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[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER
VOL. XX.—NO. 1014.] JUNE 3, 1899. [PRICE ONE PENNY.]
ERE THE HARVEST TIME.
BY CHRISTIAN BURKE.
[Illustration: “UNDERNEATH THE SUMMER SUN.”]
_All rights reserved._]
All the earth lies hushed and silent,
Underneath the summer sun,
Gardens blush with later roses,
In the pleasant orchard closes
Fruits are ripening one by one.
Cool between its fringing grasses,
Drowsily the river flows,
Singing, but the sudden hushes,
Not as in the spring it rushes,
Widened by the melting snows.
Full-leafed trees scarce lift their branches,
Voiceless all the feathered band;
Fledglings faltering flights are trying,
Ere the moment comes for flying
To some far-off foreign land.
Gone the thrill and stir of Springtide—
Ere the year had reached its prime,
Nature laboured without measure,
Now she dreams in golden leisure—
Resting until harvest time.
THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.
BY ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object
in Life,” etc.
CHAPTER X.
“WHERE IS TRUTH?”
Jessie appeared. It was marvellous to note how the traces of her recent
outbreak had nearly disappeared. She looked almost her old decorous
self, save for a slight tearfulness and quivering of the lips, the
result of some conversation which had been passing between her and Miss
Latimer downstairs.
She and her cousin looked at each other. Jessie’s eyes might fall,
shamed, before Lucy, but they met the other woman’s boldly, almost with
a scowl.
“Come, Jessie,” said the woman, in a wheedling tone, “I’m sorry to hear
what’s happened; and she says you’re to come away with me at once.”
Jessie took no notice of her, but turned to Mrs. Challoner.
“Well, m’m,” she said, “I beg your pardon for anything that’s
happened. I’ve often wondered what you thought o’ me speaking so much
o’ the master, an’ me never set eyes on him. But ’twas because I was
a-thinkin’ o’ you, an’ a-prayin’ you may never know what it is to be a
widow-woman. I’d have kep’ all right if I’d got into such a place as
this when Alick was took—that I do believe—but there I was, set down
with those grumpy old people, with never a pleasant word; and there
wasn’t any comfort to be had but just a sip of what they was always
a-sippin’ themselves. An’ it was worse when the old lady was left
alone.”
“And yet the minister and the lawyer thought so well of you, Jessie,”
said Lucy, with grave reproach.
“I was all right so far as the lawyer ever knew,” Jessie answered. “An’
as for the minister, he sipped his drappie too, an’ he never saw me the
waur o’ mine, which is mair than I can say o’ him.”
“Hush, Jessie,” said Mrs. Challoner. “But how could you do your duty to
your aged mistress if you got into such a state as you were yesterday?”
“I never did that till I went to live with that woman there,” she
answered, turning on the cousin with ill-repressed fury. “When they
asked me up to London they knew I’d got my nice little legacy. She
wouldn’t have let her husband invite me but for that!” she interpolated
bitterly. “And they didn’t want me to go till it was all spent, at
least she didn’t!” she said, with an acrimonious emphasis on the
feminine pronoun. “And she used to treat me plentiful, an’ me just
pinin’ with loneliness and homesickness; and then when my money was
gone there I was, an’ she run me into debt, and turned up here and
bullied my first month’s wages out of me, an’ when you came down on
Christmas Eve, like an angel, and put my next month’s wages into my
hand, thinks I to myself, somebody’ll turn up to-morrow and get it all
away, an’ I thought I’d just run out and buy myself something in case
I got a cold, or was too low to get well through my cooking, and then
somehow that picture that hangs on the kitchen wall (‘The Empty Chair,’
m’m, it’s called) was just too much for my spirits, and I took a drop
and lost my reckoning, and there it was! Oh, m’m, may you never know
what it is to be a poor widow-woman!”
How much was merely maudlin, or how much was the incoherent cry of a
weak soul that had lost itself in loneliness and neglect, Lucy could
not decide. It was possibly less the woman’s words than the chord of
Lucy’s own life which they reached, that brought tears to Lucy’s eyes.
“I’m not asking you to give me another trial, m’m,” went on the
miserable creature, in a tone which yet had something of a forlorn hope
in it.
Lucy could not answer, but her head gave a half-involuntary shake.
“I’m not asking you to give me another trial, m’m,” she repeated. “It’s
not for the likes o’ you. I see well enough what your life’s got to be,
and you’ve quite enough to do for yourself and the dear little master.”
“Oh, Mrs. Morison,” cried Lucy earnestly, “won’t you make an effort to
put this evil thing away? Though you must go out of this house, I will
do all I can to help you. I will try to get you into a Home, where they
will take care of you and help you to do right.”
Mrs. Morison did not answer at once. Perhaps a good impulse and an
evil habit contended within her. The habit conquered, as alas! a habit
generally does.
“I don’t need to go into a Home,” she said, with a soft stubbornness.
