CHAPTER VI.

"GO NOT, HAPPY DAY, TILL THE MAIDEN YIELDS."

Christmas noon at Dunderbunk. Every skater was in galloping glee,--as the

electric air, and the sparkling sun, and the glinting ice had a right to

expect that they all should be.

Belle Purtett, skating simply and well, had never looked so pretty and

graceful. So thought Bill Tarbox.

He had not spoken to her, nor she to him, for more than six months. The

poor fellow was ashamed of himself and penitent for his past bad courses.

And so, though he longed to have his old flame recognize him again, and

though he was bitterly jealous and miserably afraid he should lose her, he

had kept away and consumed his heart like a true despairing lover.

But to-day Bill was a lion, only second to Wade, the unapproachable

lion-in-chief. Bill was reinstated in public esteem, and had won back his

standing in the Foundry. He had to-day made a speech which Perry Purtett

gave everybody to understand "none of Senator Bill Seward's could hold the

tallow to." Getting up the meeting and presenting Wade with the skates was

Bill's own scheme, and it had turned out an eminent success. Everything

began to look bright to him. His past life drifted out of his mind like

the rowdy tales he used to read in the Sunday newspapers.

He had watched Belle Purtett all the morning, and saw that she

distinguished nobody with her smiles, not even that _coq du village_,

Ringdove. He also observed that she was furtively watching him.

By-and-by she sailed out of the crowd, and went off a little way to

practise.

"Now," said he to himself, "sail in, Bill Tarbox!"

Belle heard the sharp strokes of a powerful skater coming after her. Her

heart divined who this might be. She sped away like the swift Camilla, and

her modest drapery showed just enough and "_ne quid nimis_" of her ankles.

Bill admired the grace and the ankles immensely. But his hopes sank a

little at the flight,--for he thought she perceived his chase and meant to

drop him. Bill had not bad a classical education, and knew nothing of

Galatea in the Eclogue,--how she did not hide, until she saw her swain was

looking fondly after.

"She wants to get away," he thought "But she sha'n't,--no, not if I have

to follow her to Albany."

He struck out mightily. Presently the swift Camilla let herself be

overtaken.

"Good morning, Miss Purtett." (Dogged air.)

"Good morning, Mr. Tarbox." (Taken-by-surprise air.)

"I've been admiring your skating," says Bill, trying to be cool.

"Have you?" rejoins Belle, very cool and distant.

"Have you been long on the ice?" he inquired, hypocritically.

"I came on two hours ago with Mr. Ringdove and the girls," returned she,

with a twinkle which said, "Take that, Sir, for pretending you did not see

me."

"You've seen Mr. Wade skate, then," Bill said, ignoring Ringdove.

"Yes; isn't it splendid?" Belle replied, kindling.

"Tip-top!"

"But then he does everything better than anybody."

"So he does!" Bill said,--true to his friend, and yet beginning to be

jealous of this enthusiasm. It was not the first time he had been jealous

of Wade; but he had quelled his fears, like a good fellow.

Belle perceived Bill's jealousy, and could have cried for joy. She had

known as little of her once lover's heart as he of hers. She only knew

that he stopped coming to see her when he fell, and had not renewed his

visits now that he was risen again. If she had not been charmingly ruddy

with the brisk air and exercise, she would have betrayed her pleasure at

Bill's jealousy with a fine blush.

The sense of recovered power made her wish to use it again. She must tease

him a little. So she continued, as they skated on in good rhythm,--

"Mother and I wouldn't know what to do without Mr. Wade. We like him _so_

much,"--said ardently.

What Bill feared was true, then, he thought. Wade, noble fellow, worthy to

win any woman's heart, had fascinated his landlady's daughter.

"I don't wonder you like him," said he. "He deserves it."

Belle was touched by her old lover's forlorn tone.

"He does indeed," she said. "He has helped and taught us all so much. He

has taken such good care of Perry. And then"--here she gave her companion

a little look and a little smile--"he speaks so kindly of you, Mr.

Tarbox."

Smile, look, and words electrified Bill. He gave such a spring on his

skates that he shot far ahead of the lady. He brought himself back with a

sharp turn.

"He has done kinder than he can speak," says Bill. "He has made a man of

me again, Miss Belle."

"I know it. It makes me very happy to hear you able to say so of

yourself." She spoke gravely.

"Very happy"--about anything that concerned him? Bill had to work off his

overjoy at this by an exuberant flourish. He whisked about Belle,--outer

edge backward. She stopped to admire. He finished by describing on the

virgin ice, before her, the letters B.P., in his neatest style of

podography,--easy letters to make, luckily.

"Beautiful!" exclaimed Belle. "What are those letters? Oh! B.P.! What do

they stand for?"

"Guess!"

"I'm so dull," said she, looking bright as a diamond. "Let me think! B.P.?

British Poets, perhaps."

"Try nearer home!"

"What are you likely to be thinking of that begins with B.P.?--Oh, I know!

Boiler Plates!"

She looked at him,--innocent as a lamb. Bill looked at her, delighted with

her little coquetry. A woman without coquetry is insipid as a rose without

scent, as Champagne without bubbles, or as corned beef without mustard.

"It's something I'm thinking of most of the time," says he; "but I hope

it's softer than Boiler Plates. B.P. stands for Miss Isabella Purtett."

"Oh!" says Belle, and she skated on in silence.

"You came down with Alonzo Ringdove?" Bill asked, suddenly, aware of

another pang after a moment of peace.

"He came with me and his sisters," she replied.

Yes; poor Ringdove had dressed himself in his shiniest black, put on his

brightest patent-leather boots, with his new swan-necked skates newly

strapped over them, and wore his new dove-colored overcoat with the long

skirts, on purpose to be lovely in the eyes of Belle on this occasion.

Alas, in vain!

"Mr. Ringdove is a great friend of yours, isn't he?"

"If you ever came to see me now, you would know who my friends are, Mr.

Tarbox."

"Would you be my friend again, if I came, Miss Belle?"

"Again? I have always been so,--always, Bill."

"Well, then, something more than my friend,--now that I am trying to be

worthy of more, Belle?"

"What more can I be?" she said, softly.

"My wife."

She curved to the right. He followed. To the left. He was not to be shaken

off.

"Will you promise me not to say _walves_ instead of _valves_, Bill?" she

said, looking pretty and saucy as could be. "I know, to say W for V is

fashionable in the iron business; but I don't like it."

"What a thing a woman is to dodge!" says Bill. "Suppose I told you that

men brought up inside of boilers, hammering on the inside against twenty

hammering like Wulcans on the outside, get their ears so dumfounded that

they can't tell whether they are saying _valves_ or _walves_, _wice_ or

_virtue_,--suppose I told you that,--what would you say, Belle?"

"Perhaps I'd say that you pronounce _virtue_ so well, and act it so

sincerely, that I can't make any objection to your other words. If you'd

asked me to be your _vife_, Bill, I might have said I didn't understand;

but _wife_ I do understand, and I say"--

She nodded, and tried to skate off. Bill stuck close to her side.

"Is this true, Belle?" he said, almost doubtfully.

"True as truth!"

She put out her hand. He took it, and they skated on together,--hearts

beating to the rhythm of their movements. The uproar and merriment of the

village came only faintly to them. It seemed as if all Nature was hushed

to listen to their plighted troth, their words of love renewed, more

earnest for long suppression. The beautiful ice spread before them, like

their life to come, a pathway untouched by any sorrowful or weary

footstep. The blue sky was cloudless. The keen air stirred the pulses like

the vapor of frozen wine. The benignant mountains westward kindly surveyed

the happy pair, and the sun seemed created to warm and cheer them.

"And you forgive me, Belle?" said the lover. "I feel as if I had only gone

bad to make me know how much better going right is."

"I always knew you would find it out. I never stopped hoping and praying

for it."

"That must have been what brought Mr. Wade here."

"Oh, I did hate him so, Bill, when I heard of something that happened

between you and him! I thought him a brute and a tyrant. I never could get

over it, until he told mother that you were the best machinist he ever

knew, and would some time grow to be a great inventor."

"I'm glad you hated him. I suffered rattlesnakes and collapsed flues for

fear you'd go and love him."

"My affections were engaged," she said, with simple seriousness.

"Oh, if I'd only thought so long ago! How lovely you are!" exclaims Bill,

in an ecstasy. "And how refined! And how good! God bless you!"

He made up such a wishful mouth,--so wishful for one of the pleasurable

duties of mouths, that Belle blushed, laughed, and looked down, and as she

did so saw that one of her straps was trailing.

"Please fix it, Bill," she said, stopping and kneeling.

Bill also knelt, and his wishful mouth immediately took its chance.

A manly smack and sweet little feminine chirp sounded as their lips met.

Boom! twanging gay as the first tap of a marriage-bell, a loud crack in

the ice rang musically for leagues up and down the river. "Bravo!" it

seemed to say. "Well done, Bill Tarbox! Try again!" Which the happy fellow

did, and the happy maiden permitted.

"Now," said Bill, "let us go and hug Mr. Wade!"

