CHAPTER CVIII.

Some weeks now have passed since my return to the Tower: the Castletons

are gone, and all Trevanion's gay guests. And since these departures,

visits between the two houses have been interchanged often, and the

bonds of intimacy are growing close. Twice has my father held long

conversations apart with Lady Ulverstone, (my mother is not foolish

enough to feel a pang now at such confidences,) and the result has

become apparent. Lady Ulverstone has ceased all talk against the

world and the public--ceased to fret the galled pride of her husband

with irritating sympathy. She has made herself the true partner of

his present occupations, as she was of those in the past; she takes

interest in farming, and gardens, and flowers, and those philosophical

peaches which come from trees academical that Sir William Temple reared

in his graceful retirement. She does more--she sits by her husband's

side in the library, reads the books he reads, or, if in Latin, coaxes

him, into construing them. Insensibly she leads him into studies

farther and farther remote from Blue Books and Hansard; and, taking my

father's hint,

"Allures to brighter worlds, and leads the way."

They are inseparable. Darby-and-Joan-like, you see them together in

the library, the garden, or the homely little pony-phaeton, for which

Lord Ulverstone has resigned the fast-trotting cob, once identified

with the eager looks of the busy Trevanion. It is most touching, most

beautiful! And to think what a victory over herself the proud woman

must have obtained!--never a thought that seems to murmur, never a word

to recall the ambitious man back from the philosophy into which his

active mind flies for refuge. And with the effort her brow has become

so serene! That careworn expression, which her fine features once wore,

is fast vanishing. And what affects me most, is to think that this

change (which is already settling into happiness) has been wrought by

Austin's counsels and appeals to her sense and affection. "It is to

you," he said, "that Trevanion must look for more than comfort--for

cheerfulness and satisfaction. Your child is gone from you--the world

ebbs away--you two should be all in all to each other. Be so." Thus,

after paths so devious, meet those who had parted in youth, now on the

verge of age. There, in the same scenes where Austin and Ellinor had

first formed acquaintance, he aiding her to soothe the wounds inflicted

by the ambition that had separated their lots, and both taking counsel

to insure the happiness of the rival she had preferred.

After all this vexed public life of toil, and care, and ambition,--to

see Trevanion and Ellinor drawing closer and closer to each other,

knowing private life and its charms for the first time,--verily it

would have been a theme for an elegiast like Tibullus.

But all this while a younger love, with no blurred leaves to erase

from the chronicle, has been keeping sweet account of the summer time.

"Very near are two hearts that have no guile between them," saith

a proverb, traced back to Confucius. O ye days of still sunshine,

reflected back from ourselves--O ye haunts, endeared evermore by a

look, tone, or smile, or rapt silence, when more and more with each

hour, unfolded before me that nature, so tenderly coy, so cheerful

though serious, so attuned by simple cares to affection, yet so filled,

from soft musings and solitude, with a poetry that gave grace to duties

the homeliest;--setting life's trite things to music. Here nature and

fortune concurred alike: equal in birth and pretensions--similar in

tastes and in objects,--loving the healthful activity of purpose, but

content to find it around us--neither envying the wealthy, nor vying

with the great; each framed by temper to look on the bright side of

life, and find founts of delight, and green spots fresh with verdure,

where eyes but accustomed to cities could see but the sands and the

mirage. While afar (as man's duty) I had gone through the travail

that, in wrestling with fortune, gives pause to the heart to recover

its losses, and know the value of love, in its graver sense of life's

earnest realities; heaven had reared, at the thresholds of home, the

young tree that should cover the roof with its blossoms, and embalm

with its fragrance the daily air of my being.

It had been the joint prayer of those kind ones I left, that such might

be my reward; and each had contributed, in his or her several way,

to fit that fair life for the ornament and joy of the one that now

asked to guard and to cherish it. From Roland came that deep, earnest

honour--a man's in its strength, and a woman's in its delicate sense

of refinement. From Roland, that quick taste for all things noble in

poetry, and lovely in nature--the eye that sparkled to read how Bayard

stood alone at the bridge, and saved an army--or wept over the page

that told how the dying Sidney put the bowl from his burning lips. Is

that too masculine a spirit for some? Let each please himself. Give me

the woman who can echo all thoughts that are noblest in man! And that

eye, too--like Roland's,--could pause to note each finer mesh in the

wonderful webwork of beauty. No landscape to her was the same yesterday

and to-day,--a deeper shade from the skies could change the face of the

moors--the springing up of fresh wild flowers, the very song of some

bird unheard before, lent variety to the broad rugged heath. Is that

too simple a source of pleasure for some to prize? Be it so to those

who need the keen stimulants that cities afford. But if we were to pass

all our hours in those scenes, it was something to have the tastes

which own no monotony in Nature.

All this came from Roland; and to this, with thoughtful wisdom, my

father had added enough knowledge from books to make those tastes more

attractive, and to lend to impulsive perception of beauty and goodness

the culture that draws finer essence from beauty, and expands the Good

into the Better by heightening the site of the survey: hers, knowledge

enough to sympathise with intellectual pursuits, not enough to dispute

on man's province--Opinion. Still, whether in nature or in lore, still

"The fairest garden in her looks,

And in her mind the choicest books!"

And yet, thou wise Austin--and thou Roland, poet that never wrote a

verse,--yet your work had been incomplete, but then Woman stept in,

and the mother gave to her she designed for a daughter the last finish

of meek everyday charities--the mild household virtues,--"the soft

word that turneth away wrath,"--the angelic pity for man's rougher

faults--the patience that bideth its time--and, exacting no "rights of

woman," subjugates us, delighted, to the invisible thrall.

Dost thou remember, my Blanche, that soft summer evening when the vows

our eyes had long interchanged stole at last from the lip? Wife mine!

come to my side,--look over me while I write; there, thy tears--(happy

tears, are they not, Blanche?)--have blotted the page! Shall we tell

the world more? Right, my Blanche, no words should profane the place

where those tears have fallen!

* * * * *

And here I would fain conclude; but alas, and alas! that I cannot

associate with our hopes, on this side the grave, him who, we fondly

hoped, (even on the bridal-day, that gave his sister to my arms,) would

come to the hearth where his place now stood vacant, contented with

glory, and fitted at last for the tranquil happiness, which long years

of repentance and trial had deserved.

Within the first year of my marriage, and shortly after a gallant

share in a desperate action, which had covered his name with new

honours, just when we were most elated, in the blinded vanity of human

pride--came the fatal news! The brief career was run. He died, as I

knew he would have prayed to die, at the close of a day ever memorable

in the annals of that marvellous empire, which valour without parallel

has annexed to the Throne of the Isles. He died in the arms of Victory,

and his last smile met the eyes of the noble chief who, even in that

hour, could pause from the tide of triumph by the victim it had cast

on its bloody shore. "One favour," faltered the dying man; "I have a

father at home--he too is a soldier. In my tent is my will: it gives

all I have to him--he can take it without shame. That is not enough!

Write to him--you--with your own hand, and tell him how his son fell!"

And the hero fulfilled the prayer, and that letter is dearer to Roland

than all the long roll of the ancestral dead! Nature has reclaimed her

rights, and the forefathers recede before the son.

In a side chapel of the old Gothic church, amidst the mouldering tombs

of those who fought at Acre and Agincourt, a fresh tablet records the

death of HERBERT DE CAXTON, with the simple inscription--

HE FELL ON THE FIELD:

HIS COUNTRY MOURNED HIM,

AND HIS FATHER IS RESIGNED.

Years have rolled away since that tablet was placed there, and changes

have passed on that nook of earth which bounds our little world: fair

chambers have sprung up amidst the desolate ruins; far and near,

smiling corn-fields replace the bleak, dreary moors. The land supports

more retainers than ever thronged to the pennon of its barons of old;

and Roland can look from his tower over domains that are reclaimed,

year by year, from the waste, till the ploughshare shall win a lordship

more opulent than those feudal chiefs ever held by the tenure of the

sword. And the hospitable mirth that had fled from the ruin has been

renewed in the hall; and rich and poor, great and lowly, have welcomed

the rise of an ancient house from the dust of decay. All those dreams

of Roland's youth are fulfilled; but they do not gladden his heart as

does the thought that his son, at the last, was worthy of his line, and

the hope that no gulf shall yawn between the two when the Grand Circle

is rounded, and man's past and man's future meet where Time disappears.

Never was that lost one forgotten!--never was his name breathed but

tears rushed to the eyes; and, each morning, the peasant going to his

labour might see Roland steal down the dell to the deep-set door of

the chapel. None presume there to follow his steps, or intrude on his

solemn thoughts; for there, in sight of that tablet, are his orisons

made, and the remembrance of the dead forms a part of the commune

with heaven. But the old man's step is still firm, and his brow still

erect; and you may see in his face that it was no hollow boast which

proclaimed that the "father was resigned:" and ye, who doubt if too

Roman a hardness might not be found in that Christian resignation,

think what it is to have feared for a son the life of shame, and ask,

then, if the sharpest grief to a father is in a son's death of honour.

Years have passed, and two fair daughters play at the knees of Blanche

or creep round the footstool of Austin, waiting patiently for the

expected kiss when he looks up from the Great Book, now drawing fast

to its close; or, if Roland enter the room, forget all their sober

demureness, and, unawed by the terrible "Papæ!" run clamorous for the

promised swing in the orchard, or the fiftieth recital of "Chevy Chase."

