“Poor things, indeed! I should like to see the very person who thus

expresses his pity going at his best pace with a savage elephant after

him: give him a lawn to run upon if he likes, and see the elephant

gaining a foot in every yard of the chase, fire in his eye, fury in

his headlong charge; and would not the flying gentleman who lately

exclaimed ‘poor thing!’ be thankful to the lucky bullet that would

save him from destruction?

“There are no animals more misunderstood than elephants; they are

naturally savage, wary, and revengeful, displaying as great courage

when in their wild state as any animal known. The fact of their

natural sagacity renders them the more dangerous as foes.”

Of course, in describing a series of rencontres, involving so much

personal peril as must necessarily be the accompaniment of

elephant-shooting, there is much scope for exaggeration, and the more

marvellous a story really is, the more susceptible it is of colouring;

so that, unless the narrator be continually on his guard, he may

insensibly be drawn, by the exciting nature of the incidents he

recounts, into a way of relating them which smacks so strongly of undue

embellishment, that the ignorant reader is disposed to discredit those

facts themselves which, had he possessed personal experience, he would

not have hesitated to accept. “Often,” says Mr Baker, who anticipates

such unlearned criticism, “have I pitied Gordon Cumming, when I have

heard him talked of as a palpable Munchausen by men who never fired a

rifle or saw a wild beast except in a cage, and still these men form the

greater proportion of the readers of these works.” And we are assured by

our author that he has carefully abstained from working up his scenes

for the sake of effect—that, in fact, if he has erred at all, it is in

under-drawing them. Now, although we would not for a moment be supposed

to discredit any one of the accounts which he gives us of his

adventures, we cannot do Mr Baker the injustice to agree with him in

this, and we consider ourselves competent judges, although we may not

have been present. In looking over the illustrations which grace the

work, and which are spiritedly done, there appeared to us one fault, if

fault it may be called; our author and his friends always seem to be

shooting with air-guns—there is a remarkable absence of any smoke. Now,

without meaning in the least to infer that Mr Baker has transferred it

from the pictorial representations of those scenes of which its presence

would have been the appropriate ornament to the descriptions of them,

which would suffer seriously from such an addition, we only remark that

he has occasionally given a handle for that sort of criticism, which we,

in common with himself, so much deprecate. We wish, for instance, that

his measurements of distance in moments of extreme peril had been a

little more vague than they are. A striking instance of the precision

with which our author calculates distance occurs in the course of one of

his elephant hunts; after a long combat with a rogue, he is obliged to

throw away his heavy rifle and take to his heels.

“I had about three feet start of him, and I saw with delight that the

ground was as level and smooth as a lawn; there was no fear of

tripping up, and away I went at the fastest pace that I ever ran

either before or since, taking a look behind me to see how the chase

went on. I saw the bullet-mark in his forehead, which was covered with

blood; his trunk was stretched to its full length to catch me, and was

now within two feet of my back: he was gaining on me, although I was

running at a tremendous pace. I could not screw an inch more speed out

of my legs, and I kept on, with the brute gaining upon me at every

stride. He was within a foot of me, and I had not heard a shot fired,

and not a soul had come to the rescue. The sudden thought struck me

that my brother could not possibly overtake the elephant at the pace

at which we were going, and I suddenly doubled short to my left into

the open plain, and back towards the guns. The rogue overshot me. I

met my brother close to his tail,” &c. &c.

We remember hearing that Major Rogers once dodged between an elephant’s

legs; but Major Rogers’ presence of mind was nothing to Mr Baker’s, who

could deliberately calculate his distance when at full speed, and who,

joyously trotting on with an elephant’s trunk first three, and then two

feet from his back, does not think it worth while to double until the

distance is decreased to twelve inches. It is quite possible that the

elephant’s trunk was in most unpleasant proximity to the

fugitive—indeed, a sporting friend of ours once had his cap taken off by

a rogue in full chase, and after all fairly outran his pursuer—so that

_we_ do not doubt that Mr Baker had an uncommonly near shave, and was

excessively glad to find his brother at his pursuer’s tail; but this is

just _the tone_ of description that gives rise to doubts in the minds of

those who do not happen ever to have run away from an elephant.

It may be said that the same remark is applicable to the accounts we

have of the powers of the four-ounce. There is an elephant killed stone

dead at one hundred and twenty yards; a buffalo at six hundred, if not

eight hundred. These are both unprecedented shots; but as sixteen

drachms is a common charge with Mr Baker, and as we certainly never used

a rifle heavy enough to bear a charge of _an ounce_ of powder, we are

not in a position to question them. Moreover, when we consider the

performances of the Minié, we are inclined to regard them as quite

possible, although distance, if not actually measured, must always be

very much a matter of opinion. However, in reading this narrative of

adventure, the experience of an intrepid sportsman, it must be

remembered that only those incidents are selected for relation which

were most remarkable or attended with the greatest risk. They are a

collection of the most perilous moments of a life of peril, and we have

simply to add up the long catalogue of those who have fallen victims in

Ceylon to that sport which Mr Baker so ardently pursues, to perceive its

danger; and so far from denying the possibility of those hairbreadth

escapes which startle us in every page of this work, we should then be

induced rather to wonder that its author still lives to tempt that

Providence by which he has hitherto been so wonderfully preserved.

But we must not allow the rifle an undue share of our attention. Mr

Baker has as good reason to be proud of his hounds as of his rifles, and

there is a greater novelty to the English sportsman in hunting elk at

Newera Ellia than in shooting elephants or buffaloes at Minneria. A buck

elk—the Samber deer of India—stands about fourteen hands high at the

shoulder, and weighs about six hundred pounds: he is in colour dark

brown, with a mane of coarse bristly hair of six inches in length; the

rest of his body is covered with the same coarse hair of about two

inches in length. His antlers are sometimes upwards of three feet long,

but seldom have more than six points. He is a solitary animal; when

brought to bay he fights to the last, and charges man and hound

indiscriminately, a choice hound being often the price of victory. The

country in which he is hunted is the mountainous district in Ceylon; for

though he is to be found in almost every part of the island, the sport

is only prosecuted at an elevation which varies from four thousand to

seven thousand feet above the sea. The sharp, bracing climate of Newera

Ellia, while it agrees admirably with the hounds, enables the sportsman

to undergo that prolonged and violent exercise on foot which the sport

involves, and which would be utterly out of the question in the low

country.

The principal features of the highlands of Ceylon being a series of wild

marshy plains, forests, torrents, mountains, and precipices, a peculiar

hound is required for elk-hunting. Upon the occasion of Mr Baker’s

second visit, he arrived with a pack of thorough-bred foxhounds. These

he soon found were quite a mistake; they invariably open upon the scent

at a great distance, and after warning the elk too soon, they stick to

him too long, and ultimately fall victims to chetahs or starvation, the

penalty of inexperienced perseverance. The offspring of crosses with

pointers, bloodhounds, and half-bred foxhounds, are the right stamp for

the sport; while the Australian lurcher proves often of immense service

upon the open. The hero of Mr Baker’s pack was a Manilla bloodhound of

enormous strength and indomitable pluck. The performances of old Smut

are worthy of a volume to themselves; and if his master could appreciate

the merits of his favourite hound when alive, he proves himself an

historian well qualified to do justice to his memory. The reader will

also be proud to make the acquaintance of Killbuck, Bran, and Lena, who

prove themselves good dogs and true. About sixteen miles from Newera

Ellia, lie the Horton Plains, situated at an elevation of seven thousand

feet above the level of the sea. They are perfectly uninhabited; and

here it is that Mr Baker introduces us to his favourite sport. He and

his friends have taken up their abode in a snug corner of the plains,

where they have built for themselves a hunting-lodge and kennel. They

are within hail of civilisation, but they depend almost entirely upon

the dogs for sustenance, combined with the efforts of a perfect Soyer of

a cook.

“This knight of the gridiron was a famous fellow, and could perform

wonders; of stoical countenance, he was never seen to smile. His whole

thoughts were concentrated in the mysteries of gravies, and the magic

transformation of one animal into another by the art of cookery: in

this he excelled to a marvellous degree. The farce of ordering dinner

was always absurd. It was something in this style. ‘Cook!’ (_Cook

answers_) ‘Coming sar!’ (_enter cook_).—‘Now, cook, you make a good

dinner; do you hear?’ _Cook_: ‘Yes, sar: master tell, I make.’—‘Well,

mulligatawny soup.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Calves’ head, with tongue, and

brain-sauce.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Gravy omelette.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Mutton

chops.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Fowl cotelets.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Beefsteaks.’ ‘Yes,

sar.’—‘Marrow-bones.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Rissoles.’ ‘Yes, sar.’ All these

various dishes he literally imitated uncommonly well, the different

portions of an elk being their only foundation.”

During a trip of two months at the Horton Plains, Mr Baker killed

forty-three elk, which was working the pack pretty hard. At Newera Ellia

the game, though not quite so plentiful, is sufficiently abundant to

satisfy any reasonable sportsman, and an extract of three months’

hunting, at his own door, from our author’s game-book, shows a return of

eleven bucks, seventeen does, and four hogs.

