Excepting only Rome and its immediate neighbourhood, no part of Italy
can exhibit so many remains of Roman antiquity as are to be found within
a short distance of Avignon. The Romans seem to have united Provence to
Italy, as the French have since united Piedmont to France. Our English
travellers, who, according to the plan mentioned in the first chapter,
pass one summer in going to Italy and another in returning from it, will
do well to make Avignon their head quarters for some time, and visit the
curiosities around. There is Nismes with the Pont du Gard, Arles, St.
Remy, Orange, already mentioned, and other places. There is also the
far-famed fountain of Vaucluse. A commission of antiquarian research is
established within the department; at Nismes also much attention is paid
to these objects, and with good reason; for no town in Europe, Rome
excepted, possesses such precious remains.
In the beginning of the month of September of my second year, I hired a
coach with three horses again, (for no god of them all is so fond of an
uneven number as these coach-masters,) and, with part of my family, took
the road to Vaucluse. It passes first over a fertile alluvial plain,
formed, in remote ages, by the Rhone and Durance when they overflowed
their banks, as the Oby and Tobol do now. Then we traversed a country of
corn, wine, and oil, and descended to Lisle, a little town on the
Sorgues, the river of Vaucluse, from whose fountain it is distant about
four miles. For three of these four miles as far as the village, we were
able to proceed in our carriage; but, from this point, the Naiad
requires to be reverentially approached on foot. We ascended a gentle
steep, the Sorgues on our right-hand,--a stream, which, even here, so
near its head, has force to turn several mills that harmonise well with
the landscape. Above the mills it began to assume more and more a
torrent-like appearance; the rocks approached nearer on each side, and
confined us within a still closer valley. Whither has the nymph of the
stream retired? At length the termination of the valley appeared before
us; a lofty curtain of rock, at half the height of which was seen a wide
and dusky arch, overshadowed by a fig-tree growing out of the precipice
above. Over a shelving rock, at the foot of this arch, the water throws
itself.
But there was at this time no cascade; the fountain was more than
ordinarily low; streams gushed through fissures at the foot and sides of
the rock below the arch, and indicated their source. The shelf or lip,
at the mouth of the cavern, forms a natural bridge over these streams:
we ascended to this shelf, and went down into the cavern a considerable
depth before we arrived at the water: here, a rock projecting into the
water prevented us from going into a second cavern; but we could see,
(for the opening above afforded sufficient light,) that this second
cavern was the last.
I thought it very fortunate that the fountain was so low: had it been
full, we should have seen a water-fall; but I had now seen the Helicon
of Petrarch,--had penetrated to the source of his inspiration,
------atque sacri libamina palleo fontis,
as was written by a young man of genius at Oxford, in my time, whose
name I do not remember, though I have not forgotten this striking and
beautiful expression. In sober sadness, I think it an advantage to
understand the nature and situation of the fountain better than I
should have done had I seen only a picturesque cascade. I do not
believe the immediate source of the fountain to be within the cavern,
but that its waters are supplied in subterranean courses by the
surrounding country: this is proved, I think, by their quantity being so
much affected by rain or drought. St. Winifred's well at Holywell, in
Flintshire,--a fountain as copious as that of the Sorgues,--is not at
all increased or diminished by any change of the seasons.
We loitered for two hours on the bank of the tumbling torrent, sat under
the shade of walnut trees, and eat of their fallen fruit; drank water
from the fountain, talked about Petrarch and Laura, and refused, from
incredulity, and on account of the heat of the sun, to mount a hill to a
house which, we were assured, had been inhabited by the bard. At the
village of Vaucluse, we took into our carriage some delicious grapes,
and returned to Lisle, where we dined on eels and trout, the boasted
fare of the place, prepared in three several ways. As the landlord at
Lisle is said sometimes to over-charge, I will do his reputation the
justice to observe that, for a dejeune a la fourchette, and dinner for
five persons, with good vin du pays, he demanded twenty-five
francs,--perhaps ten sous a head too much. We got into our coach as the
sun set and the moon rose, and our three horses took us back to Avignon
in two hours.