For my part, I take the goods the gods provide me, and am contented

with girls that have the eyes of their mother; but Roland, ungrateful

man, begins to grumble that we are so neglectful of the rights of

heirs-male. He is in doubt whether to lay the fault on Mr Squills or

on us: I am not sure that he does not think it a conspiracy of all

three to settle the representation of the martial De Caxtons on "the

spindle side." Whosoever be the right person to blame, an omission so

fatal to the straight line in the pedigree is rectified at last; and

Mrs Primmins again rushes, or rather rolls--in the movement natural to

forms globular and spheral--into my father's room with--

"Sir, sir--it is a boy!"

Whether my father asked also this time that question so puzzling to

metaphysical inquirers, "What is a boy?" I know not; I rather suspect

he had not leisure for so abstract a question: for the whole household

burst on him, and my mother, in that storm peculiar to the elements

of the Mind Feminine--a sort of sunshiny storm between laughter and

crying--whirled him off to behold the _Neogilos_.

Now, some months after that date, on a winter's evening, we were all

assembled in the hall, which was still our usual apartment, since its

size permitted to each his own segregated and peculiar employment.

A large screen fenced off from interruption my father's erudite

settlement; and quite out of sight, behind that impermeable barrier, he

was now calmly winding up that eloquent peroration which will astonish

the world whenever, by Heaven's special mercy, the printer's devils

have done with "The History of Human Error." In another nook my uncle

had ensconced himself--stirring his coffee, (in the cup my mother had

presented to him so many years ago, and which had miraculously escaped

all the ills the race of crockery is heir to,) a volume of _Ivanhoe_

in the other hand: and, despite the charm of the Northern Wizard, his

eye _not_ on the page. On the wall behind him, hangs the picture of Sir

Herbert de Caxton, the soldier-comrade of Sidney and Drake; and, at the

foot of the picture, Roland has slung his son's sword beside the letter

that spoke of his death, which is framed and glazed: sword and letter

had become as the last, nor least honoured, Penates of the hall:--the

son was grown an ancestor.

Not far from my uncle sat Mr Squills, employed in mapping out

phrenological divisions on a cast he had made from the skull of one

of the Australian aborigines--a ghastly present which (in compliance

with a yearly letter to that effect) I had brought him over, together

with a stuffed "wombat" and a large bundle of sarsaparilla. (For the

satisfaction of his patients, I may observe, parenthetically, that the

skull and the "wombat"--that last is a creature between a miniature

pig and a very small badger--were not precisely packed up with the

sarsaparilla!) Farther on stood open, but idle, the new pianoforte, at

which, before my father had given his preparatory hem, and sat down to

the Great Book, Blanche and my mother had been trying hard to teach me

to bear the third in the glee of "The Chough and Crow to roost have

gone,"--vain task, in spite of all flattering assurances that I have a

very fine "bass," if I could but manage to humour it. Fortunately for

the ears of the audience, that attempt is now abandoned. My mother is

hard at work on her tapestry--the last pattern in fashion--to wit, a

rosy-cheeked young troubadour playing the lute under a salmon-coloured

balcony: the two little girls look gravely on, prematurely in love, I

suspect, with the troubadour; and Blanche and I have stolen away into

a corner, which, by some strange delusion, we consider out of sight,

and in that corner is the cradle of the _Neogilos_. Indeed it is not

our fault that it is there--Roland would have it so; and the baby is

so good, too, he never cries--at least so say Blanche and my mother:

at all events he does not cry to-night. And indeed, that child is a

wonder! He seems to know and respond to what was uppermost at our

hearts when he was born; and yet more, when Roland (contrary, I dare

say, to all custom) permitted neither mother, nor nurse, nor creature

of womankind, to hold him at the baptismal font, but bent over the new

Christian his own dark, high-featured face, reminding one of the eagle

that hid the infant in its nest, and watched over it with wings that

had battled with the storm: and from that moment the child, who took

the name of HERBERT, seemed to recognise Roland better than his nurse,

or even mother--seemed to know that, in giving him that name, we sought

to give Roland his son once more! Never did the old man come near the

infant but it smiled and crowed, and stretched out its little arms; and

then the mother and I would press each other's hands secretly, and were

not jealous. Well, then, Blanche and Pisistratus were seated near the

cradle, and talking in low whispers, when my father pushed aside the

screen and said--

"There--the work is done! and now it may go to press as soon as you

will."

Congratulations poured in--my father bore them with his usual

equanimity; and standing on the hearth, his hand in his waistcoat, he

said musingly, "Among the last delusions of Human Error, I have had

to notice Rousseau's phantasy of Perpetual Peace, and all the like

pastoral dreams, which preceded the bloodiest wars that have convulsed

the earth for more than a thousand years!"

"And to judge by the newspapers," said I, "the same delusions are

renewed again. Benevolent theorists go about, prophesying peace as a

positive certainty, deduced from that sibyl-book the ledger; and we are

never again to buy cannons, provided only we can exchange cotton for

corn."

MR SQUILLS, (_who, having almost wholly retired from general

business, has, from want of something better to do, attended sundry

"Demonstrations in the North," since which he has talked much about

the march of improvement, the spirit of the age, and_ "US _of the

nineteenth century."_)--I heartily hope that these benevolent theorists

_are_ true prophets. I have found, in the course of my professional

practice, that men go out of the world quite fast enough, without

hacking them into pieces, or blowing them up into the air. War is a

great evil.

BLANCHE, (_passing by Squills, and glancing towards Roland_.)--Hush!

Roland remains silent.

MR CAXTON.--War is a great evil; but evil is admitted by Providence

into the agency of creation, physical and moral. The existence of evil

has puzzled wiser heads than ours, Squills. But, no doubt, there is One

above who has His reasons for it. The combative bump seems as common to

the human skull as the philoprogenitive; if it is in our organisation,

be sure it is not there without cause. Neither is it just to man, nor

wisely submissive to the Disposer of all events, to suppose that war

is wholly and wantonly produced by human crimes and follies--that

it conduces _only_ to ill, and does not as often arise from the

necessities interwoven in the framework of society, and speed the great

ends of the human race, conformably with the designs of the Omniscient.

Not one great war has ever desolated the earth, but has left behind it

seeds that have ripened into blessings incalculable.

MR SQUILLS, (_with the groan of a dissentient at a

"Demonstration."_)--Oh! oh! OH!

Luckless Squills! Little could he have foreseen the shower-bath, or

rather _douche_, of erudition that fell splash on his head, as he

pulled the spring with that impertinent _Oh! oh!_ Down first came

the Persian War, with Median myriads disgorging all the rivers they

had drunk up in their march through the East--all the arts, all the

letters, all the sciences, all the notions of liberty that we inherit

from Greece--my father rushed on with them all, sousing Squills with

his proofs that, without the Persian War, Greece would never have risen

to be the teacher of the world. Before the gasping victim could take

breath, down came Hun, Goth, and Vandal, on Italy and Squills.

"What, sir!" cried my father, "don't you see that, from those eruptions

on demoralised Rome, came the regeneration of manhood; the re-baptism

of earth from the last soils of paganism; and the remote origin of

whatever of Christianity yet exists, free from the idolatries with

which Rome contaminated the faith?"

Squills held up his hands, and made a splutter. Down came

Charlemagne--paladins and all! There my father was grand! What a

picture he made of the broken, jarring, savage elements of barbaric

society. And the iron hand of the great Frank--settling the nations,

and founding existent Europe. Squills was now fast sinking into coma,

or stupefaction; but, catching at a straw, as he heard the word

"Crusades" he stuttered forth, "Ah! _there_ I defy you!"

"Defy me, there!" cries my father; and one would think the ocean was in

the shower-bath, it came down with such a rattle. My father scarcely

touched on the smaller points in excuse for the Crusades, though he

recited very volubly all the humane arts introduced into Europe by

that invasion of the East; and showed how it had served civilisation,

by the vent it afforded for the rude energies of chivalry--by the

element of destruction to feudal tyranny that it introduced--by its use

in the emancipation of burghs, and the disrupture of serfdom. But he

showed, in colours vivid as if caught from the skies of the East, the

great spread of Mahometanism, and the danger it menaced to Christian

Europe--and drew up the Godfreys, and Tancreds, and Richards, as a

league of the Age and Necessity, against the terrible progress of the

sword and the Koran. "You call them madmen," cried my father, "but the

frenzy of nations is the statesmanship of fate! How know you that--but

for the terror inspired by the hosts who marched to Jerusalem--how know

you that the Crescent had not waved over other realms than those which

Roderic lost to the Moor? If Christianity had been less a passion, and

the passion had less stirred up all Europe--how know you that the creed

of the Arab (which was then, too, a passion) might not have planted its

mosques in the forum of Rome, and on the site of Notre Dame? For in the

war between creeds--when the creeds are embraced by vast races--think

you that the reason of sages can cope with the passion of millions?

Enthusiasm must oppose enthusiasm. The crusader fought for the tomb of

Christ, but he saved the life of Christendom."

My father paused. Squills was quite passive; he struggled no more--he

was drowned.