Though the sport of elk-hunting is most exciting, the recital of

elk-hunting experiences must ever be somewhat monotonous: there is so

little room for varied incident. The hunter follows the music of his

pack over the open, at a long swinging trot, and bursts his way through

the dense jungle, and down the steep bank to the foaming torrent, in the

midst of which the elk is keeping the hounds at bay:—

“There they are in that deep pool formed by the river as it sweeps

round the rock. A buck! a noble fellow! Now he charges at the hounds,

and strikes the foremost beneath the water with his forefeet; up they

come again to the surface,—they hear their master’s well-known

shout,—they look round and see his welcome figure on the steep bank.

Another moment, a tremendous splash, and he is among his hounds, and

all are swimming towards their noble game. At them he comes with a

fierce rush. Avoid him as you best can, ye hunters, man, and hounds!”

This reminds us of an amusing experience of our own, under somewhat

similar circumstances. The master of one of the packs at Newera Ellia,

in those days a good specimen of a Ceylon Nimrod, and an old elk-hunter,

was anxious to show a naval friend of his the sport in perfection. We

happened to be of the party, and before long our ears were rejoiced with

that steady chorus which always tells of a buck at bay. Away we dashed

through the thorny jungle, and arrived at the edge of a deep black pool,

in which the elk was swimming, surrounded by the entire pack. Another

moment and we should have formed one of the damp but picturesque group,

when our naval friend, who had been left a little in the rear, unused to

such rough work, came up torn and panting. It suddenly occurs to Nimrod,

just as he is going to jump in, that it is hardly civil to his guest to

secure to himself the sportsman’s most delicious moment; he feels the

sacrifice he is making as, with a forced blandness, and an anxious

glance at the buck, he presses his hunting-knife into Captain F.’s hand,

saying, “After you, sir, pray.” “Eh! after me; where?—you don’t mean me

to go in there, do you?” “Certainly not, if you would rather stay here;

in that case be so good as give me the knife, as there is no time to be

lost.” “Oh, ah!—I didn’t understand;—how very stupid! Go in—oh

certainly: I shall be delighted;” and in dashed the gallant captain with

his two-edged blade gleaming in the morning sun. For a second the waters

closed over him, then he appeared spluttering and choking, and waving

aloft the naked steel preparatory to going down again; it was plain that

he could not swim a stroke, and it cost us no little trouble to pull out

the plucky sailor, who took the whole thing as a matter of course, and

would evidently have gone anywhere that he had been told. It is a

difficult matter to stick an elk while swimming, as the hide is very

thick, and the want of any sufficient purchase renders an effective blow

almost impossible. There is also a great risk of being struck by the

elk’s fore-legs, while impetuous young dogs are apt to take a nip of

their master by mistake. A powerful buck at bay is always a formidable

customer, and the largest dogs may be impaled like kittens if they do

not learn to temper their valour with discretion.

“The only important drawback,” says Mr Baker, “to the pleasure of

elk-hunting is the constant loss of dogs. The best are always sure to

go. What with deaths by boars, leopards, elk, and stray hounds, the pack

is with difficulty maintained. Poor old Bran, who, being a thorough-bred

greyhound, is too fine in the skin for such rough hunting, has been sewn

up in so many places that he is a complete specimen of needlework;”

while Killbuck and Smut, the hero of about four hundred deaths of elk

and boar, have terminated their glorious careers. Killbuck was pierced

by the sharp antlers of a spotted buck, after a splendid course over the

plains in the low country. If the bay of the deer is not so good as that

of the elk, the enjoyment of riding to your game renders deer-coursing a

far more agreeable sport than elk-hunting. Unfortunately for Killbuck

his buck came to bay as pluckily as any elk, and had pinned the noble

hound to the earth, before his master, who had been thrown in the course

of a reckless gallop, could come up to the rescue. But the boar is the

most destructive animal to the pack, and a fierce immovable bay, in

which every dog joins in an impetuous chorus, is always a dreaded sound

to the hunter, who knows well that tusks, and not antlers, are at work.

The following description of a boar at bay will give some idea of the

scene that then occurs:—

“There was a fight! The underwood was levelled, and the boar rushed to

and fro with Smut, Bran, Lena, and Lucifer, all upon him. Yoick to

him! and some of the most daring of the maddened pack went in. The

next instant we were upon him mingled with a confused mass of hounds;

and throwing our whole weight upon the boar, we gave him repeated

thrusts, apparently to little purpose. Round came his head and

gleaming tusks to the attack of his fresh enemies, but old Smut held

him by the nose, and, although the bright tusks were immediately

buried in his throat, the stanch old dog kept his hold. Away went the

boar covered by a mass of dogs, and bearing the greater part of our

weight in addition, as we hung on to the hunting-knives buried in his

shoulders. For about fifty paces he tore through the thick jungle,

crashing it like a cobweb. At length he again halted; the dogs, the

boar, and ourselves were mingled in a heap of confusion. All covered

with blood and dirt, our own cheers added to the wild bay of the

infuriated hounds, and the savage roaring of the boar. Still he fought

and gashed the dogs right and left. He stood about thirty-eight inches

high, and the largest dogs seemed like puppies beside him; still not a

dog relaxed his hold, and he was covered with wounds. I made a lucky

thrust for the nape of his neck. I felt the point of the knife touch

the bone; the spine was divided, and he fell dead.

“Smut had two severe gashes in the throat, Lena was cut under the ear,

and Bran’s mouth was opened completely up to his ear in a horrible

wound.”

But the boar sometimes comes off victorious; and the death of poor old

Smut has never been revenged. He was almost cut in half before Mr Baker

reached the bay, which lasted for an hour. At the end of that period,

Smut, gashed with many additional wounds, was expiring, and three of the

best remaining dogs were severely wounded; the dogs were with difficulty

called off the victorious monster; and Mr Baker records, with feelings

of profound emotion, the only defeat he ever experienced, and which

terminated fatally to the gallant leader of his pack.

The usual drawbacks and discomforts attendant upon a new settlement

having been overcome, our author assures us that Newera Ellia forms a

delightful place of residence. But it must not be supposed that, on the

occasion of his second visit to Ceylon, he confined himself to

elk-hunting and agriculture. He is frequently tempted from his highland

home to the elephant country, which is only about two days’ journey

distant; and the latter part of his volume abounds with exciting

descriptions of new encounters with rogues, involving the usual amount

of personal hazard; and lest the too ardent pursuit of this fascinating

sport seems scarcely to justify the apparent cruelty it involves, it

must be remembered that it is not more cruel to kill a large animal than

a small one, though this is a distinction we are too apt to make; and

when the large animal is also often destructive to life and property,

its slaughter is not only justifiable, but commendable in those who are

disposed to risk their lives for the benefit of the public and their own

gratification.

Indeed, so extensive are the ravages committed by elephants, that a

price is offered by government for their tails; since, however, the

procuring of tails has become a fashionable amusement among Europeans,

the reward has been reduced to the miserable sum of 7s. 6d. The Moorish

part of the community were the recognised elephant-slayers, so long as

there was profit to be made by these means. They now devote themselves

almost entirely to the capture of elephants alive for the purpose of

exportation to India. Mr Baker gives an amusing account of having

assisted to catch an elephant. He started with his brother and thirty

Moormen, armed with ropes, towards a herd of seven, of whose presence in

the neighbourhood intelligence had been received. Upon coming in sight

of the herd, one was selected for capture. Mr Baker and his brother and

their gun-bearers, taking the wind, advance under cover of the jungle to

open the ball. This they do in style, bagging six elephants in almost

the same number of minutes. The seventh starts off in full retreat with

the multitude at his heels. At last an active Moorman dexterously throws

a noose of thick but finely twisted hide rope over one of his hind-legs.

Following the line which the unconscious elephant trails after him like

a long snake, they wait until he enters the jungle, and then

unceremoniously check his further progress by taking a double turn round

a tree.

“Any but a hide rope of that diameter must have given way; but this

stretched like a harp-string, and, at every effort to break it, the

yielding elasticity of the hide threw him upon his head, and the

sudden contraction after the fall jerked his leg back to its full

length.

“After many vain but tremendous efforts to free himself, he turned his

rage upon his pursuers, and charged every one right and left; but he

was safely tied, and we took some little pleasure in teasing him. He

had no more chance than a fly in a spider’s web. As he charged in one

direction, several nooses were thrown round his hind-legs; then his

trunk was caught in a slip-knot, then his fore-legs, then his neck,

and the ends of all these ropes being brought together and hauled

tight, he was effectually hobbled.

“This had taken some time to effect (about half an hour), and we now

commenced a species of harness to enable us to drive him to the

village.

“The first thing was to secure his trunk by tying it to one of his

fore-legs; this leg was then fastened with a slack rope to one of his

hind-legs, which prevented him from taking a longer stride than about

two feet; his neck was then tied to his other fore-leg, and two ropes

were made fast to both his fore and hind legs; the ends of these ropes

being manned by thirty men.”

He was then driven to the village, and three days afterwards was

sufficiently tamed to be mounted. His value was then about £15.