In the very heart and centre of the romantic scenery of the Vallis
Clausa, a little to the right of the cavern out of which issues the
fountain, on the ledge over which it falls, is stuck a mean ugly pillar,
put there by somebody to commemorate something. I mention this pillar
only in the hope that good taste will command its demolition. Even if it
were fine and rare, it would be there misplaced: "fortasse cupressum
scis simulare," but what has that to do with a shipwreck?
My younger son had accompanied to Vaucluse the lady whose visit of
fifteen days had so much astonished the Avignonais a few months before.
Our excursion thither was made under the conduct of my elder son, and
was rendered more agreeable by his frank manners and cheerful
attentions. As the fate of this young man, now in his nineteenth year,
is the occurrence the most important to me, and, I am persuaded, the
subject most interesting to my readers in the contents of this
narrative,--I will give some account of the infancy of this son, that he
may be introduced to their acquaintance, and the last scene of his life
in some sort prepared for. Alas! within two years, on the anniversary
of our journey to Vaucluse, the delirium of his fever deprived me for
the remainder of my life of the comfort of his society, excepting only
one short and consoling conversation immediately before his death. I
trust, in the divine mercy, to rejoin him in the abodes of the just.
His birth was announced to me at three o'clock in the morning of the 5th
of May 1801. In anxious expectation of this news I had forborn to retire
to rest. It was still necessary for me to wait some little time before I
could be admitted to see my first-born. I then lived at Bath, in the
west wing of Lansdown Crescent: behind each house of this building is a
long strip of garden, of the breadth of the house. In the tumult of new
affections I went out into my garden: the twilight of the morning was
visible: I offered to God this child, who, by the ancient law, would
have been consecrated to him, to serve at the altar, if such were the
divine will; praying that, in whatever state, he might so live as to
secure his own salvation, and contribute to the edification of others:
that if he were not to fulfil this only worthy purpose of existence, he
might now die in infancy; but that rather his days might be prolonged,
if that were to the glory of God, and the increase of his own merit and
reward. My prayer was heard: I returned into the house, and gave a
father's blessing to the stranger.
He received in baptism the names Henry Kenelm; the former adopted in his
family for the last four generations, the latter derived from my
maternal grandfather. His sponsors were Sir Thomas Fletewood, the last
of an ancient and pious family of Cheshire; and his lady, afterwards
married to the Count St. Martin de Front, Sardinian ambassador at
London. To her it is no doubt a source of Christian consolation to know,
even in this life, that her godson fulfilled the engagement contracted
in his name.
They who have attentively observed the early years of children must be
convinced that each and every one of them is born with a distinct and
individual character. Two men of fifty, "stained with the variation of
each soil," will differ from each other in manners and opinions more
than two children of the same family: but two children of the same
family will, in character, differ from each other as much as two men of
fifty. Pascal suggests a doubt whether, as custom is called a second
nature, nature itself may not be a former custom. This profound thought
leads to the question whether human souls have existed previously to
their imprisonment in this "body of our humiliation." That they have so
existed I think extremely probable for many very cogent reasons: it is
an opinion which I could defend, merely as an opinion, by many powerful
arguments. I am contented "not to be wise beyond what is written." Yet
it is written that, when the disciples asked our Lord, "Did this man sin
or his parents, that he was born blind?" our Lord, without reproving the
supposition that the man might have sinned before his birth, simply
answered, "Neither did this man sin, nor his parents."
Henry Kenelm manifested, as early as the natural character can be
manifested, a proud, impetuous, obstinate, angry temper: that he wanted
any thing was, with him, a reason why he should have it; that any other
child was younger or weaker than himself, entitled him, as he thought,
to domineer. He had also the good qualities usually opposed to these
faults in the same character; he was generous, grateful, confiding,
compassionate. As no one, in so short a life, ever more completely
subdued than he did the faults of his natural temper, I record them for
the sake of doing homage to that religion by the aid of which he was
enabled to correct them.