"What! Both of us?" Belle protested. "Mr. Tarbox, I am ashamed of you!"

* * * * *

LIGHT LITERATURE.

Though the smallest boulder is heavy, and even the merest pebble has a

perceptible weight, yet the entire planet, toward which both gravitate,

floats more lightly than any feather. In literature somewhat analogous may

be observed. Here also are found the insignificant lightness of the pebble

and the mighty lightness of the planet; while between them range the

weighty masses, superior to the petty ponderability of the one, and

unequal to the firmamental float of the other. Accordingly, setting out

from the mote-and-pebble extreme, you find, that, up to a certain point,

increasing values of thought are commonly indicated by increasing gravity,

by more and more of state-paper weightiness; but beyond this the rule is

reversed, and lightness becomes the sign and measure of excellence. Bishop

Butler and Richard Hooker--especially the latter, the first book of whose

"Ecclesiastical Polity" is a truly noble piece of writing--stand, perhaps,

at the head of the weighty class of writers in our language; but going

beyond these to the "Areopagitica" of Milton, or even to the powerful

prose of Raleigh, you pass the boundary-line, and are touched with the

buoyant influences of the Muse. Shakspeare and Plato are lighter than

levity; they are lifting forces, and weigh _less_ than nothing. The

novelette of the season, or any finest and flimsiest gossamer that is

fabricated in our literary looms, compares with "Lear," with "Prometheus

Bound," with any supreme work, only as cobwebs and thistle-down, that are

easily borne by the breeze, may compare with sparrows and thrushes, that

can fly and withal sing.

There is a call for "light reading," and I for one applaud the demand. A

lightening influence is the best that books or men can bestow upon us.

Information is good, but invigoration is a thousand times better. Cheer,

cheer and vigor for the world's heart! It is because man's hope is so low,

and his imaginations so poor, that he is earthly and evil. Wings for these

unfledged hearts! Transformation for these grubs! Give us animation,

inspiration, joy, faith! Give us enlivening, lightsome airs, to which our

souls shall, on a sudden, begin to dance, keeping step with the angels!

What else is worth having? Each one of these sordid sons of men--is he not

a new-born Apollo, who waits only for the ambrosia from Olympus, to spring

forth in divineness of beauty and strength?

Nevertheless, I know not of any reading so hopelessly heavy as large

portions of that which claims the name of light. Light writing it may be;

but, considered as reading, one would be unjust to charge upon it any lack

of avoirdupois. It is like the bran of wheat, which, though of little

weight in the barrel, is heavy enough in the stomach,--Dr. Sylvester

Graham to the contrary notwithstanding. It is related of an Italian

culprit, that, being required, in punishment of his crime, to make choice

between lying in prison for a term of years and reading the history of

Guicciardini, he chose the latter, but, after a brief trial, petitioned

for leave to reverse his election. I never attempted Guicciardini; but I

_did_ once attempt Pope's "Dunciad." And was it really the doom of a

generation of readers to find delight in this book? One must suppose so.

There are those in our day whose hard fate it is to read and to like

James's and Bulwer's novels. But greatly mistaken is the scholar who, for

relief from severe studies, goes to an empty or insincere book. It is like

saying money, after large and worthy expenditures, by purchasing at a low

price that which is worth nothing,--buying "gold" watches at a

mock-auction room.

Indeed, no book, however witty, lively, saltatory, can have the volant

effects we covet, if it want substance and seriousness. Substance,

however, is to be widely distinguished from ponderability. Oxygen is not

so ponderous as lead or granite, but it is far more substantial than

either, and, as every one knows, infinitely more serviceable to life. The

distinction is equally valid when applied to books and to men. The "airy

nothings" of imagination prove to be the most enduring somethings of the

world's literature; and the last lightness of heart may go with the purest

truth of soul and the most precious virtue of intelligence. All

expressions carry the perpetual savors of their origin; and as brooks that

dance and frolic with the sunbeams and murmur to the birds, light-hearted

forever, will yet bear sands of gold, if they flow from auriferous hills,

so any bubble and purl of laughter, proceeding from a wise and wealthy

soul, will bear a noble significance. In point of fact, some of the

merriest books in the world are among the most richly freighted. And as

airy and mirthful books may be substantial and serious, so it is an effect

very similar to that of noble and significant mirth that is produced upon

us by the grandest pieces of serious writing. Thus, he who rightly reads

the "Phaedon" or "Phaedrus" of Plato smiles through all the depths of his

brain, though no pronounced smile show on his face; and he who rightly

reads the book of Cervantes, though the laughters plunge, as it were, in

cascades from his lips, is earnest at heart, and full of sound and tender

meditations.

If now, setting aside all books, whether pretending to gayety or gravity,

that are simply empty and ineffectual, we inquire for the prime

distinction between books light in a worthy and unworthy sense, it will

appear to be the distinction between inspiration and alcohol,--between

effects divinely real and effects illusory and momentary. The drunkard

dreams of flying, and fancies the stars themselves left below him, while

he is really lying in the gutter. There are those, and numbers of those,

who in reading seek no more than to be cheated in a similar way. Indeed,

to acknowledge a disagreeable fact, there is a very great deal of reading

in our day that is simply a substitute for the potations and "heavy-handed

revel" of our Saxon ancestors. In both cases it is a spurious exaltation

of feeling that is sought; in both cases those who for a moment seem to

themselves larks ascending to meet the sun are but worms eating earth.

This celestial lightness, which constitutes the last praise and causes the

purest benefit of books, comes not of any manner of writing; no mere

vivacity, though that of a French writer of memoirs, though that of Arsène

Houssaye himself, can compass it; by no knack or talents is it to be

attained. Perfect style has, indeed, many allurements, and is of exceeding

price; but it is no chariot of Elijah, nevertheless. Was ever style more

delightful, of its kind, than Dryden's? Was ever style more heavy and

monotonous than that of Swedenborg in his theological works? But I have

read Dryden, not indeed without pleasure in his masterly exquisite ease

and sureness of statement and his occasional touches of admirable good

sense, yet with no slightest liberation of spirit, with no degree, greater

or less, of that magical and marvellous evocation, of inward resource,

whose blessed surprise now and then in life makes for us angelic moments,

and feelingly persuades us that our earth also is a star and in the sky.

On the other hand, I once read Swedenborg's "Angelic Wisdom concerning the

Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom" with such enticement, such afflatus,

such quickening and heightening of soul, as I cannot describe without

seeming excessive. Until half through the book, I turned every page with

the feeling that before another page I might see the chasm between the

real and phenomenal worlds fairly bridged over. Of course, it disappointed

me in the end; but what of that? To have kindled and for a time sustained

the expectation which should render possible such disappointment was a

benefit that a whole Bodleian Library might fail to confer. These benefits

come to us not from the writer as such, but from the man behind the

writer. He who dwells aloft amid the deathless orient imaginations of the

human race, easily inhabiting their atmosphere as his native

element,--about him, and him only, are the halos and dawns of immortal

youth; and his speech, though with many babyish or barbarous fancies, many

melancholies and vices of the blood compounded, carries nevertheless some

refrain of divine hilarity, that beguiles men of their sordidness, their

sullenness, and low cares, they know not how nor why.

* * * * *

PILGRIMAGE TO OLD BOSTON.

We set out at a little past eleven, and made our first stage to

Manchester. We were by this time sufficiently Anglicized to reckon the

morning a bright and sunny one; although the May sunshine was mingled with

water, as it were, and distempered with a very bitter east-wind.

Lancashire is a dreary county, (all, at least, except its hilly portions,)

and I have never passed through it without wishing myself anywhere but in

that particular spot where I then happened to be. A few places along our

route were historically interesting; as, for example, Bolton, which was

the scene of many remarkable events in the Parliamentary War, and in the

market-square of which one of the Earls of Derby was beheaded. We saw,

along the way-side, the never-failing green fields, hedges, and other

monotonous features of an ordinary English landscape. There were little

factory villages, too, or larger towns, with their tall chimneys, and

their pennons of black smoke, their uglinesses of brick-work, and their

heaps of refuse matter from the furnace, which seems to be the only kind

of stuff which Nature cannot take back to herself and resolve into the

elements, when man has thrown it aside. These hillocks of waste and effete

mineral always disfigure the neighborhood of ironmongering towns, and,

even after a considerable antiquity, are hardly made decent with a little

grass.

At a quarter to two we left Manchester by the Sheffield and Lincoln

Railway. The scenery grew rather better than that through which we had

hitherto passed, though still by no means very striking; for (except in

the show-districts, such as the Lake country, or Derbyshire) English

scenery is not particularly well worth looking at, considered as a

spectacle or a picture. It has a real, homely charm of its own, no doubt;

and the rich verdure, and the thorough finish added by human, art, are

perhaps as attractive to an American eye as any stronger feature could be.

