles,

and, rising above all adversity, was bowed by a sorrow resulting from

affection, she declared she could not survive Brunoro. She caused a tomb

to be made, in which their remains could be united; and, after seeing

the work completed, she gradually sank into a languid state, which

terminated in her death.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: From Mrs. Hale's Female Biography.]

[Illustration: Thomas De Quincey]

A SKETCH OF MY CHILDHOOD.

BY THE "ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER."

SEPTEMBER 21, 1850.

To the Editor of Hogg's "Instructor."

My Dear Sir--I am much obliged to you for communicating to us (that is,

to my daughters and myself) the engraved portrait, enlarged from the

daguerreotype original. The engraver, at least, seems to have done his

part ably. As to one of the earlier artists concerned, viz., the sun of

July, I suppose it is not allowable to complain of _him_, else my

daughters are inclined to upbraid him with having made the mouth too

long. But, of old, it was held audacity to suspect the sun's veracity:

"Solem quis dicere falsum audeat!" And I remember that, half a century

ago, the "Sun" newspaper in London, used to fight under sanction of that

motto. But it was at length discovered by the learned, that Sun

_junior_, viz., the newspaper, _did_ sometimes indulge in fibbing. The

ancient prejudice about the solar truth broke down, therefore, in that

instance; and who knows but Sun _senior_ may be detected, now that our

optical glasses are so much improved, in similar practices? in which

case he may have only been "keeping his hand in" when operating upon

that one feature of the mouth. The rest of the portrait, we all agree,

does credit to his talents, showing that he is still wide-awake, and not

at all the superannuated old artist that some speculators in philosophy

had dreamed of his becoming.

As an accompaniment to this portrait, your wish is that I should furnish

a few brief chronological memoranda of my own life. _That_ would be hard

for me to do, and, _when_ done, might not be very interesting for others

to read. Nothing makes such dreary and monotonous reading as the old

hackneyed roll-call, chronologically arrayed, of inevitable facts in a

man's life. One is so certain of the man's having been born, and also of

his having died, that it is dismal to lie under the necessity of reading

it. That the man began by being a boy--that he went to school--and that,

by intense application to his studies, "which he took to be _his_

portion in this life," he rose to distinction as a robber of orchards,

seems so probable, upon the whole, that I am willing to accept it as a

postulate. That he married--that, in fullness of time, he was hanged, or

(being a humble, unambitious man) that he was content with deserving

it--these little circumstances are so naturally to be looked for, as

sown broadcast up and down the great fields of biography, that any one

life becomes, in this respect, but the echo of thousands. Chronologic

successions of events and dates, such as these, which, belonging to the

race, illustrate nothing in the individual, are as wearisome as they are

useless.

A better plan will be--to detach some single chapter from the

experiences of childhood, which is likely to offer, at least, this kind

of value--either that it will record some of the deep impressions under

which my childish sensibilities expanded, and the ideas which at that

time brooded continually over my mind, or else will expose the traits of

character that slumbered in those around me. This plan will have the

advantage of not being liable to the suspicion of vanity or egotism; for

I beg the reader to understand distinctly, that I do not offer this

sketch as deriving any part of what interest it may have from myself, as

the person concerned in it. If the particular experience selected is

really interesting, in virtue of its own circumstances, then it matters

not to _whom_ it happened. Suppose that a man should record a perilous

journey, it will be no fair inference that he records it as a journey

performed by himself. Most sincerely he may be able to say, that he

records it not _for_ that relation to himself, but _in spite of_ that

relation. The incidents, being absolutely independent, in their power to

amuse, of all personal reference, must be equally interesting [he will

say] whether they occurred to A or to B. That is _my_ case. Let the

reader abstract from _me_ as a person that by accident, or in some

partial sense, may have been previously known to himself. Let him read

the sketch as belonging to one who wishes to be profoundly anonymous. I

offer it not as owing any thing to its connection with a particular

individual, but as likely to be amusing separately for itself; and if I

make any mistake in _that_, it is not a mistake of vanity exaggerating

the consequence of what relates to my own childhood, but a simple

mistake of the judgment as to the power of amusement that may attach to

a particular succession of reminiscences.

Excuse the imperfect development which in some places of the sketch may

have been given to my meaning. I suffer from a most afflicting

derangement of the nervous system, which at times makes it difficult for

me to write at all, and always makes me impatient, in a degree not

easily understood, of recasting what may seem insufficiently, or even

incoherently, expressed.--Believe me, ever yours,

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

A SKETCH FROM CHILDHOOD.

About the close of my sixth year, suddenly the first chapter of my life

came to a violent termination; that chapter which, and which only, in

the hour of death, or even within the gates of recovered Paradise, could

merit a remembrance. "It is finished," was the secret misgiving of my

heart, for the heart even of infancy is as apprehensive as that of

maturest wisdom, in relation to any capital wound inflicted on the

happiness; "it is finished, and life is exhausted." How? Could it be

exhausted so soon? Had I read Milton, had I seen Rome, had I heard

Mozart? No. The "Paradise Lost" was yet unread, the Coliseum and St.

Peter's were unseen, the melodies of Don Giovanni were yet silent for

me. Raptures there might be in arrear. But raptures are modes of

_troubled_ pleasure; the peace, the rest, the lulls, the central

security, which belong to love, that is past all understanding, _those_

could return no more. Such a love, so unfathomable, subsisting between

myself and my eldest sister, under the circumstances of our difference

in age (she being above eight years of age, I under six), and of our

affinities in nature, together with the sudden foundering of all this

blind happiness, I have described elsewhere.[10] I shall not here repeat

any part of the narrative. But one extract from the closing sections of

the paper I shall make; in order to describe the depth to which a

child's heart may be plowed up by one over-mastering storm of grief, and

as a proof that grief, in some of its fluctuations, is not uniformly a

depressing passion--but also by possibility has its own separate

aspirations, and at times is full of cloudy grandeur. The point of time

is during the months that immediately succeeded to my sister's funeral.

"The awful stillness of summer noons, when no winds were abroad--the

appealing silence of gray or misty afternoons--these were to me, in that

state of mind, fascinations, as of witchcraft. Into the woods, or the

desert air, I gazed as if some comfort lay in _them_. I wearied the

heavens with my inquest of beseeching looks. I tormented the blue depths

with obstinate scrutiny, sweeping them with my eyes, and searching them

forever, after one angelic face, that might perhaps have permission to

reveal itself for a moment. The faculty of shaping images in the

distance, out of slight elements, and grouping them after the yearnings

of the heart, grew upon me at this time. And I recall at the present

moment one instance of that sort, which may show how merely shadows, or

a gleam of brightness, or nothing at all, could furnish a sufficient

basis for this creative faculty. On Sunday mornings I was always taken

to church. It was a church on the old and natural model of England,

having aisles, galleries, organ, all things ancient and venerable, and

the proportions majestic. Here, while the congregation knelt through the

long Litany, as often as we came to that passage, so beautiful among the

many that are so, where God is supplicated on behalf of 'all sick

persons and young children,' and that He 'would show His pity upon all

prisoners and captives', I wept in secret; and, raising my streaming

eyes to the windows of the galleries, saw, on days when the sun was

shining, a spectacle as affecting as ever prophet can have beheld. The

margins of the windows were rich in storied glass; through the deep

purples and crimsons streamed the golden light; emblazonries of heavenly

illumination mingling with the earthly emblazonries of what is grandest

in man. _There_ were the apostles that had trampled upon earth, and the

glories of earth, out of celestial love to man. _There_ were the martyrs

that had borne witness to the truth through flames, through torments,

and through armies of fierce, insulting faces. _There_ were the saints

that, under intolerable pangs, had glorified God by meek submission to

his will. And all the time, while this tumult of sublime memorials held

on as the deep chords of some accompaniment in the bass, I saw through

the wide central field of the window, where the glass was _un_colored,

white fleecy clouds sailing over the azure depths of the sky; were it

but a fragment or a hint of such a cloud, immediately, under the flash

of my sorrow-haunted eye, it grew and shaped itself into a vision of

beds with white lawny curtains; and in the beds lay sick children, dying

children, that were tossing in anguish, and weeping clamorously for

death. God, for some mysterious reason, could not suddenly release them

from their pain; but He suffered the beds, as it seemed, to rise slowly

through the clouds; slowly the beds ascended into the chambers of the

air; slowly, also, his arms descended from the heavens, in order that He

and His young children whom in Judea, once and forever, He had blessed,

though they _must_ pass slowly through the dreadful chasm of separation,

might yet meet the sooner. These visions were self-sustained. These

visions needed not that any sound should speak to me, or music mould my

feelings. The hint from the Litany, the fragment from the clouds, the

pictures on the storied windows were sufficient. But not the less the

blare of the tumultuous organ wrought its own separate creations. And

often-times in anthems, when the mighty instrument threw its vast

columns of sound, fierce, yet melodious, over the voices of the

choir--high in arches when it rose, seeming to surmount and over-ride

the strife of the vocal parts, and gathering by strong coercion the

total storm of music into unity--sometimes I also seemed to rise and to

walk triumphantly upon those clouds, which so recently I had looked up

to as mementoes of prostrate sorrow. Yes; sometimes, under the

transfigurations of music, I felt of grief itself, as a fiery chariot

for mounting victoriously above the causes of grief."

The next (which was the _second_) chapter of my childish experience,

formed that sort of fierce and fantastic contradiction to the first,

which might seem to move in obedience to some incarnate principle of

malicious pantomime. A spirit of love, and a spirit of rest, as if

breathing from St. John the Evangelist, had seemed to mould the

harmonies of that earliest stage in my childhood which had just

vanished; but now, on the other hand, some wicked Harlequin

Mephistopheles was apparently commissioned to vex my eyes and plague my

heart, through the next succession of two or three years: a worm was at

the roots of life. Yet, in this, perhaps, there lurked a harsh

beneficence. If, because the great vision of love had vanished, idiocy

and the torpor of despondency were really creeping stealthily over my

faculties, and strangling their energies, what better change for me than

the necessity (else how miserable!) of fighting, wrangling, struggling,

without pause, or promise of pause, from day to day, or even from year

to year? "If," as my good angel might have said to me, "thou art moving

on a line of utter ruin, from mere palsy of one great vital force, and

if that loss is past all restoration, then kindle a new supplementary

life by such means as are now possible--by the agitations, for instance,

of strife and conflict"--yes, possible, on the wide stage of the world,

and for people who should be free agents enough to _make_ enemies, in

case they failed to find them; but for a child, not seven years old, to

whom his medical advisers should prescribe a course of hatred, or

continued hostilities, by way of tonics, in what quarter was _he_ to

look out for such luxuries? Who would condescend to officiate as _enemy_

to a child! And yet, as regarded my own particular case, had I breathed

out any such querulous demand, that same Harlequin Mephistopheles might

have whispered in reply, "Never you trouble yourself about _that_. Do

_you_ furnish the patience that can swallow cheerfully a long course of

kicking, and _I_'ll find those that shall furnish the kicks." In fact,

at this very moment, when all chance of quarrel, or opening for

prolonged enmity, seemed the remotest of chimeras, mischief was already

in the wind; and suddenly there was let loose upon me such a storm of

belligerent fury as might, under good management, have yielded a

life-annuity of feuds.

I had at that time an elder brother, in fact, the eldest of us all, and

at least five years senior to myself. He, by original temperament, was a

boy of fiery nature, ten times more active than I was inert, loving the

element of feuds and stormy conflict more (if that were possible) than I

detested it; and these constitutional tendencies had in him been nursed

by the training of a public school. This accident in his life was indeed

the cause of our now meeting as strangers. Singular, indeed, it seems,

but, in fact, had arisen naturally enough, that both this eldest of my

brothers, and my father, should be absolute strangers to me in my

seventh year; so that, in the case of meeting either, I should not have

known him, nor he me. In my father's case, this arose from the accident

of his having lived abroad for a space that, measured against _my_ life,

was a very long one. First, he lived in Portugal, at Lisbon; and at

Cintra; next in Madeira; then in the West Indies; sometimes in Jamaica,

sometimes in St. Kitts, courting the supposed benefit of hot climates in

his complaint of pulmonary consumption; and at last, when all had proved

unavailing, he was coming home to die among his family, in his

thirty-ninth year. My mother had gone to wait his arrival at the port

(Southampton, probably), to which the West India packet should bring

him; and among the deepest recollections which I connect with that

period, is one derived from the night of his arrival at Greenhay. It was

a summer evening of unusual solemnity. The servants, and four of us

children--six then survived--were gathered for hours, on the lawn before

the house, listening for the sound of wheels. Sunset came--nine, ten,

eleven o'clock, and nearly another hour had passed--without a warning

sound; for Greenhay, being so solitary a house, formed a _terminus ad

quem_, beyond which was nothing but a cluster of cottages, composing the

little hamlet of Greenhill; so that any sound of wheels, heard in the

winding lane which then connected us with the Rusholme road, carried

with it, of necessity, a warning summons to prepare for visitors at

Greenhay. No such summons had yet reached us; it was nearly midnight;

and, for the last time, it was determined that we should move in a body

out of the grounds, on the chance of meeting the traveling party, if, at

so late an hour, it could yet be expected to arrive. In fact, to our

general surprise, we met it almost immediately, but coming at so slow a

pace, that the fall of the horses' feet was not audible until we were

close upon them. I mention the case for the sake of the undying

impressions which connected themselves with the circumstances. The first

notice of the approach was the sudden emerging of horses' heads from the

deep gloom of the shady lane; the next was the mass of white pillows

against which the dying patient was reclining. The hearse-like pace at

which the carriage moved recalled the overwhelming spectacle of the

funeral which had so lately formed part in the most memorable event of

my life. But these elements of awe, that might at any rate have struck

forcibly upon the mind of a child, were for me, in my condition of

morbid nervousness, raised into abiding grandeur by the antecedent

experiences of that particular summer night. The listening for hours to

the sounds from horses' hoofs upon distant roads, rising and falling,

caught and lost, upon the gentle undulation of such light, fitful airs

as might be stirring--the peculiar solemnity of the hours succeeding to

sunset--the gorgeousness of the dying day--the gorgeousness which, by

description, so well I knew of those West Indian islands from which my

father was returning--the knowledge that he returned only to die--the

almighty pomp in which this great idea of Death appareled itself to my

young suffering heart--the corresponding pomp in which the antagonistic

idea, not less mysterious, of life, rose, as if on wings, to the

heavens, amidst tropic glories and floral pageantries, that seemed even

_more_ solemn and more pathetic than, the vapory plumes and trophies of

mortality--all this chorus of restless images, or of suggestive

thoughts, gave to my father's return, which else had been fitted only to

interpose a transitory illumination or red-letter day in the calendar of

a child, the shadowy power of an ineffaceable agency among my dreams.

This, indeed, was the one sole memorial which restores my father's image

to me as a personal reality. Otherwise, he would have been for me a bare

_nominis umbra_. He languished, indeed, for weeks upon a sofa; and,

during that interval, it happened naturally, from my meditative habits

and corresponding repose of manners, that I was a privileged visitor to

him during his waking hours. I was also present at his bed-side in the

closing hour of his life, which exhaled quietly, amidst snatches of

delirious conversation with some imaginary visitors. From this brief

childish experience of his nature and disposition, the chief conclusion

which I drew tended to this--that he was the most _benignant_ person

whom I had met, or was likely to meet, in life. What I have since heard

from others, who knew him well, tallied with my own childish impression.

His life had been too busy to allow him much time for regular study; but

he loved literature with a passionate love; had formed a large and

well-selected library; had himself published a book, which I have read,

and which really is not a bad one; and carried his reverence for

distinguished authors to such a height, that (according to the report,

of several among his friends) had either Dr. Johnson, or Cowper, the

poet--the two contemporary authors whom most he reverenced--happened to

visit Greenhay, he might have been tempted to express his homage through

the Pagan fashion of raising altars and burning incense, or of

sacrificing, if not an ox, yet, at least, a baron of beef. The latter

mode of idolatry Dr. Sam, would have approved, provided always that the

_nidor_ were irreproachable, and that the condiments of mustard,

horse-radish, &c., _more Anglico_, were placed on the altar; but as to

Cowper, who was in the habit of tracing Captain Cooke's death at Owyhee

to the fact that the misjudging captain had once suffered himself to be

worshiped at one of the Society Islands, in all consistency, he must

have fled from such a house with sacred horror. Why I have at all gone

back to this little parenthesis in my childhood is, from the singularity

that I should remember my father at all, only because I had received all

my impressions about him into the very centre of my preconceptions about

certain grand objects--about the Tropics, about summer evenings, and

about some mysterious glory of the grave. It seems metaphysical to say

so, but yet it is true that I knew him, speaking scholastically, through

_a priori_ ideas--I remember him _transcendenter_--and, were it not for

the midsummer night's dream which glorified his return, to me he would

have remained forever that absolute stranger, which, according to the

prosaic interpretation of the case, he really was.

My brother was a stranger from causes quite as little to be foreseen,

but seeming quite as natural after they had really occurred. In an early

stage of his career, he had been found wholly unmanageable. His genius

for mischief amounted to inspiration; it was a divine _afflatus_ which

drove him in that direction; and such was his capacity for riding in

whirlwinds and directing storms, that he made it his trade to create

them, as [Greek: nephelegerheta Zehys] a cloud-compelling Jove, in order

that he _might_ direct them. For this, and other reasons, he had been

sent to the grammar school of Louth, in Lincolnshire--one of those many

old classic institutions which form the peculiar[11] glory of England.

To box, and to box under the severest restraint of honorable laws, was

in those days a mere necessity of school-boy life at _public_ schools;

and hence the superior manliness, generosity, and self-control, of those

generally who benefited by such discipline--so systematically hostile to

all meanness, pusillanimity, or indirectness. Cowper, in his poem on

that subject, is far from doing justice to our great public schools.

Himself disqualified, by delicacy of temperament, for reaping the

benefits from such a warfare, and having suffered too much in his own

Westminster experience, he could not judge them from an impartial

station; but I, though ill enough adapted to an atmosphere so stormy,

yet, having tried both classes of schools, public and private, am

compelled in mere conscience to give my vote (and, if I had a thousand

votes, to give _all_ my votes) for the former.

Fresh from such a training as this, and at a time when his additional

five or six years availed nearly to make _his_ age the double of mine,

my brother very naturally despised me; and, from his exceeding

frankness, he took no pains to conceal that he did. Why should he? Who

was it that could have a right to feel aggrieved by his contempt? Who,

if not myself? But it happened, on the contrary, that I had a perfect

craze for being despised. I doated on being despised; and considered

contempt the sincerest a sort of luxury, that I was in continual fear of

losing. I lived in a panic, lest I should be suspected of shamming

contemptibility. But I did _not_ sham it. I trusted that I was really

entitled to contempt; and, for this, I had some metaphysical-looking

reasons, which there may be occasion to explain further on. At present,

it is sufficient to give a colorable rationality to my craze, if I say,

that the slightest approach to any favorable construction of my

intellectual pretensions, any, the least, shadow of esteem expressed for

some thought or some logical distinction that I might incautiously have

dropped, alarmed me beyond measure, because it pledged me in a manner

with the hearer to support this first attempt by a second, by a third,

by a fourth--Oh, heavens! there is no saying how far the horrid man

might go in his unreasonable demands upon me. I groaned under the weight

of his expectations; and, if I laid but the first round of such a

staircase, why, then, I saw in vision a vast Jacob's ladder towering

upward to the clouds, mile after mile, league after league; the

consequence of which would be, that I should be expected to run up and

down this ladder, like any fatigue party of Irish hodmen, carrying hods

of mortar and bricks to the top of any Babel which my wretched admirer

might choose to build. But I put a stop to this villainy. I nipped the

abominable system of extortion in the very bud, by refusing to take the

first step. The man could have no pretense, you know, for expecting me

to climb the third or fourth round, when I had seemed quite unequal to

the first. Professing the most absolute bankruptcy from the very

beginning, giving the man no sort of hope that I would pay even one

farthing in the pound, I never could be made miserable, or kept in hot

water, by unknown responsibilities, or by endless anxieties about some

bill being presented, which the monster might pretend for one moment

that I had indorsed, or in some way had sanctioned his expecting that I

would pay.

Still, with all this passion for being despised, which was so essential

to my peace of mind, I found at times an altitude--a starry altitude--in

the station of contempt for me assumed by my brother that nettled me.

Sometimes, indeed, the mere necessities of dispute carried me, before I

was aware of my own imprudence, so far up the stair-case of Babel, that

my brother was shaken for a moment in the infinity of his contempt: and,

before long, when my superiority in some bookish accomplishments

displayed itself, by results that could not be entirely dissembled,

mere foolish human nature forced me on rare occasions into some trifle

of exultation at these retributory triumphs. But more often I was

disposed to grieve over them. They tended to shake that solid foundation

of utter despicableness upon which I relied so much for my freedom from

anxiety; and, therefore, upon the whole, it was satisfactory to my mind

that my brother's opinion of me, after any little transient oscillation,

gravitated determinately back toward that settled contempt which had

been the result of his original inquest. The pillars of Hercules, upon

which rested the vast edifice of his scorn, were these two--1st, my

physics; he denounced me for effeminacy: 2d, he assumed, and even

postulated as a _datum_, which I myself could never have the face to

refuse, my general idiocy. Physically, therefore, and intellectually, he

looked upon me as below notice; but, _morally_, he assured me that he

would give me a written character of the very best description, whenever

I chose to apply for it. "You're honest," he said; "you're willing,

though lazy; you _would_ pull, if you had the strength of a flea; and,

though a monstrous coward, you don't run away." My own demurs to these

harsh judgments were not many. The idiocy I confessed; because, though

positive that I was not uniformly an idiot, I felt inclined to think

that, in a majority of cases, I really _was_; and there were more

reasons for thinking so than the reader is yet aware of. But, as to the

effeminacy, I denied it _in toto_, and with good reason, as will be

seen. Neither did my brother pretend to have any experimental proofs of

it. The ground he went upon was a mere _a priori_ one, viz., that I had

always been tied to the apron-string of women or girls; which amounted

at most to this: that, by training and the natural tendency of

circumstances, I _ought_ to be effeminate--that is, there was reason to

expect beforehand that I _should_ be so; but, then, the more merit in

me, if, in spite of such general presumptions, I really were _not_. In

fact, my brother soon learned better than any body, and by a daily

experience, how entirely he might depend upon me for carrying out the

most audacious of his own warlike plans; such plans, it is true, that I

abominated; but _that_ made no difference in the fidelity with which I

tried to fulfill them.

This eldest brother of mine, to pass from my own character to his, was

in all respects a remarkable boy. Haughty he was, aspiring, immeasurably

active; fertile in resources as Robinson Crusoe; but also full of

quarrel as it is possible to imagine; and, in default of any other

opponent, he would have fastened a quarrel upon his own shadow for

presuming to run before him when going westward in the morning, whereas,

in all reason, a shadow, like a dutiful child, ought to keep

deferentially in the rear of that majestic substance which is the author

of its existence. Books he detested, one and all, excepting only those

which he happened to write himself. And they were not a few. On all

subjects known to man, from the Thirty-nine Articles of our English

Church, down to pyrotechnics, legerdemain, magic, both black and white,

thaumaturgy, and necromancy, he favored the world (which world was the

nursery where I, on his first coming home, lived among my sisters) with

his select opinions. On this last subject especially--of necromancy--he

was very great; witness his profound work, though but a fragment, and,

unfortunately, long since departed to the bosom of Cinderella, entitled,

"How to raise a ghost; and when you've got him down, how to keep him

down." To which work he assured us, that some most learned and enormous

man, whose name was six feet long, had promised him an appendix; which

appendix treated of the Red Sea and Solomon's signet-ring; with forms of

_mittimus_ for ghosts that might be mutinous; and probably a riot act,

for any _emeute_ among ghosts inclined to raise barricades; since he

often thrilled our young hearts by supposing the case (not at all

unlikely, he affirmed), that a federation, a solemn league and

conspiracy, might take place among the infinite generations of ghosts

against the single generation of men at any one time composing the

garrison of earth. The Roman phrase for expressing that a man had died,

viz., "_Abiit ad plures_" (He has gone over to the majority), my brother

explained to us; and we easily comprehended that any one generation of

the living human race, even if combined, and acting in concert, must be

in a frightful minority, by comparison with all the incalculable

generations that had trod this earth before us. The Parliament of living

men, Lords and Commons united, what a miserable array against the Upper

and Lower House composing the Parliament of ghosts. Perhaps the

Pre-Adamites would constitute one wing in such a ghostly army. My

brother, dying in his sixteenth year, was far enough from seeing or

foreseeing Waterloo; else he might have illustrated this dreadful duel

of the living human race with its ghostly predecessors, by the awful

apparition which, at three o'clock in the afternoon, on the 18th of

June, 1815, the mighty contest at Waterloo must have assumed to eyes

that watched over the trembling interests of man. The English army,

about that time in the great agony of its strife, was thrown into

squares; and under that arrangement, which condensed and contracted its

apparent numbers within a few black geometrical diagrams, how

frightfully narrow--how spectral did its slender lines appear at a

distance, to any philosophic spectators that knew the amount of human

interests confided to that army, and the hopes for Christendom that even

then were trembling in the balance! Such a disproportion, it seems,

might exist, in the case of a ghostly war between the harvest of

possible results and the slender band of reapers that were to gather it

in. And there was even a worse peril than any analogous one that has

been _proved_ to exist at Waterloo. A British surgeon, indeed, in a work

of two octavo volumes, has endeavored to show that a conspiracy was

traced at Waterloo, between two or three foreign regiments, for kindling

a panic in the heat of the battle, by flight, and by a sustained

blowing-up of tumbrils, with the miserable purpose of shaking the

British firmness. But the evidences are not clear; whereas my brother

insisted that the presence of sham men, distributed extensively among

the human race, and meditating treason against us all, had been

demonstrated to the satisfaction of all true philosophers. Who were

these shams and make-believe men? They were, in fact, people that had

been dead for centuries, but that, for reasons best known to themselves,

had returned to this upper earth, walked about among us, and were

undistinguishable, except by the most learned of necromancers, from

authentic men of flesh and blood. I mention this for the sake of

illustrating the fact, that the same crazes are everlastingly revolving

upon men. Two years ago, during the carnival of universal anarchy

equally among doers and thinkers, a closely-printed pamphlet was

published with this title: "A New Revelation, or the Communion of the

Incarnate Dead with the Unconscious Living. Important Fact, without

trifling Fiction, by HIM." I have not the pleasure of knowing HIM; but

certainly I must concede to HIM, that he writes like a man of education,

and also like a man of extreme sobriety, upon his extravagant theme. He

is angry with Swedenborg, as might be expected, for his "absurdities;"

but, as to _him_, there is no chance that he should commit any

absurdity, because (p. 6) "he has met with some who have acknowledged

the fact of their having come from the dead"--_habes confitentem reum_.

Few, however, are endowed with so much candor; and, in particular, for

the honor of literature, it grieves me to find, by p. 10, that the

largest number of these shams, and perhaps the most uncandid, are to be

looked for among "publishers and printers," of whom, it seems, "the

great majority" are mere forgeries; a very few speak frankly about the

matter, and say they don't care who knows it, which, to my thinking, is

impudence; but by far the larger section doggedly deny it, and call a

policeman, if you persist in charging them with being shams. Some

differences there are between my brother and HIM, but in the great

outline of their views, they coincide.

This hypothesis, however, like a thousand others, when it happened that

they engaged no durable sympathy from his nursery audience, he did not

pursue. For some time, he turned his thoughts to philosophy, and read

lectures to us every night upon some branch or other of physics. This

undertaking arose upon some one of us envying or admiring flies for

their power of walking upon the ceiling. "Pooh!" he said, "they are

impostors; they pretend to do it, but they can't do it as it ought to be

done. Ah! you should see _me_ standing upright on the ceiling, with my

head downward, for half-an-hour together, and meditating profoundly." My

second sister remarked, that we should all be very glad to see him in

that position. "If that's the case," he replied, "it's very well that

all is ready, except as to one single strap." Being an excellent skater,

he had first imagined that, if held up until he had started, by taking a

bold sweep ahead, he might then keep himself in position through the

continued impetus of skating. But this he found not to answer, because,

as he observed, "the friction was too retarding from the plaster of

Paris, but the ease would be very different if the ceiling were coated

with ice." As it was _not_, he changed his plan. The true secret, he

said, was this: he would consider himself in the light of a humming-top:

he would make an apparatus (and he made it) for having himself launched,

like a top, upon the ceiling, and regularly spun. Then the vertiginous

motion of the human top would overpower the force of gravitation. He

should, of course, spin upon his own axis, and sleep upon his

axis--perhaps he might even dream upon it; and he laughed at "those

scoundrels, the flies," that never improved in their pretended art, nor

made any thing of it. The principle was now discovered; "and, of

course," he said, "if a man can keep it up for five minutes, what's to

hinder him from going on for five months?" "Certainly," my sister

replied, whose skepticism, in fact, had not settled upon the five

months, but altogether upon the five minutes. The apparatus for spinning

him, however, would not work: a fact which was evidently owing to the

stupidity of the gardener. On reconsidering the subject, he announced,

to the disappointment of some among us, that, although the physical

discovery was now complete, he saw a moral difficulty. It was not a

_humming_-top that was required, but a _peg_-top; and this, in order to

keep up the _vertigo_ at full stretch, without which to a certainty,

gravitation would prove too much for him, needed to be whipped

incessantly. Now, that was what a gentleman ought not to tolerate: to be

scourged unintermittingly on the legs by any grub of a gardener, unless

it were Father Adam himself, was a thing that he could not bring his

mind to endure. However, as some compensation, he proposed to improve

the art of flying, which was, as every body must acknowledge, in a

condition quite disgraceful to civilized society. As he had made many a

fire balloon, and had succeeded in some attempts at bringing down cats

by _parachutes_, it was not very difficult to fly downward from moderate

elevations. But, as he was reproached by my sister for never flying back

again, which, how ever, was a far different thing, and not even

attempted by the philosopher in "Rasselas" (for

Revocare gradum et _superas_ evadere ad auras,

Hic labor, hoc opus est),

he refused, under such poor encouragement, to try his winged

_parachutes_ any more, either "aloft or alow," till he had thoroughly

studied Bishop Wilkins[12] on the art of translating right reverend

gentlemen to the moon; and, in the mean time, he resumed his general

lectures on physics. From these, however, he was speedily driven, or one

might say shelled out, by a concerted assault of my sister's. He had

been in the habit of lowering the pitch of his lectures with

ostentatious condescension to the presumed level of our poor

understandings. This superciliousness annoyed my sister; and,

accordingly, with the help of two young female visitors, and my next

younger brother--in subsequent times a little middy on board many a ship

of H.M., and the most predestined rebel upon earth against all

assumptions, small or great, of superiority--she arranged a mutiny, that

had the unexpected effect of suddenly extinguishing the lectures

forever. He had happened to say, what was no unusual thing with him,

that he flattered himself he had made the point under discussion

tolerably clear; "clear," he added, bowing round the half-circle of us,

the audience, "to the meanest of capacities;" and then he repeated,

sonorously, "clear to the most excruciatingly mean of capacities." Upon

which a voice, a female one, but whose I had not time to distinguish,

retorted: "No, you haven't; it's as dark as sin;" and then, without a

moment's interval, a second voice exclaimed, "Dark as night;" then came

my young brother's insurrectionary yell, "Dark as midnight;" then

another female voice chimed in melodiously, "Dark as pitch;" and so the

peal continued to come round like a catch, the whole being so well

concerted, and the rolling fire so well sustained, that it was

impossible to make head against it; while the abruptness of the

interruption gave to it the protecting character of an oral "round

robin," it being impossible to challenge any one in particular as the

ring-leader. Burke's phrase of "the swinish multitude," applied to mobs,

was then in every body's mouth; and, accordingly, after my brother had

recovered from his first astonishment at this insurrection, he made us

several sweeping bows that looked very much like tentative rehearsals of

a sweeping _fusillade_, and then addressed us in a very brief speech, of

which we could distinguish the words _pearls_ and _swinish multitude_,

but uttered in a very low key, perhaps out of regard to the two young

strangers. We all laughed in chorus at this parting salute: my brother

himself condescended at last to join us; but there ended the course of

lectures on natural philosophy.

As it was impossible, however, that he should remain quiet, he announced

to us, that for the rest of his life he meant to dedicate himself to the

intense cultivation of the tragic drama. He got to work instantly; and

very soon he had composed the first act of his "Sultan Selim;" but, in

defiance of the metre, he soon changed the title to "Sultan Amurath,"

considering _that_ a much fiercer name, more bewhiskered and beturbaned.

It was no part of his intention that we should sit lolling on chairs

like ladies and gentlemen that had paid opera prices for private boxes.

He expected every one of us, he said, to pull an oar. We were to _act_

the tragedy. But, in fact, we had many oars to pull. There were so many

characters, that each of us took four, at the least, and the future

middy had six. He, this wicked little middy,[13] caused the greatest

affliction to Sultan Amurath, forcing him to order the amputation of his

head six several times (that is, once in every one of his six parts),

during the first act. In reality, the sultan, though a decent man, was

too bloody. What by the bowstring, and what by the scimetar, he had so

thinned the population with which he commenced business, that scarcely

any of the characters remained alive at the end of act the first. Sultan

Amurath found himself in an awkward situation. Large arrears of work

remained, and hardly any body to do it but the sultan himself. In

composing act the second, the author had to proceed like Deucalion and

Pyrrha, and to create an entirely new generation. Apparently, this young

generation, that ought to have been so good, took no warning by what had

happened to their ancestors in act the first; one must conclude that

they were quite as wicked, since the poor sultan had found himself

reduced to order them all for execution in the course of this act the

second. To the brazen age had succeeded an iron age; and the prospects

were becoming sadder and sadder, as the tragedy advanced. But here the

author began to hesitate. He felt it hard to resist the instinct of

carnage. And was it right to do so? Which of the felons, whom he had cut

off prematurely, could pretend that a court of appeal would have

reversed his sentence? But the consequences were dreadful. A new set of

characters in every act, brought with it the necessity of a new plot:

for people could not succeed to the arrears of old actions, or inherit

ancient motives, like a landed estate. Five crops, in fact, must be

taken off the ground in each separate tragedy, amounting, in short, to

five tragedies involved in one.

Such, according to the rapid sketch which at this moment my memory

furnishes, was the brother, who now first laid open to me the gates of

war. The occasion was this, he had resented, with a shower of stones, an

affront offered to us by an individual boy, belonging to a

cotton-factory; for more than two years afterward, this became the

_teterrima causa_ of a skirmish, or a battle, as often as we passed the

factory; and, unfortunately, _that_ was twice a day on every day except

Sunday. Our situation in respect to the enemy was as follows: Greenhay,

a country-house newly built by my father, at that time was a clear mile

from the outskirts of Manchester; but, in after years, Manchester,

throwing out the _tentacula_ of its vast expansions, absolutely

enveloped Greenhay; and, for any thing I know, the grounds and gardens

which then insulated the house, may have long disappeared. Being a

modest mansion, which (including hot walls, offices, and gardener's

house) had cost only six thousand pounds, I do not know how it should

have risen to the distinction of giving name to a region of that great

town; however, it _has_ done so;[14] and, at this time, therefore, after

changes so great, it will be difficult for the _habitue_ of that region

to understand how my brother and myself could have a solitary road to

traverse between Greenhay and Princess-street, then the termination, on

that side of Manchester. But so it was. Oxford-_street_, like its

namesake in London, was then called the Oxford-_road_; and, during the

currency of our acquaintance with it, arose the first three houses in

its neighborhood; of which the third was built for the Rev. S. H., one

of our guardians, for whom his friends had also built the church of St.

Peters's--not a bowshot from the house. At present, however, he resided

in Salford, nearly two miles from Greenhay; and to him we went over

daily, for the benefit of his classical instructions. One sole

cotton-factory had then risen along the line of Oxford-street; and this

was close to a bridge, which also was a new creation; for, previously,

all passengers to Manchester went round by Garrat. This factory became

the _officina gentium_ to us, from which swarmed forth those Goths and

Vandals, that continually threatened our steps; and this bridge became

the eternal arena of combat, we taking good care to be on the right side

of the bridge for retreat, _i.e._, on the town side, or the country

side, according as we were going out in the morning, or returning in the

afternoon. Stones were the implements of warfare; and by continual

practice we became expert in throwing them.

The origin of the feud it is scarcely requisite to rehearse, since the

particular accident which began it was not the true efficient cause of

our long warfare, but (as logicians express it) simply the occasion. The

cause lay in our aristocratic dress: as children of an opulent family,

where all provisions were liberal, and all appointments elegant, we were

uniformly well-dressed, and, in particular, we wore trowsers (at that

time unheard of, except in maritime places) and Hessian boots--a crime

that could not be forgiven in the Lancashire of that day, because it

expressed the double offense of being aristocratic, and being

outlandish. We were aristocrats, and it was in vain to deny it; could we

deny our boots? while our antagonists, if not absolutely _sans

culottes_, were slovenly and forlorn in their dress, often unwashed,

with hair totally neglected, and always covered with flakes of cotton.

Jacobins they were, not by any sympathy with the French Jacobinism, that

then desolated western Europe; for, on the contrary, they detested every

thing French, and answered with brotherly signals to the cry of "Church

and king," or, "King and constitution." But, for all that, as they were

perfectly independent, getting very high wages, and in a mode of

industry that was then taking vast strides ahead, they contrived to

reconcile this patriotic anti-Jacobinism with a personal Jacobinism of

that sort which is native to the heart of man, who is by natural impulse

(and not without a root of nobility) impatient of inequality, and

submits to it only through a sense of its necessity, or a long

experience of its benefits.

It was on an early day of our new _tyrocinium_, or, perhaps, on the very

first, that, as we passed the bridge, a boy happening to issue from the

factory,[15] sang out to us, derisively--"Holloa, bucks!" In this the

reader may fail to perceive any atrocious insult commensurate to the

long war which followed. But the reader is wrong. The word "_dandies_,"

which was what the villain meant, had not then been born, so that he

could not have called us by that name, unless through the spirit of

prophecy. _Buck_ was the nearest word at hand in his Manchester

vocabulary; he gave all he could, and let us dream the rest. But, in the

next moment, he discovered our boots, and he completed his crime by

saluting us as "Boots! boots!" My brother made a dead stop, surveyed him

with intense disdain, and bade him draw near, that he might "give his

flesh to the fowls of the air." The boy declined to accept this liberal

invitation, and conveyed his answer by a most contemptuous and plebeian

gesture, upon which my brother drove him in with a shower of stones.

During this inaugural flourish of hostilities, I, for my part, remained

inactive, and, therefore, apparently neutral. But this was the last time

that I did so: for the moment, I was taken by surprise. To be called a

_buck_ by one that had it in his choice to have called me a coward, a

thief, or a murderer, struck me as a most pardonable offense; and, as to

_boots_, that rested upon a flagrant fact that could not be denied, so

that at first I was green enough to regard the boy as very considerate

and indulgent. But my brother soon rectified my views or, if any doubts

remained, he impressed me, at least, with a sense of my paramount duty

to himself, which was threefold. First, it seems, I owed military

allegiance to _him_, as my commander-in-chief, whenever we "took the

field;" secondly, by the law of nations, I being a cadet of my house,

owed suit and service to him who was its head; and he assured me, that

twice in a year, on _my_ birthday, and on _his_, he had a right,

strictly speaking, to make me lie down, and to set his foot upon my

neck; lastly, by a law not so rigorous, but valid among gentlemen--viz.,

"by the _comity_ of nations," it seems I owed eternal deference to one

so much older than myself, so much wiser, stronger, braver, more

beautiful, and more swift of foot. Something like all this in tendency I

had already believed, though I had not so minutely investigated the

modes and grounds of my duty. As a Pariah, which, by natural temperament

I was, and by awful dedication to despondency, I felt resting upon me

always too deep and gloomy a sense of obscure duties, that I never

_should_ be able to fulfill--a burden which I could not carry, and which

yet I did not know how to throw off. Glad, therefore, I was to find the

whole tremendous weight of obligations--the law and the prophets--all

crowded into this one brief command--"Thou shalt obey thy brother as

God's vicar upon earth." For now, if, by any future stone leveled at him

who had called me "a buck," I should chance to draw blood--perhaps I

might not have committed so serious a trespass on any rights which he

could plead: but, if I _had_ (for, on this subject my convictions were

still cloudy), at any rate, the duty I might have violated in regard to

this general brother, in right of Adam, was canceled when it came into

collision with my paramount duty to this liege brother of my own

individual house.

