themselves in the king's knee. On the 4th of March he was attacked by
fever; on the 5th, his strength failed greatly; and on the 6th he was
scarcely kept alive by cordials. The Abjuration Bill and a money bill
were awaiting his assent. That assent he felt that he should not be able
to give in person. He therefore ordered a commission to be prepared for
his signature. His hand was now too weak to form the letters of his
name, and it was suggested that a stamp should be prepared. On the 7th
of March the stamp was ready. The Lord Keeper and the Clerks of the
Parliament came, according to usage, to witness the signing of the
commission. But they were detained some hours in the ante-chamber while
he was in one of the paroxysms of his malady. Meanwhile the Houses were
sitting. It was Saturday the 7th, the day on which the Commons had
resolved to take into consideration the question of the union with
Scotland. But that subject was not mentioned. It was known that the king
had but a few hours to live; and the members asked each other anxiously
whether it was likely that the Abjuration and money bills would be
passed before he died. After sitting long in the expectation of a
message, the Commons adjourned till six in the afternoon. By that time
William had recovered himself sufficiently to put the stamp on the
parchment which authorised his commissioners to act for him. In the
evening, when the Houses had assembled, Black Rod knocked. The Commons
were summoned to the bar of the Lords; the commission was read, the
Abjuration Bill and the Malt Bill became law, and both Houses adjourned
till nine o'clock in the morning of the following day. The following day
was Sunday. But there was little chance that William would live through
the night. It was of the highest importance that, within the shortest
possible time after his decease, the successor designated by the Bill of
Rights and the Act of Succession should receive the homage of the
Estates of the Realm, and be publicly proclaimed in the Council: and the
most rigid Pharisee in the Society for the Reformation of Manners could
hardly deny that it was lawful to save the state, even on the Sabbath.
"The king meanwhile was sinking fast. Albemarle had arrived at
Kensington from the Hague, exhausted by rapid travelling. His master
kindly bade him go to rest for some hours, and then summoned him to make
his report. That report was in all respects satisfactory. The States
General were in the best temper; the troops, the provisions, and the
magazines were in the best order. Everything was in readiness for an
early campaign. William received the intelligence with the calmness of a
man whose work was done. He was under no illusion as to his danger. 'I
am fast drawing,' he said, 'to my end.' His end was worthy of his life.
His intellect was not for a moment clouded. His fortitude was the more
admirable because he was not willing to die. He had very lately said to
one of those whom he most loved, 'You know that I never feared death;
there have been times when I should have wished it, but, now that this
great new prospect is opening before me, I do wish to stay here a little
longer.' Yet no weakness, no querulousness disgraced the noble close of
that noble career. To the physicians the king returned his thanks
graciously and gently. 'I know that you have done all that skill and
learning could do for me, but the case is beyond your art; and I
submit.' From the words which escaped him he seemed to be frequently
engaged in mental prayer. Burnet and Tenison remained many hours in the
sick-room. He professed to them his firm belief in the truth of the
Christian religion, and received the sacrament from their hands with
great seriousness. The antechambers were crowded all night with lords
and privy-councillors. He ordered several of them to be called in, and
exerted himself to take leave of them with a few kind and cheerful
words. Among the English who were admitted to his bedside were
Devonshire and Ormond. But there were in the crowd those who felt as no
Englishman could feel, friends of his youth, who had been true to him,
and to whom he had been true, through all vicissitudes of fortune; who
had served him with unalterable fidelity when his Secretaries of State,
his Treasury, and his Admiralty had betrayed him; who had never on any
field of battle, or in an atmosphere tainted with loathsome and deadly
disease, shrunk from placing their own lives in jeopardy to save his,
and whose truth he had at the cost of his own popularity rewarded with
bounteous munificence. He strained his feeble voice to thank
Auverquerque for the affectionate and loyal services of thirty years. To
Albemarle he gave the keys of his closet and of his private drawers.
'You know,' he said, 'what to do with them.' By this time he could
scarcely respire. 'Can this,' he said to the physicians, 'last long?' He
was told that the end was approaching. He swallowed a cordial, and asked
for Bentinck. Those were his last articulate words. Bentinck instantly
came to the bedside, bent down, and placed his ear close to the king's
mouth. The lips of the dying man moved, but nothing could be heard. The
king took the hand of his earliest friend, and pressed it tenderly to
his heart. In that moment, no doubt, all that had cast a slight passing
cloud over their long and pure friendship was forgotten. It was now
between seven and eight in the morning. He closed his eyes, and gasped
for breath. The bishops knelt down and read the commendatory prayer.
