Brantwood,
January 4th, 1873.
The Third Fors, having been much adverse to me, and more to many
who wish me well, during the whole of last year, has turned my good
and helpful printer adrift in the last month of it; and, with that
grave inconvenience to him, contrived for me the minor one of being a
fortnight late with my New Year's letter. Under which provocation I am
somewhat consoled this morning by finding in a cookery book, of date
1791, "written purely from practice, and dedicated to the Hon. Lady
Elizabeth Warburton, whom the author lately served as housekeeper,"
a receipt for Yorkshire Goose Pie, with which I think it will be most
proper and delightful to begin my economical instructions to you for
the current year. I am, indeed, greatly tempted to give precedence
to the receipt for making "Fairy Butter," and further disturbed by an
extreme desire to tell you how to construct an "Apple Floating-Island";
but will abide, nevertheless, by my Goose Pie.
"Take a large fat goose, split it down the back, and take all the
bones out; bone a turkey and two ducks the same way, season them
very well with pepper and salt, with six woodcocks; lay the goose
down on a clean dish, with the skin-side down; and lay the turkey
into the goose, with the skin down; have ready a large hare, cleaned
well, cut in pieces, and stewed in the oven, with a pound of butter,
a quarter of an ounce of mace, beat fine, the same of white pepper,
and salt to your taste, till the meat will leave the bones, and scum
the butter off the gravy, pick the meat clean off, and beat it in a
marble mortar very fine, with the butter you took off, and lay it in
the turkey; take twenty-four pounds of the finest flour, six pounds
of butter, half-a-pound of fresh rendered suet, make the paste pretty
thick, and raise the pie oval; roll out a lump of paste, and cut it
in vine-leaves or what form you please; rub the pie with the yolks of
eggs, and put your ornaments on the walls; then turn the hare, turkey,
and goose upside down, and lay them in your pie, with the ducks at
each end, and the woodcocks on the sides; make your lid pretty thick,
and put it on; you may lay flowers, or the shape of the fowls in paste,
on the lid, and make a hole in the middle of your lid; the walls of
the pie are to be one inch and a half higher than the lid; then rub
it all over with the yolks of eggs, and bind it round with threefold
paper, and lay the same over the top; it will take four hours baking
in a brown-bread oven; when it comes out, melt two pounds of butter
in the gravy that comes from the hare, and pour it hot in the pie
through a tun-dish; close it well up, and let it be eight or ten days
before you cut it; if you send it any distance, make up the hole in
the middle with cold butter, to prevent the air from getting in."
Possessed of these instructions, I immediately went to my cook to ask
how far we could faithfully carry them out. But she told me nothing
could be done without a "brown-bread oven;" which I shall therefore
instantly build under the rocks on my way down to the lake: and,
if I live, we will have a Lancashire goose-pie next Michaelmas. You
may, perhaps, think this affair irrelevant to the general purposes of
'Fors Clavigera'; but it is not so by any means: on the contrary, it
is closely connected with its primary intentions; and, besides, may
interest some readers more than weightier, or, I should rather say,
lighter and more spiritual matters. For, indeed, during twenty-three
months, I had been writing to you, fellow-workmen, of matters affecting
your best interests in this world, and all the interests you had
anywhere else:--explaining, as I could, what the shrewdest of you,
hitherto, have thought, and the best of you have done;--what the
most selfish have gained, and the most generous have suffered. Of
all this, no notice whatever is taken. In my twenty-fourth letter,
incidentally, I mentioned the fact of my being in a bad humour, (which
I nearly always am, and which it matters little to anybody whether
I am or not, so long as I don't act upon it,) and forthwith I got
quite a little mailcartful of consolation, reproof, and advice. Much
of it kind,--nearly all of it helpful, and some of it wise; but very
little bearing on matters in hand: an eager Irish correspondent offers
immediately to reply to anything, "though he has not been fortunate
enough to meet with the book;" one working man's letter, for self and
mates, is answered in the terminal notes;--could not be answered before
for want of address;--another, from a south-country clergyman, could
not be answered any way, for he would not read any more, he said,
of such silly stuff as 'Fors';--but would have been glad to hear
of any scheme for giving people a sound practical education. I fain
would learn, myself, either from this practical Divine, or any of his
mates, what the ecclesiastical idea of a sound practical education
is;--that is to say, what--in weekday schools (--the teaching in