From this day, therefore, I obeyed all my brother's military commands

with the utmost docility; and happy it made me that every sort of

distraction, or question, or opening for demur, was swallowed up in the

unity of this one papal principle, discovered by my brother, viz., that

all rights of casuistry were transferred from me to himself. _His_ was

the judgment--_his_ was the responsibility; and to me belonged only the

sublime duty of unconditional faith in _him_. That faith I realized. It

is true, that he taxed me at times, in his reports of particular fights,

with "horrible cowardice," and even with "a cowardice that seemed

inexplicable, except on the supposition of treachery." But this was only

a _facon de parler_ with him: the idea of secret perfidy, that was

constantly moving under-ground, gave an interest to the progress of the

war, which else tended to the monotonous. It was a dramatic artifice for

sustaining the interest, where the incidents might be too slightly

diversified. But that he did not believe his own charges was clear,

because he never repeated them in his "General History of the

Campaigns," which was a _resume_, or digest, of his daily reports.

We fought every day; and, generally speaking, _twice_ every day; and the

result was pretty uniform, viz., that my brother and I terminated the

battle by insisting upon our undoubted right to run away. _Magna

Charta_, I should fancy, secures that great right to every man; else

surely it is sadly defective. But out of this catastrophe to most of our

skirmishes, and to all our pitched battles except one, grew a standing

schism between my brother and me. My unlimited obedience had respect to

action, but not to opinion. Loyalty to my brother did not rest upon

hypocrisy: because I was faithful, it did not follow that I must be

false in relation to his capricious opinions. And these opinions

sometimes took the shape of acts. Twice, at the least, in every week,

but sometimes every night, my brother insisted on singing "Te Deum" for

supposed victories which he had won; and he insisted also on my bearing

a part in these "Te Deums." Now, as I knew of no such victories, but

resolutely asserted the truth--viz., that we ran away--a slight jar was

thus given to the else triumphal effect of these musical ovations. Once

having uttered my protest, however, willingly I gave my aid to the

chanting; for I loved unspeakably the grand and varied system of

chanting in the Romish and English churches. And, looking back at this

day to the ineffable benefits which I derived from the church of my

childhood, I account among the very greatest those which reached me

through the various chants connected with the "O, Jubilate," the

"Magnificat," the "Te Deum," the "Benedicite," &c. Through these chants

it was that the sorrow which laid waste my infancy, and the devotion

which nature had made a necessity of my being, were profoundly

interfused: the sorrow gave reality and depth to the devotion; the

devotion gave grandeur and idealization to the sorrow. Neither was my

love for chanting altogether without knowledge. A son of my reverend

guardian, much older than myself, who possessed a singular faculty of

producing a sort of organ accompaniment with one half of his mouth,

while he sang with the other half, had given me some instructions in the

art of chanting: and, as to my brother, he, the hundred-handed Briareus,

could do all things; of course, therefore, he could chant. He _could_

chant: he had a _right_ to chant: he had a right, perhaps, to chant "Te

Deum." For if he ran away every day of his life, what then? Sometimes

the enemy mustered in over-powering numbers--seventy, or even ninety

strong. Now, if there is a time for every thing in this world, surely

that was the time for running away. But in the mean time I must pause,

reserving what has to follow for another occasion.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: Elsewhere, viz., in the introductory part of the

"_Suspiria de Profundis_," published in "Blackwood," during the early

part of the year 1845. The work is yet unfinished as regards the

publication.]

[Footnote 11: "_Peculiar."_ viz., as _endowed_ foundations, to which

those resort who are rich and pay, and those also who, being poor, can

not pay, or can not pay so much. This most honorable distinction among

the services of England from ancient times to the interests of

education--a service absolutely unapproached by any one nation of

Christendom--is among the foremost cases of that remarkable class which

make England, while often the most aristocratic, yet also, for many

noble purposes, the most democratic of lands.]

[Footnote 12: "Bishop Wilkins:" Dr. W., Bishop of Chester, in the reign

of Charles II., notoriously wrote a book on the possibility of a voyage

to the moon, which, in a bishop, would be called a translation to the

moon; and, perhaps, it was _his_ name that suggested the "Adventures of

Peter Wilkins." It is unfair, however, to mention him in connection with

that only one of his works which announces an extravagant purpose. He

was really a scientific man, and already in the time of Cromwell (about

1657), had projected that Royal Society of London, which was afterward

realized and presided over by Isaac Barrow and Isaac Newton. He was also

a learned man, but still with a vein of romance about him, as may be

seen in his most elaborate work--"The Essay toward a Philosophic or

Universal Language."]

[Footnote 13: "Middy:" I call him so, simply to avoid confusion, and by

way of anticipation; else he was too young at this time to serve in the

navy. Afterward, he did so for many years, and saw every variety of

service in every class of ships belonging to our navy. At one time, when

yet a boy, he was captured by pirates, and compelled to sail with them;

and the end of his adventurous career was, that for many a year he has

been lying at the bottom of the Atlantic.]

[Footnote 14: "Green_heys_" with a slight variation in the spelling, is

the name given to that district, of which Greenhay formed the original

nucleus. Probably, it was the solitary situation of the house which

(failing any other grounds of denomination) raised it to this

privilege.]

[Footnote 15: "Factory:" such was the designation technically at that

time. At present, I believe that a building of that class would be

called a "mill."]

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

VISIT TO AN ENGLISH DAIRY.

Let the reader accompany us half-a-dozen miles out of town. We pass

through Camberwell, through Peckham, and Peckham Rye, and we presently

find ourselves in a district that looks uncommonly like "the country,"

considering how short a time it is since we left the "old smoke" behind

us. We alight and walk onward, and certainly, if the sight of green

fields, and cows, and hedges, and farm-yards, denote the country, we are

undoubtedly in some region of the kind.

We pass down a winding road, between high hedges of bush and trees, then

climb over a gate into a field; cross it, and then over another gate

into a field, from which we commence a gradual ascent, field after

field, till finally the green slope leads us to a considerable height.

We are on the top of Friern Hill.

It is a bright sunny morning in September, and we behold to perfection

the most complete panorama that can be found in the suburban vicinities

of London. Step down with us to yonder hedge, a little below the spot

where we have been standing. We approach the hedge--we get over a gate,

and we suddenly find ourselves on the upper part of an enormous green

sloping pasturage, covered all over with cows. The red cow, the white

cow, the brown cow, the brindled cow, the colley cow, the dappled cow,

the streaked cow, the spotted cow, the liver-and-white cow, the

strawberry cow, the mulberry cow, the chestnut cow, the gray speckled

cow, the clouded cow, the black cow,--the short-horned cow, the

long-horned cow, the up-curling horn, the down-curling horn, the

straight-horned cow, and the cow with the crumpled horn--all are

here--between two and three hundred--spread all over the broad, downward

sloping pasture, feeding, ruminating, standing, lying, gazing with mild

earnestness, reclining in characteristic thoughtfulness, sleeping, or

wandering hither and thither. A soft gleam of golden sunshine spreads

over the pasture, and falls upon many of the cows with a lovely,

picturesque effect.

And what cows they are, as we approach and pass among them! Studies for

a Morland, a Gainsborough, a Constable. We had never before thought

there were any such cows out of their pictures. That they were highly

useful, amiable, estimable creatures, who continually, at the best,

appeared to be mumbling grass in a recumbent position, and composing a

sonnet, we never doubted; but that they were ever likely to be admired

for their beauty, especially when beheld, as many as these were, from a

disadvantageous point of view, as to their position, we never for a

moment suspected. Such, however, is the case. We have lived to see

beauty in the form of a cow--a natural, modern, milch cow, and no

descendant from any Ovidian metamorphosis.

We will now descend this broad and populous slope, and pay a visit to

Friern Manor Dairy Farm, to which all these acres--some two hundred and

fifty--belong, together with all these "horned beauties." We find them

all very docile, and undisturbed by our presence, though their looks

evidently denote that they recognize a stranger. But those who are

reclining do not rise, and none of them decline to be caressed by the

hand, or seem indifferent to the compliments addressed to them. In

passing through the cows we were specially presented to the cow queen,

or "master cow," as she is called. This lady has been recognized during

twelve years as the sovereign ruler over all the rest. No one, however

large, disputes her supremacy. She is a short-horned, short-legged cow,

looking at first sight rather small, but on closer examination you will

find that she is sturdily and solidly built, though graceful withal.

"She is very sweet-tempered," observed the head keeper, "but when a

new-comer doubts about who is the master, her eye becomes dreadful.

Don't signify how big the other cow is--she must give in to the master

cow. It's not her size, nor strength, bless you, it's her spirit. As

soon as the question is once settled, she's as mild as a lamb again.

Gives us eighteen quarts of milk a day."

We were surprised to hear of so great a quantity, but this was something

abated by a consideration of the rich, varied, and abundant supply of

food afforded to these cows, besides the air, attendance, and other

favorable circumstances. For their food they have mangold-wurtzel, both

the long red and the orange globe sorts, parsnips, turnips, and

kohl-rabi (Jewish cabbage), a curious kind of green turnip, with cabbage

leaves sprouting out of the top all round, like the feathery arms of the

Prince of Wales. Of this last mentioned vegetable the cows often eat

greedily; and sometimes endeavoring to bolt too large a piece, it sticks

in their throats and threatens strangulation. On these occasions, one of

the watchful keepers rushes to the rescue with a thing called a _pro

bang_ (in fact a cow's throat ramrod), with which he rams down the

obstructive morsel. But, besides these articles of food, there is the

unlimited eating of grass in the pastures, so that the yield of a large

quantity of milk seems only a matter of course, though we were not

prepared to hear of its averaging from twelve to eighteen and twenty

quarts of milk a day, from each of these two or three hundred cows.

Four-and-twenty quarts a day is not an unusual occurrence from some of

the cows; and one of them, we were assured by several of the keepers,

once yielded the enormous quantity of twenty-eight quarts a day during

six or seven weeks. The poor cow, however, suffered for this

munificence, for she was taken very ill with a fever, and her life was

given over by the doctor. Mr. Wright, the proprietor, told us that he

sat up two nights with her himself, he had such a respect for the cow;

and in the morning of the second night after she was given over, when

the butcher came for her, he couldn't find it in his heart to let him

have her. "No, butcher," said he, "she's been a good friend to me, and

I'll let her die a quiet, natural death." She hung her head, and her

horns felt very cold, and so she lay for some time longer; but he nursed

her, and was rewarded, for she recovered; and there she stands--the

strawberry Durham short-horn--and yields him again from sixteen to

eighteen quarts of milk a day.

Reverting to the "master cow," we inquired whether her supremacy in the

case of newcomers was established "mesmerically" by a glance--or how?

The eye, we were assured, had a great deal to do with it. The stranger

cow _read_ it, and trembled. But, sometimes, there was a contest; and a

cow-fight, with such fresh strong creatures as these--all used to their

full liberty, and able to run or leap well, was a serious affair. If no

keeper was at hand to separate them, and the fight got serious, so that

one of them fell wounded, it was a chance but the whole herd would

surround the fallen cow, and kill her. This was not out of wickedness,

but something in the whole affair that put them beside themselves, and

they couldn't bear the horrid sight, and so tried to get rid of their

feelings, as well as the unfortunate object, by this wild violence. The

effect was the same if the herd did not witness the fight, but came

suddenly to the discovery of blood that had been spilled. They would

stare at it, and glare at it, and snuff down at it, and sniff up at it,

and prowl round it--and get more and more excited, till, at last, the

whole herd would begin to rush about the field bellowing and mad, and

make nothing at last of leaping clean over hedges, fences, and

five-barred gates. But, strange to say--if the blood they found had not

been spilt by violence, but only from some cause which the "horned

beauties" understood, such as a sister or aunt having been bled by the

doctor--then no effect of the sort occurred. They took no notice of it.

We found that besides beauty, cows possessed some imagination, and were,

moreover, very susceptible. The above excitement and mad panic sometimes

occurs as the effect of other causes.

Once some boys brought a great kite into the field, with a pantomime

face painted upon it; and directly this began to rise over the field,

and the cows looked up at it, and saw the great glass eyes of the face

looking down at them--then, oh! oh! what a bellowing! and away they

rushed over each other, quite frantic. On another occasion, some

experimental gentlemen of science, brought a fire-balloon near the

pasturage one night after dark. It rose. Up started all the cows in a

panic, and round and round they rushed, till, finally, the whole herd

made a charge at one of the high fences--tore down and overleaped every

thing--burst into the lanes--and made their way into the high-road, and

seemed to intend to leave their owners for some state of existence where

fire-balloons and horrid men of science were alike unknown.

Instead of proceeding directly down the sloping fields toward the Dairy

Farm, we made a detour of about half a mile, and passed through a field

well inclosed, in which were about a dozen cows, attended by one man,

who sat beneath a tree. This was the Quarantine ground. All

newly-purchased cows, however healthy they may appear, are first placed

in this field during four or five weeks, and the man who milks or

attends upon them is not permitted to touch, nor, indeed, to come near,

any of the cows in the great pasture. Such is the susceptibility of a

cow to the least contamination, that if one who had any slight disease

were admitted among the herd, in a very short time the whole of them

would be affected. When the proprietor has been to purchase fresh stock,

and been much among strange cows, especially at Smithfield, he

invariably changes all his clothes, and, generally takes a bath, before

he ventures among his own herd.

From what has already been seen, the reader will not be astonished on

his arrival with us at the Dairy Farm, to find every arrangement in

accordance with the fine condition of the cows, and the enviable (to all

other cows) circumstances in which they live. The cow-sheds are divided

into fifty stalls, each; and the appearance presented reminded one of

the neatness and order of cavalry stables. Each stall is marked with a

number; a corresponding number is marked on one horn of the cow to whom

it belongs; and, in winter time, or any inclement season (for they all

sleep out in fine weather) each cow deliberately finds out, and walks

into her own stall. No. 173 once got into the stall of No. 15; but, in a

few minutes, No. 15 arrived, and "showed her the difference." In winter,

when the cows are kept very much in-doors, they are all regularly

groomed with currycombs. By the side of one of these sheds there is a

cottage where the keepers live--milkers and attendants--each with little

iron bedsteads, all in orderly soldier fashion, the foreman's wife

acting as the housekeeper.

These men lead a comfortable life, but they work hard. The first

"milking" begins at eleven o'clock at night; and the second, at half

past one in the morning. It takes a long time, for each cow insists upon

being milked in her own pail--_i.e._, a pail to herself, containing no

milk of any other cow--or, if she sees it, she is very likely to kick it

over. She will not allow of any mixture. In this there would seem a

strange instinct, accordant with her extreme susceptibility to

contamination.

The milk is all passed through several strainers, and then placed in

great tin cans, barred across the top, and sealed. They are deposited in

a van, which starts from the Farm about three in the morning, and

arrives at the dairy, in Farringdon-street, between three and four. The

seals are then carefully examined, and taken off by a clerk. In come the

carriers, commonly called "milkmen," all wearing the badge of Friern

Farm Dairy; their tin pails are filled, fastened at top, and sealed as

before, and away they go on their early rounds, to be in time for the

early-breakfast people. The late-breakfasts are provided by a second set

of men.

Such are the facts we have ascertained with regard to one of the largest

of the great dairy farms near London.

SAILING IN THE AIR.--HISTORY OF AERONAUTICS.

Aeronautics, or the art of sailing in the air, is of very modern date;

if, indeed, we are warranted to say that the art has yet been acquired,

for we have only got a machine or apparatus capable of sustaining some

hundreds of pounds in the air, the means of guiding and propelling it

having yet to be discovered. The attention and admiration of men would

doubtless be attracted from the beginning to the ease, grace, and

velocity with which the feathered race soar aloft, and wing their way in

the upper regions; but there is no reason to believe that any of the

nations of antiquity--not even Greece and Rome, with all their progress

in science and art--ever made the smallest advances toward a discovery

of a method of flying, or of aerial navigation.

Archytas of Tarentum, a celebrated Pythagorean philosopher, who

flourished about four hundred years before the Christian era, is indeed

said to have constructed a wooden flying pigeon; but, from the imperfect

accounts transmitted to us of its machinery, there is every probability

that its flight was one of the many deceptions of the magic art which

the ancients so well understood and so expertly practiced. The attention

of man was much earlier, as well as more earnestly and successfully

turned to the art of navigating lakes, rivers, and seas. To gratify his

curiosity, or to better his condition, he was prompted to emigrate, or

to pass from one place to another, and thus he would tax his ingenuity

to discover the means by which he might be enabled to accomplish his

journey. To make the atmosphere the medium of transit, would, in the

early stages of society, hardly strike the mind at all, or, if it did,

it would only strike it as a physical impossibility. Nature has not

supplied man with wings, as it has done the fowls of heaven, and to find

a locomotive means of transportation through the air was in the infancy

of all science absolutely hopeless. But advantage would be early taken

of the buoyant property of water, particularly of the sea, which must

have been known to mankind from the creation. The canoe and the raft

would be first constructed, and, in the course of time, experience would

teach men to build vessels of a larger size, to fix the rudder to the

stern, to erect the mast, and unfurl the sails. Thus would the art of

navigating the ocean advance from step to step, while the art navigating

the air remained a mystery, practiced, it may be, by flying demons, and

flying witches, and the like ethereal beings of a dark mythology, but an

achievement to which ordinary mortals could make no pretensions.

Our object in this paper is to give a concise history of aeronautics,

commencing at that period when something like an approach was made to

the principles upon which the art could be reduced to practice.

The person who is entitled to the honor of the discovery of the main

principle of aeronautics--atmospheric buoyancy--is Roger Bacon, an

English monk of the thirteenth century. This eminent man, whose uncommon

genius was, in that superstitious and ignorant age, ascribed to his

intercourse with the devil, was aware that the air is a material of some

consistency, capable, like the ocean, of bearing vessels on its surface;

and, in one of his works, he particularly describes the construction of

a machine by which he believed it was possible to navigate the air. It

is a large, thin, hollow globe of copper, or other suitable metal, which

he proposes to fill with "ethereal air or liquid fire," and then to

launch from some elevated point into the atmosphere, when he supposes it

will float on its surface, like a vessel on the water. He afterward

says, "There may be made some flying instrument, so that a man, sitting

in the middle of the instrument, and turning some mechanism, may put in

motion some artificial wings, which may beat the air like a flying

bird." But, though Bacon knew the buoyancy of the atmosphere, he was

very imperfectly acquainted with its properties. His idea seems to have

been, that the boundaries of the atmosphere are at no great height, and

that the aerial vessel, in order to its being borne up, must be placed

on the surface of the air, just as a ship, in order to its being

supported, must be placed on the surface of the water. And, whatever may

be meant by his "ethereal air and liquid fire," there is no evidence

that he, or any one living in that age, had any knowledge of the various

and distinct gases. Bacon merely reasoned and theorized on the subject;

he never attempted to realize these flying projects by actual

experiment.

It was not till the year 1782 that the art of aerial navigation was

discovered, and the merit of the discovery is due to two brothers,

wealthy paper manufacturers, at Annonay, not far from Lyons--Stephen and

Joseph Montgolfier. This discovery they did not arrive at from any

scientific reasoning founded on the elasticity and weight of the

atmosphere, for, though attached to the study of mathematics and

chemistry, they do not appear to have particularly turned their

attention to aerostatics; but, from observing how clouds and smoke rise

and float in the atmosphere, it occurred to Stephen, the younger of the

two, that a light paper bag, filled with cloud or smoke, would, from the

natural tendency of these substances to ascend, be carried by their

force in an upward direction.

About the middle of November, 1782, they made their first experiment in

their own chamber at Avignon, with a light paper bag of an oblong shape,

which they inflated, by applying burning paper to an orifice in the

lower part of the bag, and in a few minutes they had the satisfaction of

seeing it ascend to the ceiling of the chamber. Constructing a paper bag

of larger dimensions, they made a similar experiment in the open air,

with equal success, and, the bag being of a spherical shape, they gave

it the name of balloon, from its resemblance to a large, round,

short-necked, chemical vessel so called. Finding, from repeated trials,

that the larger the balloon the more successful was the experiment, they

proceeded to construct one of linen lined with paper, 35 feet in

diameter; and, on the 25th of April, 1783, after being filled with

rarified air, it rapidly rose to the height of 1000 feet, and fell to

the ground at the distance of three-quarters of a mile from the spot

where it ascended. Encouraged by this success, the Montgolfiers came to

the resolution of making a public experiment with this last constructed

balloon at Annonay, on the 5th of June following. It was inflated with

heated air, by the lower orifice being placed over a pit or well, in

which were burned chopped straw and wool. Two men were sufficient to

fill it; but, when fully inflated, eight men were required to prevent it

from ascending. On being released from its fastenings, it rose

majestically to the height of six or seven thousand feet, and made its

descent at the distance of a mile and a half from the point of its

departure.

This novel experiment, which forms an important epoch in the history of

the art of aeronautics, attracted universal attention, and Stephen

Montgolfier, having soon after arrived in Paris, was requested by the

Royal Academy of Sciences, whose sittings, immediately on his arrival,

he had been invited to attend, to repeat the experiment at their

expense. He gladly availed himself of their proposal, and speedily got

prepared a large balloon of an elliptical shape, 72 feet high, and 41

feet in diameter. It was finished in a style of great magnificence, and

elegantly decorated on the outer surface with beautiful and appropriate

designs. When completed, it weighed 1000 pounds. As a preliminary

experiment, it raised eight men from the ground, and, on the 12th of

September, 1783, it ascended, in the presence of the Royal Academy, with

a load of from 400 to 500 pounds; but, in consequence of an injury it

received in rising from a violent gust of wind, it did not present the

same interesting spectacle as the public experiment previously made,

and, upon its descent, it was found to be so seriously damaged, as to be

unfit for future experiments. A new one of nearly the same dimensions

was, therefore, ordered to be made, to which was added a basket of

wicker-work, for the accommodation of a sheep, a cock, and a duck, which

were intended as passengers. It was inflated, in the presence of the

king and royal family, at Versailles, and, when loosened from its

moorings, it rose, with the three animals we have named--the first

living creatures who ever ascended in an aerial machine--to the height

of about 1500 feet, an accident similar to what befell the other

preventing it from attaining a higher elevation. It, however, descended

safely with the animals, at the distance of 10,000 feet from the place

of its ascent.

Hazardous as it might be, it was now fully demonstrated, that it was

quite practicable for man to ascend in the atmosphere, and individuals

were soon found sufficiently daring to make the experiment. Another

balloon was constructed, 74 feet high, and 48 feet in diameter, and M.

Pilatre de Rozier, superintendent of the royal museum, and the Marquis

de Arlandes, volunteered to make an aerial voyage. At the bottom, it had

an opening of about 15 feet in diameter, around which was a gallery of

wicker-work, three feet broad, with a balustrade all around the outer

edge, of the same material, three feet high; and, to enable the

aeronauts to increase or diminish at pleasure the rarified state of the

air within, it was provided with an iron brazier, intended for a fire,

which could easily be regulated as necessity required. On the 21st of

November, in the same year, the adventurers having taken their places on

opposite sides of the gallery, the balloon rose majestically in the

sight of an immense multitude of spectators, who witnessed its upward

course with mingled sentiments of fear and admiration. The whole

machine, with fuel and passengers, weighed 1600 pounds. It rose to the

height of at least 3000 feet, and remained in the air from 20 to 25

minutes, visible all the time to the inhabitants of Paris and its

environs. At several times it was in imminent danger of taking fire, and

the marquis, in terror for his life, would have made a precipitate

descent, which, in all probability, would have ended fatally, but M.

Pilatre de Rozier, who displayed great coolness and intrepidity,

deliberately extinguished the fire with a sponge of water he had

provided for the emergency, by which they were enabled to remain in the

atmosphere some time longer. They raised and lowered themselves

frequently during their excursion, by regulating the fire in the

brazier, and finally landed in safety five miles distant from the place

where they started, after having sailed over a great portion of Paris.

This is the first authentic instance in which man succeeded in putting

into practical operation the art of traveling in the air, which had

hitherto baffled his ingenuity, though turned to the subject for two

thousand years. The news of the novel and adventurous feat rapidly

spread over the whole civilized world, and aerial ascents in balloons

constructed on the same principle were made in other cities of France,

in Italy, and in the United States of America.

The two Montgolfiers soon obtained a high and wide-spread reputation;

and the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of Paris voted a gold medal

to Stephen, the younger brother. It was to heated or rarified air that

these balloons owed their ascending power; but the Montgolfiers, in the

paper in which they communicated their discovery to the Royal Academy,

erroneously attributed the ascending power, not to the rarified air in

the balloon, but to a peculiar gas they supposed to be evolved by the

combustion of chopped straw and wool mixed together, to which the name

of Montgolfiers' gas was given, it being believed for a time, even by

the members of the Academy, that a new kind of gas, different from

hydrogen, and lighter than common air, had been discovered.

Hydrogen gas, or, as it was also called, inflammable air, whose specific

gravity was first discovered in 1766, by Henry Cavendish, though the gas

itself had been known long before to coal-miners, from its fatal

effects, was, from its being the lightest gas known, early taken

advantage of for inflating balloons. It indeed occurred to the ingenious

Dr. Black of Edinburgh, as soon as he read Mr. Cavendish's paper, which

appeared in the Philosophical Transactions for 1766, that if a

sufficiently thin and light bladder were filled with this gas, the

bladder would necessarily ascend in the atmosphere, as it would form a

mass lighter than the same bulk of atmospheric air. Not long after, it

suggested itself to Tiberius Cavallo, an Italian philosopher, when he

first began to study the subject of air, that it was possible to

construct a vessel which, when filled with hydrogen gas, would ascend in

the atmosphere. In 1782, he actually attempted to perform the

experiment, though the only success he had was to let soap balls, filled

with that gas, ascend by themselves rapidly in the air, which, says he,

were perhaps the first sort of inflammable air balloons ever made; and

he read an account of his experiments to the Royal Society at their

public meeting on June 20, 1782. But, during the later part of the year

1783, two gentlemen in the city of Philadelphia actually tested the

value of hydrogen gas as a means of inflating balloons. The French

Academy, guided by the suggestion of Dr. Black, and the experiments of

Cavallo, also concluded to make the experiment of raising a balloon

inflated with the same gas. To defray the expense of the undertaking, a

subscription was opened, and so great was the enthusiasm excited by the

design among people of all ranks and classes, that the requisite sum was

speedily subscribed for. A silken bag from lute-string silk, about

thirteen feet in diameter, and of a globular shape, was constructed by

the Messrs. Roberts, under the superintendence of M. Charles, professor

of experimental philosophy; and, to render the bag impervious to the

gas--a very essential object in balloon manufacture--it was covered with

a varnish composed of gum elastic dissolved in spirits of turpentine. It

had but one aperture, like the neck of a bottle, into which was fastened

the stop-cock for the convenience of introducing and stopping-off the

gas. It was constructed and inflated near the Place of Victories, in

August, 1783, and after being inflated, which was then no easy task,

occupying several days, it was removed on the morning of the 27th of

that month, before daylight, to the Camp of Mars (two miles distant),

the place appointed for its ascent. About five o'clock in the afternoon,

it was released from its fastenings, and rose, in the presence of some

hundred thousands of applauding spectators, to a height upward of 3000

feet; and, after remaining in the atmosphere for three-quarters of an

hour, descended in a field near Gonesse, a village about fifteen miles

distant from the Camp of Mars. This marks another important era in the

history of aeronautics. The hydrogen-gas balloon, in the first place, is

attended with less risk than the Montgolfiers' balloon, which requires

the dangerous presence of a fire to preserve the air in a sufficiently

rarified state; and, in the second place, it has a much greater

ascending power than rarified air balloons of the same size, in

consequence of its superior lightness.

M. Charles and the two Messrs. Roberts now resolved to undertake an

aerial excursion in a balloon of this description. With this view, the

Messrs. Roberts formed one of silk, varnished with gum elastic, of a

spherical shape, 27 feet in diameter, with a car suspended from it by

several cords, which were fastened to a net drawn over the upper part of

the balloon. To prevent the danger which might arise from the expansion

of the gas under a diminished pressure of the atmosphere in the higher

regions, the balloon was furnished with a valve, to permit the free

discharge of gas, as occasion might require. The hydrogen gas with which

it was filled was 5-1/4 lighter than common air, and the filling lasted

several days. On December 17, 1783, M. Charles and one of the Roberts

made their ascent from the garden of the Tuilleries, and rose to the

height of 6000 feet. After a voyage of an hour and three-quarters, they

descended at Nesle, a distance of 27 miles from the place of their

departure. On their descent, M. Roberts having left the car, which

lightened the vessel about 130 pounds, M. Charles reascended, and in

twenty minutes mounted with great rapidity to the height of 9000 feet.

When he left the earth, the thermometer stood at 47 degrees, but, in the

space of ten minutes, it fell 21 degrees. On making this great and

sudden transition into an atmosphere so intensely cold, he felt as if

his blood had been freezing, and experienced a severe pain in the right

ear and jaw. He passed through different currents of air, and, in the

higher regions, the expansion of the gas was so great, that the balloon

must have burst, had he not speedily opened the valve, and allowed part

of the gas to escape. After having risen to the height of 10,500 feet,

he descended, about three miles from the place where M. Roberts stepped

out of the car.

Jean Pierre Blanchard, a Frenchman, who had long exerted his ingenuity,

but with little success, in attempting to perfect a mechanical

contrivance by which he might be enabled to fly, was the next to prepare

a balloon upon the hydrogen-gas principle. It was 27 feet in diameter.

He ascended from Paris, March 2d, 1784, accompanied by a Benedictine

friar. After rising to the height of 15 feet, the balloon was

precipitated to the ground with a violent shock, which so frightened the

friar, that he would not again leave _terra firma_. M. Blanchard

re-ascended alone, and, in his ascent, he passed through various

currents of air, as aeronauts generally do. He rose to the height of

9600 feet, where he suffered from extreme cold, and was oppressed with

drowsiness. As a means of directing his course, he had attached to the

car an apparatus consisting of a rudder and two wings, but found that

they had little or no controlling power over the balloon. He continued

his voyage for an hour and a quarter, when he descended in safety.

During the course of the year subsequent to the Montgolfiers' discovery,

several experiments on the ascending power of balloons had been made in

England; but the first person who there ventured on an aerial voyage was

Vincent Lunardi, an Italian, who ascended from London, September 21,

1784. In the succeeding year, he gratified the inhabitants of Glasgow

and Edinburgh with the spectacle of an aerial excursion, which they had

never witnessed before.

The first aerial voyage across the sea was made by M. Blanchard, in

company with Dr. Jeffries, an American physician, who was then residing

in England. On the 7th January, 1785, a beautiful frosty winter day,

they ascended about one o'clock from the cliff of Dover, with the design

of crossing the Channel between England and France, a distance of about

twenty-three miles, and, at great personal risk, accomplished their

purpose in two hours and a half. The balloon at first rose slowly and

majestically in the air, but it soon began to descend, and, before they

had crossed the Channel, they were obliged to reduce the weight, by

throwing out all their ballast, several books, their apparatus, cords,

grapples, bottles, and were even proceeding to cast their clothes into

the sea, when the balloon, which had then nearly reached the French

coast, began to ascend, and rose to a considerable height, relieving

them from the necessity of dispensing with much of their apparel. They

landed in safety at the edge of the forest of Guiennes, not far beyond

Calais, and were treated by the magistrates of that town with the utmost

kindness and hospitality. M. Blanchard had the honor of being presented

with 12,000 livres by the King of France. Emboldened by this daring

feat, Pilatre de Rozier, already mentioned, and M. Romain, prepared to

pay back the compliment of M. Blanchard and Dr. Jeffries, by crossing

the Channel from France to England. To avoid the difficulty of keeping

up the balloon, which had perplexed and endangered Blanchard and his

companion during nearly their whole course, Rozier had recourse to the

expedient of placing underneath the hydrogen balloon a fire balloon of

smaller dimensions, which was intended to regulate the rising and

falling of the whole machine. This promised to unite the advantages of

both kinds of balloons, but it unhappily terminated in the melancholy

death of the two adventurers. They ascended from Boulogne, on the 15th

of June, 1785, but scarcely had a quarter of an hour elapsed from the

time of their ascent, when, at the height of 3000 feet, the whole

machine was discovered to be in flames. Its scattered fragments, with

the mangled bodies of the unfortunate aeronauts, who were probably

killed by the explosion of the hydrogen gas, were found near the

sea-shore, about four miles from Boulogne. This was the first fatal

accident which took place in balloon navigation, though several hundred

ascensions had by this time been made.

In the early practice of aerial voyages, the chief danger apprehended

was from accidental and rapid descents. To countervail this danger, and

enable the adventurer, in cases of alarm, to desert his balloon, and

descend to the ground uninjured, Blanchard invented the parachute, or

_guard for falling_, as the word signifies in French, an apparatus very

much resembling an umbrella, but of much larger dimensions. The design

is to break the fall; and, to effect this, it is necessary that the

parachute present a surface sufficiently large to experience from the

air such resistance as will cause it to descend with a velocity not

exceeding that with which a person can fall to the ground unhurt. During

an aerial excursion which Blanchard took from Lisle in August, 1785,

when he traversed a distance of not less than 300 miles, he dropped a

parachute with a basket fastened to it, containing a dog, from a great

elevation, and it fell gently through the air, letting down the animal

to the ground in safety. The practice and management of the parachute

were subsequently carried much farther by other aeronauts, and

particularly by M. Garnerin, an ingenious and spirited Frenchman, who,

during the course of his numerous ascents, repeatedly descended from the

region of the clouds with that very slender machine. On one occasion,

however, he suffered considerable injury in his descent. The stays of

the parachute having unfortunately given way, its proper balance was

disturbed, and, on reaching the ground, it struck against it with such

violence, as to throw him on his face, by which he received some severe

cuts. To let down a man of ordinary size from any height, a parachute of

a hemispherical form, twenty-five feet in diameter, is required. But

although the construction of a parachute is very simple, and the

resistance it will meet with from the air in its descent, its size and

load being given, can be exactly determined on scientific principles,

few have ventured to try it; which may be owing partly to ignorance, or

inattention to the scientific principles by which it is governed, and

partly to a growing opinion among aeronauts, that it is unnecessary, the

balloon itself, in case of its bursting, forming a parachute; as Mr.

Wise, the celebrated American aeronaut, experienced on two different

occasions, as he narrates in his interesting work on Aeronautics, lately

published at Philadelphia--a work to which we have been mainly indebted

in drawing up this article.

In the early part of the French revolutionary war, the _savants_ of

France, ambitious of bringing to the aid of the Republic all the

resources of science, strongly recommended the introduction of balloons,

as an effectual means of reconnoitring the armies of their enemies. From

the advantages it seemed to promise, the recommendation was instantly

acted on by the government, which established an aeronautic school at

Meudon, near Paris. The management of the institution, which was

conducted with systematic precision, and concealed with the utmost care

from the allied powers, was committed to the most eminent philosophers

of Paris. Gyton Morveau, a celebrated French chemist, and M. Contel,

superintended the operations. Fifty military students were admitted for

training. A practicing balloon of thirty-two feet in diameter was

constructed, of the most durable materials, and inflated with hydrogen

gas. It was kept constantly full, so as to be at all times ready for

exercise; and, to make it stationary at any given altitude, it was

attached to windlass machinery. Balloons were speedily prepared by M.

Contel for the different branches of the French army; the _Entreprenant_

for the army of the north, the _Celeste_ for that of the Sambre and

Meuse, the _Hercule_ for that of Rhine and Moselle, and the _Intrepide_

for the memorable army of Egypt. The victory which the French achieved

over the Austrians, on the plains of Fleurus, in June, 1794, is ascribed

to the observations made by two of their aeronauts. Immediately before

the battle, M. Contel and an adjutant-general ascended twice in the

war-balloon _Entreprenant_, to reconnoitre the Austrian army, and

though, during their second aerial _reconnaissance_ they were discovered

by the enemy, who sent up after them a brisk cannonade, they quickly

rose above the reach of danger, and, on descending, communicated such

information to their general, as enabled him to gain a speedy and

decisive victory over the Austrians.

The balloon was also at an early period taken advantage of for making

scientific experiments in the elevated regions of the atmosphere. With

the view of ascertaining the force of magnetic attraction, and of

examining the electrical properties and constitution of the atmosphere

at great elevations, two young, enthusiastic French philosophers, MM.

Biot and Gay Lussac, proposed to make an ascent. These gentlemen, who

had studied together at the Polytechnic School of Paris, and the latter

of whom had especially devoted himself to the study of chemistry, and

its application to the arts, while both were deeply versed in

mathematical science, were well qualified for the undertaking; and they

were warmly patronized by the government, which immediately placed at

their command the _Intrepide_, that had returned with the French army

from Egypt to Paris, after the capitulation of Cairo. M. Contel, who had

constructed the balloon, was ordered to refit it, under their direction,

at the public expense. Having furnished themselves with the

philosophical instruments necessary for their experiments--with

barometers, thermometers, hygrometers, compasses, dipping needles,

metallic wires, an electrophorus, a voltaic pile, and with some frogs,

insects, and birds--they ascended, at ten o'clock, on the morning of

August 23, 1804, from the garden of the Repository of Models. On rising

6500 English feet, they commenced their observations. The magnetic

needle was attracted as usual by iron, but it was impossible for them at

this time to determine with accuracy its rate of oscillation, owing to a

slow rotary motion with which the balloon was affected. The voltaic pile

exhibited all its ordinary effects, giving its peculiar copperas taste,

exciting the nervous system, and causing the decomposition of water. At

the elevation of 8600 feet, the animals which they carried with them

appeared to suffer from the rarity of the air. The philosophers had

their pulses much accelerated, but they experienced no difficulty in

breathing, nor any inconvenience whatever. Their highest elevation was

13,000 feet; and the result of their experiments at this distance from

the earth was, that the force of magnetic attraction had not sensibly

diminished, and that there is an increase of electricity in the higher

regions of the atmosphere.

In compliance with the request of several philosophers of Paris, who

were anxious that the same observations should be repeated at the

greatest height that could be reached, Gay Lussac alone made a second

ascent, on the morning of September 15, 1804, from the garden of the

Repository of Models, and rose, by a gradual ascent, to a great

elevation. He continued to take observations at short intervals of the

state of the barometer, the thermometer, and the hygrometer, of which he

has given a tabular view, but he unfortunately neglected to mark the

time at which they were made--a point of material importance, for the

results would of course be modified by the progress of the day; and it

would have added to their value, had these observations been compared

with similar ones made at the same time at the observatory. During the

ascent of the balloon, the hygrometer was variable, but obviously marked

an increase of dryness; the thermometer indicated a decrease in the heat

of the atmosphere, but the decrease is not uniform, the ratio being

higher in the elevated regions than in the lower, which are heated from

the earth; and it was found, by not fewer than fifteen trials at

different altitudes, that the oscillations of a finely-suspended needle

varied very little from its oscillations on the surface of the earth. At

the height of 21,460 feet. Lussac admitted the air into one of his

exhausted flasks, and at the height of 21,790 feet, he filled the other.

He continued to rise, till he was 22,912 feet above Paris, or 23,040

feet--that is upward of four miles and a quarter--above the level of the

sea, the utmost limit of his ascent, an elevation not much below the

summit of Nevado de Sorato, the highest mountain of America, and the

loftiest peak of the Himalaya in Asia, the highest mountains in the

world, and far above that to which any mortal had ever soared before.

One can not but admire the intrepid coolness with which Lussac performed

his experiments at this enormous elevation, conducting his operations

with the same composure and precision as if he had been seated in his

own parlor in Paris. Though warmly clad, he now began to suffer from the

excessive cold, his pulse was quickened, he was oppressed by difficulty

in breathing, and his throat became parched, from inhaling the dry,

attenuated air--for the air was now more than twice as thin as ordinary,

the barometer having sunk to 12.95 inches--so that he could hardly

swallow a morsel of bread. He alighted safely, at a quarter before four

o'clock afternoon, near the hamlet of St. Gourgan, about sixteen miles

from Rouen. On reaching Paris, he hastened to the laboratory of the

Polytechnic School, to analyze the air he had brought down in his flasks

from the higher regions; and, by a very delicate analysis, it was found

to contain exactly the same proportions as the air on the surface of the

earth, every 1000 parts holding 215 of oxygen, confirming the identity

of the atmosphere in all situations. The ascents of these two

philosophers are memorable, as the first which were made for purely

scientific purposes.

