best mode of learning--the surest, and the shortest. And hence, perhaps,
it may be, that in the middle ages by the monkish word _scholaris_ was
meant indifferently he that learned and he that taught. Never in any
equal number of months had my understanding so much expanded as during
this visit to Laxton. The incessant demand made upon me by Lady Carbery
for solutions of the many difficulties besetting the study of divinity
and the Greek Testament, or for such approximations to solutions as my
resources would furnish, forced me into a preternatural tension of all
the faculties applicable to that purpose. Lady Carbery insisted upon
calling me her "Admirable Crichton;" and it was in vain that I demurred
to this honorary title upon two grounds: first, as being one towards
which I had no natural aptitudes or predisposing advantages; secondly
(which made her stare), as carrying with it no real or enviable
distinction. The splendor supposed to be connected with the attainments
of Crichton I protested against, as altogether imaginary. How far that
person really had the accomplishments ascribed to him, I waived as a
question not worth investigating. My objection commenced at an earlier
point: real or not real, the accomplishments were, as I insisted, vulgar
and trivial. Vulgar, that is, when put forward as exponents or
adequate expressions of intellectual grandeur. The whole rested on a
misconception; the limitary idea of knowledge was confounded with the
infinite idea of power. To have a quickness in copying or mimicking
other men, and in learning to do dexterously what _they_ did
clumsily,--ostentatiously to keep glittering before men's eyes a
thaumaturgic versatility such as that of a rope-dancer, or of an Indian
juggler, in petty accomplishments,--was a mode of the very vulgarest
ambition: one effort of productive power,--a little book, for instance,
which should impress or should agitate several successive generations of
men, even though far below the higher efforts of human creative art--as,
for example, the "De Imitatione Christi," or "The Pilgrim's Progress,"
or" Robinson Crusoe," or "The Vicar of Wakefield,"--was worth any
conceivable amount of attainments when rated as an evidence of anything
that could justly denominate a man "admirable." One felicitous ballad
of forty lines might have enthroned Crichton as really admirable, whilst
the pretensions actually put forward on his behalf simply install him
as a cleverish or dexterous ape. However, as Lady Carbery did not forego
her purpose of causing me to shine under every angle, it would have been
ungrateful in me to refuse my cooperation with her plans, however little
they might wear a face of promise. Accordingly I surrendered myself for
two hours daily to the lessons in horsemanship of a principal groom who
ranked as a first-rate rough-rider; and I gathered manifold experiences
amongst the horses--so different from the wild, hard-mouthed horses at
Westport, that were often vicious, and sometimes trained to vice. Here,
though spirited, the horses were pretty generally gentle, and all had
been regularly broke. My education was not entirely neglected even as
regarded sportsmanship; that great branch of philosophy being confided
to one of the keepers, who was very attentive to me, in deference to
the interest in myself expressed by his idolized mistress, but otherwise
regarded me probably as an object of mysterious curiosity rather than of
sublunary hope.