Sunday ones being necessarily to do no manner of work)--our clergy
think that boys and girls should be taught to practise, in order that,
when grown up, they may with dexterity perform the same. For indeed,
the constant object of these letters of mine, from their beginning,
has been to urge you to do vigorously and dextrously what was useful;
and nothing but that. And I have told you of Kings and Heroes, and now
am about to tell you what I can of a Saint, because I believe such
persons to have done, sometimes, more useful things than you or I:
begging your pardon always for not addressing you as heroes, which I
believe you all think yourselves, or as kings, which I presume you all
propose to be, or at least, if you cannot, to let nobody else be. Come
what may of such proposal, I wish you would consider with me to-day
what form of "sound practical education," if any, would enable you
all to be Saints; and whether, such form proving discoverable, you
would really like to be put through it, or whether, on the contrary,
both the clergy and you mean, verily, and in your hearts, nothing by
"practical education" but how to lay one penny upon another. Not but
that it does my heart good to hear modern divines exhorting to any kind
of practice--for, as far as I can make out, there is nothing they so
much dread for their congregations as their getting into their heads
that God expects them to do anything, beyond killing rabbits if they
are rich, and being content with bad wages, if they are poor. But
if any virtue more than these, (and the last is no small one) be
indeed necessary to Saint-ship--may we not prudently ask what such
virtue is, and, at this Holiday time, make our knowledge of the Hos
more precise? Nay, in your pleading for perennial Holiday,--in your
ten hours or eight hours bills, might you not urge your point with
stouter conscience if you were all Saints, and the hours of rest you
demanded became a realization of Baxter's Saints' Rest?
Suppose we do rest, for a few minutes, from that process of laying
one penny upon another, (those of us, at least, who have learned the
trick of it,) and look with some attention at the last penny we laid
on the pile--or, if we can do no better, at the first of the pile we
mean to lay.
Show me a penny--or, better, show me the three pages of our British
Bible--penny, shilling, and pound, and let us try what we can read
on them together. You see how rich they are in picture and legend:
surely so practical a nation, in its most valued Scriptures, cannot
have written or pictured anything but with discretion, and to the
benefit of all beholders.
We begin with the penny;--not that, except under protest, I call such
a thing as that a Penny! Our farthings, when we were boys, were as
big as that; and two-pence filled our waistcoat pockets. Who, then,
is this lady, whom it represents, sitting, apparently, on the edge of
a dish-cover? Britannia? Yes,--of course. But who is Britannia? and
what has she got on her head, in her hand, and on her seat?
"Don't I know who Britannia is?" Not I; and much doubt if you do! Is
she Great Britain,--or Little Britain? Is she England, Scotland,
Ireland, Canada, and the Indies,--or a small, dishonest, tailoring and
engineering firm, with no connection over the way, and publicly fined
at the police court for sneakingly supplying customers it had engaged
not to? Is she a Queen, or an Actress, or a slave? Is she a Nation,
mother of nations; or a slimy polype, multiplying by involuntary
vivisection, and dropping half putrid pieces of itself wherever it
crawls or contracts? In the world-feasts of the Nativity, can she
sit, Madonna-like, saying: "Behold, I, and the children whom the
Lord hath given me"? Or are her lips capable of such utterance--of
any utterance--no more; the musical Rose of them cleft back into the
long dumb trench of the lizard's; her motherhood summed in saying
that she makes all the world's ditches dirtier with her spawn?
And what has she on her head, in her hand, or on that,--Shield, I
believe it is meant for,--which she sits on the edge of? A most truly
symbolic position! For, you know, all those armour-plates and guns you
pay for so pleasantly are indeed made, when you look into the matter,
not at all to defend you against anybody--(no one ever pretends to
say distinctly that the newest of them could protect you for twelve
hours); but they are made that the iron masters may get commission on
the iron, and the manufacturers commission on the manufacture. And so
the Ironmongering and Manufacturing Britannia does very literally sit
upon her Shield: the cognizance whereof, or--now too literally--the
"Bearing,"--so obscured, becomes of small importance. Probably, in a
little while, a convenient cushion--or, what not--may be substituted
for St. George's Cross; to the public satisfaction.
I must not question farther what any of these symbols may come to
mean; I will tell you, briefly, what they meant once, and are yet,
by courtesy, supposed to mean.
