CHAPTER IX.

THE VICAR’S RETURN.

The next morning Mr. Robarts took leave of all his grand friends with a

heavy heart. He had lain awake half the night thinking of what he had

done and trying to reconcile himself to his position. He had not well

left Mr. Sowerby’s room before he felt certain that at the end of three

months he would again be troubled about that 400_l._ As he went along the

passage all the man’s known antecedents crowded upon him much quicker

than he could remember them when seated in that armchair with the bill

stamp before him, and the pen and ink ready to his hand. He remembered

what Lord Lufton had told him—how he had complained of having been left

in the lurch; he thought of all the stories current through the entire

county as to the impossibility of getting money from Chaldicotes; he

brought to mind the known character of the man, and then he knew that

he must prepare himself to make good a portion at least of that heavy

payment.

Why had he come to this horrid place? Had he not everything at home at

Framley which the heart of man could desire? No; the heart of man can

desire deaneries—the heart, that is, of the man vicar; and the heart of

the man dean can desire bishoprics; and before the eyes of the man bishop

does there not loom the transcendental glory of Lambeth? He had owned to

himself that he was ambitious; but he had to own to himself now also that

he had hitherto taken but a sorry path towards the object of his ambition.

On the next morning at breakfast-time, before his horse and gig arrived

for him, no one was so bright as his friend Sowerby. “So you are off, are

you?” said he.

“Yes, I shall go this morning.”

“Say everything that’s kind from me to Lufton. I may possibly see him

out hunting; otherwise we shan’t meet till the spring. As to my going to

Framley, that’s out of the question. Her ladyship would look for my tail,

and swear that she smelt brimstone. By-bye, old fellow!”

The German student when he first made his bargain with the devil felt

an indescribable attraction to his new friend; and such was the case

now with Robarts. He shook Sowerby’s hand very warmly, said that he

hoped he should meet him soon somewhere, and professed himself specially

anxious to hear how that affair with the lady came off. As he had made

his bargain—as he had undertaken to pay nearly half-a-year’s income for

his dear friend, ought he not to have as much value as possible for his

money? If the dear friendship of this flash member of Parliament did not

represent that value, what else did do so? But then he felt, or fancied

that he felt, that Mr. Sowerby did not care for him so much this morning

as he had done on the previous evening. “By-bye,” said Mr. Sowerby, but

he spoke no word as to such future meetings, nor did he even promise to

write. Mr. Sowerby probably had many things on his mind; and it might be

that it behoved him, having finished one piece of business, immediately

to look to another.

The sum for which Robarts had made himself responsible—which he so much

feared that he would be called upon to pay, was very nearly half-a-year’s

income; and as yet he had not put by one shilling since he had been

married. When he found himself settled in his parsonage, he found also

that all the world regarded him as a rich man. He had taken the dictum of

all the world as true, and had set himself to work to live comfortably.

He had no absolute need of a curate; but he could afford the 70_l._—as

Lady Lufton had said rather injudiciously; and by keeping Jones in the

parish he would be acting charitably to a brother clergyman, and would

also place himself in a more independent position. Lady Lufton had wished

to see her pet clergyman well-to-do and comfortable; but now, as matters

had turned out, she much regretted this affair of the curate. Mr. Jones,

she said to herself, more than once, must be made to depart from Framley.

He had given his wife a pony-carriage, and for himself he had a

saddle-horse, and a second horse for his gig. A man in his position,

well-to-do as he was, required as much as that. He had a footman also,

and a gardener, and a groom. The two latter were absolutely necessary,

but about the former there had been a question. His wife had been

decidedly hostile to the footman; but, in all such matters as that, to

doubt is to be lost. When the footman had been discussed for a week it

became quite clear to the master that he also was a necessary.

As he drove home that morning he pronounced to himself the doom of that

footman, and the doom also of that saddle-horse. They at any rate should

go. And then he would spend no more money in trips to Scotland; and

above all, he would keep out of the bedrooms of impoverished members of

parliament at the witching hour of midnight. Such resolves did he make to

himself as he drove home; and bethought himself wearily how that 400l.

might be made to be forthcoming. As to any assistance in the matter from

Sowerby,—of that he gave himself no promise.

But he almost felt himself happy again as his wife came out into the

porch to meet him, with a silk shawl over her head, and pretending to

shiver as she watched him descending from his gig.

“My dear old man,” she said, as she led him into the warm drawing-room

with all his wrappings still about him, “you must be starved.” But Mark

during the whole drive had been thinking too much of that transaction

in Mr. Sowerby’s bedroom to remember that the air was cold. Now he had

his arm round his own dear Fanny’s waist; but was he to tell her of that

transaction? At any rate he would not do it now, while his two boys were

in his arms, rubbing the moisture from his whiskers with their kisses.

After all, what is there equal to that coming home?

“And so Lufton is here. I say, Frank, gently old boy,”—Frank was his

eldest son—“you’ll have baby into the fender.”

“Let me take baby; it’s impossible to hold the two of them, they are so

strong,” said the proud mother. “Oh, yes, he came home early yesterday.”

“Have you seen him?”

“He was here yesterday, with her ladyship; and I lunched there to-day.

The letter came, you know, in time to stop the Merediths. They don’t go

till to-morrow, so you will meet them after all. Sir George is wild about

it, but Lady Lufton would have her way. You never saw her in such a state

as she is.”

“Good spirits, eh?”

“I should think so. All Lord Lufton’s horses are coming and he’s to be

here till March.”

“Till March!”

“So her ladyship whispered to me. She could not conceal her triumph at

his coming. He’s going to give up Leicestershire this year altogether.

I wonder what has brought it all about?” Mark knew very well what had

brought it about; he had been made acquainted, as the reader has also,

with the price at which Lady Lufton had purchased her son’s visit. But no

one had told Mrs. Robarts that the mother had made her son a present of

five thousand pounds.

“She’s in a good humour about everything now,” continued Fanny; “so you

need say nothing at all about Gatherum Castle.”

“But she was very angry when she first heard it; was she not?”

“Well, Mark, to tell the truth she was; and we had quite a scene there up

in her own room up-stairs,—Justinia and I. She had heard something else

that she did not like at the same time; and then—but you know her way.

She blazed up quite hot.”

“And said all manner of horrid things about me.”

“About the duke she did. You know she never did like the duke; and for

the matter of that, neither do I. I tell you that fairly, Master Mark!”

“The duke is not so bad as he’s painted.”

“Ah, that’s what you say about another great person. However, he won’t

come here to trouble us, I suppose. And then I left her, not in the best

temper in the world; for I blazed up too, you must know.”

“I am sure you did,” said Mark, pressing his arm round her waist.

“And then we were going to have a dreadful war, I thought; and I came

home and wrote such a doleful letter to you. But what should happen when

I had just closed it, but in came her ladyship—all alone, and——. But

I can’t tell you what she did or said, only she behaved beautifully;

just like herself too; so full of love and truth and honesty. There’s

nobody like her, Mark; and she’s better than all the dukes that ever

wore—whatever dukes do wear.”

“Horns and hoofs; that’s their usual apparel, according to you and Lady

Lufton,” said he, remembering what Mr. Sowerby had said of himself.

“You may say what you like about me, Mark, but you shan’t abuse Lady

Lufton. And if horns and hoofs mean wickedness and dissipation, I

believe it’s not far wrong. But get off your big coat and make yourself

comfortable.” And that was all the scolding that Mark Robarts got from

his wife on the occasion of his great iniquity.

“I will certainly tell her about this bill transaction,” he said to

himself; “but not to-day; not till after I have seen Lufton.”

That evening they dined at Framley Court, and there they met the young

lord; they found also Lady Lufton still in high good humour. Lord Lufton

himself was a fine bright-looking young man; not so tall as Mark Robarts,

and with perhaps less intelligence marked on his face; but his features

were finer, and there was in his countenance a thorough appearance of

good humour and sweet temper. It was, indeed, a pleasant face to look

upon, and dearly Lady Lufton loved to gaze at it.

“Well, Mark, so you have been among the Philistines?” that was his

lordship’s first remark. Robarts laughed as he took his friend’s hands,

and bethought himself how truly that was the case; that he was, in very

truth, already “himself in bonds under Philistian yoke.” Alas, alas, it

is very hard to break asunder the bonds of the latter-day Philistines.

When a Samson does now and then pull a temple down about their ears, is

he not sure to be engulfed in the ruin with them? There is no horseleech

that sticks so fast as your latter-day Philistine.

“So you have caught Sir George, after all,” said Lady Lufton, and

that was nearly all she did say in allusion to his absence. There was

afterwards some conversation about the lecture, and from her ladyship’s

remarks, it certainly was apparent that she did not like the people among

whom the vicar had been lately staying; but she said no word that was

personal to him himself, or that could be taken as a reproach. The little

episode of Mrs. Proudie’s address in the lecture-room had already reached

Framley, and it was only to be expected that Lady Lufton should enjoy

the joke. She would affect to believe that the body of the lecture had

been given by the bishop’s wife; and afterwards when Mark described her

costume at that Sunday morning breakfast-table, Lady Lufton would assume

that such had been the dress in which she had exercised her faculties in

public.

“I would have given a five-pound note to have heard it,” said Sir George.

“So would not I,” said Lady Lufton. “When one hears of such things

described so graphically as Mr. Robarts now tells it, one can hardly help

laughing. But it would give me great pain to see the wife of one of our

bishops place herself in such a situation. For he is a bishop after all.”

“Well, upon my word, my lady, I agree with Meredith,” said Lord

Lufton.—“It must have been good fun. As it did happen, you know,—as the

church was doomed to the disgrace, I should like to have heard it.”

“I know you would have been shocked, Ludovic.”

“I should have got over that in time, mother. It would have been

like a bull fight I suppose, horrible to see no doubt, but extremely

interesting—And Harold Smith, Mark; what did he do all the while?”

“It didn’t take so very long, you know,” said Robarts.

“And the poor bishop,” said Lady Meredith; “how did he look? I really do

pity him.”

“Well, he was asleep, I think.”

“What, slept through it all?” said Sir George.

“It awakened him; and then he jumped up and said something.”

“What, out loud too?”

“Only one word or so.”

“What a disgraceful scene!” said Lady Lufton. “To those who remember the

good old man who was in the diocese before him it is perfectly shocking.

He confirmed you, Ludovic, and you ought to remember him. It was over at

Barchester, and you went and lunched with him afterwards.”