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

_(Continued from Vol. I. Page 797.)_

CHAPTER XVIII.

"THE BAY OF RATHFRAN."

Our voyage was very uneventful, but not without anxiety, since, to avoid

the English cruisers and the Channel-fleet, we were obliged to hold a

southerly course for several days, making a great circuit before we

could venture to bear up for the place of our destination. The weather

alternated between light winds and a dead calm, which usually came on

every day at noon, and lasted till about sunset. As to me, there was an

unceasing novelty in every thing about a ship; her mechanism, her

discipline, her progress, furnished abundant occupation for all my

thoughts, and I never wearied of acquiring knowledge of a theme so

deeply interesting. My intercourse with the naval officers, too,

impressed me strongly in their favor, in comparison with their comrades

of the land service. In the former case, all was zeal, activity, and

watchfulness. The look-out never slumbered at his post; and an unceasing

anxiety to promote the success of the expedition, manifested itself in

all their words and actions. This, of course, was all to be expected in

the discharge of the duties peculiarly their own; but I also looked for

something which should denote preparation and forethought in the others;

yet nothing of the kind was to be seen. The expedition was never

discussed even as table-talk; and for any thing that fell from the party

in conversation, it would have been impossible to say if our destination

were China or Ireland. Not a book nor a map, not a pamphlet nor a paper

that bore upon the country whose destinies were about to be committed to

us, ever appeared on the tables. A vague and listless doubt how long the

voyage might last, was the extent of interest any one condescended to

exhibit; but as to what was to follow after--what new chapter of events

should open when this first had closed, none vouchsafed to inquire.

Even to this hour I am puzzled whether to attribute this strange conduct

to the careless levity of national character, or to a studied and well

"got up" affectation. In all probability both influences were at work;

while a third, not less powerful, assisted them--this was the gross

ignorance and shameless falsehood of many of the Irish leaders of the

expedition, whose boastful and absurd histories ended by disgusting

every one. To listen to them, Ireland was not only unanimous in her

desire for separation, but England was perfectly powerless to prevent

it, and the only difficulty was, to determine the future fortune of the

liberated land, when once her freedom had been proclaimed. Among the

projects discussed at the time, I well remember one, which was often

gravely talked over, and the utter absurdity of which certainly struck

none among us. This was no less than the intention of demanding the West

India Islands from England, as an indemnity for the past woes and bygone

misgovernment of Ireland. If this seem barely credible now, I can only

repeat my faithful assurance of the fact, and I believe that some of the

memoirs of the time will confirm my assertion.

The French officers listened to these and similar speculations with

utter indifference; probably to many of them the geographical question

was a difficulty that stopped any further inquiry, while others felt no

further interest than what a campaign promised. All the enthusiastic

narratives, then, of high rewards and splendid trophies that awaited us,

fell upon inattentive ears, and at last the word Ireland ceased to be

heard among us. Play of various kinds occupied us when not engaged on

duty. There was little discipline maintained on board, and none of that

strictness which is the habitual rule of a ship-of-war. The lights were

suffered to burn during the greater part of the night in the cabins;

gambling went on usually till daybreak; and the quarter-deck, that most

reverential of spots to every sailor-mind, was often covered by lounging

groups, who smoked, chatted, or played at chess, in all the cool apathy

of men indifferent to its claim for respect.

Now and then, the appearance of a strange sail afar off, or some dim

object in the horizon, would create a momentary degree of excitement and

anxiety; but when the "look-out" from the mast-head had proclaimed her a

"schooner from Brest," or a "Spanish fruit-vessel," the sense of danger

passed away at once, and none ever reverted to the subject of a peril

then suggested.

With General Humbert I usually passed the greater part of each forenoon,

a distinction, I must confess, I owed to my skill as a chess-player, a

game of which he was particularly fond, and in which I had attained no

small proficiency. I was too young and too unpracticed in the world to

make my skill subordinate to my chief's, and beat him at every game with

as little compunction as though he were only my equal, till, at last,

vexed at his want of success, and tired of a contest that offered no

vicissitude of fortune, he would frequently cease playing, to chat over

the events of the time, and the chances of the expedition.

It was with no slight mixture of surprise and dismay, that I now

detected his utter despair of all success, and that he regarded the

whole as a complete forlorn-hope. He had merely taken the command to

involve the French Government in the cause, and so to compromise the

national character that all retreat would be impossible. "We shall be

all cut to pieces, or taken prisoners the day after we land," was his

constant exclamation, "and then, but not till then, will they think

seriously in France of a suitable expedition." There was no heroism,

still less was there any affectation of recklessness, in this avowal. By

nature, he was a rough, easy, good-tempered fellow, who liked his

profession less for its rewards, than for its changeful scenes and

moving incidents--his one predominating feeling being that France should

give rule to the whole world, and the principles of her Revolution be

every where pre-eminent. To promote this consummation, the loss of an

army was of little moment. Let the cause but triumph in the end, and the

cost was not worth fretting about.

Next to this sentiment was his hatred of England, and all that was

English. Treachery, falsehood, pride, avarice, grasping covetousness,

and unscrupulous aggression, were the characteristics by which he

described the nation; and he made the little knowledge he had gleaned

from newspapers and intercourse, so subservient to this theory, that I

was an easy convert to his opinion; so that, ere long, my compassion for

the wrongs of Ireland was associated with the most profound hatred of

her oppressors.

To be sure, I should have liked the notion, that we ourselves were to

have some more active share in the liberation of Irishmen than the mere

act of heralding another and more successful expedition; but even in

this thought there was romantic self-devotion, not unpleasing to the

mind of a boy; but, after all, I was the only one who felt it.

The first sight of land to one on sea is always an event of uncommon

interest; but how greatly increased is the feeling, when that land is to

be the scene of a perilous exploit--the cradle of his ambition, or

perhaps his grave! All my speculations about the expedition--all my

day-dreams of success, or my anxious hours of dark forebodings--never

brought the matter so palpably before me, as the dim outline of a

distant headland, which, I was told, was part of the Irish coast.

This was on the 8th of August, but on the following day we stood farther

out to sea again and saw no more of it. The three succeeding ones we

continued to beat up slowly to the north'ard, against a head wind and a

heavy sea; but on the evening of the 21st the sun went down in mellow

splendor, and a light air from the south springing up, the sailors

pronounced a most favorable change of weather, a prophecy that a starry

night and a calm sea soon confirmed.

The morning of the 22d broke splendidly--a gentle breeze from the

sou'west slightly curled the blue waves, and filled the canvas of the

three frigates, as in close order they sailed along under the tall

cliffs of Ireland. We were about three miles from the shore, on which

now every telescope and glass was eagerly directed. As the light and

fleeting clouds of early morning passed away, we could descry the

outlines of the bold coast, indented with many a bay and creek, while

rocky promontories and grassy slopes succeeded each other in endless

variety of contrast. Towns, or even villages, we could see none--a few

small wretched-looking hovels were dotted over the hills, and here and

there a thin wreath of blue smoke bespoke habitation, but, save these

signs, there was an air of loneliness and solitude which increased the

solemn feelings of the scene.

All these objects of interest, however, soon gave way before another, to

the contemplation of which every eye was turned. This was a small

fishing-boat, which, with a low mast and ragged piece of canvas was seen

standing boldly out for us; a red handkerchief was fastened to a stick

in the stern, as if for a signal, and on our shortening sail, to admit

of her overtaking us, the ensign was lowered, as though in

acknowledgment of our meaning.

The boat was soon alongside, and we now perceived that her crew

consisted of a man and a boy, the former of whom, a powerfully-built,

loose fellow, of about five-and-forty, dressed in a light-blue frieze

jacket and trowsers, adroitly caught at the cast of rope thrown out to

him, and having made fast his skiff, clambered up the ship's side at

once, gayly, as though he were an old friend coming to welcome us.

"Is he a pilot?" asked the officer of the watch, addressing one of the

Irish officers.

"No; he's only a fisherman, but he knows the coast perfectly, and says

there is deep water within twenty fathoms of the shore."

An animated conversation in Irish now ensued between the peasant and

Captain Madgett, during which a wondering and somewhat impatient group

stood around, speedily increased by the presence of General Humbert

himself and his staff.

"He tells me, general," said Madgett, "that we are in the Bay of

Killala, a good and safe anchorage, and, during the southerly winds, the

best on all the coast."

"What news has he from the shore?" asked Humbert, sharply, as if the

care of the ship was a very secondary consideration.

"They have been expecting us with the greatest impatience, general; he

says the most intense anxiety for our coming is abroad."

"What of the people themselves? Where are the national forces? Have they

any head quarters near this? Eh, what says he? What is that? Why does he

laugh?" asked Humbert, in impatient rapidity, as he watched the changes

in the peasant's face.

"He was laughing at the strange sound of a foreign language, so odd and

singular to his ears," said Madgett; but for all his readiness, a slight

flushing of the cheek showed that he was ill at ease.

"Well, but what of the Irish forces? Where are they?"

For some minutes the dialogue continued in an animated strain between

the two; the vehement tone and gestures of each bespeaking what sounded

at least like altercation; and Madgett at last turned half angrily away,

saying, "The fellow is too ignorant; he actually knows nothing of what

is passing before his eyes."

"Is there no one else on board can speak this 'baragouinage,'" cried

Humbert in anger.

"Yes, general, I can interrogate him," cried a young lad named Conolly,

who had only joined us the day before we sailed.

And now as the youth addressed the fisherman in a few rapid sentences,

the other answered as quickly, making a gesture with his hands that

implied grief, or even despair.

"We can interpret that for ourselves," broke in Humbert; "he is telling

you that the game is up."

"Exactly so, general; he says that the insurrection has been completely

put down, that the Irish forces are scattered or disbanded, and all the

leaders taken."

"The fellow is just as likely to be an English spy," said Madgett, in a

whisper; but Humbert's gesture of impatience showed how little trust he

reposed in the allegation.

"Ask him what English troops are quartered in this part of the country,"

said the general.

"A few militia, and two squadrons of dragoons," was the prompt reply.

"No artillery?"

"None."

"Is there any rumor of our coming abroad, or have the frigates been

seen?" asked Humbert.

"They were seen last night from the church steeple of Killala, general,"

said Conolly, translating, "but believed to be English."

"Come; that is the best news he has brought us yet," said Humbert,

laughing; "we shall at least surprise them a little. Ask him what men of

rank or consequence live in the neighborhood, and how are they affected

toward the expedition?"

A few words, and a low, dry laugh, made all the peasant's reply.

"Eh, what says he?" asked Humbert.

"He says, sir, that, except a Protestant bishop, there's nothing of the

rank of gentry here."

"I suppose we need scarcely expect _his_ blessing on our efforts," said

Humbert, with a hearty laugh. "What is he saying now?--what is he

looking at?"

"He says we are now in the very best anchorage of the bay," said

Conolly, "and that on the whole coast there's not a safer spot."

A brief consultation now took place between the general and the naval

officers, and in a few seconds the word was given to take in all sail,

and anchor.

"I wish I could speak to that honest fellow myself," said Humbert, as he

stood watching the fisherman, who with a peasant's curiosity had now

approached the mast, and was passing his fingers across the blades of

the cutlasses, as they stood in the sword rack.

"Sharp enough for the English, eh?" cried Humbert, in French, but with a

gesture that seemed at once intelligible. A dry nod of the head gave

assent to the remark.

"If I understand him aright," said Humbert, in a half whisper to

Conolly, "we are as little expected by our friends as by our enemies;

and that there is little or no force in arms among the Irish."

"There are plenty ready to fight, he says, sir, but none accustomed to

discipline."

A gesture, half contemptuous, was all Humbert's reply, and he now turned

away and walked the deck alone and in silence. Meanwhile the bustle and

movements of the crew continued, and soon the great ships, stripped of

their white sails, lay tranquilly at anchor in a sea without a ripple.

"A boat is coming out from the shore, general," whispered the lieutenant

on duty.

"Ask the fisherman if he knows it."

Conolly drew the peasant's attention to the object, and the man, after

looking steadily for a few seconds, became terribly agitated.

"What is it, man--can't you tell who it is?" asked Conolly.

But although so composed before, so ready with all his replies, he

seemed now totally unmanned--his frank and easy features being struck

with the signs of palpable terror. At last, and with an effort that

bespoke all his fears, he muttered--"'Tis the king's boat is coming, and

'tis the collector's on board of her!"

"Is that all?" cried Conolly, laughing, as he translated the reply to

the general.

"Won't you say that I'm a prisoner, sir; won't you tell them that you

took me?" said the fisherman, in an accent of fervent entreaty, for

already his mind anticipated the casualty of a failure, and what might

betide him afterward; but no one now had any care for him or his

fortunes--all was in preparation to conceal the national character of

the ships. The marines were ordered below, and all others whose uniforms

might betray their country, while the English colors floated from every

mast-head.

General Humbert, with Serazin and two others, remained on the poop-deck,

where they continued to walk, apparently devoid of any peculiar interest

or anxiety in the scene. Madgett alone betrayed agitation at this

moment: his pale face was paler than ever, and there seemed to me a kind

of studious care in the way he covered himself up with his cloak, so

that not a vestige of his uniform could be seen.

The boat now came close under our lee, and Conolly being ordered to

challenge her in English, the collector, standing up in the stern,

touched his hat, and announced his rank. The gangway-ladder was

immediately lowered, and three gentlemen ascended the ship's side and

walked aft to the poop. I was standing near the bulwark at the time,

watching the scene with intense interest. As General Humbert stood a

little in advance of the rest, the collector, probably taking him for

the captain, addressed him with some courteous expression of welcome,

and was proceeding to speak of the weather, when the general gently

stopped him by asking if he spoke French.

I shall never forget the terror of face that question evoked. At first,

looking at his two companions, the collector turned his eyes to the

gaff, where the English flag was flying; but still unable to utter a

word, he stood like one entranced.

"You have been asked if you can speak French, sir?" said Conolly, at a

sign from the general.

"No--very little--very badly--not at all; but isn't this--am I not on

board of--"

"Can none of them speak French?" said Humbert, shortly.

"Yes, sir," said a young man on the collector's right; "I can make

myself intelligible in that language, although no great proficient."

"Who are you, monsieur?--are you a civilian?" asked Humbert.

"Yes, sir. I am the son of the Bishop of Killala, and this young

gentleman is my brother."

"What is the amount of the force in this neighborhood?"

"You will pardon me, sir," said the youth, "if I ask, first, who it is

puts this question, and under what circumstances I am expected to answer

it?"

"All frank and open, sir," said Humbert, good-humoredly. "I'm the

General Humbert, commanding the advanced guard for the liberation of

Ireland--so much for your first question. As to your second one, I

believe that if you have any concern for yourself, or those belonging to

you, you will find that nothing will serve your interest so much as

truth and plain dealing."

"Fortunately, then, for me," said the youth, laughing, "I can not betray

my king's cause, for I know nothing, nothing whatever, about the

movement of troops. I seldom go ten miles from home, and have not been

even at Ballina since last winter."

"Why so cautious about your information, then, sir," broke in Serazin,

roughly, "since you have none to give?"

"Because I had some to receive, sir; and was curious to know where I was

standing," said the young man, boldly.

While these few sentences were being interchanged, Madgett had learned

from the collector, that, except a few companies of militia and

fencibles, the country was totally unprovided with troops, but he also

picked up, that the people were so crest-fallen and subdued in courage

from the late failure of the rebellion, that it was very doubtful

whether our coming would arouse them to another effort. This

information, particularly the latter part of it, Madgett imparted to

Humbert at once, and I thought by his manner, and the eagerness with

which he spoke, that he seemed to use all his powers to dissuade the

general from a landing; at least I overheard him more than once say,

"Had we been further north, sir--"

Humbert quickly stopped him by the words:

"And what prevents us, when we have landed, sir, in extending our line

north'ard? the winds can not surely master us, when we have our feet on

the sward. Enough of all this; let these gentlemen be placed in

security, and none have access to them without my orders. Make signal

for the commanding officers to come on board here. We've had too much of

speculation; a little action now will be more profitable."

"So, we are prisoners, it seems!" said the young man who spoke French,

as he moved away with the others, who, far more depressed in spirit,

hung their heads in silence, as they descended between-decks.

Scarcely was the signal for a council of war seen from the mast-head,

when the different boats might be descried stretching across the bay

with speed. And now all were assembled in General Humbert's cabin, whose

rank and station in the service, entitled them to the honor of being

consulted.

To such of us as held inferior grade, the time passed tediously enough

as we paced the deck, now turning from the aspect of the silent, and,

seemingly, uninhabited cliffs along shore, to listen if no sign

betokened the breaking up of the council; nor were we without serious

fears that the expedition would be abandoned altogether. This suspicion

originated with the Irish themselves, who, however confident of success,

and boastful of their country's resources before we sailed, now made no

scruple of averring that every thing was the exact reverse of what they

had stated: for, that the people were dispirited, the national forces

disbanded, neither arms, money, nor organization any where--in fact,

that a more hopeless scheme could not be thought of than the attempt,

and that its result could not fail to be defeat and ruin to all

concerned.

Shall I own that the bleak and lonely aspect of the hills along shore,

the dreary character of the landscape, the almost death-like stillness

of the scene, aided these gloomy impressions, and made it seem as if we

were about to try our fortune on some desolate spot, without one look of

encouragement, or one word of welcome to greet us. The sight of even an

enemy's force would have been a relief to this solitude--the stir and

movement of a rival army would have given spirit to our daring, and

nerved our courage, but there was something inexpressibly sad in this

unbroken monotony.

A few tried to jest upon the idea of liberating a land that had no

inhabitants--the emancipation of a country without people; but even

French flippancy failed to be witty on a theme so linked with all our

hopes and fears, and, at last, a dreary silence fell upon all, and we

walked the deck without speaking, waiting and watching for the result of

that deliberation, which already had lasted above four mortal hours.

Twice was the young man who spoke French summoned to the cabin, but,

from the briefness of his stay, apparently with little profit; and now

the day began to wane, and the tall cliffs threw their lengthened

shadows over the still waters of the bay, and yet nothing was resolved

on. To the quiet and respectful silence of expectation, now succeeded a

low and half subdued muttering of discontent; groups of five or six

together were seen along the deck, talking with eagerness and animation,

and it was easy to see that whatever prudential or cautious reasons

dictated to the leaders, their arguments found little sympathy with the

soldiers of the expedition. I almost began to fear that if a

determination to abandon the exploit were come to, a mutiny might break

out, when my attention was drawn off by an order to accompany Colonel

Charost on shore to "reconnoitre." This, at least, looked like business,

and I jumped into the small boat with alacrity.

With the speed of four oars stoutly plied, we skimmed along the calm

surface, and soon saw ourselves close in to the shore. Some little time

was spent in looking for a good place to land; for, although not the

slightest air of wind was blowing, the long swell of the Atlantic broke

upon the rocks with a noise like thunder. At last, we shot into a little

creek with a shelving gravelly beach, and completely concealed by the

tall rocks on every side; and now we sprang out, and stood upon Irish

ground!

CHAPTER XIX.

A "RECONNAISSANCE."

From the little creek where we landed, a small zig-zag path led up the

sides of the cliff, the track by which the peasants carried the

sea-weed, which they gathered for manure, and up this we now slowly

wended our way. Stopping for some time to gaze at the ample bay beneath

us, the tall-masted frigates floating so majestically on its glassy

surface--it was a scene of tranquil and picturesque beauty, with which

it would have been almost impossible to associate the idea of war and

invasion. In the lazy bunting that hung listlessly from peak and

mast-head--in the cheerful voices of the sailors, heard afar off in the

stillness--in the measured plash of the sea itself, and the fearless

daring of the sea-gulls, as they soared slowly above our heads--there

seemed something so suggestive of peace and tranquillity, it struck us

as profanation to disturb it.

As we gained the top and looked around us, our astonishment became even

greater. A long succession of low hills, covered with tall ferns or

heath, stretched away on every side; not a house, nor a hovel, nor a

living thing to be seen. Had the country been one uninhabited since the

creation, it could not have presented an aspect of more thorough

desolation! No road-track, nor even a foot-path, led through the dreary

waste before us, on which, to all seeming, the foot of man had never

fallen. And, as we stood for some moments, uncertain which way to turn,

a sense of the ridiculous suddenly burst upon the party, and we all

broke into a hearty roar of laughter.

"I little thought," cried Charost, "that I should ever emulate 'La

Perouse,' but it strikes me that I am destined to become a great

discoverer."

"How so, colonel?" asked his aid-de-camp.

"Why, it is quite clear, that this same island is uninhabited; and, if

it be all like this, I own I'm scarcely surprised at it."

"Still, there must be a town not far off, and the residence of that

bishop we heard of this morning."

A half incredulous shrug of the shoulders was all his reply, as he

sauntered along with his hands behind his back, apparently lost in

thought; while we, as if instinctively partaking of his gloom, followed

him in total silence.

"Do you know, gentlemen, what I'm thinking of?" said he, stopping

suddenly, and facing about. "My notion is, that the best thing to do

here, would be to plant our tri-color, proclaim the land a colony of

France, and take to our boats again."

This speech delivered with an air of great gravity, imposed upon us for

an instant; but the moment after, the speaker breaking into a hearty

laugh, we all joined him, as much amused by the strangeness of our

situation, as by any thing in his remark.

"We never could bring our guns through a soil like this, colonel," said

the aid-de-camp, as he struck his heel into the soft and clayey surface.

"If we could ever land them at all!" muttered he, half aloud; then

added, "But for what object should we? Believe me, gentlemen, if we are

to have a campaign here, bows and arrows are the true weapons."

"Ah! what do I see yonder?" cried the aid-de-camp; "are not those sheep

feeding in that little glen?"

"Yes," cried I, "and a man herding them, too. See, the fellow has caught

sight of us, and he's off as fast as his legs can carry him." And so was

it, the man had no sooner seen us than he sprung to his feet, and

hurried down the mountain at full speed.

Our first impulse was to follow and give him chase, and even without a

word, we all started off in pursuit; but we soon saw how fruitless would

be the attempt, for, even independent of the start he had got of us, the

peasant's speed was more than the double of our own.

"No matter," said the colonel, "if we have lost the shepherd, we have,

at least, gained the sheep, and so I recommend you to secure a mutton

for dinner to-morrow."

With this piece of advice, down the hill he darted, as hard as he could.

Briolle, the aid-de-camp, and myself following at our best pace. We were

reckoning without our host, however, for the animals, after one stupid

stare at us, set off in a scamper that soon showed their mountain

breeding, keeping all together like a pack of hounds, and, really, not

very inferior in the speed they displayed.

A little gorge led between the hills, and through this they rushed

madly, and with a clatter like a charge of cavalry. Excited by the

chase, and emulous each to outrun the other, the colonel threw off his

chako, and Briolle his sword, in the ardor of pursuit. We now gained on

them rapidly, and though, from a winding in the glen, they had

momentarily got out of sight, we knew that we were close upon them. I

was about thirty paces in advance of my comrades, when, on turning an

angle of the gorge, I found myself directly in front of a group of mud

hovels, in front of which were standing about a dozen ragged, miserable

looking men, armed with pitchforks and scythes, while in the rear stood

the sheep, blown and panting from the chase.

I came to a dead stop; and although I would have given worlds to have

had my comrades at my side, I never once looked back to see if they were

coming; but, putting a bold face on the matter, called out the only few

words I knew of Irish, "Go de ma ha tu."

The peasants looked at each other; and whether it was my accent, my

impudence, or my strange dress and appearance, or all together, I can

not say, but, after a few seconds' pause, they burst out into a roar of

laughter, in the midst of which my two comrades came up.

"We saw the sheep feeding on the hills, yonder," said I, recovering

self-possession, "and guessed that by giving them chase, they'd lead us

to some inhabited spot. What is this place called?"

"Shindrennin," said a man who seemed to be the chief of the party; "and,

if I might make so bould, who are you, yourselves?"

"French officers; this is my colonel," said I, pointing to Charost, who

was wiping his forehead and face after his late exertion.

The information, far from producing the electric effect of pleasure I

had anticipated, was received with a coldness, almost amounting to fear,

and they spoke eagerly together for some minutes in Irish.

"Our allies evidently don't like the look of us," said Charost,

laughing; "and if the truth must be told, I own the disappointment is

mutual."

"'Tis too late you come sir," said the peasant, addressing the colonel,

while he removed his hat, and assumed an air of respectful deference.

"'Tis all over with poor Ireland, this time."

"Tell him," said Charost, to whom I translated the speech, "that it's

never too late to assert a good cause: that we have got arms for twenty

thousand, if they have but hands and hearts to use them. Tell him that a

French army is now lying in that bay yonder, ready and able to

accomplish the independence of Ireland."

I delivered my speech as pompously as it was briefed to me; and,

although I was listened to in silence, and respectfully, it was plain my

words carried little or no conviction with them. Not caring to waste

more of our time in such discourse, I now inquired about the country--in

what directions lay the high roads, and the relative situations of the

towns of Killala, Castlebar, and Ballina, the only places of comparative

importance in the neighborhood. I next asked about the landing-places,

and learned that a small fishing-harbor existed, not more than half a

mile from the spot where we had landed, from which a little country road

lay to the village of Palmerstown. As to the means of transporting

baggage, guns, and ammunition, there were few horses to be had, but with

money we might get all we wanted; indeed, the peasants constantly

referred to this means of success, even to asking "what the French would

give a man that was to join them?" If I did not translate the demand

with fidelity to my colonel, it was really that a sense of shame

prevented me. My whole heart was in the cause; and I could not endure

the thought of its being degraded in this way. It was growing duskish,

and the colonel proposed that the peasant should show us the way to the

fishing-harbor he spoke of, while some other of the party might go round

to our boat, and direct them to follow us thither. The arrangement was

soon made, and we all sauntered down toward the shore, chatting over the

state of the country, and the chances of a successful rising. From the

specimen before me, I was not disposed to be over sanguine about the

peasantry. The man was evidently disaffected toward England. He bore her

neither good-will nor love; but his fears were greater than all else. He

had never heard of any thing but failure in all attempts against her;

and he could not believe in any other result. Even the aid and alliance

of France inspired no other feeling than distrust; for he said more than

once, "Sure, what can harm _yez_? Haven't ye yer ships, beyant, to take

yez away, if things goes bad?"

I was heartily glad that Colonel Charost knew so little English, that

the greater part of the peasant's conversation was unintelligible to

him, since, from the first, he had always spoken of the expedition in

terms of disparagement; and certainly what we were now to hear was not

of a nature to controvert the prediction.

In our ignorance as to the habits and modes of thought of the people, we

were much surprised at the greater interest the peasant betrayed when

asking us about France and her prospects, than when the conversation

concerned his own country. It appeared as though, in the one case,

distance gave grandeur and dimensions to all his conceptions, while

familiarity with home scenes and native politics had robbed them of all

their illusions. He knew well that there were plenty of hardships,

abundance of evils, to deplore in Ireland; rents were high, taxes and

tithes oppressive, agents were severe, bailiffs were cruel; social

wrongs he could discuss for hours, but of political woes, the only one

we could be expected to relieve or care for, he really knew nothing.

"'Tis true," he repeated, "that what my honor said was all right,

Ireland was badly treated," and so on; "liberty was an elegant thing if

a body had it," and such like; but there ended his patriotism.

Accustomed for many a day to the habits of a people where all were

politicians, where the rights of man, and the grand principles of

equality and self-government were everlastingly under discussion, I was,

I confess it, sorely disappointed at this worse than apathy.

"Will they fight?--ask him that," said Charost, to whom I had been

conveying a rather rose-colored version of my friend's talk.

"Oh, be gorra! we'll fight sure enough!" said he, with a half-dogged

scowl beneath his brows.

"What number of them may we reckon on in the neighborhood?" repeated the

colonel.

"'Tis mighty hard to say; many of the boys was gone over to England for

the harvest; some were away to the counties inland, others were working

on the roads; but if they knew, sure they'd be soon back again."

"Might they calculate on a thousand stout, effective men?" asked

Charost.

"Ay, twenty, if they were at home," said the peasant, less a liar by

intention than from the vague and careless disregard of truth, so common

in all their own intercourse with each other.

I must own that the degree of credit we reposed in the worthy man's

information was considerably influenced by the state of facts before us,

inasmuch as that the "elegant, fine harbor" he had so gloriously

described--"the beautiful road"--"the neat little quay" to land upon,

and the other advantages of the spot, all turned out to be most grievous

disappointments. That the people were not of our own mind on these

matters, was plain enough from the looks of astonishment our discontent

provoked; and now a lively discussion ensued on the relative merits of

various bays, creeks, and inlets along the coast, each of which, with

some unpronounceable name or other, was seen to have a special advocate

in its favor, till at last the colonel lost all patience, and jumping

into the boat, ordered the men to push off for the frigate.

Evidently out of temper at the non-success of his "reconnaissance," and

as little pleased with the country as the people, Charost did not speak

a word as we rowed back to the ship. Our failure, as it happened, was of

little moment, for another party, under the guidance of Madgett, had

already discovered a good landing-place at the bottom of the Bay of

Rathfran, and arrangements were already in progress to disembark the

troops at day-break. We also found that, during our absence, some of the

"chiefs" had come off from shore, one of whom, named Neal Kerrigan, was

destined to attain considerable celebrity in the rebel army. He was a

talkative, vulgar, presumptuous fellow, who, without any knowledge or

experience whatever, took upon him to discuss military measures and

strategy with all the assurance of an old commander.

Singularly enough, Humbert suffered this man to influence him in a great

degree, and yielded opinion to him on points even where his own judgment

was directly opposed to the advice he gave.

If Kerrigan's language and bearing were directly the reverse of

soldierlike, his tawdry uniform of green and gold, with massive epaulets

and a profusion of lace, were no less absurd in our eyes, accustomed as

we were to the almost puritan plainness of military costume. His rank,

too, seemed as undefined as his information; for while he called himself

"General," his companions as often addressed him by the title of

"Captain." Upon some points his counsels, indeed, alarmed and astonished

us.

"It was of no use whatever," he said, "to attempt to discipline the

peasantry, or reduce them to any thing like habits of military

obedience. Were the effort to be made, it would prove a total failure;

for they would either grow disgusted with the restraint, and desert

altogether, or so infect the other troops with their own habits of

disorder, that the whole force would become a mere rabble. Arm them

well, let them have plenty of ammunition, and free liberty to use it in

their own way and their own time, and we should soon see that they would

prove a greater terror to the English than double the number of trained

and disciplined troops."

In some respects this view was a correct one; but whether it was a wise

counsel to have followed, subsequent events gave us ample cause to

doubt.

Kerrigan, however, had a specious, reckless, go-ahead way with him that

suited well the tone and temper of Humbert's mind. He never looked too

far into consequences, but trusted that the eventualities of the morrow

would always suggest the best course for the day after; and this alone

was so akin to our own general's mode of proceeding, that he speedily

won his confidence.

The last evening on board was spent merrily on all sides. In the general

cabin, where the staff and all the "Chefs de brigade" were assembled,

gay songs, and toasts, and speeches succeeded each other till nigh

morning. The printed proclamations, meant for circulation among the

people, were read out, with droll commentaries; and all imaginable

quizzing and jesting went on about the new government to be established

in Ireland, and the various offices to be bestowed upon each. Had the

whole expedition been a joke, the tone of levity could not have been

greater. Not a thought was bestowed, not a word wasted upon any of the

graver incidents that might ensue. All were, if not hopeful and

sanguine, utterly reckless, and thoroughly indifferent to the future.

CHAPTER XX.

KILLALA.

I will not weary my reader with an account of our debarkation, less

remarkable as it was for the "pomp and circumstance of war" than for

incidents and accidents the most absurd and ridiculous--the miserable

boats of the peasantry, the still more wretched cattle employed to drag

our artillery and train wagons, involving us in innumerable misfortunes

and mischances. Never were the heroic illusions of war more thoroughly

dissipated than by the scenes which accompanied our landing! Boats and

baggage-wagons upset; here, a wild, half savage-looking fellow swimming

after a cocked hat--there, a group of ragged wretches scraping sea-weed

from a dripping officer of the staff; noise, uproar, and confusion every

where; smart aid-de-camps mounted on donkeys; trim field-pieces "horsed"

by a promiscuous assemblage of men, women, cows, ponies, and asses.

Crowds of idle country-people thronging the little quay and obstructing

the passages, gazed upon the whole with eyes of wonderment and surprise,

but evidently enjoying all the drollery of the scene with higher relish

than they felt interested in its object or success. This trait in them

soon attracted all our notice, for they laughed at every thing; not a

caisson tumbled into the sea, not a donkey brought his rider to the

ground, but one general shout shook the entire assemblage.

If want and privation had impressed themselves by every external sign on

this singular people, they seemed to possess inexhaustible resources of

good humor and good spirits within. No impatience or rudeness on our

part could irritate them; and even to the wildest and least civilized

looking fellow around, there was a kind of native courtesy and

kindliness that could not fail to strike us.

A vague notion prevailed that we were their "friends;" and although many

of them did not clearly comprehend why we had come, or what was the

origin of the warm attachment between us, they were too lazy and too

indifferent to trouble their heads about the matter. They were satisfied

that there would be a "shindy" somewhere, and somebody's bones would get

broken, and even that much was a pleasant and reassuring consideration;

while others of keener mould reveled in plans of private vengeance

against this landlord or that agent--small debts of hatred to be paid

off in the day of general reckoning!

From the first moment nothing could exceed the tone of fraternal feeling

between our soldiers and the people. Without any means of communicating

their thoughts by speech, they seemed to acquire an instinctive

knowledge of each other in an instant. If the peasant was poor, there

was no limit to his liberality in the little he had. He dug up his

half-ripe potatoes, he unroofed his cabin to furnish straw for litter,

he gave up his only beast, and was ready to kill his cow, if asked, to

welcome us. Much of this was from the native, warm, and impulsive

generosity of their nature, and much, doubtless, had its origin in the

bright hopes of future recompense inspired by the eloquent appeals of

Neal Kerrigan, who, mounted on an old white mare, rode about on every

side, addressing the people in Irish, and calling upon them to give all

aid and assistance to "the expedition."

The difficulty of the landing was much increased by the small space of

level ground which intervened between the cliffs and the sea, and of

which now the thickening crowd filled every spot. This and the miserable

means of conveyance for our baggage, delayed us greatly, so that, with a

comparatively small force, it was late in the afternoon before we had

all reached the shore.

We had none of us eaten since morning, and were not sorry, as we crowned

the heights, to hear the drums beat for "cooking." In an inconceivably

short time fires blazed along the hills, around which, in motley groups,

stood soldiers and peasantry mingled together, while the work of cooking

and eating went briskly on, amid hearty laughter and all the merriment

that mutual mistakes and misconceptions occasioned. It was a new thing

for French soldiers to bivouac in a friendly country, and find

themselves the welcome guests of a foreign people; and certainly the

honors of hospitality, however limited the means, could not have been

performed with more of courtesy or good-will. Paddy gave his "all," with

a generosity that might have shamed many a richer donor.

While the events I have mentioned were going forward, and a considerable

crowd of fishermen and peasants had gathered about us, still it was

remarkable that, except immediately on the coast itself, no suspicion of

our arrival had joined currency, and even the country people who lived a

mile from the shore were ignorant of who we were. The few who, from

distant heights and headlands, had seen the ships, mistook them for

English, and as all those who were out with fish or vegetables to sell

were detained by the frigates, any direct information about us was

impossible. So far, therefore, all might be said to have gone most

favorably with us. We had safely escaped the often-menaced dangers of

the channel fleet; we had gained a secure and well-sheltered harbor; and

we had landed our force not only without opposition, but in perfect

secrecy. There were, I will not deny, certain little counterbalancing

circumstances on the other side of the account, not exactly so

satisfactory. The patriot forces upon which we had calculated had no

existence. There were neither money, nor stores, nor means of conveyance

to be had; even accurate information as to the strength and position of

the English was unattainable; and as to generals and leaders, the

effective staff had but a most sorry representative in the person of

Neal Kerrigan. This man's influence over our general increased with

every hour, and one of the first orders issued after our landing

contained his appointment as an extra aid-de-camp on General Humbert's

staff.

In one capacity Neal was most useful. All the available sources of

pillage for a wide circuit of country he knew by heart, and it was

plain, from the accurate character of his information, varying, as it

did, from the chattels of the rich landed proprietor to the cocks and

hens of the cottier, that he had taken great pains to master his

subject. At his suggestion it was decided that we should march that

evening on Killala, where little, or, more likely, no resistance would

be met with, and General Humbert should take up his quarters in the

"Castle," as the palace of the bishop was styled. There, he said, we

should not only find ample accommodation for the staff, but good

stabling, well filled, and plenty of forage, while the bishop himself

might be a most useful hostage to have in our keeping. From thence, too,

as a place of some note, general orders and proclamations would issue,

with a kind of notoriety and importance necessary at the outset of an

undertaking like ours; and truly never was an expedition more loaded

with this species of missive than ours--whole cart-loads of printed

papers, decrees, placards, and such like, followed us. If our object had

been to drive out the English by big type and a flaming letter-press, we

could not have gone more vigorously to work. Fifty thousand broad-sheet

announcements of Irish independence were backed by as many proud

declarations of victory, some dated from Limerick, Cashel, or Dublin

itself.

Here, a great placard gave the details of the new Provincial Government

of Western Ireland, with the name of the "Prefect" a blank. There was

another, containing the police regulations for the "arrondissements" of

Connaught, "et ses dependances." Every imaginable step of conquest and

occupation was anticipated and provided for in these wise and

considerate protocols, from the "enthusiastic welcome of the French on

the western coast," to the hour of "General Humbert's triumphal entry

into Dublin." Nor was it prose alone, but even poetry, did service in

our cause. Songs, not, I own, conspicuous for great metrical beauty,

commemorated our battles and our bravery; so that we entered upon the

campaign as deeply pledged to victory as any force I ever heard or read

of in history.

Neal, who was, I believe, originally a schoolmaster, had great

confidence in this arsenal of "black and white;" and soon persuaded

General Humbert that a bold face and a loud tongue would do more in

Ireland than in any country under heaven; and indeed, if his own career

might be called a success, the theory deserved some consideration. A

great part of our afternoon was then spent in distributing these

documents to the people, not one in a hundred of whom could read, but

who treasured the placards with a reverence nothing diminished by their

ignorance. Emissaries, too, were appointed to post them up in

conspicuous places through the country, on the doors of the chapels, at

the smiths' forges, at cross-roads, every where, in short, where they

might attract notice. The most important and business-like of all these,

however, was one headed "ARMS!--ARMS!" and which went on to say that no

man who wished to lift his hand for old Ireland need do so without a

weapon; and that a general distribution of guns, swords, and bayonets

would take place at noon the following day at the palace of Killala.

Serazin, and, I believe, Madgett, were strongly opposed to this

indiscriminate arming of the people; but Neal's counsels were now in the

ascendant, and Humbert gave an implicit confidence to all he suggested.

It was four o'clock in the evening when the word to march was given, and

our gallant little force began its advance movement. Still attached to

Colonel Charost's staff, and being, as chasseurs, in the advance, I had

a good opportunity of seeing the line of march from an eminence about

half a mile in front. Grander and more imposing displays I have indeed

often witnessed. As a great military "spectacle" it could not, of

course, be compared with those mighty armies I had seen deploying

through the defiles of the Black Forest, or spreading like a sea over

the wide plain of Germany, but in purely picturesque effect, this scene

surpassed all I had ever beheld at the time, nor do I think, that, in

after life, I can recall one more striking.

The winding road, which led over hill and valley, now disappearing, now

emerging, with the undulations of the soil, was covered by troops

marching in a firm compact order; the grenadiers in front, after which

came the artillery, and then the regiments of the line. Watching the

dark column, occasionally saluting it as it went with a cheer, stood

thousands of country people on every hill-top and eminence, while far

away, in the distance, the frigates lay at anchor in the bay, the guns

at intervals thundering out a solemn "boom" of welcome and encouragement

to their comrades.

There was something so heroic in the notion of that little band of

warriors throwing themselves fearlessly into a strange land, to contest

its claim for liberty with one of the most powerful nations of the

world; there was a character of daring intrepidity in this bold advance,

they knew not whither, nor against what force, that gave the whole an

air of glorious chivalry.

I must own that distance lent its wonted illusion to the scene, and

proximity, like its twin-brother, familiarity, destroyed much of the

"prestige" my fancy had conjured up. The line of march, so imposing when

seen from afar, was neither regular nor well kept. The peasantry were

permitted to mingle with the troops; ponies, mules, and asses, loaded

with camp-kettles and cooking vessels, were to be met with every where.