They were all invented by the Greeks; and all, except the Cross,
some twelve hundred years before the first Christmas; they became
intelligible and beautiful first about Theseus' time.
The Helmet crest properly signifies the adoption by man of the
passions of pride and anger which enable nearly all the lower
creatures to erect some spinous or plumose ridge upon their heads
or backs. It is curiously associated with the story of the Spartan
Phalanthus, the first colonist of Tarentum, which might have been
the port of an Italia ruling the waves, instead of Britannia, had
not the crest fallen from the helmet of the Swabian prince, Manfred,
in his death-battle with Charles of Anjou. He had fastened it that
morning, he said, with his own hand,--you may think, if his armourer
had fastened it, it would have stayed on, but kings could do things
with their own hands in those days;--howbeit, it fell, and Manfred,
that night, put off his armour for evermore, and the evil French King
reigned in his stead: and South Italy has lain desert since that day,
and so must lie, till the crest of some King rise over it again, who
will be content with as much horse-hair as is needful for a crest,
and not wear it, as our English Squires have done lately (or perhaps
even the hair of an animal inferior to the horse), on their heads,
instead of their helmets.
Of the trident in Britannia's hand, and why it must be a trident,
that is to say, have three prongs, and no more; and in what use
or significance it differs from other forks, (as for pitching, or
toasting)--we will enquire at another time. Take up next the shilling,
or, more to our purpose, the double shilling,--get a new florin,
and examine the sculpture and legend on that.
The Legend, you perceive, is on the one side English,--on the other
Latin. The latter, I presume, you are not intended to read, for not
only it is in a dead language, but two words are contracted, and four
more indicated only by their first letters. This arrangement leaves
room for the ten decorative letters, an M, and a D, and three C's, and
an L, and the sign of double stout, and two I's; of which ten letters
the total function is to inform you that the coin was struck this year,
(as if it mattered either to you or to me, when it was struck!) But the
poor fifth part of ten letters, preceding--the F and D, namely--have
for function to inform you that Queen Victoria is the Defender of our
Faith. Which is an all-important fact to you and me, if it be a fact
at all;--nay, an all-important brace of facts; each letter vocal,
for its part, with one. F, that we have a Faith to defend; D, that
our monarch can defend it, if we chance to have too little to say
for it ourselves. For both which facts, Heaven be praised, if they be
indeed so,--nor dispraised by our shame, if they have ceased to be so:
only, if they be so, two letters are not enough to assert them clearly;
and if not so, are more than enough to lie with. On the reverse of the
coin, however, the legend is full, and clear. "One Florin." "One Tenth
of a Pound." Yes; that is all very practical and instructive. But do
we know either what a pound is, or what a florin or "Fiorino" was,
or why this particular coin should be called a Florin, or whether we
have any right to call any coin of England, now, by that name? And,
by the way, how is it that I get continually reproved for writing
above the level of the learning of my general readers, when here I
find the most current of all our books written in three languages,
of which one is dead, another foreign, and the third written in
defunct letters, so that anybody with two shillings in his pocket
is supposed able to accept information conveyed in contracted Latin,
Roman numerals, old English, and spoiled Italian?
How practical, and how sentimental, at once! For indeed we have no
right, except sentimentally, to call that coin a florin,--that is to
say, a "flower (lily-flower) piece," or Florence-piece. What have we
any more to do with Lilies? Do you ever consider how they grow--or
care how they die? Do the very water-lilies, think you, keep white
now, for an hour after they open, in any stream in England? And
for the heraldry of the coin, neither on that, nor any other, have
we courage or grace to bear the Fleur-de-Lys any more, it having
been once our first bearing of all. For in the first quarter of our
English shield we used to bear three golden lilies on a blue ground,
being the regal arms of France; (our great Kings being Frenchmen, and
claiming France as their own, before England). Also these Fleur-de-Lys
were from the beginning the ensigns of a King; but those three Lions
which you see are yet retained for the arms of England on two of the
shields in your false florin, (false in all things, for heaven knows,
we have as little right to lions now as to lilies,) "are deduced onely
from Dukedomes [1]: I say deduced, because the Kings of England after
the Conquest did beare two leopards (the ensignes of the Dukedome
of Normandy) till the time of King Henry the Second, who, according
to the received opinion, by marriage of Eleanor, daughter and heire
of the duke of Aquitaine and Guyon" (Guienne) "annexed the Lyon, her
paternall coate, being of the same Field, Metall, and Forme with the
Leopards, and so from thence forward they were jointly marshalled in
one Shield and Blazoned three Lyons." Also "at the first quartering of
these coats by Edward the Third, question being moved of his title to
France, the King had good cause to put that coat in the first ranke,
to show his most undoubted Title to that Kingdom, and therefore would
have it the most perspicuous place of his Escocheon."
