CHAPTER VI.

"Cowards die many times before their death."

SHAKSPEARE.

The courage of Lettice, as I have told you, was strong, and her nerves

good, but in spite of this, assisted by the best resolutions in the

world, she _did_ find it a hard matter to stand the general. She was

very hopeful the first day or two--the habitual politeness, of which I

have spoken, came in aid. It exercised a sort of instinctive and

involuntary check upon the old man's rude intemperance of language when

irritated. Lettice did her very best to read the newspaper to his

satisfaction; skipping every unnecessary word, just as Catherine had

been accustomed to do, without hurting the sense in the least; and

getting over the ground with all the rapidity the old veteran desired.

This was a plan poor Mrs. Melwyn was far too nervous to adopt. If she

missed a word it was sure to be the wrong one to miss--one necessary to,

instead of encumbering the meaning. It was quite indispensable that she

should read simply and straightforwardly what was put before her, or she

was certain to get into confusion, and have herself scolded. Even the

dreaded and dreadful backgammon did tolerably well, while the general's

politeness to the stranger lasted. Lettice was surprised herself, to

find how easily the task, which had appeared so awful, was discharged;

but she had not long to congratulate herself. Gradually, at first by

slow degrees, but afterward like the accelerated descent of a stone down

the hill, acquired habit gave way to constitutional ill-humor. Alas,

they tell us nature expelled with a pitchfork will make her way back

again; most true of the unregenerated nature--most true of the poor

blind heathen--or the poor untutored Christian, to all intents and

purposes a heathen--too true even of those assisted by better

considerations, higher principles, and higher aids.

First it was a little low grumbling; then a few impatient gestures; then

a few impatient words--words became sentences; sentences of

invective--soon it was with her, just as it had been with others. This

graduated progression assisted, however, gradually to harden and prepare

her. She was resolved not to look frightened, though her very knees

would knock together at times. She was determined never to allow herself

to feel provoked or hurt, or ill-used, let the general be ever so rude;

and to soften her heart by any such ideas she never allowed herself.

Steadily she kept in mind that he was a suffering, ill-disciplined,

irritable old man; and by keeping these considerations in view, she

actually achieved the most difficult--almost heroic effort. She managed

to attain a frame of mind in which she could pity his sufferings, feel

indulgence for his faults, and remain quite placid under their effects

as regarded herself.

This conduct before a very long time had elapsed produced an effect far

more agreeable than she had ever ventured to anticipate.

The general began to like her.

Like many other cross people, he was excessively difficult to be pleased

in one article--the way people took his scoldings. He was offended if

they were received with cheerfulness--in the way Edgar had tried to

laugh them off--he was still more vexed if people seemed hurt or

suffering under them: if they cried, it was bad, indeed. Like many

others not absolutely wicked and cruel, though he could not control his

temper, he really did feel vexed at seeing the pain he had produced. His

conscience would cry out a little at such times. Now, nothing made him

so uncomfortable and irritable, as having a quarrel with his conscience;

a thing that did not very often happen, to be sure--the said conscience

being in his case not a very watchful guardian, but it was all the more

disagreeable when it spoke. The genuine good temper and habitual

self-possession--the calmness without disrespect--the cheerfulness

without carelessness--the respectful attention stripped of all meanness

or subservience which Lettice managed to preserve in her relations with

him--at last made its way quite to his heart, that is to say, to his

taste or fancy, for I don't think he had much of a heart. He began to

grow quite fond of her, and one day delighted, as much as he surprised

Mrs. Melwyn, by saying, that Miss Arnold really was a very pretty sort

of young woman, and he thought suited them very well. And so the grand

difficulty of managing with the general's faults was got over, but there

remained Mrs. Melwyn's and the servants'.

Lettice had never laid her account at finding any faults in Mrs. Melwyn.

That lady from the first moment she beheld her, had quite won her heart.

Her elegance of appearance, the Jove-like softness of her countenance,

the gentle sweetness of her voice, all conspired to make the most

charming impression. Could there lie any thing under that sweet outside,

but the gentlest and most indulgent of temper?

No, she was right there, nothing could be more gentle, more indulgent

than was Mrs. Melwyn's temper; and Lettice had seen so much of the

rough, the harsh, the captious, and the unamiable during her life, that

grant her the existence of those two qualities, and she could scarcely

desire any thing more. She had yet to learn what are the evils which

attend the timid and the weak.

She had yet to know that there may be much concealed self-indulgence,

where there is a most yielding disposition; and that they who are too

cowardly to resist wrong and violence courageously, from a weak and

culpable indulgence of their own shyness and timidity, will afford a

poor defense to those they ought to protect, and expose them to

innumerable evils.

Lettice had managed to become easy with the general; she could have been

perfectly happy with Mrs. Melwyn, but nothing could get over the

difficulties with the servants. Conscious of the misrule they exercised;

jealous of the newcomer--who soon showed herself to be a clever and

spirited girl--a sort of league was immediately instituted among them;

its declared object being either to break her spirit, or get rid of her

out of the house. The persecutions she endured; the daily minute

troubles and vexations; the difficulties cast in her path by these

dangerous yet contemptible foes, it would be endless to describe.

Whatever she wanted she could not get done. Even Bridget, under the

influence of the upper-housemaid, proved a broken reed to lean upon. Her

fire would never be lighted; nor her room done at the proper time; and

when she came down with red hands, purple cheeks, and, worst of all, a

red nose, looking this cold spring the very picture of chill and misery,

the general would look cross, and Mrs. Melwyn not pleased, and would

wonder, "How she could get so starved, and why she did not make them

light her fire."

She could make no reply but that she would ask Bridget to be more

punctual.

It was worse, when do what she would--ring as she would--nobody would

come to fasten her dress for dinner till the last bell was sounding, and

when it was impossible for her to pay all those nice attentions to her

appearance which the general's critical eye demanded. Though he said

nothing he would upon such occasions look as if he thought her a sloven;

and Mrs. Melwyn, on her side, seemed excessively fretted and uneasy,

that her favorite would do herself so little justice, and run the risk

of forfeiting the general's favor; and this last piece of injustice,

Lettice did feel it hard to bear.

It was the same in all the other minutiae of domestic life. Every

trifling circumstance, like a midge's sting, though insignificant in

itself, was rendered in the sum total most troublesome.

If they were going out walking, Miss Arnold's shoes were never cleaned.

She provided herself with several pairs, that one at least might always

be ready, and she not keep the general and Mrs. Melwyn waiting. It was

of no use. The shoes were never ready. If there were several pairs, they

were lost, or odd shoes brought up.

She did not care for labor. She had no foolish pride about serving

herself, she had been used to that sort of thing; she had not the

slightest wish on earth to be a fine lady; but that was forbidden. It

was one of the things Mrs. Melwyn had made a point of, and continued to

make a point of; but then, why did she not take care she should be

better served?

She, the mistress in her own house! Was it indifference to her guest's

comforts? No, her unremitting personal kindness forbade that idea. What

was it then, that left her helpless guest thus exposed to want and

insult? Yes, _want!_ I may use the word; for in her new sphere of

action, the things she required were absolute necessaries. The want in

its way was as great as she had ever known. Yes, insult--for every

little negligence was felt as an insult--Lettice knew too well that as

an insult it was intended. What made this kind Mrs. Melwyn permit such

things? Weakness, nothing but weakness--culpable weakness--horror of

that which would give her feeble spirit pain.

Lettice found it extremely difficult to be candid in this instance. She

who had never experienced what this weakness of the spirit was, found it

almost impossible to be indulgent to it. She felt quite vexed and sore.

But when she looked so, poor Mrs. Melwyn would put on such a sad,

anxious, weary face, that it was impossible not to feel concerned for

her, and to forgive her at once. And so this good, generous,

kind-hearted being's temper achieved another victory. She was able to

love Mrs. Melwyn in spite of all her weakness, and the evils she in

consequence suffered; and this indulgent affection made every thing

easy.

There were times, however, when she found it almost too difficult to get

on; but upon one occasion after another occurring of this nature, and

still more when she discovered that Mrs. Melwyn was a yet greater

sufferer from this servile tyranny than herself, she at last determined

to speak out, and see whether things could not be established upon a

more reasonable and proper footing.

There was one day a terrible quarrel with Randall. It happened that

Randall was from home, drinking tea with a friend. She had either bound

up the general's ailing arm too tight, or the arm had swelled; however,

for some reason or other the injured part became extremely painful. The

general fidgeted and swore, but bore it for some time with the sort of

resolute determination, with which, to do him justice, he was accustomed

to meet pain. At last the aching became so intolerable that it was

scarcely to be endured; and after ringing twenty times to inquire

whether Randall was come home, and uttering a heavy imprecation each

time he was answered in the negative; what between pain and impatience

he became so fevered that he really seemed quite ill, and his sufferings

were evidently more than he could well endure. Poor Mrs. Melwyn,

helpless and feeble, dared not propose to do any thing for him, though

she suffered--soft, kind creature that she was--almost more in

witnessing his distress than he did in the midst of it. At last Lettice

ventured to say, that she thought it a great pity the general should

continue to suffer this agony, which she felt assured must be positively

dangerous, and modestly ventured to suggest that she should be allowed

to undo the bandage and relieve the pressure.

"Dear me," said Mrs. Melwyn, in a harried, frightened way, "could you

venture? Suppose you should do mischief; better wait, perhaps."

"Easily said, ma'am," cried the general. "It's not your arm that's

aching as if it would drop from your body, that's plain. What's that

you're saying, Miss Arnold?"

"If you could trust me to do it, I was saying; if you would give me

leave, I would undo the bandage and endeavor to make it more

comfortable. I am afraid that this pain and tight binding may bring on

positive inflammation. I really should not be afraid to try; I have seen

Mrs. Randall do it hundreds of times. There is no difficulty in it."

"Dear Lettice, how you talk!" said Mrs. Melwyn, as if she were afraid

Randall was behind the door. "No difficulty! How could Randall bear to

hear you say so?"

"I don't know, ma'am; perhaps she would contradict me. But I think at

all events there is no difficulty that I could not manage."

"Well, then, for Heaven's sake, try, child!" cried the general; "for

really the pain is as if all the dogs in Hockley were gnawing at it.

Come along; do something, for the love of--"

He suffered Lettice to help him off with his coat, and to undo the

bandage, which she accomplished very handily; and then observed that

Mrs. Randall, in her haste to depart upon her visit, had bound up the

wound in a most careless manner; and the irritation had already produced

so serious an inflammation that she was quite alarmed, and suggested

that the doctor should be sent for.

The general swore at the idea of the doctor, and yet more violently at

that old hag Randall's confounded carelessness. Mrs. Melwyn looked

miserable; she saw the case was bad, and yet she knew that to send for

the doctor, and take it out of Randall's hands, would be an insult never

to be forgiven.