When it ended William was no more!"
It was assuredly the stumbling of his horse against a mole-hill that led
more immediately to the death of this great monarch. It is but one link
in the chain of many providences affecting his life. We all remember the
schoolboy ditty--
"For want of a nail the shoe was lost;
For want of a shoe the rider was lost;
For want of the rider the battle was lost;
For want of the battle the kingdom was lost."
How much the death of King William retarded progress in Great Britain
can never be judged or determined. His appointed hour had come. It was
no bullet with its billet on the banks of the Boyne that laid the
Dutchman low, but the cast-up earth of a specimen of a little
insectivorous quadruped called the mole, which laid him on that bed from
which he never arose.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Jeremy Taylor, if I remember aright.
[29] Vol. V., pp. 305-310.
BEARS.
A most comfortably clad set of plantigrade creatures, as fond, most of
them, of fruits as they are of flesh. No creatures are more amusing in
zoological gardens to children, who wonder at their climbing powers. Who
is so heartless as not to have pitied the roving polar bear, caged, on a
sultry July day, in a small paddock with a puddle, and wandering about
restlessly in his few feet of ground, as the well-dressed mob lounged to
hear the military band performing in the Regent's Park Zoological
Gardens? Even young bears have an _adult_ kind of look about them. The
writer remembers the manner of one, disappointed at its bread sap, most
of the milk of which had been absorbed. A little girl standing by, not
two years old, perfectly understood what the little creature was
searching for, and, looking up, said "milka," or something closely
resembling it. We recently saw a little brown bear, on board a Russian
ship at Leith. He acted as a capital guard. The little creature had a
grown-up face, more easily observed than described.
Bear hams, we speak from rare experience, are truly excellent. Bears, in
our early London days, were kept by many hairdressers and perfumers. The
anecdote or passage from Dickens's "Humphrey's Clock" is very
characteristic.
In one of Wilkie's pictures the brown bear is figured on its way with
its owners to the parish beadle's "house of detention." We remember the
very bear and its owners. A fine chapter might be written on the animals
that used to be led about the country by wandering foreigners. Our first
sight of guinea-pigs, our first view of the black-bellied hamster, our
first sight of the camel and dromedary, with a monkey on his neck, and
our first bear, were seen in this way. Boys and girls in those days
seldom saw menageries. A muzzled bear on its hind legs in Nicolson
Street, or at the Sciennes, was an exotic sight seldom witnessed, and
not easily forgotten. The last we saw was in Bernard Street, Leith, in
1869. That very day, the police were hunting for Bruin and its leaders
all over Edinburgh. Bears are now debarred from parading our streets.
AN AUSTRIAN GENERAL AND A BEAR.[30]
Mr Paget was told an excellent story of a bear hunt, which took place in
the mountains of Transylvania, and in the presence of the gentleman who
told him the story.
"General V----, the Austrian commander of the forces in this district,
had come to Cronstadt to inspect the troops, and had been invited by our
friend, in compliment to his rank, to join him in a bear hunt. Now, the
general, though more accustomed to drilling than hunting, accepted the
invitation, and appeared in due time in a cocked hat and long gray
greatcoat, the uniform of an Austrian general. When they had taken up
their places, the general, with half a dozen rifles arrayed before him,
paid such devoted attention to a bottle of spirits he had brought with
him, that he quite forgot the object of his coming. At last, however, a
huge bear burst suddenly from the cover of the pine forest, directly in
front of him. At that moment the bottle was raised so high that it quite
obscured the general's vision, and he did not perceive the intruder till
he was close upon him. Down went the bottle, up jumped the astonished
soldier, and, forgetful of his guns, off he started, with the bear
clutching at the tails of his greatcoat as he ran away. What strange
confusion of ideas was muddling the general's intellect at the moment it
is difficult to say, but I suspect he had some notion that the attack
was an act of insubordination on the part of Bruin, for he called out
most lustily, as he ran along, 'Back, rascal! back! I am a general!'
Luckily, a poor Wallack peasant had more respect for the epaulettes
than the bear, and, throwing himself in the way, with nothing but a
spear for his defence, he kept the enemy at bay till our friend and the
jaegers came up, and finished the contest with their rifles."
BYRON'S BEAR AT CAMBRIDGE.
