But although these errors of reaction are less common than the

primary vulgar errors, they are better worth noticing: inasmuch as

in many cases they are the errors of the well-intentioned. People

fall into the primary vulgar errors without ever thinking of right

or wrong: merely feeling an impulse to go there, or to think thus.

But worthy folk, for the most part, fall into the secondary vulgar

errors, while honestly endeavouring to escape what they have

discerned to be wrong. Not indeed that it is always in good faith

that men run to the opposite extreme. Sometimes they do it in pet

and perversity, being well aware that they are doing wrong. You hint

to some young friend, to whom you are nearly enough related to be

justified in doing so, that the dinner to which he has invited you,

with several others, is unnecessarily fine, is somewhat extravagant,

is beyond what he can afford. The young friend asks you back in

a week or two, and sets before you a feast of salt herrings and

potatoes. Now the fellow did not run into this extreme with the

honest intention of doing right. He knew perfectly well that this

was not what you meant. He did not go through this piece of folly

in the sincere desire to avoid the other error of extravagance. Or,

you are a country clergyman. You are annoyed, Sunday by Sunday, by

a village lad who, from enthusiasm or ostentation, sings so loud

in church as to disturb the whole congregation. You hint to him,

as kindly as you can, that there is something very pleasing about

the softer tones of his voice, and that you would like to hear

them more frequently. But the lad sees through your civil way of

putting the case. His vanity is touched. He sees you mean that you

don't like to hear him bellow: and next Sunday you will observe

that he shuts up his hymn-book in dudgeon, and will not sing at

all. Leave the blockhead to himself Do not set yourself to stroke

down his self-conceit: he knows quite well he is doing wrong:

there is neither sense nor honesty in what he does. You remark at

dinner, while staying with a silly old gentleman, that the plum-pudding,

though admirable, perhaps errs on the side of over-richness; next

day he sets before you a mass of stiff paste with no plums at

all, and says, with a look of sly stupidity, 'Well, I hope you are

satisfied now.' Politeness prevents your replying, 'No, you don't.

You know that is not what I meant. You are a fool.' You remember

the boy in Pickwick, who on his father finding fault with him for

something wrong he had done, offered to kill himself if that would

be any satisfaction to his parent. In this case you have a more

recondite instance of this peculiar folly. Here the primary course

is tacitly assumed, without being stated. The primary impulse of

the human being is to take care of himself; the opposite of that

of course is to kill himself. And the boy, being chidden for doing

something which might rank under the general head of taking care

of himself, proposed (as that course appeared unsatisfactory) to

take the opposite one. 'You don't take exercise enough,' said a

tutor to a wrong-headed boy who was under his care: 'you ought to

walk more.' Next morning the perverse fellow entered the breakfast

parlour in a fagged condition, and said, with the air of a martyr,

'Well, I trust I have taken exercise enough to-day: I have walked

twenty miles this morning.' As for all such manifestations of the

disposition to run into opposite extremes, let them be treated as

manifestations of pettedness, perversity, and dishonesty. In some

cases a high-spirited youth may be excused them; but, for the

most part, they come with doggedness, wrong-headedness, and dense

stupidity. And any pretext that they are exhibited with an honest

intention to do right, ought to be regarded as a transparently

false pretext.

I have now before me a list (prepared by a much stronger hand

than mine) of honest cases in which men, avoiding Scylla, run into

Charybdis: in which men, thinking to bend the crooked twig straight,

bend it backwards. But before mentioning these, it may be remarked,

that there is often such a thing as a reaction from a natural

tendency, even when that natural tendency is not towards what may

be called a primary vulgar error. The law of reaction extends to

all that human beings can ever feel the disposition to think or do.

There are, doubtless, minds of great fixity of opinion and motive:

and there are certain things, in the case of almost all men, as

regards which their belief and their active bias never vary through

life: but with most human beings, with nations, with humankind,

as regards very many and very important matters, as surely and as

far as the pendulum has swung to the right, so surely and so far

will it swing to the left. I do not say that an opinion in favour

of monarchy is a primary vulgar error; or that an opinion in favour

of republicanism is a secondary: both may be equally right: but

assuredly each of these is a reaction from the other. America, for

instance, is one great reaction from Europe. The principle on which

these reactionary swings of the pendulum take place, is plain.

Whatever be your present position, you feel its evils and drawbacks

keenly. Your feeling of the present evil is much more vivid than

your imagination of the evil which is sure to be inherent in the

opposite system, whatever that may be. You live in a country where

the national Church is Presbyterian. You see, day by day, many

inconveniences and disadvantages inherent in that form of church

government. It is of the nature of evil to make its presence much

more keenly felt than the presence of good. So while keenly alive

to the drawbacks of presbytery, you are hardly conscious of its

advantages. You swing over, let us suppose, to the other end: you

swing over from Scotland into England, from presbytery to episcopacy.

For awhile you are quite delighted to find yourself free from the

little evils of which you had been wont to complain. But by and

bye the drawbacks of episcopacy begin to push themselves upon your

notice. You have escaped one set of disadvantages: you find that

you have got into the middle of another. Scylla no longer bellows

in your hearing; but Charybdis whirls you round. You begin to feel

that the country and the system yet remain to be sought, in which

some form of evil, of inconvenience, of worry, shall not press you.

Am I wrong in fancying, dear friends more than one or two, that

but for very shame the pendulum would swing back again to the point

from which it started: and you, kindly Scots, would find yourselves

more at home in kindly and homely Scotland, with her simple forms

and faith? So far as my experience has gone, I think that in all

matters not of vital moment, it is best that the pendulum should

stay at the end of the swing where it first found itself: it will

be in no more stable position at the other end: and it will somehow

feel stranger-like there. And you, my friend, though in your visits

to Anglican territory you heartily conform to the Anglican Church,

and enjoy as much as mortal san her noble cathedrals and her

stately worship; still I know that after all, you cannot shake off

the spell in which the old remembrances of your boyhood have bound

you. I know that your heart warms to the Burning Bush; [Footnote:

The scutcheon of the Church of Scotland.] and that it will, till

death chills it.

A noteworthy fact in regard to the swing of the pendulum, is that

the secondary tendency is sometimes found in the ruder state of

society, and the less reflective man. Naturalness comes last. The

pendulum started from naturalness: it swung over into artificiality:

and with thoughtful people it has swung back to naturalness again.

Thus it is natural, when in danger, to be afraid. It is natural,

when you are possessed by any strong feeling, to show it. You see

all this in children: this is the point which the pendulum starts

from. It swings over, and we find a reaction from this. The reaction

is, to maintain and exhibit perfect coolness and indifference in

danger; to pretend to be incapable of fear. This state of things

we find in the Red Indian, a rude and uncivilized being. But

it is plain that with people who are able to think, there must be

a reaction from this. The pendulum cannot long stay in a position

which flies so completely in the face of the law of gravitation. It

is pure nonsense to talk about being incapable of fear. I remember

reading somewhere about Queen Elizabeth, that 'her soul was incapable

of fear.' That statement is false and absurd. You may regard fear

as unmanly and unworthy: you may repress the manifestations of

it; but the state of mind which (in beings not properly monstrous

or defective) follows the perception of being in danger, is fear.

As surely as the perception of light is sight, so surely is the

perception of danger fear. And for a man to say that his soul is

incapable of fear, is just as absurd as to say that from a peculiarity

of constitution, when dipped in water, he does not get wet. You,

human being, whoever you may be, when you are placed in danger, and

know you are placed in danger, and reflect on the fact, you feel

afraid. Don't vapour and say no; we know how the mental machine

must work, unless it be diseased. Now, the thoughtful man admits

all this: he admits that a bullet through his brain would be a very

serious thing for himself, and like-wise for his wife and children:

he admits that he shrinks from such a prospect; he will take pains

to protect himself from the risk; but he says that if duty requires

him to run the risk he will run it. This is the courage of the

civilized man as opposed to the blind, bull-dog insensibility of

the savage. This is courage--to know the existence of danger, but

to face it nevertheless. Here, under the influence of longer thought,

the pendulum has swung into common sense, though not quite back to

the point from which it started. Of course, it still keeps swinging

about in individual minds. The other day I read in a newspaper a

speech by a youthful rifleman, in which he boasted that no matter

to what danger exposed, his corps would never take shelter behind

trees and rocks, but would stand boldly out to the aim of the enemy.

I was very glad to find this speech answered in a letter to the

Times, written by a rifleman of great experience and proved bravery.

The experienced man pointed out that the inexperienced man was

talking nonsense: that true courage appeared in manfully facing risks

which were inevitable, but not in running into needless peril: and

that the business of a soldier was to be as useful to his country

and as destructive to the enemy as possible, and not to make needless

exhibitions of personal foolhardiness. Thus swings the pendulum as

to danger and fear. The point of departure, the primary impulse,

is,

1. An impulse to avoid danger at all hazards: i. e., to run away,

and save yourself, however discreditably.

The pendulum swings to the other extremity, and we have the secondary

impulse--

2. An impulse to disregard danger, and even to run into it, as if

it were of no consequence at all; i. e., young rifleman foolhardiness,

and Red Indian insensibility.

The pendulum comes so far back, and rests at the point of wisdom:

3. A determination to avoid all danger, the running into which would

do no good, and which may be avoided consistently with honour; but

manfully to face danger, however great, that comes in the way of

duty.

But after all this deviation from the track, I return to my list of

Secondary Vulgar Errors, run into with good and honest intentions.

Here is the first--

Don't you know, my reader, that it is natural to think very bitterly

of the misconduct which affects yourself? If a man cheats your

friend, or cheats your slight acquaintance, or cheats some one who

is quite unknown to you, by selling him a lame horse, you disapprove

his conduct, indeed, but not nearly so much as if he had cheated

yourself. You learn that Miss Limejuice has been disseminating a

grossly untrue account of some remarks which you made in her hearing:

and your first impulse is to condemn her malicious falsehood, much

more severely than if she had merely told a few lies about some

one else. Yet it is quite evident that if we were to estimate the

doings of men with perfect justice, we should fix solely on the

moral element in their doings; and the accidental circumstance

of the offence or injury to ourselves would be neither here nor

there. The primary vulgar error, then, in this case is, undue and

excessive disapprobation of misconduct from which we have suffered.