But Lettice was steady. She was not quite ignorant in these matters, and

she felt it her duty to be firm. She expostulated and remonstrated, and

was just carrying her point when Mrs. Randall came home; and, having

heard below how things were going on, hurried, uncalled for, into the

dining-room.

She came in in a mighty pucker, as she would herself have called it, and

began asking who had dared to open the wound and expose it to the air:

and, seeing Miss Arnold preparing to apply a bread-and-water poultice,

which she had made, fell into such a passion of rage and jealousy that

she forgot herself so far as to snatch it from Lettice's hand, vowing,

if any body was to be allowed to meddle with _her_ arm, she would never

touch it again so long as she lived.

Mrs. Melwyn turned pale, and began in her softest way,

"Now, really, Randall. Don't be angry, Randall--do listen, Randall. The

bandage was too tight; I assure you, it was. We should not have thought

of touching it else."

"What the devil, Randall, are you about to do now?" cried the general,

as she took possession of the arm, in no gentle fashion.

"Bind it up again, to be sure, and keep that air out of it."

"But you hurt me confoundedly. Ah! it's more than I can bear. Don't

touch it--it's as if it were on fire!"

"But it must be bound up, I say," going on without the least regard to

the torture she was evidently putting him to.

But Lettice interfered.

"Indeed, Mrs. Randall," she said, "I do not think that you seem to be

aware of the state of inflammation that the arm is in. I assure you, you

had better apply the bread-and-water poultice, and send for Mr. Lysons."

"You assure _me_. Much you know about the matter, I should fancy."

"I think I know this much. Dear Mrs. Melwyn! Dear general! It is more

serious than you think. Pray, let me write for Mr. Lysons!"

"I do believe she's right, Randall, for the infernal torture you put me

to is more than I can bear. Ach! Let it go, will you? Undo it! Undo it!"

But Mrs. Randall, unrelentingly, bound on.

"Have done, I say! Undo it! Will nobody undo it? Lettice Arnold, for

Heaven's sake!" His face was bathed with the sweat of agony.

Randall persisted; Mrs. Melwyn stood pale, helpless, and aghast; but

Lettice hastened forward, scissors in hand, cut the bandage, and

liberated the tortured arm in a minute.

Mrs. Randall was in an awful rage. She forgot herself entirely; she had

often forgotten herself before; but there was something in this, being

done in the presence of a third person, of one so right-minded and

spirited as Lettice, which made both the general and his wife view it in

a new light. A sort of vail seemed to fall from before their eyes; and

for the first time, they both seemed--and simultaneously--aware of the

impropriety and the degradation of submitting to it.

"Randall! Randall!" remonstrated Mrs. Melwyn, still very gently,

however; but it was a great step to remonstrate at all--but Randall was

abusing Lettice most violently, and her master and mistress into the

bargain, for being governed by such as _her_! "Randall! Randall!

Don't--you forget yourself!"

But the general, who had been silent a second or two, at last broke

forth, and roared,

"Have done with your infernal noise! won't you, you beldam! Here,

Lettice, give me the poultice; put it on, and then write for Lysons,

will you?"

In matters such as this, the first step is every thing. Mrs. Melwyn and

her fiery partner had both been passive as a poor bewitched hen, we are

told, is with a straw over her neck. Once shift her position and the

incubus is gone.

The arrival of Mr. Lysons completed the victory. Mortification was upon

the eve of setting in. The relief from the bandage, and the emollient

poultice applied by Lettice, had in all probability saved the general's

life.

Little Mrs. Randall cared for this demonstration of her mistaken

treatment; she had been too long accustomed to triumph, to yield the

field undisputed to a rival. She took refuge in sulky silence, and when

Mr. Lysons was gone, desired to speak with Mrs. Melwyn.

The usual harangue was made. "As she could no longer give

satisfaction--would Mrs. Melwyn please to provide herself in a month."

The blood run cold to Mrs. Melwyn's heart. What! Randall! Impossible!

What should she do! What would the general do? What would become of the

servants? Who would look after them? What could be done without the

faithful Randall?

"Oh, Randall! you don't think of leaving me," she began.

I am not going to repeat the dialogue, which was much the same as that

which usually ensues when the mistress entreats the maid to stay, thus

putting herself into an irremediably false position. The result of such

entreaties was the usual one. Randall, assured of victory, took the

matter with a high hand, and, most luckily for all parties, refused to

be mollified.

Then poor Mrs. Melwyn, in dismay and despair, returned to the

drawing-room. She looked quite ill; she dared not tell the general what

had happened--positively dared not. She resolved to make one other

appeal to Randall first; to bribe her, as she had often done before, to

bribe high--higher than ever. Any thing, rather than part with her.

But she was so nervous, so restless, so miserable, that Lettice observed

it with much compassion, and came and sat by her, which was her way of

comforting her friend when she saw she wanted comfort. Mrs. Melwyn took

her hand, and held it between both hers, and looked as if she greatly

wanted comfort, indeed.

The general, soon after this, rose to go to bed. It was earlier than his

usual hour, for he was quite worn out with what he had suffered.

So he left the two ladies sitting over the fire, and then Mrs. Melwyn at

last opened her heart, and disclosed to her friend the dismal

tidings--the cause of her present misery--and related in detail the

dreadful occurrence of Randall's resignation.

It was time, Lettice thought, to speak out, and she determined to

venture upon it. She had long anxiously desired to emancipate the woman

she loved with all the intensity of a child, from the fearful yoke under

which she suffered: to dissolve the pernicious enchantment which

surrounded her. She spoke, and she did so with so much gentleness,

reason, firmness, good-nature; that Mrs. Melwyn yielded to the blessed

influence. In short, it was that night determined that Randall's

resignation, so far as Mrs. Melwyn was concerned, should be accepted. If

that potentate chose to communicate her resolution herself to the

general, it was well, and he must decide; otherwise Lettice would take

upon herself to do this, and, unless he opposed the measure, Randall

should go.

With little difficulty Lettice persuaded Mrs. Melwyn not to ring for

Randall that night, saying that now she had resigned her position, her

mistress had better allow herself to be put to bed by her friend. This

was not a difficult task. That she should not meet Randall again was

what Mrs. Melwyn in her terror as much desired as Lettice did in her

prudence. In short, the general, under the influence of Lettice's

representations--she was beginning to gain great influence with

him--consented to part with the maid; and Lettice had the inconceivable

satisfaction of herself carrying to that personage her wages, and a

handsome gratuity, and of seeing her that very morning quit the house,

which was done with abundance of tears, and bitter lamentations over the

ingratitude of mankind.

How the house felt after she was gone, those who have been visited with

a domestic plague of this nature will understand. To those who have not,

so great a result from so apparently insignificant a cause would be

utterly unimaginable.

"And so they lived very happy ever afterward."

Well--don't stare--they really _did_.

A good genius was substituted for an evil one. Under her benign

influence it is astonishing how smoothly and merrily things went on. The

general was so comfortable that he very often forgot to be cross; Mrs.

Melwyn, content with every thing, but her power of showing her love for

Lettice--though she did this in every way she could think of.

And so I will leave this good, sensible, God-fearing girl for the

present,

"blessing and blest in all she does,"

and tell you how Myra went to Mrs. Fisher, and something about that

lady.

(_To be continued._)

[From Guizot's Discourse on the English Revolution.]

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

BY GUIZOT.

George III. had been seated on the throne sixteen years, when, at

fourteen hundred leagues from his capital, more than two millions of his

subjects broke the ties which bound them to his throne, declared their

independence, and undertook the foundation of the republic of the United

States of America. After a contest of seven years, England was brought

to recognize that independence, and to treat upon equal terms with the

new state. Since that time sixty-seven years have elapsed, and, without

any violent effort, without extraordinary events, by the mere

development of their institutions and of the prosperity which is the

natural attendant on peace, the United States have taken an honorable

place among great nations. Never was so rapid an elevation, so little

costly at its origin, nor so little troubled in its progress.

It is not merely to the absence of any powerful rival, or to the

boundless space open to their population, that the United States of

America have owed this singular good fortune. The rapidity and the

serenity of their rise to greatness are not the result of such fortunate

accidents alone, but are to be attributed in a great degree to moral

causes.

They rose into existence as a state under the banner of right and

justice. In their case, too, the revolution from which their history

dates was an act of defense. They claimed guarantees and asserted

principles which were inscribed in their charters, and which the English

parliament itself, though it now refused them to its subjects, had

formerly triumphantly claimed and asserted in the mother-country, with

far greater violence and disorder than were occasioned by their

resistance.

They did not, to speak strictly, attempt a revolution. Their enterprise

was, no doubt, great and perilous. To achieve the conquest of their

independence, they had to go through a war with a powerful enemy, and

the construction of a central government in the place of the distant

power whose yoke they threw off: but in their local institutions, and

those which regarded the daily affairs of life, they had no revolution

to make. Each of the colonies already enjoyed a free government as to

its internal affairs, and when it became a state found little change

necessary or desirable in the maxims and organization of power. There

was no ancient order of things to fear, to hate, to destroy; the

attachment to the ancient laws and manners, the affectionate reverence

for the past, were, on the contrary, the general sentiments of the

people. The colonial government under the patronage of a distant

monarchy, was easily transformed into a republican government under a

federation of states.

Of all the forms or modes of government, the republican is

unquestionably that to which the general and spontaneous assent of the

country is the most indispensable. It is possible to conceive of an

absolute monarchy founded by violence, and indeed such have existed; but

a republic forced upon a nation, popular government established contrary

to the instinct and the wishes of a people--this is a spectacle

revolting equally to common sense and to justice. The Anglo-American

colonies, in their transition, into the republic of the United States,

had no such difficulty to surmount; the Republic was the full and free

choice of the people; and in adopting that form of government they did

but accomplish the national wish, and develop instead of overturning

their existing institutions.

Nor was the perturbation greater in social than in political order.

There were no conflicts between different classes, no violent transfer

of influence from one order of men to another. Though the crown of

England had still partisans in the colonies, their attachment had

nothing to do with their position in the scale of society; indeed the

wealthy and important families were in general the most firmly resolved

on the conquest of their independence and the foundation of a new

system. Under their direction the people acted, and the event was

accomplished. And if society underwent no revolution, so neither did

men's minds. The philosophical ideas of the eighteenth century, its

moral skepticism and its religious unbelief, had no doubt penetrated

into the United States, and had obtained some circulation there; but the

minds to which they found entrance were not entirely carried away by

them; they did not take root there with their fundamental principles and

their ultimate consequences: the moral gravity and the practical good

sense of the old Puritans survived in most of the admirers of the French

philosophers in America. The mass of the population remained profoundly

Christian, as warmly attached to its creed as to its liberties.