The baggage-wagons were crowded with officers, and "sous-officiers,"

who, disappointed in obtaining horses, were too indolent to walk. Even

the gun-carriages, and the guns themselves, were similarly loaded, while

at the head of the infantry column, in an old rickety gig, the ancient

mail conveyance between Ballina and the coast, came General Humbert,

Neal Kerrigan capering at his side on the old gray, whose flanks were

now tastefully covered by the tri-colored ensign of one of the boats as

a saddle-cloth.

This nearer and less enchanting prospect of my gallant comrades I was

enabled to obtain, on being dispatched to the rear by Colonel Charost,

to say that we were now within less than a mile of the town of Killala,

its venerable steeple, and the tall chimneys of the palace, being easily

seen above the low hills in front. Neal Kerrigan passed me, as I rode

back with my message, galloping to the front with all the speed he could

muster; but while I was talking to the general he came back to say that

the beating of drums could be heard from the town, and that by the rapid

movements here and there of people, it was evident the defense was being

prepared. There was a look-out, too, from the steeple, that showed our

approach was already known. The general was not slow in adopting his

measures, and the word was given for quick march, the artillery to

deploy right and left of the road, two companies of grenadiers forming

on the flanks. "As for you, sir," said Humbert to me, "take that horse,"

pointing to a mountain pony, fastened behind the gig, "ride forward to

the town and make a reconnaissance. You are to report to me," cried he,

as I rode away, and was soon out of hearing.

Quitting the road, I took a foot-track across the fields, and which the

pony seemed to know well, and after a sharp canter reached a small, poor

suburb of the town, if a few straggling wretched cabins can deserve the

name; a group of countrymen stood in the middle of the road, about fifty

yards in front of me; and while I was deliberating whether to advance or

retire, a joyous cry of "Hurra for the French!" decided me, and I

touched my cap in salute, and rode forward.

Other groups saluted me with a similar cheer as I went on; and now

windows were flung open, and glad cries and shouts of welcome rang out

from every side. These signs were too encouraging to turn my back upon,

so I dashed forward through a narrow street in front, and soon found

myself in a kind of square or "Place," the doors and windows of which

were all closed, and not a human being to be seen any where. As I

hesitated what next to do, I saw a soldier in a red coat rapidly turn

the corner. "What do you want here, you spy?" he cried out in a loud

voice, and at the same instant his bullet rang past my ear with a

whistle. I drove in the spurs at once, and just as he had gained a

doorway I clove his head open with my sabre--he fell dead on the spot

before me. Wheeling my horse round, I now rode back as I had come, at

full speed, the same welcome cries accompanying me as before.

Short as had been my absence, it was sufficient to have brought the

advanced guard close up with the town, and just as I emerged from the

little suburb, a quick, sharp firing, drew my attention toward the left

of the wall, and there I saw our fellows advancing at a trot, while

about twenty red-coats were in full flight before them, the wild cries

of the country people following them as they went.

I had but time to see thus much, and to remark that two or three English

prisoners were taken, when the general came up. He had now abandoned the

gig, and was mounted on a large, powerful, black horse, which I

afterward learned was one of the bishop's. My tidings were soon told,

and, indeed, but indifferently attended to, for it was evident enough

that the place was our own.

"This way, general--follow me," cried Kerrigan. "If the light-companies

will take the road down to the 'Acres,' they'll catch the yeomen as they

retreat by that way, and we have the town our own."

The counsel was speedily adopted; and although the dropping fire, here

and there, showed that some slight resistance was still being made, it

was plain enough that all real opposition was impossible.

"Forward!" was now the word; and the "chasseurs," with their muskets "in

sling," advanced at a trot up the main street. At a little distance the

grenadiers followed, and, debouching into the square, were received by

an ill-directed volley from a few of the militia, who took to their

heels after they fired. Three or four red-coats were killed, but the

remainder made their escape through the church-yard, and gaining the

open country, scattered and fled as best they could.

Humbert, who had seen war on a very different scale, could not help

laughing at the absurdity of the skirmish, and was greatly amused with

the want of all discipline and "accord" exhibited by the English troops.

"I foresee, gentlemen," said he, jocularly, "that we may have abundance

of success, but gain very little glory, in the same campaign. Now for a

blessing upon our labors--where shall we find our friend, the bishop?"

"This way, general," cried Neal, leading down a narrow street, at the

end of which stood a high wall, with an iron gate. This was locked, and

some efforts at barricading it showed the intention of a defense; but a

few strokes of a pioneer's hammer smashed the lock, and we entered a

kind of pleasure-ground, neatly and trimly kept. We had not advanced

many paces when the bishop, followed by a great number of his

clergy--for it happened to be the period of his annual visitation--came

forward to meet us.

Humbert dismounted, and removing his chapeau, saluted the dignitary with

a most finished courtesy. I could see, too, by his gesture, that he

presented General Serazin, the second in command; and, in fact, all his

motions were those of a well-bred guest at the moment of being received

by his host. Nor was the bishop, on his side, wanting either in ease or

dignity; his manner, not without the appearance of deep sorrow, was yet

that of a polished gentleman doing the honors of his house to a number

of strangers.

As I drew nearer I could hear that the bishop spoke French fluently, but

with a strong foreign accent. This facility, however, enabled him to

converse with ease on every subject, and to hold intercourse directly

with our general, a matter of no small moment to either party. It is

probable that the other clergy did not possess this gift, for assuredly

their manner toward us, inferiors of the staff, was neither gracious nor

conciliating, and as for myself, the few efforts I made to express, in

English, my admiration for the coast scenery, or the picturesque beauty

of the neighborhood, were met in any rather than a spirit of politeness.

The generals accompanied the bishop into the castle, leaving myself and

three or four others on the outside. Colonel Charost soon made his

appearance, and a guard was stationed at the entrance gate, with a

strong picket in the garden. Two sentries were placed at the hall-door,

and the words "Quartier General" written up over the portico. A small

garden pavilion was appropriated to the colonel's use, and made the

office of the adjutant-general, and in less than half an hour after our

arrival eight sous-officiers were hard at work, under the trees, writing

away at billets, contribution orders, and forage rations; while I, from

my supposed fluency in English, was engaged in carrying messages to and

from the staff to the various shopkeepers and tradesmen of the town,

numbers of whom now flocked around us with expressions of welcome and

rejoicing. (_To be continued_.)

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

A LUNATIC ASYLUM IN PALERMO.

Several years ago Count Pisani, a Sicilian nobleman, while on a tour

through Europe, directed his attention to the condition of the

receptacles for lunatics in some of the principal continental cities.

Deeply impressed by the injudicious and often cruel treatment to which

the unhappy inmates of those establishments were subject, he determined

on returning, to convert his beautiful villa near Palermo into a Lunatic

Asylum, which received the name of the _Casa dei Matti_; and withdrawing

to a more humble place of abode, he devoted his fortune and energies to

the purpose of carrying out his philanthropic scheme.

Count Pisani himself offered to conduct me over the establishment. After

a short walk we arrived in front of a spacious mansion, the exterior

aspect of which presented nothing differing from that of a handsome

private residence. The windows, it is true, were grated; but the

gratings were so ingeniously contrived that had not my attention been

particularly directed to them, I should not have discovered their

existence. Some represented vine leaves, tendrils, or bunches of grapes;

others were fashioned like the long leaves and blue flowers of the

convolvulus. Foliage, fruit, and flowers were all painted in natural

colors, and it was only from a very near point of view that the artifice

could be detected.

The gate was opened by a man, who, instead of carrying a huge stick or a

bunch of keys (the usual insignia of the porter of a mad house), had a

fine nosegay stuck in the breast of his coat, and in one hand he held a

flute, on which he had apparently been playing when interrupted by our

summons at the gate.

We entered the building, and were proceeding along the corridor on the

ground-floor, when we met a man whom I took to be a servant or messenger

of the establishment, as he was carrying some bundles of fire-wood. On

perceiving us, he laid down his burden, and advancing to Count Pisani,

respectfully kissed his hand. The count inquired why he was not in the

garden enjoying the fresh air and amusing himself with his companions.

"Because," replied the man, "winter is fast coming, and I have no time

to lose. I shall have enough to do to bring down all the wood from the

loft, and stow it away in the cellar." The count commended his

forethought, and the man, taking up his fagots, bowed, and went his way.

This man, the count informed me, was the owner of large estates in

Castelveleruno; but owing to a natural inactivity of mind, and the

absence of any exciting or useful occupation, he sank into a state of

mental torpor, which terminated in insanity. When he was brought to the

_Casa dei Matti_, Count Pisani drew him aside, under the pretense of

having a most important communication to make to him. The count informed

him that he had been changed at nurse, that he was not the rightful

owner of the wealth he had heretofore enjoyed; and that the fact having

become known, he was dispossessed of his wealth, and must therefore work

for his maintenance. The madman believed the tale, but showed no

disposition to rouse himself from the state of indolence which had been

the primary cause of his mental aberration. He folded his arms, and sat

down, doubtless expecting that in due time a servant would enter as

usual to inform him that dinner was ready. But in this he was deceived.

Dinner hour arrived, and no servant appeared. He waited patiently for

some time; but at length the pangs of hunger roused him from his

listlessness, and he began to call out loudly for something to eat. No

one answered him; and he passed the whole night in knocking on the walls

of his apartment, and ordering his servants to bring him his dinner.

About nine o'clock next morning, one of the keepers entered the

apartment of the new patient, who, starting up with more energy than he

usually manifested, imperiously ordered his breakfast to be prepared.

The keeper offered to go into the town to purchase something for his

breakfast, if he would give him the money to pay for it. The hungry man

eagerly thrust his hands into his pocket, and to his dismay, having

discovered that he had no money, he implored the keeper to go and

procure him some breakfast on credit.

"Credit!" exclaimed the keeper, who had received the requisite

instructions from Count Pisani. "Credit, indeed! No doubt you might

easily have obtained credit to any amount, when you were living at

Castelveleruno, and every one believed you to be the rightful lord of

those fine domains. But now that the truth has come out, who do you

think will give credit to a pauper?"

The lunatic immediately recollected what Count Pisani had told him

respecting his altered position in life, and the necessity of working

for his daily bread. He remained for a few moments as if absorbed in

profound reflection; then, turning to the keeper, he asked whether he

would point out to him some mode by which he could earn a little money

to save himself from starvation.

The keeper replied that if he would help him to carry up to the loft the

fagots of firewood which were in the cellar, he would willingly pay him

for his work. The proposal was readily accepted; and after carrying up

twelve loads of wood, the laborer received his hire, consisting of a

little money just sufficient to purchase a loaf of bread, which he

devoured with a keener appetite than he ever remembered to have felt

throughout the whole previous course of his life.

He then set to work to earn his dinner as he had earned his breakfast;

but instead of twelve, he carried up thirty-six loads of wood. For this

he was paid three times as much as he had received in the morning, and

his dinner was proportionably better and more abundant than his

breakfast.

Thenceforward the business proceeded with the most undeviating

regularity; and the patient at last conceived such a liking for his

occupation, that when all the wood had been carried from the cellar to

the loft, he began of his own voluntary accord to carry it down from the

loft to the cellar, and _vice versa_.

When I saw this lunatic, he had been employed in this manner for about a

year. The morbid character of his madness had completely disappeared,

and his bodily health, previously bad, was now re-established. Count

Pisani informed me that he intended soon to try the experiment of

telling him that there was some reason to doubt the accuracy of the

statements which had caused him to lose the property he once enjoyed;

and that he (the count) was in quest of certain papers which might,

perhaps, prove after all, that he was no changeling, but the rightful

heir to the estates of which he had been deprived. "But," added the

count, when he told me this, "however complete this man's recovery may

at any time seem to be, I will not allow him to quit this place unless

he gives me a solemn promise that he will every day, wheresoever he may

be, carry twelve loads of wood from the cellar to the garret, and twelve

loads down from the garret to the cellar. On that condition alone, shall

I feel any security against the risk of his relapse. Want of occupation

is well known to be one of the most frequent causes of insanity."

Each patient had a separate apartment, and several of these little rooms

were furnished and decorated in the most capricious style, according to

the claims of their occupants. One, who believed himself to be the son

of the Emperor of China, had his walls hung with silk banners, on which

were painted dragons and serpents, while all sorts of ornaments cut out

in gold paper, lay scattered about the room. This lunatic was

good-tempered and cheerful, and Count Pisani had devised a scheme which

he hoped might have some effect in mitigating the delusions under which

he labored. He proposed to print a copy of a newspaper, and to insert in

it a paragraph announcing that the Emperor of China had been dethroned,

and had renounced the sovereignty on the part of his son and his

descendants. Another patient, whose hallucination consisted in believing

himself to be dead, had his room hung with black crape, and his bed

constructed in the form of a bier. Whenever he arose from his bed, he

was either wrapped in a winding sheet, or in some sort of drapery which

he conceived to be the proper costume for a ghost. This appeared to me

to be a very desperate case, and I asked Count Pisani whether he thought

there was any chance of curing the victim of so extraordinary a

delusion. The count shook his head doubtfully, and observed that his

only hope rested on a scheme he meant shortly to try; which was to

endeavor to persuade the lunatic that the day of judgment had arrived.

As we were quitting this chamber, we heard a loud roaring in another

patient's apartment near at hand. The count asked me whether I had any

wish to see how he managed raving madmen? "None whatever," I replied,

"unless you guarantee my personal safety!" He assured me there was

nothing to fear, and, taking a key from the hand of one of the keepers,

he led the way into a padded chamber. In one corner of the room was a

bed, and stretched upon it lay a man, wearing a strait-waistcoat, which

confined his arms to his sides, and fastened him by the middle of his

body to the bed. I was informed that a quarter of an hour previously,

this man had been seized with such a frightful fit of raving mania that

the keepers were obliged to have recourse to restraint, very rarely

resorted to in that establishment. He appeared to be about thirty years

of age, was exceedingly handsome; he had fine dark eyes, and features of

the antique mould, with the figure of a Hercules. On hearing the door

open, he roared out in a voice of thunder, uttering threats and

imprecations; but, on looking round, his eyes met those of the count,

and his anger softened down into expressions of grief and lamentation.

Count Pisani approached the bed, and, in a mild tone of voice, asked the

patient what he had been doing to render it necessary to place him under

such restraint. "They have taken away my Angelica," replied the maniac;

"they have torn her from me, and I am resolved to be avenged on Medora!"

The unfortunate man imagined himself to be Orlando Furioso, and, as may

readily be supposed, his madness was of the wildest and most extravagant

character.

Count Pisani endeavored to soothe his violence by assuring him that

Angelica had been carried off by force, and that she would doubtless

seize the first opportunity of escaping from the hands of her captors

and rejoining her lover. This assurance, repeated earnestly but gently,

speedily had the effect of calming the fury of the maniac, who, after a

little time, requested that the count would unfasten his

strait-waistcoat. This Count Pisani agreed to do, on condition of the

patient pledging his word of honor that he would not profit by his

liberty to make any attempt to pursue Angelica. This sympathy for

imaginary misfortune had a good effect. The patient did not attempt to

quit his bed, but merely raised himself up. He had been a year in the

establishment, and, notwithstanding the deep grief into which his

fancied misfortunes plunged him, he had never been known to shed tears.

Count Pisani had several times endeavored to make him weep, but without

success. He proposed soon to try the experiment of announcing to him the

death of Angelica. He intended to dress up a figure in funeral garments,

and to prevail on the heart-broken Orlando to be present at the

interment. This scene, it was expected, would have the effect of drawing

tears from the eyes of the sufferer; and if so, Count Pisani declared he

should not despair of his recovery.

In an apartment facing that of Orlando Furioso, there was another man

raving mad. When we entered his room he was swinging in a hammock, in

which he was fastened down, for biting his keeper. Through the gratings

of his window he could perceive his comrades strolling about and amusing

themselves in the garden. He wished to be among them, but was not

allowed to go, because, on a recent occasion, he had made a very violent

attack on a poor harmless creature, suffering from melancholy madness.

The offender was in consequence condemned to be tied down in his

hammock, which is the secondary punishment resorted to in the

establishment. The first and most severe penalty being imprisonment; and

the third the strait-waistcoat. "What is the matter?" said Count Pisani.

"What have you been doing to-day?" The lunatic looked at the count, and

then began whining, like a peevish child. "They will not let me go out

to play," said he, looking out of the window, where several of his

companions were enjoying the air in the garden. "I am tired of lying

here;" and he began rocking himself impatiently in his hammock. "Well, I

doubt not it is wearisome," said the count; "suppose I release you;"

and, with those words, he unfastened the ligatures.

The lunatic joyfully leapt out of his hammock, exclaiming, "Now I may go

into the garden!" "Stay," said the count; "suppose before you go you

dance the Tarantella." "Oh, yes!" exclaimed the lunatic, in a tone which

showed that he received the proposal as the greatest possible

indulgence; "I shall be delighted to dance the Tarantella." "Go and

fetch Teresa and Gaetano," said the count to one of the keepers; then

turning to me, he said, "Teresa is also one of our violent patients, and

she sometimes gives us a great deal of trouble. Gaetano was a teacher of

the guitar, and some time ago he became deranged. He is the minstrel of

our establishment." In a few minutes, Teresa, a pretty looking young

woman about twenty years of age, was conducted into the room by two men,

who held her by the arms, while she struggled to escape, and endeavored

to strike them. Gaetano, with his guitar slung round his neck, followed

gravely, but without being held, for his madness was of a perfectly

harmless kind.

No sooner did Teresa perceive Count Pisani, than, by a violent effort

disengaging herself from the keepers, she flew to him, and, drawing him

aside into a corner of the room, she began to tell him a long story

about some ill-treatment to which she alleged she had been subjected. "I

know it; I have heard of it," said the count; "and, therefore, I think

it just to make you some amends. For this reason I have sent for you

that you may dance the Tarantella." Teresa was delighted at hearing

this, and immediately took her place in front of her intended partner.

"Now, Gaetano, _presto! presto!_" said the count, and the musician

struck up the air of the Tarantella in very spirited style.

I have frequently witnessed the magical effect which this air never

fails to produce on the Sicilians; but I never could conceive any thing

like the change it wrought upon these two lunatics. The musician began

to play the air in the time in which it is usually performed; but the

dancers urged him to play it more and more quickly, till at length the

measure became indescribably rapid. The dancers marked the tune with the

most perfect precision by snapping their fingers. After keeping up this

rapid movement with surprising energy for a quarter of an hour, they

began to show some symptoms of fatigue. The man was the first to give

in, and, overcome by the exertion, he threw himself on a bench which

stood on one side of the room. Teresa, however, kept up a very animated

_pas seul_ for several minutes after the loss of her partner; but at

length she also found herself compelled to stop. The man was placed on

his bed, and the woman was conducted to her apartment. Both were so

completely overcome by the violence of their exertions, that Count

Pisani observed he would answer for their remaining quiet for

twenty-four hours to come. As to the guitarist, he was allowed to go

into the garden to play to his companions.

I was next conducted into a large hall, in which the patients walk and

amuse themselves, when wet weather prevents them from going out. This

place was adorned with a profusion of flowers, growing in pots and

vases, and the walls were covered with fresco paintings, representing

humorous subjects. The hall contained embroidery frames,

spinning-wheels, and even weavers' looms; all presented traces of the

work on which the lunatics had been engaged. Having passed through the

great hall, I was conducted to the garden, which was tastefully laid

out, shaded by large spreading trees and watered by fresh fountains. I

was informed that, during the hours allotted to recreation, most of the

patients may be seen wandering about the garden separately, and without

holding any communication one with another, each following the bent of

his or her own particular humor, some noisy and others silent. One of

the most decided characteristics of madness is the desire of solitude.

It seldom happens that two lunatics enter into conversation with each

other; or, if they do so, each merely gives utterance to his own train

of thought, without any regard to what is said by his interlocutor. It

is different when they converse with the strangers who occasionally

visit them. They then attend to any observations addressed to them, and

not unfrequently make very rational and shrewd replies.

The first patient we met on entering the garden, was a young man

apparently about six or eight-and-twenty years of age. Before he lost

his senses, he was one of the most distinguished advocates in Catania.

One evening, at the theatre, he got involved in some dispute with a

Neapolitan, who, instead of quietly putting into his pocket the card

which Lucca (as I shall call him) slipped into his hand, went out and

made a complaint to the guard. This guard was composed of Neapolitan

soldiers, one of whom gladly availing himself of the opportunity of

exercising authority over a Sicilian, seized him by the collar,

whereupon Lucca struck his assailant. The other soldiers came to the aid

of their comrade, and a violent struggle ensued, in the course of which

Lucca received a blow on the head which felled him on the ground. He was

conveyed to prison in a state of insensibility and placed in a cell,

where he was left for the night. Next morning, when it was intended to

conduct him before the judge for examination, he was found to be

perfectly insane.

This young man's madness had taken a very poetic turn. Sometimes he

fancied himself to be Tasso; at another time Shakspeare or

Chateaubriand. At the time of my visit to the asylum, he was deeply

impressed with the delusion of imagining himself to be Dante. When we

approached him, he was pacing up and down an alley in the garden,

pleasantly shaded by trees. He held in one hand a pencil, and in the

other some slips of paper, and he was busily engaged in composing the

thirty-third Canto of his Inferno. At intervals he rubbed his forehead,

as if to collect his scattered thoughts, and then he would note down

some lines of the poem.

Profiting by a pause, during which he seemed to emerge from his profound

abstraction, I stepped up to him, saying, "I understand, sir, that I

have the honor of addressing myself to Dante."

"That is my name," replied Lucca. "What have you to say to me?"

"To assure you how much pleasure I shall feel in making your

acquaintance. I proceeded to Florence, in the hope of finding you there,

but you had left that city."

"Then," said Lucca, with that sharp, quick sort of utterance often

observable in insane persons, "then, it seems, you were not aware of my

having been driven from Florence, and that they charged me with having

stolen the money of the Republic? Dante accused of robbery, forsooth! I

slung my sword at my side, and having collected the first seven Cantos

of my poem, I departed."

This strange hallucination excited my interest, and, pursuing the

conversation, I said, "I hoped to have overtaken you between Fettre and

Montefeltro."

"Oh! I staid only a very short time there," said he. "Why did you not go

to Ravenna?"

"I did go there, and found only your tomb!"

"But I was not in it," observed he. "Do you know how I escaped?"

I replied in the negative.

"I have discovered a mode of restoring one's life."

"Is it a secret?"

"No; I will tell it you. When I feel that I am dying, I order a grave to

be dug--a very deep grave. You are aware that in the centre of the earth

there is an immense lake full of red water--and--and--"

Count Pisani, who had overheard the latter part of this conversation,

here suddenly interrupted Lucca, saying, "Signor Dante, these people are

very anxious to have a dance. Will you indulge them by playing a

quadrille?"

He then hurriedly dispatched one of the attendants for a violin, on

which instrument he informed me, Lucca was a masterly performer.

The violin being brought, the count handed it to Lucca who began to tune

it. Meanwhile, the count, drawing me aside, said, "I interrupted your

conversation, just now, somewhat abruptly; because I observed that Lucca

was beginning to wander into some of his metaphysical delusions, and I

never allow him to talk on such subjects. These metaphysical lunatics

are always very difficult to cure.

"But yonder comes one who will never be cured!" pursued the count,

shaking his head, sorrowfully, while he directed my notice to a young

female who was advancing from another part of the garden, attended by a

female servant or nurse. By this time the dancers had begun to range

themselves in their places, and the young lady's attendant was drawing

her forward, with the view of inducing her to take part in the

quadrille.

The young lady, whose dress and general elegance of appearance seemed to

denote that she was a person of superior rank, was disinclined to dance;

and as the attendant persisted in urging her forward, she struggled to

escape, and at length fell into a paroxysm of grief.

"Let her alone! Let her alone!" said Count Pisani to the attendant. "It

is useless to contend with her. Poor girl! I fear she will never endure,

to see dancing, or to hear music, without this violent agitation. Come

hither, Costanza," said he, beckoning kindly to her. "Tell me what is

the matter?"

"Oh, Albano! Albano!" shrieked the poor maniac. "They are going to kill

Albano!"

And then, overcome by her emotion, she sank, exhausted, into the arms of

her attendant, who carried her away.

Meanwhile, the sound of the violin had drawn together, from various

parts of the garden, a number of patients, male and female, and the

quadrille was formed. Among the most conspicuous figures in the group

were the son of the Emperor of China, and the man who believed himself

to be dead. The former wore on his head a splendid crown, made of gilt

paper; and the latter, who was enveloped in a white sheet, stalked about

with the grave and solemn air which he conceived to be common to a

ghost. A melancholy madman, who evidently shared in the festivity with

reluctance and regret, and who was, from time to time, urged on by his

keepers, and a woman, who fancied herself to be Saint Catharine, and was

subject to strange fits of ecstasy and improvisation, were also

conspicuous among the dancers. Lucca, who played the violin with

extraordinary spirit, every now and then marked the time by stamping his

foot on the ground, while, in a stentorian voice, he called out the

figures, to which, however, the dancers paid not the slightest

attention. The scene was indescribable, it was like one of those

fantastic visions which are sometimes conjured up in a dream.

As we were passing through the court-yard, on our way out, I espied

Costanza, the young lady who had so determinedly refused to join in the

dance. She was now kneeling down on the edge of a fountain, and intently

gazing on her own countenance, which was reflected from the limpid water

as from a mirror.

I asked the count what had caused the insanity of this interesting

patient. "Alas!" replied he, "it is a melancholy story of romantic

_vendetta_, which might almost figure in a work of fiction." Costanza's

husband had been murdered on her bridal day by a rival.

When Costanza was first brought to the establishment, her madness was of

a very violent character; but, by degrees it had softened down into a

placid melancholy. Nevertheless, her case was one which admitted of no

hope.

Some time after my visit to Palermo, I met Lucca in Paris. He was then,

to all appearance, perfectly himself. He conversed very rationally, and

even appeared to recollect having seen and conversed with me before. I

inquired after poor Costanza; but he shook his head sorrowfully. The

count's prediction was fully verified. Lucca had recovered his senses:

but Costanza was still an inmate of the _Casa dei Matti_.

SLOPED FOR TEXAS.--A TALE OF THE WEST.

This is an answer given in some of the States of America when a

gentleman has decamped from his wife, from his creditors, or from any

other responsibility which he finds it troublesome to meet or to

support. Among the curious instances of the application of this phrase

is an adventure which happened to myself.

It is the boast of the bloods of the town of Rackinsack, in Arkansas,

that they are born with skins like alligators, and with strength like

bears. They work hard, and they _play_ hard. Gaming is the recreation

most indulged in, and the gaming-houses of the western part of Arkansas

have branded it with an unenviable notoriety.

One dark summer night, I lounged, as a mere spectator, the different

rooms, watching the various games of hazard that were being played. Some

of the players seemed to have set their very souls upon the stakes;

their eyes were bloodshot, and fixed, from beneath their wrinkled brows,

on the table, as if their everlasting weal or woe depended there upon

the turning of the dice; while others--the finished blacklegs--assumed

an indifferent and careless look, though a kind of sardonic smile

playing round their lips, but too plainly revealed a sort of habitual

desperation. Three of the players looked the very counterparts of each

other, not only in face, but expression; both the physical and moral

likeness was indeed striking. The other player was a young man, a

stranger, whom they call a "green one," in this and many other parts of

the world. His eyes, his nose, his whole physiognomy, seemed to project,

and to be capable of growing even still longer.

"Fifty dollars more," he exclaimed, with a deep-drawn breath, as he

threw down the stake.

Each of his opponents turned up his cards coolly and confidently; but

the long-visaged hero laid his stake before them, and, to the

astonishment of the three professionals, won.

"Hurrah! the luck has turned, and I crow!" he cried out in an ecstasy,

and pocketed the cash.

The worthy trio smiled at this, and recommenced play. The _green_ young

man displayed a broad but silent grin at his good fortune, and often

took out his money to count it over, and see if each piece was good.

"Here are a hundred dollars more," cried the sylvan youth, "and I crow."

"I take them," said one of the trio. The youth won again, and "crowed"

louder this time than he did the first.

On went the game; stakes were lost and won. Gradually the rouleaus of

the "crower" dwindled down to a three or four of dollars, or so. It was

clear that the gentlemen in black had been luring him on by that best of

decoys, success at first.

"Let me see something for my money. Here's a stake of two dollars, and I

crow!" But he spoke now in a very faint treble indeed, and looked

penitently at the cards.

Again the cards were shuffled, cut, and dealt, and the "plucked pigeon"

staked his last dollar upon them.

"The last button on Gabe's coat, and I cr--cr--; no, I'll be hamstrung

if I do!"

He lost this too, and, with as deep a curse as I ever heard, he rose

from the green board.

The apartment was very spacious, and on the ground floor. There was only

this one gaming table in it, and not many lookers-on besides myself.

Thinking the gaming was over, I turned to go out, but found the door

locked, and the key gone. There was evidently something in the wind. At

all events, I reflected, in ease of need, the windows are not very far

to the ground. I returned, and saw the winners dividing the spoil, and

the poor shorn "greenhorn," leaning over the back of their chairs,

staring intently at the money.

The notes were deliberately spread out one after another. Those which

the loser had staked were new, fresh from the press, he said, and they

were sorted into a heap distinct from the rest. They were two-dollar,

three-dollar, and five-dollar notes, from the Indiana Bank, and the Bank

of Columbus, in Ohio.

"I say, Ned, I don't think these notes are good," said one of the

winners, and examined them.

"I wish they were'nt, and I'd crow," cried out the loser, very

chop-fallen, at his elbow.

This simple speech lulled the suspicions of the counter, and he resumed

his counting. At last, as he took up the last note, and eying it keenly,

he exclaimed, in a most emphatic manner, "I'll be hanged if they _are_

genuine! They are forged!"

"No, they ain't!" replied the loser, quite as emphatically.

A very opprobrious epithet was now hurled at the latter. He, without

more ado, knocked down the speaker at a blow, capsized the table, which

put out the lights, and, in the next instant, darted out of the window,

while a bullet, fired from a pistol, cracked the pane of glass over his

head. He had leaped into the small court-yard, with a wooden paling

round it. The winners dashed toward the door, but found that the "green

one" had secured it.

When the three worthies were convinced that the door would not yield to

their efforts, and when they heard their "_victim_" galloping away, they

gave a laugh at the trick played them, and returned to the table.

"Strike a light, Bill, and let's pick up what notes have fallen. I have

nearly the whole lot in my pocket."

The light soon made its appearance.

"What! None on the floor? Capital; I think I must have them all in my

pocket, then:" saying which, he drew out the notes, and laid them on the

table.

"Fire and Furies! These are the forged notes! The rascal has whipped up

the other heap!"

While all this was going on, I stepped toward the window, but had not

stood there long, before I heard the clanking hoofs of a horse beyond

the paling, and a shout wafted into the room--"Sloped for Texas!"

The worst part of the story remains to be told: it was _my_ horse on

which the rogue was now galloping off.

[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]

THE VOLCANO-GIRL.

It is an axiom among travelers, that the Bay of Naples is the most

beautiful place in the whole world. Every one who beholds it repeats the

same statement with unvarying uniformity; and if any quaint person were

to make a contrary assertion, he would not be argued with, but laughed

down. I dislike paradoxes, and therefore shall subscribe to the general

opinion, although I never saw a scene so dismal as when I first entered

the bay. Dismal, but grand! We had left Civita Vecchia the day before,

steaming through a restless, nasty sea, in the midst of as filthy a fog

as ever defiled the surface of the Mediterranean during the merry month

of May. Sometimes we could see nothing but the dirty-looking short

waves; but now and then a dim streak of Roman territory, or two or three

ghost-like islands, rewarded the efforts of our winking eyes. The night

was boisterous, if not tempestuous; but when morning came the wind had

abated, though without driving away the mist, and the sea rolled still

in a turbulent and uncivil way.

The _Maria Christina_ was undoubtedly the worst steamer it has ever been

my lot to voyage in. There seemed to be not a well hung piece in her

whole composition; so that, in addition to the usual sea-sounds, there

was a perpetual slamming of doors and creaking of timbers. The

villainous little craft appeared to be in constant hesitation whether it

would go to pieces or not; and I believe has since taken that freak into

its head. The captain, as seamanlike a fellow as ever crossed my eyes,

kept up our confidence, however, even in the most ugly moments; although

it could not be denied that our expedition was something like a visit to

the northern seas in a Margate boat.

We crawled on at the rate of some three or four knots an hour, until,

after passing San Stefano, we began to distinguish dimly the base of

Ischia; for the summit was plunged in a mass of black clouds. Then a

doubtful outline of rocks struggled through the vapor to the left; and

at length we got into the pass, guessed at the form of the promontory,

obtained a vague glimpse of Procida, and fairly entered the famous bay.

All the elements of its beauty showed faintly through a moving vapor

that thickened aloft into driving clouds. Capri looked like a cone of

dark mist lingering to the south: the island we had passed dimmed away

in our rear. Bays and creeks innumerable ran in, to the left, between a

strange mixture of rocks and vegetation. This was all we could see at

first; but the lower half of Vesuvius soon showed itself; and presently

the curtain of mist was drawn hastily aside, just to give us a glimpse,

as it were, of the giant peak, faintly penciled against the leaden sky,

into which its wreath of smoke faded away, and of the reaper of Castel a

Mare, and the craggy promontory of Sorrento. Then all was covered again;

and a thin driving shower filled the air. Not a single gleam of sunshine

gilded the scene; but I once distinguished the orb, "shorn of its

beams," poised over the depths of the bay.

First impressions are every thing. Whenever I try to recall the

all-famous site, it always begins by presenting itself under this

aspect--not without its grandeur, it is true--but far inferior to the

bright and sunny scenes I witnessed, when, proceeding farther under more

favorable auspices, I made acquaintance with the coasts of Calabria, and

the immortal Straits of Messina. With a little patience, however, I can

figure to myself the Bay of Naples in all the loveliness which it

afterward displayed; and when the operation is complete, the contrast

becomes interesting.

I shall say nothing about the castles of St. Elmo and Del Ovo; nor of

the useless fuss about granting _pratique_; nor of an attempt made to

entrap us into smuggling by a worthy who had some silks to land; nor of

the annoyances of the custom-house. It is not my intention to take the

bread out of the mouths of the tourists. These are their legitimate

topics. I have to relate a little incident which does not happen to

every one who visits Naples; and I can not therefore be accused of

trespassing upon any body's ground. What I say about scenery and manners

must merely be considered as a setting to the diamond. I am willing to

concede superiority in this respect to any one who may claim it.

We lodged in the Hotel de la Belle Venise, situated half-way up a steep

street--name not mentioned in my journal--leading from the lower end of

the Strada Toledo. We were bent on traveling cheaply, and did not think

four _carlines_ a day too dear for a room. This hint is not intended as

information to any who may follow in our footsteps; but it illustrates

our character and position, and explains why in the course of our

wanderings we were always meeting with strange adventures. A man may

travel from Dan to Beersheba in first-class carriages of railways,

coupes of diligences, saloons of steamers; he may put up at the best

hotels, and hire the cleverest guides, and he will see nothing, learn

nothing, feel nothing, but what has been seen, learned, and felt by his

predecessors. But we defy even the shyest Englishman to undertake the

tour of Europe on economical principles, unless he be positively

determined to keep his eyes and heart as close shut as his pocket,

without bringing back something to remember to the end of his

days--something to make his eyes grow dim when he meditates on it, his

lips tremble when he speaks of it, his hand falter when he writes of it.

For in this system of traveling he is forced, while in a mood of mind

highly susceptible of impressions, into contact with all sorts of

characters and incidents; and if he has a spark of nature in him, it

must be struck out.

We dined the first evening at the Trattoria dell' Errole, and took an

ice at the Caffe di Europa. But our heads were in a disagreeable whirl,

and we enjoyed nothing. We missed the creaking and the groaning of the

Maria Christina; for which the rumbling of a few carriages, and the buzz

of voices on the promenade, seemed--such is the force of habit--an

insignificant compensation. Lines of well-lit shops, crowds of

well-dressed people, balconies filled with ladies, colonnades of

churches, and facades of palaces, danced dimly before our eyes, instead

of the accustomed cordages, the naked masts, the smutty sail, the

breast-high bulwarks, and that horrid squat funnel, with its cascade of

black smoke tinged, as it rolled forth, with a dull red glow. When I

retired to rest, I caught myself holding on to the bed as I prepared to

get into it; and I dreamed of nothing all night but of trampling of feet

overhead, whistling of wind through rigging, shifting of the

anchor-chain, and all sorts of abominable noises. These physical

reminiscences, however, disappeared next day, and I was prepared to

enjoy Naples.

I did enjoy it; and I hope all my readers may live to enjoy it too. I

know this is wishing a tremendously long life to some of them; but such

a wish will offend nobody. During one of my strolls--this time I was

alone--I came to the foot of that vast flight of steps shaded by trees

which leads up toward the castle of St. Elmo. It was just past mid-day;

and I suppose every body was beginning the siesta; for not a single

living soul could I see in any direction. I sat down on one of the

steps, under the shadow of a huge elm, and looked upward toward the sky

along the broken avenue of trees that led aloft. There was something

singularly beautiful to me in the scene. The trees here and there met,

and huddled their heads together, and threw down a thick black shadow:

beyond was a bright patch of sunshine; and then some thinly-sprinkled

branches bent across, and fluttered their green and gold leaves between

me and the patch of blue sky that glanced at the top, seeming to be the

only destination of this lofty staircase.

I was gazing upward, as if in expectation, but in reality admiring this

curious effect, when a small dark form intercepted my view of the sky. I

had almost imagined myself at the foot of Jacob's ladder; but the spell

was at once broken, and I was about to rise and go away, when the

singular motions of the person who had disturbed me drew my attention.

It was evidently a girl with naked feet, but neat garments; her head was

laden with flowers; and she skipped down with all the lightness of the

gazelle for some space; then came to a halt, possibly on seeing a

stranger; then continued her progress--now showing brightly in the sun,

now dimly in the shade, until she came, and, after a sidelong glance at

me, sat down on the opposite end of the same step, where there was no

protection from the heat. I now noticed that she carried a basket in her

hand, from which she produced a variety of objects, evidently

manufactured from lava. These she arranged by her side, and examined

with care, every now and then casting an impatient look toward me. There

was a wildness in her eye, and a quaintness in her whole demeanor that

pleased me, especially as her features were almost without a fault. So I

remained where I was, studying her movements; and the idea suddenly

struck me that I was occupying her usual place, and that shyness

prevented her from coming nearer. So I arose and went a little higher

up, when she at once crossed over, I thought, with a grateful smile. A

little while afterward she called to me, and asked if I would buy some

of her curiosities.

There was evidently no sordid motive in this; for when I came near, she

made no allusion to a bargain, but said I had chosen a place where there

was not sufficient shade. I asked her a few questions about the lava,

but got only vague answers. What conversation passed was a random kind

of talk about the difference of Italy and foreign countries. It was

evident that in the girl's eyes "Napoli"--which she pronounced with

magnificent emphasis--was the only place in the world worth admiring.

She had seen no other. The people, however, were bad--very bad. I

thought, upon this observation, that something like a story was coming;

but the throat and face of the girl only darkened with a rush of blood,

and she grew utterly silent. Suddenly she arranged her lava hastily in

her basket, started up, leaving a piece which I had been holding in my

hand, and had not paid for, and ran away down the street. I naturally

ran after her to pay for what I had bought; but she turned round with

flushed cheek and flashing eyes; and while I was indulging in the hope

of being able to explain my intentions, I felt a blow on my breast from

a stone lanched with no weak hand; and before I had time to recover from

my surprise, the girl had disappeared.

A curious termination to an interview which I had begun to persuade

myself had something of a romantic character! I rubbed my thorax, tried

to laugh at the little slut's vivacity, but could not get rid of the

uneasy annoyance peculiar to misunderstood people. Perhaps I had been

taken for a robber--perhaps something I had said in my broken Italian

had been thought insulting. I grew quite morose; thought of nothing else

all the afternoon; was set down as an ill-tempered fellow at dinner; and

on retiring to bed, could not help perpetually stating this

question--"Why should that pretty girl, toward whom my heart had

expanded, have left me in so abrupt a manner; and on my endeavoring to

restore her property, have made a target of me?" All night, as I slept,

I felt as if a hot coal were lying on my breast; and the place, indeed,

_was_ black and blue in the morning.