Mr Baker at last becomes as dainty in his elephant-shooting as we have

already found him in the deer country. Where elephants are abundant he

despises a herd, and confines himself to rogues, where they are

procurable, always singling out the most vicious-looking, and this must

in some measure account for the redundancy of adventure in his

narrative. For though elephant-shooting is always attended with some

risk, the comparative extent of this depends entirely upon the manner in

which the sport is pursued. If tails are the desiderata, then a herd in

a nice open jungle presents the best chance of obtaining a supply with

the least possible amount of personal danger; but if sport is really

sought, then a rogue upon the open is certain to afford enough to

satisfy the most ardent Nimrod that ever drew trigger. The fatigue of

elephant-shooting is something inconceivable to those who have not for

six or eight consecutive hours laboured under a tropical sun with a

heavy rifle,—the barrels of which are so hot that they can scarcely be

touched,—over wide plains, and through long grass, matted over hidden

rocks and tangled jungle, with an underwood of the twining bamboo and

thorny mimosa. It is only the most intense excitement that could carry a

man through fatigue such as this; and a prize worthy of all that he has

undergone is needed to reward him for the day’s work. Under these

circumstances, it is clear that, the more imminent the peril, the more

satisfactory is the sport considered. There would be very little

gratification in toiling all day in a temperature of 130°, if there was

no opportunity presented of risking one’s life. Mr Baker’s enjoyment

must have reached its climax when he was actually wounded by an

elephant’s tusk. This indeed compensated for much hardship and

discomfort. It happened in this wise:

About two days’ journey from Newera Ellia is situated a large tract of

country called the Park. This is the most favourite resort of Ceylon

sportsmen, as elephants are generally abundant. The scenery is

beautiful, of a character which may be inferred from the name it now

bears among Europeans. It is of vast extent, watered by numerous large

rivers, and ornamented by rocky mountains, such as no English park can

boast. The lemon grass grows over the greater part of this country to a

height of ten or twelve feet, and large herds of elephants wander

through it, the crowns of their capacious brown heads, or the tips of

their trunks, tossed occasionally into the air, alone attesting their

presence.

A number of these appearing over the waving grass, delight the eyes of

Mr Baker and his brother one morning as they sally forth from their

night encampment with their usual deadly intent. Upon discovering the

daring intruders, the herd, consisting of ten, rally round the two

leaders, whose deep growls, like rumbling peals of thunder, is the call

in time of danger. Our author and his brother immediately advance

towards the dense mass, nothing daunted by so imposing an array. A part

of the herd beat a retreat, but five charge viciously; they are dropped

in as many successive shots, the last at a distance of only ten paces;

four more are slain in retreat, a faithless mother alone escaping, whose

little charge, so unusually deserted, Mr Baker captures, by taking hold

of his tail and trunk, and throwing him on his back. Those who have seen

an unweaned elephant calf will admit this to be no very difficult feat.

Having secured the infant, and left him in charge of his brother and the

gun-bearers, Mr Baker returns to seek his legitimate trophies in the

shape of tails.

“I had one barrel still loaded, and I was pushing my way through the

tangled grass towards the spot where the five elephants lay together,

when I suddenly heard Wallace shriek out, ‘Look out, sir! Look out!—an

elephant’s coming!’

“I turned round in a moment; and close past Wallace, from the very

spot where the last dead elephant lay, came the very essence and

incarnation of a ‘rogue’ elephant in full charge. His trunk was thrown

high in the air, his ears were cocked, his tail stood high above his

back as stiff as a poker, and, screaming exactly like the whistle of a

railway engine, he rushed upon me through the high grass with a

velocity that was perfectly wonderful. His eyes flashed as he came on,

and he had singled me out as his victim.

“I have often been in dangerous positions, but I never felt so totally

devoid of hope as I did in this instance. The tangled grass rendered

retreat impossible. I had only one barrel loaded, and that was

useless, as the upraised trunk protected his forehead. I felt myself

doomed; the few thoughts that rush through men’s minds in such

hopeless positions flew through mine, and I resolved to wait for him

till he was close upon me before I fired, hoping that he might lower

his trunk and expose his forehead.

“He rushed along at the pace of a horse in full speed; in a few

moments, as the grass flew to the right and left before him, he was

close upon me, but still his trunk was raised and I would not fire.

One second more, and at this headlong pace he was within three feet of

me; down slashed his trunk with the rapidity of a whip-thong, and with

a shrill scream of fury he was upon me.

“I fired at that instant; but in the twinkling of an eye I was flying

through the air like a ball from a bat. At the moment of firing I had

jumped to the left, but he struck me with his tusk in full charge upon

my right thigh, and hurled me eight or ten paces from him. That very

moment he stopped, and, turning round, he beat the grass about with

his trunk, and commenced a strict search for me. I heard him advancing

close to the spot where I lay as still as death, knowing that my last

chance lay in concealment. I heard the grass rustling close to the

spot where I lay; closer and closer he approached, and he at length

beat the grass with his trunk several times exactly above me. I held

my breath, momentarily expecting to feel his ponderous foot upon me.

Although I had not felt the sensation of fear while I had stood

opposed to him, I felt like what I never wish to feel again while he

was deliberately hunting me up. Fortunately I had reserved my fire

until the rifle had almost touched him, for the powder and smoke had

nearly blinded him, and had spoiled his acute power of scent. To my

joy I heard the rustling of the grass grow fainter; again, I heard it

at a still greater distance; at length it was gone.”

“There could not,” says our author naïvely, “be a better exemplification

of a rogue than in this case.” The knowing way in which he had remained

patiently concealed, while his enemies expended their ammunition and

energies upon the herd, and the sudden and furious manner in which he

came upon them, while unsuspectingly appropriating the tails of his

brethren, quite justifies this opinion of Mr Baker’s. He escapes

triumphantly, as he deserves to have done, and leaves Mr Baker to

contemplate his wounded leg for some days, during which he is unable to

move. We must do our author the justice to say that he seeks his revenge

as soon as he is able to put his foot to the ground, and a few days

afterwards we find him chasing a herd, until he says “my leg, which had

lost all feeling, suddenly gave way, and I lay sprawling on my face,

incapable of going a step farther. I had killed four elephants; it was

very bad luck, as the herd consisted of eleven, but my leg gave way when

most required.” If Mr Baker is not satisfied, we are. We shall not,

therefore, follow him through the exciting details of a jungle trip,

with which he concludes his most interesting work, and from which he and

his two companions, the Hon. Mr Stuart Wortley and Mr E. Palliser,

return in three weeks, with a bag of fifty elephants, five deer, and two

buffaloes. We have said enough to indicate to the reader in search of

excitement by his fireside where it is to be found—more than enough to

tempt the enthusiastic sportsman to exchange for a season the comforts

of home for the wild stirring life of the elephant-hunter; and we may

venture to assure him that he will ever recur with delight to the

enjoyment and rough luxury that a jungle trip alone affords, and he will

be ready to adopt, as we do ourselves, the concluding words of our

author:

“The well-arranged tent, the neatly spread table, the beds forming a

triangle around the walls, and the clean guns piled in a long row

against the gun-rack, will often recall a _tableau_ in after years, in

countries far from this land of independence. The acknowledged sports

of England will appear child’s play; the exciting thrill will be

wanting, when a sudden rush in the jungle brings the rifle on full

cock; and the heavy guns will become useless mementos of past days,

like the dusty helmets of yore, hanging up in an old hall. The belt

and the hunting-knife will alike share the fate of the good rifle, and

the blade, now so keen, will blunt from sheer neglect. The slips,

which have held the necks of dogs of such staunch natures, will hang

neglected from the wall; and all these _souvenirs_ of wild sports,

contrasted with the puny implements of the English chase, will awaken

once more the longing desire for the ‘Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon.’”

GRAY’S LETTERS.[13]

We do not intend upon the present occasion, however legitimate the

opportunity, to trespass long upon the patience of our readers, in

discussing the merits or demerits of Gray’s poetical style. Some few

remarks we are tempted to make, chiefly of a conciliatory character; but

we shall very rapidly pass on to his Life and Letters, which are the

more immediate subject of the book before us. In critical debates upon

English poetry, the name of Gray has been often a rallying point for the

disputants: he has been held up as a bright example by one party, and by

another, as a salutary warning to all youthful aspirants. “Of all

English poets,” says Sir James Mackintosh, “he was the most finished

artist. He attained the highest degree of splendour of which poetical

style seems to be capable.” We all know what Wordsworth thought of the

splendour of this poetical style, and how severely he and others have

dealt with it.

Poetry is a very difficult subject to reason about; and the more

refined, and the more bold, and the more complex the associations of

thought in which it deals, the more difficult does it become to prove,

by any process of argument, that it is good or bad. As little can you

teach a man to _enjoy_ poetry, to discover it when it lies before him,

by any rules, or process of reasoning, analytic or synthetic, as you

could teach a man by the same methods to _write_ poetry. For there is

always in the more subtle kinds of poetry an element of _unreason_;

plain truth is somewhere set at defiance; and who can possibly draw the

line, or say precisely to what extent imagination, under the sway of

feeling or sentiment, shall be allowed to transgress on the palpable

verities of our senses, or our better judgment? How can reason decide

exactly, where reason herself shall be set aside in favour of emotion?

Emotion, after all, must have her voice in the matter; and the final

result must be some uncertain compromise between them.

We will draw an illustration of our meaning from no vulgar critic. The

refined taste of Mr Landor will be at once admitted; nor will he lie

open to the objection often brought against our northern critics, that

they are too metaphysical or analytic in their strictures upon

metaphorical language. We extract the two following annotations, from

his conversation between himself and Southey, on two several passages in

_Milton’s Paradise Lost_. They will aptly illustrate the difficulty

which every one will encounter who has to reason upon the right and

wrong of a poet’s imagination.