No one but a very stupid person would, if it were fairly put to him,

maintain that this extreme disapprobation was right: but it cannot

be denied that this is the direction to which all human beings are

likely, at first, to feel an impulse to go. A man does you some

injury: you are much angrier than if he had done the like injury

to some one else. You are much angrier when your own servants are

guilty of little neglects and follies, than when the servants of

your next neighbour are guilty in a precisely similar degree. The

Prime Minister (or Chancellor) fails to make you a Queen's Counsel

or a Judge: you are much more angry than if he had overlooked

some other man, of precisely equal merit. And I do not mean merely

that the injury done to yourself comes more home to you, but that

positively you think it a worse thing. It seems as if there were

more of moral evil in it. The boy who steals your plums seems worse

than other boys stealing other plums. The servant who sells your

oats and starves your horses, seems worse than other servants who

do the like. It is not merely that you feel where the shoe pinches

yourself, more than where it pinches another: that is all quite

right. It is that you have a tendency to think it is a worse shoe

than another which gives an exactly equal amount of pain. You are

prone to dwell upon and brood over the misconduct which affected

yourself.

Well, you begin to see that this is unworthy, that selfishness and

mortified conceit are at the foundation of it. You determine that

you will shake yourself free from this vulgar error. What more

magnanimous, you think, than to do the opposite of the wrong thing?

Surely it will be generous, and even heroic, to wholly acquit

the wrong-doer, and even to cherish him for a bosom friend. So

the pendulum swings over to the opposite extreme, and you land in

the secondary vulgar error. I do not mean to say that in practice

many persons are likely to thus bend the twig backwards; but it is

no small evil to think that it would be a right thing, and a fine

thing, to do even that which you never intend to do. So you write

an essay, or even a book, the gist of which is that it is a grand

thing to select for a friend and guide the human being who has done

you signal injustice and harm. Over that book, if it be a prettily

written tale, many young ladies will weep: and though without the

faintest intention of imitating your hero's behaviour, they will

think that it would be a fine thing if they did so. And it is a

great mischief to pervert the moral judgment and falsely to excite

the moral feelings. You forget that wrong is wrong, though it be

done against yourself, and that you have no right to acquit the

wrong to yourself as though it were no wrong at all. That lies

beyond your province. You may forgive the personal offence, but it

does not rest with you to acquit the guilt. You have no right to

confuse moral distinctions by practically saying that wrong is not

wrong, because it is done against you. All wrong is against very

many things and very grave things, besides being against you. It

is not for you to speak in the name of God and the universe. You

may not wish to say much about the injury done to yourself, but

there it is; and as to the choosing for your friend the man who has

greatly injured you, in most cases such a choice would be a very

unwise one, because in most cases it would amount to this--that

you should select a man for a certain post mainly because he has

shown himself possessed of qualities which unfit him for that post.

That surely would be very foolish. If you had to appoint a postman,

would you choose a man because he had no legs? And what is very

foolish can never be very magnanimous.

The right course to follow lies between the two which have been

set out. The man who has done wrong to you is still a wrong-doer.

The question you have to consider is, What ought your conduct to be

towards a wrong-doer? Let there be no harbour given to any feeling

of personal revenge. But remember that it is your duty to disapprove

what is wrong, and that it is wisdom not too far to trust a man

who has proved himself unworthy to be trusted. I have no feeling of

selfish bitterness against the person who deceived me deliberately

and grossly, yet I cannot but judge that deliberate and gross

deceit is bad; and I cannot but judge that the person who deceived

me once might, if tempted, deceive me again: so he shall not have

the opportunity. I look at the horse which a friend offers me for

a short ride. I discern upon the knees of the animal a certain slight

but unmistakeable roughness of the hair. That horse has been down;

and if I mount that horse at all (which I shall not do except in

a case of necessity), I shall ride him with a tight rein, and with

a sharp look-out for rolling stones.

Another matter in regard to which Scylla and Charybdis are very

discernible, is the fashion in which human beings think and speak

of the good or bad qualities of their friends.

The primary tendency here is to blindness to the faults of a friend,

and over-estimate of his virtues and qualifications. Most people

are disposed extravagantly to over-value anything belonging to

or connected with themselves. A farmer tells you that there never

were such turnips as his turnips; a schoolboy thinks that the world

cannot show boys so clever as those with whom he is competing for

the first place in his class; a clever student at college tells

you what magnificent fellows are certain of his compeers--how sure

they are to become great men in life. Talk of Tennyson! You have

not read Smith's prize poem. Talk of Macaulay! Ah, if you could

see Brown's prize essay! A mother tells you (fathers are generally

less infatuated) how her boy was beyond comparison the most

distinguished and clever in his class--how he stood quite apart

from, any of the others. Your eye happens to fall a day or two

afterwards upon the prize-list advertised in the newspapers, and

you discover that (curiously) the most distinguished and clever

boy in that particular school is rewarded with the seventh prize.

I dare say you may have met with families in which there existed

the most absurd and preposterous belief as to their superiority,

social, intellectual, and moral, above other families which were

as good or better. And it is to be admitted, that if you are happy

enough to have a friend whose virtues and qualifications are really

high, your primary tendency will probably be to fancy him a great

deal cleverer, wiser, and better than, he really is, and to imagine

that he possesses no faults at all. The over-estimate of his good

qualities will be the result of your seeing them constantly, and

having their excellence much pressed on your attention, while from

not knowing so well other men who are quite as good, you are led to

think that those good qualities are more rare and excellent than

in fact they are. And you may possibly regard it as a duty to

shut your eyes to the faults of those who are dear to you, and to

persuade yourself, against your judgment, that they have no faults

or none worth thinking of. One can imagine a child painfully struggling

to be blind to a parent's errors, and thinking it undutiful and

wicked to admit the existence of that: which is too evident. And if

you know well a really good and able man, you will very naturally

think his goodness and his ability to be relatively much greater

than they are. For goodness and ability are in truth very noble

things: the more you look at them the more you will feel this: and

it is natural to judge that what is so noble cannot be very common;

whereas in fact there is much more good in this world than we are

ready to believe. If you find an intelligent person who believes

that some particular author is by far the best in the language, or

that some particular composer's music is by far the finest, or that

some particular preacher is by far the most eloquent and useful, or

that some particular river has by far the finest scenery, or that

some particular sea-side place has by far the most bracing and

exhilarating air, or that some particular magazine is ten thousand

miles ahead of all competitors, the simple explanation in ninety-nine

cases out of a hundred is this--that the honest individual who

holds these overstrained opinions knows a great deal better than

he knows any others, that author, that music, that preacher, that

river, that sea-side place, that magazine. He knows how good they

are: and not having much studied the merits of competing things,

he does not know that these are very nearly as good.

But I do not think that there is any subject whatever in regard to

which it is so capricious and arbitrary whether you shall run it

into Scylla or into Charybdis. It depends entirely on how it strikes

the mind, whether you shall go off a thousand miles to the right or

a thousand miles to the lefn You know, if you fire a rifle-bullet

at an iron-coated ship, the bullet, if it impinge upon the iron

plate at A, may glance away to the west, while if it impinge upon

the iron plate at B, only an inch distant from A, it may glance off

towards the directly opposite point of the compass. A very little

thing makes all the difference. You stand in the engine-room of

a steamer; you admit the steam to the cylinders, and the paddles

turn ahead; a touch of a lever, you admit the selfsame steam to the

selfsame cylinders, and the paddles turn astern. It is so oftentimes

in the moral world. The turning of a straw decides whether the

engines shall work forward or backward.

Now, given a friend, to whom you are very warmly attached: it is

a toss-up whether your affection for your friend shall make you,

1. Quite blind to his faults; or,

2. Acutely and painfully alive to his faults.

Sincere affection may impel either way. Your friend, for instance,

makes a speech at a public dinner. He makes a tremendously bad

speech. Now, your love for him may lead you either

1. To fancy that his speech is a remarkably good one; or,

2. To feel acutely how bad his speech is, and to wish you could

sink through the floor for very shame.

If you did not care for him at all, you would not mind a bit whether

he made a fool of himself or not. But if you really care for him,

and if the speech be really very bad, and if you are competent to

judge whether speeches in general be bad or not, I do not see how you

can escape falling either into Scylla or Charybdis. And accordingly,

while there are families in which there exists a preposterous

over-estimate of the talents and acquirements of their several

members, there are other families in which the rifle-bullet has

glanced off in the opposite direction, and in which there exists

a depressing and unreasonable under-estimate of the talents and

acquirements of their several members. I have known such a thing as

a family in which certain boys during their early education had it

ceaselessly drilled into them that they were the idlest, stupidest,

and most ignorant boys in the world. The poor little fellows grew

up under that gloomy belief: for conscience is a very artificial

thing, and you may bring up very good boys in the belief that

they are very bad. At length, happily, they went to a great public

school; and like rockets they went up forthwith to the top of their

classes, and never lost their places there. From school they went

to the university, and there won honours more eminent than had ever

been won before. It will not surprise people who know much of human

nature, to be told that through this brilliant career of school

and college work the home belief in their idleness and ignorance

continued unchanged, and that hardly at its end was the toil-worn

senior wrangler regarded as other than an idle and useless blockhead.

Now, the affection which prompts the under-estimate may be quite

as real and deep as that which prompts the over-estimate, but its

manifestation is certainly the less amiable and pleasing. I have

known a successful author whose relatives never believed, till the

reviews assured them of it, that his writings were anything but

contemptible and discreditable trash.