“I do remember; and especially this, that I never ate such tarts in my

life, before or since. The old man particularly called my attention to

them, and seemed remarkably pleased that I concurred in his sentiments.

There are no such tarts as those going in the palace now, I’ll be bound.”

“Mrs. Proudie will be very happy to do her best for you if you will go

and try,” said Sir George.

“I beg that he will do no such thing,” said Lady Lufton, and that was the

only severe word she said about any of Mark’s visitings.

As Sir George Meredith was there, Robarts could say nothing then to Lord

Lufton about Mr. Sowerby and Mr. Sowerby’s money affairs; but he did make

an appointment for a _tête-à-tête_ on the next morning.

“You must come down and see my nags, Mark; they came to-day. The

Merediths will be off at twelve, and then we can have an hour together.”

Mark said he would, and then went home with his wife under his arm.

“Well, now, is not she kind?” said Fanny, as soon as they were out on the

gravel together.

“She is kind; kinder than I can tell you just at present. But did you

ever know anything so bitter as she is to the poor bishop? And really the

bishop is not so bad.”

“Yes; I know something much more bitter; and that is what she thinks of

the bishop’s wife. And you know, Mark, it was so unladylike, her getting

up in that way. What must the people of Barchester think of her?”

“As far as I could see the people of Barchester liked it.”

“Nonsense, Mark; they could not. But never mind that now. I want you

to own that she is good.” And then Mrs. Robarts went on with another

long eulogy on the dowager. Since that affair of the pardon-begging at

the parsonage Mrs. Robarts hardly knew how to think well enough of her

friend. And the evening had been so pleasant after the dreadful storm and

threatenings of hurricanes; her husband had been so well received after

his lapse of judgment; the wounds that had looked so sore had been so

thoroughly healed, and everything was so pleasant. How all of this would

have been changed had she had known of that little bill!

At twelve the next morning the lord and the vicar were walking through

the Framley stables together. Quite a commotion had been made there,

for the larger portion of these buildings had of late years seldom been

used. But now all was crowding and activity. Seven or eight very precious

animals had followed Lord Lufton from Leicestershire, and all of them

required dimensions that were thought to be rather excessive by the

Framley old-fashioned groom. My lord, however, had a head man of his own

who took the matter quite into his own hands.

Mark, priest as he was, was quite worldly enough to be fond of a good

horse; and for some little time allowed Lord Lufton to descant on the

merit of this four-year-old filly, and that magnificent Rattlebones colt,

out of a Mousetrap mare; but he had other things that lay heavy on his

mind, and after bestowing half an hour on the stud, he contrived to get

his friend away to the shrubbery walks.

“So you have settled with Sowerby,” Robarts began by saying.

“Settled with him; yes, but do you know the price?”

“I believe that you have paid five thousand pounds.”

“Yes, and about three before; and that in a matter in which I did not

really owe one shilling. Whatever I do in future, I’ll keep out of

Sowerby’s grip.”

“But you don’t think he has been unfair to you.”

“Mark, to tell you the truth I have banished the affair from my mind, and

don’t wish to take it up again. My mother has paid the money to save the

property, and of course I must pay her back. But I think I may promise

that I will not have any more money dealings with Sowerby. I will not say

that he is dishonest, but at any rate he is sharp.”

“Well, Lufton; what will you say when I tell you that I have put my name

to a bill for him, for four hundred pounds.”

“Say; why I should say——; but you’re joking; a man in your position would

never do such a thing.”

“But I have done it.”

Lord Lufton gave a long low whistle.

“He asked me the last night that I was there, making a great favour of

it, and declaring that no bill of his had ever yet been dishonoured.”

Lord Lufton whistled again. “No bill of his dishonoured! Why the

pocket-books of the Jews are stuffed full of his dishonoured papers! And

you have really given him your name for four hundred pounds?”

“I have certainly.”

“At what date?”

“Three months.”

“And have you thought where you are to get the money?”

“I know very well that I can’t get it; not at least by that time. The

bankers must renew it for me, and I must pay it by degrees. That is, if

Sowerby really does not take it up.”

“It is just as likely that he will take up the national debt.”

Robarts then told him about the projected marriage with Miss Dunstable,

giving it as his opinion that the lady would probably accept the

gentleman.

“Not at all improbable,” said his lordship, “for Sowerby is an agreeable

fellow; and if it be so, he will have all that he wants for life. But

his creditors will gain nothing. The duke, who has his title-deeds, will

doubtless get his money, and the estate will in fact belong to the wife.

But the small fry, such as you, will not get a shilling.”

Poor Mark! He had had an inkling of this before; but it had hardly

presented itself to him in such certain terms. It was, then, a positive

fact, that in punishment for his weakness in having signed that bill he

would have to pay, not only four hundred pounds, but four hundred pounds

with interest, and expenses of renewal, and commission, and bill stamps.

Yes; he had certainly got among the Philistines during that visit of

his to the duke. It began to appear to him pretty clearly that it would

have been better for him to have relinquished altogether the glories of

Chaldicotes and Gatherum Castle.

And now, how was he to tell his wife?

Sir Joshua and Holbein.

Long ago discarded from our National Gallery, with the contempt logically

due to national or English pictures,—lost to sight and memory for many a

year in the Ogygian seclusions of Marlborough House—there have reappeared

at last, in more honourable exile at Kensington, two great pictures by

Sir Joshua Reynolds. Two, with others; but these alone worth many an

entanglement among the cross-roads of the West, to see for half-an-hour

by spring sunshine:—the _Holy Family_, and the _Graces_, side by side

now in the principal room. Great, as ever was work wrought by man. In

placid strength, and subtlest science, unsurpassed;—in sweet felicity,

incomparable.

If you truly want to know what good work of painter’s hand is, study

those two pictures from side to side, and miss no inch of them (you will

hardly, eventually, be inclined to miss one): in some respects there is

no execution like it; none so open in the magic. For the work of other

great men is hidden in its wonderfulness—you cannot see how it was

done. But in Sir Joshua’s there is no mystery: it is all amazement. No

question but that the touch was so laid; only that it _could_ have been

so laid, is a marvel for ever. So also there is no painting so majestic

in sweetness. He is lily-sceptred: his power blossoms, but burdens not.

All other men of equal dignity paint more slowly; all others of equal

force paint less lightly. Tintoret lays his line like a king marking the

boundaries of conquered lands; but Sir Joshua leaves it as a summer wind

its trace on a lake; he could have painted on a silken veil, where it

fell free, and not bent it.

Such at least is his touch when it is life that he paints: for things

lifeless he has a severer hand. If you examine that picture of the

_Graces_ you will find it reverses all the ordinary ideas of expedient

treatment. By other men flesh is firmly painted, but accessories lightly.

Sir Joshua paints accessories firmly,[20] flesh lightly;—nay, flesh not

at all, but spirit. The wreath of flowers he feels to be material; and

gleam by gleam strikes fearlessly the silver and violet leaves out of the

darkness. But the three maidens are less substantial than rose petals. No

flushed nor frosted tissue that ever faded in night wind is so tender as

they; no hue may reach, no line measure, what is in them so gracious and

so fair. Let the hand move softly—itself as a spirit; for this is Life,

of which it touches the imagery.

“And yet——”

Yes: you do well to pause. There is a “yet” to be thought of. I did not

bring you to these pictures to see wonderful work merely, or womanly

beauty merely. I brought you chiefly to look at that Madonna, believing

that you might remember other Madonnas, unlike her; and might think it

desirable to consider wherein the difference lay:—other Madonnas not by

Sir Joshua, who painted Madonnas but seldom. Who perhaps, if truth must

be told, painted them never: for surely this dearest pet of an English

girl, with the little curl of lovely hair under her ear, is _not_ one.

Why did not Sir Joshua—or could not—or would not Sir Joshua—paint

Madonnas? neither he, nor his great rival-friend Gainsborough? Both of

them painters of women, such as since Giorgione and Correggio had not

been; both painters of men, such as had not been since Titian. How is it

that these English friends can so brightly paint that particular order of

humanity which we call “gentlemen and ladies,” but neither heroes, nor

saints, nor angels? Can it be because they were both country-bred boys,

and for ever after strangely sensitive to courtliness? Why, Giotto also

was a country-bred boy. Allegri’s native Correggio, Titian’s Cadore,

were but hill villages; yet these men painted, not the court, nor the

drawing-room, but the Earth: and not a little of Heaven besides: while

our good Sir Joshua never trusts himself outside the park palings.

He could not even have drawn the strawberry girl, unless she had got

through a gap in them—or rather, I think, she must have been let in at

the porter’s lodge, for her strawberries are in a pottle, ready for the

ladies at the Hall. Giorgione would have set them, wild and fragrant,

among their leaves, in her hand. Between his fairness, and Sir Joshua’s

May-fairness, there is a strange, impassable limit—as of the white reef

that in Pacific isles encircles their inner lakelets, and shuts them from

the surf and sound of sea. Clear and calm they rest, reflecting fringed

shadows of the palm-trees, and the passing of fretted clouds across their

own sweet circle of blue sky. But beyond, and round and round their coral

bar, lies the blue of sea and heaven together—blue of eternal deep.

You will find it a pregnant question, if you follow it forth, and leading

to many others, not trivial, Why it is, that in Sir Joshua’s girl, or

Gainsborough’s, we always think first of the Ladyhood; but in Giotto’s,

of the Womanhood? Why, in Sir Joshua’s hero, or Vandyck’s, it is always

the Prince or the Sir whom we see first; but in Titian’s, the man.

Not that Titian’s gentlemen are less finished than Sir Joshua’s; but

their gentlemanliness[21] is not the principal thing about them; their

manhood absorbs, conquers, wears it as a despised thing. Nor—and this

is another stern ground of separation—will Titian make a gentleman of

every one he paints. He will make him so if he is so, not otherwise;

and this not merely in general servitude to truth, but because in his

sympathy with deeper humanity, the courtier is not more interesting to

him than any one else. “You have learned to dance and fence; you can

speak with clearness, and think with precision; your hands are small,

your senses acute, and your features well-shaped. Yes: I see all this

in you, and will do it justice. You shall stand as none but a well-bred

man could stand; and your fingers shall fall on the sword-hilt as no

fingers could but those that knew the grasp of it. But for the rest,

this grisly fisherman, with rusty cheek and rope-frayed hand, is a man

as well as you, and might possibly make several of you, if souls were

divisible. His bronze colour is quite as interesting to me, Titian, as

your paleness, and his hoary spray of stormy hair takes the light as well

as your waving curls. Him also I will paint, with such picturesqueness

as he may have; yet not putting the picturesqueness first in him, as in

you I have not put the gentlemanliness first. In him I see a strong human

creature, contending with all hardship: in you also a human creature,

uncontending, and possibly not strong. Contention or strength, weakness

or picturesqueness, and all other such accidents in either, shall have

due place. But the immortality and miracle of you—this clay that burns,

this colour that changes—are in truth the awful things in both: these

shall be first painted—and last.”