"So," resumed Mr Caxton, more quietly--"so, if later wars yet perplex

us as to the good that the All-wise One draws from their evils,

our posterity may read their uses as clearly as we now read the

finger of Providence resting on the barrows of Marathon, or guiding

Peter the Hermit to the battle-fields of Palestine. Nor, while we

admit the evil to the passing generation, can we deny that many of

the virtues that make the ornament and vitality of peace sprang up

first in the convulsions of war!" Here Squills began to evince faint

signs of resuscitation, when my father let fly at him one of those

numberless waterworks which his prodigious memory kept in constant

supply. "Hence," said he, "hence not unjustly has it been remarked by

a philosopher, shrewd at least in worldly experience--(Squills again

closed his eyes, and became exanimate)--'It is strange to imagine

that war, which of all things appears the most savage, should be the

passion of the most heroic spirits. But 'tis in war that the knot

of fellowship is closest drawn; It is in war that mutual succour is

most given--mutual danger run, and common affection most exerted

and employed; for heroism and philanthropy are almost one and the

same!'"[12]

My father ceased, and mused a little. Squills, if still living, thought

it prudent to feign continued extinction.

"Not," said Mr Caxton, resuming--"not but what I hold it our duty never

to foster into a passion what we must rather submit to as an awful

necessity. You say truly, Mr Squills--war is an evil; and woe to those

who, on slight pretences, open the gates of Janus,

----'The dire abode,

And the fierce issues of the furious god.'"

Mr Squills, after a long pause, (employed in some of the more handy

means for the reanimation of submerged bodies, supporting himself

close to the fire in a semi-erect posture, with gentle friction,

self-applied, to each several limb, and copious recourse to certain

steaming stimulants which my compassionate hands prepared for him,)

stretches himself, and says feebly, "In short, then, not to provoke

further discussion, you would go to war in defence of your country.

Stop, sir--stop, for God's sake! I agree with you--I agree with you!

But, fortunately, there is little chance now that any new Boney will

build boats at Boulogne to invade us."

MR CAXTON.--I am not so sure of that, Mr Squills. (_Squills falls

back with a glassy stare of deprecating horror._) I don't read the

newspapers very often, but the past helps me to judge of the present.

Therewith my father earnestly recommended to Mr Squills the careful

perusal of certain passages in Thucydides, just previous to the

outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, (_Squills hastily nodded the most

servile acquiescence_,) and drew an ingenious parallel between the

signs and symptoms foreboding that outbreak, and the very apprehension

of coming war which was evinced by the recent _Io pæans_ to peace.

And, after sundry notable and shrewd remarks, tending to show where

elements for war were already ripening, amidst clashing opinions and

disorganised states, he wound up with saying,--"So that, all things

considered, I think we had better just keep up enough of the bellicose

spirit, not to think it a sin if we are called upon to fight for

our pestles and mortars, our three per cents, goods, chattels, and

liberties. Such a time must come, sooner or later, even though the

whole world were spinning cotton, and printing sprigged calicoes. _We_

may not see it, Squills, but that young gentleman in the cradle, whom

you have lately brought into light, may."

"And if so," said my uncle abruptly, speaking for the first time--"if

indeed it is for altar and hearth!"

My father suddenly drew in and pished a little, for he saw that he was

caught in the web of his own eloquence.

Then Roland took down from the wall his son's sword. Stealing to the

cradle, he laid it in its sheath by the infant's side, and glanced from

my father to us with a beseeching eye. Instinctively Blanche bent over

the cradle, as if to protect the _Neogilos_; but the child, waking,

turned from her, and, attracted by the glitter of the hilt, laid one

hand lustily thereon, and pointed with the other, laughingly, to Roland.

"Only on my father's proviso," said I hesitatingly. "For hearth and

altar--nothing less!"

"And even in that case," said my father, "add the shield to the sword!"

and on the other side of the infant he placed Roland's well-worn Bible,

blistered in many a page with secret tears.

There we all stood, grouping round the young centre of so many hopes

and fears--in peace or in war, born alike for the Battle of Life. And

he, unconscious of all that made our lips silent, and our eyes dim,

had already left that bright bauble of the sword, and thrown both arms

round Roland's bended neck.

"_Herbert_," murmured Roland; and Blanche gently drew away the

sword,--and left the Bible.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cowley's _Ode to Light_.

[2] Cowley on _Town and Country_. (Discourse on Agriculture.)

[3] How true are the following remarks:--

"Action is the first great requisite of a colonist, (that is, a

pastoral or agricultural settler.) With a young man, the tone of his

mind is more important than his previous pursuits. I have known men

of an active, energetic, contented disposition, with a good flow of

animal spirits, who had been bred in luxury and refinement, succeed

better than men bred as farmers, who were always hankering after bread

and beer, and market ordinaries of Old England.... To be dreaming when

you should be looking after your cattle, is a terrible drawback....

There are certain persons who, too lazy and too extravagant to succeed

in Europe, sail for Australia under the idea that fortunes are to be

made there by a sort of legerdemain, spend or lose their capital in a

very short space of time, and return to England to abuse the place,

the people, and everything connected with colonisation."--_Sidney's

Australian Handbook_--admirable for its wisdom and compactness.

[4] Lest this seem an exaggeration, I venture to annex an extract from

a MS. letter to the author from Mr George Blakeston Wilkinson, author

of _South Australia_.

"I will instance the case of one person who had been a farmer in

England, and emigrated with about £2000 about seven years since. On

his arrival, he found that the prices of sheep had fallen from about

30s. to 5s. or 6s. per head, and he bought some well-bred flocks at

these prices. He was fortunate in obtaining a good and extensive _run_,

and he devoted the whole of his time to improving his flocks, and

encouraged his shepherds by rewards; so that, in about four years, his

original number of sheep had increased from 2500 (which cost him £700)

to 7000; and the breed and wool were also so much improved that he

could obtain £1 per head for 2000 fat sheep, and 15s. per head for the

other 5000, and this at a time when the general price of sheep was from

10s. to 16s. This alone increased his original capital, invested in

sheep, from £700 to £5700. The profits from the wool paid the whole of

his expenses and wages for his men."

[5] I felt sure, from the first, that the system called "The Wakefield"

could never fairly represent the ideas of Mr Wakefield himself, whose

singular breadth of understanding, and various knowledge of mankind,

belied the notion that fathered on him the clumsy execution of a theory

wholly inapplicable to a social state like Australia. I am glad to see

that he has vindicated himself from the discreditable paternity. But

I grieve to find that he still clings to one cardinal error of the

system, in the discouragement of small holdings, and that he evades,

more ingeniously than ingenuously, the important question--"What should

be the minimum price of land?"

[6] "The profits of cattle-farming are smaller than those of the

sheep-owner, (if the latter have good luck, for much depends upon

that,) but cattle-farming is much more safe as a speculation, and less

care, knowledge, and management are required. £2000, laid out on 700

head of cattle, if good runs be procured, might increase the capital in

five years, from £2000 to £6000, besides enabling the owner to maintain

himself, pay wages, &c."--_MS. letter from G. B. Wilkinson._

[7] _Dingoes_--the name given by Australian natives to the wild dogs.

[8] Not having again to advert to Uncle Jack, I may be pardoned for

informing the reader, by way of annotation, that he continues to

prosper surprisingly in Australia, though the Tibbets' Wheal stands

still for want of workmen. Despite of a few ups and downs, I have had

no fear of his success until this year, (1849,) when I tremble to think

what effect the discovery of the gold mines in California may have on

his lively imagination. If thou escapist that snare, Uncle Jack, _res

age, tutus eris_,--thou art safe for life!

[9] _Light of Nature--chapter on Judgment._--See the very ingenious

illustration of doubt, "whether the part is always greater than the

whole"--taken from time, or rather eternity.

[10] Sir Philip Sidney.

[11] Lord Hervey's _Memoirs of George II._

[12] Shaftesbury.

LYNMOUTH REVISITED.

BY THE SKETCHER.

Nearly sixteen years ago, there appeared in the pages of Maga,

descriptions of the scenery of Lynmouth, North Devon. As Sketcher, I

then proposed to myself to analyse the impressions which landscape

scenery makes upon the minds of artists and lovers of nature, and to

show that there must be in the artist a higher aim than imitation; and

that the pleasure of the unpractising admirer will be in proportion

to his power of extracting from the insensitive matter of nature,

the poetic life of thought; to rescue both art and nature from the

degradation they suffer when disconnected with the higher senses; to

show that nature, to be the worthy object of art, should be suggestive.

Its charm is to elicit, to draw out finely, and to embellish what

is already, in a ruder state, in the mind. If there be poverty

within, there is no room for the reception of the riches so profusely

surrounding us in the external world. Neither artists nor amateurs are

generally sufficiently aware, that a previous education is necessary

to make sketching effective and expressive. We find _ourselves_

everywhere. Whatever be the scenery, the sketcher brings little back

that he does not take with him. Hence the diversity in the character of

sketches--of different sketchers--and the one character that pervades

the portfolio of each. I have heard of an artist who visited our lakes,

and brought back with him only cottages! Morland would have added, or

rather made the principal, the stye and pigs; and even Gainsborough's

sketch-book may have shown little more than ragged pollards, and groups

of rustic children. To know what is in nature, you must know what is

in yourself. If you are ignorant of art, your sketches can only be

accidentally good. It is possible to be a very close observer, even of

minute beauties, and yet be a very bad sketcher. One of an original

genius will convert, and, by a bold dissimilitude in non-essentials,

incorporate into his own previous conceptions whatever is before him;

and thus, by preserving the great suggestive characteristics, represent

nature with a far greater truth, exhibiting her very life and feeling,

than they who aim at truth through exact and minute imitation.

Let this be exemplified in Salvator Rosa. Do his wild scenes of rock,

and rugged rock-engendered trees, exist to the general eye, exactly in

their form, and colour, and composition, as he has represented them?

