she could play 'Ah! vous dirai-je maman?' on the piano; but that was
long, long ago; that faint shadow of musical acquirement had died
out years before. She had also once been able to trace patterns very
nicely for muslin embroidery, but that was her nearest approach to the
accomplishment of drawing, and I did not think it would go very far.
Miss Matty's eyes were failing her, and I doubted if she could discover
the number of threads in a worsted-work pattern, or rightly appreciate
the different shades required for Queen Adelaide's face, in the loyal
wool-work now fashionable in Cranford."
The allusion to Queen Adelaide's face fixes the narrative between 1820
and 1830, and George Eliot was depicting the same unenlightened period
when she described the accomplishments provided by Ladies' Schools as
"certain small tinklings and smearings." Probably all of us can recall
an Aunt who tinkled on the piano, or a First Cousin once Removed who
smeared on Bristol Board. Lady Dorothy Nevill, whose invincible force
and evergreen memory carry down into the reign of King Edward VII. the
traditions of Queen Charlotte's Court, is a singularly accomplished
Aunt, and she has just made this remarkable confession: "At different
times I have attempted many kinds of amateur work, including book
illumination, leather-working, wood-carving, and, of late years, a kind
of old-fashioned paper-work, which consists in arranging little slips
of coloured paper into decorative designs, as was done at the end of
the eighteenth century. When completed, this work is made up into
boxes, trays, or mounts for pictures." Surely in this accomplishment
Miss Volumnia Dedlock lives again. And then Lady Dorothy, lapsing
into reminiscent vein, makes this rather half-hearted apology for the
domestic artistry of bygone days: "Years ago ladies used to spend much
more of their time in artistic work of some kind or other, for there
were not then the many distractions which exist to-day. Indeed, in
the country some sort of work was a positive necessity; and though,
no doubt, by far the greater portion of what was done was absolutely
hideous, useless, and horrible, yet it served the purpose of passing
away many an hour which otherwise would have been given up to
insufferable boredom."
Yes, the fashions of the world succeed one another in perpetual change;
but Boredom is eternally the enemy, and the paramount necessity of
escaping from it begets each year some new and strange activity. The
Aunt no longer paints in water-colours or keeps tame rabbits, flattens
ferns in an album, or traces crude designs with a hot poker on a deal
board. To-day she urges the impetuous bicycle, or, in more extreme
cases, directs the murderous motor; lectures on politics or platonics,
Icelandic art, or Kamschatkan literature. Perhaps she has a Cause or
a Mission pleads for the legal enforcement of Vegetarian Boots, or
tears down the knocker of a Statesman who refuses her the suffrage.
Perhaps her enthusiasms are less altruistic, and then she may pillage
her friends at Bridge, or supply the _New York Sewer_ with a weekly
column of Classy Cuttings. "Are you the _Daily Mail_?" incautiously
chirped a literary lady to an unknown friend who had rung her up on the
telephone. "No, I'm not, but I always thought you were," was the reply;
and so, in truth, she was.
XXIX
CIDER
An ingenious correspondent of mine has lately been visiting the
Brewers' Exhibition, and has come away from it full of Cider. I mean
"full" in the intellectual rather than the physical sense--full of
the subject, though unversed in the beverage. He reminds me that
Charles Lamb had his catalogue of "Books which are no books--_biblia
a-biblia_," among which he reckoned Court Calendars, Directories,
Pocket-books, Draughtboards bound and lettered on the back, Scientific
Treatises, Almanacs, Statutes at Large, and Paley's Moral Philosophy.
My correspondent suggests that, in a like spirit, a Brewer must have
his catalogue of Drinks which are no drinks--_pota a-pota_--and that
among them, if only the secret thoughts of his heart were known,
he must reckon Cider. Yet at the Brewers' Exhibition there was a
Literature of Cider, and that innocent-sounding beverage was quoted at
a price per bottle at which Claret is not ashamed to be sold. That the
men of Malt and Hops should thus officially recognize the existence
of fermented apple-juice strikes my friend as an Economy of Truth; a
suppression, or at least an evasion, of a deep-seated and absolute
belief. They cannot really regard Cider as a drink, and yet they give
it a place alongside that manly draught which has made old England what
she is. I, on the other hand, who always like to regard the actions
of my fellow-men in the most favourable light, prefer to think that
the Brewers have been employing some portion of that enforced leisure,
which the decay of their industry must have brought, in studying
English literature, and that they have thus been made acquainted with
the name and fame of Cider.