With which question respecting treatment of character we have to connect

also this further one: How is it that the attempts of so great painters

as Reynolds and Gainsborough are, beyond portraiture, limited almost like

children’s. No domestic drama—no history—no noble natural scenes, far

less any religious subject:—only market carts; girls with pigs; woodmen

going home to supper; watering-places; grey cart-horses in fields, and

such like. Reynolds, indeed, once or twice touched higher themes,—“among

the chords his fingers laid,” and recoiled: wisely; for, strange to say,

his very sensibility deserts him when he leaves his courtly quiet. The

horror of the subjects he chose (Cardinal Beaufort and Ugolino) showed

inherent apathy: had he felt deeply, he would not have sought for this

strongest possible excitement of feeling,—would not willingly have

dwelt on the worst conditions of despair—the despair of the ignoble.

His religious subjects are conceived even with less care than these.

Beautiful as it is, this Holy Family by which we stand has neither

dignity nor sacredness, other than those which attach to every group

of gentle mother and ruddy babe; while his Faiths, Charities or other

well-ordered and emblem-fitted virtues are even less lovely than his

ordinary portraits of women.

It was a faultful temper, which, having so mighty a power of realization

at command, never became so much interested in any fact of human history

as to spend one touch of heartfelt skill upon it;—which, yielding

momentarily to indolent imagination, ended, at best, in a Puck, or a

Thais; a Mercury as Thief, or a Cupid as Linkboy. How wide the interval

between this gently trivial humour, guided by the wave of a feather, or

arrested by the enchantment of a smile,—and the habitual dwelling of the

thoughts of the great Greeks and Florentines among the beings and the

interests of the eternal world!

In some degree it may indeed be true that the modesty and sense of the

English painters are the causes of their simple practice. All that

they did, they did well, and attempted nothing over which conquest was

doubtful. They knew they could paint men and women: it did not follow

that they could paint angels. Their own gifts never appeared to them so

great as to call for serious question as to the use to be made of them.

“They could mix colours and catch likeness—yes; but were they therefore

able to teach religion, or reform the world? To support themselves

honourably, pass the hours of life happily, please their friends, and

leave no enemies, was not this all that duty could require, or prudence

recommend? Their own art was, it seemed, difficult enough to employ all

their genius: was it reasonable to hope also to be poets or theologians?

Such men had, indeed, existed; but the age of miracles and prophets was

long past; nor, because they could seize the trick of an expression,

or the turn of a head, had they any right to think themselves able to

conceive heroes with Homer, or gods with Michael Angelo.”

Such was, in the main, their feeling: wise, modest, unenvious, and

unambitious. Meaner men, their contemporaries or successors, raved

of high art with incoherent passion; arrogated to themselves an

equality with the masters of elder time, and declaimed against the

degenerate tastes of a public which acknowledged not the return of the

Heraclidæ. But the two great—the two only painters of their age—happy

in a reputation founded as deeply in the heart as in the judgment of

mankind, demanded no higher function than that of soothing the domestic

affections; and achieved for themselves at last an immortality not the

less noble, because in their lifetime they had concerned themselves less

to claim it than to bestow.

Yet, while we acknowledge the discretion and simple-heartedness of these

men, honouring them for both: and the more when we compare their tranquil

powers with the hot egotism and hollow ambition of their inferiors: we

have to remember, on the other hand, that the measure they thus set to

their aims was, if a just, yet a narrow one; that amiable discretion is

not the highest virtue, nor to please the frivolous, the best success.

There is probably some strange weakness in the painter, and some fatal

error in the age, when in thinking over the examples of their greatest

work, for some type of culminating loveliness or veracity, we remember

no expression either of religion or heroism, and instead of reverently

naming a Madonna di San Sisto, can only whisper, modestly, “Mrs. Pelham

feeding chickens.”

The nature of the fault, so far as it exists in the painters themselves,

may perhaps best be discerned by comparing them with a man who went not

far beyond them in his general range of effort, but who did all his work

in a wholly different temper—Hans Holbein.

The first great difference between them is of course in completeness

of execution. Sir Joshua’s and Gainsborough’s work, at its best, is

only magnificent sketching; giving indeed, in places, a perfection of

result unattainable by other methods, and possessing always a charm of

grace and power exclusively its own: yet, in its slightness addressing

itself, purposefully, to the casual glance, and common thought—eager to

arrest the passer-by, but careless to detain him; or detaining him, if

at all, by an unexplained enchantment, not by continuance of teaching,

or development of idea. But the work of Holbein is true and thorough;

accomplished, in the highest as the most literal sense, with a calm

entireness of unaffected resolution, which sacrifices nothing, forgets

nothing, and fears nothing.

In the portrait of the Hausmann George Gyzen,[22] every accessory is

perfect with a fine perfection: the carnations in the glass vase by his

side—the ball of gold, chased with blue enamel, suspended on the wall—the

books—the steelyard—the papers on the table, the seal-ring, with its

quartered bearings,—all intensely there, and there in beauty of which no

one could have dreamed that even flowers or gold were capable, far less

parchment or steel. But every change of shade is felt, every rich and

rubied line of petal followed; every subdued gleam in the soft blue of

the enamel and bending of the gold touched with a hand whose patience of

regard creates rather than paints. The jewel itself was not so precious

as the rays of enduring light which form it, and flash from it, beneath

that errorless hand. The man himself, what he was—not more; but to all

conceivable proof of sight—in all aspect of life or thought—not less. He

sits alone in his accustomed room, his common work laid out before him;

he is conscious of no presence, assumes no dignity, bears no sudden or

superficial look of care or interest, lives only as he lived—but for ever.

The time occupied in painting this portrait was probably twenty times

greater than Sir Joshua ever spent on a single picture, however large.

The result is, to the general spectator, less attractive. In some

qualities of force and grace it is absolutely inferior. But it is

inexhaustible. Every detail of it wins, retains, rewards the attention

with a continually increasing sense of wonderfulness. It is also wholly

true. So far as it reaches, it contains the absolute facts of colour,

form, and character, rendered with an unaccuseable faithfulness. There

is no question respecting things which it is best worth while to know,

or things which it is unnecessary to state, or which might be overlooked

with advantage. What of this man and his house were visible to Holbein,

are visible to us: we may despise if we will; deny or doubt, we shall

not; if we care to know anything concerning them, great or small,

so much as may by the eye be known is for ever knowable, reliable,

indisputable.

Respecting the advantage, or the contrary, of so great earnestness in

drawing a portrait of an uncelebrated person, we raise at present no

debate: I only wish the reader to note this quality of earnestness, as

entirely separating Holbein from Sir Joshua,—raising him into another

sphere of intellect. For here is no question of mere difference in

style or in power, none of minuteness or largeness. It is a question of

Entireness. Holbein is _complete_ in intellect: what he sees, he sees

with his whole soul: what he paints, he paints with his whole might. Sir

Joshua sees partially, slightly, tenderly—catches the flying lights of

things, the momentary glooms: paints also partially, tenderly, never with

half his strength; content with uncertain visions, insecure delights;

the truth not precious nor significant to him, only pleasing; falsehood

also pleasureable, even useful on occasion—must, however, be discreetly

touched, just enough to make all men noble, all women lovely: “we do

not need this flattery often, most of those we know being such; and it

is a pleasant world, and with diligence—for nothing can be done without

diligence—every day till four” (says Sir Joshua)—“a painter’s is a happy

life.”

Yes: and the Isis, with her swans, and shadows of Windsor Forest, is

a sweet stream, touching her shores softly. The Rhine at Basle is of

another temper, stern and deep, as strong, however bright its face:

winding far through the solemn plain, beneath the slopes of Jura, tufted

and steep: sweeping away into its regardless calm of current the waves of

that little brook of St. Jakob, that bathe the Swiss Thermopylæ;[23] the

low village nestling beneath a little bank of sloping fields—its spire

seen white against the deep blue shadows of the Jura pines.

Gazing on that scene day by day, Holbein went his own way, with the

earnestness and silent swell of the strong river—not unconscious of the

awe, nor of the sanctities of its life. The snows of the eternal Alps

giving forth their strength to it; the blood of the St. Jakob brook

poured into it as it passes by—not in vain. He also could feel his

strength coming from white snows far off in heaven. He also bore upon him

the purple stain of the earth sorrow. A grave man, knowing what steps

of men keep truest time to the chanting of Death. Having grave friends

also;—the same singing heard far off, it seems to me, or, perhaps, even

low in the room, by that family of Sir Thomas More; or mingling with the

hum of bees in the meadows outside the towered wall of Basle; or making

the words of the book more tuneable, which meditative Erasmus looks

upon. Nay, that same soft Death-music is on the lips even of Holbein’s

Madonna. Who, among many, is the Virgin you had best compare with the

one before whose image we have stood so long.

Holbein’s is at Dresden, companioned by the Madonna di San Sisto; but

both are visible enough to you here, for, by a strange coincidence, they

are (at least so far as I know) the only two great pictures in the world

which have been faultlessly engraved.

The received tradition respecting the Holbein Madonna is beautiful; and I

believe the interpretation to be true. A father and mother have prayed to

her for the life of their sick child. She appears to them, her own Christ

in her arms. She puts down her Christ beside them—takes their child into

her arms instead. It lies down upon her bosom, and stretches its hand to

its father and mother, saying farewell.

This interpretation of the picture has been doubted, as nearly all the

most precious truths of pictures have been doubted, and forgotten. But

even supposing it erroneous, the design is not less characteristic of

Holbein. For that there are signs of suffering on the features of the

child in the arms of the Virgin, is beyond question; and if this child

be intended for the Christ, it would not be doubtful to my mind, that,

of the two—Raphael and Holbein—the latter had given the truest aspect

and deepest reading of the early life of the Redeemer. Raphael sought to

express His power only; but Holbein His labour and sorrow.