Equally, in fact, as regarded my physics and my metaphysics,--in short,
upon all lines of advance that interested my ambition,--I was going
rapidly ahead. And, speaking seriously, in what regarded my intellectual
expansion, never before or since had I been so distinctly made aware
of it. No longer did it seem to move upon the hour-hand, whose advance,
though certain, is yet a pure matter of inference, but upon the
seconds'-hand, which _visibly_ comes on at a trotting pace. Everything
prospered, except my own present happiness, and the possibility of any
happiness for some years to come. About two months after leaving
Laxton, my fate in the worst shape I had anticipated was solemnly and
definitively settled. My guardians agreed that the most prudent course,
with a view to my pecuniary interests, was to place me at the Manchester
Grammar School; not with a view to further improvement in my classical
knowledge, though the head-master was a sound scholar, but simply with
a view to one of the school _exhibitions_. [Footnote:
"_Exhibitions_."--This is the technical name in many cases,
corresponding to the _bursæ_ or _bursaries_ of the continent; from which
word bursæ is derived, I believe, the German term _Bursch_,--that is, a
bursarius, or student, who lives at college upon the salary allowed
by such a bursary. Some years ago the editor of a Glasgow daily paper
called upon Oxford and Cambridge, with a patronizing flourish, to
imitate some one or more of the Scottish universities in founding such
systems of aliment for poor students otherwise excluded from academic
advantages. Evidently he was unaware that they had existed for centuries
before the state of civilization in Scotland had allowed any opening
for the foundation of colleges or academic life. Scottish bursaries, or
exhibitions (a term which Shakspeare uses, very near the close of the
first act in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," as the technical expression
in England), were few, and not generally, I believe, exceeding ten
pounds a-year. The English were many, and of more ancient standing, and
running from forty pounds to one hundred pounds a-year. Such was the
simple difference between the two countries: otherwise they agreed
altogether.] Amongst the countless establishments, scattered all over
England by the noble munificence of English men and English women in
past generations, for connecting the provincial towns with the two royal
universities of the land, this Manchester school was one; in addition to
other great local advantages (namely, _inter alia_, a fine old library
and an ecclesiastical foundation, which in this present generation has
furnished the materials for a bishopric of Manchester, with its deanery
and chapter), this noble foundation secured a number of exhibitions
at Brasenose College, Oxford, to those pupils of the school who should
study at Manchester for three consecutive years. The pecuniary amount
of these exhibitions has since then increased considerably through the
accumulation of funds, which the commercial character of that great
city had caused to be neglected. At that time, I believe each exhibition
yielded about forty guineas a-year, and was legally tenable for seven
successive years. Now, to me this would have offered a most seasonable
advantage, had it been resorted to some two years earlier. My small
patrimonial inheritance gave to me, as it did to each of my four
brothers, exactly one hundred and fifty pounds a-year: and to each of my
sisters exactly one hundred pounds a-year. The Manchester exhibition of
forty guineas a-year would have raised this income for seven years to a
sum close upon two hundred pounds a-year. But at present I was half-way
on the road to the completion of my sixteenth year. Commencing my period
of pupilage from that time, I should not have finished it until I had
travelled half-way through my nineteenth year. And the specific evil
that already weighed upon me with a sickening oppression was the
premature expansion of my mind; and, as a foremost consequence,
intolerance of boyish society. I ought to have entered upon my
_triennium_ of school-boy servitude at the age of thirteen. As things
were,--a delay with which I had nothing to do myself,--this and the
native character of my mind had thrown the whole arrangement awry. For
the better half of the three years I endured it patiently. But it had at
length begun to eat more corrosively into my peace of mind than ever I
had anticipated. The head-master was substantially superannuated for the
duties of his place. Not that intellectually he showed any symptoms of
decay: but in the spirits and physical energies requisite for his duties
he did: not so much age, as disease, it was that incapacitated him. In
the course of a long day, beginning at seven A. M. and stretching down
to five P. M., he succeeded in reaching the further end of his duties.
But how? Simply by consolidating pretty nearly into one continuous scene
of labor the entire ten hours. The full hour of relaxation which the
traditions of this ancient school and the by-laws had consecrated to
breakfast was narrowed into ten, or even seven minutes. The two hours'
interval, in like manner prescribed by the old usages from twelve to two
P. M., was pared down to forty minutes, or less. In this way he walked
conscientiously through the services of the day, fulfilling to the
letter every section the minutest of the traditional rubric. But he
purchased this consummation at the price of all comfort to himself: and,
having done _that_, he felt himself the more entitled to neglect
the comfort of others. The case was singular: he neither showed any
indulgence to himself more than to others (which, however, could do
nothing towards indemnifying others for the severe confinement which his
physical decay inflicted upon them--a point wholly forgotten by him);
nor, secondly, in thus tenaciously holding on to his place did he (I am
satisfied) govern himself by any mercenary thought or wish, but simply
by an austere sense of duty. He discharged his public functions with
constant fidelity, and with superfluity of learning; and felt, perhaps
not unreasonably, that possibly the same learning united with the
same zeal might not revolve as a matter of course in the event of his
resigning the place. I hide from myself no part of the honorable motives
which might (and probably _did_) exclusively govern him in adhering to
the place. But not by one atom the less did the grievous results of his
inability to grapple with his duties weigh upon all within his sphere,
and upon myself, by cutting up the time available for exercise, most
ruinously.