I have been speaking of an honest though erroneous estimate of the

qualities of one's friends, rather than of any expression of that

estimate. The primary tendency is to an over-estimate; the secondary

tendency is to an under-estimate. A commonplace man thinks there

never was mortal so wise and good as the friend he values; a man

who is a thousandth part of a degree less common-place resolves

that he will keep clear of that error, and accordingly he feels

bound to exaggerate the failings of his friend and to extenuate his

good qualities. He thinks that a friend's judgment is very good and

sound, and that he may well rely upon it; but for fear of showing

it too much regard, he probably shows it too little. He thinks that

in some dispute his friend is right; but for fear of being partial

he decides that his friend is wrong. It is obvious that in any

instance in which a man, seeking to avoid the primary error of

over-estimating his friend, falls into the secondary of under-estimating

him, he will (if any importance be attached to his judgment) damage

his friend's character; for most people will conclude that he is

saying of his friend the best that can be said; and that if even he

admits that there is so little to approve about his friend, there

must be very little indeed to approve: whereas the truth may be,

that he is saying the worst that can be said--that no man could

with justice give a worse picture of the friend's character.

Not very far removed from this pair of vulgar errors stand the

following:

The primary vulgar error is, to set up as an infallible oracle one

whom we regard as wise--to regard any question as settled finally

if we know what is his opinion upon it. You remember the man in the

Spectator who was always quoting the sayings of Mr. Nisby. There

was a report in London that the Grand Vizier was dead. The good

man was uncertain whether to believe the report or not. He went and

talked with Mr. Nisby and returned with his mind reassured. Now,

he enters in his diary that 'the Grand Vizier was certainly dead.'

Considering the weakness of the reasoning powers of many people,

there is something pleasing after all in this tendency to look

round for somebody stronger upon whom they may lean. It is wise

and natural in a scarlet-runner to climb up something, for it could

not grow up by itself; and for practical purposes it is well that

in each household there should be a little Pope, whose dicta on

all topics shall be unquestionable. It saves what is to many people

the painful effort of making up their mind what they are to do or

to think. It enables them to think or act with much greater decision

and confidence. Most men have always a lurking distrust of their

own judgment, unless they find it confirmed by that of somebody

else. There are very many decent commonplace people who, if they

had been reading a book or article and had been thinking it very

fine, would, if you were resolutely and loudly to declare in their

hearing that it was wretched trash, begin to think that it was

wretched trash too.

The primary vulgar error, then, is to regard as an oracle one whom

we esteem as wise; and the secondary, the Charybdis opposite to

this Scylla, is, to entertain an excessive dread of being too much

led by one whom we esteem as wise. I mean an honest candid dread.

I do not mean a petted, wrong-headed, pragmatical determination to

let him see that you can think for yourself. You see, rny friend,

I don't suppose you to be a self-conceited fool. You remember how

Presumption, in the Pilgrim's Progress, on being offered some good

advice, cut his kind adviser short by declaring that Every tub must

stand on its own bottom. We have all known men, young and old, who,

upon being advised to do something which they knew they ought to

do, would, out of pure perversity and a wrong-headed independence,

go and do just the opposite thing. The secondary error of which

I am now thinking is that of the man who honestly dreads making

too much of the judgment of any mortal: and who, acting from a

good intention, probably goes wrong in the same direction as the

wrong-headed conceited man. Now, don't you know that to such an

extent does this morbid fear of trusting too much to any mortal go

in some men, that in their practical belief you would think that

the fact of any man being very wise was a reason why his judgment

should be set aside as unworthy of consideration; and more particularly,

that the fact of any man being supposed to be a powerful reasoner,

was quite enough to show that all he says is to go for nothing? You

are quite aware how jauntily some people use this last consideration,

to sweep away at once all the reasons given by an able and ingenious

speaker or writer. And it cuts the ground effectually from under

his feet. You state an opinion, somewhat opposed to that commonly

received. An honest, stupid person meets it with a surprised stare.

You tell him (I am recording what I have myself witnessed) that

you have been reading a work on the subject by a certain prelate:

you state as well as you can the arguments which are set forth by

the distinguished prelate. These arguments seem of great weight.

They deserve at least to be carefully considered. They seem to

prove the novel opinion to be just: they assuredly call on candid

minds to ponder the whole matter well before relapsing into the

old current way of thinking. Do you expect that the honest, stupid

person will judge thus? If so, you are mistaken. He is not shaken

in the least by all these strong reasons. The man who has set

these reasons forth is known to be a master of logic: that is good

ground why all his reasons should count for nothing. Oh, says the

stupid, honest person, we all know that the Archbishop can prove

anything! And so the whole thing is finally settled.

I have a considerable list of instances in which the reaction from

an error on one side of the line of right, lands in error equally

distant from the line of right on the other side: but it is needless

to go on to illustrate these at length; the mere mention of them

will suffice to suggest many thoughts to the intelligent reader. A

primary vulgar error, to which very powerful minds have frequently

shown a strong tendency, is bigoted intolerance: intolerance in

politics, in religion, in ecclesiastical affairs, in morals, in

anything. You may safely say that nothing but most unreasonable

bigotry would lead a Tory to say that all Whigs are scoundrels,

or a Whig to Bay that all Tories are bloated tyrants or crawling

sycophants. I must confess that, in severe reason, it is impossible

entirely to justify the Churchman who holds that all Dissenters

are extremely bad; though (so does inveterate prepossession warp

the intellect) I have also to admit that it appears to me that for

a Dissenter to hold that there is little or no good in the Church

is a great deal worse. There is something fine, however, about

a heartily intolerant man: you like him, though you disapprove of

him. Even if I were inclined to Whiggery, I should admire the downright

dictum of Dr. Johnson, that the devil was the first Whig. Even if

I were a Nonconformist, I should like Sydney Smith the better for

the singular proof of his declining strength which he once adduced:

'I do believe,' he said, 'that if you were to put a knife into my

hand, I should not have vigour enough to stick it into a Dissenter!'

The secondary error in this respect is a latitudinarian liberality

which regards truth and falsehood as matters of indifference.

Genuine liberality of sentiment is a good thing, and difficult as

it is good: but much liberality, political and religious, arises

really from the fact, that the liberal man does not care a rush

about the matter in debate. It is very easy to be tolerant in a

case in which you have no feeling whatever either way. The Churchman

who does not mind a bit whether the Church stands or falls, has no

difficulty in tolerating the enemies and assailants of the Church.

It is different with a man who holds the existence of a national

Establishment as a vital matter. And I have generally remarked

that when clergymen of the Church profess extreme catholicity of

spirit, and declare that they do not regard it as a thing of the

least consequence whether a man be Churchman or Dissenter, intelligent

Nonconformists receive such protestations with much contempt, and

(possibly with injustice) suspect their utterer of hypocrisy. If

you really care much about any principle; and if you regard it as

of essential importance; you cannot help feeling a strong impulse

to intolerance of those who decidedly and actively differ from you.

Here are some further vulgar errors, primary and secondary:

Primary--Idleness, and excessive self-indulgence;

Secondary--Penances, and self-inflicted tortures.

Primary--Swallowing whole all that is said or done by one's party;

Secondary--Dread of quite agreeing, or quite disagreeing on any

point with any one; and trying to keep at exactly an equal distance

from each.

Primary--Following the fashion with indiscriminate ardour;

Secondary--Finding a merit in singularity, as such.

Primary--Being quite captivated with thought which is striking and

showy, but not sound;

Secondary--Concluding that whatever is sparkling must be unsound.

I hardly know which tendency of the following is the primary, and

which the secondary; but I am sure that both exist. It may depend

upon the district of country, and the age of the thinker, which of

the two is the action and which the reaction:

1. Thinking a clergyman a model of perfection, because he is a stout

dashing fellow who plays at cricket and goes out fox-hunting; and,

generally, who flies in the face of all conventionalism;

2. Thinking a clergyman a model of perfection because he is of very

grave and decorous deportment; never plays at cricket, and never

goes out fox-hunting; and, generally, conforms carefully to all

the little proprieties.

1. Thinking a bishop a model prelate because he has no stiffness

or ceremony about him, but talks frankly to everybody, and puts

all who approach him at their ease;

2. Thinking a bishop a model prelate because he never descends from

his dignity; never forgets that he is a bishop, and keeps all who

approach him in their proper places.

1. Thinking the Anglican Church service the best, because it is so

decorous, solemn, and dignified;

2. Thinking the Scotch Church service the best, because it is so

simple and so capable of adaptation to all circumstances which may

arise.

1. Thinking an artisan a sensible right-minded man, knowing his

station, because he is always very respectful in his demeanour to

the squire, and great folks generally;

2. Thinking an artisan a fine, manly, independent fellow, because

he is always much less respectful in his demeanour to the squire

than he is to other people.

1. Thinking it a fine thing to be a fast, reckless, swaggering,

drinking, swearing reprobate: Being ashamed of the imputation

of being a well-behaved and (above all) a pious and conscientious

young man: Thinking it manly to do wrong, and washy to do right;

2. Thinking it a despicable thing to be a fast, reckless, swaggering,

drinking, swearing reprobate: Thinking it is manly to do right,

and shameful to do wrong.

1. That a young man should begin his letters to his father

with HONOURED SIR; and treat the old gentleman with extraordinary

deference upon all occasions:

2. That a young man should begin his remarks to his father on any

subject with, I SAY, GOVERNOR; and treat the old gentleman upon

all occasions with no deference at all.

But indeed, intelligent reader, the swing of the pendulum is the

type of the greater amount of human opinion and human feeling. In

individuals, in communities, in parishes, in little country towns,

in great nations, from hour to hour, from week to week, from century

to century, the pendulum swings to and fro. From Yes on the one

side to No on the other side of almost all conceivable questions,

the pendulum swings. Sometimes it swings over from Yes to No in a

few hours or days; sometimes it takes centuries to pass from the one

extremity to the other. In feeling, in taste, in judgment, in the

grandest matters and the least, the pendulum swings. From Popery to

Puritanism; from Puritanism back towards Popery; from Imperialism

to Republicanism, and back towards Imperialism again; from Gothic

architecture to Palladian, and from Palladian back to Gothic;

from hooped petticoats to drapery of the scantiest, and from that

backwards to the multitudinous crinoline; from crying up the science

of arms to crying it down, and back; from the schoolboy telling you

that his companion Brown is the jolliest fellow, to the schoolboy

telling you that his companion Brown is a beast, and back again;

from very high carriages to very low ones and back; from very short

horsetails to very long ones and back again--the pendulum swings.