“I’ve just got to make up my mind to keep right. I don’t believe in
Homes. I’ve been, in a way, my own mistress all my life, being so much
trusted. If I take myself in hand, that’ll do.”
But what a big “if” that was! And what weakened will can ever raise
itself effectually, save by its first effort placing it in the good
grasp of a stronger will? Yet Lucy could urge no more. She could only
remind Mrs. Morison that if she really meant to keep her word and to
struggle on in honest sobriety, Lucy would stand her friend, so far
as she could, in truth and uprightness, would even recommend her as a
worker to any whose circumstances and sense of duty might incline them
to extend another chance to her, after hearing of her failing and its
possible recurrence.
Mrs. Morison thanked Lucy for so much “kindness.” But, even as she did
so, Lucy felt sadly sure that it would never be claimed. Then Mrs.
Morison said “good-bye,” and she and her cousin went away together. It
had been arranged that her boxes should be sent after her by a carrier.
Despite the acerbity the widow had shown towards her relative, and
despite the fact that one or the other of the pair had been telling
grievous untruths of the other, Lucy saw that they went down the street
laying their heads together in mutual confidences as if nothing had
come between them.
She turned from the window, so weary and disheartened that she felt
as if she had been beaten, body and soul. It was her first close
experience of the baffling contest with natures lacking all bottom of
truth and principle—natures like bogs, greened over with sentiment
and seeming, luring us to trust our foot upon them only to plunge us
in depression and defilement. It seemed to Lucy as if the fruitless
arguments and pleas of the last hour had taken more energy out of her
than even the long strain of yesterday. She did not yet realise that
where the nerves are concerned the whole of the back bill is always
added on to each fresh item.
As Lucy turned from the window she felt something at her feet. Stooping
in the twilight, she picked up the bright little ball, which Jessie
Morison had brought in for Hugh on Christmas Eve!
It was but a trifle, yet it finally overcame the weary lady. Oh, the
pity of it! Oh, the waste of poor human nature that still had so many
good qualities in it! Oh, the awful mixture of good and evil, of
selfishness and kindliness. Talk of the good in evil, and the evil in
good—as if there was some compensation in that weird mingling—why, it
is this very mingling which tries our fortitude and faith more than
anything else, and God sees more of this mingling than any human eye
can see. And God can bear it because He is God and is all goodness,
and knows the end. We can but lean our staggering strength against His
everlasting arm, assured that it can gather up what mortal powers must
drop.
Miss Latimer came into the parlour presently and found Lucy sitting in
the gathering darkness. The old governess was a wise little woman, and
instead of lighting the gas, she stirred the fire into a ruddy, dancing
blaze. Then she called Hugh, and sent him in “to talk to mamma.”
By-and-by she reappeared again, with the tea-tray and a delicious smell
of toast.
That recalled Lucy to her duties. She sprang up, protesting against
Miss Latimer having gone to work by herself, and she lit the gas and
closed the curtains. They had a cosy little meal, at which, for Hugh’s
sake, not a word was said of the recent domestic catastrophe.
When his mother took him off to bed, and heard him—though not without
a significant pondering pause—join “Mrs. Morison’s” name in his prayer
“for papa and mamma,” she remembered all Charlie had said to her, and
felt that the child’s simple affection in its ignorance and blindness
may reflect the heart of God more clearly than ours, blurred with
inevitable criticisms and repulsions.
When she had kissed him and was leaving the room, he called her back.
“Mamma!”
She turned at once, but he paused a moment. The child’s sensitive
nature had realised the moral atmosphere about him sufficiently to feel
that storms were there.
“Mamma!” again. Then in a whisper, “Will Mrs. Morison come back
to-morrow?”
“No, my dear.”
“Mamma, will she ever come back?”
“I do not know, dear. I fear not. If she gets better I think she will.”
“Is she ill, mamma?”
“Yes, dear; her soul is very ill. We must be very sorry for her.”
When she returned to the parlour Miss Latimer was sitting there. She
had taken a sock from Lucy’s work-basket and was darning it.
“Can you stay with me to-night, dear friend?” asked Mrs. Challoner.
“Yes,” she said; “to-night and to-morrow night. Then I shall have to go
home.”
There was no need for inquiry why. Miss Latimer was virtually retired
as a governess; but her tiny income sorely needed a supplement. She
secured this by reading aloud for two hours every morning to a blind
lady, whose house was not far from her lodgings, though a long way from
the Challoners’. The Christmas holidays, which had brought relatives to
visit her blind patroness, had set her free for three days.
“It is terribly hard that the few holidays of your industrious life
should be wasted as these have been,” remarked Lucy.
Miss Latimer laughed. She was a quaint little body, with a flashing of
energy about her which imparted something youthful to her sixty years.
“As it was bound to happen at all, my dear,” she said, “I am glad
it happened in my holidays, so that I have been free to be a little
helpful. Make the most of me while you have me. What step are you going
to take next?”