His understanding was quick and lively, and he learned readily and with
pleasure. A cause of hindrance and delay that occurred to him in
learning to read shall here be mentioned as a caution to parents,
institutors, and governesses. To play at learning to read is regarded as
a great improvement on the "Reading-made-easy," of less enlightened
times. A lady made him a present of a cylindrical ivory box containing
counters, on which were inscribed the letters of the alphabet. He
trundled the box on the carpet, he threw the letters on the carpet, and
viewed them in all directions, sometimes sideways, sometimes
topsy-turvy; so that he no longer knew them again when he saw them
upright in a book: b and q and d and p more especially puzzled him:
besides, the place of letters in words is of great use towards learning
their power, and this help his counters did not afford him. To impose on
him the task of arranging the letters in _verbal_ order, would have
included all the restraint of a formal lesson. The conclusion is, that
if children play, they do not learn; and while they learn, they must not
play: there is a time for all things: their lessons must be short on
account of the softness of the brain, but attention must be insisted on;
they cannot be cheated as to the nature of the occupation, but they
have sense enough to find pleasure in the consciousness of improvement.
When Kenelm was little more than five years and a half old, his elder
sister died: she was thirteen months younger than himself. Never was
child more lovely in death than this little girl. I gazed on her with
the feeling, since portrayed in the inimitable lines of the Giaour,
beginning
He who hath bent him o'er the dead.
These lines I read fourteen years afterwards at Avignon; they thrilled
and electrified me: the touch of genius recalled the scene I had
witnessed. Yet it should seem that associations supplied by reason and
experience are requisite to the contemplation of such an object with the
sentiments described by Lord Byron. I led Kenelm to see his sister two
hours after her death: terror was his predominant emotion; the
immobility of what still so much resembled life appalled him. He burst
into tears. "If I had thought she would have looked _so_, I would not
have come to see her;" nor could he for some time pass the door of that
chamber without shuddering.
When he was twelve years old, I placed him at Stoneyhurst college in
Lancashire. This society of English Jesuits, the dreadful Jesuits of
St. Omers, of the Popish plot, had, within half a century, suffered
three removes or _demenagemens_, which both the French and English
proverb says are worse than a fire. They had been expelled from St.
Omers by the French government, had been obliged by Joseph II. to quit
Bruges, and had been driven from Liege by the approach of the French
armies. They had now been established for some years in a country-seat
of the family of Lulworth castle. Mr. Weld had given them a beneficial
lease of the house and domain of Stoneyhurst, for which they expressed
much gratitude. It is good to be grateful: gratitude is a Christian
virtue, and well-becoming those who by their missions, their literary
labours, and their institutions for education, have acquired so much
glory to themselves, and rendered such signal services to the Christian
world. Let them always be grateful.
An account of their plan of education may not be unacceptable, and may
furnish some hints to the heads of our great schools. I am inclined to
think that the Jesuits, though as much spoken against, are very little
more known in England than at the time when I left it.
The whole number of boys, about two hundred and fifty, is divided into
six schools or classes, to each of which a master is appointed, who, in
the course of six years, conducts his set of boys, from the elements of
grammar in the French, Latin, and Greek languages, to rhetoric, or the
reading of the best classical authors. The fifth year, or that before
rhetoric, is set apart for the study of the poets only. After this
course of six years, lectures are given by the professors of moral and
natural philosophy.
The masters have no intercourse with their scholars except during the
holding the class or saying the lesson: prefects are appointed to
superintend them at all other times. They study in a large room destined
to this use only: a prefect, in a lofty tribune, enforces application: a
prefect attends them while at play to prevent violence, quarrelling, or
indecorous language: a prefect sleeps in a little room with a glass door
at the end of the dormitory.
The play-ground is divided into two equal portions, one of which is
allotted to the boys of the three higher, the other to the boys of the
three lower schools, and no one is allowed to cross the bisecting line.
Thus the tyranny of the great boys over the little ones, and the
requisition of petty, irregular, or mischievous services is prevented:
thus also the years and strength of those who play together are
generally more equal.
No master or other superior, who conceives that a boy has deserved
punishment, is allowed to inflict that punishment himself, but is
obliged to send such boy to the prefect appointed for the time
administrator of the ferula: the boys, either from custom or the point
of honour, or the fear of worse, always ask for the number of strokes of
the ferula which they may be ordered by the superior to receive. A
whimsical result of subordination, that a lad of seventeen shall go to a
man of five and twenty, and say, "Please, Sir, to give me nine ferulas."
Horace talks of the ferula; he does not say that he petitioned for it
himself; and I saw, by an al fresco at Portici, that boys were flogged,
two thousand years ago, just as they now are in our country schools.