But you see it is now on our shield no more,--we having been beaten
into cowardly and final resignation of it, at the peace of Amiens,
in George III.'s time, and precisely in the first year of this supreme
nineteenth century. He, as monarch of England, being unable to defend
our Lilies, and the verbal instruction of the pacific angel Gabriel of
Amiens, as he dropped his lilies, being to the English accordingly,
that thenceforward they were to "hate a Frenchman as they did the
Devil," which, as you know, was Nelson's notion of the spirit in
which England expected every man to do his duty.
Next to the three Lions, however (all of them, you find, French),
there is a shield bearing one Lion, "Rampant"--that is to say,
climbing like a vine on a wall. Remember that the proper sense of
the word "rampant" is "creeping," as you say it of ground ivy, and
such plants: and that a lion rampant--whether British, or as this one
Scotch, is not at all, for his part, in what you are so fond of getting
into--"an independent position," nor even in a specifically leonine
one, but rather generally feline, as of a cat, or other climbing
animal, on a tree; whereas the three French Lions, or Lioncels, are
"passant-gardant," "passing on the look out," as beasts of chase.
Round the rampant Scottish animal (I can't find why the Scotch took him
for their type) you observe farther, a double line, with--though almost
too small to be seen--fleur-de-Lys at the knots and corners of it. This
is the tressure, or binding belt, of the great Charles, who has really
been to both English and Scottish lions what that absent Charles of
the polar skies must, I suppose, have been to their Bear, and who
entirely therefore deserves to be stellified by British astronomers.
The Tressure, heraldically, records alliance of that Charlemagne
with the Scottish King Achaius, and the vision by the Scottish army
of St. Andrew's cross--and the adoption of the same, with the Thistle
and Rue, for their national device; of all which the excellent Scotch
clergyman and historian, Robert Henry, giving no particular account,
prefers to note, as an example of such miraculous appearances in
Scotland, the introduction, by King Kenneth, the son of Alpine, of a
shining figure "clothed in the skins of dried fish, which shone in
the dark," to his nobility and councillors, to give them heavenly
admonitions "after they had composed themselves to rest." Of course
a Presbyterian divine must have more pleasure in recording a miracle
so connected with the existing national interests of the herring
and salmon fisheries, than the tradition of St. Andrew's cross;
and that tradition itself is so confused among Rodericks, Alpines,
and Ferguses, that the 'Lady of the Lake' is about as trustworthy
historical reading. But St. Andrew's Cross and the Thistle--(I don't
know when the Rue, much the more honourable bearing of the two, was
dropped)--are there, you see, to this day; and you must learn their
story--but I've no time to go into that, now.
For England, the tressure really implies, though not in heraldry,
more than for Scotland. For the Saxon seven kingdoms had fallen into
quite murderous anarchy in Charlemagne's time, and especially the
most religious of them, Northumberland; which then included all the
country between the Frith of Forth and the Cheviots commanded by the
fortress of Edwin's Burg, (fortress now always standing in a rampant
manner on its hind-legs, as the Modern Athens). But the pious Edwin's
spirit had long left his burg, and the state of the whole district
from which the Saxon angels--(non Angli)--had gone forth to win the
pity of Rome, was so distracted and hopeless that Charlemagne called
them "worse than heathens," and had like to have set his hand to
exterminate them altogether; but the Third Fors ruled it otherwise,
for luckily, a West Saxon Prince, Egbert, being driven to Charles's
court, in exile, Charles determined to make a man of him, and trained
him to such true knighthood, that, recovering the throne of the West
Saxons, the French-bred youth conquered the Heptarchy, and became the
first King of "England" (all England);--and the Grandfather of Alfred.
Such belt of lilies did the French chivalry bind us with; the
"tressure" of Charlemagne.