An excursion had been proposed to Vesuvius, and we started at three in

the afternoon--myself, four Americans, with Mr. Jenkins and his

wife--all crowded into what, I believe, is called a _corricolo_. The

sea, along the brink of which we went, was still stormy, and the waves

washed with a slushing noise up into the very street. The drive was

beautiful to Portici, the white houses and vine-wreathed porticoes of

which I noticed with pleasure. At Portici, after some wrangling in the

house of the guide, we were transferred to horses and donkeys; and off

we went, first up a hot lane between stone walls, and then along a fine

paved road. The party was merry, and not unpicturesque, but out of

character with the scene. Not one of us was subdued by the tranquil

beauty of the little landscapes, the bright green nooks that opened here

and there. Our temperaments were still too northern. We were not yet

soothed down by the sunny sky and balmy air of Italy; and got stared at

in consequence with contemptuous curiosity by the languid peasants in

the fields.

At length a zig-zag road commenced, and up we went, turning round ever

and anon to view the expanding bay, softened down into apparent calm by

distance. Green gullies and ravines of lava began to be intermingled;

but tranquil observation was soon interrupted by tremendous gusts of

wind that came roaring down the sides of the mountain, and enveloped us

in whirlwinds of dust, sometimes mingled with pebbles, at every turn of

the road. It was hard work to get on; and we were glad enough to reach

the Hermitage and Observatory, where we tossed off a glass of _Lachryma

Christi_ to restore us.

The rest of the road was along a narrow ridge leading to the foot of the

great black cone. On either side were gullies of green, and beyond great

red fields of lava. It was not remarkably safe riding, and by no means

commodious. Sometimes one's nose touched the horse's or ass's neck;

sometimes the back of one's head was whisked by the tail. It was a sort

of rocking-horse motion. But we arrived safe at the dismounting-place;

and, I must confess, looked rather dismayed at the desperately steep

cone up which we were bound to scramble. But in traveling, "on, on," is

the word; so on we went, stumbling up through the triturated and block

lava, as if Fame, or something else equally valuable, had been at the

summit. Mrs. Jenkins was in an open palanquin, borne by eight men, who

grunted, staggered, crawled up or slid back, shouted, laughed, and

belabored one another with their climbing-poles, while the undaunted

lady sat as coolly as in her drawing-room at home, making observations

on the scenery, which we could scarcely hear, and were too breathless to

answer.

In about an hour we neared the summit, and got under a vast canopy of

sulphurous smoke, which, blown by the furious wind, rolled grim and

black over the serrated edge, stretched its impenetrable mass between us

and the sky, and then swooped down toward the bay, and dispersed in a

vast mist. Most parts of the plain, too, were covered with a low

ground-fog. It was a grand sight as we paused and looked back before the

last effort. The whole sweep of the bay was visible from Sorrento to

Baia, together with the islands, scattered like giant sentinels at the

mouth; but all looked strange and fantastic through the sulphurous

vapor. The sun was setting in a bath of blood and gold, just behind a

straight line of ebony clouds with a sharp rim, like a wall of black

marble. The white houses on the slopes of Castel a Mare were already

looking ghastly in the twilight.

Our temples throbbed with fatigue; but the guide cried "Forward," and we

soon came to the most disagreeable part of the business. The smoke was

forced by the wind in a kind of cascade some fifty yards down the

declivity, and as soon as we got into it an awful sense of suffocation

came on. The guide swore, and some of us talked of retreating. But the

majority were for persevering; and, panting and coughing, we dashed

upward, reached the summit, got into the midst of a fearful torrent of

black smoke, like that which is vomited by a steamer's funnel, and

staggered giddily about seeking which way to go. At this moment a slight

form glanced toward us, said a few words to the guide, and presently we

were running to the left along black and dizzy precipices, until

suddenly we emerged from the volcanic vapor, and were in full view at

the same time of the plain and the sea, and of all the wonders of

Vesuvius.

The girl whose acquaintance I had made in so strange a manner had come

to the assistance of the guide, and told him what direction to take in

order soonest to escape from the smoke. I spoke to her; but although she

recognized me, I think, she did not, or would not remember our former

interview. The idea suggested itself that she was touched in her

intellect, so I made no farther allusion to the subject. It was evident

the guide knew her, and had confidence in her. He asked her advice about

the path which it would be advisable to follow; and obeyed her

directions implicitly. "Who is that?" I whispered. "It is Ghita, the

Volcano-girl," he replied in English, before repeating the Italian name,

which might be translated, the "Daughter of the Volcano." I had no time

for further inquiries. We were once more in motion, and had enough to do

to keep our footing on the rough lava in the teeth of as furious a blast

as ever I remember encountering. It would have been dangerous to stand

even near a precipice.

It was a marvelous scene that vast black valley with its lake of fire at

the bottom--its cone of fire on one hand. The discharges were constant,

and had something appalling in their sound. We were almost too much

excited for observation. Now we looked at the cone of green and gold

that sank and rose, faded and brightened, smoked or flamed; then at the

seething lake; then at the strong mountains of lava; then at the burning

fissures that yawned around. There were yet some remnants of day--a

gloomy twilight at least revealed the jagged rim of the valley. Down we

went--down, down to the very edge of the boiling caldron of melted lava,

that rolled its huge waves toward the black shore, waves whose foam and

spray were fire and flame! An eruption evidently was preparing; and soon

indeed took place. We missed the sight; but what we now saw was grand

enough. A troop of heavy black clouds was hurrying athwart the sky,

showing the stars ever and anon between "like a swarm of golden bees."

The wind roared and bellowed among the lava-gullies, while the cone

discharged its blocks of burning lava, or its showers of red sparks,

with a boom like that of a park of artillery.

A thousand travelers may witness and describe the scene, but it can

never be hackneyed or vulgar. The volcano-girl, evidently familiar with

every changing aspect, crept to my side, as I stood apart wrapt in

silent admiration and wonder, and I caught her examining the expression

of my face as it was revealed by the dismal glare of the burning lake.

"E bellissima!" she whispered in a husky voice, pressing close to my

side, and trembling like a leaf, not with present fear, but manifestly

in memory of some dreadful event. We were friends from that moment, and

she constituted herself my especial guide, running before me to choose

the surest paths, giving me her delicate little hand, and showing, in

fact, all possible willingness to make up our little quarrel, if she

retained any remembrance of it.

We returned toward the cone, and approached within dangerous proximity

to it. The volcano-girl often pulled my arm to induce me to keep back;

but when she saw I was determined to look down into the horrid flaming

gulf of fire that yawned near the cone, she followed me, murmuring a low

pensive song. On reaching the edge, which was uncertain and trembling, I

halted and gazed; and while the guide and my companions shouted to me to

come back, enjoyed a moment of fearful joy. I was standing on the brink

of a vast chasm of fire, in which no flame was, but only a dreadful

glow, that thickened by distance into substance. The wind shrieked

around, the volcano roared above, the tremendous cloud of black smoke

swayed and wavered as it rolled, beaten down by the wind to the outer

edge of the crater, like a vast snake, or, when the blast for a moment

ceased, towered aloft like an evil genius, and dispersed amid the

clouds.

"Come back! come back!" cried Ghita, as the smoky pile of cinders

trembled beneath us, and we both, panic-stricken, rushed to a surer

footing, while the point we had occupied slided into the gulf of fire! I

never shall forget that moment. The very memory of it makes my hair

stand on end, and a cold perspiration burst out over my whole body. The

girl clasped my hand convulsively as we ran, and when we stood again on

the hot solid lava, uttered a low, "Dio grazia!" All this was unlike

folly, and, together with our companionship in danger, heightened the

interest I felt in my wild-looking, beautiful guide.

We all returned toward the edge of the crater, and collected in a

lava-cave to light torches for our journey back. Here we met two or

three men armed with guns, who professed to be guards, and might have

been brigands. One of them spoke rather roughly to the volcano-girl, who

took refuge by my side, and would not quit it. We started again by the

light of great flaring torches, and soon began the descent down a dusty

decline. It was a strange, rapid piece of work. The whole party ran,

rushed, tumbled, slid, rolled down in one confused crowd, the torches

glaring, flakes of burning pitch scattering here and there, the

palanquin bobbing up and down, the mountain sloping up to the clouds

behind, and down into darkness before. We descended this time into the

old crater--a great plain of dust and pumice-stone. All was gloomy

around; but the lights of Naples and Portici could be distinguished in

the distance.

Our horses and donkeys were waiting for us where we had left them; and

we rode rapidly back _via_ the Hermitage, but over the plain of lava,

instead of by the zig-zag road, toward Portici. Ghita ran all the way by

my side, but rarely spoke, except to tell me when we approached a steep

declivity. I should have felt jealous had she attended to any one else;

but was quite angry at hearing her jestingly spoken of as "my conquest."

A single vulgar remark sometimes throws cold water on the most delicate

sentiment.

At Portici she left us. The guides were paid, and every body forgot the

volcano-girl who had been of such signal service to us. I looked for

her, and saw her standing in the court-yard with the back of her little

hand to her mouth in a pensive attitude. "Ghita," said I, approaching,

"I must give you something"--she started slightly--"that you may buy a

remembrance with it of our visit to the volcano." In such a form, the

present--I did not write the amount down among my disbursements--was

accepted frankly and freely. The poor girl was evidently in a state of

great emotion: a few kind words from me had struck upon a chord ever

ready to vibrate; the truth is, she sobbed, and could not answer. But

when the tongue falters, and the lip trembles in the South, there is an

eloquent substitute for language. She took my hand, and kissed it

fervently, and a shower of warm tear-drops fell upon it. "Ghita," I

murmured, trying to be firm, but bending over her with the tenderest

affection--I can not help it; I have an instinctive love for the

sorrowful--"Ghita, you are unhappy? Can I do any thing for you?" "No,"

was her answer, as she again pressed my hand, and, gliding away,

disappeared like a shadow in the street.

We were at Naples an hour after midnight; but I found it impossible to

sleep. I could think of nothing save the story of the volcano-girl; for

the substance of her story was evident--the material details alone were

wanting. I afterward learned the whole truth. A volume might be filled

with them: a line will be sufficient. She had been betrothed to a young

man, a guide, who had perished during a visit to the volcano: she had

gone mad in consequence--of a gentle, harmless madness in general; but

as a few brutal people insulted her, she was sometimes suspicious of

strangers. She gained her living by selling ornaments of polished lava,

or by guiding travelers. This was all; but it was enough. I have kept a

place in my memory for Ghita, whose acquaintance I cultivated on other

occasions. I saw her once among the ruins of Pompeii, where she greeted

me with a friendly nod, but without referring at all to our previous

meetings--I mean in words; for at parting she gave me a handful of

wild-flowers, and then ran away without waiting for a recompense.

PUBLIC OPINION AND THE PUBLIC PRESS.

Perhaps there is no better guarantee of peace and progress to this

country than the freedom of the Press. Opinion is King of England and

Victoria is Queen. Every phase of opinion speaks through some book or

journal and is repeated widely in proportion to the hold it takes upon

the public. Government is the representative of whatever opinions

prevail; if it prove too perverse it falls--ministers change, without a

revolution. Then too, when every man's tongue is free, we are accustomed

to hear all manner of wild suggestions. Fresh paint does not soon dazzle

us; we are like children lavishly supplied with toys, who receive new

gifts tranquilly enough.

Is King Opinion an honest ruler? Yes. For the English people speak

unreservedly their thoughts on public matters, and are open, though it

be with honorable slowness, to all new convictions. We must add,

however, as a drawback, that the uneducated class amounts to a

distressing number in this country in proportion to the whole. It forms,

as long as it is ignorant, a source of profit to designing speculators.

Nonsense is put into the mouths of men who mean no evil, but who

sincerely desire their own improvement. Truth is murdered, and her dress

is worn by knaves who burlesque sympathy with working-men for selfish

purposes. The poor man's sincere advocate, at last, can not speak truth

without incurring the suspicion of some treasonable purpose against

honesty or common sense. The very language necessary to be used in

advocating just rights sometimes becomes as a pure stream befouled by

those who have misused it.

Therefore, in England, the uneducated classes arrive slowly at the

privileges which they must acquire. They are impeded by false friends;

but, even false friends are not able to delude them beyond a certain

point. Among us, for example, even the most ignorant well know that

there is no field for a vulgar revolution against such a monarch as

Opinion makes. Arguments must be used for barricades, and we must knock

our neighbors on the head with facts; we must fire newspaper articles

instead of cannon-balls, and use colloquial banter for our small shot.

In all disputes an English citizen has, for his last and sole appeal,

Opinion; as a citizen of Rome had Caesar.

The Government which puts its hand upon a nation's mouth and thinks to

stifle what it has to say, will be inevitably kicked and bitten. The

nation will, some day, get liberty and make amends for every minute of

restraint with lusty shouting. Among the continental states which

suffered from the Revolutions of 1848, were some in which the people had

less of social evil to complain of than we have in England; but they

were fretted by political restrictions, by a system of espial which

tabooed all conversation upon public matters before any stranger, and

they were glad enough to get their tongues at liberty. Adam, the old

traditions say, was made of eight pounds: a pound of earth, his flesh; a

pound of fire, his blood; a pound of cloud, his instability; a pound of

grace (how that was weighed the legend saith not); his stature; a pound

of blossom, his eyes; a pound of dew, his sweat; a pound of salt, his

tears; and, finally, a pound of wind, his breath. Now Governments which

don't allow each man his pound of wind, get themselves, sooner or later,

into certain trouble; for, when the wind does come at last (which it is

sure to do), it comes in a storm.

The freedom and the power of Opinion in England, have given an

importance to the press which is attached to it, as a direct agent in

producing social reforms, in no other European country. The journalist

lays every day a mass of facts before all people capable of thought; the

adult, who has learnt only to write and read, acquires his remaining

education--often not despicable in amount--from his weekly paper. Jeremy

Bentham, speaking of those old superstitious rites by which it was

intended to exorcise evil spirits, says very truly, "In our days, and in

our country, the same object is obtained, and beyond comparison more

effectually, by so cheap an instrument as a common newspaper. Before

this talisman, not only devils but ghosts, vampires, witches, and all

their kindred tribes, are driven out of the land, never to return again!

The touch of Holy Water is not so intolerable to them as the bare smell

of Printer's Ink."

What can a man learn by skimming the newspapers and journals of the day?

Why, in the northern seas there floats a very little film of oil, where

whales or seals have been. So thin a film, no bird could separate from

any wave, yet there are birds who become grossly fat on no other

nourishment. The storm petrel, or, in the Faroese phrase, Mother Carey's

chicken, skims the surface of the troubled water, till the feathers of

its breast are charged with oil; and then feeds heartily on the

provision so collected. A vast number of her Majesty's subjects dart

over the debater and the discussor of the newspaper, like storm petrels,

and thrive upon what skimmings they retain.

Since the press in England has been actually free (and many of us can

remember when it was not so), one fact has become every year more

prominent amidst the din of parties. We have begun to see that, however

much we are convinced of any one thing, those are not all and always

fools who think the opposite. We get a strong suspicion of our

individual fallibility, new facts come out, and display old opinions in

an unexpected light. We respect our opponents, when they deserve

respect, and on the whole are teachable.

Of course, our views in politics are often guided by our sense of

private interest, but there is nothing very wonderful in that; nature

intends man to cry out, when a shoe pinches him. But, there is now

abroad, concerning social questions, a desire to hear all that can be

said about them; to tolerate, if not to respect, conclusions that oppose

our own; a readiness to seek for the right course and a desire to follow

it.--_Household Words_.

THE DUMB CHILD.

She is my only girl:

I ask'd for her as some most precious thing,

For all unfinish'd was Love's jewel'd ring,

Till set with this soft pearl;

The shade that Time brought forth I could not see;

How pure, how perfect seem'd the gift to me!

Oh, many a soft old tune

I used to sing unto that deaden'd ear,

And suffer'd not the lightest footstep near,

Lest she might wake too soon;

And hush'd her brothers' laughter while she lay--

Ah, needless care! I might have let them play!

'Twas long ere I believ'd

That this one daughter might not speak to me;

Waited and watched God knows how patiently!

How willingly deceived:

Vain Love was long the untiring nurse of Faith,

And tended Hope until it starved to death.

Oh! if she could but hear

For one short hour, till I her tongue might teach

To call me _mother_, in the broken speech

That thrills the mother's ear!

Alas! those seal'd lips never may be stirr'd

To the deep music of that lovely word.

My heart it sorely tries

To see her kneel, with such a reverent air,

Beside her brothers at their evening prayer:

Or lift those earnest eyes

To watch our lips, as though our words she knew--

Then moves her own, as she were speaking too.

I've watch'd her looking up

To the bright wonder of a sunset sky,

With such a depth of meaning in her eye,

That I could almost hope

The struggling soul _would_ burst its binding cords,

And the long pent-up thoughts flow forth in words.

The song of bird and bee,

The chorus of the breezes, streams, and groves,

All the grand music to which Nature moves,

Are wasted melody

To her; the world of sound a tuneless void;

While even _Silence_ hath its charm destroyed.

Her face is very fair;

Her blue eye beautiful; of finest mould

The soft white brow, o'er which, in waves of gold,

Ripples her shining hair.

Alas! this lovely temple closed must be,

For He who made it keeps the master-key.

Wills He the mind within

Should from earth's Babel-clamor be kept free,

E'en that _His_ still small voice and step might be

Heard at its inner shrine,

Through that deep hush of soul, with clearer thrill?

Then should I grieve?--O murmuring heart be still!

She seems to have a sense

Of quiet gladness in her noiseless play.

She hath a pleasant smile, a gentle way,

Whose voiceless eloquence

Touches all hearts, though I had once the fear

That even _her father_ would not care for her.

Thank God it is not so!

And when his sons are playing merrily,

She comes and leans her head upon his knee.

Oh! at such times I know--

By his full eye and tones subdued and mild--

How his heart yearns over his silent child.

Not of _all_ gifts bereft,

Even now. How could I say she did not speak?

What real language lights her eye and cheek,

And renders thanks to Him who left

Unto her soul yet open avenues

For joy to enter, and for love to use.

And God in love doth give

To her defect a beauty of its own.

And we a deeper tenderness have known

Through that for which we grieve.

Yet shall the seal be melted from her ear,

Yea, and _my_ voice shall fill it--but _not here_.

When that new sense is given,

What rapture will its first experience be,

That never woke to meaner melody,

Than the rich songs of heaven--

To _hear_ the full-toned anthem swelling round,

While angels teach the ecstasies of sound!

CURIOSITIES OF RAILWAY TRAVELING.

There are some peculiarities about railway traveling which we do not

remember to have seen noticed, however commonplace the mode of transit

itself may have become. There is a singular optical illusion, for

instance, in going through a tunnel, which nearly every one must have

observed, and yet which nobody, so far as we can learn, has thought it

worth while to explain: no sooner have you plunged into complete

darkness, and the great brassy monster at the head of the train is

tearing and wheezing, and panting away with you through the gloom, at

the rate possibly of twenty miles to the hour, than, if you happen to

fix your eye on the faintly illuminated brickwork which you are so

rapidly dashing past, the apparent movement of the engine will be in a

reverse direction to the real; and the general effect will be that of

retrogression at a furious pace, instead of the progression which is

taking place in reality. This is altogether different from the trite

illustration of the astronomical lecturer, who reminds us of the

apparent movement of the shore when observed from the deck of a

steamboat; for in this case it is the damp side of the tunnel that

appears to be stationary, and the framework of the window through which

the prospect is presented that seems to be receding; of course, the

uniformity of the objects visible, and the faint light in which they are

beheld, materially assist this ocular deception; but the hint thus

thrown out may serve as a convenient peg on which passengers may hang a

theory of their own, and thus beguile the tedium of their journey in

default of more exciting topics of discussion.

Not but that the observant eye may find ample scope for employment in

the ever-changing variety of landscape, which even on the least

picturesque lines will be found constantly coming into view. The most

ordinary objects have then a fresh interest imparted to them. You catch

a distant glimpse perhaps of a haystack on the brow of an eminence miles

away before you. As you proceed, a farm-house, with its out-buildings

and granaries to follow, marches right out of the haystack, and takes up

its position at the side. Then the angles all change as the line of

vision is altered. The farm-house expands, shuts up again, turns itself

completely round, a window winks at you for an instant under one of the

gables, and then disappears; presently the farm-house itself vanishes,

and a rough, half-shaved corn-field, with sturdy sheaves of wheat

staggering about its back, comes running up out of a coppice to overtake

the farm. Then, as we hear the pulse of the engine throbbing quicker and

quicker, and the telegraph posts seem to have started off into a frantic

gallopade along the line, we plunge into a plantation. Long vistas of

straggling trees--and leaf-strewn pathways winding in among them--give

way to scattered clumps of firs and tangled masses of fern and

brushwood, while broken fences come dancing up between, and then shrink

down again behind rising knolls covered with a sudden growth of gorse

and heather. A pit yawns into a pond; the pond squeezes itself longways

into a thin ditch, which turns off sharply at a corner, and leaves a

dreamy-looking cow occupying its place. Then a gate flies out of a

thicket; a man leaning over with folded arms grows out of the gate,

which spins round into a lodge, and then strides off altogether; while

the trees slink away after it, and a momentary glimpse is caught of a

fine mansion perched upon rising ground at the back, and which has

become suddenly disentangled from the woods surrounding it. You have

hardly time to hazard a guess concerning the architecture, before a

sloping bank comes sliding in between, and you find yourself in a deep

cutting, with the soft snowy steam curling up the sides in ample folds,

and rolling its billows of white vapor over the bright green grass, that

seems all the fresher for the welcome moisture. Then comes the open

country again--a purple outline of distant hills, with a cloud or two

resting lazily upon them; a long-drawn shriek from the valve-whistle, a

few moments of slackened speed, and a gradual panoramic movement of

sheds, hoardings, cattle-trucks, and piled-up packages, and we emerge

upon a station, with a bustling company of anxious passengers ranged

along the platform eager for our arrival.

To us, at least, familiarity with the many phases of railroad traveling

has not engendered the proverbial consequence. The refreshment station

at Wolverton is always impressed upon our mind as a perpetual marvel. To

witness those well-stocked tables, one moment displaying the prodigal

richness of a lord mayor's feast, and the next to behold this scene of

gastronomical fertility laid bare, as the simoom of a hundred voracious

appetites sweeps across the tempting viands, and leaves all blank behind

it, is a theme of exhaustless wonderment. We involuntarily think of the

182,500 Banbury cakes that are here annually consumed by pastry-loving

passengers, and of the 70,080 bottles of stout that are uncorked every

year to quench the thirst of these fleeting customers. We look with a

proper veneration upon every one of the eighty-five pigs here

maintained, and who, after being from their birth most kindly treated

and most luxuriously fed, are annually promoted by seniority, one after

another, into an indefinite number of pork pies, the vacancies caused by

the retirement of these veterans being constantly supplied by the

acquisition of fresh recruits. The returns of the railway company show

that upward of seven millions of passengers are annually draughted

through Wolverton on their way northward. Making a fair deduction for

those who, from lack of means or inclination, do not avail themselves of

the good things here provided, there is yet a startling number of

customers to be supplied. Fancy the three million mouths that, on the

lowest average, annually demand at these tables the satisfaction of

their appetite, craving at one time their accustomed sustenance in one

vast aggregate of hunger. It is like having to undertake the feeding of

the entire population of London. The mouth of Gargantua is but a faint

type of even one day's voracity; and all this is devoured in a spot

which hardly twenty years ago was unmarked upon the map, a mere streak

of pasture-land on the banks of the Grand Junction canal. Surely this is

not one of the least astonishing feats wrought by railway magic.

THE ROBBERS' REVENGE.--FROM THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A POLICE-OFFICER.

Levasseur and his confederates[16] sailed for the penal settlements in

the ill-fated convict-ship, the _Amphytrion_, the total wreck of which

on the coast of France, and consequent drowning of the crew and

prisoners, excited so painful a sensation in England. A feeling of

regret for the untimely fate of Le Breton, whom I regarded rather as a

weak dupe than a purposed rascal, passed over my mind as I read the

announcement in the newspapers; but newer events had almost jostled the

incidents connected with his name from my remembrance, when a terrible

adventure vividly recalled them, and taught me how fierce and untamable

are the instincts of hate and revenge in a certain class of minds.

A robbery of plate had been committed in Portman-square, with an

ingenuity and boldness which left no doubt that it had been effected by

clever and practiced hands. The detective officers first employed having

failed to discover the offenders, the threads of the imperfect and

broken clew were placed in my hands, to see if my somewhat renowned

dexterity, or luck, as many of my brother officers preferred calling it,

would enable me to piece them out to a satisfactory conclusion. By the

description obtained of a man who had been seen lurking about the house

a few days previous to the burglary, it had been concluded by my

predecessors in the investigation that one Martin, a fellow with

half-a-dozen _aliases_, and a well-known traveler on the road to the

hulks, was concerned in the affair; and by their advice a reward of

fifty pounds had been offered for his apprehension and conviction. I

prosecuted the inquiry with my usual energy and watchfulness, without

alighting upon any new fact or intimation of importance. I could not

discover that a single article of the missing property had been either

pawned or offered for sale, and little doubt remained that the crucible

had fatally diminished the chances of detection. The only hope was, that

an increased reward might induce one of the gang to betray his

confederates; and as the property was of large value, this was done, and

one hundred guineas was promised for the required information. I had

been to the printer's to order the placards announcing the increased

recompense; and after indulging in a long gossip with the foreman of the

establishment, whom I knew well, was passing at about a quarter past ten

o'clock through Ryder's-court, Newport-market, where a tall man met and

passed me swiftly, holding a handkerchief to his face. There was nothing

remarkable in that, as the weather was bitterly cold and sleety; and I

walked unheedingly on. I was just in the act of passing out of the court

toward Leicester-square, when swift steps sounded suddenly behind me. I

instinctively turned; and as I did so, received a violent blow on the

left shoulder--intended, I doubted not, for the nape of my neck--from

the tall individual who had passed me a minute previously. As he still

held the handkerchief to his face, I did not catch even a momentary

glance at his features, and he ran off with surprising speed. The blow,

sudden, jarring, and inflicted with a sharp instrument--by a strong

knife or a dagger--caused a sensation of faintness; and before I

recovered from it all chance of successful pursuit was at an end. The

wound, which was not at all serious, I had dressed at a chemist's shop

in the Haymarket; and as proclaiming the attack would do nothing toward

detecting the perpetrator of it, I said little about it to any one, and

managed to conceal it entirely from my wife, to whom it would have

suggested a thousand painful apprehensions whenever I happened to be

unexpectedly detained from home. The brief glimpse I had of the balked

assassin afforded no reasonable indication of his identity. To be sure

he ran at an amazing and unusual pace, but this was a qualification

possessed by so many of the light-legged as well as lightfingered gentry

of my professional acquaintance, that it could not justify even a random

suspicion; and I determined to forget the unpleasant incident as soon as

possible.

The third evening after this occurrence I was again passing along

Leicester-square at a somewhat late hour, but this time with all my eyes

about me. Snow, which the wind blew sharply in one's face, was falling

fast, and the cold was intense. Except myself, and a tallish,

snow-wreathed figure--a woman apparently--not a living being was to be

seen. This figure, which was standing still at the further side of the

square, appeared to be awaiting me, and as I drew near it, threw back

the hood of a cloak, and to my great surprise disclosed the features of

a Madame Jaubert. This lady, some years before, had carried on, not very

far from the spot where she now stood, a respectable millinery business.

She was a widow with one child, a daughter of about seven years of age.

Marie-Louise, as she was named, was one unfortunate day sent to

Coventry-street on an errand with some money in her hand, and never

returned. The inquiries set on foot proved utterly without effect: not

the slightest intelligence of the fate of the child was obtained--and

the grief and distraction of the bereaved mother resulted in temporary

insanity. She was confined in a lunatic asylum for seven or eight

months, and when pronounced convalescent, found herself homeless, and

almost penniless, in the world. This sad story I had heard from one of

the keepers of the asylum during her sojourn there. It was a subject she

herself never, I was aware, touched upon; and she had no reason to

suspect that I was in the slightest degree informed of this melancholy

passage in her life. She, why, I know not, changed her name from that of

Duquesne to the one she now bore--Jaubert; and for the last two or three

years had supported a precarious existence by plausible begging-letters

addressed to persons of credulous benevolence; for which offense she had

frequently visited the police courts at the instance of the secretary of

the Mendicity Society, and it was there I had consequently made her

acquaintance.

"Madame Jaubert!" I exclaimed, with unfeigned surprise, "why, what on

earth can you be waiting here for on such a night as this?"

"To see you!" was her curt reply.

"To see me! Depend upon it, then, you are knocking at the wrong door for

not the first time in your life. The very little faith I ever had in

professional widows, with twelve small children, all down in the

measles, has long since vanished, and--"

"Nay," she interrupted--she spoke English, by the way, like a

native--"I'm not such a fool as to be trying the whimpering dodge upon

you. It is a matter of business. You want to find Jem Martin?"

"Ay, truly; but what can _you_ know of him? Surely you are not _yet_

fallen so low as to be the associate or accomplice of burglars?"

"Neither yet, nor likely to be so," replied the woman; "still I could

tell you where to place your hands on James Martin, if I were but sure

of the reward."

"There can be no doubt about that," I answered.

"Then follow me, and before ten minutes are past, you will have secured

your man."

I did so--cautiously, suspiciously; for my adventure three evenings

before, had rendered me unusually circumspect and watchful. She led the

way to the most crowded quarter of St. Giles's, and when she had reached

the entrance of a dark blind alley, called Hine's-court, turned into it,

and beckoned me to follow.

"Nay, nay, Madame Jaubert," I exclaimed, "that won't do. You mean

fairly, I dare say; but I don't enter that respectable alley alone at

this time of night."

She stopped, silent and embarrassed. Presently she said, with a sneer,

"You are afraid, I suppose?"

"Yes, I am."

"What is to be done, then?" she added, after a few moments'

consideration. "He is alone, I assure you."

"That is possible; still I do not enter that _cul-de-sac_ to-night

unaccompanied save by you."

"You suspect me of some evil design, Mr. Waters?" said the woman, with

an accent of reproach. "I thought you might, and yet nothing can be

further from the truth. My sole object is to obtain the reward, and

escape from this life of misery and degradation to my own country, and,

if possible, begin the world respectably again. Why should you doubt

me?"

"How came you acquainted with this robber's haunts?"

"The explanation is easy, but this is not the time for it. Stay--can't

you get assistance?"

"Easily--in less than ten minutes; and, if you are here when I return,

and your information proves correct, I will ask pardon for my

suspicions."

"Be it so," she said, joyfully; "and be quick, for this weather is

terrible."

Ten minutes had not passed when I returned with half-a-dozen officers,

and found Madame Jaubert still at her post. We followed her up the

court, caught Martin sure enough asleep upon a wretched pallet of straw

in one of the alley hovels, and walked him off, terribly scared and

surprised, to the nearest station-house, where he passed the remainder

of the night. The next day Martin proved an _alibi_ of the distinctest,

most undeniable kind. He had been an inmate of Clerkenwell prison for

the last three months, with the exception of just six days previous to

our capture of him; and he was, of course, at once discharged. The

reward was payable only upon conviction of the offender, and the

disappointment of poor Madame Jaubert was extreme. She wept bitterly at

the thought of being compelled to continue her present disreputable mode

of life, when a thousand francs--a sum she believed Martin's capture

would have assured her--besides sufficient for her traveling expenses

and decent outfit, would, she said, purchase a partnership in a small

but respectable millinery shop in Paris. "Well," I remarked to her,

"there is no reason for despair. You have not only proved your sincerity

and good faith, but that you possess a knowledge--how acquired you best

know--of the haunts and hiding-places of burglars. The reward, as you

may have seen by the new placards, has been doubled; and I have a strong

opinion, from something that has reached me this morning, that if you

could light upon one Armstrong, _alias_ Rowden, it would be as certainly

yours as if already in your pocket."

"Armstrong--Rowden!" repeated the woman, with anxious simplicity; "I

never heard either of these names. What sort of a person is he?"

I described him minutely; but Madame Jaubert appeared to entertain

little or no hope of discovering his whereabout; and, ultimately, went

away in a very disconsolate mood, after, however, arranging to meet me

the next evening.

I met her as agreed. She could obtain, she said, no intelligence of any

reliable worth; and she pressed me for further particulars. Was

Armstrong a drinking, a gaming, or a play-going man? I told her all I

knew of his habits, and a gleam of hope glanced across her face as one

or two indications were mentioned. I was to see her again on the morrow.

It came; she was as far off as ever; and I advised her to waste no

further time in the pursuit, but to at once endeavor to regain a

position of respectability by the exercise of industry in the trade or

business in which she was reputedly well skilled. Madame Jaubert laughed

scornfully; and a gleam, it seemed to me, of her never entirely subdued

insanity shot out from her deep-set, flashing eyes. It was finally

settled, that I should meet her once more, at the same place, at about

eight o'clock the next evening.

I arrived somewhat late at the appointed rendezvous, and found Madame

Jaubert in a state of manifest excitement and impatience. She had, she

was pretty sure, discovered Armstrong, and knew that he was at that

moment in a house in Greek-street, Soho.

"Greek-street, Soho! Is he alone?"

"Yes; with the exception of a woman who is minding the premises, and of

whom he is an acquaintance under another name. You will be able to

secure him without the least risk or difficulty, but not an instant must

be lost."

Madame Jaubert perceived my half-hesitation. "Surely," she exclaimed,

"you are not afraid of one man! It's useless affecting to suspect _me_

after what has occurred."

"True," I replied. "Lead on."

The house at which we stopped in Greek-street, appeared to be an empty

one, from the printed bills in the windows announcing it to be let or

sold. Madame Jaubert knocked in a peculiar manner at the door, which was

presently opened by a woman. "Is Mr. Brown still within?" Madame Jaubert

asked, in a low voice.

"Yes: what do you want with him?"

"I have brought a gentleman who will most likely be a purchaser of some

of the goods he has to dispose of."

"Walk in, then, if you please," was the answer. We did so; and found

ourselves, as the door closed, in pitch darkness. "This way," said the

woman; "you shall have a light in half a minute."

"Let me guide you," said Madame Jaubert, as I groped onward by the wall,

and at the same time seizing my right hand. Instantly as she did so, I

heard a rustle just behind me--two quick and violent blows descended on

the back of my head, there was a flash before my eyes, a suppressed

shout of exultation rang in my ears, and I fell insensible to the

ground.

It was some time, on partially recovering my senses, before I could

realize either what had occurred or the situation in which I found

myself. Gradually, however, the incidents attending the

artfully-prepared treachery of Madame Jaubert grew into distinctness,

and I pretty well comprehended my present position. I was lying at the

bottom of a cart, blindfolded, gagged, handcuffed, and covered over by

what, from their smell, seemed to be empty corn sacks. The vehicle, was

moving at a pretty rapid rate, and judging from the roar and tumult

without, through one of the busiest thoroughfares of London. It was

Saturday evening; and I thought, from the character of the noises,

and the tone of a clock just chiming ten, that we were in

Tottenham-court-road. I endeavored to rise, but found, as I might have

expected, that it was impossible to do so; my captors having secured me

to the floor of the cart by strong cords. There was nothing for it,

therefore, but patience and resignation; words easily pronounced, but

difficult, under such circumstances, to realize in practice. My

thoughts, doubtless in consequence of the blows I had received, soon

became hurried and incoherent. A tumultuous throng of images swept

confusedly past, of which the most constant and frequent were the faces

of my wife and youngest child, whom I had kissed in his sleep just

previous to leaving home. Madame Jaubert and James Martin were also

there; and ever and anon the menacing countenance of Levasseur stooped

over me with a hideous expression, and I felt as if clutched in the

fiery grasp of a demon. I have no doubt that the voice which sounded in

my ear at the moment I was felled to the ground must have suggested the

idea of the Swiss--faintly and imperfectly as I caught it. This tumult

of brain only gradually subsided as the discordant uproar of the

streets--which no doubt added to the excitement I was suffering under by

suggesting the exasperating nearness of abundant help which could not be

appealed to--died gradually away into a silence only broken by the

rumble of the cart-wheels, and the subdued talk of the driver and his

companions, of whom there appeared to be two or three. At length the

cart stopped, I heard a door unlocked and thrown open, and a few moments

afterward I was dragged from under the corn-sacks, carried up three

flights of stairs, and dropped brutally upon the floor till a light

could be procured. Directly one was brought, I was raised to my feet,

placed upright against a wooden partition, and staples having been

driven into the paneling, securely fastened in that position, with cords

passed through them, and round my armpits. This effected, an

authoritative voice--the now distinct recognition of which thrilled me

with dismay--ordered that I should be unblinded. It was done; and when

my eyes became somewhat accustomed to the suddenly dazzling light and

glare, I saw Levasseur and the clerk Dubarle standing directly in front

of me, their faces kindled into flame by fiendish triumph and delight.

The report that they had been drowned was then a mistake, and they had

incurred the peril of returning to this country for the purpose of

avenging themselves upon me; and how could it be doubted that an

opportunity, achieved at such fearful risk, would be effectually,

remorselessly used? A pang of mortal terror shot through me, and then I

strove to awaken in my heart a stern endurance, and resolute contempt of

death, with, I may now confess, very indifferent success. The woman

Jaubert was, I also saw, present; and a man, whom I afterward

ascertained to be Martin, was standing near the doorway, with his back

toward me. These two, at a brief intimation from Levasseur, went down

stairs; and then the fierce exultation of the two escaped convicts--of

Levasseur especially--broke forth with wolfish rage and ferocity.

"Ha--ha--ha!" shouted the Swiss, at the same time striking me over the

face with his open hand, "you find, then, that others can plot as well

as you can--dog, traitor, scoundrel that you are! 'Au revoir--alors!'

was it, eh? Well, here we are, and I wish you joy of the meeting.

Ha--ha! How dismal the rascal looks, Dubarle!"--(Again the coward struck

me)--"He is hardly grateful to me, it seems, for having kept my word. I

always do, my fine fellow," he added with a savage chuckle; "and never

neglect to pay my debts of honor. Yours especially," he continued,

drawing a pistol from his pocket, "shall be prompt payment, and with

interest too, scelerat!" He held the muzzle of the pistol to within a

yard of my forehead, and placed his finger on the trigger. I

instinctively closed my eyes, and tasted in that fearful moment the full

bitterness of death; but my hour was not yet come. Instead of the flash

and report which I expected would herald me into eternity, a taunting

laugh from Levasseur at the terror he excited rang through the room.

"Come--come," said Dubarle, over whose face a gleam of commiseration,

almost of repentance, had once or twice passed; "you will alarm that

fellow down stairs with your noise. We must, you know, wait till he is

gone, and he appears to be in no hurry. In the meantime let us have a

game of piquet for the first shot at the traitor's carcase."

"Excellent--capital!" shouted Levasseur with savage glee. "A game of

piquet; the stake your life, Waters! A glorious game! and mind you see

fair-play. In the mean time here's your health, and better luck next

time, if you should chance to live to see it." He swallowed a draught of

wine which Dubarle, after helping himself, had poured out for him; and

then approaching me, with the silver cup he had drained in his hand,

said, "Look at the crest! Do you recognize it--fool, idiot that you

are!"

I did so readily enough: it was a portion of the plunder carried off

from Portman-square.

"Come," again interposed Dubarle, "let us have our game."

The play began, and--But I will dwell no longer upon this terrible

passage in my police experience. Frequently even now the incidents of

that night revisit me in dreams, and I awake with a start and cry of

terror. In addition to the mental torture I endured, I was suffering

under an agonizing thirst, caused by the fever of my blood, and the

pressure of the absorbing gag, which still remained in my mouth. It was

wonderful I did not lose my senses. At last the game was over; the Swiss

won, and sprang to his feet with the roar of a wild beast.

At this moment Madame Jaubert entered the apartment somewhat hastily.

"This man below," she said, "is getting insolent. He has taken it into

his tipsy head that you mean to kill your prisoner, and he won't, he

says, be involved in a murder, which would be sure to be found out. I

told him he was talking absurdly; but he is still not satisfied, so you

had better go down and speak to him yourself."

I afterward found, it may be as well to mention here, that Madame

Jaubert and Martin had been induced to assist in entrapping me, in order

that I might be out of the way when a friend of Levasseur's, who had

been committed to Newgate on a serious charge, came to be tried, I being

the chief witness against him; and they were both assured that I had

nothing more serious to apprehend than a few days' detention. In

addition to a considerable money-present, Levasseur had, moreover,

promised Madame Jaubert to pay her expenses to Paris, and assist in

placing her in business there.