When at Trinity College, Cambridge, Lord Byron had a strange pet. He
"brought up a bear for a degree." He said to Captain Medwyn,[31] "I had
a great hatred of college rules, and contempt for academical honours.
How many of their wranglers have ever distinguished themselves in the
world? There was, by the by, rather a witty satire founded on my bear. A
friend of Shelley's made an ourang-outang (Oran Hanton, Esq.) the hero
of a novel ('Melincourt'), had him created a baronet, and returned for
the borough of One Vote."
CHARLES DICKENS ON BEARS' GREASE AND ITS PRODUCERS.
Any one who has been long resident in London, or who has passed through
Fenchurch Street, or Everett Street, Russell Square, must have been
struck with the way in which "bears' grease" is or used to be advertised
in these localities. Dickens makes Mr Samuel Weller tell of an
enthusiastic tradesman of this description.[32]
"His whole delight was in his trade. He spent all his money in bears,
and run in debt for 'em besides, and there they wos a growling away in
the front cellar all day long and ineffectually gnashing their teeth,
vile the grease o' their relations and friends wos being retailed in
gallipots in the shop above, and the first floor winder wos ornamented
with their heads; not to speak o' the dreadful aggrawation it must have
been to 'em to see a man always a walkin' up and down the pavement
outside, with the portrait of a bear in his last agonies, and
underneath, in large letters, 'Another fine animal was slaughtered
yesterday at Jenkinson's!' Hous'ever, there they wos, and there
Jenkinson wos, till he was took very ill with some inward disorder, lost
the use of his legs, and wos confined to his bed, vere he laid a wery
long time; but sich wos his pride in his profession even then, that
wenever he wos worse than usual the doctor used to go down-stairs, and
say, 'Jenkinson's wery low this mornin', we must give the bears a stir;'
and as sure as ever they stirred 'em up a bit, and made 'em roar,
Jenkinson opens his eyes, if he wos ever so bad, calls out, 'There's the
bears!' and rewives agin."
The author of a most amusing article in the seventy-seventh volume of
the _Edinburgh Review_, on the modern system of advertising, records
that, in his puff, the first vendor of bears' grease cautioned his
customers to wash their hands in warm water after using it, to prevent
them from assuming the hairy appearance of a paw.
A BEARABLE PUN.
An illiterate vendor of beer wrote over his door at Harrowgate, "_Bear_
sold here." "He spells the word quite correctly," said Theodore Hook,
"if he means to apprise us that the article is his own _Bruin_."[33]
[Illustration: Polar Bear. (Thalassarctos maritimus.)]
SHAVED BEAR.
Robert Southey ("Common-Place Book," 4th ser., p. 359) says:--"At
Bristol I saw a shaved monkey shown for a fairy; and a shaved bear, in a
check waistcoat and trousers, sitting in a great chair as an Ethiopian
savage. This was the most cruel fraud I ever saw. The unnatural position
of the beast, and the damnable brutality of the woman-keeper, who sat
upon his knee, put her arm round his neck, called him husband and
sweetheart, and kissed him, made it the most disgusting spectacle I ever
witnessed. Cottle was with me."
He also tells of a fellow exhibiting a dragon-fly under a magnifier at a
country fair, and calling it the great High German "Heiter-Keiter."
THE POLAR BEAR.
(_Thalassarctos maritimus._[34])
Notwithstanding ice and snow, and the darkness of a nine months' winter,
the Arctic regions are tenanted by several mammalia. Some of these are
constant residents, the rest are migratory visitors. Of the former
division, one of the most conspicuous, as it is certainly the most
formidable, is the polar bear,--a creature between eight and nine feet
in length, which, shuffling along the snow at a very quick pace, and
being an excellent swimmer besides, cannot fail to inspire dread. The
large wide head and fearfully armed jaws are united by a strong neck to
powerful shoulders, from which spring the thick and muscular fore-legs.
The paws, both of the fore and of the hind feet, are broad and admirably
adapted, with their long hairy covering, to keep the polar bear from
sinking in the snow. Although the creature has an appearance of
clumsiness, it is the reverse of inactive. Every one who knows the
boundless spaces it has to traverse, when in a state of liberty and the
"monarch of all it surveys," cannot but pity it as a prisoner in the
Regent's Park, where a tolerably capacious den, supplied with a bath of
water of very limited dimension, affords the restless creature less
liberty than a squirrel has in its round-about, or a poor lark in its
cage.