_Biblia a-biblia_ set me thinking of Lamb, and when once one begins
recalling "Elia" one drifts along, in a kind of waking reverie, from
one pleasant fantasy to another. _Biblia a-biblia_ led me on to "Dream
Children," and Dream Children to Dream Riddles--a reverie of my own
childhood, when we used to ask one another a pleasing conundrum which
played prettily on _In Cider_ and _Inside her_. But it made light of an
illustrious name and had better be forgotten.
Few, I fear, are the readers of John Philips, but, if such there be,
they will no doubt recall the only poem which, as far as I know, has
ever been devoted to the praise of Apple-wine. Philips was a patriotic
son of Herefordshire, and in Hereford Cathedral he lies buried under
bunches of marble apples which commemorate his poetical achievement:--
"What soil the apple loves, what care is due
To Orchats, timeliest when to press the fruits,
Thy gift, Pomona! in Miltonian verse,
Adventurous, I presume to sing; of verse
Nor skill'd nor studious; but my native soil
Invites me, and the theme as yet unsung."
"Orchats" is good; but how far these lines can be justly called
Miltonian is a question which my readers can decide for themselves. At
any rate, the poem contains more than four thousand lines exactly like
them, and they had the remarkable fortune to be translated into Italian
under the title of "Il Sidro." Philips was a Cavalier in all his tastes
and sympathies: but even the Puritans, whom he so cordially detested,
admitted the merits of Cider. Macaulay, with his characteristic love
of irrelevant particularity, insists on the fact that, through all
the commotions of the Great Rebellion and the Civil War, "the cream
overflowed the pails of Cheshire and the apple-juice foamed in the
presses of Herefordshire." Nor was it only in his purple prose that the
great rhetorician glorified the juice of the apple. Many a reader who
has forgotten all about John Philips will recall Macaulay's rhymes on
the garrulous country squire who had a habit of detaining people by the
button, and who was especially addicted to the society of Bishops:--
"His Grace Archbishop Manners-Sutton
Could not keep on a single button.
As for Right Reverend John of Chester,
His waistcoats open at the breasts are.
Our friend has filled a mighty trunk
With trophies torn from Bishop Monk,
And he has really tattered foully
The vestments of good Bishop Howley.
No buttons could I late discern on
The garments of Archbishop Vernon,
And never had his fingers mercy
Upon the garb of Bishop Percy;
While buttons fly from Bishop Ryder
Like corks that spring from bottled cyder."
From Macaulay and bottled Cyder (or Cider) the transition is easy to
that admirable delineator of life and manners, Mrs. Sherwood; she
was pretty much a contemporary of Macaulay's, and was a native of
Worcestershire, which in its Cider-bearing qualities is not far removed
from Herefordshire, beloved of Philips. Few but fit is the audience to
which Mrs. Sherwood still appeals; yet they who were nurtured on "The
Fairchild Family" still renew their youth as they peruse the adventures
of Lucy, Emily, and little Henry: "The farmer and his wife, whose name
was Freeman, were not people who lived in the fear of God, neither did
they bring up their children well; on which account Mr. Fairchild had
often forbidden Lucy, Emily, and Henry to go to their house." However,
go they did, as soon as their parents' backs were turned; and Mrs.
Freeman "gave them each a large piece of cake and something sweet to
drink, which, she said, would do them good." But it turned out to be
Cider, and did not do them good, for, "as they were never used to drink
anything but water, it made them quite drunk for a little while."
The mention of Worcestershire as a cider-growing county aptly
introduces my unfailing friend Lord Beaconsfield, for, though he is
less precise than I could wish in praise of Cider, he compliments it
indirectly in his pretty description of "a fair child, long-haired,
and blushing like a Worcestershire orchard before harvest-time." Once,
indeed, the lover of Disraelitish romance seems to find himself on
the track of Cider. Harry Coningsby is overtaken by a thunderstorm in
a forest, and, taking refuge in a sylvan inn, makes friends with a
mysterious stranger. The two travellers agree to dine together, when
this eminently natural dialogue ensues. "'But Ceres without Bacchus,'
said Coningsby, 'how does that do? Think you, under this roof, we could
invoke the god?'