The exact sketcher would have found a less correspondence in branches

and foliage--a less marked living feeling between the rocks and trees;

he would have found much in the colouring, especially in the green

leaves, where they are so few and scattered, of an inconsistent gaiety.

These would have been distracting; but his educated eye, toned by a one

bold feeling, rejected these, and seized the wilder characteristic,

to which he resolutely, under the impulse of his genius, made all the

rest subservient and suggestive. He embodied what he saw with what he

felt, and marred not the savage freedom by attractive littlenesses,

but gave it full play; and with an execution as bold and free, which

the minute critic would pronounce not natural, though most natural, as

most expressive of that spontaneous out-flung unconstrained-ness of

nature's growth, which really pervades all, he harmoniously brought all

the parts under the dominion of one poetic feeling. Take his foliage,

even in form--to say nothing of its actual unnaturalness of colour in

the exact sense--there is a raggedness, as torn and storm-beaten, in

the individual leafage, which the untutored sketcher will in vain look

for in his beat; but all this stamps one great truth, and that speaks

more of nature than many small ones. I do not mean here to give the

palm to Salvator Rosa, as if he were "Lord of Landscape;" I mention

him as a strong example, as the boldest deviator from that which the

unpoetic eye sees, and minds totally uncharmed by poetry can conceive.

I think it well here to lay some stress upon these preliminary remarks,

because much has been written, with a great fascination of language,

recommending, as I believe too strongly, a close observation in detail

of the phenomena of nature; overlooking the great phenomenon--the

accordance of external nature with the heart, feelings, and very life

and soul of man. One writer in particular, with great ability, and

audacious confidence, because in his blindness he, uneducated to it,

sees not in nature what such great men as Salvator Rosa and Gaspar

Poussin, have extracted from it, and yet made it nature's and their

own, flings upon their established fame the _brutum fulmen_ of his

contempt and abuse. _Damnat quod non intelligit._ He knows not the true

principles of art which exist to perfection in their works, nor knows

how strictly these principles belong to art and nature only through and

by their connexion with the mind of man. You may study meteorology in

the _Penny Magazine_, or geology and botany, most scientifically; but

it will further you a very little way, while your portfolio is under

your arm, and your eye in search of a picturesque which you have not

learned to find. Nay, it may happen, for it often does happen, that the

more you sketch the farther you are from art. It is possible, also, for

the most accomplished artist to sketch too much; and to stay the power

of his invention, by referring too constantly to the preciseness and

individuality of scenery. He dares not so much trust his palette as his

portfolio, as it were his register of nature, to which he has bound

himself beyond the usual apprenticeship.

It has been remarked by sketchers, amateurs, and artists by profession,

that, upon a sketching expedition, "their hands are not in" for some

days. I doubt if the fault be so much in the hand as in the eye; for

in most cases the hand had come from the immediate practice of the

studio: but the eye is distracted by the many beauties which now force

themselves into observation, and which in the home-practice, and in

following the mind's bent on the canvass, the memory did not vividly

present as not wanted. It is more difficult, therefore, at first to

generalise, to escape the fascinations of local form and colour, which

keep the eye from the instant acknowledgment of a whole. We are thus

at first apt to begin with the detail, instead of leaving it to the

last, by which means we have more than we want, or less accurately and

accommodatingly what is wanted. When we have learned again to reject,

and to see, we are surprised with a facility we at first despaired of.

We do, then, because we know what to do.

I would recommend therefore, before setting out on such expeditions,

where it be practicable, to visit daily, and all day, during a week or

fortnight, the best galleries of pictures, such as contain all schools,

that as much as possible there may be no bias, but such as every one

must find in himself before he reaches the gallery. I would do this to

confirm, and fasten upon the memory, the principles of art,--breadth,

greatness, truth, expression, colouring, sentiment, and how obtained.

Here will be a grammar without its drudgery; for every lesson will be

a delight, if we go to it with no conceited opinions of our own, and

no cavilling spirit bringing ourselves down to an admission that these

great men of former days had some foundation upon which they built

their fame, their acknowledged fame--so searching, we shall see the

reasons of their doings--why they, each for their own purpose, adopted

this or that style of colour, or of composition, or chiaroscuro. Going

then immediately to nature from art, we shall see how very true art

is--a secret that, without this immediate comparison, would be very apt

to be hidden from us. No man in his senses would begin a science from

his own observation alone. It was not the first shepherd who, studying

the stars, laid open the study of astronomy. We shall learn nothing by

despising all that has been learnt before we were born. So it is in

art; some principles have been established, which it is well to know

thoroughly; and, the more we know them, the more enthusiastic will be

our admiration, the love of art through nature, and of nature through

art.

During my former visits to the beautiful scenery of Lynmouth, I had

seldom taken any whole view, but chiefly studied parts for use in the

detail of compositions; and this I think to be a good practice for

the landscape painter, which term I use here in contradistinction

to the painter of views, there is so great a pleasure in as it were

creating--in being the ®poiêtês®, the maker--that, to one accustomed

to and at all skilled in composing, it becomes an irksome task to

make a "view." The continued habit of view-painting must necessarily

check invention, and limit unworthily the painter's aim. In revisiting

Lynmouth, I changed my purpose and this, not under the idea of making

pictures of any of the sketches, but for the practice of noting how

a picture, framed in from nature, as if it were a work of art, would

be brought to its completion; for sketching, with such an object, I

cannot but think of as great importance as the other method. We must

learn from nature to make a whole, as well as the use of the parts

separately. With this purpose the sketcher will look out for subjects,

not detail; he will be curious to see how nature composes now, and

when it is that scenes are most agreeable--made so by what combination

of lines, by what agreement of colours, by what proportions of light,

and gradations of shadow: for he will often find, when nature looks

her best, that light and shade are employed as substitutes for lines

which, in the actual and true drawing of them, would be unfortunate.

How often is it that a scene strikes the eye at once for its great

beauty, that, when we come to it again, seems entirely to have lost

its charm! Now these spots should be visited again and again, till the

causes be ascertained of the charm and of the deterioration: for here

must lie the principles of art, nature assuming and putting off that

which is most agreeable to us, that in which our human sympathies are

engaged. Sketchers often pass hastily these spots that are no longer

beautiful; but they are wrong, for they can learn best, by accurate

observation of the changes presented to them. And they will thus learn

to remedy deficiencies, and acquire a better power of selecting scenes,

by knowing where the deficiencies lie; the mind's eye will not dwell

upon them, or will fill them up, and the composition show itself to

them in a manner quite otherwise than it would have appeared, had no

such previous observations been made. There are sometimes good lines

marred by bad effects, and bad lines remedied by skilful management

of effects--of light and shadow. It must be a practised eye that can

properly abstract and separate lines from effects, and effects from

lines. We play with colour, but our serious business is with light and

shade; the real picture is more frequently in black and white, than

those who addict themselves to colour will credit. I will here but

refer to some passages in the early numbers of _The Sketcher_, on the

composition of lines, wherein I showed, and I believe truly explained,

the principle of composition upon which many of the old masters worked.

And I particularly exemplified the principle in the pictures of Gaspar

Poussin, whom Thompson calls learned Poussin, (unless he meant Nicolo,

who, though in other respects he may with equal justice be called

learned, is, in this art of the composition of lines, in no way to be

compared with his brother-in-law.) I showed that there was one simple

rule which he invariably adopted. We may likewise go to nature, and

find the rule there, when nature, as a composition, looks her best.

I think it will be found that any scene is most pleasing when its

variety is in the smallest portion--that is, when the greatest part

of the picture is made up of the most simple and pervading lines, and

the intricacies, all variety, and alternations, and interchanges of

lines and parts, shall be confined to a very small portion; for thus

a greatness, a largeness, an importance, is preserved and heightened,

and at the same time, monotony is avoided--though there be much in it,

the piece is not crowded. There is a print from a picture by Smith

of Chichester, who, by the bye, obtained the prize, against Richard

Wilson, which attracted my attention the other day at a print-seller's

window. It was meant, I presume, as an imitation of Claude, Claude

reduced to the then English vulgarity. If multiplicity of parts would

make a picture, doubtless Richard Wilson, with his simple, sweeping,

free lines, could have no chance in competition with such a painter.

Every niche was crowded--and equally so--every niche might have made a

picture, such as it was, but all the niches made none, or a bad one.

Why, the variety was universal; it should have been confined to the

smaller space. The picture is objectionable in other points of view;

but this ignorance of the very nature of composition was fatal. Yet

this work was evidently an imitation of Claude, whose variety, however,

of distance, the modern imitator brought into his very foreground.

He could not see the simplicity of Claude. Not that Claude himself

was a learned composer; his lines are often incongruous, and there is

not unfrequently a poverty of design, scarcely concealed by the magic

of his colouring. Now, I find, in looking over my sketches, that I

had selected those scenes where the passages of variety lay in the

distance, and, it being a narrow valley, they occupied but a small

space; but, though small, it was mostly the place of interest--there

was the more vivid light or the deeper shade, the change, the life

of the picture, and the embellished way of escape out of a defile,

that from its closeness would have been otherwise painful. In saying

"painful," I seem to point to a defect in this Lynmouth valley. Indeed,

it will not suit those who do not love close scenery. That certainly

is its character. Yet is it not so close, but that there is room for

this kind of variety. I think what I have said upon this point, of

interest and variety lying in the smaller portion of the canvass--for

I here speak even of nature as a picture--may be applicable generally

to light. I imagine those scenes will be found most pleasing, where the

light is by far the smallest portion, the half-tone by far the larger,

and the dark but to show the power of both. Take, for instance, a

garden scene--a broad walk, trees on each side--all is in broad light,

but all is in painful glare, monotony, and sameness of endless detail.