Our journey, however, between Manchester and Sheffield was not through a

rich tract of country, but along a valley walled in by bleak, ridgy hills

extending straight as a rampart, and across black moorlands with here and

there a plantation of trees. Sometimes there were long and gradual

ascents, bleak, windy, and desolate, conveying the very impression which

the reader gets from many passages of Miss Bronté's novels, and still more

from those of her two sisters. Old stone or brick farm-houses, and, once

in a while, an old church-tower, were visible: but these are almost too

common objects to be noticed in an English landscape.

On a railway, I suspect, what little we do see of the country is seen

quite amiss, because it was never intended to be looked at from any point

of view in that straight line; so that it is like looking at the wrong

side of a piece of tapestry. The old highways and footpaths were as

natural as brooks and rivulets, and adapted themselves by an inevitable

impulse to the physiognomy of the country; and, furthermore, every object

within view of them had some subtile reference to their curves and

undulations: but the line of a railway is perfectly artificial, and puts

all precedent things at sixes-and-sevens. At any rate, be the cause what

it may, there is seldom anything worth seeing--within the scope of a

railway traveller's eye; and if there were, it requires an alert marksman

to take a flying shot at the picturesque.

At one of the stations, (it was near a village of ancient aspect, nestling

round a church, on a wide Yorkshire moor,) I saw a tall old lady in black,

who seemed to have just alighted from the train. She caught my attention

by a singular movement of the head, not once only, but continually

repeated, and at regular intervals, as if she were making a stern and

solemn protest against some action that developed itself before her eyes,

and were foreboding terrible disaster, if it should be persisted in. Of

course, it was nothing more than a paralytic or nervous affection; yet one

might fancy that it had its origin in some unspeakable wrong, perpetrated

half a lifetime ago in this old gentlewoman's presence, either against

herself or somebody whom she loved still better. Her features had a

wonderful sternness, which, I presume, was caused by her habitual effort

to compose and keep them quiet, and thereby counteract the tendency to

paralytic movement. The slow, regular, and inexorable character of the

motion,--her look of force and self-control, which had the appearance of

rendering it voluntary, while yet it was so fateful,--have stamped this

poor lady's face and gesture into my memory; so that, some dark day or

other, I am afraid she will reproduce herself in a dismal romance.

The train stopped a minute or two, to allow the tickets to be taken, just

before entering the Sheffield station, and thence I had a glimpse of the

famous town of razors and penknives, enveloped in a cloud of its own

diffusing. My impressions of it are extremely vague and misty,--or,

rather, smoky: for Sheffield seems to me smokier than Manchester,

Liverpool, or Birmingham,--smokier than all England besides, unless

Newcastle be the exception. It might have been Pluto's own metropolis,

shrouded in sulphurous vapor; and, indeed, our approach to it had been by

the Valley of the Shadow of Death, through a tunnel three miles in length,

quite traversing the breadth and depth of a mountainous hill.

After passing Sheffield, the scenery became softer, gentler, yet more

picturesque. At one point we saw what I believe to be the utmost northern

verge of Sherwood Forest,--not consisting, however, of thousand-year oaks,

extant from Robin Hood's days, but of young and thriving plantations,

which will require a century or two of slow English growth to give them

much breadth of shade. Earl Fitzwilliam's property lies in this

neighborhood, and probably his castle was hidden among some soft depth of

foliage not far off. Farther onward the country grew quite level around

us, whereby I judged that we must now be in Lincolnshire; and shortly

after six o'clock we caught the first glimpse of the Cathedral towers,

though they loomed scarcely huge enough for our preconceived idea of them.

But, as we drew nearer, the great edifice began to assert itself, making

us acknowledge it to be larger than our receptivity could take in.

At the railway-station we found no cab, (it being an unknown vehicle in

Lincoln,) but only an omnibus belonging to the Saracen's Head, which the

driver recommended as the best hotel in the city, and took us thither

accordingly. It received us hospitably, and looked comfortable enough;

though, like the hotels of most old English towns, it had a musty

fragrance of antiquity, such as I have smelt in a seldom-opened London

church where the broad-aisle is paved with tombstones. The house was of an

ancient fashion, the entrance into its interior court-yard being through

an arch, in the side of which is the door of the hotel. There are long

corridors, an intricate arrangement of passages, and an up-and-down

meandering of staircases, amid which it would be no marvel to encounter

some forgotten guest who had gone astray a hundred years ago, and was

still seeking for his bed-room while the rest of his generation were in

their graves. There is no exaggerating the confusion of mind that seizes

upon a stranger in the bewildering geography of a great old-fashioned

English inn.

This hotel stands in the principal street of Lincoln, and within a very

short distance of one of the ancient city-gates, which is arched across

the public way, with a smaller arch for foot-passengers on either side;

the whole, a gray, time-gnawn, ponderous, shadowy structure, through the

dark vista of which you look into the Middle Ages. The street is narrow,

and retains many antique peculiarities; though, unquestionably, English

domestic architecture has lost its most impressive features, in the course

of the last century. In this respect, there are finer old towns than

Lincoln: Chester, for instance, and Shrewsbury,--which last is unusually

rich in those quaint and stately edifices where the gentry of the shire

used to make their winter-abodes, in a provincial metropolis. Almost

everywhere, nowadays, there is a monotony of modern brick or stuccoed

fronts, hiding houses that are older than ever, but obliterating the

picturesque antiquity of the street.

Between seven and eight o'clock (it being still broad daylight in these

long English days) we set out to pay a preliminary visit to the exterior

of the Cathedral. Passing through the Stone Bow, as the city-gate close by

is called, we ascended a street which grew steeper and narrower as we

advanced, till at last it got to be the steepest street I ever

climbed,--so steep that any carriage, if left to itself, would rattle

downward much faster than it could possibly be drawn up. Being almost the

only hill in Lincolnshire, the inhabitants seem disposed to make the most

of it. The houses on each side had no very remarkable aspect, except one

with a stone portal and carved ornaments, which is now a dwelling-place

for poverty-stricken people, but may have been an aristocratic abode in

the days of the Norman kings, to whom its style of architecture dates

back. This is called the Jewess's House, having been inhabited by a woman

of that faith who was hanged six hundred years ago.

And still the street grew steeper and steeper. Certainly, the Bishop and

clergy of Lincoln ought not to be fat men, but of very spiritual,

saint-like, almost angelic habit, if it be a frequent part of their

ecclesiastical duty to climb this hill; for it is a real penance, and was

probably performed as such, and groaned over accordingly, in monkish

times. Formerly, on the day of his installation, the Bishop used to ascend

the hill barefoot, and was doubtless cheered and invigorated by looking

upward to the grandeur that was to console him for the humility of his

approach. We, likewise, were beckoned onward by glimpses of the Cathedral

towers, and, finally, attaining an open square on the summit, we saw an

old Gothic gateway to the left hand, and another to the right. The latter

had apparently been a part of the exterior defences of the Cathedral, at a

time when the edifice was fortified. The west front rose behind. We passed

through one of the side-arches of the Gothic portal, and found ourselves

in the Cathedral Close, a wide, level space, where the great old Minster

has fair room to sit, looking down on the ancient structures that surround

it, all of which, in former days, were the habitations of its dignitaries

and officers. Some of them are still occupied as such, though others are

in too neglected and dilapidated a state to seem worthy of so splendid an

establishment. Unless it be Salisbury Close, however, (which is

incomparably rich as regards the old residences that belong to it,) I

remember no more comfortably picturesque precincts round any other

cathedral. But, in, truth, almost every cathedral close, in turn, has

seemed to me the loveliest, coziest, safest, least wind-shaken, most

decorous, and most enjoyable shelter that ever the thrift and selfishness

of mortal man contrived for himself. How delightful, to combine all this

with the service of the temple!

Lincoln Cathedral is built of a yellowish brown-stone, which appears

either to have been largely restored, or else does not assume the hoary,

crumbly surface that gives such a venerable aspect to most of the ancient

churches and castles in England. In many parts, the recent restorations

are quite evident; but other, and much the larger portions, can scarcely

have been touched for centuries: for there are still the gargoyles,

perfect, or with broken noses, as the case may be, but showing that

variety and fertility of grotesque extravagance which no modern imitation

can effect. There are innumerable niches, too, up the whole height of the

towers, above and around the entrance, and all over the walls: most of

them empty, but a few containing the lamentable remnants of headless

saints and angels. It is singular what a native animosity lives in the

human heart against carved images, insomuch that, whether they represent

Christian saint or Pagan deity, all unsophisticated men seize the first

safe opportunity to knock off their heads! In spite of all dilapidations,

however, the effect of the west front of the Cathedral is still

exceedingly rich, being covered from massive base to airy summit with the

minutest details of sculpture and carving: at least, it was so once; and

even now the spiritual impression of its beauty remains so strong, that we

have to look twice to see that much of it has been obliterated. I have

seen a cherry-stone carved all over by a monk, so minutely that it must

have cost him half a lifetime of labor; and this cathedral front seems to

have been elaborated in a monkish spirit, like that cherry-stone. Not that

the result is in the least petty, but miraculously grand, and all the more

so for the faithful beauty of the smallest details.