While they rebelled against the authority of the King and the Parliament

of England, they were submissive to the will of God and the precepts of

the Gospel, and while struggling for independence, they were governed by

the same faith which had conducted their ancestors to this land, where

they laid the foundations of what was now rising into a state.

The ideas and passions which now convulse and disorganize society under

the name of democracy, have an extensive and powerful sway in the United

States, and ferment there with all the contagious errors and destructive

vices which they involve. But they have hitherto been controlled and

purified by Christianity, by the excellent political traditions, and the

strong habits of obedience to law, which, in the midst of liberty,

govern the population. Though anarchical principles are boldly

proclaimed on this vast theatre, principles of order and conservation

maintain their ground, and exercise a solid and energetic influence both

over society and over individual minds; their presence and their power

are every where felt, even in the party which especially claims the name

of democratic. They moderate its actions, and often save it, unknown to

itself, from its own intemperance. It is to these tutelary principles,

which presided over the origin of the American revolution, that it owes

it success. May Heaven grant that in the formidable struggle which they

have now to sustain on every side, they may continue to guide this

powerful people, and may be always at hand to warn them in time of the

abysses which lie so near their path!

Three great men, Cromwell, William III., and Washington, stand forth in

history as the heads and representatives of those supreme crises which

have determined the fate of two great nations. For extent and energy of

natural talents, Cromwell is perhaps the most remarkable of the three.

His mind was wonderfully prompt, firm, just, supple, and inventive, and

he possessed a vigor of character which no obstacle could daunt, no

conflict weary; he pursued his designs with an ardor as exhaustless as

his patience, whether through the slowest and most tortuous ways, or the

most abrupt and daring. He excelled equally in winning men, and in

ruling them by personal and familiar intercourse; he displayed equal

ability in leading an army or a party. He had the instinct of popularity

and the gift of authority, and he let loose factions with as much

audacity as he subdued them. But born in the midst of a revolution, and

raised to sovereign power by a succession of violent shocks, his genius

was, from first to last, essentially revolutionary; and though he was

taught by experience the necessity of order and government, he was

incapable of either respecting or practicing the moral and permanent

laws on which alone government can rest. Whether it was the fault of his

nature, or the vice of his position, he wanted regularity and calmness

in the exercise of power; had instant recourse to extreme measures, like

a man constantly in dread of mortal dangers, and, by the violence of his

remedies, perpetuated or even aggravated the evils which he sought to

cure. The establishment of a government is a work which requires a more

regular course, and one more conformable to the eternal laws of moral

order. Cromwell was able to subjugate the revolution he had so largely

contributed to make, but he did not succeed in establishing any thing in

the place of what he had destroyed.

Though less powerful than Cromwell by nature, William III., and

Washington succeeded in the undertaking in which he failed; they fixed

the destiny and founded the government of their country. Even in the

midst of a revolution they never accepted nor practiced a revolutionary

policy; they never placed themselves in that fatal situation in which a

man first uses anarchical violence as a stepping-stone to power, and

then despotic violence as a necessity entailed upon him by its

possession. They were naturally placed, or they placed themselves, in

the regular ways and under the permanent conditions of government.

William was an ambitious prince. It is puerile to believe that, up to

the moment of the appeal sent to him from London in 1688, he had been

insensible to the desire of ascending the throne of England, or ignorant

of the schemes long going on to raise him to it. William followed the

progress of these schemes step by step; he accepted no share in the

means, but he did not repel the end, and, without directly encouraging,

he protected its authors. His ambition was ennobled by the greatness and

justice of the cause to which it was attached--the cause of religious

liberty and of the balance of power in Europe. Never did man make a vast

political design more exclusively the thought and purpose of his life

than William did. The work which he accomplished on the field or in the

cabinet was his passion; his own aggrandizement was but the means to

that end. Whatever were his views on the crown of England, he never

attempted to realize them by violence and disorder. His mind was too

well regulated not to know the incurable vice of such means, and too

lofty to accept the yoke they impose. But when the career was opened to

him by England herself, he did not suffer himself to be deterred from

entering on it by the scruples of a private man; he wished his cause to

triumph, and he wished to reap the honor of the triumph. Rare and

glorious mixture of worldly ability and Christian faith, of personal

ambition and devotion to public ends!

Washington had no ambition; his country wanted him to serve her, and he

became great rather from a sense of duty than from taste; sometimes even

with a painful effort. The trials of his public life were bitter to him;

he preferred independence and repose to the exercise of power. But he

accepted, without hesitation, the task which his country imposed on him,

and in fulfilling it did nothing to diminish its burden. Born to govern,

though he had no delight in governing, he told the American people what

he believed to be true, and persisted in doing what he thought wise,

with a firmness as unshaken as it was simple, and a sacrifice of

popularity the more meritorious as it was not compensated by the

pleasures of domination. The servant of an infant republic, in which the

democratic spirit prevailed, he won the confidence of the people by

maintaining its interests in opposition to its inclinations. While

founding a new government, he practiced that policy, at once modest and

severe, measured and independent, which seems to belong only to the head

of an aristocratic senate ruling over an ancient state. His success does

equal honor to Washington and to his country.

Whether we consider the general destiny of nations, or the lives of the

great men whom they have produced; whether we are treating of a monarchy

or a republic, an aristocratic or a democratic society, we gather the

same light from facts; we see that the same laws determine the ultimate

success or failure of governments. The policy which preserves and

maintains a state in its ancient security and customary order is also

the only policy that can bring a revolution to a successful close, and

give stability to the institutions whose lasting excellence may justify

it to succeeding ages.

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

My father, whose manners were at once highbred and lively, had some

great acquaintances; but I recollect none of them personally, except an

old lady of quality, who (if memory does not strangely deceive me, and

give me a personal share in what I only heard talked of; for old

autobiographers of childhood must own themselves liable to such

confusions) astounded me one day by letting her false teeth slip out,

and clapping them in again.

I had no idea of the existence of such phenomena, and could almost as

soon have expected her to take off her head and readjust it. She lived

in Red Lion-square, a quarter in different estimation from what it is

now. It was at her house, I believe, that my father one evening met

Wilkes. He did not know him by sight, and happening to fall into

conversation with him, while the latter sat looking down, he said

something in Wilkes's disparagement, on which the jovial demagogue

looked up in his face, and burst out a laughing.

I do not exactly know how people dressed at that time; but I believe

that sacks, and negligees, and toupees were going out, and the pigtail

and the simpler modern style of dress coming in. I recollect hearing my

mother describe the misery of having her hair dressed two or three

stories high, and of lying in it all night ready for some visit or

spectacle next day. I think I also recollect seeing Wilkes himself in an

old-fashioned flap-waistcoated suit of scarlet and gold; and I am sure I

have seen Murphy, the dramatist, a good deal later, in a suit of a like

fashion, though soberer, and a large cocked-hat. The cocked-hat in

general survived till nearly the present century. It was superseded by

the round one during the French Revolution. I remember our steward at

school, a very solemn personage, making his appearance in one, to our

astonishment, and not a little to the diminution of his dignity. Some

years later, I saw Mr. Pitt in a blue coat, buckskin breeches and boots,

and a round hat, with powder and pigtail. He was thin and gaunt, with

his hat off his forehead, and his nose in the air. Much about the same

time I saw his friend, the first Lord Liverpool, a respectable looking

old gentleman, in a brown wig. Later still, I saw Mr. Fox, fat and

jovial, though he was then declining. He, who had been a "beau" in his

youth, then looked something quaker-like as to dress, with plain colored

clothes, a broad round hat, white waistcoat, and, if I am not mistaken,

white stockings. He was standing in Parliament-street, just where the

street commences as you leave Whitehall; and was making two young

gentlemen laugh heartily at something which he seemed to be relating.

My father once took me--but I can not say at what period of my

juvenility--into both houses of Parliament. In the Commons, I saw Mr.

Pitt sawing the air, and occasionally turning to appeal to those about

him, while he spoke in a loud, important, and hollow voice. When the

persons he appealed to, said "Hear! hear!" I thought they said "Dear!

dear!" in objection; and I wondered that he did not seem in the least

degree disconcerted. The house of Lords, I must say (without meaning

disrespect to an assembly which must always have contained some of the

most accomplished men in the country), surprised me with the personally

insignificant look of its members. I had, to be sure, conceived

exaggerated notions of the magnates of all countries; and perhaps might

have expected to behold a set of conscript fathers; but in no respect,

real or ideal, did they appear to me in their corporate aspect, like any

thing which is understood by the word "noble." The Commons seemed to me

to have the advantage; though they surprised me with lounging on the

benches, and retaining their hats. I was not then informed enough to

know the difference between apparent and substantial importance; much

less aware of the positive exaltation, which that very simplicity, and

that absence of pretension, gave to the most potent assembly in

Europe.--_Leigh Hunt's Autobiography._

[From Household Words.]

A PARIS NEWSPAPER.

Within the precincts of that resort for foreigners and provincials in

Paris, the Palais Royal, is situate the Rue du 24 Fevrier. This

revolutionary name, given after the last outbreak, is still pronounced

with difficulty by those who, of old, were wont to call it the Rue de

Valois. People are becoming accustomed to call the royally named street

by its revolutionary title, although it is probable that no one will

ever succeed in calling the Palais Royal Palais National; the force of

habit being in this instance too great to efface old recollections. Few

foreigners have ever penetrated into the Rue de 24 Fevrier, though it

forms one of the external galleries of the Palais Royal, and one may see

there the smoky kitchens, dirty cooks, the night-side in fact, of the

splendid restaurants, whose gilt fronts attract attention inside.

Rubicund apples, splendid game, truffles, and ortolans, deck the one

side; smoke, dirty plates, rags, and smutty saucepans may be seen on the

other.

It is from an office in the Rue de 24 Fevrier, almost opposite the dark

side of a gorgeous Palais Royal restaurant, that issue 40,000 copies of

a daily print, entitled the "Constitutionnel."

Newspaper offices, be it remarked, are always to be found in odd holes

and corners. To the mass in London, Printing-house square, or

Lombard-street, Whitefriars, are mystical localities; yet they are the

daily birth-places of that fourth estate which fulminates anathemas on

all the follies and weaknesses of governments; and, without which, no

one can feel free or independent. The "Constitutionnel" office is about

as little known to the mass of its subscribers as either Printing-house

square or Whitefriars.

There is always an old and respectable look about the interior of

newspaper establishments, in whatever country you may find them. For

rusty dinginess, perhaps, there is nothing to equal a London office,

with its floors strewed with newspapers from all parts of the world,

parliamentary reports, and its shelves creaking under books of all

sorts, thumbed to the last extremity. Notwithstanding these appearances,

however, there is discipline--there is real order in the apparent

disorder of things. Those newspapers that are lying in heaps have to be

accurately filed; those books of reference can be pounced upon when

wanted, on the instant; and as to reports, the place of each is as well

known as if all labeled and ticketed with the elaborate accuracy of a

public library.