“What a beautiful expression is there in verse 546, which I do not

remember that any critic has noticed—

‘Obtain the brow of some _high-climbing_ hill.’

Here the hill itself is instinct with life and activity.”

Agreed: it is a beautiful expression; and if any one insists that a hill

does not climb, but is a thing to be climbed upon, we pronounce him a

blockhead for his pains. Nevertheless the blockhead has palpable truth

upon his side. The hill does not climb in fact, and there is no process

we know of by which it can be made to climb in his imagination. Now for

our second comment—

“‘Sage he stood,

With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear

The weight of mightiest monarchies.’

Often and often have these verses been quoted without a suspicion how

strongly the corporeal is substituted for the moral. However Atlantean

his shoulders might be, the might of monarchies could no more be

supported by them than by the shoulders of a grasshopper.”

Here, Mr Landor takes part with plain matter-of-fact against that play

of poetic imagination, which often succeeds in making one deep and

harmonious impression out of incongruous materials, merely by the

dexterous rapidity with which these are passed before the mind. We

confess to have admired the bold, vague, instantaneous, transitory

combination of physical with moral properties, which we have in these

celebrated lines. The monarchies do not rest directly on the

“shoulders,” but on the sage man with these broad shoulders, and the

epithet “Atlantean,” by suggesting immediately a mythological person,

has already half allegorised the figure. The shoulders which are for an

instant brought before the mind’s eye, have never supported any less

honourable weight than that of a whole world. Mr Landor, however, may be

right; we are not disputing the correctness of his criticism; we are

only pointing out the inherent difficulties of the subject. Mr Landor

may be right; but what answer would he give to the man of plain

understanding who did not comprehend how a hill could climb, and who

should insist upon it, that a mound of earth could no more be “instinct

with life and activity” than broad shoulders could help a man to govern

well?

Turning over the pages of a work of Meinherr Feuchtersleben on Medical

Psychology, we met with the remark, that the effort to enjoy or attend

to some of our finer sensations was not always followed by an increase

in those pleasurable sensations. Thus, he says, we distend our nostrils

and inspire vigorously when we would take our fill of some agreeable

odour, and yet certain of the more refined scents escape us by this very

effort to seize and appropriate them. Passing by a bed of violets, the

flowers themselves perhaps unseen, how charming a fragrance has hit upon

the unwarned sense! Turn back, and strenuously inhale for the very

purpose of enjoying it more fully, the fairy favour has escaped you. It

floated on the air, playing with the sense of him who sought not for it;

but quite refusing to be fed upon voraciously by the prying and dilated

nostril. Something like this may be observed in the case of poetical

enjoyment. The susceptible reader feels it, though he sought it not, and

the more varied the culture of his mind, the more likely is he to be

visited by this pleasure; but it will not be captured by any effort of

hard, vigorous attention, or the merely scrutinising intellect. The

poetry of the verse, like the fragrance of the violet, will not be

rudely seized; and he who knits his brow and strains his faculty of

thought over the light and musical page may wonder how it happens that

the charm grows less as his desire to fix and to appropriate it has

increased.

When, therefore, we discuss the merits of a poetical style, we enter

upon a subject on which we must not expect to reason with strict

certainty, or arrive at very dogmatic conclusions. To the last some

minds will find a glorious imagination, where others will perceive only

a logical absurdity. We can only come, as we have said, to some

compromise between reason and emotion. They meet together in the arena

of imagination, and must settle their rival claims as they best can.

That Gray was a true poet surely no one will deny. Who has bequeathed,

in proportion to the extent or volume of his writings, a greater number

of those individual lines and passages which live in the memory of all

men, and are recognised as the most perfect expression of a given

thought or sentiment that our British world has produced? But such lines

and passages rarely bear the stamp of the poet’s mannerism. They would

not have gained their universal acceptation if they had. Highest

excellence is all of one style. That manner which constitutes the

peculiarity of Gray, and which distinguishes him from other poets, we

certainly do not admire, and we will give the best reasons for our

dislike to it that we are able.

Poetry we have somewhere heard defined as “passionate rhythmical

expression;” and, if our memory fail us, and we do not quote correctly,

we nevertheless venture to promulgate this as a very sufficient

definition. It is passionate rhythmical expression; and it becomes

imaginative because it is passionate. Every one knows that strong

feeling runs to metaphor and imagery to express itself; or, in other

words, that a predominant sentiment will gather round itself a host of

kindred ideas held often together by almost imperceptible associations.

In proportion as the mind is full of ideas or remembered objects, will

be the complex structure which will grow out of this operation. It is

not, therefore, because a strain is complex, ornate, or full of

learning, that it ceases to be spontaneous or natural. If Milton rolls

out thought after thought, gathered from the literature of Rome or

Greece, the verse may be quite as natural, quite as genuine an

expression of sentiment as any ballad in the _Percy Reliques_. But what

is desired is, that, learned or not, the strain have this character of

spontaneity, _that it be the language in which some mortal has verily

and spontaneously thought_. We do not mean, of course, that the style

should not be corrected by afterthought, but the corrections should be

made in the same spirit, the language moving from the thought and

passion of the man. Now, there is much of Gray’s writing of which it

cannot be said that the language or imagery flows by any such

spontaneous process; in which we are perpetually reminded of effort and

artifice, which, as it never _came from_, so it can never go home

straightway to any human soul.

We might venture even to take for an instance the popular line—

“E’en in our ashes live their wonted fires.”

This quotation has obtained a general currency: “ashes” and their

“fires” bear each other out so well, that the careless reader has no

doubt the meaning is all right. Yet we suspect that very many quote the

line without any distinct meaning whatever attached to it. And for this

reason,—no Englishman would ever naturally have expressed the sentiment

in this language. Men, at least some men, are careful where they shall

lay their bones; they would sleep amongst their fathers, their

countrymen, their children; some seek a retired spot; some where friends

will congregate; some choose the sun, and some the shadow. They endue

the dead clay that will be lying under the turf with some vague

sentiment of feeling—with some residue of the old affections. Would any

Englishman, impressed with such a feeling, go back in imagination to

classic times, when the body was burnt, and speak of “ashes” which never

will exist, rather than of the slumbering corpse which his eye must be

following, as he speaks, into the earth? Here is the whole stanza:—

“On some fond breast the parting soul relies,

Some pious drops the closing eye requires,

E’en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,

E’en in our ashes live their wonted fires.”

It is altogether, it will be seen, a very elaborate structure. Gray was

a genuine lover of nature; yet he would rather make a patchwork out of

poetical phrases, and the traditional imagery of the poets, than place

himself in the scene he meant to describe, and watch in imagination the

effects it would produce upon him. The critics have remarked that, in

the opening stanzas of the _Elegy_, events are described as

contemporaneous which must have been successive. We have sunset in one

stanza:—

“Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight.”

And in the next, we have advanced into the perfect moonlight:—

“Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower

The moping owl does to the moon complain,

Of such as, wandering near her secret bow’r,

Molest her ancient solitary reign.”

It may be argued, indeed, that time does not stand still with the poet;

and that, as he lingered in the churchyard, twilight had given way to

midnight. But we are afraid that the true answer is simply this—that the

ivy-mantled tower, the moon, and the owl, were, at all events, to be

introduced as fit accompaniments of the scene; and that no question was

ever asked how they would harmonise with the sunset view of distant

fields, that we had glanced at just before.

“Hark, how each giant oak, and desert cave,

Sighs to the torrent’s awful voice beneath!”

That one who loved mountains, and frequented them, should put a string

of unmeaning words like these into the mouth of his Welsh bard! There is

absolutely _nothing_ in them. Give your Welsh harper the finest ear

imaginable, and put him on what mountain you will, what “desert caves”

will he hear sighing in response to giant oaks, and these again to the

torrent beneath?

“O’er thee, oh King! their hundred arms they wave,

Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe.”

The oaks waving in wrath “their hundred arms,” is a fine frenzy enough;

but it is spoilt again by the “hoarser murmurs breathe,”—words in which

no man ever thought.

Instances of this artificial manner of building up the rhyme, it would

be superfluous to multiply. Let us rather drop a hint against carrying

our strictures to an undue degree of severity. There is, especially, a

running charge of plagiarism brought against Gray, and all such

_composite_ poets, which is altogether unfair. If they have formed their

style in the study of other poets, it follows that they must repeat the

phrases of their predecessors; but, if they do this in the expression of

a new thought of their own, such use of their language must not be

described as plagiarism. A critic before us thus comments on some lines

in the _Elegy_:—

“Their furrow oft the _stubborn glebe_ has broke;

How jocund did they drive their _team a-field_,

How bent the woods beneath their _sturdy stroke_.”

“This stanza is made up of various pieces inlaid. ‘Stubborn glebe’ is

from Gay; ‘drive a-field’ from Milton; ‘sturdy stroke’ from

Spencer.”[14] Now, there is not one of these expressions which does not

here fall very properly into its place; and a writer familiar with

poetic diction would make use of them without any reference to the

authors from whom they might have been, in the first place, received.