Levasseur muttered a savage imprecation on hearing the woman's message,

and then said, "Come with me, Dubarle; if we can not convince the

fellow, we can at least silence him! Marie Duquesne, you will remain

here."

As soon as they were gone, the woman eyed me with a compassionate

expression, and approaching close to me, said in a low voice, "Do not be

alarmed at their tricks and menaces. After Thursday you will be sure to

be released."

I shook my head, and as distinctly as I could made a gesture with my

fettered arms toward the table on which the wine was standing. She

understood me. "If," said she, "you will promise not to call out, I will

relieve you of the gag."

I eagerly nodded compliance. The gag was removed, and she held a cup of

wine to my fevered lips. It was a draught from the waters of paradise,

and hope, energy, life, were renewed within me as I drank.

"You are deceived," I said, in a guarded voice, the instant my burning

thirst was satisfied. "They intend to murder me, and you will be

involved as an accomplice."

"Nonsense," she replied. "They have been frightening you, that's all."

"I again repeat you are deceived. Release me from these fetters and

cords, give me but a chance of at least selling my life as dearly as I

can, and the money you told me you stood in need of shall be yours."

"Hark!" she exclaimed. "They are coming!"

"Bring down a couple of bottles of wine," said Levasseur, from the

bottom of the stairs. Madame Jaubert obeyed the order and in a few

minutes returned.

I renewed my supplications to be released, and was of course extremely

liberal of promises.

"It is vain talking," said the woman. "I do not believe they will harm

you; but even if it were as you say, it is too late now to retrace my

steps. You can not escape. That fool below is already three parts

intoxicated: they are both armed, and would hesitate at nothing if they

but suspected treachery."

It was vain to urge her. She grew sullen and menacing; and was insisting

that the gag should be replaced in my mouth, when a thought struck me.

"Levasseur called you Marie Duquesne just now; but surely your name is

Jaubert--is it not?"

"Do not trouble yourself about my name," she replied; "that is my

affair, not yours."

"Because if you _are_ the Marie Duquesne who once kept a shop in

Cranbourne-alley, and lost a child called Marie-Louise, I could tell you

something."

A wild light broke from her dark eyes, and a suppressed scream from her

lips. "I am that Marie Duquesne!" she said, in a voice tremulous with

emotion.

"Then I have to inform you that the child so long supposed to be lost I

discovered nearly three weeks ago."

The woman fairly leapt toward me, clasped me fiercely by the arms, and

peering in my face with eyes on fire with insane excitement, hissed out,

"You lie--you lie, you dog! You are striving to deceive me! She is in

heaven: the angels told me so long since."

I do not know, by the way, whether the falsehood I was endeavoring to

palm off upon the woman was strictly justifiable or not; but I am fain

to believe that there are few moralists that would not, under the

circumstances, have acted pretty much as I did.

"If your child was lost when going on an errand to Coventry-street, and

her name is Marie-Louise Duquesne, I tell you she is found. How should I

otherwise have become acquainted with these particulars?"

"True--true," she muttered: "how else should he know? Where is she?"

added the woman, in tones of agonized entreaty, as she sank down and

clasped my knees. "Tell me --tell me, as you hope for life or mercy,

where I may find my child?"

"Release me, give me a chance of escape, and to-morrow your child shall

be in your arms. Refuse, and the secret dies with me."

She sprang quickly to her feet, unclasped the handcuffs, snatched a

knife from the table, and cut the cords which bound me with eager haste.

"Another draught of wine," she said, still in the same hurried, almost

insane manner. "You have work to do! Now, while I secure the door, do

you rub and chafe your stiffened joints." The door was soon fastened,

and then she assisted in restoring the circulation to my partially

benumbed limbs. This was at last accomplished, and Marie Duquesne drew

me toward a window, which she softly opened. "It is useless," she

whispered, "to attempt a struggle with the men below. You must descend

by this," and she placed her hand upon a lead water-pipe, which reached

from the roof to within a few feet of the ground.

"And you," I said; "how are you to escape?"

"I will tell you. Do you hasten on toward Hampstead, from which we are

distant in a northerly direction about a mile. There is a house at about

half the distance. Procure help, and return as quickly as possible. The

doorfastenings will resist some time, even should your flight be

discovered. You will not fail me?"

"Be assured I will not." The descent was a difficult and somewhat

perilous one, but it was safely accomplished, and I set off at the top

of my speed toward Hampstead.

I had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile, when the distant sound of a

horse's feet, coming at a slow trot toward me, caught my ear. I paused,

to make sure I was not deceived, and as I did so, a wild scream from the

direction I had left, followed by another and another, broke upon the

stillness of the night. The scoundrels had no doubt discovered my

escape, and were about to wreak their vengeance upon the unfortunate

creature in their power. The trot of the horse which I had heard was,

simultaneously with the breaking out of those wild outcries, increased

to a rapid gallop. "Hallo!" exclaimed the horseman, as he came swiftly

up. "Do you know where these screams come from?" It was the horse-patrol

who thus providentially came up! I briefly stated that the life of a

woman was at the mercy of two escaped convicts. "Then for God's sake

jump up behind me!" exclaimed the patrol. "We shall be there in a couple

of minutes." I did so: the horse--a powerful animal, and not entirely

unused to carry double--started off, as if it comprehended the necessity

for speed, and in a very brief space of time we were at the door of the

house from which I had so lately escaped. Marie Duquesne, with her body

half out of the window, was still wildly screaming as we rushed into the

room below. There was no one there, and we swiftly ascended the stairs,

at the top of which we could hear Levasseur and Dubarle thundering at

the door, which they had unexpectedly found fastened, and hurling a

storm of imprecations at the woman within, the noise of which enabled us

to approach them pretty nearly before we were heard or perceived. Martin

saw us first, and his sudden exclamation alarmed the others. Dubarle and

Martin made a desperate rush to pass us, by which I was momently thrown

on one side against the wall; and very fortunately, as the bullet

leveled at me from a pistol Levasseur held in his hand would probably

have finished me. Martin escaped, which I was not very sorry for; but

the patrol pinned Dubarle safely, and I griped Levasseur with a strength

and ferocity against which he was powerless as an infant. Our victory

was complete; and two hours afterward, the recaptured convicts were

safely lodged in a station-house.

I caused Madame Duquesne to be as gently undeceived the next morning as

possible with respect to her child; but the reaction and disappointment

proved too much for her wavering intellect. She relapsed into positive

insanity, and was placed in Bedlam, where she remained two years. At the

end of that period she was pronounced convalescent. A sufficient sum of

money was raised by myself and others, not only to send her to Paris,

but to enable her to set up as a milliner in a small but respectable

way. As lately as last May, when I saw her there, she was in health both

of mind and body, and doing comfortably.

With the concurrence of the police authorities, very little was said

publicly respecting my entrapment. It might perhaps have excited a

monomania among liberated convicts--colored and exaggerated as every

incident would have been for the amusement of the public--to attempt

similar exploits. I was also anxious to conceal the peril I had

encountered from my wife; and it was not till I had left the police

force that she was informed of it. Levasseur and Dubarle were convicted

of returning from transportation before the term for which they had been

sentenced had expired, and were this time sent across the seas for life.

The reporters of the morning papers, or rather the reporter for the

"Times," "Herald," "Chronicle," "Post," and "Advertiser," gave precisely

the same account, even to the misspelling of Levasseur's name,

dismissing the brief trial in the following paragraph, under the head of

"Old Bailey Sessions:"--"Alphonse Dubarle (24), and Sebastian Levasson

(49), were identified as unlawfully-returned convicts, and sentenced to

transportation for life. The prisoners, it was understood, were

connected with the late plate-robbery in Portman-square; but as a

conviction could not have increased their punishment, the indictment was

not pressed."

Levasseur, I had almost forgotten to state, admitted that it was he who

wounded me in Ryder's-court, Leicester-square.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 16: See New Monthly Magazine for November.]

WORDSWORTH AND CARLYLE.

For well nigh thirty-four years the public curiosity has been excited by

the knowledge that there existed in MS. an unfinished poem of very high

pretensions, and extraordinary magnitude, from the pen of the late--is

he to be the last?--poet-laureate of Britain. At the tidings, Lord

Jeffrey made himself very merry, and sought for a powerful calculus to

compute the supposed magnitude of the poem. De Quincey, on the other

hand, had read it, and both in his writings and conversation, was in the

habit of alluding to, quoting, and panegyrizing it as more than equal to

Wordsworth's other achievements. All of it that is publishable, or shall

ever be published, now lies before us; and we approach it with

curiously-mingled emotions--mingled, because although a fragment, it is

so vast, and in parts so finished, and because it may be regarded as at

once an early production of his genius, and its latest legacy to the

world. It seems a large fossil relic--imperfect and magnificent--newly

dug up, and with the fresh earth and the old dim subsoil meeting and

mingling around it.

The "Prelude" is the first _regular versified_ autobiography we remember

in our language. Passages, indeed, and parts of the lives of celebrated

men, have been at times represented in verse, but in general a vail of

fiction has been dropped over the real facts, as in the case of Don

Juan; and in all the revelation made has resembled rather an escapade or

a partial confession than a systematic and slowly-consolidated life. The

mere circumstances, too, of life have been more regarded than the inner

current of life itself. We class the 'Prelude' at once with Sartor

Resartus--although the latter wants the poetic _form_--as the two most

interesting and faithful records of the individual experience of men of

genius which exist.

And yet, how different the two men, and the two sets of experience.

Sartor resembles the unfilled and yawning crescent moon, Wordsworth the

rounded harvest orb: Sartor's cry is, "Give, give!" Wordsworth's "I have

found it, I have found it!" Sartor can not, amid a universe of work,

find a task fit for him to do, and yet can much less be utterly idle;

while to Wordsworth, basking in the sun, or loitering near an evening

stream, is sufficient and satisfactory work. To Sartor, Nature is a

divine tormentor--her works at once inspire and agonize him; Wordsworth

loves her with the passion of a perpetual honeymoon. Both are intensely

self-conscious; but Sartor's is the consciousness of disease,

Wordsworth's of high health standing before a mirror. Both have a

"demon," but Sartor's is exceedingly fierce, dwelling among the

tombs--Wordsworth's a mild eremite, loving the rocks and the woods.

Sartor's experience has been frightfully peculiar, and Wordsworth's

peculiarly felicitous. Both have passed through the valley of the shadow

of death; but the one has found it as Christian found it, dark and

noisy--the other has passed it with Faithful, by daylight. Sartor is

more of a representative man than Wordsworth, for many have had part at

least of his sad experiences, whereas Wordsworth's soul dwells apart:

his joys and sorrows, his virtues and his sins, are alike his own, and

he can circulate his being as soon as them. Sartor is a brother man in

fury and fever--Wordsworth seems a cherub, almost chillingly pure, and

whose very warmth is borrowed from another sun than ours. We love and

fear Sartor with almost equal intensity--Wordsworth we respect and

wonder at with a great admiration.

Compare their different biographies. Sartor's is brief and abrupt as a

confession; the author seems hurrying away from the memory of his

woe--Wordsworth lingers over his past self, like a lover over the

history of his courtship. Sartor is a reminiscence of Prometheus--the

"Prelude" an account of the education of Pan. The agonies of Sartor are

connected chiefly with his own individual history, shadowing that of

innumerable individuals besides--those of Wordsworth with the fate of

nations, and the world at large. Sartor craves, but can not find a

creed--belief seems to flow in Wordsworth's blood; to see is to believe

with him. The lives of both are fragments, but Sartor seems to shut his

so abruptly, because he dare not disclose all his struggles; and

Wordsworth, because he dares not reveal all his peculiar and

incommunicable joys. To use Sartor's own words, applied to the poet

before as, we may inscribe upon Wordsworth's grave, "Here lies a man who

did what he intended;" while over Sartor's, disappointed ages may say,

"Here lies a man whose intentions were noble, and his powers gigantic,

but who from lack of proper correspondence between them did little or

nothing, said much, but only told the world his own sad story."

MILTON AND WORDSWORTH.

The points of resemblance between Milton and Wordsworth are

numerous--both were proud in spirit, and pure in life--both were

intensely self-conscious--both essayed the loftiest things in

poetry--both looked with considerable contempt on their contemporaries,

and appealed to the coming age--both preferred fame to reputation--both

during their life-time met with obloquy, which crushed them not--both

combined intellect with imagination, in equal proportions--both were

persevering and elaborate artists, as well as inspired men--both were

unwieldy in their treatment of commonplace subjects. Neither possessed a

particle of humor; nor much, if any, genuine wit. Both were friends of

liberty and of religion--their genius was "baptized with the Holy Ghost

and with fire."

But there were differences and disparities as manifold. Milton was a

scholar of the first magnitude; Wordsworth no more than respectable in

point of learning; Milton may be called a glorious book-worm; Wordsworth

an insect feeding on trees; Milton was London born and London bred;

Wordsworth from the provinces; Milton had a world more sympathy with

chivalry and arms--with the power and the glory of this earth--with

human and female beauty--with man and with woman, than Wordsworth.

Wordsworth loved inanimate nature better than Milton, or at least, he

was more intimately conversant with her features; and has depicted them

with more minute accuracy, and careful finish. Milton's love for liberty

was a wiser and firmer passion, and underwent little change;

Wordsworth's veered and fluctuated; Milton's creed was more definite and

fixed than Wordsworth's, and, perhaps, lay nearer to his heart;

Wordsworth shaded away into a vague mistiness, in which the Cross at

times was lost; Milton had more devotion in his absence from church than

Wordsworth in his presence there; Wordsworth was an "idler in the land;"

Milton an incessant and heroic struggler.

As writers, while Wordsworth attains to lofty heights, with an

appearance of effort; Milton is great inevitably, and inhales with

pleasure the proud and rare atmosphere of the sublime; Wordsworth _comes

up_ to the great--Milton _descends_ on it; Wordsworth has little

ratiocinative, or rhetorical power; Milton discovers much of

both--besides being able to grind his adversaries to powder by the hoof

of invective, or to toss them into the air on the tusks of a terrible

scorn; Wordsworth has produced many sublime lines, but no character

approaching the sublime; Milton has reared up Satan to the sky--the most

magnificent structure in the intellectual world; Wordsworth's

philosophic vein is more subtle, and Milton's more masculine and strong;

Wordsworth has written much in the shape of poetry that is despicably

mean; mistaking it all the while for the excellent; Milton trifles

seldom, and knows full well when he is trifling; Wordsworth has

sometimes entangled himself with a poetic system; Milton no more than

Samson will permit withes, however green, or a cart-rope, however new,

to imprison his giant arms; Wordsworth has borrowed nothing, but timidly

and jealously saved himself from theft by flight; Milton has maintained

his originality, even while he borrows--he has dared to snatch the Urim

and Thummim from the high-priest's breast, and inserted them among his

own native ornaments, where they shine in keeping--unbedimming and

unbedimmed; Wordsworth's prose is but a feeble counterpoise to his

poetry; whereas Milton's were itself sufficient to perpetuate his name;

Wordsworth's sonnets are, perhaps, equal to Milton's, some of his "Minor

Poems" may approach "Lycidas," and "Il Penseroso," but where a whole like

"Paradise Lost?"

Thus while Wordsworth has left a name, the memory of a character and

many works, which shall illustrate the age when he lived, and exalt him,

on the whole, above all Britain's bards of that period, Milton is

identified with the glory, not of an age, but of all ages; with the

progress of liberty in the world--with the truth and grandeur of the

Christian faith and with the honor and dignity of the human species

itself. Wordsworth burns like the bright star Arcturus, outshining the

fainter orbs of the constellation to which it belongs. Milton is one of

those solitary oceans of flame, which seem to own but a dim and far-off

relationship to aught else but the Great Being, who called them into

existence. So truly did the one appreciate the other when he sung

"Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart."

RATS AND RAT-KILLERS IN ENGLAND

A rat! a rat! dead for a ducat.--_Hamlet_.

There is nothing like being in earnest when one begins a good work. So,

evidently, thinks the author of a blue-covered pamphlet just issued,

with a title page headed by three words and nine notes of

exclamation--Rat!!! Rat!!! Rat!!! The object of the writer is no less

than to alarm the whole nation by showing what we lose every year by the

animals against whom he has made such a dead set. Not content with

dilating on this fact in the body of his work, he puts what he calls "a

startling fact," upon the blue wrapper. "One pair of rats," he says,

"with their progeny, will produce in three years no less a number than

six hundred and forty-six thousand eight hundred and eight rats! which

will consume, day by day, as much food as sixty-four thousand six

hundred and eighty men; leaving eight rats to starve." This, it must be

admitted, is startling enough, but any one who has a cellar, or a

corn-bin, will be inclined to believe almost any tale, however strong,

or to applaud any abuse, however severe, which may be heaped upon that

convicted thief, Rat. Midnight burglaries, undetected by the new police,

sink into insignificance compared with the ravages of rats of the London

sewers, which steal and destroy more in one week, than the value of all

the robberies of plate that blaze away in the newspapers from year's end

to year's end. And yet the plunderers go on almost unmolested. They are

too knowing for traps, and arsenic seems to be more fatal to human, than

to quadrupedal victims. The French journals, the other day, described a

grand battue in the sewers of Paris, when thousands of rats were

captured and killed, and we heard of large sums cleared by the sale of

their skins--for these thieves go about like swell mobsmen--very well

clad. But the example of our French brethren was not imitated in the

modern Babylon. We neither spill blood on barricades above ground, nor

in sewers beneath it. So Mr. Rat still carries on his plunder with

impunity, to the great horror and indignation of good housewives in

general, and of the writer we have just referred to in particular.

Protection is with him no explanation of national distress. _He_ says it

is all owing to rats: "The farmers have been eaten out of house and

home; bread kept up to a starvation price, to the misery, poverty, and

crime of our manufacturing and agricultural population. Men seldom think

of rats, because they seldom see them; but are they less destructive

because they carry on their ravages in the dark? Certainly not."

In another place he declares "there is not a farmer in the British

dominions but would, if he at present had all the rats have deprived him

of within the last ten years, this moment declare himself a wealthy

man." If the real truth could be found out, it would be a safe

speculation to back the statements of the rat-hater against the

statistics of the Protectionists.

The question then suggests itself, what should be done to save this

waste--to stop the plunder--to banish the thieves? and we turn to the

little blue book for information. The naturalists are said to give a

very clear notion of what the rat _is_, but what he _does_ they describe

very imperfectly. Rats are modest creatures; they live and labor in the

dark; they shun the approach of man. Go into a barn or granary, where

hundreds are living, and you shall not see one; go to a rick that may be

one living mass within (a thing very common, adds our writer), and there

shall not be one visible; or dive into a cellar, that may be perfectly

infested with them, rats you shall not see, so much as a tip of a tail,

unless it be that of a stray one "popping across for a more safe

retreat." As men seldom see them, they seldom think of them. "But this I

say," goes on our author, "that if rats could by any means be made to

live on the surface of the earth, instead of holes and corners, and feed

and run about the streets and fields in the open day, like dogs and

sheep, the whole nation would be horror-stricken, and, ultimately, there

would not be a man, woman, or child able to brandish a stick, but would

have a dog, stick, or gun for their destruction wherever they met with

them. And are we to suppose, because they carry on their ravages in the

dark, that they are less destructive? Certainly not; and my object in

making this appeal to the nation, and supplying it with calculations

from the most experienced individuals and naturalists, is for the

purpose of rousing it up to one universal warfare against these midnight

marauders and common enemies of mankind, insomuch as they devour the

food, to the starvation of our fellow-creatures." He does not altogether

ignore the argument of the friends of the rat--for even the rat has

found friends among naturalists, ready to argue in his favor, and in

print, too--that these vermin destroy, in the sewers, much matter that

would otherwise give out poisonous gases. Sewer rats, he admits, are not

the very worst of the race, but even they should be slain wherever they

may be caught. But the rats of the cellar, the warehouse, the barn, the

rick-yard, the granary, and the corn-field, are the grand destroyers

against whom war to the terrier, the trap, and the ferret is proclaimed.

Do not let any reader suppose that the Ratsbane, put forth in the guise

of a blue pamphlet, is a mere tasteless dose of useful knowledge on the

rat genus. It is no such thing. The author gives a passage or two of

politics, and then a page or so of rats. He is an honest hater, such as

Dr. Johnson would have admired; nor is his hatred confined to

four-legged adversaries. He evidently dislikes Communists and

Socialists, as sincerely as he does rats. "Communism, Socialism, and

Ratism," he says, "are terms synonymous;" but this is not the part of

his book we have to deal with, so let us pass on from what he hates to

what he admires. "Now," he says, "for the prolific disposition of rats;"

and here takes an opportunity of saying the best word he can for his

friends, the rat-catchers--the rat-killers--the Napoleons of the vermin

war--the exterminators of the catchable rats--the Nimrods of the

hunting-grounds to be found in sewers and cellars, and under barn

floors. The passage looks very like an advertisement; but since it is

characteristic, and as the statements are curious, and really not

without importance, they shall be here quoted:

"Now for their prolific disposition! In this respect I have been most

ably assisted by the renowned James Shaw, of rat-killing celebrity,

landlord of the Blue Anchor Tavern, Bunhill-row, St. Luke's, and of whom

I can not speak too highly, for the civil, straightforward, and animated

way in which he communicated every information I desired. Curiosity

prompted me to make inquiries respecting him, and I find him to be a man

universally respected for his manly bearing and refined sentiments of

honor, consequently, a man whose testimony can be relied upon. I have

also been supplied with similar information from Mr. Sabin, of

rat-killing renown, residing in Broad-street, St. Giles's. These men

destroy between eight and nine thousand each annually, averaging

seventeen thousand between them. We will now proceed with the

calculations. In the first place, my informants tell me that rats will

have six, seven, and eight nests of young in the year, and that for

three and four years together; secondly, that they will have from twelve

to twenty-three at a litter, and that the young ones will breed at three

months old; thirdly, that there are more females than males, at an

average of about ten to six. Now, I propose to lay down my calculations

at something less than one half. In the first place, I say four litters

in the year, beginning and ending with a litter, so making thirteen

litters in three years; secondly, to have eight young ones at a birth,

half male, and half female; thirdly, the young ones to have a litter at

six months old. At this calculation, I will take one pair of rats; and,

at the expiration of three years, what do you suppose will be the amount

of living rats? Why, no less a number than SIX HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIX

THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHT! Mr. Shaw's little dog 'Tiny,' under

six pounds weight, has destroyed TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND

TWENTY-FIVE pairs of rats, which, had they been permitted to live,

would, at the same calculation, and in the same time, have produced ONE

THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE MILLIONS, ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY

THOUSAND, TWO HUNDRED, living rats! And the rats destroyed by Messrs.

Shaw and Sabin in two years, amounting to SEVENTEEN THOUSAND pairs,

would, had they been permitted to live, have produced, at the above

calculation, and in the same time, no less a number than TEN THOUSAND

NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIVE MILLIONS, SEVEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIX

THOUSAND, living rats! Now, let us calculate the amount of human food

that they would destroy. In the first place, my informants tell me, that

six rats will consume day by day, as much food as a man; secondly, that

the thing has been tested, and that the estimate given was, that eight

rats would consume more than an ordinary man. Now, I--to place the thing

beyond the smallest shadow of a doubt--will set down ten rats to eat as

much as a man, not a child; nor will I say any thing about what rats

waste. And what shall we find to be the alarming result? Why, that, the

first pair of rats, with their three years' progeny, would consume in

the night more food than SIXTY-FOUR THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND EIGHTY men

the year round, and leaving eight rats to spare! And the rats destroyed

by the little wonder 'Tiny,' had they been permitted to live, would, at

the same calculation, with their three years' progeny, have consumed as

much food as ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY THREE MILLIONS, THREE HUNDRED AND

NINETEEN THOUSAND AND TWENTY men: above two-thirds of the population of

Europe!!"

Here we come to the great glory of our author's thoughts. After its

master, the rat-catcher of "manly bearing and refined sentiments of

honor," "Tiny" is his true hero. Eclipse might lord it at Epsom or

Newmarket; Tom Thumb might trot to renown at sixteen miles an hour, but

what was that compared with the triumphs of Tiny? the killer of rats who

might have had a family capable of eating (if they had found it) as much

victuals or more than one hundred and sixty millions of men? Our writer

proposes a solid gold collar testimonial for the "good" dog Tiny, to be

raised by public subscription. But that would be a paltry return for

such great services. Tiny's renown lifts him above such mercenary

rewards.

More wonders are in store:

"Now for the vermin destroyed by Messrs. Shaw and Sabin. Taken at the

same calculation, with their three years' progeny--can you believe

it?--they would consume more food than the whole population of the

earth. Yes, if Omnipotence would raise up ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE

MILLIONS FIVE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THREE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED more

people, these rats would consume as much food as they all!! You may

wonder, but I will prove it to you."

A calculation--like that which has made Tiny immortal--is given, and

then the reflection, succeeds, "Is it not a most appalling thing to

think that there are at the present time in the British empire,

thousands, nay millions, in a state of starvation, while rats are

consuming that which would place them and their families in a state of

affluence and comfort? I ask this simple question" (emphatically

continues our Rat Hater), "Has not Parliament, ere now, been summoned

upon matters of far less importance to the Empire? _I think it has_."

A fine opening this for an oratorical patriot, whose themes are worn

out. An agitation for protection against rats would inevitably secure

the hearty support of the agricultural interest.

Enough has surely been said to show the great importance of rats, but it

would be wrong to leave the little book which has suggested this

article, without gleaning from it a few rat-catching statistics, and

without pointing out the moral of the whole, by giving the writer's

proposition for relieving us from the scourge he describes. It seems

that one rat-catcher has frequently from one thousand five hundred to

two thousand rats in his cages at one time--it is not stated, but we

suppose--ready to be killed by "Tiny." It is averred that these are all

brought up from the country--all "fair barn rats"--and that "it would

not pay to breed them"--a question probably open to doubt. The natural

enemies of the rat are thus mustered, the ferret, polecat, stoat,

weasel, cat, dog, and man. The ferret's powers of destruction are

estimated very lightly; the polecats are very rare, prefer game when it

can be had, and do little against the rat; the weasel also prefers a

chicken or a duckling "to fighting with a rat for a meal." Hence the

farmers destroy them, and they do little against the rats. Cats, as a

rule, prefer hearth-rugs; and traps, _unless quite new_, and

consequently sweet and free from the smell of rats, are useless. No!

There is nothing in Nature capable of saving the nation from rats, but

"Tinies."

"I do not know of any quadruped equal to a well-bred London terrier for

sagacity, courage fidelity, color, symmetry, general beauty, and

economy: in a word, he seems in every respect formed by nature for man's

companion and protector."

With a fine burst of eloquence, the author asks,

"Are rats a calamity to be deplored, or are they not? The voices of

religion and patriotism cry, with stentorian lungs, 'Yes!' the voice of

philanthropy cries, 'Down with them! down with every barrier, and

annihilate them!' the fainting stomachs of thousands of our starving

fellow-creatures at home and in the sister country, with the agonized

bowels of their withered offspring writhing beneath the ruthless fangs

of hunger, shriek forth, with horrid yells, for their extermination!!"

Our friend then takes a higher flight, and discusses, with equal fervor

and more notes of admiration, the question whether--on theological

grounds--man has a right to kill these creatures, even though they be

rats. But he soars into such altitudes of rhetorical theology, that we

dare not follow him. He dismisses, in the same paragraph, several

remedies for rats, with a brevity almost savoring of contempt; gliding

gracefully from theology to arsenic and other poisons, he returns, with

a gush of enthusiasm, to his old refrain, "Tiny."

The breed of small terriers of the Tiny breed must be increased. "I do

not mean," he says, "the little pigmy dwarf terrier; they are tantamount

to useless, even where they are well-bred, not having strength enough

for hunting. A dog, to be of sound service, ought to be from six to

sixteen pounds weight; I would not recommend them over that, as they

become too large and unwieldy for the purpose, and too expensive

keeping: besides, little dogs will kill mice as well as rats, and that

is a great recommendation. I would also recommend, above all others, the

London rat-killing terrier; he is as hard as steel, courageous as a

lion, and as handsome as a racehorse: the village dogs, on the other

hand, are, generally speaking, too large, too coarse, and too soft. You

ought to be as particular about breeding terriers as they are with

racehorses."

The writer suggests the abolition of the duty upon rat-catching terriers

of the "Tiny" family; that associations should be encouraged in the

rural parts of England for the promotion of rat-catching in all its

branches; that the bodies of the vermin be sold for manure; and lastly,

that rewards be given to the greatest killers.

Literature has, from first to last, been strengthened by recruits from

nearly every class; but till now we know of no volunteer who has

enlisted under her banner from the ranks of rat-catching. We know not if

the publication that has afforded a text for this article will

effectually augment the exterminators of the rat-tribe; but this is

certain, that, rat-killer though its writer be, he has produced between

forty and fifty pages, in which, though there may be much comical

exaggeration, there are, nevertheless, many curious facts and

suggestions for abating one of the greatest animal nuisances that have

infested our homes and fields, since the days when an English king

levied tribute of wolves' heads upon our brethren of Wales.

THE BROKEN HEART; OR, THE WELL OF PEN-MORFA.

A WELSH TALE.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.--CHAPTER I.

Of a hundred travelers who spend a night at Tre-Madoc, in North Wales,

there is not one, perhaps, who goes to the neighboring village of

Pen-Morfa. The new town, built by Mr. Maddocks, Shelley's friend, has

taken away all the importance of the ancient village--formerly, as its

name imports, "the head of the marsh;" that marsh which Mr. Maddocks

drained and dyked, and reclaimed from the Traeth Mawr, till Pen-Morfa,

against the walls of whose cottages the winter tides lashed in former

days, has come to stand high and dry, three miles from the sea, on a

disused road to Caernarvon. I do not think there has been a new cottage

built in Pen-Morfa this hundred years; and many an old one has dates in

some obscure corner which tell of the fifteenth century. The joists of

timber, where they meet overhead, are blackened with the smoke of

centuries. There is one large room, round which the beds are built like

cupboards, with wooden doors to open and shut; somewhat in the old

Scotch fashion, I imagine: and below the bed (at least, in one instance

I can testify that this was the case, and I was told it was not

uncommon), is a great wide wooden drawer, which contained the oat-cake

baked for some months' consumption by the family. They call the

promontory of Llyn (the point at the end of Caernarvonshire), _Welsh_

Wales; I think they might call Pen-Morfa a Welsh Welsh village; it is so

national in its ways, and buildings, and inhabitants, and so different

from the towns and hamlets into which the English throng in summer. How

these said inhabitants of Pen-Morfa ever are distinguished by their

names, I, uninitiated, can not tell. I only know for a fact, that in a

family there with which I am acquainted, the eldest son's name is John

Jones, because his father's was John Thomas; that the second son is

called David Williams, because his grandfather was William Wynn, and

that the girls are called indiscriminately by the names of Thomas and

Jones. I have heard some of the Welsh chuckle over the way in which they

have baffled the barristers at Caernarvon Assizes, denying the name

under which they had been subpoenaed to give evidence, if they were

unwilling witnesses. I could tell you of a great deal which is peculiar

and wild in these true Welsh people, who are what I suppose we English

were a century ago; but I must hasten on to my tale.

I have received great, true, beautiful kindness from one of the members

of the family of whom I just now spoke as living at Pen-Morfa; and when

I found that they wished me to drink tea with them, I gladly did so,

though my friend was the only one in the house, who could speak English

at all fluently. After tea, I went with them to see some of their

friends; and it was then I saw the interiors of the houses of which I

have spoken. It was an autumn evening; we left mellow sunset-light in

the open air when we entered the houses, in which all seemed dark save

in the ruddy sphere of the firelight, for the windows were very small,

and deep set in the thick walls. Here were an old couple, who welcomed

me in Welsh, and brought forth milk and oat-cake with patriarchal

hospitality. Sons and daughters had married away from them; they lived

alone; he was blind, or nearly so; and they sat one on each side of the

fire, so old and so still (till we went in and broke the silence), that

they seemed to be listening for Death. At another house, lived a woman

stern and severe-looking. She was busy hiving a swarm of bees, alone and

unassisted. I do not think my companion would have chosen to speak to

her, but seeing her out in her hill-side garden, she made some inquiry

in Welsh, which was answered in the most mournful tone I ever heard in

my life; a voice of which the freshness and "timbre" had been choked up

by tears long years ago. I asked who she was. I dare say the story is

common enough, but the sight of the woman, and her few words had

impressed me. She had been the beauty of Pen-Morfa; had been in service;

had been taken to London by the family whom she served; had come down in

a year or so, back to Pen-Morfa; her beauty gone into that sad, wild,

despairing look which I saw; and she about to become a mother. Her

father had died during her absence, and left her a very little money;

and after her child was born she took the little cottage where I saw

her, and made a scanty living by the produce of her bees. She associated

with no one. One event had made her savage and distrustful to her kind.

She kept so much aloof that it was some time before it became known that

her child was deformed, and had lost the use of its lower limbs. Poor

thing! when I saw the mother, it had been for fifteen years bedridden;

but go past when you would, in the night, you saw a light burning; it

was often that of the watching mother, solitary and friendless, soothing

the moaning child; or you might hear her crooning some old Welsh air, in

hopes to still the pain with the loud, monotonous music. Her sorrow was

so dignified, and her mute endurance and her patient love won her such

respect, that the neighbors would fain have been friends; but she kept

alone and solitary. This is a most true story. I hope that woman and her

child are dead now, and their souls above.

Another story which I heard of these old primitive dwellings I mean to

tell at somewhat greater length:

There are rocks high above Pen-Morfa; they are the same that hang over

Tre-Madoc, but near Pen-Morfa they sweep away, and are lost in the

plain. Every where they are beautiful. The great sharp ledges which

would otherwise look hard and cold, are adorned with the

brightest-colored moss, and the golden lichen. Close to, you see the

scarlet leaves of the crane's-bill, and the tufts of purple heather,

which fill up every cleft and cranny; but in the distance you see only

the general effect of infinite richness of color, broken here and there

by great masses of ivy. At the foot of these rocks come a rich verdant

meadow or two; and then you are at Pen-Morfa. The village well is sharp

down under the rocks. There are one or two large, sloping pieces of

stone in that last field, on the road leading to the well, which are

always slippery; slippery in the summer's heat, almost as much as in the

frost of winter, when some little glassy stream that runs over them is

turned into a thin sheet of ice. Many, many years back--a lifetime

ago--there lived in Pen-Morfa a widow and her daughter. Very little is

required in those out-of-the-way Welsh villages. The wants of the people

are very simple. Shelter, fire, a little oat-cake and buttermilk, and

garden produce; perhaps some pork and bacon from the pig in winter;

clothing, which is principally of home manufacture, and of the most

enduring kind: these take very little money to purchase, especially in a

district into which the large capitalists have not yet come, to buy up

two or three acres of the peasants; and nearly every man about Pen-Morfa

owned, at the time of which I speak, his dwelling and some land besides.

Eleanor Gwynn inherited the cottage (by the road-side, on the left hand

as you go from Tre-Madoc to Pen-Morfa), in which she and her husband had

lived all their married life, and a small garden sloping southward, in

which her bees lingered before winging their way to the more distant

heather. She took rank among her neighbors as the possessor of a

moderate independence--not rich, and not poor. But the young men of

Pen-Morfa thought her very rich in the possession of a most lovely

daughter. Most of us know how very pretty Welsh women are; but from all

accounts, Nest Gwynn (Nest, or Nesta, is the Welsh for Agnes) was more

regularly beautiful than any one for miles around. The Welsh are still

fond of triads, and "as beautiful as a summer's morning at sun-rise, as

a white sea-gull on the green sea-wave, and as Nest Gwynn," is yet a

saying in that district. Nest knew she was beautiful, and delighted in

it. Her mother sometimes checked her in her happy pride, and sometimes

reminded her that beauty was a great gift of God (for the Welsh are a

very pious people), but when she began her little homily, Nest came

dancing to her, and knelt down before her and put her face up to be

kissed, and so with a sweet interruption she stopped her mother's lips.

Her high spirits made some few shake their heads, and some called her a

flirt and a coquette; for she could not help trying to please all, both

old and young, both men and women. A very little from Nest sufficed for

this; a sweet glittering smile, a word of kindness, a merry glance, or a

little sympathy, all these pleased and attracted; she was like the

fairy-gifted child, and dropped inestimable gifts. But some, who had

interpreted her smiles and kind words rather as their wishes led them

than as they were really warranted, found that the beautiful, beaming

Nest could be decided and saucy enough, and so they revenged themselves

by calling her a flirt. Her mother heard it and sighed; but Nest only

laughed.

It was her work to fetch water for the day's use from the well I told

you about. Old people say it was the prettiest sight in the world to see

her come stepping lightly and gingerly over the stones, with the pail of

water balanced on her head; she was too adroit to need to steady it with

her hand. They say, now that they can afford to be charitable and speak

the truth, that in all her changes to other people, there never was a

better daughter to a widowed mother than Nest. There is a picturesque

old farm-house under Moel Gwynn, on the road from Tre-Madoc to

Criccaeth, called by some Welsh name which I now forget; but its meaning

in English is "The End of Time;" a strange, boding, ominous name.

Perhaps the builder meant his work to endure till the end of time. I do

not know; but there the old house stands, and will stand for many a

year. When Nest was young, it belonged to one Edward Williams; his

mother was dead, and people said he was on the look-out for a wife. They

told Nest so, but she tossed her head and reddened, and said she thought

he might look long before he got one; so it was not strange that one

morning when she went to the well, one autumn morning when the dew lay

heavy upon the grass, and the thrushes were busy among the mountain-ash

berries, Edward Williams happened to be there on his way to the coursing

match near, and somehow his grayhounds threw her pail of water over in

their romping play, and she was very long in filling it again; and when

she came home she threw her arms round her mother's neck, and in a

passion of joyous tears told her that Edward Williams of The End of

Time, had asked her to marry him, and that she had said "Yes."

Eleanor Gwynn shed her tears too; but they fell quietly when she was

alone. She was thankful Nest had found a protector--one suitable in age

and apparent character, and above her in fortune; but she knew she

should miss her sweet daughter in a thousand household ways; miss her in

the evenings by the fire-side; miss her when at night she wakened up

with a start from a dream of her youth, and saw her fair face lying calm

in the moonlight, pillowed by her side. Then she forgot her dream, and

blessed her child, and slept again. But who could be so selfish as to be

sad when Nest was so supremely happy? She danced and sang more than

ever; and then sat silent, and smiled to herself: if spoken to, she

started and came back to the present with a scarlet blush, which told

what she had been thinking of.

That was a sunny, happy, enchanted autumn. But the winter was nigh at

hand; and with it came sorrow. One fine frosty morning, Nest went out

with her lover--she to the well, he to some farming business, which was

to be transacted at the little inn of Pen-Morfa. He was late for his

appointment; so he left her at the entrance of the village, and hastened

to the inn; and she, in her best cloak and new hat (put on against her

mother's advice; but they were a recent purchase, and very becoming),

went through the Dol Mawr, radiant with love and happiness. One who

lived until lately, met her going down toward the well, that morning;

and said he turned round to look after her, she seemed unusually lovely.

He wondered at the time at her wearing her Sunday clothes; for the

pretty, hooded blue-cloth cloak is kept among the Welsh women as a

church and market garment, and not commonly used even on the coldest

days of winter for such household errands as fetching water from the

well. However, as he said, "It was not possible to look in her face, and

'fault' any thing she wore." Down the sloping-stones the girl went

blithely with her pail. She filled it at the well; and then she took off

her hat, tied the strings together, and slung it over her arm; she

lifted the heavy pail and balanced it on her head. But alas! in going up

the smooth, slippery, treacherous rock, the encumbrance of her cloak--it

might be such a trifle as her slung hat--something at any rate, took

away her evenness of poise; the freshet had frozen on the slanting

stone, and was one coat of ice; poor Nest fell, and put out her hip. No

more flushing rosy color on that sweet face--no more look of beaming

innocent happiness;--instead, there was deadly pallor, and filmy eyes,

over which dark shades seemed to chase each other as the shoots of agony

grew more and more intense. She screamed once or twice; but the exertion

(involuntary, and forced out of her by excessive pain) overcame her, and

she fainted. A child coming an hour or so afterward on the same errand,

saw her lying there, ice-glued to the stone, and thought she was dead.

It flew crying back.