"'Let us swear by his body that we will try,' said the stranger.
"Alas! the landlord was not a priest of Bacchus. But then these
enquiries led to the finest Perry in the world." If only the Perry had
been Cider, this quotation had been more apposite; but the themes,
though not identical, are cognate.
We have traced the praise of Cider in poetry and in romance, but it
also has its place in biography, and even in religious biography. One
of the most delightful portraits of a saint which was ever drawn is
Mrs. Oliphant's "Life of Edward Irving." In the autumn of 1834--the
last autumn of his life--that Prophet and man of God made a kind of
apostolic journey through Shropshire, Herefordshire, and Wales. From
Kington, in Herefordshire, he wrote to his wife: "My dinner was ham and
eggs, a cold fowl, an apple tart, and cheese; a tumbler of Cider, and
a glass of Sicilian Tokay." And he adds a tender reference to "Ginger
Wine in a long-necked decanter." It is always satisfactory to find the
good things of this life not reserved exclusively for bad people.
Sydney Smith, though a Canon of St. Paul's, was scarcely a Saint
and not at all a Prophet; and through the study-windows of his
beautiful parsonage in Somersetshire, he gazed on the glories of the
Cider-vintage with an eye more mundane than that of Edward Irving. In
1829 he wrote from Combe Florey--"the sacred valley of flowers," as he
loved to call it: "I continue to be delighted with the country. The
harvest is got in without any rain. The Cider is such an enormous crop
that it is sold at ten shillings a hogshead; so a human creature may
lose his reason for a penny."
Cider is, I believe, still drunk at Oxford; and memory retains grateful
recollections of Cider-cup beautiful as a liquid topaz, with a cluster
of blue flowers floating on its breast. But the Cider-Cellars of
London--places of, I fear, ill-regulated conviviality--have, as far as
I know, long since closed their doors. Yet they, too, have their secure
place in literature. The "Young Lion" of the _Daily Telegraph_, who
looked forward to succeeding Dr. W. H. Russell as War Correspondent of
the _Times_, thrilled with excitement at the prospect of inoculating
the Leading Journal with "the divine madness of our new style--the
style we have formed upon Sala. It blends the airy epicureanism of
the _salons_ of Augustus with the full-bodied gaiety of our English
Cider Cellar." But that was written in 1870, and the style and the
Cellars alike are things of the past. The official historian of Cider
excels in that "dry light" which is the grace of history, and gravely
tells us that "Cider (_Zider_, German) when first made in England was
called wine." With a proper reluctance to commit himself to what is
antecedently incredible, he adds that "the Earl of Manchester, when
Ambassador in France (1699), _is said_ to have passed off Cider for
Wine." It is more plausibly stated that in later days the innocuous
apple has been artfully mingled with the "foaming grape of Eastern
France," and has been drunk in England as Champagne. The Hock-cup at
Buckingham Palace is justly vaunted as one of the chief glories of
our ancient polity. It is certainly the most delectable drink that
ever refreshed a thirsty soul; and the art of concocting it is a
State-Secret of the most awful solemnity. But there never was a secret
which did not sooner or later elude its guardians; and I have heard
that a Royal cellarer, in an expansive moment, once revealed the spell.
German Wine and English Cider together constitute the Kingly Cup,
"And, blended, form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life."
XXX
THE GARTER
"Breathes there a man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said----
I should uncommonly like to be a Knight of the Garter?" If such
there be, let him forswear this column and pass on to the Cotton
Market or the Education Bill. Here we cater for those in whom the
historic instinct is combined with picturesque sensibility, and who
love to trace the stream of the national life as it flows through
long-descended rites. Lord Acton wrote finely of "Institutions
which incorporate tradition and prolong the reign of the dead." No
institution fulfils this ideal more absolutely than the Order of the
Garter. One need not always "commence with the Deluge"; and there is no
occasion to consult the lively oracles of Mrs. Markham for the story of
the dropped garter and the chivalrous motto. It is enough to remember
that the Order links the last enchantments of the Middle Age with the
Twentieth Century, and that for at least four hundred years it has
played a real, though hidden, part in the secret strategy of English
Statecraft.
