character. For instance, no judicious artist would have attempted to murder
Abraham Newland. For the case was this; everybody read so much about
Abraham Newland, and so few people ever saw him, that there was a fixed
belief that he was an abstract idea. And I remember that once, when I
happened to mention that I had dined at a coffee-house in company with
Abraham Newland, everybody looked scornfully at me, as though I had
pretended to have played at billiards with Prester John, or to have had an
affair of honor with the Pope. And, by the way, the Pope would be a very
improper person to murder: for he has such a virtual ubiquity as the father
of Christendom, and, like the cuckoo, is so often heard but never seen,
that I suspect most people regard _him_ also as an abstract idea. Where,
indeed, a public character is in the habit of giving dinners, "with every
delicacy of the season," the case is very different: every person is
satisfied that _he_ is no abstract idea; and, therefore, there can be no
impropriety in murdering him; only that his murder will fall into the class
of assassinations, which I have not yet treated.
_Thirdly_. The subject chosen ought to be in good health: for it is
absolutely barbarous to murder a sick person, who is usually quite unable
to bear it. On this principle, no cockney ought to be chosen who is above
twenty-five, for after that age he is sure to be dyspeptic. Or at least, if
a man will hunt in that warren, he ought to murder a couple at one time; if
the cockneys chosen should be tailors, he will of course think it his duty,
on the old established equation, to murder eighteen. And, here, in this
attention to the comfort of sick people, you will observe the usual effect
of a fine art to soften and refine the feelings. The world in general,
gentlemen, are very bloody-minded; and all they want in a murder is a
copious effusion of blood; gaudy display in this point is enough for
_them_. But the enlightened connoisseur is more refined in his taste;
and from our art, as from all the other liberal arts when thoroughly
cultivated, the result is--to improve and to humanize the heart; so true is
it, that--
----"Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes,
Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros."
A philosophic friend, well known for his philanthropy and general
benignity, suggests that the subject chosen ought also to have a family of
young children wholly dependent on his exertions, by way of deepening the
pathos. And, undoubtedly, this is a judicious caution. Yet I would not
insist too keenly on this condition. Severe good taste unquestionably
demands it; but still, where the man was otherwise unobjectionable in point
of morals and health, I would not look with too curious a jealousy to a
restriction which might have the effect of narrowing the artist's sphere.
So much for the person. As to the time, the place, and the tools, I have
many things to say, which at present I have no room for. The good sense of
the practitioner has usually directed him to night and privacy. Yet
there have not been wanting cases where this rule was departed from with
excellent effect. In respect to time, Mrs. Ruscombe's case is a beautiful
exception, which I have already noticed; and in respect both to time and
place, there is a fine exception in the annals of Edinburgh, (year 1805,)
familiar to every child in Edinburgh, but which has unaccountably been
defrauded of its due portion of fame amongst English amateurs. The case
I mean is that of a porter to one of the banks, who was murdered whilst
carrying a bag of money, in broad daylight, on turning out of the High
Street, one of the most public streets in Europe, and the murderer is to
this hour undiscovered.
"Sed fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tcmpus,
Singula dum capti circumvectamur amore."
And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, let me again solemnly disclaim all
pretensions on my own part to the character of a professional man. I never
attempted any murder in my life, except in the year 1801, upon the body of
a tom-cat; and _that_ turned out differently from my intention. My
purpose, I own, was downright murder. "Semper ego auditor tantum?" said I,
"nunquamne reponam?" And I went down stairs in search of Tom at one o'clock
on a dark night, with the "animus," and no doubt with the fiendish looks,
of a murderer. But when I found him, he was in the act of plundering the
pantry of bread and other things. Now this gave a new turn to the affair;
for the time being one of general scarcity, when even Christians were
reduced to the use of potato-bread, rice-bread, and all sorts of things, it
was downright treason in a tom-cat to be wasting good wheaten-bread in the
way he was doing. It instantly became a patriotic duty to put him to death;
and as I raised aloft and shook the glittering steel, I fancied myself
rising like Brutus, effulgent from a crowd of patriots, and, as I stabbed
him, I
"called aloud on Tully's name,
And bade the father of his country hail!"