In matters of serious judgment it is comparatively easy to discern

the rationale of this oscillation from side to side. It is that

the evils of what is present are strongly felt, while the evils of

what is absent are forgotten; and so, when the pendulum has swung

over to A, the evils of A send it flying over to B, while when it

reaches B the evils of B repel it again to A. In matters of feeling

it is less easy to discover the how and why of the process: we

can do no more than take refuge in the general belief that nature

loves the swing of the pendulum. There are people who at one time

have an excessive affection for some friend, and at another take

a violent disgust at him: and who (though sometimes permanently

remaining at the latter point) oscillate between these positive

and negative poles. You, being a sensible man, would not feel very

happy if some men were loudly crying you up: for you would be very

sure that in a little while they would be loudly crying you dovvn.

If you should ever happen to feel for one day an extraordinary

lightness and exhilaration of spirits, you will know that you must

pay for all this the price of corresponding depression--the hot fit

must be counterbalanced by the cold. Let us thank God that there

are beliefs and sentiments as to which the pendulum does not swing,

though even in these I have known it do so. I have known the young

girl who appeared thoroughly good and pious, who devoted herself

to works of charity, and (with even an over-scrupulous spirit)

eschewed vain company: and who by and bye learned to laugh at all

serious things, and ran into the utmost extremes of giddiness and

extravagant gaiety. And not merely should all of us be thankful if

we feel that in regard to the gravest sentiments and beliefs our

mind and heart remain year after year at the same fixed point:

I think we should be thankful if we find that as regards our

favourite books and authors our taste remains unchanged; that the

calm judgment of our middle age approves the preferences of ten

years since, and that these gather strength as time gives them the

witchery of old remembrances and associations. You enthusiastically

admired Byron once, you estimate him very differently now. You once

thought Festus finer than Paradise Loft, but you have swung away

from that. But for a good many years you have held by Wordsworth,

Shakspeare, and Tennyson, and this taste you are not likely to

outgrow. It is very curious to look over a volume which we once

thought magnificent, enthralling, incomparable, and to wonder

how on earth we ever cared for that stilted rubbish. No doubt the

pendulum swings quite as decidedly to your estimate of yourself

as to your estimate of any one else. It would be nothing at all to

have other people attacking and depreciating your writings, sermons,

and the like, if you yourself had entire confidence in them. The

mortifying thing is when your own taste and judgment say worse of

your former productions than could be said by the most unfriendly

critic; and the dreadful thought occurs, that if you yourself to-day

think so badly of what you wrote ten years since, it is probable

enough that on this day ten years hence (if you live to see it)

you may think as badly of what you are writing to-day. Let us hope

not. Let us trust that at length a standard of taste and judgment

is reached from which we shall not ever materially swing away. Yet

the pendulum will never be quite arrested as to your estimate of

yourself. Now and then you will think yourself a block-head: by and

bye you will think yourself very clever; and your judgment will

oscillate between these opposite poles of belief. Sometimes you

will think that your house is remarkably comfortable, sometimes

that it is unendurably uncomfortable; sometimes you will think that

your place in life is a very dignified and important one, sometimes

that it is a very poor and insignificant one; sometimes you will

think that some misfortune or disappointment which has befallen you

is a very crushing one; sometimes you will think that it is better

as it is. Ah, my brother, it is a poor, weak, wayward thing, the

human heart!

You know, of course, how the pendulum of public opinion swings

backwards and forwards. The truth lies somewhere about the middle

of the arc it describes, in most cases. You know how the popularity

of political men oscillates, from A, the point of greatest popularity,

to B, the point of no popularity at all. Think of Lord Brougham.

Once the pendulum swung far to the right: he was the most popular

man in Britain. Then, for many years, the pendulum swung far to

the left, into the cold regions of unpopularity, loss of influence,

and opposition benches. And now, in his last days, the pendulum

has come over to the right again. So with lesser men. When the

new clergyman comes to a country parish, how high his estimation!

Never was there preacher so impressive, pastor so diligent, man

so frank and agreeable. By and bye his sermons are middling, his

diligence middling; his manners rather stiff or rather too easy.

In a year or two the pendulum rests at its proper point: and from

that time onward the parson gets, in most cases, very nearly the

credit he deserves. The like oscillation of public opinion and feeling

exists in the case of unfavourable as of favourable judgments. A

man commits a great crime. His guilt is thought awful. There is a

general outcry for his condign punishment. He is sentenced to be

hanged. In a few days the tide begins to turn. His crime was not

so great. He had met great provocation. His education had been

neglected. He deserves pity rather than reprobation. Petitions

are got up that he should be let off; and largely signed by the

self-same folk who were loudest in the outcry against him. And

instead of this fact, that those folk were the keenest against the

criminal, being received (as it ought) as proof that their opinion

is worth nothing at all, many will receive it as proof that their

opinion is entitled to special consideration. The principle of the

pendulum in the matter of criminals is well understood by the Old

Bailey practitioners of New York and their worthy clients. When

a New Yorker is sentenced to be hanged, he remains as a cool as

cucumber; for the New York law is, that a year must pass between

the sentence and the execution. And long before the year passes,

the public sympathy has turned in the criminal's favour. Endless

petitions go up for his pardon. Of course he gets off. And indeed

it is not improbable that he may receive a public testimonial. It

cannot be denied that the natural transition in the popular feeling

is from applauding a man to hanging him, and from hanging a man to

applauding him.

Even so does the pendulum swing, and the world run away!

CHAPTER IV.

CONCERNING CHURCHYARDS.

Many persons do not like to go near a churchyard: some do not like

even to hear a churchyard mentioned. Many others feel an especial

interest in that quiet place--an interest which is quite unconnected

with any personal associations with it. A great deal depends upon

habit; and a great deals turns, too, on whether the churchyard

which we know best is a locked-up, deserted, neglected place, all

grown over with nettles; or a spot not too much retired, open to

all passers-by, with trimly-mown grass and neat gravelled walks.

I do not sympathize with the taste which converts a burying-place

into a flower-garden or a fashionable lounge for thoughtless people:

let it be the true 'country churchyard,' only with some appearance

of being remembered and cared for. For myself, though a very

commonplace person, and not at all sentimentally inclined, I have

a great liking for a churchyard. Hardly a day passes on which I do

not go and walk up and down for a little in that which surrounds

my church. Probably some people may regard me as extremely devoid

of occupation, when I confess that daily, after breakfast, and

before sitting down to my work (which is pretty hard, though they

may not think so), I walk slowly down to the churchyard, which

is a couple of hundred yards off, and there pace about for a few

minutes, looking at the old graves and the mossy stones. Nor is

this only in summer-time, when the sward is white with daisies,

when the ancient oaks around the gray wall are leafy and green,

when the passing river flashes bright through their openings and

runs chiming over the warm stones, and when the beautiful hills

that surround the quiet spot at a little distance are flecked with

summer light and shade; but in winter too, when the bare branches

look sharp against the frosty sky, and the graves look like wavelets

on a sea of snow. Now, if I were anxious to pass myself off upon

my readers as a great and thoughtful man, I might here give an

account of the profound thoughts which I think in my daily musings

in my pretty churchyard. But, being an essentially commonplace

person (as I have no doubt about nine hundred and ninety-nine out

of every thousand of my readers also are), I must here confess

that generally I walk about the churchyard, thinking and feeling

nothing very particular. I do not believe that ordinary people,

when worried by some little care, or pressed down by some little

sorrow, have only to go and muse in a churchyard in order to feel

how trivial and transient such cares and sorrows are, and how very

little they ought to vex us. To commonplace mortals, it is the

sunshine within the breast that does most to brighten; and the thing

that has most power to darken is the shadow there. And the scenes

and teachings of external nature have, practically, very little

effect indeed. And so, when musing in the churchyard, nothing grand,

heroical, philosophical, or tremendous ever suggests itself to me.

I look with pleasure at the neatly cut walks and grass. I peep in

at a window of the church, and think how I am to finish my sermon

for next Sunday. I read over the inscriptions on the stones which

mark where seven of my predecessors sleep. I look vacantly at the

lichens and moss which have overgrown certain tombstones three

or four centuries old. And occasionally I think of what and where

I shall be, when the village mason, whistling cheerfully at his

task, shall cut out my name and years on the stone which will mark

my last resting-place. But all these, of course, are commonplace

thoughts, just what would occur to anybody else, and really not

worth repeating.

And yet, although 'death, and the house appointed for all living,'

form a topic which has been treated by innumerable writers, from

the author of the book of Job to Mr. Dickens; and although the

subject might well be vulgarized by having been, for many a day,

the stock resort of every commonplace aimer at the pathetic; still

the theme is one which never can grow old. And the experience and

the heart of most men convert into touching eloquence even the

poorest formula of set phrases about the tremendous Fact. Nor are

we able to repress a strong interest in any account of the multitude

of fashions in which the mortal part of man has been disposed of,

after the great change has passed upon it. In a volume entitled

God's Acre, written by a lady, one Mrs. Stone, and published a year

or two since, you may find a great amount of curious information

upon such points: and after thinking of the various ways of burial

described, I think you will return with a feeling of home and

of relief to the quiet English country churchyard. I should think

that the shocking and revolting description of the burning of the

remains of Shelley, published by Mr. Trelawney, in his Last Days

of Shelhy and Byron, will go far to destroy any probability of

the introduction of cremation in this country, notwithstanding the

ingenuity and the eloquence of the little treatise published about

two years ago by a Member of the College of Surgeons, whose gist

you will understand from its title, which is Burning the Dead; or,

Urn-Sepulture Religiously, Socially, and Generally considered; with

Suggestions for a Revival of the Practice, as a Sanitary Measure.