“My first step,” answered Lucy, a hard note sounding in her voice, “is
to destroy the last pages of my letter to Charlie. I had not brought
‘Mrs. Morison’ into it till Christmas Eve, so I can let it stand as it
is up to that date. I see that I ended my instalment of the 22nd by
writing that ‘Miss Latimer, Mr. Somerset, and Tom Black are to spend
Christmas with me, and we shall all talk about you and send you our
best wishes.’ This just comes to the very end of a page, so I shall
put in half a sheet without a date with just my last messages. I will
leave Christmas as in the future, where it was when I wrote that. What
a mockery it is to read what I wrote on Christmas Eve!” She covered it
over hastily, tore the sheet into tiny fragments, and dropped them into
the fire.
“Is this the first letter you are sending to your husband?” asked Miss
Latimer, to give a turn to Lucy’s bitter thoughts.
“My first letter—yes,” Lucy answered, “because Captain Grant was not
quite sure where the ship would touch. But to every port where she may
call I have sent postcards just assuring him of our well-being. Then,
if he can call for those, he goes on with an easy mind, and if he
can’t, why, there is really nothing lost.”
“You have not heard from him yet?” inquired the old lady.
“No,” said Lucy, “not yet. Charlie said he should keep a letter always
in progress, and despatch it home whenever that was possible. I begin
to look for one every morning now.”
They sat in silence for a while, then Lucy said abruptly—
“That poor woman! Her words haunt me! Perhaps, if she had not been left
a widow, she would now be a respected and worthy member of society.”
Miss Latimer looked up surprised. Lucy, who was gazing into the fire,
did not catch the expression, but went on—
“Did you have much talk with her? She came up from the kitchen crying.
You had made an impression on her. But what will rouse her will? To-day
she seemed to have no will—only wilfulness. And it was so awful to have
to speak to a woman with white hair as I was obliged to speak to her—a
woman who has been through trials and sorrows of which I know nothing.”
“I had some conversation with her,” said Miss Latimer. “She was
inclined to be confidential. But what makes you think that, if her
husband had lived, she would not have been as she is?”
“Because she said she got into the bad habit through living in
loneliness and dulness with people who were inclined to be topers
themselves,” answered Lucy. “One can understand how the temptation
could come, and how gradually one might slide down too deeply at last
to readily recover one’s footing.”
Miss Latimer looked puzzled and hesitated.
“But, my dear,” she said, “she told me that she first took to drinking
because her husband was such a terrible drunkard and ill-used her so
cruelly. She said to me, ‘Ah, m’m, you single ladies don’t know what
misery is, and mustn’t be hard on them that do!’ Then she said she
had kept straight for years because she lived with miserly old folks,
who never had liquor in their house, and who lived two miles from any
licensed premises. She said she thought she’d got such a mastery over
herself that she might venture to take “a little support” through her
Christmas cooking, but that the old craving came and re-enslaved her
before she was aware.”
The two friends’ eyes met, and they looked at each other with the
deprecatory, half-alarmed, half-shamed expression which always comes on
honest faces at any new discovery of human duplicity.
“What is true? What is false?” wailed Lucy. “It seems to me that she
adapted her stories to what she thought would best reach and touch
you or me. True, sometimes the same story sounds differently when
differently told and differently repeated. But I cannot see how these
two versions can have the same original. This awful falseness, Miss
Latimer, is even worse than the drunkenness.”
“My dear,” said the old lady, “it is the moral quagmire from which the
drunkenness springs, and, therefore, is ‘worse’ just as a quagmire is
‘worse’ than any coarse weed which springs from it—being bound to bear
such weeds, if not of one type, then of another.”
“It seems to me as if she was all dramatic impersonation,” Lucy
observed; “and still one cannot help loving and yearning over the
cheerful-faced working-woman seated knitting before her kitchen fire
with her dead husband’s lover-gift of a Bible lying on the dresser
behind her.”
Miss Latimer looked at Lucy.
“Just now,” she said, “I found that Bible; it was in the dustpan, with
a good many leaves roughly torn out.”
“She must have done that while she was—not herself,” said Lucy.
“No,” Miss Latimer persisted, “it was lying on the dresser all right
this morning long after she knew perfectly well what she was doing. It
must have been done about noon to-day.”
“But why should she do that?” urged Lucy. “Whatever is amiss with
her now, and whatever may be the truth of her history, why should
she suddenly and wantonly destroy something which she has evidently
cherished for so many years?”
Miss Latimer shook her head.
“My dear,” she answered, “I begin to suspect that this poor Bible may
have been but one of the ‘properties’ belonging to what you aptly
call her ‘dramatic impersonation’ of the respectable, faithful widow.
I would not be at all surprised if she picked it up at a second-hand
bookstall, and matched her story to its names and dates. Don’t think
me cynical. As a governess, I have lived in many houses, and have come
across some strange adventurers. How do we know that her name was ever
Jessie Milne, or that she was really a Mrs. Morison?”