Indeed, it would be quite impossible for any one to compose in this

_mosaic_ fashion; nor is there any end to the charges of plagiarism that

might, on this principle, be brought. If such expressions as “sturdy

stroke,” and “drive a-field,” are to be traced to the ownership of some

predecessor, one does not see how one is to move at all. The language of

the country, like its arable land, is all appropriated. In the passage

here commented on, the critic needed not have stopped where he did. “How

jocund,” he might have added, is from Fletcher, and “how bent the

woods,” from Dryden; and then only consider if these three lines were

composed after such a fashion, what a wonderful piece of workmanship

they must be! Whilst we are as hostile as any to laborious, conscious

artifice, or the mere repetition of traditional phrases and images, we

must deprecate a species of criticism which would shut out the poet from

his legitimate resources, deter him from the careful study of his

predecessors, and either drive him into a poor, timid, barren style of

composition, or else induce him to seek the praise of originality by

coining new words and fantastical expressions.

We must now address ourselves to the work before us, _The Correspondence

of Gray and Mason_, as here presented to us by the careful editorship of

Mr Mitford.

Mr Mitford has by his editorial offices for ever associated his own name

with that of the poet Gray. In the Aldine edition of his works he

performed the good office of restoring the genuine text of Gray’s

letters, which his first biographer, Mason, had so singularly garbled.

For this and other good services of the same kind the public were

already indebted to Mr Mitford. He has now, we presume, completed his

labours on this subject by the publication of _The Correspondence of

Gray and Mason_ in the form Mason himself had preserved it, with copious

notes explanatory of all things necessary to be known, and some which,

we are happy to think, are not quite necessary items in the sum of human

knowledge.

The publication of this octavo volume in its separate form was, we

suppose, inevitable. The course of editorial labours will not run smooth

any more than any other courses. In due order of things, Mr Mitford,

when he prepared his edition of _Gray’s Letters_ for the press, should

have had the materials which form this volume put into his hands; he

could then have incorporated in his book such additions to the letters

of Gray as are to be found here; he could have avoided reprinting a

considerable number of them, and might have given us such of the letters

of Mason (none others are of the least value) as throw light upon the

biography and writings of the poet Gray. But this natural order of

things was not to be permitted. It was, we must presume, after the

Aldine edition had been printed that the manuscript of Mason came under

his inspection. Thus this large new volume was judged indispensable,

although it is manifestly destined to a very brief existence; and, in

spite of its luxury of type, and its neat livery of green and gold, must

be absorbed, its personality entirely lost, in the next and more

complete edition of the works of Gray.

When Mason prepared the letters of his distinguished friend for

publication, he was not sufficiently unreasonable to thrust many of his

own upon the notice of the reader; but he took care to preserve

carefully in a manuscript volume the correspondence of both parties, or

at least such portions of his own letters as he thought were creditable

to himself. This manuscript volume he bequeathed to his friend Mr

Stonhewer; from him “it passed,” Mr Mitford tells us in his preface,

“into the hands of his relative, Mr Bright of Skeffington Hall,

Leicestershire. When, in the year 1845, the library of Gray was sold by

the sons of that gentleman, then deceased, this volume of Correspondence

was purchased by Mr Penn of Stoke Park, and by him was kindly placed in

my hands for publication.”

Mr Mitford has not only judged it worthy of a separate publication, but

has bestowed the utmost pains in preparing it for the press. His

industrial annotation strikes us with a sort of wonder. We are amazed at

the pertinacity of research, all the more laudable, we presume, because

the prize held forth was of such almost inappreciable value. “So you

have christened Mr Dayrolles’ child,” says Mr Gray to the Rev William

Mason, and passes on, regardless, to other matter—to something

pertaining to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. Not so the

conscientious editor. Who is this Mr Dayrolles? and why has the

christening of his child by the Rev. William Mason been glanced at by

the poet? Forthwith a ransacking amongst all memoirs; we are referred to

_Chesterfield’s Letters_, Maty’s edition, and Lord Mahon’s edition, and

_Walpole’s Miscellaneous Letters_; and at length, in a manuscript

memorandum (so far do we extend our researches), we find the bit of

scandal: this “Mr Dayrolles’ child” is not the child of Mr Dayrolles at

all, but of one Mr Stanhope; and to this it was that, we are told, “Mr

Gray silently pointed.”—P. 129.

It is not always that we get even such a result. Sometimes we have a

long list of references, with some dates and facts, dry as a parish

register. Here is a note on a certain Mr Cambridge.

“On Mr Cambridge and his habits of conversation, see ‘Walpole’s

Letters to Lady Ossory,’ vol. i. pp. 132, 140, 410; vol. ii. p. 242;

Walpole to Mason, vol. i. p. 235; and ‘Nichol’s Literary

Illustrations,’ vol. i. p. 130; and ‘Rockingham Memoirs,’ vol. i. p.

215, for his letter to Lord Hardwicke, in June 1765. In conversation

he was said to be full of entertainment, liveliness, and anecdote. One

sarcastic joke on Capability Brown testifies his wit, and his

_Scribleriad_ still survives in the praises of Dr Warton; yet the

radical fault that pervades it is well shown in _Annual Review_, ii.

584.”—P. 184.

Even the “one sarcastic joke” we are not permitted to hear; but we are

kindly told in what volume of the _Annual Review_ we shall find the

“radical fault,” pointed out of a satire that lives only “in the praises

of Dr Warton.” One more instance we must select, that our readers may

form some just appreciation of the indefatigable research of our learned

editor. The name of Sir Richard Lyttleton being mentioned, we are

invited to the perusal of the following note:—

“Richard Lyttleton, K.B. He married the Lady Rachel Russell, sister of

John Duke of Bedford, and widow of Scrope Egerton, Duke of

Bridgewater. He was first page of honour to Queen Caroline; then

successively Captain of Marines, Aide-de-Camp to the Earl of Stair at

the battle of Dettingen, and Deputy Quartermaster-General in South

Britain, with the rank of Lieut.-Colonel and Lieut.-General, &c. He

was fifth son of Sir Thomas, fourth baronet and younger brother of

George, First Lord Lyttleton.—See some letters by him in ‘Chatham

Correspondence,’ vol. ii. p. 173, &c. He was Governor of Minorca in

1764, and subsequently Governor of Guernsey.—See ‘Walpole’s Misc.

Letters,’ iv. pp. 363, 424. He died in 1770. _His house, in the Harley

Street corner, 1 Cavendish Square_, was bought by the Princess Emily,

and was afterwards Mr Hope’s, and then Mr Watson Taylor’s.—See

‘Grenville Papers,’ i. pp. 49, 249; and ii. pp. 442, 449. _When in

Minorca, he was involved in some dispute with Samuel Johnson, who held

a situation under him._—See reference to it in ‘Walpole’s Letters to

Lord Hertford,’ Feb. 6, 1764.”

All this, we doubt not, is very praiseworthy; but where is it to end? A

learned man writing to another learned man, says, in honest blunt

vernacular, “Have you seen Mr Thomson?” and passes on to other matter.

Is the heart of an editor to beat within him till he has discovered who

this Thomson was, and everything discoverable about him—what house he

lived in, and whom he quarrelled with? This Thomson is mentioned only

once, and we have nothing of him but his name. The more mysterious,

seems the indefatigable editor to think; and the more meritorious, if

from so slight a clue he can succeed in identifying this defunct

Thomson. Whereupon a ransacking of all libraries and innumerable

references,—see this, see that! see, see! We wonder if there is any one

man in Great Britain, not an editor, so laboriously idle as to climb the

steps of a library to _see_ after all these surprising discoveries.

Books, it seems, are used by different persons for very different

purposes. Some build up theories of all sorts with them; children take

them out of the book-case, and build houses and castles with them,

perhaps almost as substantial; the good monks in one of the monasteries

of the Levant, Mr Curzon tells us, used them as mats, or cushions, to

protect their bare feet from the cold pavement of the chapel; and

others, again, pull them about, and toss over the leaves with restless

agitation—to find who Mr Thomson was! Of the two last, we infinitely

prefer the quiet serviceable employment of them by the monks whom Mr

Curzon visited.

“There is a pleasure in poetic pains”—there must be a charm in labour

editorial that only editors can know. There is withal, it seems, a

gravity of duty, a weight of responsibility, which they only can duly

appreciate. We are happy to hear, that in proportion to the dulness is

the virtue of their labours. “To give some personality,” says our

present editor in his preface, “_to names, most of them new, even to

those who are acquainted with the common biographies of Gray_, has been

found, from the lapse of time, a matter of some difficulty; and success

has only been attained by the assistance of various friends. To have

passed over this part of the task would have been unsatisfactory, and

considered _a dereliction of duty_!” It is added, with a little

inconsistency, that the persons whose names are here heard for the first

time, “formed the select and intimate society of one who was not

remarkable for the facility with which his acquaintance was gained.”

What intimate friend have we here added to the well-known list? But let

us grant that the mantle of the poet ennobles all it touches, does the

Reverend William Mason also rank among the inspired?—for we find that

his letters are edited with the same reverential care.

We shall be answered, that if we do not think highly of the immortal

author of _Elfrida_, and _Caractacus_, and _The English Garden_, others

do. Mr Mitford does. “The place in his library was pointed out to me,”

he pathetically tells us, “where Mason usually sate and wrote. _His

poetical chair_—sedes beata—_was kindly bequeathed to me; and I have

left it by will to the Poet Laureate of the day, that it may rest

amongst the sacred brotherhood!_” What an announcement for Mr Tennyson

to read! What will he do with the chair when it comes? A superstitious

man would hardly venture to sit in it. Who knows what spirit of

drowsiness may be still clinging about it?