The choice lies between burning and burying: and the latter being

universally accepted in Britain, it remains that it be carried

out in the way most decorous as regards the deceased, and most

soothing to the feelings of surviving friends. Every one has seen

burying-places of all conceivable kinds, and every one knows how

prominent a feature they form in the English landscape. There is

the dismal corner in the great city, surrounded by blackened walls,

where scarce a blade of grass will grow, and where the whole thing

is foul and pestilential. There is the ideal country churchyard,

like that described by Gray, where the old elms and yews keep watch

over the graves where successive generations of simple rustics have

found their last resting-place, and where in the twilight the owls

hoot from the tower of the ivy-covered church. There is the bare

enclosure, surrounded by four walls, and without a tree, far up the

lonely Highland hill-side; and more lonely still, the little gray

stone, rising above the purple heather, where rude letters, touched

up by Old Mortality's hands, tell that one, probably two or three,

rest beneath, who were done to death for what they firmly believed

was their Redeemer's cause, by Claverhouse or Dalyell. There is

the churchyard by the bleak sea-shore, where coffins have been laid

bare by the encroaching waves; and the niche in cathedral crypt,

or the vault under the church's floor. I cannot conceive anything

more irreverent than the American fashion of burying in unconsecrated

earth, each family having its own place of interment in the corner

of its own garden: unless it be the crotchet of the silly old

peer, who spent the last years of his life in erecting near his

castle-door, a preposterous building, the progress of which he

watched day by day with the interest of a man who had worn out all

other interest, occasionally lying down in the stone coffin which

he had caused to be prepared, to make sure that it would fit him.

I feel sorry, too, for the poor old Pope, who when he dies is laid

on a shelf above a door in St. Peter's, where he remains till the

next Pope dies, and then is put out of the way to make room for

him; nor do I at all envy the noble who has his family vault filled

with coffins covered with velvet and gold, occupied exclusively by

corpses of good quality. It is better surely to be laid, as Allan

Cunningham wished, where we shall 'not be built over;' where 'the

wind shall blow and the daisy grow upon our grave.' Let it be

among our kindred, indeed, in accordance with the natural desire;

but not on dignified shelves, not in aristocratic vaults, but lowly

and humbly, where the Christian dead sleep for the Resurrection.

Most people will sympathize so far with Beattie, though his lines

show that he was a Scotchman, and lived where there are not many

trees:--

Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down,

Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,

With here and there a violet bestrown,

Fast by a brook, or fountain's murmuring wave;

And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave!

But it depends entirely upon individual associations and fancies

where one would wish to rest after life's fitful fever: and I have

hardly ever been more deeply impressed than by certain lines which

I cut out of an old newspaper when I was a boy, and which set out

a choice far different from that of The Minstrel. They are written

by Mr. Westwood, a true poet, though not known as he deserves to

be. Here they are:--

Not there, not there!

Not in that nook, that ye deem so fair;--

Little reck I of the blue bright sky,

And the stream that floweth so murmuringly,

And the bending boughs, and the breezy air--

Not there, good friends, not there!

In the city churchyard, where the grass

Groweth rank and black, and where never a ray

Of that self-same sun doth find its way

Through the heaped-up houses' serried mass--

Where the only sounds are the voice of the throng,

And the clatter of wheels as they rush along--

Or the plash of the rain, or the wind's hoarse cry,

Or the busy tramp of the passer-by,

Or the toll of the bell on the heavy air--

Good friends, let it be there!

I am old, my friends--I am very old--

Fourscore and five--and bitter cold

Were that air on the hill-side far away;

Eighty full years, content, I trow,

Have I lived in the home where ye see me now,

And trod those dark streets day by day,

Till my soul doth love them; I love them all,

Each battered pavement, and blackened wall,

Each court and corner. Good sooth! to me

They are all comely and fair to see--

They have old faces--each one doth tell

A tale of its own, that doth like me well--

Sad or merry, as it may be,

From the quaint old book of my history.

And, friends, when this weary pain is past,

Fain would I lay me to rest at last

In their very midst;--full sure am I,

How dark soever be earth and sky,

I shall sleep softly--I shall know

That the things I loved so here below

Are about me still--so never care

That my last home looketh all bleak and bare--

Good friends, let it be there!

Some persons appear to think that it argues strength of mind and

freedom from unworthy prejudice, to profess great indifference as

to what becomes of their mortal part after they die. I have met with

men who talked in a vapouring manner about leaving their bodies to

be dissected; and who evidently enjoyed the sensation which such

sentiments produced among simple folk. Whenever I hear any man

talk in this way, my politeness, of course, prevents my telling him

that he is an uncommonly silly person; but it does not prevent my

thinking him one. It is a mistake to imagine that the soul is the

entire man. Human nature, alike here and hereafter, consists of

soul and body in union; and the body is therefore justly entitled to

its own degree of thought and care. But the point, indeed, is not

one to be argued; it is, as it appears to me, a matter of intuitive

judgment and instinctive feeling; and I apprehend that this feeling

and judgment have never appeared more strongly than in the noblest

of our race. I hold by Burke, who wrote, 'I should like that my dust

should mingle with kindred dust; the good old expression, "family

burying-ground," has something pleasing in it, at least to me.' Mrs.

Stone quotes Lady Murray's account of the death of her mother, the

celebrated Grissell Baillie, which shows that that strong-minded

and noble-hearted woman felt the natural desire:--

The next day she called me: gave directions about some few things:

said she wished to be carried home to lie by my father, but that

perhaps it would be too much trouble and inconvenience to us at

that season, therefore left me to do as I pleased; but that, in a

black purse in her cabinet, I would find money sufficient to do it,

which she had kept by her for that use, that whenever it happened,

it might not straiten us. She added, 'I have now no more to say or

do:' tenderly embraced me, and laid down her head upon the pillow,

and spoke little after that.

An instance, at once touching and awful, of care for the body

after the soul has gone, is furnished by certain well-known lines

written by a man not commonly regarded as weak-minded or prejudiced;

and engraved by his direction on the stone that marks his grave.

If I am wrong, I am content to go wrong with Shakspeare:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear

To dig the dust enclosed here:

Blest be the man that spares these stones,

And curst be he that moves my bones.

The most eloquent exposition I know of the religious aspect of the

question, is contained in the concluding sentences of Mr. Melvill's

noble sermon on the 'Dying Faith of Joseph.' I believe my readers

will thank me for quoting it:--

It is not a Christian thing to die manifesting indifference as to

what is done with the body. That body is redeemed: not a particle

of its dust but was bought with drops of Christ's precious blood.

That body is appointed to a glorious condition; not a particle of

the corruptible but what shall put on incorruption; of the mortal

that shall not assume immortality. The Christian knows this: it

is not the part of a Christian to seem unmindful of this. He may,

therefore, as he departs, speak of the place where he would wish to

be laid. 'Let me sleep,' he may say, 'with my father and my mother,

with my wife and my children; lay me not here, in this distant land,

where my dust cannot mingle with its kindred. I would he chimed to

my grave by my own village bell, and have my requiem sung where I

was baptized into Christ.' Marvel ye at such last words? Wonder ye

that one, whose spirit is just entering the separate state, should

have this care for the body which he is about to leave to the worms?

Nay, he is a believer in Jesus as 'the Resurrection and the Life:'

this belief prompts his dying words; and it shall have to be said

of him as of Joseph, that 'by faith,' yea, 'by faith,' he 'gave

commandment concerning his bones!'

If you hold this belief, my reader, you will look at a neglected

churchyard with much regret; and you will highly approve of all

endeavours to make the burying-place of the parish as sweet though

solemn a spot as can be found within it. I have lately read a little

tract, by Mr. Hill, the Rural Dean of North Frome, in the Diocese

of Hereford, entitled Thoughts on Churches and Churchyards, which

is well worthy of the attentive perusal of the country clergy. Its

purpose is to furnish practical suggestions for the maintenance

of decent propriety about the church and churchyard. I am not,

at present, concerned with that part of the tract which relates

to churches; but I may remark, in passing, that Mr. Hill's views

upon that subject appear to me distinguished by great good sense,

moderation, and taste. He does not discourage country clergymen,

who have but limited means with which to set about ordering

and beautifying their churches, by suggesting arrangements on too

grand and expensive a scale: on the contrary, he enters with hearty

sympathy into all plans for attaining a simple and inexpensive

seemliness where more cannot be accomplished. And I think he hits

with remarkable felicity the just mean between an undue and excessive

regard to the mere externalities of worship, and a puritanical

bareness and contempt for material aids, desiring, in the words

of Archbishop Bramhall, that 'all be with due moderation, so as

neither to render religion sordid and sluttish, nor yet light and

garish, but comely and venerable.'

Equally judicious, and equally practical, are Mr. Hill's hints as

to the ordering of churchyards. He laments that churchyards should

ever be found where long, rank grass, briers, and nettles abound,

and where neatly kept walks and graves are wanting. He goes on:--

And yet, how trifling an amount of care and attention would suffice

to render neat, pretty, and pleasant to look upon, that which has

oftentimes an unpleasing, desolate, and painful aspect. A few sheep

occasionally (or better still, the scythe and shears now and then

employed), with a trifling attention to the walks, once properly

formed and gravelled, will suffice, when the fences are duly kept,

to make any churchyard seemly and neat: a little more than this

will make it ornamental and instructive.

It is possible that many persons might feel that flower-beds and

shrubberies are not what they would wish to see in a churchyard;

they might think they gave too garden-like and adorned a look to

so solemn and sacred a spot; persons will not all think alike on

such a matter: and yet something may be done in this direction with

an effect which would please everybody. A few trees of the arbor

vitae, the cypress, and the Irish yew, scattered here and there, with

tirs in the hedge-rows or boundary fences, would be unobjectionable;

while wooden baskets, or boxes, placed by the sides of the walks,

and filled in summer with the fuchsia or scarlet geranium, would give

our churchyards an exceedingly pretty, and perhaps not unsuitable

appearance. Little clumps of snowdrops and primroses might also

be planted here and there; for flowers may fitly spring up, bloom,

and fade away, in a spot which so impressively tells us of death

and resurrection: and where sheep even are never admitted, all

these methods for beautifying a churchyard may be adopted. Shrubs

and flowers on and near the graves, as is so universal in Wales;

independently of their pretty effect, show a kindly feeling for the

memory of those whose bodies rest beneath them; and how far to be

preferred to those enormous and frightful masses of brick or stone

which the country mason has, alas, so plentifully supplied!