Let a shadow pass over it, a broad shadow--or rather a half-tone of

light, that shall only show the local colour subdued--how, let a gleam

pass across it, and just touch here and there the leafage, and seem

to escape behind it--how small is the light, but it has given life to

the picture. I cannot but think it a fault of our day that half-tone

is neglected; light is made a glare, and therefore the very object of

light is lost. I believe it was the aim at a mere novelty that first

introduced this false principle. It was recommended to Guido, but

he failed in it: pictures so painted by him are far from being his

best. Rubens erred in it; but modern artists have carried the false

principle to the utmost limit; and, in doing so, are liable to a

palpable incongruity; an impossibility in nature, which they profess

to imitate. For it is the property of light to take away colour; yet

in this school, the whitest light, and the most vivid colours, are in

the same piece. The old painters, aware of this property of light, in

their out-of-door scenes, avoid, not to say a white, but even a light

sky--especially the Venetian--so that their great depth and power of

colour was rendered natural, by the depth of their skies. Their blues

were dark--intensely so--but they were sustained by the general colour.

If it be said the Italian skies are notoriously the bluest, Mr Ruskin

has, in contradiction, pronounced them to be white, but I believe the

fact is, that the great painters considered colour, as a beauty in

art, _sui generis_, and that there was no need of a slavish adherence,

in this respect, to nature herself. Indeed, they delighted, even when

aiming at the richest colouring, to subdue all glare, and to preserve

rather a deep half-tone.

I believe they studied nature through coloured glasses; and we learn

from Mrs Merrifield that Gaspar Poussin used a black mirror, which had

been bequeathed to him by Bamboccio. The works of some of the Flemish

painters evidently show that they used such a mirror.

Have I not, then, reached Lynmouth yet? I found it in full leafage,

and the little river as clear as amber, and like it in colour. It is

always beautiful, and variable too--after rain it assumes more variety

of colour, and of great richness. For most part of the time of my

visit, it was more shallow than I had ever seen it. I was pleased that

it was so, though I heard many complaints on that score. To those who

sketch close to the water, it is, in fact, an advantage; for where the

scenery is so confined, it is a great thing to be able to reach the

large stones in mid-stream, and thus many new views are obtained; and

when you are pretty close to water, whether it be a fall, or still,

there is really but very little difference whether the river be full or

not--the falls still retain sufficient body, and the still pools are

sufficiently wide.

There are but two parties who know anything of the painter-scenery of

Lynmouth--the sketchers and the anglers. The common road generally

taken by tourists shows not half the beauty of the place. Did Lynmouth

appear less beautiful?--certainly not. I easily recognised the chosen

spots, and was surprised to find what little change had taken place.

I knew individual trees perfectly, and, strange to say, they did not

seem to have acquired growth. There were apparently the same branches

stretching over the stream.

In one spot where large ledges of rock shoot out in mid-stream, down

whose grooves the river rushes precipitously, (I had, sixteen years

ago, sketched the scene,) there was growing out of the edge of the

rock a young ash-tree shoot--to my surprise, there it was still, or

the old had decayed, and a similar had sprang up. There is something

remarkable in this continued identity, year after year, as if the law

of mutability had been suspended. Yet there were changes. I remember

sketching by a little fall of the river, where further progress was

staid by a large mass of projecting rock. I felt sure there must be

fine subjects beyond, and in my attempt to reach it from the opposite

side by climbing, and holding by the boughs of a tree, one broke off,

and I fell into the cauldron. I found now that the whole mass of this

ledge of rock had given way, and opened a passage, and one of no great

difficulty. Here, as I suspected, were some very fine studies. The

place where I descended is about half a mile, or less, from Lynmouth,

where the road turns, near to a little bridge across a watercourse

intercepting the road. The view of this little fall from above is

singularly beautiful; and, being so much elevated, you see the bed of

the river continuous for a long distance, greatly varied. I know no

place where there are such fine studies of this kind, though they are

rarely taken, being only parts for composition--the whole not making a

view.

Was Lynmouth, then, to me as it was?--not quite. The interval of years

had not, I trust, been lost. If there was little change in the place,

there was a change in the mind's eye and head of the sketcher. Though

I recognised nearly all the spots where I had sketched, I found many

new--some that might have escaped me, because I had not taken the

feeling with me, at least not in the degree, in which I now possessed

it. During all the years that had intervened, I had scarcely painted

a single view. I could not but observe that the new scenes were those

more especially suggestive, leading to the ideal.

A friend who was part of the time with me observed that he had thought

some of my pictures, which he had seen, compositions without the

warranty of nature; but he now saw that nature supplied me with what

I wanted, and acknowledged that the sketches were correct. It was

then I observed that the sketcher may find almost everywhere what he

has learnt to look for. The fact is, that it is not whole and large

scenery, nor the most beautiful, that best suits the painter, but those

parts which he can combine. The real painter looks to nature for form

and colour, the elements of his art: upon these he must work; and they

seldom reach any great magnitude, or are diffused over large space.

Why is it, that generally what we term beautiful scenery was seldom the

ground of the old painters? They were not, generally speaking, painters

of views; and why not? There the pictures were made for them. They,

and all the world had the thing before them to love and to admire--it

was already done; there was no room for their genius, which is a

creative, not an imitative faculty. The scene for every eye was not

theirs. They found that, by their art, they could take nature's best

feeling, even from her fragments. It requires not an Alp to portray

grandeur. Fifty feet of rock, precipitous or superimpending, will

better represent the greatness of danger; for it is a more immediate

and solid mass to crush the intruder, and the form may frown with a

demon malice. The whole awe of darkness may be felt in a cavern of a

few feet space. Indeed, it may be almost said that largeness is not

to be obtained on the canvass, by the largeness of whole extensive

scenes in nature, but by the continuous lines of near masses: whatever

is actually largest in nature--the forest and the mountain--in art

may with advantage occupy the smallest space. For the best magnitude

here is in perspective, and in that aerial tone which, as a veil, half

conceals, and thereby makes mysterious, and converts into one azure

whole the parts which would, otherwise seen, but break up the great

character. The Arabian genii were greatest when dimly seen through

smoke and vapour.

Art, indeed, differs from nature in this, as regards the pleasure

derived through the eye, that nature allows you many unperspective

views at many instant glances, and therefore surprises you, if I may so

express it, with a perspective impossibility, of which the judgment at

the time is not cognisant; whereas art is bounded by a rule, looks not

all around, and comprehends by mind beyond the eye, but is constrained

to frame in the conception. It must, therefore, make to itself another

power--and this power it finds in form, in light and shade, and colour,

all which are in greater intensity and force in the fragmentary parts

than in the whole and large scenes. It is a step for the young artist

to believe that art and nature are not and should not be the same--that

they are essentially different, and use their materials differently,

have other rules of space and largeness. If art be more limited, its

power is greater by being more condensed,--and its impressions more

certain, because more direct, and not under the vague and changeable

process of making an idea from many perspectives.

If there be truth in these remarks, we may see why the old masters left

untouched those scenes which are the delight of tourists. To copy the

scene before them was to put their creative faculty in abeyance. It

was only to work after a given pattern--and that pattern imperfect--of

a whole which defied the laws of optics. I here speak almost entirely

of the Italian masters, both the historical, and more strictly the

landscape painters. The Flemish and Dutch schools had mostly another

aim, and were more imitative; hence they are more easily understood,

but felt with a far less passion. But even these, far from undervaluing

the conventional aids of art, applied as much of them as the nature of

their subjects would admit.

But the sketcher must not consider himself in his studies when he is

out with his portfolio. However he may select, he must be faithful.

And this fidelity I have seen painters of great skill often unwisely

contemn, become too conventional, both in their drawing and colouring.

It requires much practice of the eye, as well as that knowledge which

constitutes taste, to frame in as it were pictures, from the large

space that fills the eye. Nothing is more useful than to carry in the

portfolio a light frame of stiff paper or wood, and to hold it up, so

as actually to frame in pictures, and thus to experimentalise upon the

design, and see what shiftings of the frame make the best choice. It is

an assistance even to the most practised in composition.

Lynmouth is greatly improved of late years in accommodation; many new

lodging-houses are built, and there are some residents who have shown

great taste in laying out their grounds, and in their buildings. The

little pier has been rendered picturesque, by the erection of a small

look-out house after a model from Rhodes. There is not much here at

any time that would deserve the name of shipping; but a few fishing

boats, and such small craft compose well with the little pier. The

evenings are very fine, the sun setting over the Channel; and the

Welsh coast in the distance assumes, occasionally, a very beautiful

ultramarine blue, like a glaze over warm colouring. When the tide

comes in, and the little vessels are afloat, these are good subjects,

the water being of a gray green, softening the reflections. I began a

sketch when the boats were aground; but the tide, coming in rapidly,

soon so altered the position of the vessels that I did not proceed.