There are two other pictures which you should remember together with

this (attributed, indeed, but with no semblance of probability, to the

elder Holbein, none of whose work, preserved at Basle, or elsewhere,

approaches in the slightest degree to their power), the St. Barbara and

St. Elizabeth.[24] I do not know among the pictures of the great sacred

schools any at once so powerful, so simple, so pathetically expressive

of the need of the heart that conceived them. Not ascetic, nor quaint,

nor feverishly or fondly passionate, nor wrapt in withdrawn solemnities

of thought. Only entirely true—entirely pure. No depth of glowing heaven

beyond them—but the clear sharp sweetness of the northern air: no

splendour of rich colour, striving to adorn them with better brightness

than of the day: a gray glory, as of moonlight without mist, dwelling on

face and fold of dress;—all faultless-fair. Creatures they are, humble

by nature, not by self-condemnation; merciful by habit, not by tearful

impulse; lofty without consciousness; gentle without weakness; wholly

in this present world, doing its work calmly; beautiful with all that

holiest life can reach—yet already freed from all that holiest death can

cast away.

FOOTNOTES

[20] As showing gigantic power of hand, joined with utmost accuracy

and rapidity, the folds of drapery under the breast of the Virgin are,

perhaps, as marvellous a piece of work as could be found in any picture,

of whatever time or master.

[21] The reader must observe that I use the word here in a limited

sense, as meaning only the effect of careful education, good society,

and refined habits of life, on average temper and character. Of deep and

true gentlemanliness—based as it is on intense sensibility and sincerity,

perfected by courage, and other qualities of race; as well as of that

union of insensibility with cunning, which is the essence of vulgarity, I

shall have to speak at length in another place.

[22] Museum of Berlin.

[23] Of 1,200 Swiss, who fought by that brookside, ten only returned. The

battle checked the attack of the French, led by Louis XI. (then Dauphin)

in 1444; and was the first of the great series of efforts and victories

which were closed at Nancy by the death of Charles of Burgundy.

[24] Pinacothek of Munich.

A Changeling.

A little changeling Spirit

Crept to my arms one day.

I had no heart or courage

To drive the child away.

So all day long I soothed her

And hushed her on my breast;

And all night long her wailing

Would never let me rest.

I dug a grave to hold her,

A grave both dark and deep:

I covered her with violets,

And laid her there to sleep.

I used to go and watch there,

Both night and morning too;

It was my tears, I fancy,

That kept the violets blue.

I took her up: and once more

I felt the clinging hold,

And heard the ceaseless wailing

That wearied me of old.

I wandered and I wandered

With my burden on my breast,

Till I saw a church door open,

And entered in to rest.

In the dim, dying daylight,

Set in a flowery shrine,

I saw the kings and shepherds

Adore a Child divine.

I knelt down there in silence;

And on the Altar-stone

I laid my wailing burden,

And came away,—alone.

And now that little Spirit

That sobbed so all day long,

Is grown a shining Angel,

With wings both wide and strong.

She watches me from heaven,

With loving, tender care,

And one day, she has promised

That I shall find her there.

A. A. P.

Lovel the Widower.

CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH I PLAY THE SPY.

[Illustration]

The room to which Bedford conducted me I hold to be the very pleasantest

chamber in all the mansion of Shrublands. To lie on that comfortable,

cool bachelor’s bed there, and see the birds hopping about on the lawn;

to peep out of the French window at early morning, inhale the sweet

air, mark the dewy bloom on the grass, listen to the little warblers

performing their chorus, step forth in your dressing-gown and slippers,

pick a strawberry from the bed, or an apricot in its season; blow one,

two, three, just half-a-dozen puffs of a cigarette, hear the venerable

towers of Putney toll the hour of six (three hours from breakfast, by

consequence), and pop back into bed again with a favourite novel, or

review, to set you off (you see I am not malicious, or I could easily

insert here the name of some twaddler against whom I have a grudgekin):

to pop back into bed again, I say, with a book which sets you off into

that dear invaluable second sleep, by which health, spirits, appetite

are so prodigiously improved:—all these I hold to be most cheerful

and harmless pleasures, and have partaken of them often at Shrublands

with a grateful heart. That heart may have had its griefs, but is yet

susceptible of enjoyment and consolation. That bosom may have been

lacerated, but is not therefore and henceforward a stranger to comfort.

After a certain affair in Dublin—nay, very soon after, three months

after—I recollect remarking to myself: “Well, thank my stars, I still

have a relish for 34 claret.” Once at Shrublands I heard steps pacing

overhead at night, and the feeble but continued wail of an infant. I

wakened from my sleep, was sulky, but turned and slept again. Biddlecombe

the barrister I knew was the occupant of the upper chamber. He came

down the next morning looking wretchedly yellow about the cheeks, and

livid round the eyes. His teething infant had kept him on the march all

night, and Mrs. Biddlecombe, I am told, scolds him frightfully besides.

He munched a shred of toast, and was off by the omnibus to chambers.

I chipped a second egg; I may have tried one or two other nice little

things on the table (Strasbourg pâté I know I never can resist, and am

convinced it is perfectly wholesome). I could see my own sweet face in

the mirror opposite, and my gills were as rosy as any broiled salmon.

“Well—well!” I thought, as the barrister disappeared on the roof of

the coach, “he has _domus_ and _placens uxor_—but is she _placens_?

_Placetne_ to walk about all night with a roaring baby? Is it pleasing to

go to bed after a long hard day’s work, and have your wife nagnagging you

because she has not been invited to the Lady Chancelloress’s _soirée_,

or what not? Suppose the Glorvina whom you loved so had been yours?

Her eyebrows looked as if they could scowl; her eyes as if they could

flash with anger. Remember what a slap she gave the little knife-boy

for upsetting the butter-boat over her tabinet. Suppose _parvulus

aulâ_, a little Batchelor, your son, who had the toothache all night

in your bedroom?” These thoughts passed rapidly through my mind as I

helped myself to the comfortable meal before me. “I say, what a lot of

muffins you’re eating!” cried innocent Master Lovel. Now the married,

the wealthy, the prosperous Biddlecombe only took his wretched scrap

of dry toast. “Aha!” you say, “this man is consoling himself after his

misfortune.” O churl! and do you grudge me consolation? “Thank you, dear

Miss Prior. Another cup, and plenty of cream, if you please.” Of course,

Lady Baker was not at table when I said, “Dear Miss Prior,” at breakfast.

Before her ladyship I was as mum as a mouse. Elizabeth found occasion

to whisper to me during the day in her demure way: “This is a very rare

occasion. Lady B. never allows me to breakfast alone with Mr. Lovel,

but has taken her extra nap, I suppose, because you and Mr. and Mrs.

Biddlecombe were here.”

[Illustration: “WHERE THE SUGAR GOES.”]

Now it may be that one of the double doors of the room which I inhabited

was occasionally open, and that Mr. Batchelor’s eyes and ears are

uncommonly quick, and note a number of things which less observant

persons would never regard or discover; but out of this room, which I

occupied for some few days, now and subsequently, I looked out as from a

little ambush upon the proceedings of the house, and got a queer little

insight into the history and characters of the personages round about

me. The two grandmothers of Lovel’s children were domineering over that

easy gentleman, as women—not grandmothers merely, but sisters, wives,

aunts, daughters, when the chance is given them—will domineer. Ah!

Glorvina, what a grey mare you might have become had you chosen Mr.

Batchelor for your consort! (But this I only remark with a parenthetic

sigh.) The two children had taken each the side of a grandmamma, and

whilst Master Pop was declared by his maternal grandmother to be a Baker

all over, and taught to despise sugar-baking and trade, little Cecilia

was Mrs. Bonnington’s favourite, repeated Watts’s hymns with fervent

precocity, declared that she would marry none but a clergyman; preached

infantine sermons to her brother and maid about worldliness; and somewhat

wearied me, if the truth must be told, by the intense self-respect with

which she regarded her own virtues. The old ladies had that love for

each other, which one may imagine that their relative positions would

engender. Over the bleeding and helpless bodies of Lovel and his worthy

and kind stepfather, Mr. Bonnington, they skirmished, and fired shots at

each other. Lady B. would give hints about second marriages, and second

families, and so forth, which of course made Mrs. Bonnington wince.

Mrs. B. had the better of Lady Baker, in consequence of the latter’s

notorious pecuniary irregularities. _She_ had never had recourse to

her son’s purse, she could thank Heaven. She was not afraid of meeting

any tradesman in Putney or London: she had never been ordered out of

the house in the late Cecilia’s lifetime: _she_ could go to Boulogne

and enjoy the _fresh air_ there. This was the terrific whip she had

over Baker. Lady B., I regret to say, in consequence of the failure

of remittances, had been locked up in prison, just at a time when she

was in a state of violent quarrel with her late daughter, and good Mr.

Bonnington had helped her out of durance. How did I know this? Bedford,

Lovel’s factotum, told me: and how the old ladies were fighting like two

cats.

There was one point on which the two ladies agreed. A very wealthy

widower, young still, good-looking and good-tempered, we know can

sometimes find a dear woman to console his loneliness, and protect

his motherless children. From the neighbouring Heath, from Wimbledon,

Roehampton, Barnes, Mortlake, Richmond, Esher, Walton, Windsor, nay,

Reading, Bath, Exeter, and Penzance itself, or from any other quarter

of Britain, over which your fancy may please to travel, families would

have come ready with dear young girls to take charge of that man’s future

happiness: but it is a fact that these two dragons kept all women off

from their ward. An unmarried woman, with decent good looks, was scarce

ever allowed to enter Shrublands gate. If such an one appeared, Lovel’s

two mothers sallied out, and crunched her hapless bones. Once or twice

he dared to dine with his neighbours, but the ladies led him such a

life that the poor creature gave up the practice, and faintly announced

his preference for home. “My dear Batch,” says he, “what do I care for

the dinners of the people round about? Has any one of them got a better

cook or better wine than mine? When I come home from business, it is an

intolerable nuisance to have to dress and go out seven or eight miles

to cold _entrées_, and loaded claret, and sweet port. I can’t stand it,

sir. I _won’t_ stand it” (and he stamps his foot in a resolute manner).

“Give me an easy life, a wine-merchant I can trust, and my own friends,

by my own fireside. Shall we have some more? We can manage another bottle

between us three, Mr. Bonnington?”