In the case of a clergyman, a taste for keeping his churchyard

in becoming order is just like a taste for keeping his garden and

shrubbery in order: only let him begin the work, and the taste

will grow. There is latent in the mind of every man, unless he be

the most untidy and unobservant of the species, a love for well-mown

grass and for sharply outlined gravel-walks. My brethren, credite

experto. I did not know that in my soul there was a chord that

vibrated responsive to trim gravel and grass, till I tried, and

lo! it was there. Try for yourselves: you do not know, perhaps,

the strange affinities that exist between material and immaterial

nature. If any youthful clergyman shall read these lines, who knows

in his conscience that his churchyard-walks are grown up with weeds,

and the graves covered with nettles, upon sight hereof let him summon

his man-servant, or get a labourer if he have no man-servant. Let

him provide a reaping-hook and a large new spade. These implements

will suffice in the meantime. Proceed to the churchyard: do not

get disheartened at its neglected look, and turn away. Begin at

the entrance-gate. Let all the nettles and long grass for six feet

on. either side of the path be carefully cut down and gathered

into heaps. Then mark out with a line the boundaries of the first

ten yards of the walk. Fall to work and cut the edges with the spade;

clear away the weeds and grass that have overspread the walk, also

with the spade. In a little time you will feel the fascination

of the sharp outline of the walk against the grass on each side.

And I repeat, that to the average human being there is something

inexpressibly pleasing in that sharp outline. By the time the ten

yards of walk are cut, you will find that you have discovered a new

pleasure and a new sensation; and from that day will date a love

of tidy walks and grass;--and what more is needed to make a pretty

churchyard? The fuchsias, geraniums, and so forth, are of the nature

of luxuries, and they will follow in due time: but grass and gravel

are the foundation of rustic neatness and tidiness.

As for the treatise on Burning the Dead, it is interesting

and eloquent, though I am well convinced that its author has been

putting forih labour in vain. I remember the consternation with

which I read the advertisements announcing its publication. I made

sure that it must be the production of one of those wrong-headed

individuals who are always proposing preposterous things, without

end or meaning. Why on earth should we take to burning the dead?

What is to be gained by recurring to a heathen rite, repudiated by

the early Christians, who, as Sir Thomas Browne tells us, 'stickt

not to give their bodies to be burnt in their lives, but detested

that mode after death?' And wherefore do anything so horrible, and

so suggestive of cruelty and sacrilege, as to consign to devouring

flames even the unconscious remains of a departed friend? But after

reading the essay, I feel that the author has a great deal to say

in defence of his views. I am obliged to acknowledge that in many

cases important benefits would follow the adoption of urn-sepulture.

The question to be considered is, what is the best way to dispose

of the mortal part of man when the soul has left it? A first

suggestion might be to endeavour to preserve it in the form and

features of life; and, accordingly, in many countries and ages,

embalming in its various modifications has been resorted to. But

all attempts to prevent the human frame from obeying the Creator's

law of returning to the elements have miserably failed. And surely

it is better a thousand times to 'bury the dead from our sight,'

than to preserve a hideous and revolting mockery of the beloved

form. The Egyptian mummies every one has heard of; but the most

remarkable instance of embalming in recent times is that of the

wife of one Martin Van Butchell, who, by her husband's desire, was

embalmed in the year 1775, by Dr. William Hunter and Mr. Carpenter,

and who may be seen in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons

in London. She was a beautiful woman, and all that skill and science

could do were done to preserve her in the appearance of life; but

the result is nothing short of shocking and awful. Taking it, then,

as admitted, that the body must return to the dust from whence it

was taken, the next question is, How? How shall dissolution take

place with due respect to the dead, and with least harm to the

health and the feelings of the living?

The two fashions which have been universally used are, burial and

burning. It has so happened that burial has been associated with

Christianity, and burning with heathenism; but I shall admit at once

that the association is not essential, though it would be hard,

without very weighty reason indeed, to deviate from the long-remembered

'earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.' But such weighty

reason the author of this treatise declares to exist. The system

of burial, he says, is productive of fearful and numberless evils

and dangers to the living. In the neighbourhood of any large

burying-place, the air which the living breathe, and the water

which they drink, are impregnated with poisons the most destructive

of health and life. Even where the damage done to air and water

is inappreciable by our senses, it is a predisposing cause of

headache, dysentery, sore throat, and low fever;' and it keeps all

the population around in a condition in which they are the ready prey

of all forms of disease. I shall not shock my readers by relating

a host of horrible facts, proved by indisputable evidence, which

are adduced by the surgeon to show the evils of burial: and all

these evils, he maintains, may be escaped by the revival of burning.

Four thousand human beings die every hour; and only by that swift

and certain method can the vast mass of decaying matter which,

while decaying, gives off the most subtle and searching poisons,

be resolved with the elements without injury or risk to any one. So

convinced has the French Government become of the evils of burial

that it has patronized and encouraged one M. Bonneau, who proposes

that instead of a great city having its neighbouring cemeteries,

it should be provided with a building called The Sarcophagus,

occupying an elevated situation, to which the bodies of rich and

poor should be conveyed, and there reduced to ashes by a powerful

furnace. And then M. Bonneau, Frenchman all over, suggests that

the ashes of our friends might be preserved in a tasteful manner;

the funeral urn, containing these ashes, 'replacing on our consoles

and mantelpieces the ornaments of bronze clocks and china vases now

found there.' Our author, having shown that burning would save us

from the dangers of burying, concludes his treatise by a careful

description of the manner in which he would carry out the burning

process. And certainly his plan contains as little to shock one as

may be, in carrying out a system necessarily suggestive of violence

and cruelty. There is nothing like the repulsiveness of the Hindoo

burning, only half carried out, or even of Mr. Trelawney's furnace

for burning poor Shelley. I do not remember to have lately read

anything more ghastly and revolting than the entire account of

Shelley's cremation. It says much for Mr. Trelawney's nerves, that

he was able to look on at it; and it was no wonder that it turned

Byron sick, and that Mr. Leigh Hunt kept beyond the sight of it.

I intended to have quoted the passage from Mr. Trelawney's book,

but I really cannot venture to do so. But it is right to say that

there were very good reasons for resorting to that melancholy mode

of disposing of the poet's remains, and that Mr. Trelawney did all

he could to accomplish the burning with efficiency and decency:

though the whole story makes one feel the great physical difficulties

that stand in the way of carrying out cremation successfully. The

advocate of urn-sepulture, however, is quite aware of this, and

he proposes to use an apparatus by which they would be entirely

overcome. It is only fair to let him speak for himself; and I think

the following passage will be read with interest:--

On a gentle eminence, surrounded by pleasant grounds, stands a

convenient, well-ventilated chapel, with a high spire or steeple.

At the entrance, where some of the mourners might prefer to take

leave of the body, are chambers for their accommodation. Within

the edifice are seats for those who follow the remains to the last:

there is also an organ, and a gallery for choristers. In the centre

of the chapel, embellished with appropriate emblems and devices,

is erected a shrine of marble, somewhat like those which cover the

ashes of the great and mighty in our old cathedrals, the openings

being filled with prepared plate glass. Within this--a sufficient

space intervening--is an inner shrine covered with bright non-radiating

metal, and within this again is a covered sarcophagus of tempered

fire-clay, with one or more longitudinal slits near the top, extending

its whole length. As soon as the body is deposited therein, sheets

of flame at an immensely high temperature rush through the long

apertures from end to end, and acting as a combination of a modified

oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, with the reverberatory furnace, utterly

and completely consume and decompose the body, in an incredibly

short space of time. Even the large quantity of water it contains

is decomposed by the extreme heat, and its elements, instead of

retarding, aid combustion, as is the case in fierce conflagrations.

The gaseous products of combustion are conveyed away by flues; and

means being adopted to consume anything like smoke, all that is

observed from the outside is occasionally a quivering transparent

ether floating away from the high steeple to mingle vith the

atmosphere.

At either end of the sarcophagus is a closely-fitting fire-proof

door, that farthest from the chapel entrance communicating with a

chamber which projects into the chapel and adjoins the end of the

shrine. Here are the attendants, who, unseen, conduct the operation.

The door at the other end of the sarcophagus, with a corresponding

opening in the inner and outer shrine, is exactly opposite a slab

of marble on which the coffin is deposited when brought into the

chapel. The funeral service then commences according; to any form

decided on. At an appointed signal the end of the coffin, which is

placed just within the opening in the shrine, is removed, and the

body is drawn rapidly but gently and without exposure into the

sarcophagus: the sides of the coffin, constructed for the purpose,

collapse; and the wooden box is removed to be burned elsewhere.

Meantime the body is committed to the flames to be consumed, and

the words 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust' may be appropriately used.

The organ peals forth a solemn strain, and a hymn or requiem for

the dead is sung. In a few minutes, or even seconds, and without

any perceptible noise or commotion, all is over, and nothing but a

few pounds or ounces of light ash remains. This is carefully collected

by the attendants of the adjoining chamber: a door communicating

with the chapel is thrown open; and the relic, enclosed in a vase

of glass or other material, is brought in and placed before the

mourners, to be finally enshrined in the funeral urn of marble,

alabaster, stone, or metal.

Speaking for myself, I must say that I think it would cause a strange

feeling in most people to part at the chapel-door with the corpse

of one who had been very dear, and, after a few minutes of horrible

suspense, during which they should know that it was burning in a

fierce furnace, to see the vessel of white ashes brought back, and

be told that there was all that was mortal of the departed friend.

No doubt it may be weakness and prejudice, but I think that few

could divest themselves of the feeling of sacrilegious violence.

Better far to lay the brother or sister, tenderly as though still

they felt, in the last resting-place, so soft and trim. It soothes

us, if it does no good to them, and the sad change which we know

is soon to follow is wrought only by the gentle hand of Nature.