If we have been provoked into any impatient remarks on this excess of

editorship, we would at the same time express—as we feel—an undiminished

respect for Mr Mitford. He is a literary veteran who has performed many

a good service. We would rather retract every word, and beg that every

expression be set down to mere petulance on our part, than be thought

wanting in personal respect to one who has well earned his reputable

position in the world of letters. But we cannot help ourselves; we must

“tell the tale,” as the tale tells itself to us.

Of the few additions made in the present volume to the letters of Gray,

those which congratulate Mason on his clerical promotion, and on his

marriage, are amongst the most sprightly and entertaining. The following

extracts may be new to our readers:—

“DEAR MASON,—It is a mercy that old men are mortal, and that dignified

clergymen know how to keep their word. I heartily rejoice with you in

your establishment, and with myself that I have lived to see it—to see

your insatiable mouth stopped, and your anxious periwig at rest and

slumbering in a stall. The Bishop of London, you see, is dead; there

is a fine opening. Is there nothing further to tempt you? Feel your

own pulse, and answer me seriously. It rains precentorships; you have

only to hold up your skirts to catch them.” * * *

“DEAR DOCTOR,—I send your reverence the lesson, &c. No sooner do

people feel their income increase than they want amusement. Why, what

need have you of any other than to sit like a Japanese divinity, with

your hands folded on your fat belly, wrapped, and, as it were,

annihilated in the contemplation of your own _copuses_ and revenues?”

His felicitations upon his friend’s marriage are not always

distinguished for their delicacy. With full allowance for the difference

of the times, we still encounter a certain coarseness we should not have

expected in the fastidious Gray. But the following is a very charming

letter:—

“DEAR MASON,—_Res est sacra miser_ (says the poet), but I say it is

the happy man that is the sacred thing, and therefore let the profane

keep their distance. He is one of Lucretius’ gods, supremely blest in

the contemplation of his own felicity, and what has he to do with

worshippers? This, mind, is the first reason why I did not come to

York; the second is, that I do not love confinement, and probably by

next summer may be permitted to touch whom, and where, and with what I

think fit, without giving you any offence; the third and last, and not

the least perhaps, is, that the finances were at so low an ebb that I

could not exactly do what I wished, but was obliged to come the

shortest road to town and recruit them. I do not justly know what your

taste in reasons may be since you altered your condition, but there is

the ingenious, the petulant, and the dull; any one would have done,

for in my conscience I do not believe you care a halfpenny for reasons

at present: so God bless ye both, and give ye all ye wish, when ye are

restored to the use of your wishes.

“I am returned from Scotland charmed with my expedition: it is of the

Highlands I speak; the Lowlands are worth seeing once, but the

mountains are ecstatic, and ought to be visited in pilgrimage once

a-year. None but those monstrous creatures of God know how to join so

much beauty with so much horror. A fig for your poets, painters,

gardeners, and clergymen, that have not been among them; their

imagination can be made up of nothing but bowling-greens, flowering

shrubs, horse-ponds, Fleet-ditches, shell grottoes, and Chinese rails.

Then I had so beautiful an autumn—Italy could hardly produce a nobler

scene—and this so sweetly contrasted with the perfection of nastiness,

and total want of accommodation, that Scotland only can supply! Oh,

you would have blessed yourself! I shall certainly go again.”

“DEAR MASON,—I rejoice; but has she common sense? Is she a

gentlewoman? Has she money? Has she a nose? I know she sings a little,

and twiddles on the harpsichord, hammers at sentiment, and puts

herself in an attitude, admires a cast in the eye, and can say

_Elfrida_ by heart. But these are only the virtues of a maid. Do let

her have some wife-like qualities, and a double portion of prudence,

as she will have not only herself to govern but you also, and that

with an absolute sway. Your friends, I doubt not, will suffer for it.

However, we are very happy, and have no other wish than to see you

settled in the world. We beg you would not stand fiddling about it,

but be married forthwith.”

It is impossible, and indeed would be doing injustice to the editor, to

regard this present volume in any other light than as a supplement to

his edition of the Works of Gray. We must beg leave, therefore, to

revert briefly to the life and letters as they are set forth in this

preceding publication. It so happens that Mr Mitford was not fortunate

even here in the order and method in which his materials reached him,

and were consequently arranged. Fresh accessions came in at the latest

hour; a fifth volume was to be added, in which there was much

repetition; whole letters being reprinted that had already appeared in

their place in the previous volumes. Sometimes also an interesting fact

is slipped into an appendix, where it may chance to have escaped the eye

of all but very attentive readers.

One such fact arrested our own attention, and is a fact of great

significance. To some of our readers we may be rendering a welcome

service by bringing it forward. We are referred to Sir Egerton Brydges

as the authority for it.

Few lives, even of literary men, are said to have been more devoid of

incident than Gray’s; yet it is probable that, if we could lift the

curtain from his domestic life during the period of his youth, we should

find that it was disturbed enough, and of such a nature as must have

left deep traces in the subsequent character of the man. Gray, it will

be remembered, was (to adopt the language of Horace Walpole) “the son of

a money scrivener by Mary Antrobus, a milliner in Cornhill, and sister

to two Antrobus’s who were ushers of Eton School. He was born in 1716,

and educated at Eton College, chiefly under the direction of one of his

uncles, who took prodigious pains with him, which answered exceedingly.

From Eton he went to Peter House at Cambridge,” &c. &c. So in all

biographies glides on the simple account of his career. Nothing is said

of that home in Cornhill, or wherever it was in the City.

But now, some years ago, at a sale of books belonging to one Isaac Reid,

there was purchased a manuscript volume of law cases, written out very

probably by some studious pupil, for his future behoof and instruction.

Amongst these law cases was one drawn up by the mother of Gray, or by

some one on her part, and laid formally before counsel for his opinion.

It reveals in its one solitary statement the history of years; it tells

of domestic discord of the harshest character, and this brought on and

imbittered by pecuniary difficulties. Whilst young Gray was studying at

Peter House, Cambridge, his mother was drawing up the following case for

the opinion of counsel.

CASE.

“Philip Gray, before his marriage with his wife (then Dorothy

Antrobus, and who was then partner with her sister Mary Antrobus),

entered into certain articles of agreement”—(permitting, in short, the

said Dorothy Antrobus to continue the said partnership for her own

sole and separate use.)

“That in pursuance of the said articles, the said Mary, with the

assistance of the said Dorothy her sister, hath carried on the said

trade for near thirty years, with tolerable success for the said

Dorothy. That she hath been at no charge to the said Philip; and

during all the said time hath not only found herself in all manner of

apparel, but also for all her children to the number of twelve, and

most of the furniture of his house; and paying £40 a-year for his

shop, _almost providing everything for her son, whilst at Eton school,

and now he is at Peter House at Cambridge_.

“Notwithstanding which, _almost ever since he hath been married_, he

hath used her in the most inhuman manner, by beating, kicking,

pinching, and with the most vile and abusive language; that she hath

been in the utmost fear, and danger of her life, and hath been obliged

this last year to quit her bed and lie with her sister. _This she was

resolved, if possible, to bear; not to leave her shop of trade for the

sake of her son, to be able to assist in the maintenance of him at the

University, since his father won’t._

“There is no cause for this usage unless it be an unhappy jealousy of

all mankind in general (her own brother not excepted); but no woman

deserves or hath maintained a more virtuous character: or it is

presumed, if he can make her sister leave off trade, he thinks he can

then come into his wife’s money, but the articles are too secure for

his vile purposes.

“He daily threatens he will pursue her with all the vengeance

possible, and _will ruin himself to undo her and his only son_; in

order to which he hath given warning to her sister to quit his shop

where they have carried on their trade so successfully, which will be

almost their ruin: but he insists she shall go out at Midsummer next;

and the said Dorothy, his wife, in necessity must be forced to go

along with her to some other house and shop, _to be assisting to her

said sister in the said trade, for her own and her son’s support_.

“But if she can be quiet, she neither expects nor desires any help

from him: but he is really so very vile in his nature, she hath all

the reason to expect most troublesome usage from him that can be

thought of.”—Vol. i. Appendix B.

Then follow some questions, and the answer of Counsel, which it is not

necessary to extract. What must have been the effect of such domestic

scenes as are here disclosed to us, on the sensitive mind of Gray, may

be partly guessed. Nor need we be surprised that the college youth at

Peter House, and the associate of Horace Walpole, early contracted a

habit of silence upon the events of his own life. Bonstettin, whom he

took so cordially to his friendship, says, “Je racontais à Gray ma vie

et mon pays, mais toute sa vie à lui était fermée pour moi. _Jamais il

ne me parlait de lui._ Il y avait chez Gray entre le present et le passé

un abîme infranchisable. Quand je voulais un approche, de sombre nuées

venaient le couvrir.”—Vol. V., Notes, p. 181.