An elderly man, seeing us looking up at the west front, came to the door

of an adjacent house, and called to inquire if we wished to go into the

Cathedral; but as there would have been a dusky twilight beneath its roof,

like the antiquity that has sheltered itself within, we declined for the

present. So we merely walked round the exterior, and thought it more

beautiful than that of York; though, on recollection, I hardly deem it so

majestic and mighty as that. It is vain to attempt a description, or seek

even to record the feeling which the edifice inspires. It does not impress

the beholder as an inanimate object, but as something that has a vast,

quiet, long-enduring life of its own,--a creation which man did not build,

though in some way or other it is connected with him, and kindred to human

nature. In short, I fall straightway to talking nonsense, when I try to

express my inner sense of this and other cathedrals.

While we stood in the close, at the eastern end of the Minster, the clock

chimed the quarters; and then Great Tom, who hangs in the Rood Tower, told

us it was eight o'clock, in far the sweetest and mightiest accents that I

ever heard from any bell,--slow, and solemn, and allowing the profound

reverberations of each stroke to die away before the next one fell. It was

still broad daylight in that upper region of the town, and would be so for

some time longer; but the evening atmosphere was getting sharp and cool.

We therefore descended the steep street,--our younger companion running

before us, and gathering such headway that I fully expected him to break

his head against some projecting wall.

In the morning we took a fly, (an English term for an exceedingly sluggish

vehicle,) and drove up to the Minster by a road rather less steep and

abrupt than the one we had previously climbed. We alighted before the west

front, and sent our charioteer in quest of the verger; but, as he was not

immediately to be found, a young girl let us into the nave. We found it

very grand, it is needless to say, but not so grand, methought, as the

vast nave of York Cathedral, especially beneath the great central tower of

the latter. Unless a writer intends a professedly architectural

description, there is but one set of phrases in which to talk of all the

cathedrals in England, and elsewhere. They are alike in their great

features: an acre or two of stone flags for a pavement; rows of vast

columns supporting a vaulted roof at a dusky height; great windows,

sometimes richly bedimmed with ancient or modern stained glass; an

elaborately carved screen between the nave and chancel, breaking the vista

that might else be of such glorious length, and which is further choked up

by a massive organ,--in spite of which obstructions, you catch the broad,

variegated glimmer of the painted east window, where a hundred saints wear

their robes of transfiguration. Within the screen are the carved oaken

stalls of the Chapter and Prebendaries, the Bishop's throne, the pulpit,

the altar, and whatever else may furnish out the Holy of Holies. Nor must

we forget the range of chapels, (once dedicated to Catholic saints, but

which have now lost their individual consecration,) nor the old monuments

of kings, warriors, and prelates, in the side-aisles of the chancel. In

close contiguity to the main body of the Cathedral is the Chapter-House,

which, here at Lincoln, as at Salisbury, is supported by one central

pillar rising from the floor, and putting forth branches like a tree, to

hold up the roof. Adjacent to the Chapter-House are the cloisters,

extending round a quadrangle, and paved with lettered tombstones, the more

antique of which have had their inscriptions half obliterated by the feet

of monks taking their noontide exercise in these sheltered walks, five

hundred years ago. Some of these old burial-stones, although with ancient

crosses engraved upon them, have been made to serve as memorials to dead

people of very recent date.

In the chancel, among the tombs of forgotten bishops and knights, we saw

an immense slab of stone purporting to be the monument of Catherine

Swineferd, wife of John of Gaunt; also, here was the shrine of the little

Saint Hugh, that Christian child who was fabled to have been crucified by

the Jews of Lincoln. The Cathedral is not particularly rich in monuments;

for it suffered grievous outrage and dilapidation, both at the Reformation

and in Cromwell's time. This latter iconoclast is in especially bad odor

with the sextons and vergers of most of the old churches which I have

visited. His soldiers stabled their steeds in the nave of Lincoln

Cathedral, and hacked and hewed the monkish sculptures, and the ancestral

memorials of great families, quite at their wicked and plebeian pleasure.

Nevertheless, there are some most exquisite and marvellous specimens of

flowers, foliage, and grape-vines, and miracles of stone-work twined about

arches, as if the material had been as soft as wax in the cunning

sculptor's hands,--the leaves being represented with all their veins, so

that you would almost think it petrified Nature, for which he sought to

steal the praise of Art. Here, too, were those grotesque faces which

always grin at you from the projections of monkish architecture, as if the

builders had gone mad with their own deep solemnity, or dreaded such a

catastrophe, unless permitted to throw in something ineffably absurd.

Originally, it is supposed, all the pillars of this great edifice, and all

these magic sculptures, were polished to the utmost degree of lustre; nor

is it unreasonable to think that the artists would have taken these

further pains, when they had already bestowed so much labor in working out

their conceptions to the extremest point. But, at present, the whole

interior of the Cathedral is smeared over with a yellowish wash, the very

meanest hue imaginable, and for which somebody's soul has a bitter

reckoning to undergo.

In the centre of the grassy quadrangle about which the cloisters

perambulate is a small, mean, brick building, with a locked door. Our

guide,--I forgot to say that we had been captured by a verger, in black,

and with a white tie, but of a lusty and jolly aspect,--our guide unlocked

this door, and disclosed a flight of steps. At the bottom appeared what I

should have taken to be a large square of dim, worn, and faded

oil-carpeting, which might originally have been painted of a rather gaudy

pattern. This was a Roman tessellated pavement, made of small colored

bricks, or pieces of burnt clay. It was accidentally discovered here, and

has not been meddled with, further than by removing the superincumbent

earth and rubbish.

Nothing else occurs to me, just now, to be recorded about the interior of

the Cathedral, except that we saw a place where the stone pavement had

been worn away by the feet of ancient pilgrims scraping upon it, as they

knelt down before a shrine of the Virgin.

Leaving the Minster, we now went along a street of more venerable

appearance than we had heretofore seen, bordered with houses, the high,

peaked roofs of which were covered with red earthen tiles. It led us to a

Roman arch, which was once the gateway of a fortification, and has been

striding across the English street ever since the latter was a faint

village-path, and for centuries before. The arch is about four hundred

yards from the Cathedral; and it is to be noticed that there are Roman

remains in all this neighborhood, some above ground, and doubtless

innumerable more beneath it; for, as in ancient Rome itself, an inundation

of accumulated soil seems to have swept over what was the surface of that

earlier day. The gateway which I am speaking about is probably buried to a

third of its height, and perhaps has as perfect a Roman pavement (if

sought for at the original depth) as that which runs beneath the Arch of

Titus. It is a rude and massive structure, and seems as stalwart now as it

could have been two thousand years ago; and though Time has gnawed it

externally, he has made what amends he could by crowning its rough and

broken summit with grass and weeds, and planting tufts of yellow flowers

on the projections up and down the sides.

There are the ruins of a Norman castle, built by the Conqueror, in pretty

close proximity to the Cathedral; but the old gateway is obstructed by a

modern door of wood, and we were denied admittance because some part of

the precincts are used as a prison. We now rambled about on the broad back

of the hill, which, besides the Minster and ruined castle, is the site of

some stately and queer old houses, and of many mean little hovels. I

suspect that all or most of the life of the present day has subsided into

the lower town, and that only priests, poor people, and prisoners dwell in

these upper regions. In the wide, dry moat at the base of the castle-wall

are clustered whole colonies of small houses, some of brick, but the

larger portion built of old stones which once made part of the Norman

keep, or of Roman structures that existed before the Conqueror's castle

was ever dreamed about. They are like toadstools that spring up from the

mould of a decaying tree. Ugly as they are, they add wonderfully to the

picturesqueness of the scene, being quite as valuable, in that respect, as

the great, broad, ponderous ruin of the castle-keep, which rose high above

our heads, heaving its huge gray mass out of a bank of green foliage and

ornamental shrubbery, such as lilacs and other flowering-plants, in which

its foundations were completely hidden.

After walking quite round the castle, I made an excursion through the

Roman gateway, along a pleasant and level road bordered with dwellings of

various character. One or two were houses of gentility, with delightful

and shadowy lawns before them; many had those high, red-tiled roofs,

ascending into acutely pointed gables, which seem to belong to the same

epoch as some of the edifices in our own earlier towns; and there were

pleasant-looking cottages, very sylvan and rural, with hedges so dense and

high, fencing them in, as almost to hide them up to the eaves of their

thatched roofs. In front of one of these I saw various images, crosses,

and relics of antiquity, among which were fragments of old Catholic

tombstones, disposed by way of ornament.

We now went home to the Saracen's Head; and as the weather was very

unpropitious, and it sprinkled a little now and then, I would gladly have

felt myself released from further thraldom to the Cathedral. But it had

taken possession of me, and would not let me be at rest; so at length I

found myself compelled to climb the hill again, between daylight and dusk.

A mist was now hovering about the upper height of the great central tower,

so as to dim and half obliterate its battlements and pinnacles, even while

I stood in the close beneath it. It was the most impressive view that I

had had. The whole lower part of the structure was seen with perfect

distinctness; but at the very summit the mist was so dense as to form an

actual cloud, as well denned as ever I saw resting on a mountain-top.