Since then, what wandering thoughts I may have had of attempting the life
of an ancient ewe, of a superannuated hen, and such "small deer," are
locked up in the secrets of my own breast; but for the higher departments
of the art, I confess myself to be utterly unfit. My ambition does not rise
so high. No, gentlemen, in the words of Horace,
"---fungos vice cotis, excutum
Reddere ere quæ ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi."
SECOND PAPER ON MURDER,
CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS.
DOCTOR NORTH: You are a liberal man: liberal in the true classical sense,
not in the slang sense of modern politicians and education-mongers. Being
so, I am sure that you will sympathize with my case. I am an ill-used man,
Dr. North--particularly ill used; and, with your permission, I will briefly
explain how. A black scene of calumny will be laid open; but you, Doctor,
will make all things square again. One frown from you, directed to the
proper quarter, or a warning shake of the crutch, will set me right in
public opinion, which at present, I am sorry to say, is rather hostile to
me and mine--all owing to the wicked arts of slanderers. But you shall
hear.
A good many years ago you may remember that I came forward in the character
of a _dilettante_ in murder. Perhaps _dilettante_ may be too strong a word.
_Connoisseur_ is better suited to the scruples and infirmity of public
taste. I suppose there is no harm in _that_ at least. A man is not bound
to put his eyes, ears, and understanding into his breeches pocket when he
meets with a murder. If he is not in a downright comatose state, I suppose
he must see that one murder is better or worse than another in point of
good taste. Murders have their little differences and shades of merit as
well as statues, pictures, oratorios, cameos, intaglios, or what not. You
may be angry with the man for talking too much, or too publicly, (as to the
too much, that I deny--a man can never cultivate his taste too highly;) but
you must allow him to think, at any rate; and you, Doctor, you think, I am
sure, both deeply and correctly on the subject. Well, would you believe it?
all my neighbors came to hear of that little æsthetic essay which you had
published; and, unfortunately, hearing at the very same time of a club that
I as connected with, and a dinner at which I presided--both tending to the
same little object as the essay, viz., the diffusion of a just taste among
her majesty's subjects, they got up the most barbarous calumnies against
me. In particular, they said that I, or that the club, which comes to the
same thing, had offered bounties on well conducted homicides--with a scale
of drawbacks, in case of any one defect or flaw, according to a table
issued to private friends. Now, Doctor, I'll tell you the whole truth about
the dinner and the club, and you'll see how malicious the world is. But
first let me tell you, confidentially, what my real principles are upon the
matters in question.
As to murder, I never committed one in my life. It's a well known thing
amongst all my friends. I can get a paper to certify as much, signed by
lots of people. Indeed, if you come to that, I doubt whether many
people could produce as strong a certificate. Mine would be as big as a
table-cloth. There is indeed one member of the club, who pretends to say
that he caught me once making too free with his throat on a club night,
after every body else had retired. But, observe, he shuffles in his story
according to his state of civilation. When not far gone, he contents
himself with saying that he caught me ogling his throat; and that I was
melancholy for some weeks after, and that my voice sounded in a way
expressing, to the nice ear of a connoisseur, _the sense of opportunities
lost_--but the club all know that he's a disappointed man himself, and that
he speaks querulously at times about the fatal neglect of a man's coming
abroad without his tools. Besides, all this is an affair between two
amateurs, and every body makes allowances for little asperities
and sorenesses in such a case. "But," say you, "If no murderer, my
correspondent may have encouraged, or even have bespoke a murder." No, upon
my honor--nothing of the kind. And that was the very point I wished to
argue for your satisfaction. The truth is, I am a very particular man in
everything relating to murder; and perhaps I carry my delicacy too far. The
Stagyrite most justly, and possibly with a view to my case, placed virtue
in the [Greek: to meson] or middle point between two extremes. A golden
mean is certainly what every man should aim at. But it is easier talking
than doing; and, my infirmity being notoriously too much milkiness of
heart, I find it difficult to maintain that steady equatorial line between
the two poles of too much murder on the one hand, and too little on the
other. I am too soft--Doctor, too soft; and people get excused through
me--nay, go through life without an attempt made upon them, that ought not
to be excused. I believe if I had the management of things, there would
hardly be a murder from year's end to year's end. In fact I'm for virtue,
and goodness, and all that sort of thing. And two instances I'll give you
to what an extremity I carry my virtue. The first may seem a trifle; but
not if you knew my nephew, who was certainly born to be hanged, and would
have been so long ago, but for my restraining voice. He is horribly
ambitious, and thinks himself a man of cultivated taste in most branches of
murder, whereas, in fact, he has not one idea on the subject, but such
as he has stolen from me. This is so well known, that the club has twice
blackballed him, though every indulgence was shown to him as my relative.