The dormitory is a lofty room, in which each boy has his bed-place to
himself, separated from his neighbours by a wainscot partition six feet
high; a curtain, with a number upon it, is drawn at the foot of the
bed-place, which is open at the top. During the day-time the dormitory
is locked, and none but the servants of the house are, on any account,
permitted to go into it.
The eleves of Stoneyhurst wear an uniform: this regulation, I am
persuaded, has a better moral influence on their minds than ferulas and
disciplines: "their feet are accommodated," as a fine writer once
expressed it, with very thick shoes; "and their heads are protected" by
a leathern cap: this cap is made to shade the face or to be turned up at
pleasure; it is trimmed with fur, and, while fresh, looks very smart:
but it is soon _degraded_, as the French phrase is, by the various uses
to which caprice or convenience induces the boys to apply it: they sit
upon it; they kneel upon it; they blow, or rather fan the fire with it;
they use it for a bag, and perhaps sometimes, when unseen by the
prefect, they give each other slaps on the face with it;--a trait
d'ecolier for the which its form, when folded, is admirably well
adapted. A blue jacket and red waistcoat of coarse cloth, dark velveteen
pantalon, and worsted stockings, a black velvet stock round the collar
of a very coarse shirt, complete the habiliments of the Stoneyhurst
collegian. "Forsan et haec olim," &c.
The boys rise at half past five in the morning and go to bed at half
past eight in the evening. Prayers in the chapel begin and end every
day, and they assist at mass daily. Those who are of sufficient age
confess and communicate once a fortnight.
Such are, in the main, the regulations of this Jesuits' college. During
their unsettled state, the society had admitted but few new members; in
consequence, the education of their youth was, at this time, conducted
chiefly by old men without activity, and young men without experience.
The course of a few years has remedied this evil.
When Kenelm arrived at Stoneyhurst, his heart bounded within him at the
sight of the spacious buildings, and of between two and three hundred
playfellows: he immediately procured a cap and black collar, and was as
vain of them as a young ensign of his cockade and sword. The superior
led me over the college; Kenelm followed and considered all as provided
for his use and convenience. I tried to persuade him that his visits to
the library, the academy-room, the strangers' apartment, and the garden
of the superiors, would not hereafter be very frequent; that his repasts
in the refectory, though sufficient and wholesome, would not be
luxurious. I was unable to moderate his transport: hardly could I
prevail on him to show some signs of regret at parting from me. I
appealed to "Philip when sober."
The next summer, I found him sober enough: he had discovered that he was
only one of a crowd; he felt the want of domestic affections, and of
those comforts which home only can supply. I consoled him however, and
left him, after three days spent at Whalley, in a disposition to endure
all that his duty and the destined course of his studies might require.
"O Athenians," said Themistocles, "how much do I suffer to gain your
applause!" Children have but too much reason to exclaim, "O
Themistocles, how much do we suffer to be able to read your history!"
The next summer, I sent for him to Park Gate, where he rejoined his
brother and sisters after two years absence. To the number of his
sisters was added one, whose infancy, unsuited for travelling, delayed
my journey to France. At this time he was gay and cheerful: he did not
know the world, and was not afraid of it; yet his behaviour was directed
by an ever sure sense of propriety. I was pleased and satisfied with
him:--he passed five weeks with us. I had given him the meeting at
Liverpool, whither he had been conducted by a prefect: I now took him
back to the same town, where we found a prefect with whom he returned to
his college.
In the month of July of the following year, 1816, I received a letter
from one of the superiors of the college, informing me that my son, with
thirty-six other boys, had fallen ill of the measles; that my son had
recovered, but, having been allowed to go out too soon, had again fallen
ill. The letter was couched in terms so ambiguous, and implying so much
doubt of the event, that it caused great alarm. I set off immediately:
no other letter was written, and Kenelm's mother was kept in a state of
fearful anxiety, till I wrote to her from Stoneyhurst that her son was
recovered from the relapse. He was however so much weakened, that I
thought it advisable to take him to the sea-coast. I passed ten days
with him alone, and had an opportunity of appreciating his character, of
observing his unaffected good sense, his gentle and amiable manners, his
watchfulness over his conscience, his dutiful affection to his father,
his piety towards God.