Of the fourth shield, bearing the Irish Harp, and the harmonious
psalmody of which that instrument is significant, I have no time to
speak to-day; nor of the vegetable heraldry between the shields;--but
before you lay the florin down I must advise you that the very
practical motto or war-cry which it now bears--"one tenth of a pound,"
was not anciently the motto round the arms of England, that is to say,
of English kings, (for republican England has no shield); but a quite
different one--to wit--"Accursed (or evil-spoken of, maledictus,
opposed to well-spoken of, or benedictus,) be He who thinks Evil;"
and that this motto ought to be written on another Tressure or band
than Charlemagne's, surrounding the entire shield--namely, on a lady's
garter; specifically the garter of the most beautiful and virtuous
English lady, Alice of Salisbury, (of whom soon); and that without this
tressure and motto, the mere shield of Lions is but a poor defence.
For this is a very great and lordly motto; marking the utmost point and
acme of honour, which is not merely in doing no evil, but in thinking
none; and teaching that the first--as indeed the last--nobility of
Education is in the rule over our Thoughts, on which matter, I must
digress for a minute or two.
Among the letters just received by me, as I told you, is one from a
working man of considerable experience, which laments that, in his
part of the country, "literary institutes are a failure."
Indeed, your literary institutes must everywhere fail, as long as
you think that merely to buy a book, and to know your letters, will
enable you to read the book. Not one word of any book is readable
by you except so far as your mind is one with its author's, and not
merely his words like your words, but his thoughts like your thoughts.
For instance, the other day, at a bookstall, I bought a shilling
Shakespeare. To such degree of wealth, ingenuity, and literary spirit,
has the nineteenth century reached, that it has a shilling to spare
for its Shakespeare--can produce its Shakespeare in a pocketable shape
for that sum--and is ready to invest its earnings in a literature to
that extent. Good. You have now your Shakespeare, complete, in your
pocket; you will read the greatest of dramatic authors at your leisure,
and form your literary taste on that model.
Suppose we read a line or two together then, you and I;--it may be,
that I cannot, unless you help me.
"And there, at Venice, gave
His body to that pleasant country's earth,
And his pure soul unto his Captain, Christ,
Under whose colours he had fought so long."
What do you suppose Shakespeare means by calling Venice a "pleasant"
country? What sort of country was, or would have been, pleasant to
him? The same that is pleasant to you, or another kind of country? Was
there any coal in that earth of Venice, for instance? Any gas to be
made out of it? Any iron?
Again. What does Shakespeare mean by a "pure" soul, or by Purity in
general? How does a soul become pure, or clean, and how dirty? Are you
sure that your own soul is pure? if not, is its opinion on the subject
of purity likely to be the same as Shakespeare's? And might you not
just as well read a mure soul, or demure, or a scure soul, or obscure,
as a pure soul, if you don't know what Shakespeare means by the word?
Again. What does Shakespeare mean by a captain, or head-person? What
were his notions of head-ship, shoulder-ship, or foot-ship, either
in human or divine persons? Have you yourselves ever seen a captain,
think you--of the true quality; (see above, xxii. 18;) and did you
know him when you saw him?
Or again. What does Shakespeare mean by colours? The "gaily decorative
bunting" of Howe and Cushing's American Circus? Or the banners with
invigorating inscriptions concerning Temperance and Free-trade,
under which you walk in procession, sometimes, after a band? Or
colours more dim and tattered than these?
What he does mean, in all these respects, we shall best understand by
reading a little bit of the history of one of those English Squires,
named above, for our study; (xxii. 18,) Edward III. of England,
namely; since it was he who first quartered our arms for us; whom I
cannot more honourably first exhibit to you than actually fighting
under captainship and colours of his own choice, in the fashion
Shakespeare meant.