Precisely at the worst crisis of this intolerable darkness (for such,
without exaggeration, it was in its effects upon my spirits) arose, and
for five or six months steadily continued, a consolation of that nature
which hardly in dreams I could have anticipated. For even in dreams
would it have seemed reasonable, or natural, that Laxton, with its
entire society, should transfer itself to Manchester? Some mighty
caliph, or lamp-bearing Aladdin, might have worked such marvels: but
else who, or by what machinery? Nevertheless, without either caliph or
Aladdin, and by the most natural of mere human agencies, this change was
suddenly accomplished.
Mr. White, whom I have already had occasion to mention elsewhere, was in
those days the most eminent surgeon by much in the north of England.
He had by one whole generation run before the phrenologists and
craniologists,--having already measured innumerable skulls amongst the
omnigenous seafaring population of Liverpool, illustrating all the races
of men,--and was in society a most urbane and pleasant companion. On my
mother's suggestion, he had been summoned to Laxton, in the hope that he
might mitigate the torments of Mrs. Schreiber's malady. If I am right
in supposing that to have been cancer, I presume that he could not have
added much to the prescriptions of the local doctor. And yet, on the
other hand, it is a fact--so slowly did new views travel in those days,
when scientific journals were few, and roads were heavy--that ten years
later than this period I knew a case, namely, the case of a butcher's
wife in Somersetshire who had never enjoyed the benefit of hemlock in
relieving the pangs of a cancerous complaint, until an accident brought
Mr. Hey, son to the celebrated Hey of Leeds, into the poor woman's
neighborhood.
What might be the quality or the extent of that relief with which Mr.
White was able to crown the expectations of poor Mrs. Schreiber, I do
not know; but that the relief could not have been imaginary is certain,
for he was earnestly invited to repeat his visits, costly as unavoidably
they were. Mrs. Schreiber did not reside at Laxton. Tenderly as she
loved Lady Carbery, it did not seem consistent with her dignity that she
should take a station that might have been grossly misinterpreted;
and accordingly she bought or hired a miniature kind of villa, called
_Tixover_, distant about four miles from Laxton. A residence in such a
house, so sad and silent at this period of affliction for its mistress,
would have offered too cheerless a life to Mr. White. He took up his
abode, therefore, at Laxton during his earliest visit; and this happened
to coincide with that particular visit of my own during which I was
initiating Lady Carbery into the mysteries of New Testament Greek.
Already as an infant I had known Mr. White; but now, when daily riding
over to Tixover in company, and daily meeting at breakfast and dinner,
we became intimate. Greatly I profited by this intimacy; and some part
of my pleasure in the Laxton plan of migration to Manchester was drawn
from the prospect of renewing it. Such a migration was suggested by Mr.
White himself; and fortunately he _could_ suggest it without even the
appearance of any mercenary views. His interest lay the other way. The
large special retainer, which it was felt but reasonable to pay him
under circumstances so peculiar, naturally disturbed Mr. White; whilst
the benefits of visits so discontinuous became more and more doubtful.
He proposed it, therefore, as a measure of prudence, that Mrs. Schreiber
should take up her abode in Manchester. This counsel was adopted; and
the entire Laxton party in one week struck their Northamptonshire tents,
dived, as it were, into momentary darkness, by a loitering journey of
stages, short and few, out of consideration for the invalid, and rose
again in the gloomy streets of Manchester.