“Well,” says Mr. Bonnington, winking at the ruby goblet, “I am sure I

have no objection, Frederick, to another bo——”

“Coffee is served, sir,” cries Bedford, entering.

“Well—well, perhaps we have had enough,” says worthy Bonnington.

“We _have_ had enough; we all drink too much,” says Lovel, briskly. “Come

into coffee?”

We go to the drawing-room. Fred and I, and the two ladies, sit down to a

rubber, whilst Miss Prior plays a piece of Beethoven to a slight warbling

accompaniment from Mr. Bonnington’s handsome nose, who has fallen asleep

over the newspaper. During our play, Bessy glides out of the room—a grey

shadow. Bonnington wakens up when the tray is brought in. Lady Baker

likes that good old custom: it was always the fashion at the Castle,

and she takes a good glass of negus too; and so do we all; and the

conversation is pretty merry, and Fred Lovel hopes I shall sleep better

to-night, and is very facetious about poor Biddlecombe, and the way in

which that eminent Q.C. is henpecked by his wife.

From my bachelor’s room, then, on the ground floor; or from my solitary

walks in the garden, whence I could oversee many things in the house; or

from Bedford’s communications to me, which were very friendly, curious,

and unreserved; or from my own observation, which I promise you can see

as far into the mill-stones of life as most folks’, I grew to find the

mysteries of Shrublands no longer mysterious to me; and like another

_Diable Boiteux_, had the roofs of a pretty number of the Shrublands

rooms taken off for me.

For instance, on that very first day of my stay, whilst the family were

attiring themselves for dinner, I chanced to find two secret cupboards

of the house unlocked, and the contents unveiled to me. Pinhorn, the

children’s maid, a giddy little flirting thing in a pink ribbon, brought

some articles of the toilette into my worship’s apartment, and as she

retired did not shut the door behind her. I might have thought that

pert little head had never been made to ache by any care; but ah! black

care sits behind the horseman, as Horace remarks, and not only behind

the horseman, but behind the footman; and not only on the footman, but

on the buxom shoulders of the lady’s maid. So with Pinhorn. You surely

have remarked respecting domestic servants that they address you in a

tone utterly affected and unnatural—adopting, when they are amongst

each other, voices and gestures entirely different to those which their

employers see and hear. Now, this little Pinhorn, in her occasional

intercourse with your humble servant, had a brisk, quick, fluttering

toss of the head, and a frisky manner, no doubt capable of charming

some persons. As for me, ancillary allurements have, I own, had but

small temptations. If Venus brought me a bedroom candle, and a jug of

hot-water—I should give her sixpence, and no more. Having, you see,

given my all to one wom—— Psha! never mind _that_ old story.—Well, I

daresay this little creature may have been a flirt, but I took no more

notice of her than if she had been a coal-scuttle.

Now, suppose she _was_ a flirt. Suppose, under a mask of levity, she hid

a profound sorrow. Do you suppose she was the first woman who ever has

done so? Do you suppose because she has fifteen pounds a year, her tea,

sugar, and beer, and told fibs to her masters and mistresses, she had

not a heart? She went out of the room, absolutely coaxing and leering

at me as she departed, with a great counterpane over her arm; but in

the next apartment I heard her voice quite changed, and another changed

voice too—though not so much altered—interrogating her. My friend Dick

Bedford’s voice, in addressing those whom Fortune had pleased to make

his superiors, was gruff and brief. He seemed to be anxious to deliver

himself of his speech to you as quickly as possible; and his tone always

seemed to hint, “There—there is my message, and I have delivered it;

but you know perfectly well that I am as good as you.” And so he was,

and so I always admitted: so even the trembling, believing, flustering,

suspicious Lady Baker herself admitted, when she came into communication

with this man. I have thought of this little Dick as of Swift at Sheen

hard by, with Sir William Temple: or Spartacus when he was as yet the

servant of the fortunate Roman gentleman who owned him. Now if Dick was

intelligent, obedient, useful, only not rebellious, with his superiors, I

should fancy that amongst his equals he was by no means pleasant company,

and that most of them hated him for his arrogance, his honesty, and his

scorn of them all.

But women do not always hate a man for scorning and despising them.

Women do not revolt at the rudeness and arrogance of us their natural

superiors. Women, if properly trained, come down to heel at the master’s

bidding, and lick the hand that has been often raised to hit them. I do

not say the brave little Dick Bedford ever raised an actual hand to this

poor serving girl, but his tongue whipped her, his behaviour trampled on

her, and she cried, and came to him whenever he lifted a finger. Psha!

Don’t tell _me_. If you want a quiet, contented, orderly home, and things

comfortable about you, that is the way you must manage your women.

Well, Bedford happens to be in the next room. It is the morning-room at

Shrublands. You enter the dining-room from it, and they are in the habit

of laying out the dessert there, before taking it in for dinner. Bedford

is laying out his dessert as Pinhorn enters from my chamber, and he

begins upon her with a sarcastic sort of grunt, and a “Ho! suppose you’ve

been making up to B., have you?”

“Oh, Mr. Bedford, _you_ know very well who it is I cares for!” she says,

with a sigh.

“Bother!” Mr. B. remarks.

“Well, Richard then!” (here she weeps.)

“Leave go my ’and!—leave go my a-hand, I say!” (What _could_ she have

been doing to cause this exclamation?)

“Oh, Richard, it’s not your ’_and_ I want—it’s your ah-ah-art, Richard!”

“Mary Pinhorn,” exclaims the other, “what’s the use of going on with this

game? You know we couldn’t be a-happy together—you know your ideers ain’t

no good, Mary. It ain’t your fault. _I_ don’t blame you for it, my dear.

Some people are born clever, some are born tall: I ain’t tall.”

“Oh, you’re tall enough for me, Richard!”

Here Richard again found occasion to cry out: “_Don’t_, I say! Suppose

Baker was to come in and find you squeezing of my hand in this way? I

say, some people are born with big brains, Miss Pinhorn, and some with

big figures. Look at that ass Bulkeley, Lady B.’s man! He is as big as a

Life-guardsman, and he has no more education, nor no more ideas, than the

beef he feeds on.”

“La! Richard, whathever do you mean?”

“Pooh! How should _you_ know what I mean? Lay them books straight. Put

the volumes together, stupid! and the papers, and get the table ready for

nussery tea, and don’t go on there mopping your eyes and making a fool of

yourself, Mary Pinhorn!”

“Oh, your heart is a stone—a stone—a stone!” cries Mary, in a burst of

tears. “And I wish it was hung round my neck, and I was at the bottom of

the well, and—there’s the hupstairs bell!” with which signal I suppose

Mary disappeared, for I only heard a sort of grunt from Mr. Bedford;

then the clatter of a dish or two, the wheeling of chairs and furniture,

and then came a brief silence, which lasted until the entry of Dick’s

subordinate Buttons, who laid the table for the children’s and Miss

Prior’s tea.

So here was an old story told over again. Here was love unrequited, and

a little passionate heart wounded and unhappy. My poor little Mary! As I

am a sinner, I will give thee a crown when I go away, and not a couple

of shillings, as my wont has been. Five shillings will not console thee

much, but they will console thee a little. Thou wilt not imagine that I

bribe thee with any privy thought of evil? Away! _Ich habe genossen das

irdische Glück—ich habe—geliebt!_

At this juncture I suppose Mrs. Prior must have entered the apartment,

for though I could not hear her noiseless step, her little cracked voice

came pretty clearly to me with a “Good afternoon, Mr. Bedford! O dear me!

what a many—many years we have been acquainted. To think of the pretty

little printer’s boy who used to come to Mr. Batchelor, and see you grown

such a fine man!”

_Bedford._ “How? I’m only five foot four.”

_Mrs. P._ “But such a fine figure, Bedford! You are—now indeed you are!

Well, you are strong and I am weak. You are well, and I am weary and

faint.”

_Bedford._ “The tea’s a-coming directly, Mrs. Prior.”

_Mrs. P._ “Could you give me a glass of water first—and perhaps a

little sherry in it, please. Oh, thank you. How good it is! How it

revives a poor old wretch!—And your cough, Bedford? How is your cough?

I have brought you some lozenges for it—some of Sir Henry Halford’s own

prescribing for my dear husband, and——”

_Bedford_ (abruptly). “I must go—never mind the cough now, Mrs. P.”

_Mrs. Prior._ “What’s here? almonds and raisins, macaroons, preserved

apricots, biscuits for dessert—and—la bless the man! how you sta—artled

me!”

_Bedford._ “DONT! Mrs. Prior: I beg and implore of you, keep your ’ands

out of the dessert. I can’t stand it. I _must_ tell the governor if this

game goes on.”

_Mrs. P._ “Ah! Mr. Bedford, it is for my poor—poor child at home: the

doctor recommended her apricots. Ay, indeed, dear Bedford; he did, for

her poor chest!”

_Bedford._ “And I’m blest if you haven’t been at the sherry-bottle again!

Oh, Mrs. P., you drive me wild—you do. I can’t see Lovel put upon in this

way. You know it’s only last week I whopped the boy for stealing the

sherry, and ’twas you done it.”

_Mrs. Prior_ (passionately). “For a sick child, Bedford. What won’t a

mother do for her sick child!”

_Bedford._ “Your children’s always sick. You’re always taking things for

’em. I tell you, by the laws, I won’t and mustn’t stand it, Mrs. P.”

_Mrs. Prior_ (with much spirit). “Go and tell your master, Bedford! Go

and tell tales of me, sir. Go and have me dismissed out of this house.

Go and have my daughter dismissed out of this house, and her poor mother

brought to disgrace.”

_Bedford._ “Mrs. Prior—Mrs. Prior! you _have_ been a-taking the sherry. A

glass I don’t mind: but you’ve been a-bringing that bottle again.”

_Mrs. P._ (whimpering). “It’s for Charlotte, Bedford! my poor delicate

angel of a Shatty! she’s ordered it, indeed she is!”

_Bedford._ “Confound your Shatty! I can’t stand it, I mustn’t, and won’t,

Mrs. P!”

Here a noise and clatter of other persons arriving interrupted the

conversation between Lovel’s major-domo and the mother of the children’s

governess, and I presently heard master Pop’s voice saying, “You’re going

to tea with us, Mrs. Prior?”

_Mrs. P._ “Your kind dear grandmammas have asked me, dear Master Popham.”