"Nest Gwynn is dead! Nest Gwynn is dead!" and, crazy with fear, it did

not stop until it had hid its head in its mother's lap. The village was

alarmed, and all who were able went in haste toward the well. Poor Nest

had often thought she was dying in that dreary hour; had taken fainting

for death, and struggled against it; and prayed that God would keep her

alive till she could see her lover's face once more; and when she did

see it, white with terror, bending over her, she gave a feeble smile and

let herself faint away into unconsciousness.

Many a month she lay on her bed unable to move. Sometimes she was

delirious, sometimes worn-out into the deepest depression. Through all,

her mother watched her with tenderest care. The neighbors would come and

offer help. They would bring presents of country dainties; and I do not

suppose that there was a better dinner than ordinary cooked in any

household in Pen-Morfa parish, but a portion of it was sent to Eleanor

Gwynn, if not for her sick daughter, to try and tempt her herself to eat

and be strengthened; for to no one would she delegate the duty of

watching over her child. Edward Williams was for a long time most

assiduous in his inquiries and attentions; but by-and-by (ah! you see

the dark fate of poor Nest now), he slackened, so little at first that

Eleanor blamed herself for her jealousy on her daughter's behalf, and

chid her suspicious heart. But as spring ripened into summer, and Nest

was still bedridden, Edward's coolness was visible to more than the poor

mother. The neighbors would have spoken to her about it, but she shrunk

from the subject as if they were probing a wound. "At any rate," thought

she, "Nest shall be strong before she is told about it. I will tell

lies--I shall be forgiven--but I must save my child; and when she is

stronger perhaps I may be able to comfort her. Oh! I wish she would not

speak to him so tenderly and trustfully, when she is delirious. I could

curse him when she does." And then Nest would call for her mother, and

Eleanor would go, and invent some strange story about the summonses

Edward had had to Caernarvon assizes, or to Harlech cattle market. But

at last she was driven to her wits' end; it was three weeks since he had

even stopped at the door to inquire, and Eleanor, mad with anxiety about

her child, who was silently pining off to death for want of tidings of

her lover, put on her cloak, when she had lulled her daughter to sleep

one fine June evening, and set off to "The End of Time." The great plain

which stretches out like an amphitheatre, in the half-circle of hills

formed by the ranges of Moel Gwynn and the Tre-Madoc Rocks were all

golden-green in the mellow light of sunset. To Eleanor it might have

been black with winter frost, she never noticed outward thing till she

reached The End of Time; and there, in the little farm-yard, she was

brought to a sense of her present hour and errand by seeing Edward. He

was examining some hay, newly stacked; the air was scented by its

fragrance, and by the lingering sweetness of the breath of the cows.

When Edward turned round at the footstep and saw Eleanor, he colored and

looked confused; however, he came forward to meet her in a cordial

manner enough.

"It's a fine evening," said he. "How is Nest? But, indeed, you're being

here is a sign she is better. Won't you come in and sit down?" He spoke

hurriedly, as if affecting a welcome which he did not feel.

"Thank you. I'll just take this milking-stool and sit down here. The

open air is like balm after being shut up so long."

"It is a long time," he replied, "more than five months."

Mrs. Gwynn was trembling at heart. She felt an anger which she did not

wish to show; for, if by any manifestations of temper or resentment she

lessened or broke the waning thread of attachment which bound him to her

daughter, she felt she should never forgive herself. She kept inwardly

saying, "Patience, patience! he may be true and love her yet;" but her

indignant convictions gave her words the lie.

"It's a long time, Edward Williams, since you've been near us to ask

after Nest;" said she. "She may be better, or she may be worse, for

aught you know." She looked up at him, reproachfully, but spoke in a

gentle quiet tone.

"I--you see the hay has been a long piece of work. The weather has been

fractious--and a master's eye is needed. Besides," said he, as if he had

found the reason for which he sought to account for his absence, "I have

heard of her from Rowland Jones. I was at the surgery for some

horse-medicine--he told me about her:" and a shade came over his face,

as he remembered what the doctor had said. Did he think that shade would

escape the mother's eye?

"You saw Rowland Jones! Oh, man-alive, tell me what he said of my girl!

He'll say nothing to me, but just hems and haws the more I pray him. But

you will tell me. You _must_ tell me." She stood up and spoke in a tone

of command, which his feeling of independence, weakened just then by an

accusing conscience, did not enable him to resist. He strove to evade

the question, however.

"It was an unlucky day that ever she went to the well!"

"Tell me what the doctor said of my child," repeated Mrs. Gwynn. "Will

she live, or will she die?" He did not dare to disobey the imperious

tone in which this question was put.

"Oh, she will live, don't be afraid. The doctor said she would live." He

did not mean to lay any particular emphasis on the word "live," but

somehow he did, and she, whose every nerve vibrated with anxiety, caught

the word.

"She will live!" repeated she. "But there is something behind. Tell me,

for I will know. If you won't say, I'll go to Rowland Jones to-night and

make him tell me what he has said to you."

There had passed something in this conversation between himself and the

doctor, which Edward did not wish to have known; and Mrs. Gwynn's threat

had the desired effect. But he looked vexed and irritated.

"You have such impatient ways with you, Mrs. Gwynn," he remonstrated.

"I am a mother asking news of my sick child," said she. "Go on. What did

he say? She'll live--" as if giving the clew.

"She'll live, he has no doubt of that. But he thinks--now don't clench

your hands so--I can't tell you if you look in that way; you are enough

to frighten a man."

"I'm not speaking," said she in a low husky tone. "Never mind my looks:

she'll live--"

"But she'll be a cripple for life. There! you would have it out," said

he, sulkily.

"A cripple for life," repeated she, slowly. "And I'm one-and-twenty

years older than she is!" She sighed heavily.

"And, as we're about it, I'll just tell you what is in my mind," said

he, hurried and confused. "I've a deal of cattle; and the farm makes

heavy work, as much as an able, healthy woman can do. So you see--" He

stopped, wishing her to understand his meaning without words. But she

would not. She fixed her dark eyes on him, as if reading his soul, till

he flinched under her gaze.

"Well," said she, at length, "say on. Remember I've a deal of work in me

yet, and what strength is mine is my daughter's."

"You're very good. But, altogether, you must be aware, Nest will never

be the same as she was."

"And you've not yet sworn in the face of God to take her for better, for

worse; and, as she is worse"--she looked in his face, caught her breath,

and went on--"as she is worse, why, you cast her off, not being

church-tied to her. Though her body may be crippled, her poor heart is

the same--alas!--and full of love for you. Edward, you don't mean to

break it off because of our sorrows. You're only trying me, I know,"

said she, as if begging him to assure her that her fears were false.

"But, you see, I'm a foolish woman--a poor foolish woman--and ready to

take fright at a few words." She smiled up in his face; but it was a

forced, doubting smile, and his face still retained its sullen, dogged

aspect.

"Nay, Mrs. Gwynn," said he, "you spoke truth at first. Your own good

sense told you Nest would never be fit to be any man's wife--unless,

indeed, she could catch Mr. Griffiths of Tynwntyrybwlch; he might keep

her a carriage, may be." Edward really did not mean to be unfeeling; but

he was obtuse, and wished to carry off his embarrassment by a kind of

friendly joke, which he had no idea would sting the poor mother as it

did. He was startled at her manner.

"Put it in words like a man. Whatever you mean by my child, say it for

yourself, and don't speak as if my good sense had told me any thing. I

stand here, doubting my own thoughts, cursing my own fears. Don't be a

coward. I ask you whether you and Nest are troth-plight?"

"I am not a coward. Since you ask me, I answer, Nest and I _were_

troth-plight; but we _are_ not. I can not--no one would expect me to wed

a cripple. It's your own doing I've told you now; I had made up my mind,

but I should have waited a bit before telling you."

"Very well," said she, and she turned to go away; but her wrath bust the

flood-gates, and swept away discretion and forethought. She moved and

stood in the gateway. Her lips parted, but no sound came; with an

hysterical motion she threw her arms suddenly up to heaven, as if

bringing down lightning toward the gray old house to which she pointed

as they fell, and then she spoke:

"The widow's child is unfriended. As surely as the Saviour brought the

son of a widow from death to life, for her tears and cries, so surely

will God and His angels watch over my Nest, and avenge her cruel

wrongs." She turned away, weeping, and wringing her hands.

Edward went in-doors; he had no more desire to reckon his stores; he sat

by the fire, looking gloomily at the red ashes. He might have been there

half an hour or more, when some one knocked at the door. He would not

speak. He wanted no one's company. Another knock, sharp and loud. He did

not speak. Then the visitor opened the door; and, to his

surprise--almost to his affright--Eleanor Gwynn came in.

"I knew you were here. I knew you could not go out into the clear, holy

night, as if nothing had happened. Oh! did I curse you? If I did, I beg

you to forgive me; and I will try and ask the Almighty to bless you, if

you will but have a little mercy--a very little. It will kill my Nest if

she knows the truth now--she is so very weak. Why, she can not feed

herself, she is so low and feeble. You would not wish to kill her, I

think, Edward!" She looked at him as if expecting an answer; but he did

not speak. She went down on her knees on the flags by him.

"You will give me a little time, Edward, to get her strong, won't you,

now? I ask it on my bended knees! Perhaps, if I promise never to curse

you again, you will come sometimes to see her, till she is well enough

to know how all is over, and her heart's hopes crushed. Only say you'll

come for a month, or so, as if you still loved her--the poor

cripple--forlorn of the world. I'll get her strong, and not tax you

long." Her tears fell too fast for her to go on.

"Get up, Mrs. Gwynn," Edward said. "Don't kneel to me. I have no

objection to come and see Nest, now and then, so that all is clear

between you and me. Poor thing! I'm sorry, as it happens, she's so taken

up with the thought of me."

"It was likely, was not it? and you to have been her husband before this

time, if--Oh, miserable me! to let my child go and dim her bright life!

But you'll forgive me, and come sometimes, just for a little quarter of

an hour, once or twice a week. Perhaps she'll be asleep sometimes when

you call, and then, you know, you need not come in. If she were not so

ill, I'd never ask you."

So low and humble was the poor widow brought, through her exceeding love

for her daughter.

CHAPTER II.

Nest revived during the warm summer weather. Edward came to see her, and

staid the allotted quarter of an hour; but he dared not look her in the

face. She was indeed a cripple: one leg was much shorter than the other,

and she halted on a crutch. Her face, formerly so brilliant in color,

was wan and pale with suffering: the bright roses were gone, never to

return. Her large eyes were sunk deep down in their hollow, cavernous

sockets: but the light was in them still, when Edward came. Her mother

dreaded her returning strength--dreaded, yet desired it; for the heavy

burden of her secret was most oppressive at times, and she thought

Edward was beginning to weary of his enforced attentions. One October

evening she told her the truth. She even compelled her rebellious heart

to take the cold, reasoning side of the question; and she told her child

that her disabled frame was a disqualification for ever becoming a

farmer's wife. She spoke hardly, because her inner agony and sympathy

was such, she dared not trust herself to express the feelings that were

rending her. But Nest turned away from cold reason; she revolted from

her mother; she revolted from the world. She bound her sorrow tight up

in her breast, to corrode and fester there.

Night after night, her mother heard her cries and moans--more pitiful,

by far, than those wrung from her by bodily pain a year before; and,

night after night, if her mother spoke to soothe, she proudly denied the

existence of any pain but what was physical, and consequent upon her

accident.

"If she would but open her sore heart to me--to me, her mother," Eleanor

wailed forth in prayer to God, "I would be content. Once it was enough

to have my Nest all my own. Then came love, and I knew it would never be

as before; and then I thought the grief I felt, when Edward spoke to me,

was as sharp a sorrow as could be; but this present grief, Oh Lord, my

God, is worst of all; and Thou only, Thou canst help!"

When Nest grew as strong as she was ever likely to be on earth, she was

anxious to have as much labor as she could bear. She would not allow her

mother to spare her any thing. Hard work--bodily fatigue--she seemed to

crave. She was glad when she was stunned by exhaustion into a dull

insensibility of feeling. She was almost fierce when her mother, in

those first months of convalescence, performed the household tasks which

had formerly been hers; but she shrank from going out of doors. Her

mother thought that she was unwilling to expose her changed appearance

to the neighbors' remarks; but Nest was not afraid of that: she was

afraid of their pity, as being one deserted and cast off. If Eleanor

gave way before her daughter's imperiousness, and sat by while Nest

"tore" about her work with the vehemence of a bitter heart, Eleanor

could have cried, but she durst not; tears, or any mark of

commiseration, irritated the crippled girl so much, she even drew away

from caresses. Every thing was to go on as it had been before she had

known Edward; and so it did, outwardly; but they trod carefully, as if

the ground on which they moved was hollow--deceptive. There was no more

careless ease; every word was guarded, and every action planned. It was

a dreary life to both. Once, Eleanor brought in a little baby, a

neighbor's child, to try and tempt Nest out of herself, by her old love

of children. Nest's pale face flushed as she saw the innocent child in

her mother's arms; and, for a moment, she made as if she would have

taken it; but then, she turned away, and hid her face behind her apron,

and murmured, "I shall never have a child to lie in my breast, and call

me mother!" In a minute she arose, with compressed and tightened lips,

and went about her household works, without her noticing the cooing baby

again, till Mrs. Gwynn, heart-sick at the failure of her little plan,

took it back to its parents.

One day the news ran through Pen-Morfa that Edward Williams was about to

be married. Eleanor had long expected this intelligence. It came upon

her like no new thing; but it was the filling-up of her cup of woe. She

could not tell Nest. She sat listlessly in the house, and dreaded that

each neighbor who came in would speak about the village news. At last,

some one did. Nest looked round from her employment, and talked of the

event with a kind of cheerful curiosity as to the particulars, which

made her informant go away, and tell others that Nest had quite left off

caring for Edward Williams. But when the door was shut, and Eleanor and

she were left alone, Nest came and stood before her weeping mother like

a stern accuser.

"Mother, why did not you let me die? Why did you keep me alive for

this?" Eleanor could not speak, but she put her arms out toward her

girl. Nest turned away, and Eleanor cried aloud in her soreness of

spirit. Nest came again.

"Mother, I was wrong. You did your best. I don't know how it is I am so

hard and cold. I wish I had died when I was a girl, and had a feeling

heart."

"Don't speak so, my child. God has afflicted you sore, and your hardness

of heart is but for a time. Wait a little. Don't reproach yourself, my

poor Nest. I understand your ways. I don't mind them, love. The feeling

heart will come back to you in time. Any ways, don't think you're

grieving me, because, love, that may sting you when I'm gone; and I'm

not grieved, my darling. Most times we're very cheerful, I think."

After this, mother and child were drawn more together. But Eleanor had

received her death from these sorrowful, hurrying events. She did not

conceal the truth from herself; nor did she pray to live, as some months

ago she had done, for her child's sake; she had found out that she had

no power to console the poor wounded heart. It seemed to her as if her

prayers had been of no avail; and then she blamed herself for this

thought.

There are many Methodist preachers in this part of Wales. There was a

certain old man, named David Hughes, who was held in peculiar reverence

because he had known the great John Wesley. He had been captain of a

Caernarvon slate-vessel; he had traded in the Mediterranean, and had

seen strange sights. In those early days (to use his own expression) he

had lived without God in the world; but he went to mock John Wesley, and

was converted to the white-haired patriarch, and remained to pray.

Afterward he became one of the earnest, self-denying, much-abused band

of itinerant preachers, who went forth under Wesley's direction to

spread abroad a more earnest and practical spirit of religion. His

rambles and travels were of use to him. They extended his knowledge of

the circumstances in which men are sometimes placed, and enlarged his

sympathy with the tried and tempted. His sympathy, combined with the

thoughtful experience of four-score years, made him cognizant of many of

the strange secrets of humanity; and when younger preachers upbraided

the hard hearts they met with, and despaired of the sinners, he

"suffered long and was kind."

When Eleanor Gwynn lay low on her death-bed, David Hughes came to

Pen-Morfa. He knew her history, and sought her out. To him she imparted

the feelings I have described.

"I have lost my faith, David. The tempter has come, and I have yielded.

I doubt if my prayers have been heard. Day and night have I prayed that

I might comfort my child in her great sorrow; but God has not heard me.

She has turned away from me, and refused my poor love. I wish to die

now; but I have lost my faith, and have no more pleasure in the thought

of going to God. What must I do, David?"

She hung upon his answer; and it was long in coming.

"I am weary of earth," said she, mournfully, "and can I find rest in

death even, leaving my child desolate and broken-hearted?"

"Eleanor," said David, "where you go, all things will be made clear; and

you will learn to thank God for the end of what now seems grievous and

heavy to be borne. Do you think your agony has been greater than the

awful agony in the Garden--or your prayers more earnest than that which

He prayed in that hour when the great drops of blood ran down his face

like sweat? We know that God heard Him, although no answer came to Him

through the dread silence of that night. God's times are not our times.

I have lived eighty-and-one years, and never yet have I known an earnest

prayer fall to the ground unheeded. In an unknown way, and when no one

looked for it, may be, the answer came; a fuller, more satisfying answer

than heart could conceive of, although it might be different to what was

expected. Sister, you are going where in His light you will see light;

you will learn there that in very faithfulness He has afflicted you!"

"Go on--you strengthen me," said she.

After David Hughes left that day, Eleanor was calm as one already dead,

and past mortal strife. Nest was awed by the change. No more passionate

weeping--no more sorrow in the voice; though it was low and weak, it

sounded with a sweet composure. Her last look was a smile; her last word

a blessing.

Nest, tearless, streeked the poor worn body. She laid a plate with salt

upon it on the breast, and lighted candles for the head and feet. It was

an old Welsh custom; but when David Hughes came in, the sight carried

him back to the time when he had seen the chapels in some old Catholic

cathedral. Nest sat gazing on the dead with dry, hot eyes.

"She is dead," said David, solemnly, "she died in Christ. Let us bless

God, my child. He giveth and He taketh away!"

"She is dead," said Nest, "my mother is dead. No one loves me now."

She spoke as if she were thinking aloud, for she did not look at David,

or ask him to be seated.

"No one loves you now? No human creature, you mean. You are not yet fit

to be spoken to concerning God's infinite love. I, like you, will speak

of love for human creatures. I tell you, if no one loves you, it is time

for you to begin to love." He spoke almost severely (if David Hughes

ever did); for, to tell the truth, he was repelled by her hard rejection

of her mother's tenderness, about which the neighbors had told him.

"Begin to love!" said she, her eyes flashing. "Have I not loved? Old

man, you are dim and worn-out. You do not remember what love is." She

spoke with a scornful kind of pitying endurance. "I will tell you how I

have loved, by telling you the change it has wrought in me. I was once

the beautiful Nest Gwynn; I am now a cripple, a poor, wan-faced cripple,

old before my time. That is a change; at least people think so." She

paused, and then spoke lower. "I tell you, David Hughes, that outward

change is as nothing compared to the change in my nature caused by the

love I have felt--and have had rejected. I was gentle once, and if you

spoke a tender word, my heart came toward you as natural as a little

child goes to its mammy. I never spoke roughly, even to the dumb

creatures, for I had a kind feeling for all. Of late (since I loved, old

man), I have been cruel in my thoughts to every one. I have turned away

from tenderness with bitter indifference. Listen!" she spoke in a hoarse

whisper. "I will own it. I have spoken hardly to her," pointing toward

the corpse. "Her who was ever patient, and full of love for me. She did

not know," she muttered, "she is gone to the grave without knowing how I

loved her--I had such strange, mad, stubborn pride in me."

"Come back, mother! Come back," said she, crying wildly to the still,

solemn corpse; "come back as a spirit or a ghost--only come back, that I

may tell you how I have loved you."

But the dead never come back.

The passionate adjuration ended in tears--the first she had shed. When

they ceased, or were absorbed into long quivering sobs, David knelt

down. Nest did not kneel, but bowed her head. He prayed, while his own

tears fell fast. He rose up. They were both calm.

"Nest," said he, "your love has been the love of youth; passionate,

wild, natural to youth. Henceforward you must love like Christ; without

thought of self, or wish for return. You must take the sick and the

weary to your heart and love them. That love will lift you up above the

storms of the world into God's own peace. The very vehemence of your

nature proves that you are capable of this. I do not pity you. You do

not require pity. You are powerful enough to trample down your own

sorrows into a blessing for others; and to others you will be a

blessing; I see it before you; I see in it the answer to your mother's

prayer."

The old man's dim eyes glittered as if they saw a vision; the fire-light

sprang up and glinted on his long white hair. Nest was awed as if she

saw a prophet, and a prophet he was to her.

When next David Hughes came to Pen-Morfa, he asked about Nest Gwynn,

with a hovering doubt as to the answer. The inn-folk told him she was

living still in the cottage, which was now her own.

"But would you believe it, David," said Mrs. Thomas, "she has gone and

taken Mary Williams to live with her? You remember Mary Williams, I'm

sure."

No! David Hughes remembered no Mary Williams at Pen-Morfa.

"You must have seen her, for I know you've called at Thomas Griffiths's

where the parish boarded her?"

"You don't mean the half-witted woman--the poor crazy creature!"

"But I do!" said Mrs. Thomas.

"I have seen her sure enough, but I never thought of learning her name.

And Nest Gwynn has taken her to live with her."

"Yes! I thought I should surprise you. She might have had many a decent

girl for companion. My own niece, her that is an orphan, would have gone

and been thankful. Besides, Mary Williams is a regular savage at times;

John Griffiths says there were days when he used to beat her till she

howled again, and yet she would not do as he told her. Nay, once, he

says, if he had not seen her eyes glare like a wild beast, from under

the shadow of the table where she had taken shelter, and got pretty

quickly out of her way, she would have flown upon him and throttled him.

He gave Nest fair warning of what she must expect, and he thinks some

day she will be found murdered."

David Hughes thought awhile. "How came Nest to take her to live with

her?" asked he.

"Well! Folk say John Griffiths did not give her enough to eat.

Half-wits, they tell me, take more to feed them than others, and Eleanor

Gwynn had given her oat-cake and porridge a time or two, and most likely

spoken kindly to her (you know Eleanor spoke kind to all), so some

months ago, when John Griffiths had been beating her, and keeping her

without food to try and tame her, she ran away and came to Nest's

cottage in the dead of night, all shivering and starved, for she did not

know Eleanor was dead, and thought to meet with kindness from her. I've

no doubt and Nest remembered how her mother used to feed and comfort the

poor idiot, and made her some gruel, and wrapped her up by the fire. And

in the morning when John Griffiths came in search of Mary, he found her

with Nest, and Mary wailed so piteously at the sight of him, that Nest

went to the parish officers and offered to take her to board with her

for the same money they gave to him. John says he was right glad to be

off his bargain."

David Hughes knew there was a kind of remorse which sought relief in the

performance of the most difficult and repugnant tasks. He thought he

could understand how, in her bitter repentance for her conduct toward

her mother, Nest had taken in the first helpless creature that came

seeking shelter in her name. It was not what he would have chosen, but

he knew it was God that had sent the poor wandering idiot there.

He went to see Nest the next morning. As he drew near the cottage--it

was summer time, and the doors and windows were all open--he heard an

angry, passionate kind of sound that was scarcely human. That sound

prevented his approach from being heard; and standing at the threshold,

he saw poor Mary Williams pacing backward and forward in some wild mood.

Nest, cripple as she was, was walking with her, speaking low, soothing

words, till the pace was slackened, and time and breathing was given to

put her arm around the crazy woman's neck, and soothe her by this tender

caress into the quiet luxury of tears; tears which give the hot brain

relief. Then David Hughes came in. His first words, as he took off his

hat, standing on the lintel, were--"The peace of God be upon this

house." Neither he nor Nest recurred to the past; though solemn

recollections filled their minds. Before he went, all three knelt and

prayed; for, as Nest told him, some mysterious influence of peace came

over the poor half-wit's mind when she heard the holy words of prayer;

and often when she felt a paroxysm coming on, she would kneel and repeat

a homily rapidly over, as if it were a charm to scare away the Demon in

possession; sometimes, indeed, the control over herself requisite for

this effort was enough to dispel the fluttering burst. When David rose

up to go, he drew Nest to the door.

"You are not afraid, my child?" asked he.

"No," she replied. "She is often very good and quiet. When she is not, I

can bear it."

"I shall see your face on earth no more;" said he. "God bless you!" He

went on his way. Not many weeks after, David Hughes was borne to his

grave.

The doors of Nest's heart were opened--opened wide by the love she grew

to feel for crazy Mary, so helpless, so friendless, so dependent upon

her. Mary loved her back again, as a dumb animal loves its blind master.

It was happiness enough to be near her. In general she was only too glad

to do what she was bidden by Nest. But there were times when Mary was

overpowered by the glooms and fancies of her poor disordered brain.

Fearful times! No one knew how fearful. On those days, Nest warned the

little children who loved to come and play around her, that they must

not visit the house. The signal was a piece of white linen hung out of a

side window. On those days the sorrowful and sick waited in vain for the

sound of Nest's lame approach. But what she had to endure was only known

to God, for she never complained. If she had given up the charge of

Mary, or if the neighbors had risen, out of love and care for her life,

to compel such a step, she knew not what hard curses and blows--what

starvation and misery, would await the poor creature.

She told of Mary's docility, and her affection, and her innocent little

sayings; but she never told the details of the occasional days of wild

disorder, and driving insanity.

Nest grew old before her time, in consequence of her accident. She knew

that she was as old at fifty as many are at seventy. She knew it partly

by the vividness with which the remembrance of the days of her youth

came back to her mind, while the events of yesterday were dim and

forgotten. She dreamt of her girlhood and youth. In sleep she was once

more the beautiful Nest Gwynn, the admired of all beholders, the

light-hearted girl, beloved by her mother. Little circumstances

connected with those early days, forgotten since the very time when they

occurred, came back to her mind in her waking hours. She had a sear on

the palm of her left hand, occasioned by the fall of a branch of a tree,

when she was a child; it had not pained her since the first two days

after the accident; but now it began to hurt her slightly; and clear in

her ears was the crackling sound of the treacherous, rending wood;

distinct before her rose the presence of her mother tenderly binding up

the wound. With these remembrances came a longing desire to see the

beautiful fatal well, once more before her death. She had never gone so

far since the day when, by her fall there, she lost love, and hope, and

her bright, glad youth. She yearned to look upon its waters once again.

This desire waxed as her life waned. She told it to poor crazy Mary.

"Mary!" said she, "I want to go to the Rock Well. If you will help me, I

can manage it. There used to be many a stone in the Dol Mawr on which I

could sit and rest. We will go to-morrow morning before folks are

astir."

Mary answered briskly, "Up, up! To the Rock Well! Mary will go. Mary

will go." All day long she kept muttering to herself, "Mary will go."

Nest had the happiest dream that night. Her mother stood beside her--not

in the flesh, but in the bright glory of a blessed spirit. And Nest was

no longer young--neither was she old--"they reckon not by days, nor

years where she was gone to dwell;" and her mother stretched out her

arms to her with a calm, glad look of welcome. She awoke; the woodlark

was singing in the near copse--the little birds were astir, and rustling

in their leafy nests. Nest arose, and called Mary. The two set out

through the quiet lane. They went along slowly and silently. With many a

pause they crossed the broad Dol Mawr; and carefully descended the

sloping stones, on which no trace remained of the hundreds of feet that

had passed over them since Nest was last there. The clear water sparkled

and quivered in the early sun-light, the shadows of the birch-leaves

were stirred on the ground; the ferns--Nest could have believed that

they were the very same ferns which she had seen thirty years before,

hung wet and dripping where the water overflowed--a thrush chanted

matins from a holly bush near--and the running stream made a low, soft,

sweet accompaniment. All was the same; Nature was as fresh and young as

ever. It might have been yesterday that Edward Williams had overtaken

her, and told her his love--the thought of his words--his handsome

looks--(he was a gray, hard-featured man by this time), and then she

recalled the fatal wintry morning when joy and youth had fled; and as

she remembered that faintness of pain, a new, a real faintness--no echo

of the memory--came over her. She leant her back against a rock, without

a moan or sigh, and died! She found immortality by the well side,

instead of her fragile, perishing youth. She was so calm and placid that

Mary (who had been dipping her fingers in the well, to see the waters

drop off in the gleaming sun-light), thought she was asleep, and for

some time continued her amusement in silence. At last she turned, and

said,

"Mary is tired. Mary wants to go home." Nest did not speak, though the

idiot repeated her plaintive words. She stood and looked till a strange

terror came over her--a terror too mysterious to be borne.

"Mistress, wake! Mistress, wake!" she said, wildly, shaking the form.

But Nest did not awake. And the first person who came to the well that

morning found crazy Mary sitting, awe-struck, by the poor dead Nest.

They had to get the poor creature away by force, before they could

remove the body.

Mary is in Tre-Madoc workhouse; they treat her pretty kindly, and in

general she is good and tractable. Occasionally the old paroxysms come

on; and for a time she is unmanageable. But some one thought of speaking

to her about Nest. She stood arrested at the name; and since then, it is

astonishing to see what efforts she makes to curb her insanity; and when

the dread time is past, she creeps up to the matron, and says, "Mary has

tried to be good. Will God let her go to Nest now?"

THE YOUNG MAN'S COUNSELOR.

GENERAL CONDUCT.

Move with the multitude in the common walks of life, and you will be

unnoticed in the throng; but break from them, pursue a different path,

and every eye, perhaps with reproach, will be turned toward you. What is

the rule to be observed in general conduct? Conform to every innocent

custom as our social nature requires, but refuse compliance with

whatever is inconsistent with propriety, decency, and the moral duties;

and dare to be singular in honor and virtue.

In conversation, truth does not require you to utter all your thoughts,

yet it forbids you to speak in opposition to them. To open the mind to

unreserved communication, is imbecility; to cover it with a vail, to

dissever its internal workings from its external manifestations, is

dissimulation and falsehood. The concordance of the thoughts, words, and

deeds, is the essence of truth, and the ornament of character.

A man who has an opportunity to ruin a rival, with whom he is at enmity,

without public dishonor, and yet generously forbears, nay, converts the

opportunity into a disinterested benefit, evinces a noble instance of

virtuous magnanimity. He conquers his own enmity, the most glorious of

all conquests, and overcomes the enmity of a rival by the most heroic

and praiseworthy mode of retaliation.

As to an evil report of a neighbor, the opinion of the frivolous is

lightly regarded, the calumny of the known slanderer is discredited by

all who venerate truth, and the character of the known liar is a

sufficient antidote to falsehood. A respectable man, in his good name,

offers a guarantee for his veracity; and, impressed with the benevolent

affections and the love of justice, he is scrupulous to believe an evil

report, and still more so to repeat it.

As a rill from a fountain increases as it flows, rises into a stream,

swells into a river, so symbolically are the origin and course of a good

name. At first, its beginning is small: it takes its rise from home, its

natural source, extends to the neighborhood, stretches through the

community, and finally takes a range proportioned to the qualities by

which it is supported--its talents, virtue, and usefulness, the surest

basis of an honorable reputation.

The relatives and kindred of a young man, by a natural process,

communicate his amiable and opening character to a wider circle than

that of home. His associates and friends extend the circle, and thus it

widens till its circumference embraces a portion more or less of

society, and his character places him in the class of respectable men.

With good principles and conduct, neither envy nor malice can intercept

the result of this progressive series; without good principles and

conduct, no art or dissimulation can realize the noblest aim of a social

being--a well-founded reputation.

A person commits an error, and he has sufficient address to conceal it,

or sufficient ingenuity to palliate it, but he does neither; instead of

availing himself of concealment and palliation, with the candor of a

great mind, he confesses his error, and makes all the apology or

atonement which the occasion requires. None has a title to true honor

but he who can say with moral elevation, when truth demands the

acknowledgment, I have done wrong.

The events of life are not fortunate or calamitous so much in

themselves, as they are in their effect on our feelings. An event which

is met by one with equanimity or indifference, will fret another with

vexation, or overwhelm him with sorrow. Misfortunes encountered with a

composed and firm resolution, almost cease to be evils; it is,

therefore, less our wisdom to endeavor to control external events, than

to regulate the habitual temper of our minds to endurance and

resignation.

The emotions of the mind are displayed in the movements of the body, the

expression of the features and the tones of the voice. It is more

difficult to disguise the tones of the voice, than any other external

manifestation of internal feeling. The changing accents of the voice of

those with whom we have long lived in intimate intercourse, in the

communication of sentiment, are less equivocal and more impressive than

even language itself.

The vocal sounds of speech, expressive of thought and feeling, are too

much neglected by us in our individual and personal education. Could we

analyze the opinion which we form of people on a first acquaintance, we

should certainly find that it is greatly influenced by the tones of the

voice. Study, then, agreeable sounds of speech, but seek not rules to

guide you from etiquette--from artificial politeness; descend into the

heart, there cherish the kind and moral sympathies, and speech will be

modulated by the sincere and endearing tone of benevolence.

With your commiseration for distress, join firmness of mind. Interest

yourself in general happiness, feel for all that is human, but suffer

not your peace to be disturbed by what is beyond the sphere of your

influence, and beyond your power to remedy.

A medical man has all the humane feelings, but they are merged into the

art of healing. When he sees a patient suffering, he feels no

perturbation; he feels only the desire, by means of his art, to relieve

the sufferer: thus should all our humane and social sympathies be

regulated, divested of their morbid sensibility, and reduced to active

and practical principles.

Some, when they move from the common routine of life, and especially on

any emergency, are embarrassed, perplexed, and know not how to resolve

with decision, and act with promptitude. Presence of mind is a valuable

quality, and essential to active life; it is the effect of habit, and

the formation of habit is facilitated by rule.

Command your feelings, for strong feelings disconcert the mind, and

produce confusion of ideas. On every occasion that requires attention,

learn to concentrate your thoughts with quickness and comprehension.

These two rules reduced into habits, if steadily practiced, will induce

decision of resolve and promptitude of action.

Precipitation spoils the best concerted plan; perseverance brings the

most difficult, when it is practicable, to a successful result. The

flutter of haste is characteristic of a weak mind that has not the

command of its thoughts; a strong mind, master of itself, possesses the

clearness and prescience of reflection.

In learning, concentrate the energy of the mind principally on one

study. The attention divided among many studies, is weakened by the

division; besides, it is not granted to an individual to excel in many

things. But, while one study claims your main attention, make occasional

excursions into the fields of literature and science, and collect

materials for the improvement of your mind, and the advancement of your

favorite pursuit.

Excellence in a profession, and success in business, can be attained

only by persevering industry. None who thinks himself above his vocation

can succeed in it, for we can not give our attention to what our

self-importance despises. None can be eminent in his vocation who

devotes his mental energy to a pursuit foreign to it, for, in such a

case, success in what we love is failure in what we neglect.

Among men, you must either speak what is agreeable to their humor, or

what is consistent with truth and good morals. Make it a general rule of

conduct neither to flatter virtue nor exasperate folly: by flattering

virtue, you can not confirm it; by exasperating folly, you can not

reform it. Submit, however, to no compromise with truth, but, when it

allows, accommodate yourself with honest courtesy to the prepossessions

of others.

In your whole behavior to mankind, conduct yourself with fairness and

integrity. If an action is well received, you will have the credit it

deserves; if it is not well received, you will have the approval of your

own mind. The approval of a good conscience is preferable to the

applause of the world.

Form no resolution, and engage in no undertaking, which you can not

invoke Heaven to sanction. A good man prays the Almighty to be

propitious to his virtuous plans: if his petition is denied, he knows it

is denied in mercy, and he is resigned; if it is granted, he is

grateful, and enjoys the blessings with moderation. A wicked man, in his

iniquitous plans, either fails or succeeds: if he fails, disappointment

is embittered by self-reproach; if he succeeds, success is without

pleasure, for, when he looks around, he sees no smile of congratulation.

[From Fraser's Magazine.]

TALLEYRAND.[17]

"Celebrated people," said Napoleon, when speaking of Necker, "lose on a

close view:" a remark not substantially different from that of the Duke

of Marlborough, that "no man was a hero to his _valet de chambre_."

Proximity, like familiarity, "breeds contempt;" and the proper cure for

the illusions of distance is nearness. Few objects in nature, whether

living or dead, can stand the application of that test, which is as

fatal to the pretensions of men as of mountains: while it is notorious

that the judgments of history are seldom in accordance with the

decisions of contemporaries or friends. Human greatness resembles

physical magnitude in this, that its proportions are more or less

affected by surrounding influences, which must be removed before its

real dimensions can be ascertained. It is, in fact, one of the

fluctuating quantities of social arithmetic, and to fix its precise

amount is now, and ever has been, one of the most difficult enterprises

in which a public writer can engage. It is apt, also, to be confounded

with mere celebrity. Obscurity is not one of its accidents, but fame is;

and there is something like an irresistible tendency on the part of

mankind at large, to believe in the claims to distinction of the man who

has been _vulgatus per orbem_. Humility does very well for poets--your

Horaces and Grays, for instance--who can find Agamemnons and Hampdens on

every village green, to whom the opportunity only of acquiring renown

has been denied by envious fate; but the prose of life discards it as an

unsuitable and troublesome adjunct, and refuses to extend its reverence

to what is not appreciable. A famous man is, therefore, always presumed

to be a great man, and he may be so in so far as popular reputation is

concerned, though he need not be so otherwise. To which of these classes

did Talleyrand belong? That he was celebrated is beyond doubt. Was he

great? That is a different question, and could be answered

satisfactorily only by a much more elaborate inquiry into his history

than it is possible for us to institute. Forty years must elapse from

his death, which took place in 1838, before those memoirs, which he is

known to have compiled, shall be given to the world; and whoever tries

will find it to be no easy task to anticipate those revelations which

are reserved for the eyes and ears of the generation of 1878. Let us,

then, be contented with a humbler effort, and endeavor to make the most

of the materials which are accessible to us, scanty though they be.

There are spurious lives of Talleyrand by the dozen. He repudiated these

scandalous and gossiping chronicles in his life-time, and it is no part

of our business to resuscitate them. M. Colmache's volume is of another

stamp, however, and bears unexceptionable internal evidence of the

honesty of the writer, whether we agree in his conclusions or not. As

secretary to the prince he had superior facilities for acquiring a

knowledge of, at least, the domestic habits of the _man_, but beyond

this he has accomplished little; for though his work be well, and even

powerfully written, and though it contain numerous fragments of strong

dramatic interest which illustrate in a very remarkable manner

Talleyrand's moral idiosyncracy, as well as the usages of the age and

country in which he lived--it would be absurd to suppose that the most

reserved man in Europe, who had drilled his passions into a state of

repose, and disciplined his tongue into the obedient slave of his own

secret purposes, had given his confidence to a servant, in the full

knowledge that every word which he uttered, and every opinion which he

expressed, would be noted down, and published to the world when the

grave had closed upon his remains. A less astute person, occupying the

same conspicuous position in life, would have been guilty of no such

folly as this: and though M. Colmache may have thought otherwise, he was

obviously trusted with no more than it was perfectly safe for his

master's posthumous reputation that he should be allowed to know.

Moreover, we must remember, that though the French pride themselves on

their skill in conversation--_l'art de causer_, as they term it--it is a

wholly different thing from what would pass by that name in Britain. Men

do not meet together in France (or, rather, they _did_ not, for it is

impossible to tell what they do now, and it would be unprofitable to

inquire), freely to exchange their thoughts upon questions of

importance, to discuss philosophy, religion, literature, or even

politics; but to chat, to trifle with time, and to dispel weariness.

Every thing that is serious is interdicted as an offense against good

taste; and a French talker would rather run the risk of being considered

a fool than a bore. The tyranny of fashion has been always cheerfully

submitted to on this point; and to be brilliant, startling, and

epigrammatic, are the passports to conversational reputation: not to be

weighty, solid, or wise. To judge by M. Colmache's book, Talleyrand did

not converse. It was no part of his social economy to intercommune with

any one. His thoughts were his own, and he kept them to himself: hence,

after we have perused this book, abounding as it does in curious

sketches and narratives, we know nothing more of Talleyrand's sentiments

on men and things than we did before. There was, no doubt, the usual

lingual intercourse among his guests at the Chateau Vallencay, but the

great man took no part in it. His _role_ was lofty, mysterious, and

grand. When he spoke all were silent, all attentive, all obsequious: but

there was no conversation, in our sense of the word, and no dialogue,

for there were no interlocutors. It was a monologue, in fact, and an

interesting one--for his memory was deeply impressed with the

recollections of the past, and he delighted to call them up, and to

astonish his auditors by the freshness and vigor of his coloring: but,

so far as we can discover, he never allowed himself to indulge in

unnecessary commentaries or disclosures, and, with all his diligence, M.