“There were her credentials from Edinburgh,” explained Lucy; and then
she told Miss Latimer all about the lawyer’s letter and the minister’s
testimonial.
Miss Latimer sat and pondered.
“I may be wrong,” she said, “I may be carrying my suspicions too far.
We are all apt to do that when all firm ground of confidence is taken
from our feet. But, my dear Lucy, you should have never taken her in
on the strength of written characters of however fair seeming.”
“But how unjust that would be!” pleaded Lucy. “It would mean that if
a woman left the neighbourhood where she had worked, or if employers
themselves left it, then she would not be able to get another place.”
“No, no, Lucy,” explained the old lady, “there is a difference. A
personal interview between past and future employers is always best,
because, apart from the easiness with which questions are asked and
answered, it has an environment which tells a tale of itself. But it
is quite true that this cannot always be. Then the new mistress should
always address herself directly to the people willing to give ‘the
character.’ Even that leaves some opening for chicanery; but it is
small indeed compared with that which attends ready-made certificates.
You yourself should have written to the doctor and the lawyer.”
“I did not like the idea of the written character,” said Lucy, in
self-excuse. “I think I might have hesitated to take it from a supposed
former mistress. But these were professional men; they might not have
cared to be troubled with letters of inquiry in such matters; and then,
too, when she left Scotland, she had not thought of going at once in
quest of a situation. I assure you those letters seemed to be the
productions of educated men, and the paper they were on was stamped
with the lawyer’s address and with the name of the minister’s manse.”
“As I tell you, my dear, I may be going too far,” said Miss Latimer;
“but I assure you my experience in other cases justifies it. Do you
remember the addresses given?”
“No, I do not,” answered poor Lucy, who began to feel that she had
been woefully unwary. “And oh, if you had only seen how nice this Mrs.
Morison looked among all those other women, I’m sure you too would
have felt ready to trust her! How can one understand such people, who
know so well what ought to be, and who have it in them to simulate it
so perfectly when it suits them for a time, but who keep their other
nature all the same, always ready to spring to the front? How are we
to realise which is really they? Is it possible that they themselves
are not quite sure? Why, I really thought that the only fault to be
detected in Mrs. Morison was just a touch of self-satisfaction, a
little turning of the Pharisee’s nose returning thanks for superiority
over others.”
Miss Latimer shook her head.
“Ah, my dear,” she said, “you are diving deep into the abysses of
human nature. The questions you ask may be also put concerning very
different people from this poor woman. Perhaps such questions might be
asked, in a degree, concerning all of us—at least, until we begin to
put them to ourselves and to know all that is meant by God’s desiring
‘truth in the inward parts.’ Mrs. Morison tells lies. She is, according
to my belief, a very deliberate and skilful deceiver; but far be it
from me to say that her hypocrisies may not reveal what was once her
ideal—ay, and that, in some vague way, she may still mean to live up to
it—only foredoomed to failure because she begins with false pretences.
My dear, we talk about criminals and weak and fallen people of all
sorts as ‘having our common human nature’; but, talk as we may, we
rarely realise it. The temptations they have are so different that this
difference blinds us to the truth that their thoughts and feelings
and failures are made of the same stuff as our own. Mrs. Morison is
a deceiver of others; but it is quite possible that she is also a
self-deceiver.”
“I cannot see what interest such a capable woman could have in taking
trouble to lay deliberate plots of deception to get into such a place,
and then taking no more trouble to keep up the deception, and so losing
it in two months,” said Lucy. “What has she made by it? She has done
lots of work, and has earned less than three pounds.”
“There it is!” cried Miss Latimer. “You must remember we are looking
at it from what you have believed and from what has happened. From
all that transpires of the cousin’s lack of truthfulness, it is quite
likely that Mrs. Morison had not been out of a place for many days when
you took her. We will, for convenience’ sake, grant that the Edinburgh
story is true; then if she gets another place to-morrow (as with her
appearance she easily may) she will simply tell the same story she told
you, and will ignore her experience of your place as if it had never
been. And it is quite likely she will go to the new place—as it is
likely she came to you—believing that she means to turn over a new leaf
and to be what she seems. In the meantime we must leave off talking
about her and consider what you are to do next. You must get another
servant as soon as possible. You cannot be without help in this house,
apart from the engagements that begin with the New Year.”
“I won’t go back to that registry office,” said Lucy stoutly. “Shall I
advertise?”
Miss Latimer mused.
(_To be continued._)
THOMAS ARNE.
(THE ENGLISH AMPHION.)
“Where Covent Garden’s famous temple stands,
That boasts the work of Jones’ immortal hands,
Columns with plain magnificence appear,
And graceful porches lead along the square.”
_Gay._
[Illustration: COVENT GARDEN IN 1660.]
Come with me for a walk in Covent Garden, you, my country reader, who
know not the London of to-day; and you, my friend of the great city,
who know not the London of yesterday.