When the tide receded, leaving the vessels aground, they were not in

the same direction in which I had sketched them; and an artist who

was present remarked, that the beauty of the scene as a composition

was gone, and referred to the sketch. This led to some discussion, as

to the cause--Why should it be less good now, said he, than when you

drew it? I believe I saw the reason, and pointed it out. There was a

sloop, larger by much than all the rest, which were indeed, though

having masts, but boats. The larger vessel was the principal object,

even more so than the buildings on the pier, towards which it leaned;

and this leaning was important, for a union and certain connexion of

parts was everything here, for it made one of many things. Accordingly,

the smaller boats on each side the larger vessel inclined their masts

towards it; so that this manifest uniting, and the belonging of one to

the other, was the pleasing idea, and invested the whole with a kind of

life and sensitiveness; but in the alteration, after the receding of

the tide, this communication of the one with the other was gone, and,

on the contrary, there was left an uncomfortable feeling of disunion.

This reasoning was admitted, and we further discussed the principle

involved in the remarks, as applicable to all scenes and subjects. It

is this correspondence of part with part which animates the works of

nature, invests them with an ideal sensitiveness; and through this fond

belief of their life, our own sensitiveness is awakened to a sympathy

with them. Whatever inanimate objects we in our fancy invest with

life, through our own sympathy, we clothe with a kind of humanity;

and thus we look on trees and rocks, and water, as to a degree our

fellow creatures, in this great wild world. We love accordingly. _Nihil

humanum a me alienum puto._ The very winds speak to us as human voices,

as do the trees in their whisperings or complainings; and the waters

are ever repeating their histories and their romances to our willing

ears. As we walked we tested the principle, and were believers in its

truth. "Mark," said our friend, "that bank of fern--how graceful, how

charming, is their bending, their interchange, their masses and their

hollow shades, their little home-depths, wherein they grow, and retire

as their home-chambers: there is throughout the pleasing idea of a

family enjoying their quiet existence, and all in one small green world

of their own." He enjoys nature most worthily, and most intensely, who

carries with him this sense of nature's life, and of a mutuality, a

co-partnership with the blessings of existence with himself. There are

some fine rocks at the base of the precipitous cliffs--of fine form and

colour; I never went sufficiently near to sketch them, having no fancy

to be caught by the tide. I have seen sketches made amongst them that

prove them to afford very good subjects. Many years ago, while sitting

under these cliffs, I heard a groan; I thought at the time it must have

been a delusion, but on that evening a man had fallen over the cliffs.

His body was, I think, found the next day. It fell from Countesbury

Hill, the road on which is certainly not sufficiently protected. And

this reminds me to speak of an alarming occurrence on the road, about

half a mile from Lynmouth. We were a small party, and had taken shelter

from rain against the receding part of the rocks cut for the widening

the road. I and another were reading a newspaper. Looking up, we

suddenly saw a woman on horseback very near us. The animal started, and

was frightened at the newspaper. Our endeavour to conceal it made the

matter worse; the horse retreated from us, and I think his hind legs

could not have been many inches from the precipice. It was a trying

moment; one step more back would have been certain death to both the

woman and the horse. We were truly happy when, by a little management,

we contrived to get them past us. The road, too, is in these dangerous

places very narrow; yet the people venture to drive at a good pace, and

without reins, their uncouth and apparently unmanageable teams--neither

quite dray nor cart--fearlessly. It is surprising that accidents do

not often occur, especially as there is some danger from the falling

of masses of stone from above; and even such as the sheep remove

with their feet may frighten horses, and precipitate all to sure

destruction. There are great rents in huge masses of rock, close to

the road, and some apparently are kept firm with but little earth, and

seem to threaten a move. I have had some blows on the back occasionally

from small stones, cast down by passing sheep, while I have been

sketching down by the water; and once so large a one took the corner

of my portfolio, that with my best speed I quitted the place. That

was some years ago; but I have recently seen not very small fragments

fall very near me. I would, therefore, caution the sketcher to choose

as safe a position as he can, which he may generally find under some

projection of rock. Some of the masses in the bed of the river are of

enormous size; and let me here remark upon the fine, bold character

these masses in the river possess--they are very fine in form, and the

beauty and variety in their colouring are quite wondrous. Some are very

dark, entirely covered with brown, and some with, bright golden moss.

But most of them when dry are gray--but one name will not describe that

gray, varying as it does from the blue to the green and pink hues. They

are commonly in bold relief against the dark water--yet themselves show

dark, edged by the white foam, where the water, sloping insinuatingly,

falls and rushes by them. Here and there, in some deep-shaded, wild,

lonely places, they are of gigantic size, and look like huge Titans

turned to stone, amid the fragments that had hurled them down. The

sketcher may easily imagine himself in the territory of magic. Shall I

confess that, in such places, I do not like to sketch alone? And why

not? Why should there be a something like a superstitious awe of the

spot, the "_severi religio loci_?"

Doubtless it is because we do feel contradicting knowledge, in this

consciousness of all nature in its own life and power. Nor can we

divest ourselves of a kind of natural poetry--a feeling that the rocks,

the wild trees, and the somewhere though unseen "_genius loci_" all

look at us, and we fancy ourselves but under sufferance, and know not

how long our presence may be endured. It is surprising how a sense of

such presences possesses us when alone. I could often have fancied

voices, and mocking ones too, in the waters, and threats that thundered

in the ear, and went off as if to fetch and bring whole cataracts down

upon me. In such places I do not like to be caught by the dusk of the

evening, being quite alone.

The fact is, nature, to a real lover and sketcher, is at all times

powerful. Scenes affect him as they affect no other. I have often

surprised people by the assertion that I could not live in the midst of

fine scenery; it is too powerful, it unnerves one with an unrelaxing

watchfulness. The presence of the mountain will not be shaken off.

It becomes a nightmare upon the spirits, holds communion with the

wild winds and storms, and has fearful dealings I would not dream of

in the dark, howling, dismal nights. Nor, when the sombre light of a

melancholy day just obscures the clouds that have been gathering round

it, would I in imagination draw the curtain to behold the unearthly

drama.

There is something terrific in the sound of unseen rushing water.

When all else is still in the dark night, and you are uncertain of

the path, and feel the danger that a false footing may plunge you

into an abyss of waters, that seem to cry out and roar for a victim,

have you not felt both fear and shame? Recently I experienced this

in Lynmouth, having in the darkness lost my way. To the poet and the

painter, here is a source of the sublime. Plunge your pencil boldly

into this eclipse, and work into it a few dim lights formless and

undefined--the obscure will be of a grand mystery. The night-darkness

that settles over fine mountainous scenery does not remove the sense of

its presence; as its lakes blacken, they become fabulous, of unknown

depths, below which may be infernal "bolge." But I am wandering into

strange regions now, and far from Lynmouth, whose scenes, after all,

are not of a very severe beauty, unless we will to make it so. It will

then answer the demand imagination makes upon it. Many are the scenes

of a purely quiescent kind, still and calm, and of gentle repose, where

the shallow river shows its amber bed, wherein the gleams rest upon the

well-defined ledges beneath, whose gray shadows melt into golden tints;

and beyond, in the deeper pools, the green of the trees is reflected

greener still, across which here and there is a gray streak, showing

the river's silent onward movement; and further on, some dark stones

send their brown and purple hues, mirrored and softened down into the

green, just dotted here and there with white. Then the trees shoot out

lovingly from the bank overhead, and reach and communicate pleasantly

with those on the opposite side; and here a bough sends down and just

forbears to touch the stream, Narcissus-like, loving its own image.

The gray stones in the foreground, half beneath the water, are of a

delicate hue, blue intermingling with pale greenish and lakey tints;

for there is nothing violent in all this scene of peaceful repose.

Very many spots of this kind are there that court the sketcher. Let

him wind his way over masses of stone, and roots of trees, beyond

these--the scene how changed! The masses of stone are huge, blocking

up, in various positions, the free passage of the river, which chafes

and foams between them, throwing off its whiteness into the brown and

green water depths. One broad shadow is over the dark stones; and

beyond that rise the tops of other masses, gray illuminated; and beyond

them, a gleam or two of falling water. Wilder are the trees that shoot

out, from rocky fragments near, and lock their branches with those on

the other side; while in the hollow space beneath their arching boles,

distant and fantastic stems cross the stream. Opposite are huge masses,

ledges with precipitous and brown-mossed sides; above which the high

rocky bank sends forth large trees, their roots twisting about the

rocks and coming out again through the fissures, and met by green weed

leafage. The trees are darker than the dun-red ground, but edged with

greenish light; and above them the yellow sunlight gleams through, and

the dotted blue of sky is just seen; and, as avoiding the light, a

huge branch, or limb rather, shoots down, edged with the light on its

upper surface, and dark underneath, and throws a scanty defined leafage

across over the depth of the river. But this precipitous bank again

terminates towards the ledges in fine masses, rocks that project and

recede, partially luminous with reflected light, and then falling back

into extreme brown and purple darkness, down into which the ivy falls

clustering and perpendicular, with innumerable briar-like shoots and

tendrils. Here are severer studies. They are to be found by crossing

the Lyn by the wooden bridge, not far from Lynmouth, and following

the path through the wood some way, and seeking the bed of the river

by a scarcely-discernible sheep-path, till it be lost at the edge of

a downward way, not very difficult of descent. Within a very small

space, there are fine and very different subjects. One of scarcely less

grandeur than the last described, if it had not more beauty blended

with it; but it must be seen in the sun's eye--the best time will be

about 3 o'clock. Reach a large stone that juts out from the river's

side, climb it, and look down the stream. You must sketch rapidly, for

the charm will not last--it is most lovely in colour, and the forms are

very beautiful. The opposite side of the river may be termed a mountain

side, broken into hollows, in which rock and vegetation deepen into

shade. The top is covered with trees, very graceful, the sun edges

their tops, and rays flow through them, touching with a white and

silver light the ivied rock, which is here perpendicular. Beyond this

mountain-side, which juts out, is another clothed cliff, terminating at

the base in bold and bare rock; beyond this, and high above, shooting

into the sky, are piled rocks of a wild and broken character, gray,

but dark against the distant mountain range, of an ultramarine haze,

over warm and slightly marked downward passages; above is the illumined

and illuminating sky. On the side of the river from which this lovely

view is seen, are large masses, backed by trees, which shoot across,

but high overhead, so that in the sketch the leafage would drop as it

were from the sky into the middle of the picture. The river itself is

quite accordant in colour, and in the forms and light and shade of the

stones, that, though so large, are dwarfed by the large precipitous

rocks perpendicular above them. The course of the stream is away from

the eye of the spectator--is in parts darkly transparent and deep--here

and there showing the white foam, and in other parts its amber and

reddish bed.