Under captainship, mark you, though himself a King, and a proud
one. Which came to pass thus: "When the King of England heard these
news" (that Geoffrey of Chargny was drawing near his dear town of
Calais, and that Amery of Pavia, the false Lombard, was keeping him
in play,) "then the King set out from England with 300 men at arms,
and 600 archers, and took ship at Dover, and by vespers arrived at
Calais, and put his people in ambush in the castle, and was with
them himself. And said to the Lord de Manny: 'Master Walter, I will
that you should be the head in this need, for I and my son will
fight under your banner.' [2] Now My Lord Geoffrey of Chargny had
left Arras on the last day of December, in the evening, with all his
gens-d'-armes, and came near Calais about one in the morning,--and he
said to his knights [3] 'Let the Lombard open the gates quickly--he
makes us die of cold.' 'In God's name,' said Pepin de Werre, 'the
Lombards are cunning folks;--he will look at your florins first,
to see that none are false.'" (You see how important this coin is;
here is one engraved for you therefore--pure Florentine gold--that you
may look at it honestly, and not like a Lombard.) "And at these words
came the King of England, and his son at his side, under the banner
of Master Walter de Manny; and there were other banners with them,
to wit, the Count of Stafford's, the Count of Suffolk's, My Lord John
de Montagu's, My Lord Beauchamp's, and the Lord de la Werre's, and no
more, that day. When the French saw them come out, and heard the cry,
'Manny, to the rescue,' they knew they were betrayed. [4] Then said
Master Geoffrey to his people, 'Lords, if we fly, we are lost; it is
best to fight with good will;--hope is, we may gain the day.' 'By
St. George,' said the English, 'you say true, and evil be to him
who flies.' Whereupon they drew back a little, being too crowded,
and dismounted, and let their horses go. And the King of England,
under the banner of Master Walter de Manny, came with his people,
all on foot, to seek his enemies; who were set close, their lances
cut short by five feet, in front of them" (set with the stumps against
the ground and points forward, eight or ten feet long, still, though
cut short by five). "At the first coming there was hard encounter,
and the King stopped under" (opposite) "My Lord Eustace of Ribaumont,
who was a strong and brave chevalier. And he fought the King so long
that it was a wonder; yes, and much pleasure to see. Then they all
joined battle," (the English falling on, I think, because the King
found he had enough on his hands, though without question one of the
best knights in Europe;) "and there was a great coil, and a hard,--and
there fought well, of the French, My Lord Geoffrey of Chargny and My
Lord John of Landas, and My Lord Gawain of Bailleul, and the Sire of
Cresques; and the others; but My Lord Eustace of Ribaumont passed
all,--who that day struck the King to his knees twice; but in the
end gave his sword to the King, saying, 'Sire Chevalier, I render me
your prisoner, for the day must remain to the English.' For by that
time they were all taken or killed who were with My Lord Geoffrey
of Chargny; and the last who was taken, and who had done most, was
Master Eustace of Ribaumont.
"So when the need [5] was past, the King of England drew back into
Calais, into the castle; and made be brought all the prisoner-knights
thither. And then the French knew that the King of England had been
in it, in person, under the banner of Master Walter de Manny. So
also the King sent to say to them, as it was the New-year's night,
he would give them all supper in his castle of Calais. So when the
supper time came," (early afternoon, 1st January, 1349) "the King
and his knights dressed themselves, and all put on new robes; and the
French also made themselves greatly splendid, for so the King wished,
though they were prisoners. The King took seat, and set those knights
beside him in much honour. And the gentle [6] Prince of Wales and the
knights of England served them, at the first course; and at the second
course, went away to another table. So they were served in peace,
and in great leisure. When they had supped they took away the tables;
but the King remained in the hall between those French and English
knights; and he was bare-headed; only wearing a chaplet of pearls. [7]
And he began to go from one to another; and when he addressed himself
to Master Geoffrey of Chargny, he altered countenance somewhat, and
looking askance at him, said, 'Master Geoffrey,--I owe you by right,
little love, when you would have stolen by night what had cost me so
dear. So glad and joyous I am, that I took you at the trial.' At these
words he passed on, and let Master Geoffrey alone, who answered no
word; and so came the King to Master Eustace of Ribaumont, to whom
he said joyously, 'Master Eustace, you are the chevalier whom in
all the world I have seen most valiantly attack his enemy and defend
his body: neither did I ever find in battle any one who gave me so
much work, body to body, as you did to-day. So I give you the prize
of the day, and that over all the knights of my own court, by just
sentence.' Thereupon the King took off the chaplet, that he wore,
(which was good and rich,) and put it on the head of My Lord Eustace;
and said, 'My Lord Eustace, I give you this chaplet, for that you
have been the best fighter to-day of all those without or within,
and I pray you that you wear it all this year for the love of me. I
know well that you are gay, and loving, and glad to be among dames
and damsels. So therefore say to them whither-soever you go, that I
gave it you; and so I quit you of your prison, and you may set forth
to-morrow if it please you.'"