Colmache was unable to extract out of the wily diplomatist a single idea

which it was his desire to conceal. Let there be no mistake, then, about

the character of these _Revelations_. They are always amusing, sometimes

highly interesting, and at others instructive: but they furnish

exceedingly little toward a life of Talleyrand; and what his own

countrymen are unable to give, foreigners can not supply. In what

follows, therefore, we must be both abrupt and irregular.

Charles Maurice Talleyrand-Perigord, eldest son of the Comte de

Talleyrand-Perigord, was born at Paris in the year 1754; and died in

that city in the year 1838, at the advanced age of eighty-four. His

father was by position a member of the ancient _noblesse_, and by

profession, a soldier: his mother a woman of fashion, and attached to

the court. According to M. Colmache, he came into the world "without

spot or blemish," and we are led to infer that his lameness--the cause

of so much suffering and injustice to him in after-life--was not

congenital, as has been generally believed, but the result of want of

care in his childhood; for, as it was not the custom in those days for

women of rank to nurse their own offspring, or even to rear them in

their own houses, the future diplomatist was removed to a distant part

of the country a few days after his birth, and consigned to the care of

a hired nurse, Mere Rigaut, in whose cottage, wild, neglected, and

forgotten, he dwelt, for twelve years. He was at length recalled from

his involuntary exile by the Bailli Talleyrand, his uncle--the youngest

brother of his father, a naval officer, and a knight of Malta; who, with

the warmth of feeling proper to men of his profession, was enraged, upon

his return home, to find the poor boy condemned to banishment and

obscurity, and determined to free him from both. He accordingly brought

him to Paris, but was sadly mortified to find that his intention of

making him a sailor was marred by his infirmity; and leaving him at the

hotel Talleyrand in charge of the parties whom his mother had instructed

to receive him--for she was not there to perform that maternal duty

herself--the honest Bailli set out for Toulon, where he rejoined his

ship, and was drowned at sea a few months afterward. Young Talleyrand

was now placed at the College of Louis le Grand, and under the immediate

direction of the Pere Langlois, Professor of Rhetoric in that

institution; a kind and benevolent-minded man, as it would seem, to whom

his pupil remained attached throughout his whole life, and who,

unchanged and unchangeable, wore, in 1828, the academic costume which

had prevailed before the Revolution--a long-skirted, collarless black

coat, buttoned to the chin; black knee breeches and silk stockings;

large shoes with silver-plated buckles; well powdered hair, with _ailes

de pigeon_ and a queue of portentous dimensions; and that indispensable

companion of a _savant crasseux_ of the middle of the eighteenth

century, a huge flat snuff-box, which lay concealed in the deep recesses

in his ample pockets. Talleyrand remained at this school for three

years, and would appear to have made a respectable figure as a student,

considering the disadvantages under which he labored from the want of

preliminary training. It is probable that a sense of this deficiency on

the part of a lively lad, joined to the stimulus of competition,

quickened his diligence, and he was rewarded with praise and prizes. He

was also addicted to active sports, for "he was strong and hardy in

spite of his lameness;" and we are told that his temper was mild and

tractable at this period, and that, when attacked, his defensive weapon

was his tongue, not his hands--so true is it, that "the boy is father to

the man." His sharp, quick speech, we are assured, was the terror of his

comrades--_i.e._ when a bolder youth would have boxed his antagonist's

ears, Talleyrand scolded, and doubtlessly provoked him; but as there

must be a philosophical reason for whatever concerns the nonage of a

celebrated person, it is added, that "even then (between twelve and

fifteen, observe) he had learned that the art of governing others

consisted merely in self-command." During his residence at college he

saw nothing of his father, and little of his mother; and when the latter

did visit him, she was always attended by an eminent surgeon, whose duty

it was to torture the unfortunate boy's leg, and to try, by bandages,

cauteries, and other appliances, to make that long and straight which

neglect had made short and crooked. These visits of _madame mere_ were

anticipated with horror, and ever afterward spoken of with disgust; nor

could they have increased that love for the author of his being which is

so natural to youth, and which an incident that occurred about this time

would seem to have utterly extinguished.

At the close of his third year at college, his father died from the

effects of an old wound received in battle. This event must have

happened when his son had attained to the fifteenth year of his age,

and, consequently, in the year 1769. By the laws of nature and of feudal

succession, that son was now the head of his house, a peer of France,

the inheritor of those peculiar privileges which then belonged to his

order, the owner of large territorial possessions, and the Comte

Talleyrand-Perigord: of all which rights, immunities, titles, and

dignities, he was arbitrarily deprived by the cruel decision of a family

council, of which his mother was the author and promoter, and his

birthrights handed over to his younger brother, who, in his infancy, had

been companion of his exile. Why this act of iniquity was committed, and

how, we shall allow M. Colmache to tell:

"It was at this time that his father died, and Charles Maurice was now

the Comte de Talleyrand, and head of that branch of the family to which

he belonged. Meanwhile the younger son, Archambaut, had likewise

returned from his nursing; but he had the better chance--his limbs were

sound and well developed, as God had made them. No dire accident, the

consequence of foul neglect, had marred his shape, or tarnished his

comeliness. So, one fine day, and as a natural consequence, mark you, of

this fortunate circumstance, when Charles Maurice, the eldest son, had

finished his course of study at Louis le Grand, having passed through

his classes with great _eclat_, there came a tall, sallow, black-robed

priest, and took him away from the midst of his friends to the grim old

_seminaire_ of St. Sulpice, and it was there that he received the

astounding intimation, from the lips of the superior himself, that, by

the decision of a _conseil de famille_, from which there was no appeal,

his birthright had been taken from him, and transferred to his younger

brother.

"'Why so?' faltered the boy, unable to conceal his emotion.

"'He is not cripple,' was the stern and cruel answer.

"It must have been that hour--nay, that very instant--the echo of those

heartless words, which made the Prince de Talleyrand what he is even to

this very day. Who shall tell the bitter throes of that bold,

strong-hearted youth, as he heard the unjust sentence? Was it defiance

and despair, the gift of hell, or resignation, the blessed boon of

heaven, which caused him to suffer the coarse black robe to be thrown at

once above his college uniform, without a cry, without a murmur? None

will ever be able to divine what his feelings were, for this one

incident is always passed over by the prince. He never refers to it,

even when in familiar conversation with his most loved intimates. It is

certain, therefore, that the single hour of which I speak bore with it a

whole life of bitterness and agony. (P. 106, 107.)"

Let us pause for a moment to consider the probable effects of such

nurture and treatment on a nature like Talleyrand's. He was fifteen

years of age; imperfectly educated for his station in life; lame, from

the neglect of the guardians of his infancy; disinherited by those who

should have watched with the most jealous care over his interests;

cruelly punished for a physical defect chargeable to the carelessness of

others; a stranger to hope, love, and fear; the victim of a domestic

conspiracy; and the novitiate of a profession which he loathed, and to

which, in his subsequent years, he did dishonor. His father he had never

known, his mother he knew only as his tormentor and oppressor: no tie

seems to have bound him to his brother, and up to this hour he had never

yet slept one night under the paternal roof. These were no ordinary

trials; and if the youth who was subjected to them became in after-life

a cynic, is it to be wondered at? Indeed, a hasty view of this

remarkable man's character might lead to the conclusion of M. Colmache,

that the untoward accidents of his infancy and boyhood afforded an

explanation of all his adult peculiarities; but we can not allow

ourselves to accept this inference, natural as it would seem to be, for

it appears to us, upon a closer inspection, that though these incidents

might deepen the force of his mental inequalities, they could not have

created them, and that the difference between the Bishop of Autun and

the ancient noble, had he succeeded to his inheritance, would have

amounted to little more than the difference between a proscribed

ecclesiastic and a proscribed aristocrat. No doubt, if the generous

affections expand and blossom under genial culture, they as certainly

contract and wither under neglect and harshness; nor should we, in

ordinary cases, have any hesitation in giving the benefit of this

elementary rule to the subject of an ordinary biography: but

Talleyrand's is not such. There is no evidence in this book or

elsewhere, for instance, that the sensitive part of his nature was

acute, or that he was easily moved by strong emotions of any kind; and

it is exceedingly difficult for us to comprehend how so singular a moral

and intellectual organization as he unquestionably possessed could have

been the result of any imaginable series of occurrences in early life,

of whatever description they might happen to be. The power of intense

concentration by which he was so remarkably distinguished was,

assuredly, a gift from Nature (whether good or bad we say not), and not

a circumstantial accident; and it is all but incredible that a man of

vivid sensibilities could have succeeded by a mere effort of the will in

suppressing every manifestation of their existence during a life

prolonged far beyond the ordinary term, and in the midst of the most

terrible convulsions that had agitated the world since the establishment

of society in Western Europe. The cause appears to us to be unequal to

the effect; and we are obliged to conclude that the cold, sarcastic, and

selfish man, who believed in nothing and nobody, and who rejected even

the common impulses of humanity, was no casual product of events, but

precisely what he had been designed to be from the cradle, and what he

would have shown himself to have been--though, perhaps, in a different

way--had he never known what paternal neglect and maternal cruelty were.

We have no account in this volume of the progressive steps of his

clerical education, beyond the intimation that it was wearisome and

distasteful. Talleyrand disliked references to his ecclesiastical

career. It had not been a respectable one; and if M. Colmache really got

from him the stories which he tells in his book, we need not be

surprised that there is nothing in them about either the Abbe or the

Bishop. We know from other sources that, notwithstanding his

constitutional timidity, he accepted the Revolution eagerly; and that he

did his best, by precept and example, to consummate the destruction of

the old order of things. He was the bosom friend of Mirabeau, so far as

his suspicious nature would allow him to be the bosom-friend of any one;

and his account (or what M. Colmache says was his) of the last days of

that able, but profligate person's troubled life is one of the most

striking things in this volume. Another extraordinary being likewise

appears here, of whom less is generally known than of the other two,

viz., the Abbe Cerutti, an Italian Jesuit, who had been in the service

of the Dauphin, the father of Louis XVI., and who, like so many others,

threw his religion and his allegiance behind his back when they could no

longer subserve his personal ends, and who was, moreover, with Mirabeau

and Talleyrand, one of the most active promoters of the popular cause.

This trio, in conjunction with Condorcet, started, in 1789, the first

democratical journal known in Paris. It was called the _Feuille

Villageoise_, and was designed for circulation among the rural

populations of the provinces. It has been accused of having provoked

many of the atrocities of the Revolution; but this, it would seem, was a

mistake. It only fanned the flames after they had broken out, but did

not excite them: and it was remarkable for "burning columns" from

Mirabeau, the ex-noble; for "cold, bitter irony," from Cerutti, the

ex-Jesuit; and for recommendations of the "divisions of church property,

&c." from Talleyrand, the ex-bishop. Such pastimes could have done no

harm, according to M. Colmache; and were obviously inadequate to the

production of a revolution--and such a revolution! Let us acquit these

patriots, then, of treason against society, and let us believe that they

were actuated by the purest motives, when they used every effort within

their reach to rouse to madness an ignorant and excitable multitude, and

stimulated by every possible means, the cupidity of the poor by

suggestions to plunder the rich and to despoil the Church. It may be

difficult to do this, but there is no help for it; and with such

undeniable proofs of the wisdom, virtue, and moderation of this

celebrated junta, as M. Colmache has been pleased to furnish, we may let

the matter drop.

Talleyrand was consumed by a burning hatred of England, even before the

Revolution broke out, and, in conjunction with a friend, gave a

practical illustration of his hostility by fitting out a privateer at

Brest, which was designed to intercept British ships trading to the West

Indies; and as we do not remember to have seen this strange incident in

his life mentioned elsewhere, we shall give the short account of it

which M. Colmache has furnished:

"The sudden change from the frivolous _papillotage_ of the _ancien

regime_ to the sombre enthusiasm which broke out at the epoch of the

American war, made but little impression on M. Talleyrand. He was

evidently prepared; and at once declared his opinion, not by pamphlets

or inflammatory speeches, but by an argument far more forcible than

either. Conjointly with his friend, the Count Choiseul Gouffier, he

equipped a privateer, which he called the Holy Cause, and which left the

harbor of Brest in the month of May, 1779. The Duc de Castries, then

Minister of Marine, furnished the guns. This single fact would almost

serve to paint the time. A vessel of war armed and equipped by the

_agent general du clerge de France_, aided by a _savant_ of the _haute

noblesse_, and countenanced by one of the ministers, exhibits at once

the utter confusion of ideas which must have existed just then. I have

heard that the privateer, which, placed under command of a runaway scion

of nobility, was to have carried death and destruction among the English

merchant-ships trading from the West Indies, never more made its

appearance on the French coast. Be this as it may, I know that the

prince does not like to talk of this little episode in his life; and the

other day, when questioned rather closely on the subject, he answered,

'_Laissons cela, c'est un de mes peches de jeunesse._'" (P. 232.)

The temper of mind indicated by this passage was itself one of the

forerunners of the Revolution, for at that time France had become

delirious on the subject of the American struggle; and her soldiers and

nobles who were aiding the revolted provincialists, were busily employed

in gathering the fruits of that harvest of republicanism which they were

so soon to transport to their own country, where they were destined to

produce extraordinary results. At the time this event happened,

Talleyrand was twenty-five years of age, and in holy orders; and we are

to presume that the Anglo-mania, which overtook his countrymen ten years

later, and was the rage in '89, had not yet set in. The anecdote is

curious, but it strikes us as being illustrative rather of the character

of the age and people than of the individual man, for whom in his

natural mood, it was _trop prononce_.

As the Revolution advanced Talleyrand's safety was endangered, and like

most French patriots, ancient and modern, that was a thing which he

looked carefully to. Some papers were found, after the sack of the

Tuilleries, which compromised him; and in '92 he fled to the United

States of America, taking up his abode in the city of New York. He was

accompanied in his flight by a friend of the name of Beaumetz, and in

concert with whom he resolved to enter into trade. A small ship was

freighted with goods for Calcutta, whither the two exiles had resolved

to proceed in search of fortune; and all that was wanted to enable them

to put their scheme in execution was a fair wind, which, however, the

elements refused. In the interval caused by this detention Talleyrand

had one of what he called his "presentiments;" and to its occult

warnings, as he afterward declared, he owed the immediate preservation

of his life, salvation from shipwreck, and that change in his "destiny"

which led to all the future incidents of his eventful career.

Disappointment and vexation preying upon an irritable temper drove his

partner mad. He saw insanity in his look and gestures, and suffering

himself to be led by the lunatic to the heights of Brooklyn, which

overlook the harbor, he fixed his eyes sternly upon him, exclaiming, at

the same time, "Beaumetz, you mean to murder me; you intend to throw me

from the height into the sea below. Deny it, monster, if you can!" Thus

apostrophized, the unhappy and conscience-stricken maniac quailed

beneath the intensity and sternness of his gaze; confessed that such was

his design, the thought, "like a flash from the lurid fire of hell,"

having haunted him day and night; implored forgiveness, flung himself

upon the neck of his meditated victim, and burst into tears. The

paroxysm had passed off, and tottering reason had resumed her sway.

Beaumetz was conveyed home and placed under medical treatment, speedily

recovered, proceeded on his voyage alone, and was never more heard of.

"My Fate," said Talleyrand, when speaking of this incident in after

life, "was at work."

From the way in which this anecdote is introduced we learn that

Talleyrand had some strong leaning to the Celtic superstition known as

the second sight, which, in the adust imagination of a Frenchman, is

closely allied to fatalism, and which, we fear, loses its interest, as

it certainly does its virtue, when transported into sunnier regions from

"the land of the mountain and the flood." In ancient times Augustus

Caesar,[18] and in modern Samuel Johnson, Napoleon, and Walter Scott,

were all, more or less, and after the manner of their several

idiosyncracies, the victims of this imaginary belief; and if we knew the

apocalyptic tendencies of obscure, as well as we do those of celebrated

individuals, we should probably, discover that this weakness was much

more prevalent than is generally supposed. We have no great difficulty

in understanding how a fanciful notion of this kind should attach itself

to minds of a certain conformation, or be even generated by them, and

that it should exercise a considerable, though unseen influence over the

secret convictions of men of ability, and of women of vivid religious

emotions; but we do not so readily comprehend how such persons as

Napoleon and Talleyrand should have embraced a delusion which was

utterly irreconcilable with their skeptical natures, and which

necessarily presupposed an immaterial state of existence, and the

providential superintendence of human affairs by a benevolent order of

beings, whose powers must have been deputed to them by a superior and

over-ruling Intelligence. It was the part of an ancient Roman, like

Augustus, to believe in portents and omens, however insignificant; it

might even require some philosophy to despise them; and among ourselves

in modern times it will be found, if we mistake not, that strong

poetical sensibilities, or a peculiarly impressible temperament, is the

foundation of what can be regarded in no other light than an

hallucination. The world of spirits, with all its shadowy tenants and

imaginary impulses, might be a reality to Scott, whose demonology never

for one moment obscured the lucid perceptions of a singularly clear and

masculine intellect; while the Rosicrucianism of so vigorously-minded a

man as Samuel Johnson was the plain result of that constitutional

melancholy under which he labored--fortified, it may be, by theological

tenets which bordered on the mystical: but what could Napoleon mean by

Fate, or Talleyrand by Destiny? They were both of them unbelievers in

spiritualism of any kind; and whence could those intimations come of

which Talleyrand, at least, conceived himself to be the recipient? He

was obviously possessed by the idea that numerous premonitions had been

vouchsafed to him; and what chiefly moved in him a desire to visit

Scotland was, not its scenery, its lakes, its mountains, or its people,

but a wish to inquire into the (as he supposed) natural faculty of

divination. The dream may be of Jove[19]--Homer is a sound heathen

authority upon this point; but Talleyrand was no dreamer. His

"presentiments" (for so he loved to call them), were, apparently, sudden

intuitions, which he was wholly unable to explain, but in which he

placed so much confidence that he acted upon them to the letter--so says

M. Colmache--and never, it would seem, in vain. They directed him

rightly; and when, in old age, he had gathered around him at Vallencay

all that remained of the wit, genius, and talent of French society in

its better forms, he delighted to recount the instances in which this

supernatural influence, like Socrates' daemon, had befriended him. He

believed in the reality of this power when he believed in nothing else,

and that is the puzzle.

Having once returned to France, Talleyrand never again quitted it--at

least, as an exile; but continued for the next forty years of his

eventful life to cultivate the art of advancement, and to study

carefully the means of acquiring a fortune: and he succeeded in both.

The First Consul found in his extraordinary abilities precisely what he

wanted and he in the First Consul that social support which he required,

and upon which he found he could rely. There was no mutual esteem,

however, between these remarkable men, whom interest alone bound

together; and Bonaparte has left upon record his opinion of his Minister

for Foreign Affairs, delivered at a time when he had nothing to expect

from the favors of men or the caprices of Fortune. "Talleyrand," said

Napoleon, at St. Helena, "is a corrupt man, who has betrayed all parties

and persons. Wary and circumspect, always a traitor, but always in

conspiracy with Fortune, Talleyrand treats his enemies as if they were

one day to become his friends, and his friends as if they were to become

his enemies. He is a man of unquestionable talent, but venial in every

thing. Nothing could be done with him but by means of bribery."[20] This

is not complimentary; and it would be curious to compare such a sentence

of condemnation with the judgment of Talleyrand on Napoleon which is

contained in his memoirs, for that there is one we need not doubt.

Talleyrand's department as a minister of state was that of Foreign

Affairs, and the future historian of his diplomatic career will have to

review his connection with all the great incidents which occurred in

Europe from the year 1797 to his death, in 1838. That he was supple,

unscrupulous, and able, is the conclusion of mankind at large; and, we

presume, the correct one.

Passion never disturbed him, and feeling (except for himself) seldom. A

revolutionary education superinduced upon a cold nature a distrust of

all men--ay, and of women, too; and he seems to have entertained just so

much respect for political stability of any kind as circumstances

warranted, and no more. He was no believer in the reality of

virtue--itself a quality of which he had but an inadequate conception,

and to the active operation of which he would have held it to be mere

simplicity and folly to trust. We may infer, therefore, that what he did

not look for he did not find; and that, as generally happens to those

who are wise beyond what is written, he denied the existence of a

property, with the use of which, could it have been discovered, he was

wholly unacquainted. He served the emperor so long as it was consistent

with his interests to do so, and he deserted him when he saw that there

was more peril in fidelity than in apostasy. The Restoration was, in a

great measure, the work of his hands, though he hated Louis XVIII.

mortally; and the grounds of that hatred were, apparently, personal,

resting partly on those antipathies which dissimilarity in habits and

taste is apt to generate in all ranks of life, and partly on

disappointed ambition. Louis was fat; Talleyrand was thin. Louis liked

good eating (most men do, by the way, be they kings or not); Talleyrand

cared little for it, and ate but once a day. Louis had, rightly or

wrongly, an idea that he was an independent monarch, to whose volitions

some regard was due, and the legitimate sovereign of one of the greatest

kingdoms in Europe; Talleyrand saw in him only a political stop-gap and

glutton, to whose wishes little deference was owing, and whose intellect

he despised: but he took care not to refuse the bounties or the honors

bestowed upon him by his royal master--nor can we repress a smile when

we find such a man gravely rebuking that prince for utter heartlessness

and selfishness. It might be, and probably was so, but assuredly

Talleyrand was not the person to make the charge.

The erection of the throne of the Barricades was also Talleyrand's work,

if we may believe M. Colmache; and many of the incidents connected with

the expulsion of Charles X., and the elevation of the Duke of Orleans,

which are given in this volume, possess at this moment an instructive

and melancholy interest, when we consider where the aspirant for that

perilous honor is now, and what a dark cloud has settled down upon the

stormy evening of his ambitious life.[21] Had we space, we would give

some of these details; but we have not, and must be contented to refer

to the book for them. The object of the writer, however, is, to

construct an exculpation, and to vindicate (vain task!) the memory of

Talleyrand from the reproach of ingratitude; but it is abundantly

evident, even from the narrative itself, that if not one of the most

_active_, he was, at least, one of the most _zealous_, promoters of the

Revolution of 1830. There was little sympathy between Charles and

Talleyrand, though he preferred him much to his brother Louis. He even

admitted--which, for him, was going far--that Charles was distinguished

in private life by many excellent qualities; that he had "a feeling and

a generous nature, and was a faithful and grateful friend;" but for

many, and some of them obvious enough reasons, he disliked "the devout

monarch," and we are told that Charles "returned tenfold in hatred and

suspicion all the pity and contempt which the wily diplomatist sought to

cast upon his government." The conclusion is, of course, plain.

Talleyrand saw that every thing was going wrong, as did every body else

after the event. He, therefore, withdrew from Paris in the winter of

1829--30; and, under the pretense of consulting his health, retired to

Rochecotte, in Touraine, the seat of his niece, the Duchess de Dino. He

had no political object in view, and was only driven "by the force of

circumstances," into that vortex which was whirling _tout le monde_ in

the capital round about; but, somehow or other, the leaders of the

movement gathered around him in his retreat, and, unfortunately for the

theory of neutrality, it is stated that "it was at Rochecotte, during

the month of May, which Thiers spent there with M. de Talleyrand, that

he (_i.e_., Thiers) conceived the plan of those terrific articles in the

_National_, which, every morning, like the battering-rams of ancient

warfare, laid in ruins the wretched bulwarks, behind which the tottering

monarchy thought itself secure." (P. 32.)

All this was, no doubt, purely accidental; and, as the editor of the

_National_ was a person of no social consideration whatever, it would be

absurd to suppose that the Prince of Benevento had any secondary purpose

to achieve by patronizing so obscure an adventurer. It turns out,

indeed, that "M. Thiers was, in the eyes of M. Talleyrand, nothing more

than a young writer, full of vigor and talent, whom the old seigneur

loved to protect, and to initiate into the manners and customs of good

society, without a knowledge of which (he would often say) there can be

no good taste in literature. But he was the last person in the world

who, at that time, would have looked upon Thiers as a conspirator, of

whom he was making himself, by such protection, the vile associate." (P.

33.)

This should settle the point, and yet it does nothing of the kind; for,

as if it were necessary that a mystery should involve all the actions of

this man's life, and even comprehend his friends, we find in this very

volume, and in immediate succession to the energetic disclaimer we have

just quoted, the most elaborate proofs of his "complicity" in that

"conspiracy," which ended by dethroning one monarch and elevating

another. A single passage will set this matter at rest forever, and here

it is:

"It has been to this day a matter of speculation whether the Duke of

Orleans had anticipated being called to the throne, or whether it was

the force of circumstances which had brought him to it. These are the

facts: Although the Duke of Orleans had for a long time looked upon the

event of a change in the dynasty as _possible_, and was most certainly

_prepared_[22] to place the crown upon his own head in case of such an

event, yet even so late as the 30th of July he hesitated to grasp it,

and resisted the arguments and persuasions of Thiers. It is a known fact

that the duke was concealed in the environs of Neuilly in fear of a

popular outbreak, when a secret message from M. de Talleyrand, which he

received on the evening of that day, caused him to decide at length upon

re-entering Paris, and proclaiming himself Lieutenant-General of the

Kingdom--the head of the new power. The new king soon forgot, however,

this proof of attachment (attachment!!) on the part of his old friend;

and M. de Talleyrand, who knew that kings, even when chosen by the will

of the people, are, for the most part, compelled to be _illustres

ingrats_, never, during the years which followed these events, alluded

to the circumstances which brought about the _avenement_ of Louis

Philippe." (P. 35.)

And again:

"Now came the time when the high intelligence and marvelous sagacity of

the prince were brought into action, and I hesitate not to repeat, saved

the country. M. de Talleyrand dispatched to Neuilly, with all possible

speed, a little billet written with his own hand. The bearer was a

person of high courage and great integrity, and was charged, should he

fall into danger, to destroy the billet. He could not in honor read its

contents, but saw that there were but few words traced upon the paper.

They were addressed to the king's sister, Madame Adelaide. This

messenger was commissioned to place the billet himself in the hands of

the princess, and to tell her that the Prince de Talleyrand conjured her

to warn the Duke of Orleans that not a moment was to be lost; that the

duke might reckon upon his aid, and that he must appear immediately;

that he must come at once to Paris, to place himself at the head of the

movement, or all would be lost without recall. Above all, he was only to

take the title of Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, which Charles had

conferred upon him before leaving St. Cloud. He implored him not to

manifest any other intention. In this advice the old diplomatist was

reserving for himself a back door to creep out at in case Charles should

march on Paris." (P. 39.)

There follows this conclusive revelation an account of Madame Adelaide's

astuteness (_astuce_)--her anxiety not to commit herself in writing; her

transmission to Prince Talleyrand of a verbal message; and of the climax

of the whole intrigue in the arrival in Paris that same night of Louis

Philippe, and of his proclamation in his capacity of Lieutenant-General

of the Kingdom. The transition from this to royalty was easy, for it had

been pre-arranged. It was M. de Talleyrand, we are assured, who overcame

the "faint scruples" of the Duke of Orleans, and it was his advice that

"decided the king to go at once to the Hotel de Ville, there to receive

publicly the sceptre of France, and to swear allegiance to the charter."

After such statements as these, what useful purpose can it serve to

declaim about conspiracies, reservations, and the like, when they so

conspicuously testify to the fact, that one of the most energetic

agents--after his own peculiar way--in bringing about a change of

dynasty in France, was the very man whose memory his secretary is so

anxious to relieve from this reproach? It is mere folly and blundering

to do so, the more especially when we are told that the Orleans party

comprehended all the leading members of the "Opposition" in both

Chambers; that M. de Talleyrand was its head; and that, without

declaring himself in favor of the new _regime_, he regulated all its

movements, and was in constant and direct communication with the

individual in whose behalf the Revolution of 1830 was got up. It is idle

to quarrel about words; but if this was not "conspiracy," it was

something so exceedingly like it, that it would require a very nice eye,

indeed, to detect wherein the difference lay. The simple truth is

this--that Talleyrand and his associates did in 1829-30, what Odillon

Barrot and his accomplices (including the ubiquitous Thiers) did in

1847-48, but more successfully; for there can be no comparison between

the government established under Louis Philippe and that inaugurated in

the person of Louis Napoleon, and still less between the prospect of

happiness which France enjoyed in 1830, and that which lies before her

in 1850. The experiment has been closely copied by M. de Talleyrand's

pupils, though the result has not been analogous; but this does not

depend so much upon the men as upon the circumstances. Such a substitute

for legitimate authority as the Duke of Orleans was can not be found

twice in the same age and country; and one of the most mournful

spectacles of our time is, the fate of the man and his family, for whom

all these violent, and we must add, tortuous exertions, were made twenty

years ago. Talleyrand's share in these transactions can not be gainsaid.

Though a revolutionist, in so far as the elder branch of the Bourbons

was concerned, he was not, however, a Republican in 1830; and had,

probably, never been honestly so at any period of his life. The feeling

of the ancient seigneur was strong in him to the last; and his

constitutional timidity made him shrink with instinctive aversion from

all contact with the mob: hence his terror during the "three glorious

days of July" was agonizing: and when he discovered that, in the bloody

triumph of the populace, no superiority of rank, talent, or fortune, was

regarded, he trembled for his own safety--"for he knew that the people

loved him not."

Talleyrand survived this, his last great political exploit, nearly eight

years, having expired tranquilly at his hotel in Paris, in May, 1838.

His ex-secretary has a copious and rambling commentary upon his death,

in which there is the usual amount of complaint and vindication. His

patron had become reconciled to the church, and had submitted to its

formalities immediately before his decease; and, considering his past

hostility to it as a social institution, his renunciation of his sacred

vows, and his ostentatious rejection of the Christian religion, such a

step naturally caused some talk, and requires explanation--though none

is given by M. Colmache, beyond the barren and somewhat commonplace

intimation, that "he was influenced in this, as in many other instances,

wherein he has drawn down the blame of the sticklers for consistency, by

the desire to spare pain and trouble to his family; for he knew that his

relatives would suffer much inconvenience by his resistance on his

death-bed to the execution of certain religious formalities to which, in

his own mind, he attached not the slightest importance."

It is rather a delicate matter to scrutinize motives, however great the

temptation to do so, may be: fortunately, however, all call for the

performance of so ungracious a duty on the present occasion is removed

by M. Colmache, who tells us frankly what the reason was which induced

M. de Talleyrand to enact something like a solemn farce in his dying

moments. It was not religious compunction, nor any affectation of it,

but a regard for the convenience and the material interests of his

successors; "for it can not be denied," said he, "that he had ever held

in view the elevation and aggrandizement of his family."

Certainly not. Nobody will be bold enough to do so. What prompted

Voltaire to attend his parish church regularly to the last hour of his

life, and even to take the communion; what led Franklin to mingle in the

throngs which crowded around Whitefield in America; and what induced

Gibbon to visit temples of religion when he had nothing else to do, and

to record his impressions of the sermons he was condemned to listen to,

must forever remain among the minor mysteries of humanity; but about M.

de Talleyrand's "retraction," as it has been called, strange to say,

there is no mystery at all. It was a mere exemplification of "the ruling

passion strong in death." He could no longer care for himself, which had

been the chief business of his life; but he could do what was next thing

to it--he could care for his relations whom he was leaving behind him,

and he did so.

The querulous part of this statement relates to Louis Philippe. The

monarch, as is well known, visited his aged servant on his death-bed,

and, we have not a doubt, behaved both gracefully and kindly. M.

Colmache, however, does not think so, and all but abuses the king for an

act which, being spontaneous, has the look, if it had not the reality,

of benevolence. His manner was, it seems, constrained, the task itself

was irksome, and his "bearing," as compared with that of the dying

statesman, _tant son peu bourgeois_. "Despite the old faded

dressing-gown of the one, and the snuff-colored coat, stiff neckcloth,

and polished boots of the other, the veriest barbarian could have told

at a glance which was the 'last of the nobles,' and which the 'First

Citizen' of the Empire." (P. 343.)

This would be severe were it not sheer gossip, and gossip dictated by a

feeling of intense hostility to Louis Philippe, who committed the

unpardonable blunder of not bestowing any particular regard upon the

prince's secretary, though, with others, he had been specially

introduced to him. In that case, and if M. Colmache really was, as he

says, present in the chamber when this interview took place, we can only

express our surprise that his account of it is so meagre; for it is

impossible to believe that the last conversation between two men so

distinguished, and so closely united by the ties of mutual obligation,

should have been confined to a formal inquiry and a formal reply, which

is all we find in this volume. We are at a loss to know, also, why the

king should have been less of a gentleman and more of a tradesman in his

manners and appearance than M. de Talleyrand; for, if that has any thing

to do with the matter, he was as certainly _one_ of the "last of the

nobles," as his minister; and as we find nothing in M. Colmache's book

respecting this valedictory visit, which the journals had not

promulgated at the time of its occurrence, we are not only led to doubt

the fact of his having been present, but likewise to withhold all

confidence from his relation of its details. One reflection, however, he

does make, which, as read in 1850, is curious: "I had looked," he says,

"upon this visit as the farewell of the safely-landed voyager (landed,

too, amid storm and tempest), to the wise and careful pilot who had

steered him skillfully through rock and breaker, and now pushed off

alone amid the darkness, to be seen no more!" (P. 344.)

Alas for human wisdom in its most imposing forms! where is now the

"skillful pilot?" Dead, and his skill buried with him. And the "voyager"

whom he "steered" into a secure haven amid "storm and tempest?" A

fugitive and an exile, driven from the rickety throne which Talleyrand's

necromancy had conjured up by a wave of his wand, and which his

sagacious biographer obviously considered to be as stable as the globe

itself:

Fato profugus ...

Multum ille et terris jactatus, et alto.

The share which Talleyrand is alleged to have had in the murder of the

Duc d'Enghein, and which the Duke of Rovigo positively declared to have

been, from first to last, a contrivance of his,[23] we must pass over in

comparative silence; as the subject is one which it is impossible to

elucidate, and which we could not hope to discuss with any profit in the

short space which remains to us. If noticed at all in this volume, we

have unfortunately mislaid the reference to it; and in a work which is

without an index, and which has been compiled with a total disregard to

chronological arrangement, we have not been able to recover it. All the

parties to that infamous transaction were anxious in after times to

shift the culpability from off their own shoulders; and amidst the

criminations and recriminations of the future dukes and princes of the

Empire, there is little positive knowledge of any kind to be gained. It

might be, as Fouche said, "worse than a crime--a blunder;" but there was

certainly nothing about the act itself from which a man of Talleyrand's

lax morality would have shrunk; and our present impression is, that he

was privy to this odious and useless tragedy, if the whole scheme of the

violation of a neutral territory, the arrest, the mock trial, and the

execution, did not originate with him. Even Napoleon regretted the

occurrence, though he was too inflexible in his character to throw the

blame on others when the deed was done, and at St. Helena he took the

whole responsibility of it upon himself. "The Duc d'Enghein," said he,

"died, because I willed it." This is the style imperial, but it is not

the expression of a fact; and the Duke of Rovigo, with great

probability, attributes this language to the desire which he latterly

manifested to impress upon others a lofty idea of his absolute power as

a sovereign. He was at the time only First Consul, and he has himself

stated that, to use a familiar phrase, he was _worried_ into it by those

about him. "I did not rightly know," says he, "who the Duc d'Enghein

was. The Revolution had come upon me when I was very young, and I had

never been at court. _All these points_ were explained to me. If it be

so, I said, he must be seized, and the necessary orders were given in

consequence. Every thing had been provided beforehand. The papers were

prepared, and there was nothing to do but to sign them, and the fate of

the prince was already decided."[24] This, if accepted as true--and we

see no reason why it should not be--is conclusive; and if Bonaparte may

be believed, a letter addressed to him from Strasburgh by the duke was

kept by Talleyrand, and not delivered up till after the execution. He

likewise committed the gross outrage upon public decency of giving a

masked ball to the diplomatic body on the night of the unfortunate

prince's death; and, all the circumstances taken into account, we fear

there can be no doubt of his active participation (to say no more) in

one of the foulest political enormities of modern times. His motive for

allowing himself to be involved in so perilous an enterprise was, as

usual, altogether personal. He dreaded lest a successful conspiracy

formed beyond the Rhine might lead (a vain apprehension) to the

restoration of the Bourbons; and he would seem to have taken this dark

mode of preventing it, for he had offended too deeply to expect

forgiveness. But let us proceed to another theme--his marriage.

It is well known that Napoleon obtained from the fears of the Pope, Pius

VII., a brief of secularization for his Minister for Foreign Affairs,

and that Talleyrand subsequently married Madame Grand, or, as she is

called in this book, Grandt, a lady who had lived with him as his

mistress, and who, in consequence of this transformation, became no less

a personage than the Princesse de Benevento of the Imperial Court. Much

has been written about this woman, whose history was long a mystery; and

of whose ignorance, _etourderies_, and arrogance, every body has heard

something. In this volume her introduction to Talleyrand is related in

the usual melo-dramatic style of French writers, and her beauty

described with that fullness of detail which approaches to

voluptuousness. The meeting was accidental, at least on Talleyrand's

part. Returning at an early hour of the morning from a gambling visit to

the Chevalier Fenelon, the particulars of which are hideous, he found

his study occupied by a female, who had waited for _five_ hours alone in

the chamber; and who was now fast asleep in an arm-chair by the fire,

the upper part of her body enveloped in a fashionable mantle, and the

lower part displaying the gilded finery of a ball-dress. The diplomatist

was stupefied by the fair vision, which he gazed upon with admiration,

and having tried in vain to awaken her by coughing, and other innocent

devices, he took up a letter addressed to himself which lay upon the

table, and which he found to be from a friend, requesting him to give

madame the benefit of his advice in a difficulty in which no one else

could assist her. The servant slams the door--the lady awakes--a scene

of mutual confusion ensues, which tries to the utmost M. Colmache's

powers of description, but which ends in M. de Talleyrand giving to the

lovely applicant the document she required, and in the commencement of a

_liaison_ which ultimately terminated in matrimony. It was, of course, a

trick or practical joke, which had been played off by certain wags, male

and female, at Madame Hamelin's assembly on the unsuspecting and

guileless Madame Grand, according to M. Colmache; but to any one else it

will seem plain enough that it was no more than the step of a daring and

clever _intriguante_, who knew perfectly well what she was about, and

who had resolved to conquer where Madame Tallien and Madame Beauharnais

had failed--and she did conquer.

Who, then, was this bold lady who contrived so cunningly to ensnare in

her toils the wariest man in France? "I have heard," says M. Colmache,

"that she was of English origin. This is not true. Her maiden name was

Dayot, and she was born at L'Orient; but her connection with India,

where a great part of her family resided, and the peculiar character of

her beauty, would seem to have been the ground-work of the supposition."

(P. 298). We can not clear up this riddle altogether, but we can do

something toward its partial solution.

Her family name we are unacquainted with, but she was a native of

Scotland, and her _first_ husband was a British officer, though we are

likewise ignorant of his name. Her marriage most likely took place in

India, and at an early age: for after her husband's death she became the

wife of a M. Grand, a French gentleman, who obtained a divorce from her

in India in consequence of an improper intimacy with Mr., afterward the

celebrated Sir Philip Francis. How long she lived with Mr. Francis we

know not, but she subsequently passed under the protection of a Mr.

William Macintosh, a British merchant, with whom she returned to Europe

in 1781. Mr. Macintosh's private affairs calling him to France, Madame

Grand accompanied him; but her protector was an unfortunate man, whose

claims upon the French Government were dissipated by the Revolution, and

we lose sight of his friend altogether till her reappearance on the

theatre of the great world, after that event, as the companion of Madame

Beauharnais, and other celebrated women of that day. There is thus a

blank in her personal history of twenty-one years which we are quite

unable to fill up, and which we must leave to be supplied by others.

Mr. Macintosh died at Eisenach, in Saxony, in 1809, at an advanced age;

but his name is no longer associated with that of Madame Grand. He left

a daughter, who became afterward the Countess de Colville; but whether

Madame Grand was her mother, or whether he had married after his

separation from that lady, are points on which we can throw no

light.[25]

Such, then, was the much-talked-of Madame de Talleyrand, Princesse de

Benevento. The date of her death is not given, but she certainly

predeceased her _last_ husband by several years. This marriage was not

productive of happiness. There was not only much difference of habits,

temper, and bearing, between the parties, to say nothing of the

antecedents of both, but it appears that madame was jealous "of every

member of her husband's family," to whom he showed affection. A

separation was the consequence, and this loving couple dwelt in distinct

establishments till the end of their lives.