And only think of a man pointing to half-a-dozen vases on his

mantelpiece, and as many more on his cheffonier, and saying, 'There

the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest!'

No, no; the thing will never do!

One of the latest examples of burning, in the case of a Christian,

is that of Henry Laurens, the first President of the American

Congress. In his will he solemnly enjoined upon his children that

they should cause his body to be given to the flames. The Emperor

Napoleon, when at St. Helena, expressed a similar desire; and said,

truly enough, that as for the Resurrection, that would be miraculous

at all events, and it would be just as easy for the Almighty

to accomplish that great end in the case of burning as in that of

burial. And, indeed, the doctrine of the Resurrection is one that

it is not wise to scrutinize too minutely--I mean as regards its

rationale. It is best to simply hold by the great truth, that 'this

corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on

immortality.' I presume that it has been shown beyond doubt that

the material particles which make up our bodies are in a state

of constant flux, the entire physical nature being changed every

seven years, so that if all the particles which once entered into

the structure of a man of fourscore were reassembled, they would

suffice to make seven or eight bodies. And the manner in which it

is certain that the mortal part of man is dispersed and assimilated

to all the elements furnishes a very striking thought. Bryant has

said, truly and beautifully,

All that tread

The globe, are but a handful to the tribes

That slumber in its bosom.

And James Montgomery, in a poem of his which is little known,

and which is amplified and spoiled in the latest editions of his

works, has suggested to us whither the mortal vestiges of these

untold millions have gone. It is entitled Lines to a Molehill in

a Churchyard.

Tell me, thou dust beneath my feet,--

Thou dust that once hadst breath,--

Tell me, how many mortals meet

In this small hill of death.

The mole, that scoops with curious toil

Her subterranean bed,

Thinks not she plows a human soil,

And mines among the dead.

Yet, whereso'er she turns the ground,

My kindred earth I see:

Once every atom of this mound

Lived, breathed, and felt, like me.

Through all this hillock's crumbling mould

Once the warm lifeblood ran:

Here thine original behold,

And here thy ruins, man!

By wafting winds and flooding rains,

From ocean, earth, and sky,

Collected here, the frail remains

Of slumbering millions lie.

The towers and temples crushed by time,

Stupendous wrecks, appear

To me less mournfully sublime

Than this poor molehill here.

Methinks this dust yet heaves with breath--

Ten thousand pulses beat;--

Tell me, in this small hill of death,

How many mortals meet!

One idea, you see, beaten out rather thin, and expressed in a great

many words, as was the good man's wont. And in these days of the

misty and spasmodic school, I owe my readers an apology for presenting

them with poetry which they will have no difficulty in understanding.

Amid a great number of particulars as to the burial customs of

various nations, we find mention made of an odd way in which the

natives of Thibet dignify their great people. They do not desecrate

such by giving them to the earth, but retain a number of sacred dogs

to devour them. Not less strange was the fancy of that Englishwoman,

a century or two back, who had her husband burnt to ashes, and

these ashes reduced to powder, of which she mixed some with all the

water she drank, thinking, poor heart-broken creature, that, thus

she was burying the dear form within her own.

In rare cases I have known of the parson or the churchwarden turning

his cow to pasture in the churchyard, to the sad desecration of the

place. It appears, however, that worse than this has been done, if

we may judge from the following passage quoted by Mrs. Stone:--

1540. Proceedings in the Court of Archdeaconry of Colchester, Colne

Wake. Notatur per iconimos dicte ecclesie yt the parson mysusithe

the churche-yard, for hogis do wrote up graves, and besse lie in

the porche, and ther the pavements he broke up and soyle the porche;

and ther is so mych catell yt usithe the church-yarde, yt is more

liker a pasture than a halowed place.

It is usual, it appears, in the southern parts of France, to erect

in the churchyard a lofty pillar, bearing a large lamp, which throws

its light upon the cemetery during the night. The custom began in

the twelfth or thirteenth century. Sometimes the lanterne des marts

was a highly ornamented chapel, built in a circular form, like the

Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, in which the dead lay

exposed to view in the days which preceded their interment: sometimes

it was merely a hollow column, ascended by a winding stair inside,

or by projections left for the purpose within. It must have been

a striking sight when the traveller, through the dark night, saw

far away the lonely flame that marked the spot where so many of

his fellow-men had completed their journey.

One of the oddest things ever introduced into Materia Medica was

the celebrated Mummy Powder. Egyptian mummies, being broken up

and ground into dust, were held of great value as medicine both

for external and internal application. Boyle and Bacon unite in

commending its virtues: the latter, indeed, venturing to suggest

that 'the mixture of balms that are glutinous' was the foundation

of its power, though common belief held that the virtue was 'more

in the Egyptian than in the spice.' Even in the seventeenth century

mummy was an important article of commerce, and was sold at a great

price. One Eastern traveller brought to the Turkey Company six

hundred weight of mummy broken into pieces. Adulteration came into

play in a manner which would have gratified the Lancet commission:

the Jews collecting the bodies of executed criminals, filling them

with common asphaltum, which cost little, and then drying them in

the sun, when they became undistinguishable from the genuine article.

And the maladies which mummy was held to cure are set forth in a

list which we commend to the notice of Professor Holloway. It was

'to be taken in decoctions of marjoram, thyme, elder-flower, barley,

roses, lentils, jujubes, cummin-seed, carraway, saffron, cassia,

parsley, with oxymel, wine, milk, butter, castor, and mulberries.'

Sir Thomas Browne, who was a good deal before his age, did not

approve of the use of mummy. He says:

Were the efficacy thereof more clearly made out, we scarce conceive

the use thereof allowable in physic: exceeding the barbarities

of Cambyses, and turning old heroes into unworthy potions. Shall

Egypt lend out her ancients unto chirurgeons and apothecaries, and

Cheops and Psammeticus be weighed unto us for drugs? Shall we eat

of Chamnes and Amasis in electuaries and pills, and be cured by

cannibal mixtures? Surely such diet is miserable vampirism; and

exceeds in horror the black banquet of Domitian, not to be paralleled

except in those Arabian feasts wherein ghouls feed horribly.

I need hardly add that the world has come round to the great

physician's way of thinking, and that mummy is not included in the

pharmacopoeia of modern days.

The monumental inscriptions of this country, as a general rule, furnish

lamentable proof of the national bad taste. Somehow our peculiar

genius seems not to lie in that direction; and very eminent men,

who did most other things well, have signally failed when they tried

to produce an epitaph. What with stilted extravagance and bombast

on the one side, and profane and irreverent jesting on the other,

our epitaphs, for the most part, would be better away. It was well

said by Addison of the inscriptions in Westminster Abbey,--'Some

epitaphs are so extravagant that the dead person would blush;

and others so excessively modest that they deliver the character

of the person departed in Greek and Hebrew, and by that means are

not understood once in a twelve-month.' And Fuller has hit the

characteristics of a fitting epitaph when he said that 'the shortest,

plainest, and truest epitaphs are the best.' In most cases the safe

plan is to give no more than the name and age, and some brief text

of Scripture.

Every one knows that epitaphs generally are expressed in such

complimentary terms as quite explain the question of the child, who

wonderingly inquired where they buried the bad people. Mrs. Stone,

however, quotes a remarkably out-spoken one, from a monument in

Horselydown Church, in Cumberland. It runs as follows:--

Here lie the bodies

Of Thomas Bond and Mary his wife.

She was temperate, chaste, and charitable;

But

She was proud, peevish, and passionate.

She was an affectionate wife and a tender mother;

But

Her husband and child, whom she loved,

Seldom saw her countenance without a disgusting frown;

While she received visitors whom she despised with an endearing smile.

Her behaviour was discreet towards strangers;

But

Imprudent in her family.

Abroad her conduct was influenced by good breeding;

But

At home by ill temper.

And so the epitaph runs on to considerable length, acknowledging

the good qualities of the poor woman, but killing each by setting

against it some peculiarly unamiable trait. I confess that my

feeling is quite turned in her favour by the unmanly assault which

her brother (the author of the inscription) has thus made upon the

poor dead woman. If you cannot honestly say good of a human being

on his grave-stone, then say nothing at all. There are some cases

in which an exception may justly be made; and such a one, I think,

was that of the infamous Francis Chartres, who died in 1731. He was

buried in Scotland, and at his funeral the populace raised a riot,

almost tore his body from the coffin, and threw dead dogs into the

grave along with it. Dr. Arbuthnot wrote his epitaph, and here it

is:--

Here continueth to rot

The body of Francis Chartres:

Who, with an inflexible constancy,

and

Inimitable uniformity of life,

Persisted,

In spite of age and infirmities,

In the practice of every human vice,

Excepting prodigality and hypocrisy:

His insatiable avarice exempted him

from the first,

His matchless impudence from the

second.

Nor was he more singular

In the undeviating pravity of his

manners,

Than successful

In accumulating wealth:

For without trade or profession,

Without trust of public money,

And without bribeworthy service,

He acquired, or more properly created,

A Ministerial Estate:

He was the only person of his time

Who could cheat without the mask of

honesty,

Retain his primeval meanness

When possessed of ten thousand a year:

And having daily deserved the gibbet for

what he did,

Was at last condemned for what he

could not do.

Oh! indignant reader!

Think not his life useless to mankind!

Providence connived at his execrable designs,

To give to after ages

A conspicuous proof and example

Of how small estimation is exorbitant

wealth

In the sight of God,

By his bestowing it on the most

unworthy of all

mortals.

If one does intend to make a verbal assault upon any man, it

is well to do so in words which will sting and cut; and assuredly

Arbuthnot has succeeded in his laudable intention. The character

is justly drawn; and with the change of a very few words, it might

correctly be inscribed on the monument of at least one Scotch and

one English peer, who have died within the last half-century.