We returned to college to be present at the academy-day, and the
distribution of the prizes. Kenelm had been assured that, but for his
illness, one of these prizes would have fallen to his share. I
comforted him as well as I could, quoting--"satis est potuisse videri."
In the spring of the following year, I took my younger son to
Stoneyhurst, in the hope that the brothers would find present pleasure
in each others' company, and hereafter talk over together the scenes of
their boyhood. I observed that Kenelm's spirits appeared depressed: I
questioned him; he assured me he had nothing to complain of: I
interrogated the master: he spoke of Kenelm with great regard, and knew
not that any cause of uneasiness existed for him. I passed three days
with my sons, during which time Kenelm's cheerfulness returned, or
seemed to return; and I left them together.
Towards the end of this year, I finally resolved to put in execution my
long-projected, long-delayed, continental plan. I advised the brothers
of my purpose, who were, of course, delighted with the news. A kind and
much-esteemed friend, who wished to see Stoneyhurst college, brought
them back with him into Lincolnshire at the end of March following.
In the month that intervened between the return of my sons and our
arrival in Paris, the expectation of the journey, the preparation for
the journey, and the journey itself, so far occupied the mind of
Kenelm, that I had not remarked in him any extraordinary want of gaiety:
I perceived only that he was more serious, that his manner was less
frank, and even his carriage less easy than heretofore. At Paris, the
first discovery I made respecting him was that he was become
short-sighted. As we were viewing the statues of the Louvre, he
exclaimed, "I see nothing but blocks of marble;" and he went off
immediately to Chevalier's, the optician, to buy himself a lorgnette. I
sympathized with him, knowing by experience that a short sight deprives
us of a great part of the pleasure of existence, besides being an
incalculable disadvantage in society. He imputed his short-sightedness
to his having imprudently given himself up to study, before his health
was fully re-established after the measles, in the hope of gaining, at
the next academy-day, the medal which he had lost by his illness; that
he had read a great deal by the flaring gas lights with which the
college is illuminated.
Something remained behind, a reserve, a sadness even, which I entreated
him to account for. He gave me his full confidence; and I learned, with
very great sorrow, that, for the last eighteen months of his stay in
college, his mind had been a prey to scruples. This "pious awe, and
fear to have offended," carried to excess through inexperience and a
want of due apprehension that it is by the will only that we
offend,--had destroyed his gaiety, retarded his improvement, and
doubtlessly much injured his health.
I asked him, "What advice did your director give you?"--"None."--"Any
other superior?"--"None." Yet his state was sufficiently evident: he
joined in no play; he did not seek the company of his brother. Alone, or
with one or two companions, he employed the time allowed for play in
walking up and down, indulging the workings of his own mind. I regretted
that I had not taken him home when he requested, after his illness: I
regretted that, instead of taking his brother to college,--a measure so
inefficient for his consolation,--I had not come to France a twelvemonth
sooner: I regretted the time lost, and the time that was still to be
lost in regaining it. But Kenelm's mind was now at ease; feelings,
originating probably in a weak state of health, and continued only
through want of good counsel and sympathy, were at an end, when he found
himself with those whom he loved, by whom he was beloved: his
understanding was too clear for him to persevere either in inadequate
notions of the divine goodness, or in false judgments respecting duty.
Scruples are, by no means, of the nature of religious melancholy; they
are not inconsistent with the Christian grace of hope: they suppose
innocence; for the sinner may be hardened, may be penitent, may be
wavering, but cannot properly be said to be scrupulous: scruples not
only preserve from sin, but have also the good effect (the gift of
divine mercy,) of purging the heart from all affection to sin, as was
manifested in the future life of Kenelm.
Yet this fear, "the beginning of wisdom," acting on an ill-informed
conscience, is hurtful, as it indisposes to a cheerful energetic
performance of duty. I said to Kenelm, "If there are beings, (and we are
told that such there are,) who are interested that man should do ill,
they could by no other means so effectually obtain their purpose as by
fixing our attention on that by which we may offend." A priest, whom I
had known in England during his emigration, and whom I had the advantage
of meeting again at Paris; a man whose sanctity inspired Kenelm with
respect and confidence,--said to him, "Unless you shall be as sure that
you have offended God in the way in which you apprehend, as you would be
sure of having committed murder, I forbid you to mention it even to me
in confession." I will own that the vigour and prudence united in this
counsel struck me with awe. The saints are men of great minds:
philosophers are mistaken in thinking them fools.