Really and literally, here was a "cloud-capt tower."

The entire Cathedral, too, transfigured itself into a richer beauty and

more imposing majesty than ever. The longer I looked, the better I loved

it. Its exterior is certainly far more beautiful than that of York

Minster; and its finer effect is due, I think, to the many peaks in which

the structure ascends, and to the pinnacles which, as it were, repeat and

re-echo them into the sky. York Cathedral is comparatively square and

angular in its general effect; but here there is a continual mystery of

variety, so that at every glance you are aware of a change, and a

disclosure of something new, yet working an harmonious development of what

you have heretofore seen. The west front is unspeakably grand, and may be

read over and over again forever, and still show undetected meanings, like

a great, broad page of marvellous writing in black-letter,--so many

sculptured ornaments there are, blossoming out before your eyes, and gray

statues that have grown there since you looked last, and empty niches, and

a hundred airy canopies beneath which carved images used to be, and where

they will show themselves again, if you gaze long enough.--But I will not

say another word about the Cathedral.

We spent the rest of the day within the sombre precincts of the Saracen's

Head, reading yesterday's "Times," "The Guide-Book of Lincoln," and "The

Directory of the Eastern Counties." Dismal as the weather was, the street

beneath our window was enlivened with a great bustle and turmoil of people

all the evening, because it was Saturday night, and they had accomplished

their week's toil, received their wages, and were making their small

purchases against Sunday, and enjoying themselves as well as they knew

how. A band of music passed to and fro several times, with the rain-drops

falling into the mouth of the brazen trumpet and pattering on the

bass-drum; a spirit-shop, opposite the hotel, had a vast run of custom;

and a coffee-dealer, in the open air, found occasional vent for his

commodity, in spite of the cold water that dripped into the cups. The

whole breadth of the street, between the Stone Bow and the bridge across

the Witham, was thronged to overflowing, and humming with human life.

Observing in the Guide-Book that a steamer runs on the River Witham

between Lincoln and Boston, I inquired of the waiter, and learned that she

was to start on Monday, at ten o'clock. Thinking it might be an

interesting trip, and a pleasant variation of our customary mode of

travel, we determined to make the voyage. The Witham flows through

Lincoln, crossing the main street under an arched bridge of Gothic

construction, a little below the Saracen's Head. It has more the

appearance of a canal than of a river, in its passage through the

town,--being bordered with hewn stone mason-work on each side, and

provided with one or two locks. The steamer proved to be small, dirty, and

altogether inconvenient. The early morning had been bright; but the sky

now lowered upon us with a sulky English temper, and we had not long put

off before we felt an ugly wind from the German Ocean blowing right in our

teeth. There were a number of passengers on board, country-people, such as

travel by third-class on the railway; for, I suppose, nobody but ourselves

ever dreamt of voyaging, by the steamer for the sake of what he might

happen upon in the way of river-scenery.

We bothered a good while about getting through a preliminary lock; nor,

when fairly under way, did we ever accomplish, I think, six miles an hour.

Constant delays were caused, moreover, by stopping to take up passengers

and freight,--not at regular landing-places, but anywhere along the green

banks. The scenery was identical with that of the railway, because the

latter runs along by the river-side through the whole distance, or nowhere

departs from it except to make a short cut across some sinuosity; so that

our only advantage lay in the drawling, snail-like slothfulness of our

progress, which allowed us time enough and to spare for the objects along

the shore. Unfortunately, there was nothing, or next to nothing, to be

seen,--the country being one unvaried level over the whole thirty miles of

our voyage,--not a hill in sight, either near or far, except that solitary

one on the summit of which we had left Lincoln Cathedral. And the

Cathedral was our landmark for four hours or more, and at last rather

faded out than was hidden by any intervening object.

It would have been a pleasantly lazy day enough, if the rough and bitter

wind had not blown directly in our faces, and chilled us through, in spite

of the sunshine that soon succeeded a sprinkle or two of rain. These

English east-winds, which prevail from February till June, are greater

nuisances than the east-wind of our own Atlantic coast, although they do

not bring mist and storm, as with us, but some of the sunniest weather

that England sees. Under their influence, the sky smiles and is villanous.

The landscape was tame to the last degree, but had an English character

that was abundantly worth our looking at. A green luxuriance of early

grass; old, high-roofed farm-houses, surrounded by their stone barns and

ricks of bay and grain; ancient villages, with the square, gray tower of a

church seen afar over the level country, amid the cluster of red roofs;

here and there a shadowy grove of venerable trees, surrounding what was

perhaps an Elizabethan ball, though it looked more like the abode of some

rich yeoman. Once, too, we saw the tower of a mediaeval castle, that of

Tattershall, built by a Cromwell, but whether of the Protector's family I

cannot tell. But the gentry do not appear to have settled multitudinously

in this tract of country; nor is it to be wondered at, since a lover of

the picturesque would as soon think of settling in Holland. The river

retains its canal-like aspect all along; and only in the latter part of

its course does it become more than wide enough for the little steamer to

turn itself round,--at broadest, not more than twice that width.

The only memorable incident of our voyage happened when a mother-duck was

leading her little fleet of five ducklings across the river, just as our

steamer went swaggering by, stirring the quiet stream into great waves

that lashed the banks on either side. I saw the imminence of the

catastrophe, and hurried to the stern of the boat to witness, since I

could not possibly avert it. The poor ducklings had uttered their

baby-quacks, and striven with all their tiny might to escape: four of

them, I believe, were washed aside and thrown off unhurt from the

steamer's prow; but the fifth must have gone under the whole length of the

keel, and never could have come up alive.

At last, in, mid-afternoon, we beheld the tall tower of Saint Botolph's

Church (three hundred feet high, the same elevation as the tallest tower

of Lincoln Cathedral) looming in the distance. At about half-past four we

reached Boston, (which name has been shortened, in the course of ages, by

the quick and slovenly English pronunciation, from Botolph's town,) and

were taken by a cab to the Peacock, in the market-place. It was the best

hotel in town, though a poor one enough; and we were shown into a small,

stilled parlor, dingy, musty, and scented with stale

tobacco-smoke,--tobacco-smoke two days old, for the waiter assured us that

the room had not more recently been fumigated. An exceedingly grim waiter

he was, apparently a genuine descendant of the old Puritans of this

English Boston, and quite as sour as those who peopled the daughter-city

in New England. Our parlor had the one recommendation of looking into the

market-place, and affording a sidelong glimpse of the tail spire and noble

old church.

In my first ramble about the town, chance led me to the river-side, at

that quarter where the port is situated. Here were long buildings of an

old-fashioned aspect, seemingly warehouses, with windows in the high,

steep roofs. The Custom-House found ample accommodation within an ordinary

dwelling-house. Two or three large schooners were moored along the river's

brink, which had here a stone margin; another large and handsome schooner

was evidently just finished, rigged and equipped for her first voyage; the

rudiments of another were on the stocks, in a ship-yard bordering on the

river. Still another, while I was looking on, came up the stream, and

lowered her main-sail, from a foreign voyage. An old man on the bank

hailed her and inquired about her cargo; but the Lincolnshire people have

such a queer way of talking English that I could not understand the reply.

Farther down the river, I saw a brig, approaching rapidly under sail. The

whole scene made an odd impression of bustle, and sluggishness, and decay,

and a remnant of wholesome life; and I could not but contrast it with the

mighty and populous activity of our own Boston, which was once the feeble

infant of this old English town;--the latter, perhaps, almost stationary

ever since that day, as if the birth of such an offspring had taken away

its own principle of growth. I thought of Long Wharf, and Faneuil Hall,

and Washington Street, and the Great Elm, and the State-House, and exulted

lustily,--but yet began to feel at home in this good old town, for its

very name's sake, as I never had before felt, in England.

The next morning we came out in the early sunshine, (the sun must have

been shining nearly four hours, however, for it was after eight o'clock,)

and strolled about the streets, like people who had a right to be there.

The market-place of Boston is an irregular square, into one end of which

the chancel of the church slightly projects. The gates of the church-yard

were open and free to all passengers, and the common footway of the

towns-people seems to lie to and fro across it. It is paved, according to

English custom, with flat tombstones; and there are also raised, or

altar-tombs, some of which have armorial bearings on them. One clergyman

has caused himself and his wife to be buried right in the middle of the

stone-bordered path that traverses the church-yard; so that not an

individual of the thousands who pass along this public way can help

trampling over him or her. The scene, nevertheless, was very cheerful in

the morning sun: people going about their business in the day's primal

freshness, which was just as fresh here as in younger villages; children,

with milk-pails, loitering over the burial-stones; school-boys playing

leap-frog with the altar-tombs; the simple old town preparing itself for

the day, which would be like myriads of other days that had passed over

it, but yet would be worth living through. And down on the church-yard,

where were buried many generations whom it remembered in their time,

looked the stately tower of Saint Botolph; and it was good to see and

think of such an age-long giant, intermarrying the present epoch with a

distant past, and getting quite imbued with human nature by being so

immemorially connected with men's familiar knowledge and homely interests.