As we pass through the crowded Strand we are so jostled by
foot-passengers, and so deafened by the noise of vehicles, passing and
repassing, that intercourse between us is impossible, but this quiet
by-street will quickly lead us to our destination, and soon we shall
find ourselves in front of the famous market.
A low, rambling building fills up the centre space, which is surrounded
on three sides by houses. Here, in the very small hours of the morning,
the crowds are as dense and the business is as brisk as in the Strand
which we have just left behind us, but during the daytime there is
little life or bustle about the market. The fruits, vegetables and
flowers, which began to arrive at midnight, are already scattered to
the four quarters of the great city, and only a few loiterers stand
about at the street corners, or employ themselves in desultory fashion
in clearing up the refuse.
But you and I are not dependent on market gardeners:
“There is a flower which bloometh
When autumn’s leaves are cast,
Oh, pluck it ere it wither,
’Tis the memory of the past!”
This flower is to be found at all times and seasons in Covent Garden.
It clings round every stone like the ivy on a ruined tower.
In a street hard by the great musician, Thomas Augustine Arne, was
born; in the square, on which the market now stands, he played football
and cricket with the companions of his boyhood; here, as a young man,
he walked and dreamed; here he married, here he died, and here, in the
church yonder, he sleeps the last long sleep.
[Illustration: DR. T. ARNE.]
It is always interesting to note the environment of a great man, and
Arne’s environment was exceptionally rich in historic associations.
He was born in the reign of Queen Anne—the Augustan age of English
literature—and Covent Garden was the cradle of the wit and learning of
his time.
Let us now continue our walk, and, as we look round us, we will picture
to ourselves this scene as it was some two hundred years ago.
To our left lies the Church of St. Paul’s. It turns its back to us,
but, as if to make up for any seeming unfriendliness, it carries
its portico on its back. This church was designed by Inigo Jones in
1631, by command of the Duke of Bedford, who—the story goes—told the
architect that he wanted a chapel for the parishioners of Covent
Garden, but that he was not minded to expend much money upon it. “In
short,” his Grace is reported to have said, “I would have it not much
better than a barn.”
“Very well,” answered Inigo; “you shall have the handsomest barn in
England.”
The church accordingly was built, and the “noble Tuscan portico,” which
is said to be exactly like one described by the Italian architect
Vitruvius, was erected in Covent Garden—nobody remembering that the
entrance could not possibly be there, as the altar occupies the eastern
extremity of every church.
Passing through the “sham portico”—as it was contemptuously called by
Horace Walpole—we come to the northern side of the square and find
a long row of red-brick houses built over a colonnade so broad and
lofty that we pause in wonder. The handsome groined roof is supported
on massive stone pillars, now disfigured with paint and compo. The
pavement is dirty and ill-kept, and the shops, thus sumptuously
sheltered, are of the dingiest description. At the end of the colonnade
the stone pillars have been replaced by iron ones, and behind these is
the large foreign fruit market.
This colonnade is called the Piazza, and it, too, was designed as long
ago as 1633 by Inigo Jones. Probably the fact that the architect took
the model of his church from Vitruvius will account for the Italian
name given to the square, a name which struck Byron as so remarkable,
that he wrote—
“bating Covent Garden, I can hit on
No place that’s called Piazza in Great Britain.”
To realise the aim of Inigo Jones in building this place, we must
picture the scene as it was in his day.
There was no market, and the great square was a free open space, neatly
gravelled, and admirably kept in order. It was bounded on the south
side by the garden of Bedford House, outside the wall of which a grove
of trees, “most pleasant in the summer season,” gave grateful shade to
a few market-women who sat there selling fruit and vegetables. Jones’s
Piazza was built round the north and east sides of the square, and the
colonnade thus constructed formed the fashionable promenade of the
ladies and gentlemen who lived in the surrounding houses. Some years
later a handsome column, surmounted by a sun-dial, was erected in the
middle of the open space, and on the black marble steps at its base, we
are told that “cleanly matrons” used to sit and dispense barley broth
and porridge to their customers.
At the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth
centuries the houses in the Piazza were occupied by persons of high
position and considerable wealth. Among these were several celebrated
painters, such as Sir Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey Kneller. Lely’s real
name was Van der Faes, but his grandfather being a perfumer, whose sign
was the lily, Sir Peter’s father, on becoming an officer, discarded the
family name, adopting instead that of Lely, which his son was destined
to make famous. Sir Peter became a great favourite at the English
Court; he died in 1680, and was buried by torchlight in the Church of
St. Paul’s, which faced his dwelling.
The next year Sir Godfrey Kneller came into the Piazza, and here he
lived for twenty-four years. He had a wonderful garden behind his
house, and cultivated the rarest and most beautiful flowers.
In 1717, the beautiful and witty Lady Mary Wortley Montague was living
in the Piazza. She had been christened at St. Paul’s in 1689.