Not less rusty and not less disorderly is the appearance of a French

newspaper office; but how different the aspect of things from what you

see in England!

Over the office of the "Constitutionnel" is a dingy tricolor flag. A few

broken steps lead to a pair of folding-doors. Inside is the sanctuary of

the office, guarded by that flag as if by the honor of the country: for

tricolor represents all Frenchmen, be he prince or proletarian.

You enter through a narrow passage flanked with wire cages, in which are

confined for the day the clerks who take account of advertisements and

subscriptions. Melancholy objects seem these caged birds, whose hands

alone emerge at intervals through the pigeon-holes made for the purpose

of taking in money and advertisements. The universal beard and mustache

that ornament their chins, look, however, more unbusiness-like than are

the men really. They are shrewd and knowing birds that are inclosed in

these wire cages.

At publishing time, boys rushing in for papers, as in London offices,

are not here to be seen. The reason of this is simple: French newspaper

proprietors prefer doing their work themselves--they will have no middle

men. They serve all their customers by quarterly, yearly, or half-yearly

subscriptions. In every town in France there are subscription offices

for this journal, as well, indeed, as for all great organs of the press

generally. There are regular forms set up like registers at the

post-office, and all of these are gathered at the periodical renewal of

subscriptions to the central office. The period of renewal is every

fortnight.

Passing still further up the narrow and dim passage, one sees a

pigeon-hole, over which is written the word "Advertisements." This

superscription is now supererogatory, for there no advertisements are

received; that branch of the journal having been farmed out to a company

at 350,000 fr. a year. This is a system which evidently saves a vast

deal of trouble. The Advertising Company of Paris has secured almost a

monopoly of announcements and puffs. It has bought up the last page of

nearly every Paris journal which owns the patronage and confidence of

the advertising public of the French capital. At the end of the same

dark passages are the rooms specially used for the editors and writers.

In France, journals are bought for their polemics, and not for their

news: many of them have fallen considerably, however, from the high

estate which they held in public opinion previous to the last

revolution. There are men who wrote in them to advocate and enforce

principles, but in the chopping and changing times that France lives in,

it is not unusual to find the same men with different principles,

interest, or gain, being the object of each change. This result of

revolution might have been expected; and though it would be unfair to

involve the whole press in a sweeping accusation, cases in point have

been sufficiently numerous to cause a want of confidence in many

quarters against the entire press.

The doings of newspaper editors are not catalogued in print at Paris, as

in America; but their influence being more occult, is not the less

powerful, and it is this feeling that leads people to pay more attention

to this or that leading article than to mere news. The announcement of a

treaty having been concluded between certain powers of Europe, may not

lower the funds; but if an influential journal expresses an opinion that

certain dangers are to be apprehended from the treaty in question, the

exchanges will be instantly affected. This is an instance among many

that the French people are to be led in masses. Singly they have

generally no ideas, either politically or commercially.

The importance of a journal being chiefly centered in that portion

specially devoted to politics, the writers of which are supposed, right

or wrong, to possess certain influences, it is not astonishing the

editorial offices have few occupants. The editorial department of the

"Constitutionnel" wears a homely appearance, but borrows importance from

the influence that is wielded in it--writers decorated with the red

ribbon are not unfrequently seen at work in it. In others, and

especially in the editorial offices of some journals, may be seen,

besides the pen, more offensive weapons, such as swords and pistols.

This is another result of the personal system of journalism. As in

America, the editor may find himself in the necessity of defending his

arguments by arms. He is too notorious to be able to resort to the

stratagem of a well-known wit, who kept a noted boxer in his front

office to represent the editor in hostile encounters. He goes out,

therefore, to fight a duel, on which sometimes depends not only his own

fate, but that of his journal.

With regard to the personal power of a newspaper name, it is only

necessary in order to show how frequently it still exists, to state that

the provisional government of February, 1848, was concocted in a

newspaper office, and the revolution of 1830 was carried on by the

editors of a popular journal--that among the lower orders in France, at

the present time, the names that are looked up to as those of chiefs,

belong to newspaper editors, whose leading articles are read and

listened to in cheap newspaper clubs, and whose "orders" are followed as

punctually and as certainly as those of a general by his troops. A

certain class of French politicians may be likened to sheep: they follow

their "leaders."

The smallness of the number of officials in a French newspaper office is

to be accounted for from the fact that parliamentary debates are

transcribed on the spot where the speeches are made; and the reporting

staff never stirs from the legislative assembly. The divers corps of

reporters for Paris journals form a corporation, with its aldermen, or

syndici, and other minor officers. Each reporter is relieved every two

minutes; and while his colleagues are succeeding each other with the

same rapidity, he transcribes the notes taken during his two minutes'

"turn." The result of this revolving system is collated and arranged by

a gentleman selected for the purpose. This mode of proceeding insures,

if necessary, the most verbatim transmission of an important speech, and

more equably divides the work, than does the English system, where each

reporter takes notes for half or three quarters of an hour, and spends

two or three hours, and sometimes four or five, to transcribe his notes.

The French parliamentary reporter is not the dispassionate auditor which

the English one is. He applauds or condemns the orators, cheers or hoots

with all the vehemence of an excited partisan.

"Penny-a-liners" are unknown in Paris; the foreign and home intelligence

being elaborated in general news' offices, independent of the

newspapers. It is there that all the provincial journals are received,

the news of the day gathered up, digested, and multiplied by means of

lithography; which is found more efficacious than the stylet and oiled

"flimsy" paper of our Penny-a-liners. It is from these latter places

too, that the country journals, as well as many of the foreign press,

the German, the Belgium, and the Spanish, are supplied with Paris news.

England is a good market, as most of our newspapers are wealthy enough

to have correspondents of their own.

My first visit to the "Constitutionnel" was in the day-time, and I

caught the editor as he was looking over some of his proofs. Their

curious appearance led me to ask how they were struck off, and, in order

to satisfy me, he led the way up a dark stair, from which we entered

upon the composing-rooms of the premises. These, in appearance, were

like all other composing-rooms that I had seen; the forms, and cases for

the type, were similar to those in London; the men themselves had that

worn and pale look which characterizes the class to which they belong,

and their pallor was not diminished by their wearing of the long beard

and mustache. Their unbuttoned shirts and bare breasts, the short clay

pipe, reminded me of the heroes of the barricades; indeed, I have every

reason to know that these very compositors are generally foremost in

revolutions; and though they often print ministerial articles, they are

not sharers in the opinions which they help to spread. The head printer

contracts for the printing, and chooses his men where he can find them

best. As a body, these men were provident, I was told, and all

subscribed to a fund for their poor, their orphans and widows; they form

a sort of trade union, and have very strict regulations.

I found a most remarkable want of convenience in the working of the

types. For instance, there were no galleys, or longtitudinal trays, on

which to place the type when it was set up; but when a small quantity

had been put together in column on a broad copper table, a string was

passed round it to keep it together. Nor was there any hand-press for

taking proofs; and here I found the explanation of the extraordinary

appearance of the proofs I had seen below. For when I asked to have one

struck off, the head printer placed a sheet of paper over the type, and

with a great brush beat it in, giving the proof a sunken and embossed

appearance, which it seemed to me would render correction exceedingly

difficult. The French, it seems, care not for improvement in this

respect, any more than the Chinese, whom the brush has served in place

of a printing-press for some three thousand years.

This journal has, as I have said, from 40,000 to 50,000 subscribers, in

order to serve whom it was necessary that the presses should be at work

as early as eleven o'clock at night. But there is no difficulty in doing

this, where news not being the _sine qua non_ of journalism, provincial

and foreign intelligence is give as fresh, which in England would be

considered much behind in time. But even when commencing business at the

early hour above mentioned, I found that it had been necessary for the

paper to be composed twice over, in order to save time; and thus two

printers' establishments were required to bring out each number of the

journal in sufficient time for the country circulation by early morning

trains. The necessity for this double composition is still existing in

most of the French newspaper offices, but had been obviated here lately,

by the erection of a new printing-machine, which sufficed by the speed

of its working to print the given number of copies necessary for

satisfying the wants of each day.

Having seen through the premises, and witnessed all that was interesting

in the day-time, I was politely requested to return in the evening, and

see the remaining process of printing the paper and getting it ready to

send out from the office.

Punctually at eleven o'clock I was in the Rue du 24 Fevrier. Passing

through the offices which I had seen in the morning, I was led by a sort

of guide down to some passages dimly lighted with lamps. To the right

and to the left we turned, descending stone steps into the bowels of the

earth as it seemed to me; the walls oozing with slimy damp in some

parts; dry and saltpetry in others. A bundle of keys, which were

jingling in my guide's hand, made noises which reminded me of the

description of prisoners going down into the Bastile or Tower. At

another moment a sound of voices in the distance, reminded me of a scene

of desperate coiners in a cellar.

These sounds grew louder, as we soon entered a vast stone cellar, in

which rudely dressed men, half-naked as to their breasts and arms, were

to be seen flitting to and fro at the command of a superior; their long

beards and grimy faces, their short pipes and dirty appearance, made

them look more like devils than men, and I bethought me that here, at

last, I had found that real animal--the printer's devil.

There were two or three printing-presses in the room, only one of which

was going. Its rolling sound was like thunder in the cave, in which we

stood. As paper after paper flew out from the sides of this creaking

press, they were carried to a long table and piled up in heaps.

Presently some of the stoutest men shouldered a mass of those, and my

conducter and myself following them, we entered a passage which led to

another cellar, contiguous to that in which the papers were printed.

There, sitting round a number of tables, were several young women. These

women seized upon a portion of the papers brought in, and with an

amazing rapidity folded them into a small compass. In a few minutes all

the papers I had seen printed were folded and numbered off by dozens.

Then comes another operation: a man came round and deposited before each

woman a bundle of little paper slips, which I found to be the addresses

of the subscribers. The women placed the labels and the paste on one

side, and commenced operations. A bundle of papers, folded, was placed

before each; the forefinger, dipped in the paste, immediately touched

the paper and the label simultaneously, and the "Constitutionnel" flew

out with a speed perfectly astonishing from the hands of these women,

ready to be distributed in down or country. They were then finishing the

labeling of the papers for Paris circulation; 20,000 copies scarcely

sufficing for the supply.

This was the concluding sight in my visit to a Paris Newspaper-Office.

ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT.

TO A MOTHER.

BY THE AUTHORESS OF "THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE".

His languid eyes are closing,

On the pale, placid cheek,

The lashes dark reposing,

So wearily, so weak.

He gasps with failing breath,

A faint and feeble strife with death;

Fainter and fainter still--'tis past.

That one soft sigh--the last.