_Pop._ “But you’d like to go to dinner best, wouldn’t you? I daresay you

have doocid bad dinners at your house. Haven’t you, Mrs. Prior?”

_Cissy._ “Don’t say doocid. Its a naughty word, Popham!”

_Pop._ “I _will_ say doocid. Doo-oo-oocid! There! And I’ll say worse

words too, if I please, and you hold _your_ tongue. What’s there for

tea? jam for tea? strawberries for tea? muffins for tea? That’s it:

strawberries and muffins for tea! And we’ll go into dessert besides:

that’s prime. I say, Miss Prior?”

_Miss Prior._ “What do you say, Popham?”

_Pop._ “Shouldn’t you like to go into dessert?—there’s lots of good

things there,—and have wine? Only when grandmamma tells her story

about—about my grandfather and King George the what-d’ye-call-’em: King

George the Fourth——”

_Cis._ “Ascended the throne 1820; died at Windsor 1830.”

_Pop._ “Bother Windsor! Well, when she tells that story, I can tell you

_that_ ain’t very good fun.”

_Cis._ “And it’s rude of you to speak in that way of your grandmamma,

Pop!”

_Pop._ “And you’ll hold _your_ tongue, Miss! And I shall speak as I like.

And I’m a man, and I don’t want any of your stuff and nonsense. I say,

Mary, give us the marmalade!”

_Cis._ “You have had plenty to eat, and boys oughtn’t to have so much.”

_Pop._ “Boys may have what they like. Boys can eat twice as much as

women. There, I don’t want any more. Anybody may have the rest.”

_Mrs. Prior._ “What nice marmalade! I know some children, my dears, who——”

_Miss P._ (imploringly). “Mamma, I beseech you——”

_Mrs. P._ “I know three dear children who very—very seldom have nice

marmalade and delicious cake.”

_Pop._ “I know whom you mean: you mean Augustus, and Frederick, and

Fanny—your children? Well, they shall have marmalade and cake.”

_Cis._ “Oh, yes, I will give them all mine.”

_Pop._ (who speaks, I think, as if his mouth was full). “I won’t give

’em mine: but they can have another pot, you know. You have always got a

basket with you; you know you have, Mrs. Prior. You had it the day you

took the cold fowl.”

_Mrs. P._ “For the poor blind black man! Oh, how thankful he was to his

dear young benefactors! He is a man and a brother, and to help him was

most kind of you, dear Master Popham!”

_Pop._ “That black beggar my brother? He ain’t my brother!”

_Mrs. P._ “No, dears, you have both the most lovely complexions in the

world.”

_Pop._ “Bother complexions! I say, Mary, another pot of marmalade.”

_Mary._ “I don’t know, Master Pop——”

_Pop._ “I _will_ have it, I say. If you don’t, I’ll smash everything, I

will.”

_Cis._ “Oh, you naughty, rude boy!”

_Pop._ “Hold your tongue, stupid! I will have it, I say.”

_Mrs. P._ “Do humour him, Mary, please. And I’m sure my dear children at

home will be better for it.”

_Pop._ “There’s your basket. Now put this cake in, and this bit of

butter, and this sugar on the top of the butter. Hurray! hurray! Oh, what

jolly fun! Here’s some cake—no, I think I’ll keep that; and, Mrs. Prior,

tell Gus, and Fanny, and Fred, I sent it to ’em, and they shall never

want for anything, as long as Frederick Popham Baker Lovel, Esquire, can

give it them. Did Gus like my gray greatcoat that I didn’t want?”

_Miss P._ “You did not give him your new greatcoat?”

_Pop._ “It was beastly ugly, and I did give it him; and I’ll give him

this if I choose. And don’t you speak to me; I’m going to school, and I

ain’t going to have no governesses soon.”

_Mrs. Prior._ “Ah, dear child! what a nice coat it is; and how well my

poor boy looks in it!”

_Miss Prior._ “Mother, mother! I implore you—mother!”

_Mr. Lovel enters._ “So the children at high tea! How d’ye do, Mrs.

Prior? I think we shall be able to manage that little matter for your

second boy, Mrs. Prior.”

_Mrs. Prior._ “Heaven bless you,—bless you, my dear, kind benefactor!

Don’t prevent me, Elizabeth: I _must_ kiss his hand. There!”

And here the second bell rings, and I enter the morning-room, and can see

Mrs. Prior’s great basket popped cunningly under the table-cloth. Her

basket?—her _porte-manteau_, her _porte-bouteille_, her _porte-gâteau_,

her _porte-pantalon_, her _porte-butin_ in general. Thus I could see

that every day Mrs. Prior visited Shrublands she gleaned greedily of the

harvest. Well, Boaz was rich, and this ruthless Ruth was hungry and poor.

At the welcome summons of the second bell, Mr. and Mrs. Bonnington also

made their appearance; the latter in the new cap which Mrs. Prior had

admired, and which she saluted with a nod of smiling recognition: “Dear

madam, it _is_ lovely—I told you it was,” whispers Mrs. P., and the

wearer of the blue ribbons turned her bonny, good-natured face towards

the looking-glass, and I hope saw no reason to doubt Mrs. Prior’s

sincerity. As for Bonnington, I could perceive that he had been taking a

little nap before dinner,—a practice by which the appetite is improved, I

think, and the intellect prepared for the bland prandial conversation.

“Have the children been quite good?” asks papa, of the governess.

“There are worse children, sir,” says Miss Prior, meekly.

“Make haste and have your dinner; we are coming into dessert!” cries Pop.

“You would not have us go to dine without your grandmother?” papa asks.

Dine without Lady Baker, indeed! I should have liked to see him go to

dinner without Lady Baker.

Pending her ladyship’s arrival, papa and Mr. Bonnington walk to the open

window, and gaze on the lawn and the towers of Putney rising over the

wall.

“Ah, my good Mrs. Prior,” cries Mrs. Bonnington, “those grandchildren of

mine are sadly spoiled.”

“Not by _you_, dear madam,” says Mrs. Prior, with a look of

commiseration. “Your dear children at home are, I am sure, perfect models

of goodness. Is Master Edward well, ma’am? and Master Robert, and Master

Richard, and dear, funny little Master William? Ah, what blessings those

children are to you! If a certain wilful little nephew of theirs took

after them!”

“The little naughty wretch!” cried Mrs. Bonnington; “do you know, Prior,

my grandson Frederick—(I don’t know why they call him Popham in this

house, or why he should be ashamed of his father’s name)—do you know that

Popham spilt the ink over my dear husband’s bands, which he keeps in his

great dictionary, and fought with my Richard, who is three years older

than Popham, and actually beat his own uncle!”

“Gracious goodness!” I cried; “you don’t mean to say, ma’am, that Pop has

been laying violent hands upon his venerable relative?” I feel ever so

gentle a pull at my coat. Was it Miss Prior who warned me not to indulge

in the sarcastic method with good Mrs. Bonnington?

“I don’t know why you call my poor child a venerable relative,” Mrs.

B. remarks. “I know that Popham was very rude to him; and then Robert

came to his brother, and that graceless little Popham took a stick,

and my husband came out, and do you know Popham Lovel actually kicked

Mr. Bonnington on the shins, and butted him like a little naughty ram;

and if you think such conduct is a subject for ridicule—I _don’t_, Mr.

Batchelor!”

“My dear—dear lady!” I cried, seizing her hand; for she was going to

cry, and in woman’s eye the unanswerable tear always raises a deuce of a

commotion in my mind. “I would not for the world say a word that should

willingly vex you; and as for Popham, I give you my honour, I think

nothing would do that child so much good as a good whipping.”

“He is spoiled, madam; we know by _whom_,” says Mrs. Prior. “Dear Lady

Baker! how that red does become your ladyship.” In fact, Lady B. sailed

in at this juncture, arrayed in ribbons of scarlet; with many brooches,

bangles, and other gimcracks ornamenting her plenteous person. And now

her ladyship having arrived, Bedford announced that dinner was served,

and Lovel gave his mother-in-law an arm, whilst I offered mine to Mrs.

Bonnington to lead her to the adjoining dining-room. And the pacable kind

soul speedily made peace with me. And we ate and drank of Lovel’s best.

And Lady Baker told us her celebrated anecdote of George the Fourth’s

compliment to her late dear husband, Sir George, when his Majesty visited

Ireland. Mrs. Prior and her basket were gone when we repaired to the

drawing-room: having been hunting all day, the hungry mother had returned

with her prey to her wide-mouthed birdikins. Elizabeth looked very pale

and handsome, reading at her lamp. And whist and the little tray finished

the second day at Shrublands.

I paced the moonlit walk alone when the family had gone to rest; and

smoked my cigar under the tranquil stars. I had been some thirty hours

in the house, and what a queer little drama was unfolding itself before

me! What struggles and passions were going on here—what _certamina_ and

_motus animorum_! Here was Lovel, this willing horse; and what a crowd

of relations, what a heap of luggage had the honest fellow to carry!

How that little Mrs. Prior was working, and scheming, and tacking, and

flattering, and fawning, and plundering, to be sure! And that serene

Elizabeth, with what consummate skill, art, and prudence, had she to act,

to keep her place with two such rivals reigning over her. And Elizabeth

not only kept her place, but she actually was liked by those two women!

Why, Elizabeth Prior, my wonder and respect for thee increase with every

hour during which I contemplate thy character! How is it that you live

with those lionesses, and are not torn to pieces? What sops of flattery

do you cast to them to appease them? Perhaps I do not think my Elizabeth

brings up her two children very well, and, indeed, have seldom become

acquainted with young people more odious. But is the fault hers, or

is it Fortune’s spite? How, with these two grandmothers spoiling the

children alternately, can the governess do better than she does? How

has she managed to lull their natural jealousy? I will work out that

intricate problem, that I will, ere many days are over. And there are

other mysteries which I perceive. There is poor Mary breaking her heart

for the butler. That butler, why does he connive at the rogueries of Mrs.

Prior? Ha! herein lies a mystery, too; and I vow I will penetrate it ere

long. So saying, I fling away the butt-end of the fragrant companion

of my solitude, and enter into my room by the open French window just

as Bedford walks in at the door. I had heard the voice of that worthy

domestic warbling a grave melody from his pantry window as I paced the

lawn. When the family goes to rest, Bedford passes a couple of hours

in study in his pantry, perusing the newspapers and the new works, and

forming his opinion on books and politics. Indeed I have reason to

believe that the letters in the _Putney Herald_ and _Mortlake Monitor_,

signed “A Voice from the Basement,” were Mr. Bedford’s composition.