We understand now why Gray held his mother in so much esteem, and why

the father was rarely spoken of, while her name was never mentioned to

the latest day without a trembling of the voice; why there was found at

his death, still unopened, in his room, the chest containing her

wearing-apparel: he had never dared to open it, or had never reconciled

himself to part with its contents. To his mother he owed his education

and the position he occupied in life—a greater debt than even that life

which she twice gave. He was the only one of twelve children who

survived. The rest died in their infancy, as we are told, “from

suffocation produced by a fulness of blood;” and this strange family

destiny would have befallen Gray also, but that his mother “removed the

paroxysm which attacked him, by opening a vein with her own hand.”

The chief incident of Gray’s life, so far as biographers have been able

to record it, is his intimacy with Walpole;—his journey with him upon

the Continent, and the rupture that took place between them. Of this

quarrel we find an explanation in a note which is by no means honourable

to Walpole. Entertaining a suspicion that Gray had spoken ill of him to

some friends in England, he clandestinely opened and re-sealed one of

Gray’s letters. After this, there was “little cordiality between them.”

We should think not, for, short of a crime, could one man be guilty

towards another of a more dishonourable action? But we are not satisfied

with the authority on which this explanation is given. The account will

be found in a note, vol. ii. p. 175. We have only that sort of hearsay

evidence which lawyers have universally agreed in rejecting. A Mr Isaac

Reed makes a private memorandum (some time after the conversation) of

what a Mr Roberts, of the Pell office, had told him. This is not

sufficient authority for what, we presume in the time of Walpole as well

as our own, would be regarded as a grave charge, if brought against a

gentleman. Of Mr Roberts, of the Pell office, and how he heard the

story, we are told nothing. Mr Isaac Reed merely says of him “that he

was likely to be well informed.”

The quarrel, its cause and its reconciliation, are, perhaps, now of very

little moment, but the intimacy with Walpole must always remain as one

of the most important facts in the life of Gray. For what is the

character which Gray reveals to us? In few words, it is the incongruous

combination of the sensitive poet and man of letters, with the

affectation and levity of a man of the world. This latter phase of his

character must have owed much of its development to his early

intercourse with the son of a prime-minister, and one whose wit and

pleasantry would fully justify and explain an influence over his graver

companion. Gray was a man who had a heart, and had learnt to hide it

under the affectation of indifference; neither could he have been

without the stirrings of a noble ambition; but he had taught himself

that it was a prettier thing to graft the man of letters on the refined

gentleman, than to give himself, heart and soul, to some intellectual

enterprise. He thinks, or he can write, that “Literature, to take it in

its most comprehensive sense, and include everything that requires

invention or judgment, or barely application and industry, seems indeed

drawing apace to its dissolution;” but he makes no serious effort to

arrest this dissolution. What is the literature of a country but the

efforts of such men as he? There was a younger contemporary, one Gibbon,

then turning over the same classic pages as himself, who was soon to add

to the literature of England a History which would display more learning

and more eloquence than had ever before been united together.

Antiquarian as he was, what epoch has he illustrated for us? Zoologist,

botanist; he corrects the latinity of Linnæus! He makes notes

innumerable—notes on Strabo, notes on Plato; the text of what author has

he amended or explained for us? When appointed Professor of History, he

does not even write a single lecture.

“The political opinions of Gray, H. Walpole says, he never rightly

understood;” and his biographer adds that his religious opinions lie in

a certain obscurity. Some writers “not favourable to the cause of

Christianity,” have ranked him, it seems, amongst freethinkers: orthodox

and pious friends have no doubt whatever about his orthodoxy or his

piety. The perusal of his Letters never led us, for a moment, to rank

him amongst unbelievers; but if any one should suggest that he had not

thought on the subject with sufficient earnestness even to be a doubter,

we might be disposed to acquiesce in this explanation. He lived in a

time when there was little earnestness of thought, and he was not of

that energetic nature which rises above the influence of the age. He was

scandalised at Rousseau and Voltaire because they were disturbers of the

peace: one is not sure that there was a deeper feeling in his hostility

towards them. The manner in which a person is _written to_ is often as

significant as the manner in which he himself writes. Throughout their

correspondence, the Rev. William Mason never alludes to his clerical

profession in any one respect but as a means of living well and

comfortably in the world—as a career in which promotion and good living

are to be encountered. The credit of this quite secular tone must be

divided between the correspondents: perhaps in the greater measure to

the elder and more influential of the two.

These correspondents were, no doubt, excellent friends; but Gray never

speaks to a third person in a very flattering manner of Mason. He is

disposed always to deny any very close intimacy. He appears to have said

to himself, Men will laugh at us two poets, communing upon verse, and

flattering each other _upon the muse_; they will make me out also no

better than a poet; whereas I am gentleman by profession and poet by

accident. Writing to Walpole, he says, “I like Mr Aston Hervey’s Fable,

and an ode by Mr Mason, a new acquaintance of mine.” Of this new

acquaintance he had written to Warton, more than two years before, in

the following strain: “Mr Mason is my acquaintance; I liked that ode

very much, but have found no one else that did. He has much fancy,

little judgment, and a good deal of modesty. I take him for a good and

well-meaning creature; but then he is really in simplicity a child, and

loves everybody he meets with; he reads little or nothing, writes

abundance, and that with a design to make his fortune by it.” In another

place he says of him that he “has not, properly speaking, anything one

can call a passion about him, except a little malice and revenge.” Such

phrases as these occur in his correspondence with Warton and Brown: “I

do not hear from Mason;” “You think us great correspondents, but,” &c.

To us it seems that he really liked the younger poet, who more, perhaps,

than any other man he knew, sympathised with him on the poetical side of

his character; but then he did not like to be grouped with him, in the

eyes of the wits and the worldlings. They will compare us, and associate

us, and think us rival candidates for popular applause.

We see this morbid sense of ridicule betray itself in his publication of

his poems. He insists upon it that the poems shall be published as mere

illustrations of the drawings of Bentley, which accompanied them. The

book met with applause, and the _Elegy_ became at once a popular

favourite. He seems, in a letter to Warton, to reprove and to repudiate

this abundant praise. “I should have been glad that you and two or three

more people had liked them, which would have satisfied my ambition on

this head amply.” For all this, when he published the _Bard_, and other

odes which, from their nature, appealed still more to the select few, he

was not a little nettled because “the town” found them obscure.

In his manner and carriage, Gray is described as being cold and

fastidious to an offensive degree. A contemporary and admirer, Rev.

William Cole, says, “I am apt to think the characters of Voltaire and Mr

Gray were similar. They were both little men, very nice and exact in

their persons and dress, most lively and agreeable in conversation,

except that Mr Gray was apt to be too satirical, and both of them full

of affectation.” And then contrasting him with Dr Farmer, he thus

describes the two men: “The one (Dr Farmer) a cheerful, companionable,

hearty, open, downright man, of no great regard to dress or common forms

of behaviour; the other (Gray) of a most fastidious and recluse distance

of carriage, rather averse to sociability, but of the graver turn; nice,

and elegant in his person, dress, and behaviour, even to a degree of

finicalness and effeminacy.”—Vol. i., Appendix. The contrast here drawn

between Gray and Dr Farmer, suggests to us the dissimilarity and mutual

distaste which existed between Gray and a still greater contemporary, Dr

Johnson. They repelled each other far more by diversity of manner than

by opposition of opinion. Gray refused to be personally acquainted with

Johnson. Passing him in the streets of London, he whispered to the

companion with whom he was walking, “There is the Great Bear! there goes

Ursa Major!” and accompanied the words with a sort of shrinking and

recoil. It is well known that the antipathy was mutual. The judgment

passed upon Gray in the _Lives of the Poets_ is the harshest and the

least equitable criticism throughout that work. One cannot help

admitting, however, that, if Gray had written the life of Johnson, there

would have been a piece of criticism produced still less equitable. Gray

is rarely just to any of his contemporaries. He seldom admires, and the

little praise he bestows is distributed most capriciously. He speaks as

highly of Lyttleton’s Monody as of the Odes of Collins. He mentions

Sterne but coldly, and when he would be complimentary, always selects

his _Sermons_! You would say that a certain superciliousness has been

creeping over and into the very heart of the man.

But now change the point of view, and from this the world-aspect turn to

the poetic side of the character. It was not a heartless man who wrote

the _Elegy_ and the _Bard_, who was the friend of West, who in later

times was the friend of Bonstettin, who at all times could find society

in meditation, and companionship in beauties of nature. The Letters of

Gray are too well known to render it necessary for us to make extracts

from them, to show how often a vein of deep feeling runs through a

half-playful style of diction. His pathos touches us still more, whether

he is describing nature, or speaking of himself and of his friends, from

the restraint he has evidently put upon his own enthusiasm, or his own

tenderness. The “melancholy Gray” was a far higher being than the witty

and Walpolian Gray; and it is the blending of the two together that has

made the singular charm of the Letters.