There are one or two extreme cases in which it is in good taste,

and the effect not without sublimity, to leave a monument with no

inscription at all. Of course this can only be when the monument

is that of a very great and illustrious man. The pillar erected

by Bernadotte at Frederickshall, in memory of Charles the Twelfth,

bears not a word; and I believe most people who visit the spot feel

that Bernadotte judged well. The rude mass of masonry, standing

in the solitary waste, that marks where Howard the philanthropist

sleeps, is likewise nameless. And when John Kyrle died in 1724, he

was buried in the chancel of the church of Ross in Herefordshire,

'without so much as an inscription.' But the Man of Ross had his

best monument in the lifted head and beaming eye of those he left

behind him at the mention of his name. He never knew, of course, that

the bitter little satirist of Twickenham would melt into unwonted

tenderness in telling of all he did, and apologize nobly for his

nameless grave:--

And what! no monument, inscription, stone?

His race, his form, his name almost, unknown?

Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,

Will never mark the marble with his name:

Go, search it there, where to be born and die,

Of rich and poor make all the history:

Enough, that virtue filled the space between,

Proved, by the ends of being, to have been!

[Footnote: Pope's Moral Essays. Epistle III.]

The two fine epitaphs written by Ben Jonson are well known. One is

on the Countess of Pembroke:--

Underneath this marble hearse,

Lies the subject of all verse:

Sidney's sister, Pembroke's'mother;

Death! ere thou hast slain another,

Learned and fair, and good as she,

Time shall throw a dart at thee.

And the other is the epitaph of a certain unknown Elizabeth:--

Wouldst thou hear what man can say

In a little?--reader, stay.

Underneath this stone doth lie

As much beauty as could die;

Which in life did harbour give,

To more virtue than doth live.

If at all she had a fault,

Leave it buried in this vault:

One name was Elizabeth,

The other let it sleep with death:

Fitter, where it died, to tell,

Than that it lived at all. Farewell!

Most people have heard of the brief epitaph inscribed on a tombstone

in the floor of Hereford Cathedral, which inspired one of the

sonnets of Wordsworth. There is no name, no date, but the single

word MISERRIMUS. The lines, written by herself, which are inscribed

on the gravestone of Mrs. Hemans, in St. Anne's Church at Dublin,

are very beautiful, but too well known to need quotation. And

Longfellow, in his charming little poem of Nuremburg, has preserved

the characteristic word in the epitaph of Albert Durer:--

Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;

Dead he is not,--but departed,--for the artist never dies.

Perhaps some readers may be interested by the following epitaph,

written by no less a man than Sir Walter Scott, and inscribed on

the stone which covers the grave of a humble heroine whose name his

genius has made known over the world. The grave is in the churchyard

of Kirkpatrick-Irongray, a few miles from Dumfries:--

This stone was erected

By the Author of Waverley

To the memory of

Helen Walker

Who died in the year of God 1791.

This humble individual

practised in real life

the virtues

with which fiction has invested

the imaginary character

of

Jeanie Deans.

Refusing the slightest departure

from veracity

even to save the life of a sister,

she neverthless showed her

kindness and fortitude

by rescuing her from the severity of the law;

at the expense of personal exertions

which the time rendered as difficult

as the motive was laudable.

Respect the grave of poverty

when combined with love of truth

and dear affection.

Although, of course, it is treasonable to say so, I confess I think

this inscription somewhat cumbrous and awkward. The antithesis

is not a good one, between the difficulty of Jeanie's 'personal

exertions' and the laudableness of the motive which led to them.

And there is something not metaphysically correct in the combination

described in the closing sentence--the combination of poverty,

an outward condition, with truthfulness and affection, two

inward characteristics. The only parallel phrase which I remember

in literature is one which was used by Mr. Stiggins when he was

explaining to Sam Weller what was meant by a moral pocket-handkerchief.

'It's them,' were Mr. Stiggins's words, 'as combines useful

instruction with wood-cuts.' Poverty might co-exist with, or be

associated with, any mental qualities you please, but assuredly it

cannot correctly be said to enter into combination with any.

As for odd and ridiculous epitaphs, their number is great, and

every one has the chief of them at his fingers' ends. I shall be

content to give two or three, which I am quite sure hardly any of

my readers ever heard of before. The following, which may be read

on a tombstone in a country churchyard in Ayrshire, appears to

me to be unequalled for irreverence. And let critics observe the

skilful introduction of the dialogue form, giving the inscription

a dramatic effect:--

Wha is it that's lying here?--

Robin Wood, ye needna speer.

Eh Robin, is this you?

Ou aye, but I'm deid noo!

The following epitaph was composed by a village poet and wit, not

unknown to me in my youth, for a rival poet, one Syme, who had

published a volume of verses On the Times (not the newspaper).

Beneath this thistle,

Skin, bone, and gristle,

In Sexton Goudie's keepin' lies,

Of poet Syme,

Who fell to rhyme,

(O bards beware!) a sacrifice.

Ask not at all,

Where flew his saul,

When of the body death bereft her:

She, like his rhymes

Upon the Times,

Was never worth the speerin' after!

Speerin', I should mention, for the benefit of those ignorant of

Lowland Scotch, means asking or inquiring.

It is recorded in history that a certain Mr. Anderson, who filled

the dignified office of Provost of Dundee, died, as even provosts

must. It was resolved that a monument should be erected in his memory,

and that the inscription upon it should be the joint composition

of four of his surviving colleagues in the magistracy. They met to

prepare the epitaph; and after much consideration it was resolved

that the epitaph should be a rhymed stanza of four lines, of which

lines each magistrate should contribute one. The senior accordingly

began, and having deeply ruminated he produced the following:--

Here lies Anderson, Provost of Dundee.

This formed a neat and striking introduction, going (so to speak)

to the heart of things at once, but leaving room for subsequent

amplification. The second magistrate perceived this, and felt that

the idea was such a good one that it ought to be followed up. He

therefore produced the line,

Here lies Him, here lies He:

thus repeating in different modifications the same grand thought,

after the style which has been adopted by Burke, Chalmers, Melvill,

and other great orators. The third magistrate, whose turn had now

arrived, felt that the foundation had thus been substantially laid

down, and that the time had come to erect upon it a superstructure

of reflection, inference, or exclamation. With the simplicity of

genius he wrote as follows, availing himself of a poet's license

to slightly alter the ordinary forms of language:--

Hallelujah, Hallelujee!

The epitaph being thus, as it were, rounded and complete, the

fourth contributor to it found himself in a difficulty; wherefore

add anything to that which needed and in truth admitted nothing

more? Still the stanza must he completed. What should he do?

He would fall back on the earliest recollections of his youth--he

would recur to the very fount and origin of all human knowledge.

Seizing his pen, he wrote thus:--

A. B. C. D. E. F. G.!

Whoever shall piece together these valuable lines, thus fragmentarily

presented, will enter into the feelings of the Town Council, which

bestowed a vote of thanks upon their authors, and caused the stanza

to be engraven on the worthy provost's monument. I have not myself

read it, but am assured it is in existence.

There was something of poor Thomas Hood's morbi taste for the

ghastly, and the physically repulsive, in his fancy of spending

some time during his last illness in drawing a picture of himself

dead in his shroud. In his memoirs, published by his children,

you may see the picture, grimly truthful: and bearing the legend,

He sang the Song of the Shirt. You may discover in what he drew,

as well as in what he wrote, many indications of the humourist's

perverted taste: and no doubt the knowledge that mortal disease

was for years doing its work within, led his thoughts oftentimes

to what was awaiting himself. He could not walk in an avenue

of elm-trees, without fancying that one of them might furnish

his coffin. When in his ear, as in Longfellow's, 'the green trees

whispered low and mild,' their sound did not carry him back to

boyhood, but onward to his grave. He listened, and there rose within

A secret, vague, prophetic fear,

As though by certain mark,

I knew the fore-ordained tree,

Within whose rugged bark,

This warm and living form shall find

Its narrow house and dark.

Not but that such thoughts are well in their due time and place. It

is very fit that we should all sometimes try to realize distinctly

what is meant when each of us repeats words four thousand years

old, and says, 'I know that Thou wilt bring me to death, and to the

house appointed for all living.' Even with all such remembrances

brought home to him by means to which we are not likely to resort,

the good priest and martyr Robert Southwell tells us how hard he

found it, while in buoyant life, to rightly consider his end. But

in perfect cheerfulness and healthfulness of spirit, the human

being who knows (so far as man can know) where he is to rest at

last, may oftentimes visit that peaceful spot. It will do him good:

it can do him no harm. The hard-wrought man may fitly look upon

the soft green turf, some day to be opened for him; and think to

himself, Not yet, I have more to do yet; but in a little while.

Somewhere there is a place appointed for each of us, a place that

is waiting for each of us, and that will not be complete till we

are there. Well, we rest in the humble trust, that 'through the

grave and gate of death, we shall pass to our joyful resurrection.'

And we turn away now from the churchyard, recalling Bryant's lines

as to its extent:

Yet not to thy eternal resting-place

Shalt thou retire alone; nor couldst thou wish

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down

With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings,

The powerful of the earth, the wise and good,

Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past,

All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales,

Stretching in pensive quietness between;

The venerable woods; rivers that move

In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,--

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the Great Tomb of Man!

CHAPTER V.

CONCERNING SUMMER DAYS.

There are some people whom all nature helps. They have somehow

got the material universe on their side. What they say and do, at

least upon important occasions, is so backed up by all the surroundings

that it never seems out of keeping with these, and still less ever

seems to be contradicted by these. When Mr. Midhurst [Footnote: See

the New Series of Friends in Council.] read his essay on the Miseries

of Human Life, he had all the advantage of a gloomy, overcast day.

And so the aspect of the external world was to the essay like the

accompaniment in music to a song. The accompaniment, of course,

has no specific meaning; it says nothing, but it appears to accord

and sympathize with the sense conveyed by the song's words. But

gloomy hills and skies and woods are to desponding views of life

and man, even more than the sympathetic chords, in themselves

meaningless. The gloomy world not merely accords with the desponding

views, but seems somehow to back them. You are conscious of a great

environing Presence standing by and looking on approvingly. From

all points in the horizon a voice, soft and undefined, seems to

whisper to your heart, All true, all too true.