A kind and discreet priest, at Avignon, talked to Kenelm in the same
sense, reminding him of the saying of St. Francis of Sales, "that
scruples are the worst things in the world except sin." Kenelm's mind
recovered its wonted cheerfulness and activity: family affections,
change of scene, and new occupations soon completed what good advice had
begun. He was yet too young to enter into society: he laboured to
perfect himself in the French language; he was delighted with drawing,
declaring that, were it consistent with duty, he could pass the whole
day in that amusement. He continued his classical studies from the point
at which they had been interrupted by his leaving college, where he was
in his fifth or poetical year. I read with him Homer and Virgil.
Of the Iliad he said, that, a few well-known sublime passages excepted,
the rest, was vulgar: and when I mouthed forth the Greek, in order to
impose on him the conviction that it was very fine,--"I grant you that
Homer has the advantage of a sonorous language and the hexameter line;
but there is very little grace in the expression, nor is the thought
deserving of it." He admired the delicacy of sentiment in the AEneid: he
discovered in it traces of more advanced civilization and more improved
knowledge than are to be found in Homer, as well as a more correct and
refined taste. I recommended the Odyssey to him, not only on account of
its varied fable and "specious wonders," but for the justness with which
human character and natural feeling are there rendered. We also read
together that Machiavel of historians, Tacitus, who, as I endeavoured to
persuade Kenelm, has treated the fame of Tiberius with great injustice,
by representing him, on every occasion, as a cunning and cruel tyrant;
whereas he was always wise, habitually just, and often beneficent. Let
any one fairly and impartially analyse the actions of this sovereign and
the comments of the historian, and he will perhaps be inclined to allow
that my opinion is not altogether unreasonable. Concerning the personal
vices of Tiberius there is here no question.
I was delighted with one of the results of my continental plan,--that my
children were now all of them under my own care. To what purpose subject
boys to all the privations, restraints, and severities,--all the
consequences of the ignorances and negligences of the managers of great
schools,--that they may acquire a very moderate knowledge of two dead
languages, which they generally neglect during the rest of their lives;
and this for six years or more? Who doubts but that he could learn to
read French in six months? And why should he not be equally capable of
learning Latin in the same space of time? And in six months more he may
learn to read Greek, which is rather the easier language of the two: he
may thus obtain admission to the treasures of wisdom and good taste
contained in those languages, in one-sixth of the time now usually
thrown away in a vain attempt to that purpose; for, I repeat it, boys
are compelled to employ the time of their education in _not_ learning
what is of no use to them.
Latin is no longer the language of literary composition, diplomatic
intercourse, or epistolary correspondence. It is sufficient that a few
men, in every generation, write Latin, like Bishop Louth, or Dr. Martin
Joseph Routh. The principal nations of Europe have their classics,
formed indeed upon the ancient classical model; and these, therefore,
will be better understood and more enjoyed by those who cultivate an
acquaintance with that model. Still, however, such previous acquaintance
is not indispensable: its advantage consists chiefly in being able to
note allusions and institute comparisons.
Let me not be understood to express a wish that the Greek and Latin
authors were less read than they are at present; on the contrary, I hope
that they will always be considered as an essential part of the studies
of a literary man. That the Greek especially should be so little known
as now it is, is to me a cause of regret. This language has the singular
privilege of having been, during twelve centuries, the language of the
most ingenious and enlightened people of all that existed during that
long aera. We have their authors from Hesiod to Photius, and still lower
down; a library superior to that of any modern nation; for the trash has
been swept away.
Far, very far from me, be the desire, that it should be said of such a
people in any sense, literary or political,
'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more.
I have been led into this train of reflection, on recording the
contentment with which I saw my children under my own superintendence at
Avignon. How far it may be reasonable to continue to inflict on our sons
all the suffering which they endure, when banished from the paternal
roof, and consigned to the coarse, undiscriminating care of strangers
for the sake of the instruction acquired by this plan, I leave every one
to determine for himself.