Gloomy they were at that time--mud below, smoke above--for no torch of
improvement had yet explored the ancient habitations of this Lancashire
capital. Elsewhere I have expressed the inexhaustible admiration which
I cherish for the _moral_ qualities, the unrivalled energy and
perseverance, of that native Lancashire population, as yet not much
alloyed with Celtic adulteration. My feelings towards them are the same
as were eloquently and impressively avowed by the late eminent Dr. Cooke
Taylor, after an _official_ inquiry into their situation. But in
those days the Manchester people realized the aspiration of the noble
Scythian; not the place it was that glorified _them_, but they that
glorified the place. No great city (which technically it then was
not, but simply a town or large village) could present so repulsive an
exterior as the Manchester of that day. Lodgings of _any_ sort could
with difficulty be obtained, and at last only by breaking up the party.
The poor suffering lady, with her two friends, Lady Carbery and my
mother, hired one house, Lord and Lady Massey another, and two others
were occupied by attendants--all the servants, except one lady's-maid,
being every night separated by a quarter of a mile from their
mistresses. To me, however, all these discomforts were scarcely apparent
in the prodigious revolution for the better which was now impressed upon
the tenor of my daily life. I lived in the house of the head-master;
but every night I had leave to adjourn for four or five hours to the
drawing-room of Lady Carbery. Her anxiety about Mrs. Schreiber would
not allow of her going abroad into society, unless upon the rarest
occasions. And I, on my part, was too happy in her conversation--so
bold, so novel, and so earnest--voluntarily to have missed any one hour
of it.
Here, by the way, let me mention that on this occasion arose a case of
pretended "_tuft-hunting_," which I, who stood by a silent observer,
could not but feel to involve a malicious calumny. Naturally it happened
that coroneted carriages, superb horses, and numerous servants, in a
town so unostentatious and homely as the Manchester of that day, drew
the public gaze, and effectually advertised the visit of the Laxton
ladies. Respect for the motive which had prompted this visit coöperated
with admiration for the distinguished personal qualities of Lady
Carbery, to draw upon her from several leading families in the town such
little services and attentions as pass naturally, under a spontaneous
law of courtesy, between those who are at home and those who suffer
under the disadvantages of _strangership_. The Manchester people, who
made friendly advances to Lady Carbery, did so, I am persuaded, with
no ulterior objects whatsoever of pressing into the circle of an
aristocratic person; neither did Lady Carbery herself interpret their
attentions in any such ungenerous spirit, but accepted them cordially,
as those expressions of disinterested goodness which I am persuaded that
in reality they were. Amongst the families that were thus attentive to
her, in throwing open for her use various local advantages of baths,
libraries, picture-galleries, etc., were the wife and daughters of Mr.
White himself. Now, one of these daughters was herself the wife of a
baronet, Sir Richard Clayton, who had honorably distinguished himself
in literature by translating and _improving_ the work of Tenhove the
Dutchman (or Belgian?) upon the house of the _De' Medici_--a work which
Mr. Roscoe considered "the most engaging work that has, perhaps, ever
appeared on a subject of literary history." Introduced as Lady Clayton
had been amongst the elite of our aristocracy, it could not be supposed
that she would be at all solicitous about an introduction to the wife
of an Irish nobleman, simply _as_ such, and apart from her personal
endowments. Those endowments, it is true,--namely, the beauty and the
talents of Lady Carbery, made known in Manchester through Mr. White's
report of them, and combined with the knowledge of her generous devotion
to her dying friend, secluding her steadily from all society through a
period of very many months,--did, and reasonably might, interest many
Manchester people on her behalf. In all this there was nothing to be
ashamed of; and, judging from what personally I witnessed, this seems to
have been the true nature and extent of the "tuft-hunting;" and I
have noticed it at all simply because there is a habit almost national
growing up amongst us of imputing to each other some mode of unmanly
prostration before the aristocracy, but with as little foundation for
the charge generally, I believe, as I am satisfied there was in this
particular instance.
Mr. White possessed a museum--formed chiefly by himself, and originally,
perhaps, directed simply to professional objects, such as would have
little chance for engaging the attention of females. But surgeons and
speculative physicians, beyond all other classes of intellectual men,
cultivate the most enlarged and liberal curiosity; so that Mr. White's
museum furnished attractions to an unusually large variety of tastes.