“Come to see all safe for the night, sir, and the windows closed before

you turn in,” Mr. Dick remarks. “Best not leave ’em open, even if you

are asleep inside—catch cold—many bad people about. Remember Bromley

murder!—Enter at French windows—you cry out—cut your throat—and there’s a

fine paragraph for papers next morning!”

“What a good voice you have, Bedford,” I say; “I heard you warbling just

now—a famous bass, on my word!”

“Always fond of music—sing when I’m cleaning my plate—learned in Old Beak

Street. _She_ used to teach me,” and he points towards the upper floors.

“What a little chap you were then!—when you came for my proofs for the

_Museum_,” I remark.

“I ain’t a very big one now, sir; but it ain’t the big ones that do the

best work,” remarks the butler.

“I remember Miss Prior saying that you were as old as she was.”

“Hm! and I scarce came up to her—eh—elbow.” (Bedford had constantly to do

battle with the aspirates. He conquered them, but you could see there was

a struggle.)

“And it was Miss Prior taught you to sing?” I say, looking him full in

the face.

He dropped his eyes—he could not bear my scrutiny. I knew the whole story

now.

“When Mrs. Lovel died at Naples, Miss Prior brought home the children,

and you acted as courier to the whole party?”

“Yes, sir,” says Bedford. “We had the carriage, and of course poor Mrs.

L. was sent home by sea, and I brought home the young ones, and—and

the rest of the family. I could say, _Avanti! avanti!_ to the Italian

postilions, and ask for _des chevaux_ when we crossed the Halps—the

Alps,—I beg your pardon, sir.”

“And you used to see the party to their rooms at the inns, and call them

up in the morning, and you had a blunderbuss in the rumble to shoot the

robbers?”

“Yes,” says Bedford.

“And it was a pleasant time?”

“Yes,” says Bedford, groaning, and hanging down his miserable head. “Oh,

yes, it was a pleasant time.”

He turned away; he stamped his foot; he gave a sort of imprecation; he

pretended to look at some books, and dust them with a napkin which he

carried. I saw the matter at once. “Poor Dick!” says I.

“It’s the old—old story,” says Dick. “It’s you and the Hirish girl over

again, sir. I’m only a servant, I know; but I’m a——. Confound it!” And

here he stuck his fists into his eyes.

“And this is the reason you allow old Mrs. Prior to steal the sherry and

the sugar?” I ask.

“How do you know that?—you remember how she prigged in Beak Street?” asks

Bedford, fiercely.

“I overheard you and her just before dinner,” I said.

“You had better go and tell Lovel—have me turned out of the house. That’s

the best thing that can be done,” cries Bedford again, fiercely, stamping

his feet.

“It is always my custom to do as much mischief as I possibly can, Dick

Bedford,” I say, with fine irony.

He seizes my hand. “No, you’re a trump—everybody knows that; beg pardon,

sir; but you see I’m so—so—dash!—miserable, that I hardly know whether

I’m walking on my head or my heels.”

“You haven’t succeeded in touching her heart, then, my poor Dick?” I said.

Dick shook his head. “She has no heart,” he said. “If she ever had any,

that fellar in India took it away with him. She don’t care for anybody

alive. She likes me as well as any one. I think she appreciates me, you

see, sir; she can’t ’elp it—I’m blest if she can. She knows I am a

better man than most of the chaps that come down here,—I am, if I wasn’t

a servant. If I were only an apothecary—like that grinning jackass who

comes here from Barnes in his gig, and wants to marry her—she’d have me.

She keeps him on, and encourages him—she can do that cleverly enough. And

the old dragon fancies she is fond of him. Psha! Why am I making a fool

of myself?—I am only a servant. Mary’s good enough for me; _she’ll_ have

me fast enough. I beg your pardon, sir; I am making a fool of myself;

I ain’t the first, sir. Good-night, sir; hope you’ll sleep well.” And

Dick departs to his pantry and his private cares, and I think, “Here

is another victim who is writhing under the merciless arrows of the

universal torturer.”

“He is a very singular person,” Miss Prior remarked to me, as, next

day, I happened to be walking on Putney Heath by her side, while her

young charges trotted on and quarrelled in the distance. “I wonder where

the world will stop next, dear Mr. Batchelor, and how far the march of

intellect will proceed! Any one so free, and easy, and cool, as this Mr.

Bedford I never saw. When we were abroad with poor Mrs. Lovel, he picked

up French and Italian in quite a surprising way. He takes books down from

the library now: the most abstruse works—works that _I_ couldn’t pretend

to read, I’m sure. Mr. Bonnington says he has taught himself history, and

Horace in Latin, and algebra, and I don’t know what besides. He talked

to the servants and tradespeople at Naples much better than _I_ could,

I assure you.” And Elizabeth tosses up her head heavenwards, as if she

would ask of yonder skies how such a man could possibly be as good as

herself.

She stepped along the Heath—slim, stately, healthy, tall—her firm, neat

foot treading swiftly over the grass. She wore her blue spectacles,

but I think she could have looked at the sun without the glasses and

without wincing. That sun was playing with her tawny, wavy ringlets, and

scattering gold-dust over them.

“It is wonderful,” said I, admiring her, “how these people give

themselves airs, and try to imitate their betters!”

“Most extraordinary!” says Bessy. She had not one particle of humour

in all her composition. I think Dick Bedford was right; and she had no

heart. Well, she had famous lungs, health, appetite, and with these one

may get through life not uncomfortably.

“You and Saint Cecilia got on pretty well, Bessy?” I ask.

“Saint who?”

“The late Mrs. L.”

“Oh, Mrs. Lovel:—yes. What an odd person you are! I did not understand

whom you meant,” says Elizabeth the downright.

“Not a good temper, I should think? She and Fred fought?”

“_He_ never fought.”

“I think a little bird has told me that she was not averse to the

admiration of our sex?”

“I don’t speak ill of my friends, Mr. Batchelor!” replies Elizabeth the

prudent.

“You must have difficult work with the two old ladies at Shrublands?”

Bessy shrugs her shoulders. “A little management is necessary in all

families,” she says. “The ladies are naturally a little jealous one of

the other; but they are both of them not unkind to me in the main; and

I have to bear no more than other women in my situation. It was not all

pleasure at Saint Boniface, Mr. Batchelor, with my uncle and aunt. I

suppose all governesses have their difficulties; and I must get over mine

as best I can, and be thankful for the liberal salary which your kindness

procured for me, and which enables me to help my poor mother and my

brothers and sisters.”

“I suppose you give all your money to her?”

“Nearly all. They must have it; poor mamma has so many mouths to feed.”

“And _notre petit cœur_, Bessy?” I ask, looking in her fresh face. “Have

we replaced the Indian officer?”

Another shrug of the shoulder. “I suppose we all get over those follies,

Mr. Batchelor. I remember somebody else was in a sad way too,”—and she

looks askance at the victim of Glorvina. “_My_ folly is dead and buried

long ago. I have to work so hard for mamma, and my brothers and sisters,

that I have no time for such nonsense.”

Here a gentleman in a natty gig, with a high-trotting horse, came

spanking towards us over the common, and with my profound knowledge of

human nature, I saw at once that the servant by the driver’s side was

a little doctor’s boy, and the gentleman himself was a neat and trim

general practitioner.

He stared at me grimly, as he made a bow to Miss Bessy. I saw jealousy

and suspicion in his aspect.

“Thank you, dear Mr. Drencher,” says Bessy, “for your kindness to mamma

and our children. You are going to call at Shrublands? Lady Baker was

indisposed this morning. She says when she can’t have Dr. Piper, there’s

nobody like you.” And this artful one smiles blandly on Mr. Drencher.

“I have got the workhouse, and a case at Roehampton, and I shall be at

Shrublands _about two_, Miss Prior,” says that young doctor, whom Bedford

had called a grinning jackass. He laid an eager emphasis on the _two_. Go

to! I know what two and two mean as well as most people, Mr. Drencher!

Glances of rage, he shot at me from out his gig. The serpents of that

miserable Æsculapius unwound themselves from his rod, and were gnawing at

his swollen heart!

“He has a good practice, Mr. Drencher?” I ask, sly rogue as I am.

“He is very good to mamma and our children. His practice with _them_ does

not profit him much,” says Bessy.

“And I suppose our walk will be over before two o’clock?” remarks that

slyboots who is walking with Miss Prior.

“I hope so. Why, it is our dinner-time; and this walk on the Heath does

make one so hungry!” cries the governess.

“Bessy Prior,” I said, “it is my belief that you no more want spectacles

than a cat in the twilight.” To which she replied, that I was such a

strange, odd man, she really could not understand me.

We were back at Shrublands at two. Of course we must not keep the

children’s dinner waiting: and of course Mr. Drencher drove up at five

minutes past two, with his gig-horse all in a lather. I who knew the

secrets of the house was amused to see the furious glances which Bedford

darted from the sideboard, or as he served the doctor with cutlets.

Drencher, for his part, scowled at me. I, for my part, was easy, witty,

pleasant, and I trust profoundly wicked and malicious. I bragged about

my aristocratic friends to Lady Baker. I trumped her old-world stories

about George the Fourth at Dublin with the latest dandified intelligence

I had learned at the club. That the young doctor should be dazzled and

disgusted was, I own, my wish; and I enjoyed his rage as I saw him

choking with jealousy over his victuals.

But why was Lady Baker sulky with me? How came it, my fashionable stories

had no effect upon that polite matron? Yesterday at dinner she had been

gracious enough: and turning her back upon those poor simple Bonningtons,

who knew nothing of the _beau monde_ at all, had condescended to address

herself specially to me several times with an “I need not tell _you_, Mr.

Batchelor, that the Duchess of Dorsetshire’s maiden name was De Bobus;”

or, “You know very well that the etiquette at the Lord Lieutenant’s

balls, at Dublin Castle, is for the wives of baronets to—” &c. &c.

Now whence, I say, did it arise that Lady Baker, who had been kind and

familiar with me on Sunday, should on Monday turn me a shoulder as cold

as that lamb which I offered to carve for the family, and which remained

from yesterday’s quarter? I had thought of staying but two days at

Shrublands. I generally am bored at country-houses. I was going away on

the Monday morning, but Lovel, when he and I and the children and Miss

Prior breakfasted together before he went to business, pressed me to stay

so heartily and sincerely that I agreed, gladly enough, to remain. I

could finish a scene or two of my tragedy at my leisure; besides, there

were one or two little comedies going on in the house which inspired me

with no little curiosity.