Close by the church, in the corner house, lived the Earl of Orford,
better known as the great Admiral Russell, who defeated the French
off La Hogue. His ship was called the _Britannia_, and from its beams
he made the staircase of his house, which had—and, I believe, still
has—wonderful carvings of ropes and anchors, the whole being surmounted
by the coronet and initials of the house of Orford. Here he was living
in 1710, and on his left, three houses further up in the Piazza,
was the painter Closterman, whose beautiful portrait of Purcell was
reproduced for readers of THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER in the last December
number.
To the right of Admiral Russell’s house was King Street; in fact this
house, which has since been re-built, is now numbered 43, King Street.
Our illustrations shows Covent Garden as it was in 1660; that is, fifty
years previous to the time now under discussion. Lord Orford’s house
had then not been built, and the so-called Little Piazza, a column of
which appears in the foreground to the left, was not completed. But
the church is there and a portion of the Great Piazza, in the corner
to the right. The gabled houses just beyond the Piazza are in King
Street, then, as now, a business street. No. 38, which we know as
Stevens’ Auction Rooms—a great place for buying bulbs at certain times
of year—was long occupied by Paterson, the celebrated book auctioneer,
whose son, Samuel, was the godson of Dr. Johnson. In Paterson’s rooms
the literary men of the day used to meet; there Dibdin wrote some of
his finest songs, and there the walls have often echoed to the applause
which followed his singing of “Poor Jack.”
Four doors further down, at No. 34,[1] there was living in 1710 an
upholsterer—Thomas Arne, by name—whose sign was the Two Crowns and
Cushions. In 1690, this Arne had been overseer of the poor of the
parish of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, and he was then living in a much
more modest dwelling in Bedford Street.
Apparently he was a man of artistic tastes, for his rate-book, which
may still be seen, bears his name upon its cover in very beautiful
ornamental lettering.
That he was also an excellent man of business is sufficiently proved by
the fact that he occupied his house in King Street until 1733, paying
a yearly rent of £75—a high price in those days. He was twice married,
his second marriage taking place in 1707 at Mercer’s Chapel, and the
lady’s name being Anne Wheeler. In 1710, two important events took
place. On March 12th, there was born to Mr. and Mrs. Arne a little son,
whom they called Thomas Augustine, and who has since been called “the
English Amphion.”
A month later there came to lodge with them four Indian kings, or, as
we should say, chiefs of the North American Indians. These chiefs had
been brought over to England by an English officer, who very wisely
foresaw that the best way to secure their allegiance, and obtain the
assistance of their tribes in driving the French out of the English
settlements in Canada was to impress them with the grandeur and power
of England.
Accordingly, the visitors were treated with every courtesy; they were
received by Queen Anne herself, and loaded with presents. Two royal
carriages were placed at their disposal, they were lodged, as we have
seen, in “a handsome apartment,” and they were taken about to see the
sights of London.
The ruse was successful. When the “kings” left our shores they were
quite willing to back the English against all the world. Readers of
Fenimore Cooper’s stirring novel, _The Last of the Mohicans_, will
gain some further knowledge of Queen Anne’s strange visitors, for the
Mohicans are there said to be subordinate to the Iroquois, or Five
Nations, to which the chiefs belonged.
Addison was much interested in the strangers, and says in the
_Spectator_ of April 27, 1711, that he often mixed with the rabble and
followed them for a whole day together. Some very amusing accounts of
the “kings” are given both in the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_. One of them
I must repeat.
During their sojourn in England, according to the _Tatler_, of May 13,
1710, one of the kings fell ill. The landlord, Mr. Thomas Arne, was
unremitting in his attentions to the sufferer, who, having never slept
in a bed before, felt great admiration for the skilful upholsterer who
had constructed “that engine of repose, so useful and so necessary in
his distress.” When, therefore, the patient was recovered, he and his
brother kings consulted among themselves how they should evince their
appreciation of the kindness shown them, and it was decided that to
honour their host befittingly, they must confer upon him the name of
the strongest fort in their country. The upholsterer accordingly was
summoned, and, on entering the room, he was received by the four kings
standing, all of them addressing him as “Cadaroque!”
After a month’s sojourn in King Street, the Indians returned to
their own land, and Thomas Arne was able once more to devote himself
exclusively to his business and his family.
Four years afterwards a baby girl was born and received the name of
Susan, and, later there were some more children who, however, have no
particular interest for us.
Thomas Arne was determined to give his son every advantage, so when the
boy, Thomas Augustine, was old enough he sent him to Eton. But Master
Tommy had no mind for learning, and gave his professors considerable
trouble. When he should have been studying his lessons, he was found
playing the flute, and the upshot of it all was, that when the time
came for him to leave college, neither he nor anyone else was very
sorry.
He was now articled to a solicitor, for his father’s ambition was to
see him a lawyer, but he managed to smuggle a spinet into his bedroom,
and, having muffled the strings with a handkerchief, he practised when
the family was asleep. He also contrived to get violin lessons from a
man called Festing, and in the evenings he used to borrow a livery and,
thus disguised, visit the opera, where the servants of the aristocracy
were allowed free access to the gallery.