Voyagers to the Arctic regions describe it as wandering over the fields
of ice, mounting the hummocks,[35] and looking around for prey. With
outstretched head, its little but keen eye directed to the various
points of a wide horizon, the polar bear looks out for seals; or scents
with its quick nostrils the luscious smell of some stinking
whale-blubber or half-putrid whale-flesh. Dr Scoresby relates[36] that a
piece of the _kreng_ of a whale thrown into the fire drew a bear to a
ship from the distance of miles. Captain Beechey mentions, that his
party in 1818, as they were off the coast of Spitzbergen, by setting on
fire some fat of the walrus, soon attracted a bear to their close
vicinity. This polar Bruin was evidently unaccustomed to the sight of
masts, and, when approaching, occasionally hesitated, and seemed half
inclined to turn round and be off. So agreeable a smell as burning
walrus fat dispelled all distrust, and brought him within musket-shot.
On receiving the first ball, he sprang round, growled terrifically, and
half raised himself on his hind-legs, as if expecting to seize the
object which had caused so much pain; woe to any one who had at that
moment been within reach of his merciless paws! Although a second and
third ball laid him writhing on the ice, he was not mastered; and on the
butt end of a musket directed at his head breaking short off, the bear
quickly seized the thigh of his assailant, and, but for the immediate
assistance of two or three of his shipmates, the man would have been
seriously injured. In these very seas--nearly fifty years before--the
hero of Trafalgar encountered this Arctic tyrant, and, when missed from
his ship, was discovered with a comrade attacking a large specimen,
separated from them by a chasm in the ice. On being reprimanded by his
captain for his foolhardiness, "Sir," said the young middy, pouting his
lips, as he used to do when excited, "I wished to kill the bear that I
might carry the skin to my father."[37]
Barentz, in his celebrated voyage in 1595, had two of his men killed by
"a great leane white beare." In these early days, so unused were polar
bears to man, that though thirty of their comrades attempted a rescue,
the prey was not abandoned. The purser, "stepping somewhat farther
forward, and seeing the beare to be within the length of a shot,
presently levelled his peece, and discharging it at the beare, shot her
into the head, betweene both the eyes, and yet shee held the man still
fast by the necke, and lifted up her head with the man in her mouth, but
shee beganne somewhat to stagger; wherewith the purser and a Scottishman
drew out their courtlaxes (cutlasses), and stroke at her so hard, that
their courtlaxes burst, and yet shee would not leave the man. At last
Wm. Geysen went to them, and with all his might stroke the beare upon
the snowt with his peece, at which time the beare fell to the ground,
making a great noyse, and Wm. Geysen leaping upon her cut her throat.
The 7th of September wee buried the dead bodies of our men in the States
Island, and having fleaed the beare, carryed her skinne to Amsterdam."
This is about the earliest record of an encounter with this formidable
creature; sailors now find that they can be attacked with most advantage
in the water. When in this element, they try to escape by swimming to
the ice, and when the ice is in the form of loose and detached small
floes, Dr Sutherland has seen them dive underneath, and appear on the
opposite side. Scoresby records, that when shot at a distance, and able
to escape, the bear has been observed to retire to the shelter of a
hummock, and, as if aware of the styptical effect of cold, apply snow to
the wound.
In common with nearly every animal, this huge despot of the North is
strongly attached to its young. Captain Inglefield, on his return home
from Baffin's Bay in 1852, pursued three bears, as he was anxious to get
a supply of fresh meat for his Esquimaux dogs. The trio were evidently a
mother and twins. The captain was anxious to secure the cubs alive as
trophies, and was cautious in shooting at the mother. All three fell,
and were brought on board the _Isabel_. He records that it was quite
heartrending to see the affection that existed between them. When the
cubs saw their mother was wounded, they commenced licking her wounds,
regardless of their own sufferings. At length the mother began to eat
the snow, a sure sign that she was mortally wounded. "Even then her care
for the cubs did not cease, as she kept continually turning her head
from one to the other, and, though roaring with pain, she seemed to warn
them to escape if possible. Their attachment was as great as hers, and I
was thus obliged to destroy them all. It went much against my feelings,
but the memory of my starving dogs reconciled me to the necessity."
The female bear when pursued carries or pushes her cubs forwards, and
the little creatures are described as placing themselves across her path
to be shoved forwards. Scoresby mentions an instance where, when
projected some yards in advance, the cubs ran on until she overtook
them, when they alternately adjusted themselves for a second throw.