We are told by travellers that the Emperor of Lilliput rewarded his
courtiers with three fine silken threads of about six inches long, one
of which was blue, one red, and one green. The method by which these
rewards were obtained is thus described by an eye-witness: "The Emperor
holds a stick in his hands, both ends parallel to the horizon, while
the candidates, advancing one by one, sometimes leap over it, sometimes
creep under it, backwards and forwards, several times, according as
the stick is elevated or depressed. Whoever shows the most agility and
performs his part best of leaping and creeping is rewarded with the
blue coloured silk, the next with the red, and so on."
To-day we are not concerned with the red silk, wisely invented by
Sir Robert Walpole for the benefit of those who could not aspire to
the blue; nor with the green, which illustrates the continuous and
separate polity of the Northern Kingdom. The blue silk supplies us
with all the material we shall need. In its wider aspect of the Blue
Ribbon, it has its secure place in the art, the history, and the
literature of England; though perhaps the Dryasdusts of future ages
will be perplexed by the Manichæan associations which will then have
gathered round it. "When," they will ask, "and by what process, did
the ensign of a high chivalric Order which originated at a banquet
become the symbol of total abstinence from fermented drinks?" Even so,
a high-toned damsel from the State of Maine, regarding the Blue Ribbon
which girt Lord Granville's white waistcoat, congratulated him on the
boldness with which he displayed his colours, and then shrank back in
astonished horror as he raised his claret-glass to his lips. In one
of the prettiest of historical novels Amy Robsart is represented as
examining with childish wonder the various badges and decorations which
her husband wears, while Leicester, amused by her simplicity, explains
the significance of each. "The embroidered strap, as thou callest it,
around my knee," he said, "is the English Garter, an ornament which
Kings are proud to wear. See, here is the star which belongs to it, and
here is the diamond George, the jewel of the Order. You have heard how
King Edward and the Countess of Salisbury----" "Oh, I know all that
tale," said the Countess, slightly blushing, "and how a lady's garter
became the proudest badge of English chivalry."
There are certain families which may be styled "Garter Families," so
constant--almost unbroken--has been the tradition that the head of
the family should be a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order. Such
is the House of Beaufort; is there not a great saloon at Badminton
walled entirely with portraits of Dukes of Beaufort in their flowing
mantles of Garter-Blue? Such is the House of Bedford, which has worn
the Garter from the reign of Henry VIII. till now; such the House
of Norfolk, which contrived to retain its Garters, though it often
lost its head, in times of civil commotion. The Dukes of Devonshire,
again, have been habitual Garter-wearers; and the fourteenth Earl of
Derby, though he refused a dukedom, was proud to accept an extra Garter
(raising the number of Knights above the statutory twenty-five), which
Queen Victoria gave him as a consolation for his eviction from the
Premiership in 1859. _Punch_, then, as now, no respecter of persons,
had an excellent cartoon of a blubbering child, to whom a gracious lady
soothingly remarks, "Did he have a nasty tumble, then? Here's something
pretty for him to play with." The Percys, again, were pre-eminently
a Garter Family; sixteen heads of the house have worn Blue silk. So
far as the male line was concerned, they came to an end in 1670. The
eventual heiress of the house married Sir Hugh Smithson, who acquired
the estates and assumed the name of the historic Percys. Having, in
virtue of this great alliance, been created Earl of Northumberland, Sir
Hugh begged George III. to give him the Garter. When the King demurred,
the aspirant exclaimed, in the bitterness of his heart, "I am the first
Northumberland who ever was refused the Garter." To which the King
replied, not unreasonably, "And you are the first Smithson who ever
asked for it." However, there are forms of political pressure to which
even Kings must yield, and people who had "borough influence" could
generally get their way when George III. wanted some trustworthy votes
in the House of Commons. So Sir Hugh Smithson died a Duke and a K.G.,
and since his day the Percys have been continuously Gartered.
But it is in the sphere of rank just below that of the "Garter
Families" that the Blue silk of Swift's imagination exercises its
most potent influence. Men who are placed by the circumstances of
their birth far beyond the temptations of mere cupidity, men who are
justly satisfied with their social position and have no special wish
to be transmogrified into marquises or dukes, are found to desire the
Garter with an almost passionate fondness. Many a curious vote in a
stand-or-fall division, many an unexpected declaration at a political
crisis, many a transfer of local influence at an important election has
been dictated by calculations about a possible Garter. It was this view
of the decoration which inspired Lord Melbourne when, to the suggestion
that he should take a vacant Garter for himself, he replied, "But
why should I? I don't want to bribe myself." This same light-hearted
statesman disputes with Lord Palmerston the credit of having said, "The
great beauty of the Garter is that there's no d---- d nonsense of merit
about it;" but it was undoubtedly Palmerston who declined to pay the
customary fees to the Dean and Chapter of Windsor, and on being gravely
told that, unless he paid, his banner could not be erected in St.