It is a noble tower; and the jackdaws evidently have pleasant homes in

their hereditary nests among its topmost windows, and live delightful

lives, flitting and cawing about its pinnacles and flying-buttresses. I

should almost like to be a jackdaw myself, for the sake of living up

there.

In front of the church, not more than twenty yards off, and with a low

brick wall between, flows the River Witham. On the hither bank a fisherman

was washing his boat; and another skiff, with her sail lazily

half-twisted, lay on the opposite strand. The stream, at this point, is

about of such width, that, if the tall tower were to tumble over flat on

its face, its top-stone might perhaps reach to the middle of the channel.

On the farther shore there is a line of antique-looking houses, with roofs

of red tile, and windows opening out of them,--some of these dwellings

being so ancient, that the Reverend Mr. Cotton, subsequently our first

Boston minister, must have seen them with his own bodily eyes, when he

used to issue from the front-portal after service. Indeed, there must be

very many houses here, and even some streets, that bear much the aspect

that they did when the Puritan divine paced solemnly among them.

In our rambles about town, we went into a bookseller's shop to inquire if

he had any description of Boston for sale. He offered me (or, rather,

produced for inspection, not supposing that I would buy it) a quarto

history of the town, published by subscription, nearly forty years ago.

The bookseller showed himself a well-informed and affable man, and a local

antiquary, to whom a party of inquisitive strangers were a godsend. He had

met with several Americans, who, at various times, had come on pilgrimages

to this place, and had been in correspondence with others. Happening to

have heard the name of one member of our party, he showed us great

courtesy and kindness, and invited us into his inner domicile, where, as

he modestly intimated, he kept a few articles which it might interest us

to see. So we went with him through the shop, up-stairs, into the private

part of his establishment; and, really, it was one of the rarest

adventures I ever met with, to stumble upon this treasure of a man, with

his treasury of antiquities and curiosities, veiled behind the

unostentatious front of a bookseller's shop, in a very moderate line of

village-business. The two up-stair rooms into which he introduced us were

so crowded with inestimable articles, that we were almost afraid to stir,

for fear of breaking some fragile thing that had been accumulating value

for unknown centuries.

The apartment was hung round with pictures and old engravings, many of

which were extremely rare. Premising that he was going to show us

something very curious, Mr. Porter went into the next room and returned

with a counterpane of fine linen, elaborately embroidered with silk, which

so profusely covered the linen that the general effect was as if the main

texture were silken. It was stained, and seemed very old, and had an

ancient fragrance. It was wrought all over with birds and flowers in a

most delicate style of needle-work, and among other devices, more than

once repeated, was the cipher, M.S.,--being the initials of one of the

most unhappy names that ever a woman bore. This quilt was embroidered by

the hands of Mary-Queen of Scots, during her imprisonment at Fotheringay

Castle; and having evidently been a work of years, she had doubtless shed

many tears over it, and wrought many doleful thoughts and abortive schemes

into its texture, along with the birds and flowers. As a counterpart to

this most precious relic, our friend produced some of the handiwork of a

former Queen of Otaheite, presented by her to Captain Cook: it was a bag,

cunningly made of some delicate vegetable stuff, and ornamented with

feathers. Next, he brought out a green silk waistcoat of very antique

fashion, trimmed about the edges and pocket-holes with a rich and delicate

embroidery of gold and silver. This (as the possessor of the treasure

proved, by tracing its pedigree till it came into his hands) was once the

vestment of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Burleigh: but that great statesman must

have been a person of very moderate girth in the chest and waist; for the

garment was hardly more than a comfortable fit for a boy of eleven, the

smallest American of our party, who tried on the gorgeous waistcoat. Then,

Mr. Porter produced some curiously engraved drinking-glasses, with a view

of Saint Botolph's steeple on one of them, and other Boston edifices,

public or domestic, on the remaining two, very admirably done. These

crystal goblets had been a present, long ago, to an old master of the Free

School from his pupils; and it is very rarely, I imagine, that a retired

schoolmaster can exhibit such trophies of gratitude and affection, won

from the victims of his birch rod.

Our kind friend kept bringing out one unexpected and wholly unexpectable

thing after another, as if he were a magician, and had only to fling a

private signal into the air, and some attendant imp would hand forth any

strange relic we might choose to ask for. He was especially rich in

drawings by the Old Masters, producing two or three, of exquisite

delicacy, by Raphael, one by Salvator, a head by Rembrandt, and others, in

chalk or pen-and-ink, by Giordano, Benvenuto Cellini, and hands almost as

famous; and besides what were shown us, there seemed to be an endless

supply of these art-treasures in reserve. On the wall hung a

crayon-portrait of Sterne, never engraved, representing him as a rather

young man, blooming, and not uncomely: it was the worldly face of a man

fond of pleasure, but without that ugly, keen, sarcastic, odd expression

that we see in his only engraved portrait. The picture is an original, and

must needs be very valuable; and we wish it might be prefixed to some new

and worthier biography of a writer whose character the world has always

treated with singular harshness, considering how much it owes him. There

was likewise a crayon-portrait of Sterne's wife, looking so haughty and

unamiable, that the wonder is, how he ever contrived to live a week with

such an awful woman.

After looking at these, and a great many more things than I can remember,

above stairs, we went down to a parlor, where this wonderful bookseller

opened an old cabinet, containing numberless drawers, and looking just fit

to be the repository of such knick-knacks as were stored up in it. He

appeared to possess more treasures than he himself knew of, or knew where

to find; but, rummaging here and there, he brought forth things new and

old: rose-nobles, Victoria crowns, gold angels, double-sovereigns of

George IV., two-guinea pieces of George II.; a marriage-medal of the first

Napoleon, only forty-five of which were ever struck off, and of which even

the British Museum does not contain a specimen like this, in gold; a brass

medal, three or four inches in diameter, of a Roman Emperor; together with

buckles, bracelets, amulets, and I know not what besides. There was a

green silk tassel from the fringe of Queen Mary's bed at Holyrood Palace.

There were illuminated missals, antique Latin Bibles, and (what may seem

of especial interest to the historian) a Secret-Book of Queen Elizabeth,

written, for aught I know, by her own hand. On examination, however, it

proved to contain, not secrets of State, but recipes for dishes, drinks,

medicines, washes, and all such matters of housewifery, the toilet, and

domestic quackery, among which we were horrified by the title of one of

the nostrums, "How to kill a Fellow quickly"! We never doubted that bloody

Queen Bess might often have had occasion for such a recipe, but wondered

at her frankness, and at her attending to these anomalous necessities in

such a methodical way. The truth is, we had read amiss, and the Queen had

spelt amiss: the word was "Fellon,"--a sort of whitlow,--not "Fellow."

Our hospitable friend now made us drink a glass of wine, as old and

genuine as the curiosities of his cabinet; and while sipping it, we

ungratefully tried to excite his envy, by telling of various things,

interesting to an antiquary and virtuoso, which we had seen in the course

of our travels about England. We spoke, for instance, of a missal bound in

solid gold and set round with jewels, but of such intrinsic value as no

setting could enhance, for it was exquisitely illuminated, throughout, by

the hand of Raphael himself. We mentioned a little silver case which once

contained a portion of the heart of Louis XIV, nicely done up in spices,

but, to the owner's horror and astonishment, Dean Buckland popped the

kingly morsel into his mouth, and swallowed it. We told about the

black-letter prayer-book of King Charles the Martyr, used by him upon the

scaffold, taking which into our hands, it opened of itself at the

Communion Service; and there, on the left-hand page, appeared a spot about

as large as a sixpence, of a yellowish or brownish hue: a drop of the

King's blood had fallen there.

Mr. Porter now accompanied us to the church, but first leading us to a

vacant spot of ground where old John Cotton's vicarage had stood till a

very short time since. According to our friend's description, it was a

humble habitation, of the cottage order, built of brick, with a thatched

roof. The site is now rudely fenced in, and cultivated as a vegetable

garden. In the right-hand aisle of the church there is an ancient chapel,

which, at the time of our visit, was in process of restoration, and was to

be dedicated to Cotton, whom these English people consider as the founder

of our American Boston. It would contain a painted memorial-window, in

honor of the old Puritan minister. A festival in commemoration of the

event was to take place in the ensuing July, to which I had myself

received an invitation, but I knew too well the pains and penalties

incurred by an invited guest at public festivals in England to accept it.

It ought to be recorded, (and it seems to have made a very kindly

impression on our kinsfolk here,) that five hundred pounds had been

contributed by persons in the United States, principally in Boston,

towards the cost of the memorial-window, and the repair and restoration of

the chapel.