Thy watching and thy fearing,

Mother, is over now;

The seal of death is bearing

That pale but angel brow,

And now in the deep calm

That follows days of wild alarm,

Thy heart sinks down, and weeps, and weeps,

O'er him who silent sleeps.

Oh, Mother, hush thy crying,

The ill of life is o'er,

E'en now his wings are flying

Unto a happy shore;

Those wings of stainless white

Unfolded ne'er to earthly sight,

He spreads them now, they bear him high

Unto the angel company.

From sight of evil shrinking,

From thought of grief like thine

At the first summons sinking

Into the arms divine.

Oh! thou who knowest life,

Temptation, trial, toil and strife,

Wilt thou not still thine aching breast

To bless his early rest?

[From the Autobiography of Leigh Hunt.]

RECOLLECTIONS OF EMINENT MEN.

BY LEIGH HUNT.

Just after this period I fell in with a new set of acquaintances,

accounts of whom may not be uninteresting. I forget what it was that

introduced me to Mr. Hill, proprietor of the _Monthly Mirror_; but at

his house at Sydenham I used to meet his editor, Du Bois; Thomas

Campbell, who was his neighbor; and the two Smiths, authors of _The

Rejected Addresses_. I saw also Theodore Hook, and Mathews, the

comedian. Our host was a jovial bachelor, plump and rosy as an abbot;

and no abbot could have presided over a more festive Sunday. The wine

flowed merrily and long; the discourse kept pace with it; and next

morning, in returning to town, we felt ourselves very thirsty. A pump by

the road-side, with a plash round it, was a bewitching sight.

They who knew Mr. Campbell only as the author of _Gertrude of Wyoming_,

and the _Pleasures of Hope_, would not have suspected him to be a merry

companion, overflowing with humor and anecdote, and any thing but

fastidious. These Scotch poets have always something in reserve. It is

the only point in which the major part of them resemble their

countrymen. The mistaken character which the lady formed of Thomson from

his _Seasons_ is well known. He let part of the secret out in his

_Castle of Indolence_; and the more he let out, the more honor it did to

the simplicity and cordiality of the poet's nature, though not always to

the elegance of it. Allan Ramsay knew his friends Gay and Somerville as

well in their writings, as he did when he came to be personally

acquainted with them; but Allan, who had bustled up from a barber's shop

into a bookseller's, was "a cunning shaver;" and nobody would have

guessed the author of the _Gentle Shepherd_ to be penurious. Let none

suppose that any insinuation to that effect is intended against

Campbell. He was one of the few men whom I could at any time have walked

half a dozen miles through the snow to spend an evening with; and I

could no more do this with a penurious man than I could with a sulky

one. I know but of one fault he had, besides an extreme cautiousness in

his writings, and that one was national, a matter of words, and amply

overpaid by a stream of conversation, lively, piquant, and liberal, not

the less interesting for occasionally betraying an intimacy with pain,

and for a high and somewhat strained tone of voice, like a man speaking

with suspended breath, and in the habit of subduing his feelings. No man

felt more kindly toward his fellow-creatures, or took less credit for

it. When he indulged in doubt and sarcasm, and spoke contemptuously of

things in general, he did it, partly, no doubt, out of actual

dissatisfaction, but more perhaps than he suspected, out of a fear of

being thought weak and sensitive; which is a blind that the best men

very commonly practice. He professed to be hopeless and sarcastic, and

took pains all the while to set up a university (the London).

When I first saw this eminent person, he gave me the idea of a French

Virgil. Not that he was like a Frenchman, much less the French

translator of Virgil. I found him as handsome, as the Abbe Delille is

said to have been ugly. But he seemed to me to embody a Frenchman's

ideal notion of the Latin poet; something a little more cut and dry than

I had looked for; compact and elegant, critical and acute, with a

consciousness of authorship upon him; a taste over-anxious not to commit

itself, and refining and diminishing nature as in a drawing-room mirror.

This fancy was strengthened in the course of conversation, by his

expatiating on the greatness of Racine. I think he had a volume of the

French poet in his hand. His skull was sharply cut and fine; with

plenty, according to the phrenologists, both of the reflective and

amative organs: and his poetry will bear them out. For a lettered

solitude, and a bridal properly got up, both according to law and

luxury, commend us to the lovely _Gertrude of Wyoming_. His face and

person were rather on a small scale; his features regular; his eye

lively and penetrating; and when he spoke, dimples played about his

mouth; which, nevertheless, had something restrained and close in it.

Some gentle puritan seemed to have crossed the breed, and to have left a

stamp on his face, such as we often see in the female Scotch face rather

than the male. But he appeared not at all grateful for this; and when

his critics and his Virgilianism were over, very unlike a puritan he

talked! He seemed to spite his restrictions; and, out of the natural

largeness of his sympathy with things high and low, to break at once out

of Delille's Virgil into Cotton's, like a boy let loose from school.

When I had the pleasure of hearing him afterward, I forgot his

Virgilianisms, and thought only of the delightful companion, the

unaffected philanthropist, and the creator of a beauty worth all the

heroines in Racine.

Campbell tasted pretty sharply of the good and ill of the present state

of society, and, for a bookman, had beheld strange sights. He witnessed

a battle in Germany from the top of a convent (on which battle he has

left us a noble ode); and he saw the French cavalry enter a town, wiping

their bloody swords on the horses' manes. He was in Germany a second

time--I believe to purchase books; for in addition to his classical

scholarship, and his other languages, he was a reader of German. The

readers there, among whom he is popular, both for his poetry and his

love of freedom, crowded about him with affectionate zeal; and they gave

him, what he did not dislike, a good dinner. Like many of the great men

in Germany, Schiller, Wieland, and others, he did not scruple to become

editor of a magazine; and his name alone gave it a recommendation of the

greatest value, and such as made it a grace to write under him.

I remember, one day at Sydenham, Mr. Theodore Hook coming in

unexpectedly to dinner, and amusing us very much with his talent at

extempore verse. He was then a youth, tall, dark, and of a good person,

with small eyes, and features more round than weak; a face that had

character and humor, but no refinement. His extempore verses were really

surprising. It is easy enough to extemporize in Italian--one only

wonders how, in a language in which every thing conspires to render

verse-making easy, and it is difficult to avoid rhyming, this talent

should be so much cried up--but in English it is another matter. I have

known but one other person besides Hook, who could extemporize in

English; and he wanted the confidence to do it in public. Of course, I

speak of rhyming. Extempore blank verse, with a little practice, would

be found as easy in English as rhyming is in Italian. In Hook the

faculty was very unequivocal. He could not have been aware of all the

visitors, still less of the subject of conversation when he came in, and

he talked his full share till called upon; yet he ran his jokes and his

verses upon us all in the easiest manner, saying something

characteristic of every body, or avoiding it with a pun; and he

introduced so agreeably a piece of village scandal upon which the party

had been rallying Campbell, that the poet, though not unjealous of his

dignity, was, perhaps, the most pleased of us all. Theodore afterward

sat down to the pianoforte, and enlarging upon this subject, made an

extempore parody of a modern opera, introducing sailors and their

clap-traps, rustics, &c., and making the poet and his supposed flame,

the hero and heroine. He parodied music as well as words, giving us the

most received cadences and flourishes, and calling to mind (not without

some hazard to his filial duties) the commonplaces of the pastoral songs

and duets of the last half century; so that if Mr. Dignum, the Damon of

Vauxhall, had been present, he would have doubted whether to take it as

an affront or a compliment. Campbell certainly took the theme of the

parody as a compliment; for having drank a little more wine than usual

that evening, and happening to wear a wig on account of having lost his

hair by a fever, he suddenly took off the wig, and dashed it at the head

of the performer, exclaiming, "You dog! I'll throw my laurels at you."

Mathews, the comedian, I had the pleasure of seeing at Mr. Hill's

several times, and of witnessing his imitations, which, admirable as

they were on the stage, were still more so in private. His wife

occasionally came with him, with her handsome eyes, and charitably made

tea for us. Many years afterward I had the pleasure of seeing them at

their own table; and I thought that while Time, with unusual courtesy,

had spared the sweet countenance of the lady, he had given more force

and interest to that of the husband in the very plowing of it up. Strong

lines had been cut, and the face stood them well. I had seldom been more

surprised than on coming close to Mathews on that occasion, and seeing

the bust which he possessed in his gallery of his friend Liston. Some of

these comic actors, like comic writers, are as unfarcical as can be

imagined in their interior. The taste for humor comes to them by the

force of contrast. The last time I had seen Mathews, his face appeared

to me insignificant to what it was then. On the former occasion he

looked like an irritable in-door pet: on the latter, he seemed to have

been grappling with the world, and to have got vigor by it. His face had

looked out upon the Atlantic, and said to the old waves, "Buffet on; I

have seen trouble as well as you." The paralytic affection, or whatever

it was, that twisted his mouth when young, had formerly appeared to be

master of his face, and given it a character of indecision and alarm. It

now seemed a minor thing; a twist in a piece of old oak. And what a bust

was Liston's! The mouth and chin, with the throat under it, hung like an

old bag; but the upper part of the head was as fine as possible. There

was a speculation, a lookout, and even an elevation of character in it,

as unlike the Liston on the stage, as Lear is to King Pippin. One might

imagine Laberius to have had such a face.

The reasons why Mathews's imitations were still better in private than

in public were, that he was more at his ease personally, more secure of

his audience ("fit though few"), and able to interest them with traits

of private character, which could not have been introduced on the stage.

He gave, for instance, to persons who he thought could take it rightly,

a picture of the manners and conversation of Sir Walter Scott, highly

creditable to that celebrated person, and calculated to add regard to

admiration. His commonest imitations were not superficial. Something of

the mind and character of the individual was always insinuated, often

with a dramatic dressing, and plenty of sauce piquante. At Sydenham he

used to give us a dialogue among the actors, each of whom found fault

with another for some defect or excess of his own. Kemble objecting to

stiffness, Munden to grimace, and so on. His representation of Incledon

was extraordinary: his nose seemed actually to become aquiline. It is a

pity I can not put upon paper, as represented by Mr. Mathews, the

singular gabblings of that actor, the lax and sailor-like twist of mind,

with which every thing hung upon him; and his profane pieties in quoting

the Bible; for which, and swearing, he seemed to have an equal

reverence.

One morning, after stopping all night at this pleasant house, I was

getting up to breakfast, when I heard the noise of a little boy having

his face washed. Our host was a merry bachelor, and to the rosiness of a

priest might, for aught I knew, have added the paternity; but I had

never heard of it, and still less expected to find a child in his house.

More obvious and obstreperous proofs, however, of the existence of a boy

with a dirty face, could not have been met with. You heard the child

crying and objecting; then the woman remonstrating; then the cries of

the child snubbed and swallowed up in the hard towel; and at intervals

out came his voice bubbling and deploring, and was again swallowed up.