If evidence were wanted to prove that there existed uncorrupted in the

mind of Gray springs of pure and genuine feeling, we should find that

evidence in his attachment to Bonstettin. This young foreigner, by his

own ardent temper, had broken down all those cold artificial barriers in

which it is said the poet habitually intrenched himself. Gray had taken

lodgings for him at Cambridge, near his own rooms, and they spent the

evenings together, reading the Greek poets and philosophers. When

Bonstettin returned to his native country, Switzerland, Gray felt the

loss of his friend in a manner which he does not seek even to disguise,

but expresses with unaffected warmth:—

“_Cambridge, April 12, 1770._

“Never did I feel, my dear Bonstettin, to what a tedious length the

few short moments of our life may be extended by impatience and

expectation, till you had left me: nor ever knew before with so strong

a conviction how much this frail body sympathises with the inquietude

of the mind. I am grown old in the compass of less than three weeks,

like the Sultan in the Turkish tales, that did but plunge his head

into a vessel of water, and take it out again, as the standers-by

affirmed, at the command of a Dervise, and found he had passed many

years in captivity, and begot a large family of children. The strength

and spirits that now enable me to write to you are only owing to your

last letter, a temporary gleam of sunshine. Heaven knows when it may

shine again. I did not conceive till now, I own, what it was to lose

you, nor felt the solitude and insipidity of my own condition before I

possessed the happiness of your friendship.

* * * * *

“But enough of this—I return to your letter. It proves at least that,

in the midst of your new gaieties, I still hold some place in your

memory; and, what pleases me above all, it has an air of undissembled

sincerity. Go on, my best and amiable friend, to show me your heart

simply, and without the shadow of disguise, and leave me to weep over

it, as I now do, no matter whether from joy or sorrow.”

“_April 19, 1770._

“Alas! how do I every moment feel the truth of what I have somewhere

read, ‘Ce n’est pas le voir, que de s’en souvenir’; and yet that

remembrance is the only satisfaction I have left. My life now is but a

conversation with your shadow—the known sound of your voice still

rings in my ears—there, on the corner of the fender, you are standing,

or tinkling on the pianoforte, or stretched at length on the sofa. Do

you reflect, my dearest friend, that it is a week or eight days before

I can receive a letter from you, and as much more before you can have

my answer; and that all that time I am employed, with more than

Herculean toil, in pushing the tedious hours along, and wishing to

annihilate them: the more I strive, the heavier they move, and the

longer they grow. I cannot bear this place, where I have spent many

tedious years, within less than a month since you left me. I am going

for a few days to see poor Nicholls,” &c., &c.

“_May 9, 1770._

“I am returned, my dear Bonstettin, from the little journey I made

into Suffolk, without answering the end proposed. The thought that you

might have been with me there, has imbittered all my hours. Your

letter has made me happy, as happy as so gloomy, so solitary a being

as I am, is capable of being made. I know, and have too often felt,

the disadvantages I lay myself under; how much I hurt the little

interest I have in you, by this air of sadness, so contrary to your

nature and present enjoyments; but sure you will forgive, though you

cannot sympathise with me. It is impossible for me to dissemble with

you: such as I am I expose my heart to your view, nor wish to conceal

a single thought from your penetrating eyes.”

These are not the letters of a youth; they are the outpourings of the

mature man. How grossly do we err indeed when we think that youth is the

especial or exclusive season of friendship, or even of love. In the

experience of many it has been found that the want of the heart, the

thirst for affection, has been felt far more in manhood than in youth.

It was so, perhaps, with Gray. We are not disposed to think that there

was any peculiar merit in Bonstettin to justify this overflow of

sentiment. But the heart of the man was full, and his was the hand that

shook the mantling cup till it ran over.

We have already quoted a part of a brief account which Bonstettin gives

of Gray—that account proceeds thus: “Je crois que Gray n’avait jamais

aimé,—c’était le mot de l’énigme. Gray avait de la gaieté dans l’esprit,

et de la mélancolie dans le caractère. Mais cette mélancolie n’est qu’un

besoin non satisfait de la sensibilité.” That Gray had never loved, is

an explanation which would better suit the novelist than the more sedate

biographer. Nevertheless, M. Bonstettin gives us something to reflect

upon. It is well said that Gray had gaiety in his mind, but sadness at

his heart; and who can tell how far that sadness was due to repressed or

unoccupied affection?

We had intended to offer to our readers some rather copious extracts

from Gray’s Letters, to illustrate the several phases of his character;

but space would be wanting, and perhaps, the Letters being sufficiently

known, this labour would be needless. Unfortunately, a few brief

detached extracts would not serve our purpose. We cannot help remarking,

indeed, the false impression often created by just such partial

extracts. A sentence which itself is the product only of a momentary

feeling, and which is neutralised, perhaps, in the very next page, is

made to express a permanent sentiment of the writer. “Be it mine,” says

Gray at one moment, “to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and

Crébillon;” and this quotation has been so often repeated, that a person

who had not read the Letters might imagine that Gray was a most

exemplary reader of novels. How very different a kind of reading

occupied his hours we need not say. He was apt, indeed, to represent

himself as an idler, but there was something of affectation in this—an

affectation not unfrequent amongst literary men, who represent

themselves as more indolent than they are, because they know people will

be expecting some ostensible result of their industry, or because they

desire this result to wear the appearance of an easy and a rapid

performance. The much marvelling Mr Mason, with his round open eyes that

see nothing, he too has his manner of quotation. “‘To be employed is to

be happy,’ said Gray; and if he had never said anything else, either in

prose or in verse, he would have deserved the esteem of all posterity!”

So a discovery as old as Solomon, as old as man, is assigned to Mr Gray!

Yet if a grateful posterity should turn to the very letter from which

this quotation is made, they would find that Gray was not the most

energetic nor the most complete preacher on his own text. He felt, as

every one not a savage or an idiot must feel, that employment was an

imperative necessity; but he often seems driven to the expedient of

finding employment for the sake of employment. Now if he had devoted

himself to some one literary task, of more or less utility to the world,

and wrought steadily for its accomplishment, he would have carried his

philosophy and his happiness one step farther. Next to living solitary,

the great error of his career was that he had not adopted, either as

poet or historian, some large and useful task.

_Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._

-----

Footnote 1:

_Life in Abyssinia; being Notes collected during Three Years’

Residence and Travels in that Country._ By MANSFIELD PARKYNS. In Two

Volumes. London: 1853.

Footnote 2:

A young Mahommedan, now resident at Adoua, was robbed one night of the

scalp of one side of his head.—PARKYNS, ii. 293.

Footnote 3:

_Blackwood’s Magazine_ for September 1851.

Footnote 4:

“Τὸ μὲν οὖν κολακεύειν, αἰσχρόν, τὸ δὲ ἐπιτιμᾶν, ἐπισφαλές· ἄριστον δὲ

τὸ μεταξὺ, τουτέστι τὸ ἐσχηματισμένον.”—_Dem. Phal. de Elocutione._

Footnote 5:

Not such asphaltum as is now commonly used; he had a method of

preparing it to render it innocuous.

Footnote 6:

We owe it to Mr Stansfield to say, that had the authority we quoted

given, with Mr Stansfield’s answers, the subsequent explanation of

them, we should not have used such an expression as that he “confessed

an astonishing indifference.” We therefore quote his explanation. He

is asked, (_Question_ 3628,) “You have stated that you have not

studied these pictures in the National Gallery much; that you were not

very conversant with the works of the old masters; and that you had

not studied those pictures in particular; so you, from your previous

knowledge of them, feel competent to give an opinion whether or not

they have been injured in the minute details to which reference has

been made? Yes. I think I may; because when I spoke of my ignorance, I

did it in reference to my not possessing the information that I know

many gentlemen belonging to the Academy have. I should refer to Mr

Dyce at once as a very great authority, and also to Sir Charles

Eastlake himself. I have not their experience in Italian works of art,

but still the pictures that are before us I have looked at with

admiration, and I know that if there is any material injury done to

them I should detect it as soon as any one.”

Footnote 7:

Gen. x. 3; Ezek. xxvii. 14, xxxviii. 6; Herod, iv. 5.

Footnote 8:

_Histoire de la vie de Hiouen-thsang, et de ses voyages de l’Inde,

depuis l’an 629 jusqu’en 645._ Par Hoei II. et Yen-thsong. Traduite du

Chinois par Stanislas Julien. Paris: 1853.

Footnote 9:

_Speeches of the Right Honourable_ T. B. MACAULAY, _M.P._ _Corrected

by himself._ London, 1854.

Footnote 10:

_Funfzig Jahre in beiden Hemisphären._ Reminiscences of a Merchant’s

Life. By VINCENT NOLTE. 2 volumes. Hamburg: Perthes-Besser. London:

Williams and Norgate. 1853.

Footnote 11:

_Memoires de G. J. Ouvrard._ Paris, 1826.

Footnote 12:

_The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon._ By S. W. BAKER, Esq. London:

1854.

Footnote 13:

_The Correspondence of_ THOMAS GRAY _and_ WILLIAM MASON, _with Notes

and Illustrations._ By the Rev. JOHN MITFORD, Vicar of Benhall.

GRAY’S _Works._ Aldine Edition.

Footnote 14:

GRAY’S _Works_, Appendix, vol. i. p. 112.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page Changed from Changed to

171 αἰχρόν, τὸ δὲ ἐπιτιμᾷν, αἰσχρόν, τὸ δὲ ἐπιτιμᾶν,

ἐπισαφλές· ἄριστον δὲ τὸ μεταξὺ, ἐπισφαλές· ἄριστον δὲ τὸ μεταξὺ,

τουτέστι τὸ ἐχηματισμένον—Dem. τουτέστι τὸ ἐσχηματισμένον—Dem.

Phil. Phal.

178 not dry brush, a glaze, and he hot dry brush, a glaze, and he

may may

188 A judge sate in the centre of A judge sat in the centre of

1. Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

2. Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last

chapter.

3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.