Now, if you have not enjoyed this bit of historical study, I tell you
frankly, it is neither Edward the Third's fault, nor Froissart's,
nor mine, but your own, for not having cheerfulness, loyalty,
or generosity enough in you to understand what is going on. But
even supposing you have these, and do enjoy the story as now read,
it does not at all follow that you would enjoy it at your Literary
Institute. There you would find, most probably, a modern abstract
of the matter given in polished language. You would be fortunate if
you chanced on so good a history as Robert Henry's above referred to,
which I always use myself, as intelligent, and trustworthy for general
reference. But hear his polished account of this supper at Calais.
"As Edward was a great admirer of personal valour, he ordered all
the French knights and gentlemen to be feasted by the Prince of
Wales, in the great hall of the castle. The king entered the hall
in the time of the banquet, and discovered to his prisoners that
he had been present in the late conflict, and was the person
who had fought hand to hand with the Sieur Ribaumont. Then,
addressing himself to that gentleman, he gave him his liberty,
presented him with a chaplet adorned with pearls, which he desired
him to wear for his sake, and declared him to be the most expert
and valorous knight with whom he had ever engaged."
Now, supposing you can read no other history than such as this, you
had--with profoundest earnestness I say it--infinitely better read
none. It is not the least necessary for you to know anything about
Edward III.; but quite necessary for you to know something vital
and real about somebody; and not to have polished language given you
instead of life. "But you do enjoy it, in Froissart?" And you think it
would have been, to you also, a "pleasure to see" that fight between
Edward and the Sieur de Ribaumont? So be it: now let us compare with
theirs, a piece of modern British fighting, done under no banner,
and in no loyalty nor obedience, but in the independent spirit of
freedom, and yet which, I think, it would have been no pleasure to
any of us to see. As we compared before, loyal with free justice, so
let us now compare loyal with free fighting. The most active of the
contending parties are of your own class, too, I am sorry to say,
and that the 'Telegraph' (16th Dec.) calls them many hard names;
but I can't remedy this without too many inverted commas.
Four savages--four brute beasts in human form we should rather
say--named Slane, Rice, Hays, and Beesley, ranging in age between
thirty-two and nineteen years, have been sentenced to death
for the murder on the 6th of November last, at a place called
Spennymoor, of one Joseph Waine. The convicts are Irishmen,
and had been working as puddlers in the iron foundries. The
principal offender was the ruffian Slane, who seems to have had
some spite against the deceased, a very sober, quiet man, about
forty years of age, who, with his wife and son, kept a little
chandler's shop at Spennymoor. Into this shop Slane came one night,
grossly insulted Waine, ultimately dragged him from the shop into a
dark passage, tripped him up, holding his head between his legs,
and then whistled for his three confederates. When Rice, Hayes,
and Beesley appeared on the scene, they were instructed by the
prime savage to hold Waine down--the wretch declaring, "If I
get a running kick at him, it shall be his last." The horrible
miscreant did get a "running kick"--nay, more than a dozen--at his
utterly powerless victim; and when Slane's strength was getting
exhausted the other three wretches set upon Waine, kicking him
in the body with their hob-nailed boots, while the poor agonized
wife strove vainly to save her husband. A lodger in the house,
named Wilson, at last interfered, and the savages ran away. The
object of their brutality lived just twenty-five minutes after
the outrage, and the post-mortem examination showed that all the
organs were perfectly healthy, and that death could only have
arisen from the violence inflicted on Waine by these fiends,
who were plainly identified by the widow and her son. It may be
noticed, however, as a painfully significant circumstance, that
the lodger Wilson, who was likewise a labouring man, and a most
important witness for the prosecution, refused to give evidence,
and, before the trial came on, absconded altogether.
Among the epithets bestowed by the 'Telegraph',--very properly, but
unnecessarily--on these free British Operatives, there is one which
needs some qualification;--that of "Miscreant," or "Misbeliever,"
which is only used accurately of Turks or other infidels, whereas
it is probable these Irishmen were zealously religious persons,
Evangelical or Catholic. But the perversion of the better faith by
passion is indeed a worse form of "misbelieving" than the obedient
keeping of a poorer creed; and thus the word, if understood not of
any special heresy, but of powerlessness to believe, with strength of
imagination, in anything, goes to the root of the matter; which I must
wait till after Christmas to dig for, having much else on my hands.
26th December, 1872, 8, Morning.