At breakfast, the child being pitied, I ventured to speak about it, and

was laughing and sympathizing in perfect good faith, when Mathews came

in, and I found that the little urchin was he.

Of James Smith, a fair, stout, fresh-colored man, with round features, I

recollect little, except that he used to read to us trim verses, with

rhymes as pat as butter. The best of his verses are in the _Rejected

Addresses_; and they are excellent. Isaac Hawkins Browne with his _Pipe

of Tobacco_, and all the rhyming _jeux-d'esprit_ in all the Tracts, are

extinguished in the comparison; not excepting the _Probationary Odes_.

Mr. Fitzgerald found himself bankrupt in _non sequiturs_; Crabbe could

hardly have known which was which, himself or his parodist; and Lord

Byron confessed to me, that the summing up of his philosophy, to wit,

that

"Naught is every thing, and every thing is naught,"

was very posing. Mr. Smith would sometimes repeat after dinner, with his

brother Horace, an imaginary dialogue, stuffed full of incongruities,

that made us roll with laughter. His ordinary verse and prose were too

full of the ridicule of city pretensions. To be superior to any thing,

it should not always be running in one's head.

His brother Horace was delicious. Lord Byron used to say, that this

epithet should be applied only to eatables; and that he wondered a

friend of his (I forget who) that was critical in matters of eating,

should use it in any other sense. I know not what the present usage may

be in the circles, but classical authority is against his lordship, from

Cicero downward; and I am content with the modern warrant of another

noble wit, the famous Lord Peterborough, who, in his fine, open way,

said of Fenelon, that he was such a "delicious creature, he was forced

to get away from him, else he would have made him pious!" I grant there

is something in the word delicious which may be said to comprise a

reference to every species of pleasant taste. It is at once a

quintessence and a compound; and a friend, to deserve the epithet,

ought, perhaps, to be capable of delighting us as much over our wine, as

on graver occasions. Fenelon himself could do this, with all his piety;

or rather he could do it because his piety was of the true sort, and

relished of every thing that was sweet and affectionate. A finer nature

than Horace Smith's, except in the single instance of Shelley, I never

met with in man; nor even in that instance, all circumstances

considered, have I a right to say that those who knew him as intimately

as I did the other, would not have had the same reasons to love him.

Shelley himself had the highest regard for Horace Smith, as may be seen

by the following verses, the initials in which the reader has here the

pleasure of filling up:

"Wit and sense,

Virtue and human knowledge, all that might

Make this dull world a business of delight,

Are all combined in H. S."

Horace Smith differed with Shelley on some points; but on others, which

all the world agree to praise highly, and to practice very little, he

agreed so entirely, and showed unequivocally that he did agree, that,

with the exception of one person (Vincent Novello), too diffident to

gain such an honor from his friends, they were the only two men I had

then met with, from whom I could have received and did receive advice or

remonstrance with perfect comfort, because I could be sure of the

unmixed motives and entire absence of self-reflection, with which it

would come from them. Shelley said to me once, "I know not what Horace

Smith must take me for sometimes: I am afraid he must think me a strange

fellow: but is it not odd, that the only truly generous person I ever

knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker! And he

writes poetry, too," continued Shelley, his voice rising in a fervor of

astonishment; "he writes poetry and pastoral dramas, and yet knows how

to make money, and does make it, and is still generous!" Shelley had

reason to like him. Horace Smith was one of the few men, who, through a

cloud of detraction, and through all that difference of conduct from the

rest of the world, which naturally excites obloquy, discerned the

greatness of my friend's character. Indeed, he became a witness to a

very unequivocal proof of it, which I shall mention by-and-by. The

mutual esteem was accordingly very great, and arose from circumstances

most honorable to both parties. "I believe," said Shelley on another

occasion, "that I have only to say to Horace Smith that I want a hundred

pounds or two, and he would send it me without any eye to its being

returned; such faith has he that I have something within me, beyond what

the world supposes, and that I could only ask his money for a good

purpose." And Shelley would have sent for it accordingly, if the person

for whom it was intended had not said Nay. I will now mention the

circumstance which first gave my friend a regard for Horace Smith. It

concerns the person just mentioned, who is a man of letters. It came to

Mr. Smith's knowledge, many years ago, that this person was suffering

under a pecuniary trouble. He knew little of him at the time, but had

met him occasionally; and he availed himself of this circumstance to

write him a letter as full of delicacy and cordiality as it could hold,

making it a matter of grace to accept a bank-note of L100 which he

inclosed. I speak on the best authority, that of the obliged person

himself; who adds that he not only did accept the money, but felt as

light and happy under the obligation, as he has felt miserable under the

very report of being obliged to some; and he says, that nothing could

induce him to withhold his name, but a reason, which the generous,

during his lifetime, would think becoming.

I have said that Horace Smith was a stockbroker. He left business with a

fortune, and went to live in France, where, if he did not increase, he

did not seriously diminish it; and France added to the pleasant stock of

his knowledge.

On returning to England, he set about exerting himself in a manner

equally creditable to his talents and interesting to the public. I would

not insult either the modesty or the understanding of my friend while he

was alive, by comparing him with the author of _Old Mortality_ and _Guy

Mannering_: but I ventured to say, and I repeat, that the earliest of

his novels, _Brambletye House_, ran a hard race with the novel of

_Woodstock_, and that it contained more than one character not unworthy

of the best volumes of Sir Walter. I allude to the ghastly troubles of

the Regicide in his lone house; the outward phlegm and merry inward

malice of Winky Boss (a happy name), who gravely smoked a pipe with his

mouth, and laughed with his eyes; and, above all, to the character of

the princely Dutch merchant, who would cry out that he should be ruined,

at seeing a few nutmegs dropped from a bag, and then go and give a

thousand ducats for an antique. This is hitting the high mercantile

character to a niceity--minute and careful in its means, princely in its

ends. If the ultimate effect of commerce (_permulti transibunt_, &c.)

were not something very different from what its pursuers imagine, the

character would be a dangerous one to society at large, because it

throws a gloss over the spirit of money-getting; but, meanwhile, nobody

could paint it better, or has a greater right to recommend it, than he

who has been the first to make it a handsome portrait.

The personal appearance of Horace Smith, like that of most of the

individuals I have met with, was highly indicative of his character. His

figure was good and manly, inclining to the robust; and his countenance

extremely frank and cordial; sweet without weakness. I have been told he

was irascible. If so, it must have been no common offense that could

have irritated him. He had not a jot of it in his appearance.

Another set of acquaintances which I made at this time used to assemble

at the hospitable table of Mr. Hunter, the bookseller, in St. Paul's

Church-yard. They were the survivors of the literary party that were

accustomed to dine with his predecessor, Mr. Johnson. They came, as of

old, on the Friday. The most regular were Fuseli and Bonnycastle. Now

and then, Godwin was present: oftener Mr. Kinnaird the magistrate, a

great lover of Horace.

Fuseli was a small man, with energetic features, and a white head of

hair. Our host's daughter, then a little girl, used to call him the

white-headed lion. He combed his hair up from the forehead; and, as his

whiskers were large, his face was set in a kind of hairy frame, which,

in addition to the fierceness of his look, really gave him an aspect of

that sort. Otherwise, his features were rather sharp than round. He

would have looked much like an old military officer, if his face,

besides its real energy, had not affected more. There was the same

defect in it as in his pictures. Conscious of not having all the

strength he wished, he endeavored to make out for it by violence and

pretension. He carried this so far, as to look fiercer than usual when

he sat for his picture. His friend and engraver, Mr. Houghton, drew an

admirable likeness of him in this state of dignified extravagance. He is

sitting back in his chair, leaning on his hand, but looking ready to

pounce withal. His notion of repose was like that of Pistol:

"Now, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap."

Agreeably to this over-wrought manner, he was reckoned, I believe, not

quite so bold as he might have been. He painted horrible pictures, as

children tell horrible stories; and was frightened at his own

lay-figures. Yet he would hardly have talked as he did about his

terrors, had he been as timid as some supposed him. With the affected,

impression is the main thing, let it be produced how it may. A student

of the Academy told me, that Mr. Fuseli coming in one night, when a

solitary candle had been put on the floor in a corner of the room, to

produce some effect or other, he said it looked "like a damned soul."

This was by way of being Dantesque, as Michael Angelo was. Fuseli was an

ingenious caricaturist of that master, making great bodily displays of

mental energy, and being ostentatious with his limbs and muscles, in

proportion as he could not draw them. A leg or an arm was to be thrust

down one's throat, because he knew we should dispute the truth of it. In

the indulgence of this willfulness of purpose, generated partly by

impatience of study, partly by want of sufficient genius, and, no doubt,

also by a sense of superiority to artists who could do nothing but draw

correctly, he cared for no time, place, or circumstance, in his

pictures. A set of prints, after his designs, for Shakspeare and Cowper,

exhibit a chaos of mingled genius and absurdity, such as, perhaps, was

never before seen. He endeavored to bring Michael Angelo's apostles and

prophets, with their superhuman ponderousness of intention, into the

common-places of modern life. A student reading in a garden, is all over

intensity of muscle; and the quiet tea-table scene in Cowper, he has

turned into a preposterous conspiracy of huge men and women, all bent on

showing their thews and postures, with dresses as fantastical as their

minds. One gentleman, of the existence of whose trowsers you are not

aware till you see the terminating line at the ankle, is sitting and

looking grim on a sofa, with his hat on and no waistcoat. Yet there is

real genius in his designs for Milton, though disturbed, as usual, by

strainings after the energetic. His most extraordinary mistake, after

all, is said to have been on the subject of his coloring. It was a sort

of livid green, like brass diseased. Yet they say, that when praised for

one of his pictures, he would modestly observe, "It is a pretty color."

This might have been thought a jest on his part, if remarkable stories

were not told of the mistakes made by other people with regard to color.

Sight seems the least agreed upon, of all the senses.

Fuseli was lively and interesting in conversation, but not without his

usual faults of violence and pretension. Nor was he always as decorous

as an old man ought to be; especially one whose turn of mind is not of

the lighter and more pleasurable cast. The licenses he took were coarse,

and had not sufficient regard to his company. Certainly they went a

great deal beyond his friend Armstrong; to whose account, I believe,

Fuseli's passion for swearing was laid. The poet condescended to be a

great swearer, and Fuseli thought it energetic to swear like him. His

friendship with Bonnycastle had something child-like and agreeable in

it. They came and went away together, for years, like a couple of old

schoolboys. They, also, like boys, rallied one another, and sometimes

made a singular display of it--Fuseli, at least, for it was he that was

the aggressor.