A little further back from this point of view is another of the same

scene; I am doubtful which would make the best picture. On the very

same stone from which I sketched the scene described, turning with my

back to the opposite side of the river, I was much struck with the

fine forms and solemn light and shade of a rock, that was cavernously

hollow at its base, and very near the stream. Above it, and declining

into the middle of the picture, the sunlit boles of coppice-trees,

rising among the light-green leafage, made the only positive sunlight

of the picture: whatever else of light there was, was shade luminous.

This rock was united with another across the picture, that thus made

a centre and opening for the coppice, dotted with the blue sky; but

all that side of the picture was in very dark shadow, being rock

perpendicular, through the depth of which light and boldly formed

trees rose to the top of the picture, and threw down leafage into the

deep shade. The colouring of the cavernous hollow was remarkable: it

was dark, yet blending gray, and pink, and green. The scene was of an

ideal character; and I doubt if the sketch, though taken with as much

truth as I could reach, would be thought to be from nature. The same

rocky mass, taken in another direction, supplies a very different but

perhaps equally good subject for the pencil. I say these sketches are

of an ideal kind. It may be asked--Are they not true?--are they not in

nature? They are; but still for a better use than the pleasure of the

imitation a mere sketch offers. These are the kinds of scenes for the

painter's invention, into which he is to throw his mind, and to dip his

pencil freely into the gloom of his palette, and concentrate depths,

and even change the forms, and even to omit much of the decorative

detail, and make severity severer. He would give the little trees a

wilder life, a more visible power, as if for lack of inhabitant they

only were sentient of the scene. If a figure be introduced, they would

be kept down, but shoot their branches towards him, for there would be

an agreement, a sentient sympathy. But what figure? It is not peaceful

enough for a hermit; too solemn for the bandit, such as Salvator would

love to introduce; an early saint, perhaps a St Jerome--no unapt place

for him and his lion: and somehow it must be contrived to have the

water perhaps entering even into the retreat, and reflecting the aged,

the hoary bearded saint. Is not then the subject ideal, and the sketch

only suggestive? And here let me remark, with regard to that favourite

word "finish,"--an elaborate finish of _all_ the detail, either

of objects or colouring, would ruin the sketch; it would lose its

suggestive character, which is its value. I have here described, I know

how inadequately, several very striking scenes; yet are they scarcely a

stone's throw apart. I mention them exclusively on that account, for,

where there is so much, it must be the more worth the while of the

sketcher to take some pains to find out the spot.

What do we mean by the "ideal" of landscape? The "naturalists" ask

the question in a tone of somewhat more than doubt. The sketcher is

apt to be caught in the snare of nature's many beauties, and, growing

enamoured of them in detail, to lose the higher sense in his practical

imitation. This is a danger he must avoid, by study, by reflection, by

poetry. If the "ideal" be in himself, he will find it in nature. If he

sees in mountains, woods, and fields but materials for the use of man,

and what the toil of man has made them, he may be a good workman in his

imitation, but he will be a poor designer. The "ideal" grows out of a

reverence, which he can scarcely feel. If the earth be nothing to him

but for the plough, and the rivers for the mill, and its only people

are the present people--doomed to toil, bearing about them parochial

cares, and tasteless necessity, ignorant and regardless of the history

of the earth they tread--he may boast of his love of nature; but his

love is, in fact, the love of his technical skill, of his imitation. He

thinks more of the how to represent, than what the scene may represent.

The ideal ranges beyond the present aspect, and he who has a belief in

it will reverence this ancient earth, the cradle wherein he and all

living things took form from their creation. He will see visions of

the past, and dream dreams of its future aspects and destiny; and will

learn, in his meditations, to recall the people of old, and imprint its

soil with imaginary footsteps. The painter is no true artist if he feel

not the greatness of nature's immortality--at least, that as it rose

from the creation so will it be, throwing forth its bounty, and beaming

with the same vigorous beauty, till it shall pass away as a scroll. The

painter-poet must be of a loving superstition, must acknowledge powers

above his own--beings greater between him and the heavens. They may be

invisible as angels, yet leave some understanding of their presence.

They will voice the woods and the winds, and tell everywhere that all

of nature is life. Are there not noble elements here for the landscape

painter, and can neither history nor fable supply him with better

figures than toil-worn labourers, drovers taking their cattle or sheep

to the butchers, and paupers walking the poorhouse? I like not the

"naturalist's" poverty of thought. If the art be not twin sister with

poetry, her charm is only for the eye. Nothing great ever came from

such hands.

"And deeper faith--intenser fire--

Fed sculptor's chisel--poet's pen;

What nobler theme might art require

Than gods on earth, and godlike men?

Yea, gods then watched with loving care

(Or such, at least, the fond belief)

E'en lifeless things of earth and air--

The cloud, the stream, the stem, the leaf:

Iris, a goddess! tinged the flower

With more than merely rainbow hues;

Great Jove himself sent down the shower,

Or freshen'd earth with healing dews!"

KENYON'S _Poems_.

How do such thoughts enhance all nature's beauties! The sketcher's real

work is to see, to feel them all, and to fit them to the mind's poetic

thoughts.

I seem to be forgetting that the reader and myself are all this while

at the water's edge, and under deep-brow'd rocks; that sunshine

has left us, and it is time to climb to the path that leads toward

Lynmouth. For such an hour we are on the wrong side of the stream. Now

the woods are mapped, and edged only by the sun hastening downward. Yet

after awhile we shall not regret that we are in this path. Escaping

the closer and shaded wood, we shall reach a more open space, and see

the flood of evening's sunlight pouring in. Here it is; my sketch was

poor indeed, for there was neither time nor means to do anything like

justice to the scene. Here is a narrow, winding rocky path, a little

above the river, from whose superimpending bank, trees that now look

large shoot across the landscape, and a bold stem or two rises up

boldly to meet them; the river stretches to some distance, wooded on

this side to the edge, and wooded hills in front, and in perspective.

The distant hills are most lovely in colour, pearly and warm gray;

the river, the blazing sky reflected, yet showing how rich the tone,

by a few yellowish-gray lighter streaks that mark its movement. The

fragments of rock in the river are of a pinkish-gray, and, though not

dark, yet strongly marked against the golden stream,--the whole scene

great in its simplicity of effect and design. In broad day the scene

would be passed unnoticed; it would want that simplicity which is its

charm, and be a scene of detail; but now the lines are the simplest,

and, happily, where the river really turns, its view is lost in the

reflection of the shaded wood. And here, in this smallest portion of

the picture, the hills on each side seem to meet and fold, giving the

variety in the smallest space, upon which I have made remarks in this

paper. This beautiful picture of nature I visited several evenings, and

it little varied. But the charm lasts not long--the sun sets, or is

behind the wooded hill, before its actual setting, yet leaves its tinge

of lake blushing above the gold in the sky--the life of the scene

has faded, and it is still and solemn. I cannot better describe the

impression it left, than by a quotation from an old play, in which the

lover sees his mistress, who had swooned, or was in a deathlike sleep:--

"ANTONIO.

At the first sight I did believe her dead--

Yet in that state so awful she appeared,

That I approached her with as much respect

As if the soul had animated still

That body which, though dead, scarce mortal seemed.

But as the sun from our horizon gone,

His beams do leave a tincture on the skies,

Which shows it was not long since he withdrew;

So in her lovely face there still appeared

Some scattered streaks of those vermilion beams

Which used t'irradiate that bright firmament.

Thus did I find that distressed miracle,

Able to wound a heart, as if alive--

Incapable to cure it, as if dead."

Thus is there sympathy between our hearts and nature--a sympathy, the

secret of taste, which, above all, the sketcher should cultivate as the

source of his pleasure, and (may it not be added?) of his improvement.

I will not proceed further with description of scenes; Lynmouth will

be long remembered. I scarcely know a better spot for the study of

close scenery. On reviewing my former impressions with the present, I

should not say that Lynmouth has lost, but I have certainly gained some

knowledge, and, I think, improved my sympathies with nature; and if

I have not enjoyed so enthusiastically as I did sixteen years ago, I

have enlarged my sight and extended my power. I am practically a better

sketcher. The hand and the eye, work together; the improvement of one

advances the other.