After we emerged from the chapel, Mr. Porter approached us with the vicar,

to whom he kindly introduced us, and then took his leave. May a stranger's

benediction rest upon him! He is a most pleasant man; rather, I imagine, a

virtuoso than an antiquary; for he seemed to value the Queen of Otaheite's

bag as highly as Queen Mary's embroidered quilt, and to have an omnivorous

appetite for everything strange and rare. Would that we could fill up his

shelves and drawers (if there are any vacant spaces left) with the

choicest trifles that have dropped out of Time's carpet-bag, or give him

the carpet-bag itself, to take out what he will!

The vicar looked about thirty years old, a gentleman, evidently assured of

his position, (as clergymen of the Established Church invariably are,)

comfortable and well-to-do, a scholar and a Christian, and fit to be a

bishop, knowing how to make the most of life without prejudice to the life

to come. I was glad to see such a model English priest so suitably

accommodated with an old English church. He kindly and courteously did the

honors, showing us quite round the interior, giving us all the information

that we required, and then leaving us to the quiet enjoyment of what we

came to see.

The interior of Saint Botolph's is very fine and satisfactory, as stately,

almost, as a cathedral, and has been repaired--so far as repairs were

necessary--in a chaste and noble style. The great eastern window is of

modern painted glass, but is the richest, mellowest, and tenderest modern

window that I have ever seen: the art of painting these glowing

transparencies in pristine perfection being one that the world has lost.

The vast, clear space, of the interior church delighted me. There was no

screen,--nothing between the vestibule and the altar to break the long

vista; even the organ stood aside,--though it by-and-by made us aware of

its presence by a melodious roar. Around the walls there were old engraved

brasses, and a stone coffin, and an alabaster knight of Saint John, and an

alabaster lady, each recumbent at full length, as large as life, and in

perfect preservation, except for a slight modern touch at the tips of

their noses. In the chancel we saw a great deal of oaken work, quaintly

and admirably carved, especially about the seats formerly appropriated to

the monks, which were so contrived as to tumble down with a tremendous

crash, if the occupant happened to fall asleep.

We now essayed to climb into the upper regions. Up we went, winding and

still winding round the circular stairs, till we came to the gallery

beneath the stone roof of the tower, whence we could look down and see the

raised Fort, and my Talma lying on one of the steps, and looking about as

big as a pocket-handkerchief. Then up again, up, up, up, through a yet

smaller staircase, till we emerged into another stone gallery, above the

jackdaws, and far above the roof beneath which we had before made a halt.

Then up another flight, which led us into a pinnacle of the temple, but

not the highest; so, retracing our steps, we took the right turret this

time, and emerged into the loftiest lantern, where we saw level

Lincolnshire, far and near, though with a haze on the distant horizon.

There were dusty roads, a river, and canals, converging towards Boston,

which--a congregation of red-tiled roofs--lay beneath our feet, with pigmy

people creeping about its narrow streets. We were three hundred feet

aloft, and the pinnacle on which we stood is a landmark forty miles at

sea.

Content, and weary of our elevation, we descended the corkscrew stairs and

left the church; the last object that we noticed in the interior being a

bird, which appeared to be at home there, and responded with its cheerful

notes to the swell of the organ. Pausing on the church-steps, we observed

that there were formerly two statues, one on each side of the door-way;

the canopies still remaining, and the pedestals being about a yard from

the ground. Some of Mr. Cotton's Puritan parishioners are probably

responsible for the disappearance of these stone saints. This door-way at

the base of the tower is now much dilapidated, but must once have been

very rich and of a peculiar fashion. It opens its arch through a great

square tablet of stone, reared against the front of the tower. On most of

the projections, whether on the tower or about the body of the church,

there are gargoyles of genuine Gothic grotesqueness,--fiends, beasts,

angels, and combinations of all three; and where portions of the edifice

are restored, the modern sculptors have tried to imitate these wild

fantasies, but with very poor success. Extravagance and absurdity have

still their law, and should pay as rigid obedience to it as the primmest

things on earth.

In our further rambles about Boston, we crossed the river by a bridge, and

observed that the larger part of the town seems to lie on that side of its

navigable stream. The crooked streets and narrow lanes reminded me much of

Hanover Street, Ann Street, and other portions of the North End of our

American Boston, as I remember that picturesque region in my boyish days.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that the local habits and recollections

of the first settlers may have had some influence on the physical

character of the streets and houses in the New-England metropolis; at any

rate, here is a similar intricacy of bewildering lanes, and numbers of old

peaked and projecting-storied dwellings, such as I used to see there. It

is singular what a home-feeling and sense of kindred I derived from this

hereditary connection and fancied physiognomical resemblance between the

old town and its well-grown daughter, and how reluctant I was, after chill

years of banishment, to leave this hospitable place, on that account.

Moreover, it recalled some of the features of another American town, my

own dear native place, when I saw the seafaring people leaning against

posts, and sitting on planks, under the lee of warehouses,--or lolling on

long-boats, drawn up high and dry, as sailors and old wharf-rats are

accustomed to do, in seaports of little business. In other respects, the

English town is more village-like than either of the American ones. The

women and budding girls chat together at their doors, and exchange merry

greetings with young men; children chase one another in the summer

twilight; school-boys sail little boats on the river, or play at marbles

across the flat tombstones in the churchyard; and ancient men, in breeches

and long waistcoats, wander slowly about the streets, with a certain

familiarity of deportment, as if each one were everybody's grandfather. I

have frequently observed, in old English towns, that Old Age comes forth

more cheerfully, and genially into the sunshine than among ourselves,

where the rush, stir, bustle, and irreverent energy of youth are so

preponderant, that the poor, forlorn grandsires begin to doubt whether

they have a right to breathe in such a world any longer, and so hide their

silvery heads in solitude. Speaking of old men, I am reminded of the

scholars of the Boston Charity-School, who walk about in antique,

long-skirted blue coats, and knee-breeches, and with bands at their

necks,--perfect and grotesque pictures of the costume of three centuries

ago.

On the morning of our departure, I looked from the parlor-window of the

Peacock into the market-place, and beheld its irregular square already

well-covered with booths, and more in process of being put up, by

stretching tattered sail-cloth on poles. It was market-day. The dealers

were arranging their commodities, consisting chiefly of vegetables, the

great bulk of which seemed to be cabbages. Later in the forenoon there was

a much greater variety of merchandise: basket-work, both for fancy and

use; twig-brooms, beehives, oranges, rustic attire; all sorts of things,

in short, that are commonly sold at a rural fair. I heard the lowing of

cattle, too, and the bleating of sheep, and found that there was a market

for cows, oxen, and pigs, in another part of the town. A crowd of

towns-people and Lincolnshire yeomen elbowed one another in the square;

Mr. Punch was squeaking in one corner, and a vagabond juggler tried to

find space for his exhibition in another: so that my final glimpse of

Boston was calculated to leave a livelier impression than my former ones.

Meanwhile the tower of Saint Botolph's looked benignantly down; and I

fancied that it was bidding me farewell, as it did Mr. Cotton, two or

three hundred years ago, and telling me to describe its venerable height,

and the town beneath it, to the people of the American city, who are

partly akin, if not to the living inhabitants of Old Boston, yet to some

of the dust that lies in its churchyard.

One thing more. They have a Bunker Hill in the vicinity of their town; and

(what could hardly be expected of an English community) seem proud to

think that their neighborhood has given name to our first and most widely

celebrated and best-remembered battle-field.

* * * * *

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF A STRENGTH-SEEKER.

"There goes the smallest fellow in our class."

I was crossing one of the paths that intersect the college green of old

Harvard when this remark fell upon my ears. Looking up, I saw two stalwart

Freshmen on their way to recitation, one of whom had called the other's

attention to my humble self by this observation, reminding me of a

distinction which I did not covet.

It was not quite true. There was one, and only one, member of the class of

'54 who was as small as I. Some consolation, though not much, in that! But

the air of amused compassion with which the lusty Down-Easter, who had

made me feel what the _digito monstrari_ was, now looked down on me,

raised a feeling of resentment and self-depreciation which left me in no

mood to make a brilliant show of scholarship in construing my "Isocrates"

that morning.

"True, I am small, nay, diminutive," I soliloquized, as I wended my way

homeward under the classic umbrage of venerable elms. "But surely this is

no fault of mine.--Hold there! Are you quite sure it's no fault of yours?

Are we not responsible to a much greater extent than we imagine for our

physical condition? After making all abatement for insurmountable

hereditary influences upon organization,--after granting to that

remorseless law of genealogical transmission its proper weight,--after

admitting the seemingly capricious facts of what the modern French

physiologists call _atavism_, under which we are made drunkards or

consumptives, lunatics or wise men, short or tall, because of certain

dominant traits in some remote ancestor,--after conceding all this, does

not Nature leave it largely in our own power to counteract both physical

and moral tendencies, and to mould the body as well as the mind, if we

will only put forth in action the requisite energy of will?"

This disposition to cavil at received axioms has beset me through life. No

sooner does a truth present itself than I want to see it on its other

side. If I hear the Devil spoken ill of, I puzzle myself to find what can

be said in his favor. The man who thus halts between conflicting opinions,

solicitous to give both their due, and to see the truth, pure and simple

and entire, may miss laying hold of great convictions till it is too late

for him to act on them; but what he accepts he generally holds.