Bonnycastle was a good fellow. He was a tall, gaunt, long-headed man,

with large features and spectacles, and a deep, internal voice, with a

twang of rusticity in it; and he goggled over his plate, like a horse. I

often thought that a bag of corn would have hung well on him. His laugh

was equine, and showed his teeth upward at the sides. Wordsworth, who

notices similar mysterious manifestations on the part of donkeys, would

have thought it ominous. Bonnycastle was passionately fond of quoting

Shakspeare, and telling stories; and if the _Edinburgh Review_ had just

come out, would give us all the jokes in it. He had once an

hypochondriacal disorder of long duration; and he told us, that he

should never forget the comfortable sensation given him one night during

this disorder, by his knocking a landlord, that was insolent to him,

down the man's staircase. On the strength of this piece of energy

(having first ascertained that the offender was not killed) he went to

bed, and had a sleep of unusual soundness. Perhaps Bonnycastle thought

more highly of his talents than the amount of them strictly warranted; a

mistake to which scientific men appear to be more liable than others,

the universe they work in being so large, and their universality (in

Bacon's sense of the word) being often so small. But the delusion was

not only pardonable, but desirable, in a man so zealous in the

performance of his duties, and so much of a human being to all about

him, as Bonnycastle was. It was delightful one day to hear him speak

with complacency of a translation which had appeared of one of his books

in Arabic, and which began by saying, on the part of the translator,

that "it had pleased God, for the advancement of human knowledge, to

raise us up a Bonnycastle." Some of his stories were a little romantic,

and no less authentic. He had an anecdote of a Scotchman, who boasted of

being descended from the Admirable Crichton; in proof of which, the

Scotchman said he had "a grit quantity of table-leenen in his

possassion, marked A. C., Admirable Creechton."

Kinnaird, the magistrate, was a stout, sanguine man, under the middle

height, with a fine, lamping black eye, lively to the last, and a person

that "had increased, was increasing, and ought to have been diminished;"

which is by no means what he thought of the prerogative. Next to his

bottle he was fond of his Horace; and, in the intervals of business at

the police-office, would enjoy both in his arm-chair. Between the vulgar

calls of this kind of magistracy, and the perusal of the urbane Horace,

there must have been a gusto of contradiction, which the bottle,

perhaps, was required to render quite palatable. Fielding did not love

his bottle the less for being obliged to lecture the drunken. Nor did

his son, who succeeded him in taste and office. I know not how a former

poet-laureat, Mr. Pye, managed; another man of letters who was fain to

accept a situation of this kind. Having been a man of fortune and a

member of Parliament, and loving his Horace to boot, he could hardly

have done without his wine. I saw him once in a state of scornful

indignation at being interrupted in the perusal of a manuscript by the

monitions of his police-officers, who were obliged to remind him, over

and over again, that he was a magistrate, and that the criminal

multitude were in waiting. Every time the door opened, he threatened and

he implored

"Otium divos rogat in patenti

Prensus."

Had you quoted this to Mr. Kinnaird, his eyes would have sparkled with

good-fellowship: he would have finished the verse and the bottle with

you, and proceeded to as many more as your head could stand. Poor

fellow, the last time I saw him, he was an apparition formidably

substantial. The door of our host's dining-room opened without my

hearing it, and, happening to turn round, I saw a figure in a great coat

literally almost as broad as it was long, and scarcely able to

articulate. He was dying of a dropsy, and was obliged to revive himself,

before he was fit to converse, by the wine that was killing him. But he

had cares besides, and cares of no ordinary description; and, for my

part, I will not blame even his wine for killing him, unless his cares

could have done it more agreeably. After dinner that day, he was

comparatively himself again, quoted his Horace as usual, talked of lords

and courts with a relish, and begged that _God save the King_ might be

played to him on the piano-forte; to which he listened, as if his soul

had taken its hat off. I believe he would have liked to die to _God save

the King_, and to have "waked and found those visions true."

[From Colburn's New Monthly Magazine.]

ODE TO THE SUN.

BY LEIGH HUNT.

The main object of this poem is to impress the beautiful and animating

fact, that the greatest visible agent in our universe, the Sun, is also

one of the most beneficent; and thus to lead to the inference, that

spiritual greatness and goodness are in like proportion, and its Maker

beneficence itself, through whatever apparent inconsistencies he may

work. The Sun is at once the greatest Might and Right that we behold.

A secondary intention of the poem is to admonish the carelessness with

which people in general regard the divinest wonders of the creation, in

consequence of being used to their society--this great and glorious

mystery, the Sun, not excepted. "Familiarity," it is said, "breeds

contempt." To which somebody emphatically added, "With the

contemptible." I am far from meaning to say that all who behold the Sun

with too little thought are contemptible. Habit does strange things,

even with the most reflecting. But of this I am sure, that in proportion

as any body wishes to prove himself worthy of his familiarity with great

objects, he will not be sorry to be reminded of their greatness,

especially as reverence need not diminish delight; for a heavenly

"Father" can no more desire the admiration of him to be oppressive to

us, than an earthly one; else fatherliness would be unfatherly, and

sunshine itself a gloom.

When the Florentines crowded to some lectures of Galileo, because they

were on a comet which had just made its appearance, the philosopher was

bold enough to rebuke them for showing such a childish desire to hear

him on this particular subject, when they were in the habit of

neglecting the marvels of creation which daily presented themselves to

their eyes.

ODE TO THE SUN.

Presence divine! Great lord of this our sphere!

Bringer of light, and life, and joy, and beauty--

God midst a million gods, that far and near

Hold each his orbs in rounds of rapturous duty;[A]

Oh, never may I, while I lift this brow,

Believe in any god _less_ like a god than thou.

Thou art the mightiest of all things we see,

And thou, the mightiest, art among the kindest;

The planets, dreadfully and easily,

About thee, as in sacred sport, thou windest;

And thine illustrious hands, for all that power,

Light soft on the babe's cheek, and nurse the budding flower.

They say that in thine orb is movement dire,

Tempest and flame, as on a million oceans:

Well may it be, thou heart of heavenly fire;

Such looks and smiles befit a god's emotions,

We know thee gentle in the midst of all,

By those smooth orbs in heaven, this sweet fruit on the wall.

I feel thee, here, myself, soft on my hand;

Around me is thy mute, celestial presence,

Reverence and awe would make me fear to stand

Within thy beam, were not all Good its essence:

Were not all Good its essence, and from thence

All good, glad heart deriv'd, and child-like confidence.

I know that there is Fear, and Grief, and Pain,

Strange foes, though stranger guardian friends of Pleasure:

I know that poor men lose, and rich men gain,

Though oft th' unseen adjusts the seeming measure;

I know that Guile may teach, while Truth must bow,

Or bear contempt and shame on his benignant brow.

But while thou sit'st, mightier than all, O Sun,

And e'en when sharpest felt, still throned in kindness.

I see that greatest and that best are one,

And that all else works tow'rd it, though in blindness

Evil I see, and Fear, and Grief, and Pain,

Work under Good, their lord, embodied in thy reign.

I see the molten gold darkly refine

O'er the great sea of human joy and sorrow,

I bear the deep voice of a grief divine

Calling sweet notes to some diviner morrow,

And though I know not how the two may part,

I feel thy rays, O Sun, write it upon my heart.

Upon my heart thou writest it, as thou,

Heart of these worlds, art writ on by a greater:

Beam'd on with love from some still mightier brow,

Perhaps by that which waits some new relater;

Some amaz'd man, who sees new splendors driven

Thick round a Sun of suns, and fears he looks at heaven.[B]

'Tis easy for vain man, Time's growing child,

To dare pronounce on thy material seeming:

Heav'n, for its own good ends, is mute and mild

To many a wrong of man's presumptuous dreaming.

Matter, or mind, of either, what knows he?

Or how with more than both thine orb divine may be!

Art thou a god, indeed? or thyself heaven?

And do we taste thee here in light and flowers?

Art thou the first sweet place, where hearts, made even,

Sing tender songs in earth-remembering bowers?

Enough, my soul. Enough through thee, O Sun,

To learn the sure good song--Greatest and Best are one.

Enough for man to work, to hope, to love,

Copying thy zeal untir'd, thy smile unscorning:

Glad to see gods thick as the stars above,

Bright with the God of gods' eternal morning;

Round about whom perchance endless they go,

Ripening their earths to heavens, as love and wisdom grow.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] _Rapturous_--transporting, carrying away. The reader can take the

word either in its spiritual or material sense, or both; according as he

agrees or disagrees with Keppler and others respecting the nature of the

planetary bodies.

[B] Alluding to a central sun; that is to say, a sun governing other

suns, which is supposed to exist in the Constellation Hercules.

[From Household Words.]

TWO-HANDED DICK THE STOCKMAN.

AN ADVENTURE IN THE BUSH.

Traveling in the Bush one rainy season, I put up for the night at a

small, weather-bound inn, perched half way up a mountain range, where

several Bush servants on the tramp had also taken refuge from the

down-pouring torrents. I had had a long and fatiguing ride over a very

bad country, so, after supper, retired into the furthest corner of the

one room, that served for "kitchen, and parlor, and all," and there,

curled up in my blanket, in preference to the bed offered by our host,

which was none of the cleanest; with half shut eyes, I glumly puffed at

my pipe in silence, allowing the hubble-bubble of the Bushmen's gossip

to flow through my unnoting ears.

Fortunately for my peace, the publican's stock of rum had been some time

exhausted, and as I was the latest comer, all the broiling and frying

had ceased, but a party sat round the fire, evidently set in for a spell

at "yarning." At first the conversation ran in ordinary channels, such

as short reminiscences of old world rascality, perils in the Bush. Till

at length a topic arose which seemed to have a paramount interest for

all. This was the prowess of a certain Two-handed Dick the Stockman.

"Yes, yes; I'll tell you what it is, mates," said one; "this confounded

reading and writing, that don't give plain fellows like you and me a

chance; now if it were to come to fighting for a living, I don't care

whether it was half-minute time and London rules, rough and tumble, or

single stick, or swords and bayonets, or tomahawks--I'm dashed if you

and me, and Two-handed Dick, wouldn't take the whole Legislative

Council, the Governor and Judges--one down t'other come on. Though, to

be sure, Dick could thrash any two of us."

I was too tired to keep awake, and dozed off, to be again and again

disturbed with cries of "Bravo, Dick!" "That's your sort!" "Houray,

Dick!" all signifying approval of that individual's conduct in some

desperate encounter, which formed the subject of a stirring narrative.

For months after that night this idea of Two-handed Dick haunted me, but

the bustle of establishing a new station at length drove it out of my

head.