Lady Baker growled at me, then, during lunch-time. She addressed herself

in whispers and hints to Mr. Drencher. She had in her own man Bulkeley,

and bullied him. She desired to know whether she was to have the barouche

or not: and when informed that it was at her ladyship’s service, said

it was a great deal too cold for the open carriage, and that she would

have the brougham. When she was told that Mr. and Mrs. Bonnington had

impounded the brougham, she said she had no idea of people taking other

people’s carriages: and when Mr. Bedford remarked that her ladyship had

her choice that morning, and had chosen the barouche, she said, “I

didn’t speak to you, sir; and I will thank you not to address me until

you are spoken to!” She made the place so hot that I began to wish I had

quitted it.

“And pray, Miss Prior, where is Captain Baker to sleep,” she asked, “now

that the ground-floor room is engaged?”

Miss Prior meekly said, “Captain Baker would have the pink room.”

“The room on my landing-place, without double doors? Impossible! Clarence

is always smoking. Clarence will fill the whole house with his smoke.

He shall _not_ sleep in the pink room. I expected the ground-floor room

for him, which—a—this gentleman persists in not vacating.” And the dear

creature looked me full in the face.

“This gentleman smokes, too, and is so comfortable where he is, that he

proposes to remain there,” I say, with a bland smile.

“Haspic of plovers’ eggs, sir,” says Bedford, handing a dish over my

back. And he actually gave me a little dig, and growled, “Go it—give it

her.”

“There is a capital inn on the Heath,” I continue, peeling one of my opal

favourites. “If Captain Baker must smoke, he may have a room there.”

“Sir! my son does not live at inns,” cries Lady Baker.

“Oh, grandma! Don’t he though? And wasn’t there a row at the Star and

Garter; and didn’t Pa pay uncle Clarence’s bill there, though?”

“Silence, Popham. Little boys should be seen and not heard,” says Cissy.

“Shouldn’t little boys be seen and not heard, Miss Prior?”

“They shouldn’t insult their grandmothers. O my Cecilia—my Cecilia!”

cries Lady Baker, lifting her hand.

“You shan’t hit me! I say, you shan’t hit me!” roars Pop, starting back,

and beginning to square at his enraged ancestress. The scene was growing

painful. And there was that rascal of a Bedford choking with suppressed

laughter at the sideboard. Bulkeley, her ladyship’s man, stood calm as

fate; but young Buttons burst out in a guffaw; on which, I assure you,

Lady Baker looked as savage as Lady Macbeth.

“Am I to be insulted by my daughter’s servants?” cries Lady Baker. “I

will leave the house this instant.”

“At what hour will your ladyship have the barouche?” says Bedford, with

perfect gravity.

If Mr. Drencher had whipped out a lancet and bled Lady B. on the spot,

he would have done her good. I shall draw the curtain over this sad—this

humiliating scene. Drop, little curtain! on this absurd little act.

The National Gallery Difficulty Solved.

Just half a century ago, the pictures now in the Dulwich Gallery were

offered to the Government as the commencement of a National Gallery, by

Sir Francis Bourgeois, who had been a soldier, but became a painter, and

was subsequently elected Royal Academician. He inherited these pictures,

which Stanislaus, king of Poland, had purposed to form the nucleus of

a national collection in that country. But the Government refused the

proffered gift. The thoughts of England were then turned not to pictures,

but in very different directions. The little four-paged broad-sheets of

_The Times_ brought their morning news of the victories of Wellington

in Spain and Napoleon’s invasion of Russia; of war declared against

England by America; of the Prime Minister’s assassination in the House of

Commons; of bread riots, when corn was not to be bought until landlords

had secured their eighty shillings a quarter; of the insanity of George

the Third and the regency of his unpopular son. There was no inclination

in such times to think of National Galleries of Art.

After ten years of peace, with Napoleon at St. Helena, Peterloo riots

suppressed, and Thistlewood hanged, George the Fourth was making his

investments in Dutch paintings, Goutier cabinets and Sèvres porcelain,

and the government (Sir Charles Long says), prompted by the king, induced

the House of Commons, in 1824, to vote fifty-seven thousand pounds for

the purchase of thirty-eight pictures collected by Mr. Angerstein, the

banker. Thus began our National Collection of Pictures. These were shown

to the public in a small, dingy, ill-lighted house on the south side of

Pall Mall, until 1833, when it was proposed to erect a special building

for them. The site chosen was in Trafalgar Square, on which had stood

the “King’s Mews,” where, from the days of the Plantagenets, the royal

falcons had been kept and “mewed” or moulted their feathers. In our own

time, Mr. Cross’s lions and wild beasts from Exeter ’Change have been

lodged there; there, also, the first exhibitions of machinery were held,

and the public records were eaten by rats in these “Mews,” which were

pulled down to make way for the present National Gallery.

From its first conception to the present time, no building has ever been

a more lively subject for public criticism than this unlucky National

Gallery. Poor Mr. Wilkins, the architect, was sorely perplexed with

conditions. The building was not to intercept the view of St. Martin’s

portico; it must not infringe on the barrack space in the rear; the

public must have one right of way through it, and the Guards another;

the old columns of Carlton House were to be used up; and true faith in

architecture insisted on having porticos, dome, and cupolas; moreover,

the building, by no means too large for a National Gallery, was to be

shared with the Royal Academy. With such instructions, Mr. Wilkins

prepared his plans and estimates. The building was to cost 50,000_l._,

but no architect is to be bound by his estimate; and judging from late

instances, the public got well out of this job in having to pay only

76,867_l._

The structure was scarcely occupied before it was discovered to be much

too small. The National Gallery had no space to display its additional

purchases and bequests, and the Royal Academy found itself obliged to

close its schools of art whenever its annual exhibition was open. For

these inconveniences parliaments and governments have been for nearly

twenty years trying to find a remedy. In 1848, Lord John Russell, Sir

Robert Peel, Mr. Hume, and others, forming _one_ House of Commons

Committee, “after careful deliberation, unanimously concurred in the

opinion” that the present National Gallery should be enlarged and

improved. In 1850, Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Hume, and

others, constituting _another_ Commons Committee, reported that they

could not “recommend that any expenditure should be at present incurred

for the purpose of increasing the accommodation of a National Gallery on

the present site,” and “were not prepared to state that the preservation

of the pictures and convenient access for the purpose of study and

improvement of taste would not be better secured in a gallery farther

removed from the smoke and dust of London.”

The result of this recommendation was to instigate architects and

_dilettanti_ to bore an ungrateful public, year after year, with

different solutions of the vexed question. A few specimens of them may be

amusing. One suggestion was to put a third story on the top of the Greek

porticos and columns of the British Museum, and invite the public to

climb a hundred stairs to get to the picture gallery; another was to pull

down Burlington House, which Sir William Chambers characterizes as “one

of the finest pieces of architecture in Europe,” and turn out the Royal

Society. The “ring” in Hyde Park, and the inner circle of the Regent’s

Park, were in turn recommended as eligible sites for a picture gallery;

it was proposed to convert Marlborough House and St James’s Palace into a

great National Gallery; also to pull down Kensington Palace—a favourite

idea with _The Times_ and “H. B.” My Lord Elcho proposed to build on the

site of the Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park, and the Duke of Somerset,

when First Commissioner of Works, caused one plan to be prepared for

appropriating a part of Kensington Gardens in the Bayswater Road, and a

second for erecting a building opposite the Kensington Road. Finally, the

House of Commons voted 167,000_l._, and the Prince Consort added to that

sum the surplus of the Exhibition of 1851, with which was bought the land

opposite and outside Hyde Park, at Kensington Gore,—a site the government

had previously commenced negotiations for with the same object, and

failed to secure. The House of Commons, however, rejected the plan for

removing the National Gallery to this site; and the present conclusion

seems to be that the pictures will remain where they are.

Is it possible to render the structure in Trafalgar Square suitable for

a National Picture Gallery? And, if so, how is this desirable object to

be effected? We submit, for the consideration of our readers, a very

practical answer to these questions.

But first, let us take a view of the extent of the national possessions

in pictures. Since the nation acquired the thirty-eight pictures of Mr.

Angerstein, its possessions have increased above twenty-five fold: and

they would probably have been even much larger, had suitable arrangements

been made to exhibit them. To Sir George Beaumont, the Rev. Holwell

Carr, Mr. Coningham, and others, the nation is indebted for many fine

pictures of the older masters; whilst to Sir John Soane, Mr. Vernon, Mr.

Jacob Bell, and Mr. Sheepshanks the country owes its numerous and choice

selection of the works of British artists. The collection of his own

paintings and drawings bequeathed by the great landscape painter, J. M.

W. Turner, would fill a gallery of itself; and in a few years, Chantrey’s

bequest of 2,000_l._ a year to buy modern works will come into operation.

It would be a misappropriation of these artistic treasures to accumulate

them all in one gallery, fatiguing the visitor with acres of painted

canvas. As national possessions, it would be out of all reason that the

metropolis alone should monopolize the enjoyment of them. Since the

formation of the National Gallery, the State has aided in the erection

of picture-galleries in Dublin and Edinburgh. Even if the principle of

centralization were admitted, it would be impossible to find any centre

of London equally accessible to its three millions of inhabitants. In the

abstract, _the_ central spot would be Smithfield; but no one would be

bold enough to say that the public would frequent that spot in greater

numbers than they do Trafalgar Square.

The wise and liberal course of dealing with the national pictures would

be to render them as useful as possible _to the whole of the United

Kingdom_; to retain in the metropolis a selection, and to circulate the

others wherever localities shall provide suitable accommodation for

the reception and exhibition of pictures. It would be more useful and

interesting that there should be a change of pictures in the provincial

localities than fixed collections.[25] The idea of circulation is not

new. The public, of its own accord, brings together exhibitions of

modern pictures every year in the large towns; and choice works of the

old masters, lent by their possessors, and sent from mansions in all

parts of the kingdom, are every year entrusted to the managers of the

British Institution in Pall Mall. There could be no real administrative

difficulties in the State’s dealing with the national pictures in the

same way. Of course, legislative powers to remove antiquated obstructions

must be obtained, and a proper authority, directly responsible to

Parliament, instead of being screened through different Boards of

Trustees, would have to be created.