I know no better method of sketching than the mixture of transparent

and semi-opaque colouring. It best represents the variety and the power

of nature; and as it more nearly resembles in its working the practice

of oil-painting, so is it the more likely to improve the painter. I

have remarked that, even in depth of colour, the semi-opaque is very

much more powerful than the transparent, however rich; for the one has,

besides its more varied colour, the solidity of nature; whereas the

most transparent has ever an unsubstantial look--you see through to

the paper or the canvass. Semi-opaque, (or degrees of opacity, till it

borders on the transparent,) as it hides the material, and throws into

every part the charm of atmosphere, so it will ever bestow upon the

sketch the gift of truth.

I did not begin this paper on Lynmouth Revisited with any intention of

entering upon the technicalities of art; so I will refrain from any

further remarks tending that way, which leads to far too wide a field

for present discussion.

WHAT HAS REVOLUTIONISING GERMANY ATTAINED?

It is now rather more than a year since we asked, "What would

revolutionising Germany be at?" A full year has passed over the dreamy,

theorising, restless, and excited head of Germany, then confused and

staggering, like "a giant drunken with new wine," but loudly vaunting

that its strong dose of revolution had strengthened and not fuddled it,

and that it was about to work out of its troubled brains a wondrous

system of German Unity, which was to bring it infinite and permanent

happiness; and now we would once more ask, What is the result of the

attempted application of German revolutionising theory to practice? In

fact, what has revolutionising Germany attained? Our first question we

asked without being able to resolve an answer. The problem was stated:

an attempt was made to arrive at something like a solution out of the

distracting hurly-burly of supposed purposes and so-called intentions;

but, after every effort to make out our "sum" in any reasonable manner,

we were obliged to give it up, as a task impossible to any political

mathematician, not of German mould; to declare any definite solution

for the present hopeless,--and to end our amount of calculation by

arriving only in a _cercle vicieux_ at the statement of the problem

with which we started, and asking, as despairingly as a tired schoolboy

with a seemingly impracticable equation before him, "What, indeed,

_would_ revolutionising Germany be at?" Are we any further advanced

now? We will not attempt the difficult sum again, or we might find

ourselves obliged to avow ourselves as much deficient in the study

of German political mathematics as before. But we may at least try

to undertake a mere sum of addition, endeavour to cast up the amount

of figures the Germans themselves have laid before us, and make out,

as well as we can, what, after a year's hard--and how hard!--work,

revolutionising Germany has attained. The species of sum-total, as

far as the addition can yet go, to which we may arrive, may be still

a very confused and unsatisfactory one; but in asking, "What has

revolutionising Germany attained?" we will not take it entirely to our

own charge, if the answer attempted to be made is thus confused and

unsatisfactory. German political sums are all too puzzling for English

heads.

Last year Germany was, as yet, very young in its revolutionary career.

It galloped over the country like an unbroken colt, or rather like

a mad bull, "running a-muck" it scarcely knew, and seemingly little

cared, at what, provided that it trampled beneath its hoofs all that

stood, and, with proper culture, might have flourished and borne fruit.

It tried to imitate the frantic caperings of its fellow-revolutioniser

in the next paddock, just over the Rhine; but it imitated this model

in so clumsy a fashion, that it might have been very aptly compared to

the ass in the fable, had not the demonstrations it sought to make been

destructive kicks, and not mistaken caresses; and the model it sought

to copy resembled the bloodhound rather than the lap-dog. It kicked out

to the right and to the left, and, with its kicks, inflicted several

stunning blows, from which the other states, upon whose heads the kicks

fell, found some difficulty in recovering. Even the maddest of the

drivers who spurred it on, however, found it necessary to present some

goal, at which it was eventually to arrive in its mad career--that goal

was called "German Unity" in one great powerful united Germany. Where

this visionary goal existed, or how it was to be attained--by what

path, or in what direction, none seemed to know; but the cry was, "On,

on, on!" That it should miss this goal, thus visionary and indistinct,

and plunge on past it, through the darkness of anarchy, to another

winning-post, just as indistinct and visionary, called "a universal

republic," was a matter of little consideration, or was even one of

hope, to those of its principal drivers who whipped, and spurred, and

hooted it, with deafening and distracting cries, like the Roman drivers

of the unridden horses in the Corso races. A breaker-in was attempted,

however, to be placed, and not, at first, precisely by those who most

wished to check it, upon the back of the tearing beast, in order to

moderate its paces, and canter it as gently as might be, onwards

to the denied goal--which still, however, lay only in a most misty

distance, to which none seemed to know the road. In this rider, called

a central Frankfort parliament, men began to place their hopes, they

trusted confidently that it might ride the animal to its destination,

although they knew not where that lay. The revolution, then, was

decked out with colours of red, and black, and gold--the colours of an

old German empire, and of a new derived German unity--and the rider

mounted into the saddle. How the rider endeavoured to show the animal's

paces--how he strove to guide him forwards--how sometimes he seemed,

indeed, to be proceeding along a path, uncertain, it is true, but

apparently leading _somewhere_--how often he stumbled--how often, in

his inexperience, he slipped in his saddle--how, at last, he slipped

and fell from it altogether, in vain endeavouring, maimed, mutilated,

bruised, and half stunned, to spring into the saddle again, are matters

of newspaper history that need no detail here. It suffices to say,

that the rider was unhorsed--that the animal gave a last desperate

plunge, kicking and wounding the only one of the states around that

strove to the last to caress and soothe it with gentle treatment--that

it now stands perspiring, shaking, quivering in every limb--snorting

in vain struggle, and champing the bit of the bridle which Prussian

military force has thrown upon it. To what, then, has Germany attained

in its revolutionising career? It has, at all events, not reached that

imaginary goal to which men strove to ride it without direction-post.

The goal is as far off as ever, perhaps farther off than before, as may

be shown. It remains just as vague, and visionary, and misty. Not one

step seems to have been taken towards it. Has no farther step whatever

been taken, then, after all this mad rushing hither and thither? And

if any, how, and whither? We shall endeavour to see, as far as we

are able. Our readers must, then, judge whether it be forwards or

backwards, or whether, in fact, it be any step at all.

The Frankfort parliament has fallen from its seat. Last year, when

we gave a sketch of its sittings in that Lutheran church of St Paul

in Frankfort--now bearing a stamp which its sober-minded architect

probably never dreamt of, as a historical building--it was young,

still in hopes; and amidst its inexperience, its vapouring declamation

upon impracticable theories, its noise and confusion, its clamorous

radicalism, and its internal treachery, that sought every pretext for

exciting to anarchy and insurrection, it put forward men of note and

ability--who, however lacking in practical experience, gave evidence

of noble hearts, if not sound heads, and good intentions, if not

governmental power. It contained, amidst much bad, many elements of

good; and, if it has no other advantageous result, it has proved a

school of experience, tact, and reason--as far at least as Germans,

in the present condition of their political education, have been

able to profit by its lessons and its teaching. _De mortuis nil nisi

bonum_ as far as possible! It is defunct. What its own inability,

want of judgment, internal disorganisation, and "vaulting ambition,

that o'erleaps its sell," commenced, was completed by the refusal of

the principal northern German states to acknowledge its ill-digested

constitution. It sickened upon over-feeding of conceit, excess of

supposed authority, and a naturally weak constitution, combined with

organic defects, weakened still more by a perpetual and distracting

fever; it was killed outright by what the liberals, as well as the

democrats, of Germany choose to call the ill faith and treachery of

Prussia in declining to accept its offers, and ultimately refusing to

listen to its dictates. Its dying convulsions were frightful. It fled

to Stutgardt, in the hopes that change of air might save it in its

last extremity: and there it breathed its last. Its very home is a

wreck; its furniture has been sold to pay the expenses of its burial;

its lucubrations, and its mighty acts, in which it once fondly hoped

to have swayed all Germany, if not the world, have been dispersed,

in their recorded form, among cheesemongers and greengrocers as

waste-paper, at so much the pound. Its house--the silent, sad, and

denuded church of St Paul--looks now like its only mausoleum; and on

its walls remains alive the allegorical picture of that great German

empire, which it deemed it had but to will to found--the grim, dark,

shaded face of which grows grimmer and darker still, day by day;

whilst the sun that rises behind it, without illuminating its form,

daily receives its thicker and thicker cloud of dust to obscure its

painted rays. Of a sooth, the allegory is complete. It is dead, and

resolved to ashes. Its better and brighter elements have given up their

last breath, as, in their meeting at Gotha, they made a last effort

to discuss the acceptance of the constitution which Prussia offered

in lieu of their own, and strove, although only still wearing a most

ghostly semblance of life, to propose to themselves the best ultimate

means of securing that desideratum, which they still seem to consider

as the panacea for all evils--the great and powerful "United Germany"

of their theoretical dreams. This last breath was not without its noble

aspirations. Its less pure, more self-seeking, and darker elements

have striven, by wild and no longer (even in appearance) legal means,

to galvanise themselves into a false existence; their last struggles

were such hideous and distracted contortions as are usually produced

by such galvanic applications; and now the German papers daily record

the arrest of various members of the so-called "Rump Parliament," (so

nicknamed by the application or rather misapplication of an English

historical term,) which received its final extinguishing blow at

Stutgardt, mixed up, in these days of imprisonment, as the consequence

of mistaken liberty, along with insurgents and rebels engaged in the

late disastrous scenes acted in the duchy of Baden. Such was to be

_their_ fate. But, be it for good or for evil, the Frankfort parliament

has died, as was prophesied, and not without convulsions: its purposes

have proved null; its hopes have been dispersed to the winds; its very

traces have been swept away; its memory is all but a bitter mockery.

Thus far, then, we may indeed shake our heads despairingly as we

ask--"What has revolutionising Germany as yet attained?"