His progress in violin-playing was so rapid that he was soon able to
lead a small orchestra, and we can imagine what the surprise of the
upholsterer must have been when one evening, having been invited to a
musical party, he found that his own son had been engaged to provide
the entertainment.
Thomas had an uncomfortable walk home that night with his angry parent,
but the good man was too sensible not to recognise that it was better
that his son should be a fair musician than a bad lawyer. Finally,
harmony was restored to the family circle, and the young performer was
allowed to follow the bent of his genius.
Before long he found that his sister Susan had a beautiful voice, which
he trained so carefully, that in 1732, when she was eighteen, she was
able to appear in an opera by Lampe, called _Amelia_.
Encouraged by her success, he now set to work to compose music for
Addison’s play, _Rosamund_, in which she sang when it was produced
at Lincoln’s Inn Theatre in 1733. A year later, Susan Arne married
Theophilus Cibber, the son of the poet laureate, Colley Cibber. She
was not happy in her married life, but it would have been impossible
for any girl to be happy with such a husband. The music historian,
Dr. Burney, has said of Susan that she captivated every ear by the
sweetness and expression of her voice in singing; but her principal
charm seems to have consisted in her exquisite simplicity. With Händel
she was a great favourite. He wrote for her the contralto songs in the
_Messiah_, and the part of Micah in _Samson_, and she was the first
Galatea in his _Acis and Galatea_. She died in 1766, and was buried in
the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.
In 1736 young Arne—now twenty-six years of age—married Cecilia Young,
a daughter of the organist of All Hallows, Barking. She was a pupil of
Geminiani, and was called “the nightingale of the stage,” her voice
being considered matchless “for melody, fulness and flexibility.”
In 1738, Milton’s _Comus_ was produced at Drury Lane, and Arne was
engaged to write the music for it. The description of this work given
by Busby in his _History of Music_ is so charming that I am tempted to
quote it.
“In this mask Arne introduced a style unique and perfectly his own.
Without pretending to the high energy of Purcell or the ponderous
dignity of Händel, it was vigorous, gay, elegant and natural, and
possessed such strong and distinctive features as, by its production,
to form an era in English music. By the beauty of this piece and
by that of his numerous songs, Arne influenced the national taste,
and begat a partiality for that flowing, sweet, and lucid style of
melody which captivates the ear by the simplicity of its _motivo_,
and satisfies the understanding by the truth and emphasis of its
expression. It long guided or governed the genius of inferior composers
for the theatres and public gardens, and constituted and settled a
_manner_ which more justly than any other may be denominated _English_.
Unfortunately, the ingenious inventor of this manner, the mellifluous,
the natural, the unaffected Arne, was not himself sufficiently sensible
of its value to continue true to the native cast of his own genius.
Tempted to follow the Italian composers, he deserted a path in which he
could not be exceeded or followed.”
Busby’s censure of Arne’s deviation from that path in which the highest
honours awaited him, has reference to the opera _Artaserse_, which was
written in the florid Italian style popular at the time. But it is
hard to blame the composer for a backsliding which was the inevitable
consequence of the bad taste of the public. _Artaserse_ was produced
at Covent Garden in 1762, and, as we are told, was “immediately
successful.”
Whose fault was it that the good English works of the previous thirty
years were not so “immediately successful?”
During those thirty years Arne had produced the music to the
_Tempest_, which contains that daintiest of dainty songs, “Where the
bee sucks.” I hope that there is not an English girl with a voice in
her throat who has not sung those witching notes of Ariel’s.
Scarcely less beautiful are the songs in _As You Like It_—“Under the
greenwood tree,” “Blow, blow, thou winter wind,” and “When daises pied.”
But all these and many more would not have gained for our composer the
title “the English Amphion,” which is so justly his. The legend tells
that to the sound of Amphion’s lyre the stones placed themselves in
order, forming an impregnable wall round the city of Thebes; and the
story is explained by the assumption that, fired by their leader’s
eloquence, the men of Thebes became invincible.
Was ever patriotic song written so great as “Rule, Britannia,” or could
Amphion himself have led an army to battle with more inspiring music?
Wagner once said that the whole character of the English nation
is contained in the first eight notes of “Rule, Britannia.” It is
interesting to compare these eight notes with the first eight notes of
the parallel French and German songs.
[Music: “The Marseillaise.”]
[Music: “Rule, Britannia.”]
[Music: “Die Wacht am Rhein.”]
The French song repeats every step—that is dull!
The German song looks back twice in its short course—that is weak!
The English song plants its feet firmly—then rushes to the point,
without swerving an eyelash. It says in music—
“Up, boys, and at them!”
Bravo! Thomas Arne.
This song, “Rule, Britannia,” completes a masque, called _Alfred_,
written by Thomson and Mallett, and composed by Arne. It was first
performed in August, 1740, on a stage erected in the beautiful grounds
at Clieveden, in Buckinghamshire—then the residence of Frederick Prince
of Wales, now the home of an American millionaire—where a _fête_
had been arranged to commemorate the Accession of George I., and to
celebrate the birth of Princess Augusta.