George's Chapel, replied that, as he never went to church at Windsor or
anywhere else, the omission would not much affect him.
What made the recent Chapter of the Garter peculiarly exciting to
such as have æsthetic as well as historic minds was the fact that,
for once, the Knights might be seen in the full splendour of their
magnificent costume. No other Order has so elaborate a paraphernalia,
and every detail smacks deliciously of the antique world. The long,
sweeping mantle of Garter-blue is worn over a surcoat and hood of
crimson velvet. The hat is trimmed with ostrich feathers and heron's
plumes. The enamelled collar swings majestically from shoulder to
shoulder; from it depends the image of St. George trampling down
the dragon; and round the left knee runs the Garter itself, setting
forth the motto of the Order in letters of gold. It is a truly regal
costume; and those who saw Lord Spencer so arrayed at the Coronation
of King Edward might have fancied that they were gazing on an animated
Vandyke. These full splendours of the Order are seldom seen, but some
modifications of them appear on stated occasions. The King was married
in the mantle of the Garter, worn over a Field-Marshal's uniform; and a
similar practice is observed at ceremonies in St. George's Chapel. The
Statutes of the Order bind every Knight, on his chivalric obedience,
to wear the badge--the "George," as it is technically called--at all
times and places. In obedience to this rule the Marquis of Abercorn,
who died in 1818, always went out shooting in the Blue Ribbon from
which, in ordinary dress, the badge depends. But those were the
days when people played cricket in tall hats and attended the House
of Commons in knee-breeches and silk stockings. Prince Albert, whose
conscience in ceremonial matters was even painfully acute, always
wore his Blue Ribbon over his shirt and below his waistcoat; and in
his ancient photographs it can be dimly traced crossing his chest in
the neighbourhood of his shirt studs. But to-day one chiefly sees it
at dinners. A tradition of the Order requires a Knight dining with
a brother-Knight to wear it, and after dinner one may meet it at an
evening party. The disuse of knee-breeches, except in Royal company,
makes it practically impossible to display the actual Garter; unless
one chooses to follow the example of the seventh Duke of Bedford, who,
being of a skinny habit and feeling the cold intensely, yet desiring to
display his Garter, used to wear it buckled round the trouser of his
left leg. Lord Beaconsfield, in his later years, used to appear in the
evening with a most magnificent Star of the Garter which had belonged
to the wicked Lord Hertford, Thackeray's Steyne and his own Monmouth.
It was a constellation of picked diamonds, surrounding St. George's
Cross in rubies. After Lord Beaconsfield's death it was exposed for
sale in a jeweller's window, and eventually was broken up and sold
piecemeal. There was an opportunity missed. Lord Rosebery ought to have
bought it, and kept it by him until he was entitled to wear it.
In picture-galleries one can trace the evolution of the Blue Ribbon
through several shades and shapes. In pictures of the Tudor and Stuart
periods it is a light blue ribbon, worn round the neck, with the George
hanging, like a locket, in front. In Georgian pictures the ribbon is
much darker, and is worn over the left shoulder, reaching down to the
right thigh, where the George is displayed. I have heard that the
alteration of position was due to the Duke of Monmouth, who, when a
little boy, accidentally thrust his right arm through the ribbon, with
a childish grace which fascinated his father. The change of colour was
due to the fact that the exiled King at St. Germain's affected still
to bestow the Order, and the English ribbon was made darker, so as to
obviate all possible confusion between the reality and the counterfeit.
Of late years, this reason having ceased to operate, the King has
returned to the lighter shade.
The last Commoner who wore the Garter was Sir Robert Walpole. Sir
Robert Peel refused it. It is the only honour which, I think, Mr.
Gladstone could have accepted without loss of dignity. For he truly was
a Knight _sans peur et sans reproche_, worthy to rank with those to
whom, in the purer days of chivalry, the Cross of St. George was not
the reward of an intrigue but the symbol of a faith.
XXXI
SHERIFFS