The first quiet and pure light that has risen this many a day,
was increasing through the tall stems of the trees of our garden,
which is walled by the walls of old Oxford; and a bird,--(I am going
to lecture on ornithology next term, but don't know what bird, and
couldn't go to ask the gardener,) singing steady, sweet, momentary
notes, in a way that would have been very pleasant to me, once. And
as I was breathing out of the window, thrown up as high as I could,
(for my servant had made me an enormous fire, as servants always do
on hot mornings,) and looking at the bright sickle of a moon, fading
as she rose, the verse came into my mind,--I don't in the least know
why,--"Lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting;"--which
chanced to express in the most precise terms, what I want you to feel,
about Edward III.'s fighting, (though St. Paul is speaking of prayer,
not of fighting, but it's all the same;) as opposed to this modern
British fighting, which is the lifting up of unholy hands,--feet, at
least,--in wrath, and doubting. Also, just the minute before, I had
upset my lucifer-match box, a nasty brown tin thing, containing,--as
the spiteful Third Fors would have it--just two hundred and sixty-six
wax matches, half of which being in a heap on the floor, and the
rest all at cross purposes, had to be picked up, put straight and
repacked, and at my best time for other work. During this operation,
necessarily deliberate, I was thinking of my correspondent's query,
(see terminal notes,) respecting what I meant by doing anything "in
a hurry." I mean essentially doing it in hurry of mind,--"doubting"
whether we are doing it fast enough,--not knowing exactly how fast we
can do it, or how slowly it must be done, to be done well. You cannot
pack a lucifer-box, nor make a dish of stir-about, nor knead a brown
loaf, but with patience; nor meet even the most pressing need, but
with coolness. Once, when my father was coming home from Spain, in a
merchant ship, and in mid-bay of Biscay, the captain and passengers
being at dinner, the sea did something or other to the ship which
showed that the steersman was not minding what he was about. The
captain jumped straight over the table, went on deck, and took the
helm. Now I do not mean that he ought to have gone round the table,
but that, if a good captain, as he took the wheel, he would not miss
his grasp of the spokes by snatching at them an instant too soon.
And you will find that St. Paul's "without doubting"--for which,
if you like, you may substitute, "by, or in, faith," covers nearly
every definition of right action--and also that it is not possible to
have this kind of faith unless one can add--as he does--"having faith
and a good conscience." It does not at all follow that one must be
doing a right thing; that will depend on one's sense and information;
but one must be doing deliberately a thing we entirely suppose to be
right, or we shall not do it becomingly.
Thus, observe, I enter into no question at present as to the absolute
rightness of King Edward's fighting, which caused, that day, at
Calais, the deaths of more than four hundred innocent men; nor as to
the absolute wrongness of the four Irishmen's fighting, which causes
only the death of one, (--who also may, for aught I know, have done
something really seeming evil to the dull creatures)--but there is no
doubt that the King fought wholly without wrath, and without doubting
his rightness; and they with vile wrath and miserable consciousness
of doing wrong; and that you have in the two scenes, as perfect types
as I can put before you of entirely good ancient French breeding,
and entirely bad modern British breeding.
Breeding;--observe the word; I mean it literally; involving first
the race--and then the habits enforced in youth: entirely excluding
intellectual conclusions. The "breeding" of a man is what he gets from
the Centaur Chiron; the "beastly" part of him in a good sense;--that
which makes him courageous by instinct, true by instinct, loving by
instinct, as a Dog is; and therefore felicitously above or below
(whichever you like to call it,) all questions of philosophy and
divinity.
And of both the Centaur Chiron, and St. George, one, the typical Greek
tutor of gentlemen, and the other, the type of Christian gentlemen,
I meant to tell you in this letter; and the Third Fors won't let
me, yet, and I scarcely know when; for before we leave King Edward,
lest you should suppose I mean to set him up for a saint instead of
St. George, you must hear the truth of his first interview with Alice
of Salisbury,--(he had seen her married, but not noticed her then,
particularly,)--wherein you will see him becoming doubtful, and of
little faith, or distorted faith, "miscreant"; but the lady Alice
no wise doubtful; wherefore she becomes worthy to give the shield
of England its "tressure" and St. George's company their watchword,
as aforesaid.
But her story must not be told in the same letter with that of our
modern British courage; and now that I think of it, St. George's had
better be first told in February, when, I hope, some crocuses will be
up, and an amaryllis or two, St. George having much interest in both.