I suppose a year had elapsed from the night when the fame of the

double-fisted stockman first reached me. I had to take a three days'

journey to buy a score of fine-wooled rams, through a country quite new

to me, which I chose because it was a short-cut recently discovered. I

got over, the first day, forty-five miles comfortably. The second day,

in the evening, I met an ill-looking fellow walking with a broken

musket, and his arm in a sling. He seemed sulky, and I kept my hand on

my double-barreled pistol all the time I was talking to him; he begged a

little tea and sugar, which I could not spare, but I threw him a fig of

tobacco. In answer to my questions about his arm, he told me, with a

string of oaths, that a bull, down in some mimosa flats, a day's journey

ahead, had charged him, flung him into a water-hole, broken his arm, and

made him lose his sugar and tea bag. Bulls in Australia are generally

quiet, but this reminded me that some of the Highland black cattle

imported by the Australian Company, after being driven off by a party of

Gully Rakees (cattle stealers), had escaped into the mountains and

turned quite wild. Out of this herd, which was of a breed quite unsuited

to the country, a bull sometimes, when driven off by a stronger rival,

would descend to the mimosa flats, and wander about, solitary and

dangerously fierce.

It struck me, as I rode off, that it was quite as well my friend's arm

and musket had been disabled, for he did not look the sort of man it

would be pleasant to meet in a thicket of scrub, if he fancied the horse

you rode. So, keeping one eye over my shoulder, and a sharp look-out for

any other traveler of the same breed, I rode off at a brisk pace. I made

out afterward that my foot friend was Jerry Johnson, hung for shooting a

bullock-driver the following year.

At sun-down, when I reached the hut where I had intended to sleep, I

found it deserted, and so full of fleas, I thought it better to camp

out; so I hobbled out old Gray-tail on the best piece of grass I could

find, which was very poor indeed.

The next morning, when I went to look for my horse, he was nowhere to be

found. I put the saddle on my head and tracked him for hours; it was

evident the poor beast had been traveling away in search of grass. I

walked until my feet were one mass of blisters; at length, when about to

give up the search in despair, having quite lost the track on stony

ground, I came upon the marks quite fresh in a bit of swampy ground, and

a few hundred yards further found Master Gray-tail rolling in the mud of

a nearly dry water-hole as comfortably as possible. I put down the

saddle and called him; at that moment I heard a loud roar and crash in a

scrub behind me, and out rushed, at a terrific pace, a black Highland

bull charging straight at me. I had only just time to throw myself on

one side flat on the ground as he thundered by me. My next move was to

scramble among a small clump of trees, one of great size, the rest were

mere saplings.

The bull having missed his mark, turned again, and first revenged

himself by tossing my saddle up in the air, until, fortunately, it

lodged in some bushes; then, having smelt me out, he commenced a circuit

round the trees, stamping, pawing, and bellowing frightfully. With his

red eyes, and long, sharp horns, he looked like a demon; I was quite

unarmed, having broken my knife the day before; my pistols were in my

holsters, and I was wearied to death. My only chance consisted in

dodging him round the trees until he should be tired out. Deeply did I

regret having left my faithful dogs Boomer and Bounder behind.

The bull charged again and again, sometimes coming with such force

against the tree that he fell on his knees, sometimes bending the

saplings behind which I stood until his horns almost touched me. There

was not a branch I could lay hold of to climb up. How long this awful

game of "_touchwood_" lasted, I know not; it seemed hours; after the

first excitement of self-preservation passed off, weariness again took

possession of me, and it required all the instinct of self-preservation

to keep me on my feet; several times the bull left me for a few seconds,

pacing suddenly away, bellowing his malignant discontent; but before I

could cross over to a better position he always came back at full speed.

My tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, my eyes grew hot and misty, my

knees trembled under me, I felt it impossible to hold out until dark. At

length I grew desperate, and determined to make a run for the opposite

covert the moment the bull turned toward the water-hole again. I felt

sure I was doomed, and thought of it until I grew indifferent. The bull

seemed to know I was worn out, and grew more fierce and rapid in his

charges, but just when I was going to sit down under the great tree, and

let him do his worst, I heard the rattle of a horse among the rocks

above, and a shout that sounded like the voice of an angel. Then came

the barking of a dog, and the loud reports of a stockwhip, but the bull,

with his devilish eyes fixed on me, never moved.

Up came a horseman at full speed; crack fell the lash on the black

bull's hide; out spirted the blood in a long streak. The bull turned

savagely--charged the horseman. The horse wheeled round just enough to

baffle him--no more--again the lash descended, cutting like a long,

flexible razor, but the mad bull was not to be beaten off by a whip: he

charged again and again; but he had met his match; right and left, as

needed, the horse turned, sometimes pivoting on his hind, sometime on

his fore-legs.

The stockman shouted something, leapt from his horse, and strode forward

to meet the bull with an open knife between his teeth. As the beast

lowered his head to charge, he seemed to catch him by the horns. There

was a struggle, a cloud of dust, a stamping like two strong men

wrestling--I could not see clearly; but the next moment the bull was on

his back, the blood welling from his throat, his limbs quivering in

death.

The stranger, covered with mud and dust, came to me, saying as

unconcernedly as if he had been killing a calf in a slaughter-house,

"He's dead enough, young man; he won't trouble any body any more."

I walked two or three paces toward the dead beast; my senses left me--I

fainted.

When I came to myself, my horse was saddled, bridled, and tied up to a

bush. My stranger friend was busy flaying the bull.

"I would like to have a pair of boots out of the old devil," he

observed, in answer to my inquiring look, "before the dingoes and the

eagle hawks dig into his carcase."

We rode out of the flats up a gentle ascent, as night was closing in. I

was not in talking humor; but I said, "You have saved my life."

"Well, I rather think I have," but this was muttered in an under tone;

"it's not the first I have saved, or taken either, for that matter."

I was too much worn out for thanking much, but I pulled out a silver

hunting-watch and put it into his hand. He pushed it back, almost

roughly, saying, "No, sir, not now; I shalln't take money or money's

worth for that, though I may ask something some time. It's nothing,

after all. I owed the old black devil a grudge for spoiling a blood

filly of mine; besides, though I didn't know it when I rode up first,

and went at the beast to take the devil out of myself as much as any

thing--I rather think that you are the young gentleman that ran through

the Bush at night to Manchester Dan's hut, when his wife was bailed up

by the Blacks, and shot one-eyed Jackey, in spite of the Governor's

proclamation."

"You seem to know me," I answered; "pray, may I ask who you are, if it

is a fair question, for I can not remember ever having seen you before."

"Oh, they call me 'Two-handed Dick,' in this country."

The scene in the roadside inn flashed on my recollection. Before I could

say another word, a sharp turn round the shoulder of the range we were

traversing, brought us in sight of the fire of a shepherd's hut. The

dogs ran out barking; we hallooed and cracked our whips, and the

hut-keeper came to meet us with a fire-stick in his hand.

"Lord bless my heart and soul! Dick, is that thee at last? Well, I

thought thee were't never coming;" cried the hut-keeper, a little man,

who came limping forward very fast with the help of a crutch-handled

stick. "I say, Missis, Missis, here's Dick, here's Two-handed Dick."

This was uttered in a shrill, hysterical sort of scream. Out came

"Missis" at the top of her speed, and began hugging Dick as he was

getting off his horse, her arms reached a little above his waist,

laughing and crying, both at the same time, while her husband kept fast

hold of the stockman's hand, muttering, "Lord, Dick I'm so glad to see

thee." Meanwhile, the dogs barking, and a flock of weaned lambs just

penned, ba'aing, made such a riot, that I was fairly bewildered. So,

feeling myself one too many, I slipped away, leading off both the horses

to the other side of the hut, where I found a shepherd, who showed me a

grass paddock to feed the nags a bit before turning them out for the

night. I said to him, "What _is_ the meaning of all this going on

between your mate and his wife, and the big stockman?"

"The meaning, stranger: why, that's Two-handed Dick, and my mate is

little Jemmy that he saved, and Charley Anvils at the same time, when

the blacks slaughtered the rest of the party, near on a dozen of them."

On returning, I found supper smoking on the table, and we had made a

regular "bush" meal. The stockman then told my adventure, and, when they

had exchanged all the news, I had little difficulty in getting the

hut-keeper to the point I wanted; the great difficulty lay in preventing

man and wife from telling the same story at the same time. However, by

judicious management, I was able to gather the following account of

_Two-handed Dick's Fight and Ride_.

"When first I met Dick he was second stockman to Mr. Ronalds, and I took

a shepherd's place there; it was my second place in this country, for

you see I left the old country in a bad year for the weaving trade, and

was one of the first batch of free emigrants that came out, the rest

were chiefly Irish. I found shepherding suit me very well, and my missis

was hut-keeper. Well, Dick and I got very thick; I used to write his

letters for him, and read in an evening, and so on. Well, though I

undertook a shepherd's place, I soon found I could handle an ax pretty

well. Throwing the shuttle gives the use of the arms, you see, and Dick

put into my head that I could make more money if I took to making

fences; I sharpening the rails, and making the mortice-holes, and a

stranger man setting them. I did several jobs at odd times, and was

thought very handy. Well, Mr. Ronalds, during the time of the great

drought, five years ago, determined to send up a lot of cattle to the

north, where he had heard there was plenty of water and grass, and form

a station there. Dick was picked out as stockman; a young gentleman, a

relative of Mr. Ronalds, went as head of the party, a very foolish,

conceited young man, who knew very little of bush life, and would not be

taught. There were eight splitters and fencers, besides Charley Anvils,

the blacksmith, and two bullock drivers.

"I got leave to go because I wanted to see the country, and Dick asked.

My missis was sorely against my going. I was to be storekeeper, as well

as do any farming and work, if wanted.

"We had two drays, and were well armed. We were fifteen days going up

before we got into the new country, and then we traveled five days;

sometimes twenty-four hours without water, and sometimes had to unload

the drays two or three times a day, to get over creeks. The fifth day we

came to very fine land; the grass met over our horses' necks, and the

river was a chain of water-holes, all full, and as clear as crystal. The

kangaroos were hopping about as plentiful as rabbits in a warren; and

the grass by the river side had regular tracks of the emus, where they

went down to drink.

"We had been among signs of the blacks, too, for five days, but had not

seen any thing of them, although we could hear the devils cooing at

nightfall, calling to each other. We kept regular watch and watch at

first--four sentinels, and every man sleeping with his gun at hand.

"Now, as it was Dick's business to tail (follow) the cattle, five

hundred head, I advised him to have his musket sawed off in the barrel,

so as to be a more handy size for using on horseback. He took my advice;

and Charley Anvils made a very good job of it, so that he could bring it

under his arm when hanging at his back from a rope sling, and fire with

one hand. It was lucky I thought of it, as it turned out.

"At length the overseer fixed on a spot for the station. It was very

well for water and grass, and a very pretty view, as he said, but it was

too near a thicket where the blacks would lie in ambush, for safety. The

old bushmen wanted it planted on a neck of land, where the waters

protected it all but one side, and there a row of fence would have made

it secure.