Five years later _Alfred_ was given in London, at Drury Lane, for the
benefit of Mrs. Arne. It seems specially appropriate that Arne should
have been the composer of “Rule, Britannia.” The earliest associations
of his childhood must have been connected with the home of the great
Admiral, the Commander of the _Britannia_, who lived almost next door
to his father’s shop, and doubtless the boy often peeped in through the
open doorway at the grand staircase, of which he will have heard that
its beams once formed part of the wooden walls of England.
It is possible that he may have lived in this house himself at a much
later date, for in 1774 it passed into the hands of David Low, and was
opened by him as a family hotel, the first establishment of that kind
in England.
But if Arne ever lived there it was only for a short time, for he
died on March 5th, 1778, at his house in Bow Street, which he had only
occupied for four months and a half. On the early editions of his _New
Favourite Songs_, as also on the _Winter Amusements_, there is the
announcement that they are “to be had of the author at his house in the
Piazza, next the Church, Covent Garden”; but there is no mention of his
name as a householder in the rate-books of St. Paul’s, from 1760 till
1777-8, when, as I have said, he rented a house in Bow Street for a
short time before his death.
One of the innovations for which we have reason to be grateful to
Thomas Arne was the introduction of female voices into oratorio
choruses, an experiment which was tried by him for the first time at a
performance of his _Judith_ at Covent Garden on February 26th, 1773.
This oratorio had been performed at Stratford-on-Avon in the quaint
old church in which Shakespeare was buried, on the occasion of the
Jubilee festivities organised by Garrick in 1769. On the second day of
that festival an Ode, written by Garrick and set to music by Arne, was
given, the actor-poet designating the composer as “the first musical
genius of this country.”
In connection with Garrick’s relations to Arne, an amusing story is
told. Arne was very anxious that Garrick should hear his favourite
pupil, Miss Brent, and with some difficulty he succeeded one day in
arranging a meeting between them. Miss Brent sang, and Garrick, after
complimenting her, turned to Arne with the supercilious remark:
“After all, Tommy, your music is but pickle to my roast beef!”—implying
that the drama was the superior art.
Dr. Arne was not the mildest of men, and he cried:
“I’ll pickle your roast beef, Davey, before I am done!”
The threat was no idle one. Refused an engagement at Drury Lane, which
was under Garrick’s management, Arne set up his famous pupil at Covent
Garden, where she had such success in _The Beggar’s Opera_, that all
the town flocked to hear her, and Garrick was nearly ruined.
The degree of Mus. Doc. was conferred on Arne by Oxford University
in July, 1759. In addition to being a great composer, he was a
great teacher, laying particular stress on the importance of clear
enunciation of the words. Most of his earlier works were written for
his wife, who accompanied him on a visit to Ireland in 1742, and who
was a very successful singer. After she retired from public life Arne’s
pupils interpreted his compositions. He had one son, Michael, who went
on the stage at an early date, but his chief successes were gained as a
player of the harpsichord.
Like so many other great men, Dr. Arne was buried in St. Paul’s, Covent
Garden, and there was originally a monument to him in that church, but
owing to the carelessness of some plumbers engaged in repairs, the
building was almost totally destroyed by fire in the year 1795; and
though it was rebuilt on the same plan and in the same proportions, the
memorials of its mighty dead were never replaced, and there is nothing
now to show that here rest, with Dr. Thomas Arne, the poets, Samuel
Butler and Peter Pindar; the dramatists, Mrs. Centlivre and William
Wycherley; the painter, Sir Peter Lely; the sculptor, Grinling Gibbons;
and many more whose names are inscribed upon the scroll of Fame.
ELEONORE D’ESTERRE-KEELING.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Through the kindness of Mr. Alfred Stutfield, who has taken
infinite trouble to search the old rentals of the Bedford estate,
I have been able to identify the site of the house in which Thomas
Augustine Arne was born, and in which he spent the first twenty-three
years of his life. The house itself was rebuilt in 1871, and is now
occupied by the publishers, Messrs. Rivington.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: FISHING.
(_From the painting by Florence A. Saltmer._)]
JULY.
BY ERIC BROAD.
Now is the noon of summer’s sweet content
O’er field and hedgerow, valley and high hill;
And hushed the music of the laughing rill
Whose strength is stolen and whose song is spent!
With anxious twitter all the birds lament
The sudden gloom; the air grows strangely still.
Vague murmurs all the valley seem to fill;
The sun is blotted from the firmament.
Hark! tis the diapason of God’s organ rolled
Through all the field of stars; chord follows chord
The march triumphant of our Blessed Lord,
Who rides the sky in chariot of gold;
And then the gloom is rent; with swift accord
The beams, with golden arms, our forms enfold!
[Illustration]
CHRONICLES OF AN ANGLO-CALIFORNIAN RANCH.
BY MARGARET INNES.