People came to me and said--"Now really, President, we would do much to
serve a relative of yours. But still, what can be said? You know yourself
that he'll disgrace us. If we were to elect him, why, the next thing we
should hear of would be some vile butcherly murder, by way of justifying
our choice. And what sort of a concern would it be? You know, as well as we
do, that it would be a disgraceful affair, more worthy of the shambles than
of an artist's _attelier_. He would fall upon some great big man, some huge
farmer returning drunk from a fair. There would be plenty of blood, and
_that_ he would expect us to take in lieu of taste, finish, scenical
grouping. Then, again, how would he tool? Why, most probably with a cleaver
and a couple of paving stones: so that the whole _coup d'oeil_ would remind
you rather of some hideous ogre or cyclops, than of the delicate operator
of the nineteenth century." The picture was drawn with the hand of truth;
_that_ I could not but allow, and, as to personal feelings in the matter, I
dismissed them from the first. The next morning I spoke to my nephew--I was
delicately situated, as you see, but I determined that no consideration
should induce me to flinch from my duty. "John," said I, "you seem to me to
have taken an erroneous view of life and its duties. Pushed on by ambition,
you are dreaming rather of what it might be glorious to attempt, than what
it would be possible for you to accomplish. Believe me, it is not necessary
to a man's respectability that he should commit a murder. Many a man has
passed through life most respectably, without attempting any species of
homicide--good, bad, or indifferent. It is your first duty to ask yourself,
_quid valeant humeri, quid ferre recusent_? we cannot all be brilliant men
in this life. And it is for your interest to be contented rather with a
humble station well filled, than to shock every body with failures, the
more conspicuous by contrast with the ostentation of their promises." John
made no answer, he looked very sulky at the moment, and I am in high
hopes that I have saved a near relation from making a fool of himself by
attempting what is as much beyond his capacity as an epic poem. Others,
however, tell me that he is meditating a revenge upon me and the whole
club. But let this be as it may, _liberavi animam meam_; and, as you see,
have run some risk with a wish to diminish the amount of homicide. But the
other case still more forcibly illustrates my virtue. A man came to me as
a candidate for the place of my servant, just then vacant. He had the
reputation of having dabbled a little in our art; some said not without
merit. What startled me, however, was, that he supposed this art to be
part of his regular duties in my service. Now that was a thing I would not
allow; so I said at once, "Richard (or James, as the case might be,) you
misunderstand my character. If a man will and must practise this difficult
(and allow me to add, dangerous) branch of art--if he has an overruling
genius for it, why, he might as well pursue his studies whilst living in my
service as in another's. And also, I may observe, that it can do no harm
either to himself or to the subject on whom he operates, that he should
be guided by men of more taste than himself. Genius may do much, but long
study of the art must always entitle a man to offer advice. So far I will
go--general principles I will suggest. But as to any particular case, once
for all I will have nothing to do with it. Never tell me of any special
work of art you are meditating--I set my face against it _in toto_. For if
once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think
little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and
Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once
begin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many
a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought
little of at the time. _Principiis obsta_--that's my rule." Such was my
speech, and I have always acted up to it; so if that is not being virtuous,
I should be glad to know what is. But now about the dinner and the club.