It is chiefly on the seal that this bear feeds, and it displays great
cunning in catching them as they sleep on the ice, or come to the holes
in the ice to breathe, when it destroys them with one blow of its
formidable and heavy paw. For its mode of getting the walrus we refer
the reader to "Excelsior," vol. i. p. 37. Notwithstanding his strength
and ferocity, the Esquimaux frequently kill the polar bear, as they
esteem its flesh and fat, and highly prize its skin. The flesh is not so
prized by Saxons, whether they be European or American. Dr Kane's
opinion would differ but little from that of Arctic voyagers on our side
of the Atlantic. The surgeon to the "Grinnell Expedition" in search of
Sir John Franklin thus characterises its flesh: "Bear is strong, very
strong, and withal most capricious meat; you cannot tell where to find
him. One day he is quite beefy and bearable; another, hircine, hippuric,
and detestable."
It is but fair to say that Captain Parry[38] regards the flesh of the
polar bear to be as wholesome as any other, though not quite so
palatable. His men suffered from indigestion after eating it; but this
he attributes to the quantity, and not to the quality, of the meat they
had eaten.
There seems to be little doubt that the liver is highly deleterious.
Some of the sailors of Barentz, who made a meal of it, were very sick,
"and we verily thought we should have lost them, for all their skins
came off from the foot to the head."
The skin of the bear is covered with long yellowish white hair, which,
is very close, and forms a wonderful defence against the cold, and
against the tusk of the animals on which it feeds. We heard of another
use of this hair from an officer on one of the late Arctic searching
expeditions. A bear was seen to come down a tolerably high and steep
declivity by sliding down on its hinder quarters, in an attitude known,
in more than one part of the British Islands, by the expressive name of
"katy-hunkers;" the shaggy hair with which it was covered serving like a
thick mat to protect the creature from injury. The Esquimaux prepare the
skin sometimes without ripping it up, and turning the hairy side inward
a warm sack-like bed is formed, into which they creep, and lie very
comfortably. Otho Fabricius, in his "Fauna Graenlandica" (p. 24), informs
us that the tendons are converted into sewing threads. The female bear
has one or two, and sometimes three, cubs at a time. They are born in
the winter, and the mother generally digs for them and for herself a
snug nestling-place in the snow. The males in the winter time leave the
coast, and go out on the ice-fields, to the edge of the open water after
seals.--_Adam White, in "Excelsior" (with additions)._
NELSON AND THE POLAR BEAR.
In 1773, Captain Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave, sailed on a voyage of
discovery towards the North Pole. In this expedition sailed two Norfolk
young men, one in his twenty-third year, the other a mere lad in his
fifteenth year. The former sailed from a spirit of curiosity, and being
sorely distressed by sea-sickness was landed in Norway. He afterwards
became famous in the British Parliament, and the speeches of the Right
Hon. William Windham, Secretary at War, are often referred to even now.
The younger man was Horatio Nelson, cockswain under Captain Lutwidge,
who was killed at the battle of Trafalgar, thirty-two years after his
Polar expedition, and left a name which is synonymous with the glory of
the British navy.
Southey, in his admirable life,[39] records an instance of his hardihood
on this expedition:--"One night, during the mid-watch, he stole from the
ship with one of his comrades, taking advantage of a rising fog, and set
off over the ice in pursuit of a bear. It was not long before they were
missed. The fog thickened, and Captain Lutwidge and his officers became
exceedingly alarmed for their safety. Between three and four in the
morning the weather cleared, and the two adventurers were seen at a
considerable distance from the ship attacking a huge bear. The signal
for them to return was immediately made; Nelsons' comrade called upon
him to obey it, but in vain; his musket had flashed in the pan; their
ammunition was expended; and a chasm in the ice, which divided him from
the bear, probably preserved his life. 'Never mind,' he cried; 'do but
let me get a blow at this devil with the butt-end of my musket, and we
shall have him.' Captain Lutwidge, however, seeing his danger, fired a
gun, which had the desired effect of frightening the beast; and the boy
then returned, somewhat afraid of the consequences of his trespass. The
captain reprimanded him sternly for conduct so unworthy of the office
which he filled, and desired to know what motive he could have for
hunting a bear. 'Sir,' said he, pouting his lip, as he was wont to do
when agitated, 'I wished to kill the bear, that I might carry the skin
to my father.'"
A CLEVER POLAR BEAR.