I had myself already seen it; and it struck me that Mr. White would be
gratified if Lady Carbery would herself ask to see it; which accordingly
she did; and thus at once removed the painful feeling that he might be
extorting from her an expression of interest in his collection which she
did not really feel.
Amongst the objects which gave a scientific interest to the collection,
naturally I have forgotten one and all--first, midst, and last; for this
is one of the cases in which we all felicitate ourselves upon the art
and gift of forgetting; that art which the great Athenian [Footnote:
"The great Athenian"--Themistocles.] noticed as amongst the _desiderata_
of human life--that gift which, if in some rare cases it belongs only
to the regal prerogatives of the grave, fortunately in many thousands of
other cases is accorded by the treachery of a human brain. Heavens! what
a curse it were, if every chaos, which is stamped upon the mind by fairs
such as that London fair of St. Bartholomew in years long past, or by
the records of battles and skirmishes through the monotonous pages
of history, or by the catalogues of libraries stretching over a dozen
measured miles, could not be erased, but arrayed itself in endless files
incapable of obliteration, as often as the eyes of our human memory
happened to throw back their gaze in that direction! Heaven be praised,
I have forgotten everything; all the earthly trophies of skill or
curious research; even the ærolithes, that might possibly _not_ be
earthly, but presents from some superior planet. Nothing survives,
except the _humanities_ of the collection; and amongst these, two only
I will molest the reader by noticing. One of the two was a _mummy;_ the
other was a _skeleton_. I, that had previously seen the museum, warned
Lady Carbery of both; but much it mortified us that only the skeleton
was shown. Perhaps the mummy was too closely connected with the personal
history of Mr. White for exhibition to strangers; it was that of a lady
who had been attended medically for some years by Mr. White, and had
owed much alleviation of her sufferings to his inventive skill. She had,
therefore, felt herself called upon to memorialize her gratitude by a
very large bequest--not less (I have heard) than twenty-five thousand
pounds; but with this condition annexed to the gift--that she should be
embalmed as perfectly as the resources in that art of London and Paris
could accomplish, and that once a year Mr. White, accompanied by two
witnesses of credit, should withdraw the veil from her face. The lady
was placed in a common English clock-case, having the usual glass face;
but a veil of white velvet obscured from all profane eyes the silent
features behind. The clock I had myself seen, when a child, and had
gazed upon it with inexpressible awe. But, naturally, on my report of
the case, the whole of our party were devoured by a curiosity to see the
departed fair one. Had Mr. White, indeed, furnished us with the key of
the museum, leaving us to our own discretion, but restricting us only
(like a cruel Bluebeard) from looking into any ante-room, great is my
fear that the perfidious question would have arisen amongst us--what
o'clock it was? and all possible ante-rooms would have given way to the
just fury of our passions. I submitted to Lady Carbery, as a liberty
which might be excused by the torrid extremity of our thirst after
knowledge, that she (as our leader) should throw out some angling
question moving in the line of our desires; upon which hint Mr. White,
if he had any touch of indulgence to human infirmity--unless Mount
Caucasus were his mother, and a she-wolf his nurse--would surely relent,
and act as his conscience must suggest. But Lady Carbery reminded me
of the three Calendars in the "Arabian Nights," and argued that, as the
ladies of Bagdad were justified in calling upon a body of porters to
kick those gentlemen into the street, being people who had abused the
indulgences of hospitality, much more might Mr. White do so with us; for
the Calendars were the children of kings (Shahzades), which we were not;
and had found their curiosity far more furiously irritated; in fact,
Zobeide had no right to trifle with any man's curiosity in that
ferocious extent; and a counter right arose, as any chancery of human
nature would have ruled, to demand a solution of what had been so
maliciously arranged towards an anguish of insupportable temptation.
Thus, however, it happened that the mummy, who left such valuable
legacies, and founded such bilious fevers of curiosity, was not seen by
us; nor even the miserable clock-case.