The club was not particularly of my creation; it arose pretty much as other
similar associations, for the propagation of truth and the communication of
new ideas, rather from the necessities of things than upon any one man's
suggestion. As to the dinner, if any man more than another could be held
responsible for that, it was a member known amongst us by the name of
_Toad-in-the-hole_. He was so called from his gloomy misanthropical
disposition, which led him into constant disparagements of all modern
murders as vicious abortions, belonging to no authentic school of art. The
finest performances of our own age he snarled at cynically; and at length
this querulous humor grew upon him so much, and he became so notorious as a
_laudator tentporis acti_, that few people cared to seek his society. This
made him still more fierce and truculent. He went about muttering and
growling; wherever you met him he was soliloquizing and saying, "despicable
pretender--without grouping--without two ideas upon handling--without"--and
there you lost him. At length existence seemed to be painful to him;
he rarely spoke, he seemed conversing with phantoms in the air, his
housekeeper informed us that his reading was nearly confined to _God's
Revenge upon Murder_, by Reynolds, and a more ancient book of the same
title, noticed by Sir Walter Scott in his _Fortunes of Nigel_. Sometimes,
perhaps, he might read in the Newgate Calendar down to the year 1788, but
he never looked into a book more recent. In fact, he had a theory with
regard to the French Revolution, as having been the great cause of
degeneration in murder. "Very soon, sir," he used to say, "men will have
lost the art of killing poultry: the very rudiments of the art will
have perished!" In the year 1811 he retired from general society.
Toad-in-the-hole was no more seen in any public resort. We missed him from
his wonted haunts--nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he. By the side of
the main conduit his listless length at noontide he would stretch, and pore
upon the filth that muddled by. "Even dogs are not what they were, sir--not
what they should be. I remember in my grandfather's time that some dogs had
an idea of murder. I have known a mastiff lie in ambush for a rival, sir,
and murder him with pleasing circumstances of good taste. Yes, sir, I knew
a tom-cat that was an assassin. But now"--and then, the subject growing too
painful, he dashed his hand to his forehead, and went off abruptly in a
homeward direction towards his favorite conduit, where he was seen by an
amateur in such a state that he thought it dangerous to address him. Soon
after he shut himself entirely up; it was understood that he had resigned
himself to melancholy; and at length the prevailing notion was, that
Toad-in-the-hole had hanged himself.
The world was wrong _there_, as it has been on some other questions.
Toad-in-the-hole might be sleeping, but dead he was not; and of that we
soon had ocular proof. One morning in 1812, an amateur surprised us with
the news that he had seen Toad-in-the-hole brushing with hasty steps the
dews away to meet the postman by the conduit side. Even that was something:
how much more, to hear that he had shaved his beard--had laid aside his
sad-colored clothes, and was adorned like a bridegroom of ancient days.
What could be the meaning of all this? Was Toad-in-the-hole mad? or how?
Soon after the secret was explained--in more than a figurative sense
"the murder was out." For in came the London morning papers, by which
it appeared that but three days before a murder, the most superb of the
century by many degrees had occurred in the heart of London. I need hardly
say, that this was the great exterminating _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Williams at
Mr. Marr's, No. 29, Ratcliffe Highway. That was the _début_ of the artist;
at least for anything the public knew. What occurred at Mr. Williamson's
twelve nights afterwards--the second work turned out from the same
chisel--some people pronounced even superior. But Toad-in-the-hole always
"reclaimed"--he was even angry at comparisons. "This vulgar _gout de
comparaison_, as La Bruyère calls it," he would often remark, "will be
our ruin; each work has its own separate characteristics--each in and for
itself is incomparable. One, perhaps, might suggest the _Iliad_--the other
the _Odyssey_: what do you get by such comparisons? Neither ever was, or
will be surpassed; and when you've talked for hours, you must still come
back to that." Vain, however, as all criticism might be, he often said that
volumes might be written on each case for itself; and he even proposed to
publish in quarto on the subject.
Meantime, how had Toad-in-the-hole happened to hear of this great work
of art so early in the morning? He had received an account by express,
dispatched by a correspondent in London, who watched the progress of art On
_Toady's_ behalf, with a general commission to send off a special express,
at whatever cost, in the event of any estimable works appearing--how much
more upon occasion of a _ne plus ultra_ in art! The express arrived in the
night-time; Toad-in-the-hole was then gone to bed; he had been muttering
and grumbling for hours, but of course he was called up. On reading the
account, he threw his arms round the express, called him his brother and
his preserver; settled a pension upon him for three lives, and expressed
his regret at not having it in his power to knight him. We, on our part--we
amateurs, I mean--having heard that he was abroad, and therefore had _not_
hanged himself, made sure of soon seeing him amongst us. Accordingly he
soon arrived, knocked over the porter on his road to the reading-room; he
seized every man's hand as he passed him--wrung it almost frantically, and
kept ejaculating, "Why, now here's something like a murder!--this is the
real thing--this is genuine--this is what you can approve, can recommend to
a friend: this--says every man, on reflection--this is the thing that ought
to be!" Then, looking at particular friends, he said--"Why, Jack, how are
you? Why, Tom, how are you? Bless me, you look ten years younger than
when I last saw you." "No, sir," I replied, "It is you who look ten years
younger." "Do I? well, I should'nt wonder if I did; such works are
enough to make us all young." And in fact the general opinion is, that
Toad-in-the-hole would have died but for this regeneration of art, which
he called a second age of Leo the Tenth; and it was our duty, he said
solemnly, to commemorate it. At present, and _en attendant_--rather as an
occasion for a public participation in public sympathy, than as in itself
any commensurate testimony of our interest--he proposed that the club
should meet and dine together. A splendid public dinner, therefore, was
given by the club; to which all amateurs were invited from a distance of
one hundred miles.
Of this dinner there are ample short-hand notes amongst the archives of
the club. But they are not "extended," to speak diplomatically; and the
reporter is missing--I believe, murdered. Meantime, in years long after
that day, and on an occasion perhaps equally interesting, viz., the turning
up of Thugs and Thuggism, another dinner was given. Of this I myself kept
notes, for fear of another accident to the short-hand reporter. And I here
subjoin them. Toad-in-the-hole, I must mention, was present at this dinner.
In fact, it was one of its sentimental incidents. Being as old as the
valleys at the dinner of 1812, naturally he was as old as the hills at the
Thug dinner of 1838. He had taken to wearing his beard again; why, or with
what view, it passes my persimmon to tell you. But so it was. And his
appearance was most benign and venerable. Nothing could equal the angelic
radiance of his smile as he inquired after the unfortunate reporter, (whom,
as a piece of private scandal, I should tell you that he was himself
supposed to have murdered, in a rapture of creative art:) the answer was,
with roars of laughter, from the under-sheriff of our county--"Non est
inventus." Toad-in-the-hole laughed outrageously at this: in fact, we all
thought he was choking; and, at the earnest request of the company, a
musical composer furnished a most beautiful glee upon the occasion,
which was sung five times after dinner, with universal applause and
inextinguishable laughter, the words being these, (and the chorus
so contrived, as most beautifully to mimic the peculiar laughter of
Toad-in-the-hole:)--
"Et interrogatum est à Toad-in-the hole--Ubi est ille reporter?
Et responsum est cum cachinno--Non est inventus."
CHORUS.
"Deinde iteratum est ab omnibus, cum cachinnatione undulante--
Non est inventus."
Toad-in-the-hole, I ought to mention, about nine years before, when an
express from Edinburgh brought him the earliest intelligence of the
Burke-and-Hare revolution in the art, went mad upon the spot; and, instead
of a pension to the express for even one life, or a knighthood, endeavored
to burke him; in consequence of which he was put into a strait waistcoat.
And that was the reason we had no dinner then. But now all of us were alive
and kicking, strait-waistcoaters and others; in fact, not one absentee
was reported upon the entire roll. There were also many foreign amateurs
present.
Dinner being over, and the cloth drawn, there was a general call made for
the new glee of _Non est inventus_; but, as this would have interfered with
the requisite gravity of the company during the earlier toasts, I overruled
the call. After the national toasts had been given, the first official
toast of the day was, _The Old Man of the Mountains_--drunk in solemn
silence.
Toad-in-the-hole returned thanks in a neat speech. He likened himself to
the Old Man of the Mountains, in a few brief allusions, that made the
company absolutely yell with laughter; and he concluded with giving the
health of
_Mr. Von Hammer_, with many thanks to him for his learned History of the
Old Man and his subjects the assassins.