My meditations on the subject of my inferior stature led me to a

determination to try what gymnastic practice could do to remedy the

defect. For some thirty years, gymnastics, first introduced into this

country, I believe, at the Round-Hill School at Northampton, then under

the charge of Messrs. Cogswell and Bancroft, had languished and revived

fitfully at Cambridge. It was during one of the languishing periods that I

began my practice. For some five or six weeks I kept it up with

enthusiasm. Then I began to grow less methodical and regular in my habits

of exercise; and then to find excuses for my delinquencies.

After all, what matter, if, like Paul's, my "bodily presence is weak"?

Were not Alexander the Great and Napoleon small men? Were not Pope, and

Dr. Watts, and Moore, and Campbell, and a long list of authors, artists,

and philosophers, considerably under medium height? Were not Garrick and

Kean and the elder Booth all under five feet four or five? Is there not a

volume somewhere in our college library, written by a learned Frenchman,

devoted exclusively to the biography of men who have been great in mind,

though diminutive in stature? Is not Lord John Russell as small almost as

I? Have I many inches to grow before I shall be as tall as Dr. Holmes?

These consolatory considerations softened my chagrin at the contemplation

of my height. "Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big

assemblance of a man? Give me the spirit, Master Shallow,--the spirit!"

And so my gymnastic ardor, after a brief blaze, flickered, fell, was

ashes. But it was destined to be soon revived by an incident, trifling in

itself, though of a character to assume exaggerated proportions in the

mind of a sensitive boy. A youth, who had considerably the advantage of me

both in inches and in years, and whose overflow of animal spirits required

some object to vent itself upon, selected me as the victim of his

ebullient vivacity. He began by tossing my book down stairs. This seemed

to me rather rough play, especially from one with whom I was not, at the

time, on terms of intimacy; but, making allowance for the hilarity of

classmates just let loose from recitation, I picked up, without a thought

of resentment, the abused volume, and took no further notice of the

matter. I subsequently found that it was merely the commencement of a

series of similar annoyances. This lively classmate would even play tricks

on me at the dinner table.

What was to be done? I mentioned the grievance to a friend, and he

remonstrated with my lively classmate, threatening him with my serious

displeasure. "Pooh! how can he help himself?" was the reply which came

duly to my ears.

Sure enough! How could I help myself? The aggressor was my superior in

weight and size. It was a plain case that I should get badly and

ridiculously whipped, if I attempted to cope with him in any pugilistic

encounter. But how would it do to demand of him the satisfaction of a

gentleman? True, I knew nothing of pistol-shooting, and had never handled

a small-sword. No matter for that!

But another consideration speedily drove this scheme of vengeance _à

l'outrance_ out of my head. Not many years before, a peppery little

Freshman had been insulted, as he thought, by a Sophomore. The Soph, I

believe, had knocked the young one's hat over his eyes, as they were

kicking foot-ball in the Delta. Freshman sent a challenge, the effect of

which was to excite inextinguishable laughter among the Sophs convened

over their cigars in the aggressor's room. Amid roars, one of the

conspirators penned an acceptance, fixing as the weapon, hair

triggers,--time, five o'clock in the morning,--place, the Delta,--second,

the bearer, Mr. M----, the writer of this reply.

It was a cruel business. A sham second was imposed on poor little Fresh.

Brave as Julius Caesar, he sat up all night writing letters and preparing

his will. Prompt to the moment, he was on the chosen ground. An unusually

large delegation for such a delicate affair seemed to be present. One

rascal who wore enormous green goggles was pointed out to the innocent as

Dr. Von Guldenstubbe, a celebrated German surgeon, just from Leipsic.

Little Fresh shook hands with him gravely, amid the smothered laughter of

the conspirators. The distance was to be five paces; for it was whispered

so as to reach the ear of Fresh, that Soph was thirsting for his heart's

blood. They take their places,--the signal is given,--they fire,--and with

a hideous groan and a wild pirouette, the Soph falls to the ground.

The Freshman is led up near enough to see the fellow's face covered with

blood, and to hear his cries to his friends to put him out of his misery.

Intensely agitated, poor little Fresh is hurried by pretended friends into

a carriage, and driven off; and it is not till a week afterwards that he

learns he has been the victim of a hoax.

No! it would never answer for me to run the risk of being _sold_ in any

such way as this. I must select a surer and more practical vengeance. I

thought the matter over intently, and finally resolved that I would put

myself on a physical equality with my persecutor, and then meet him in a

fair fight with such weapons as Nature had given us both. I accordingly

said to the friend and classmate who had played the part of intercessor,

"Wait two years, and I promise you I will either make my tormentor

apologize or give him such a thrashing as he will remember for the rest of

his life."

Thus was my resolve renewed to accomplish myself as a gymnast, and, above

all, to develop my physical strength. My previous attempts in the

gymnasium had been spasmodic and irregular. Having now a definite object

in view, I set about my work in earnest, and went through a daily

systematic practice of a little more than an hour's duration.

The gymnasium was kept by a Mr. Law, and, though ordinary in its

accommodations, had a good arrangement of apparatus, of which I faithfully

availed myself. The spring-board, horse, vaulting-apparatus, parallel

bars, suspended rings, horizontal and inclined ladders, pulley-weights,

pegs, climbing-rope, trapezoid, etc., were all put in frequent

requisition. My time for exercise was generally in the evening, when I

would find myself almost alone,--while the clicking of balls from the

billiard-rooms and bowling-alleys down-stairs announced that a busy

crowd--if amusement may be called a business--were there assembled.

Naturally indolent, it was not without a severe struggle that I overcame a

besetting propensity to confine myself to sedentary pursuits. The desire

of retaliation soon became extinct. My pledge to my friend and

sympathizer, that in two years I would cry _quittance_ to my foe, would

occasionally act as a spur in the side of my intent; but my two best aids

in supplying me with the motive power to keep up my gymnastic practice

were _habit_ and _progress_. What will not habit make easy to us, whether

it be for good or for evil? And what an incentive we have to renewed

effort in finding that we are making actual progress,--that we can do with

comparative facility to-day what we could do only with difficulty

yesterday!

Two years, while we are yet on the sunny side of twenty, are no trifle;

but for two years I persistently and methodically went through the

exercises of the gymnasium. At the end of that time I had quite lost sight

of my original object in cultivating my athletic powers; for all

annoyances towards me had long since been dropped by my old enemy. But

punctually on the day of expiration, the friend who had listened to my

pledge came to me and claimed its fulfilment. From some evidences which he

had recently had of my strength he felt a soothing assurance that I should

have no difficulty in making good my promise.

I accordingly called on the lively young gentleman who two years before

had indulged in those little frolics at my expense. With diplomatic

ceremony and circumlocution I introduced the object of my visit, and wound

up with an _ultimatum_ to this effect: There must either be a frank

apology for past indignities, or he must accompany me, each with a friend,

to some suitable spot, and there decide which was "the better man."

If he had been called on to expiate an offence committed before he was

breeched, the young gentleman could not have been more astounded. Two

years had made some change in our relative positions. I was now about his

equal in size, and felt a comfortable sense of my superiority, so far as

strength was concerned. My shoulders had broadened, and my muscles been

developed, so as to present to the critical and interested observer a

somewhat threatening appearance. Mr. ---- (who, by the way, was a good

fellow in the main) protested that he had never intended to give me any

offence,--that he, in fact, did not remember the circumstances to which I

referred,--and finished by peremptorily declining my proposal. When I

reflected on the disparity between us in strength, which my two years'

practice had established, I felt that it would be cowardly for me to urge

the matter further, especially as it was so long a time since he had given

me cause of complaint. I have only to add, that we parted without a

collision, and that, in my heart, I could not help thanking him for the

service he had rendered in inciting me to the regimen which had resulted

so beneficially to my health.

The impetus given to my gymnastic education by the little incident I have

just related was continued without abatement through my whole college

life. Gradually I acquired the reputation of being the strongest man in my

class. I discovered that with every day's development of my strength there

was an increase of my ability to resist and overcome all fleshly ailments,

pains, and infirmities,--a discovery which subsequent experience has so

amply confirmed, that, if I were called on to condense the proposition

which sums it up into a formula, it would be in these words: _Strength is

Health_.

Until I had renovated my bodily system by a faithful gymnastic training, I

had been subject to nervousness, headache, indigestion, rush of blood to

the head, and a weak circulation. It was torture to me to have to listen

to the grating of a slate-pencil, the filing of a saw, or the scratching

of glass. As I grew in strength, my nerves ceased to be impressible to

such annoyances. Another good effect was to take away all appetite for any

stimulating food or drink. Although I had never applied "rebellious

liquors" to my blood, I had been in the habit of taking a bowl of strong

coffee morning and night. Now a craving for milk took the place of this

want, and my coffee was gradually diminished to less than a fourth of what

had been a customary indulgence.

At last arrived the eagerly looked-for day of release from collegiate

restrictions and labors. I graduated, and the question, so momentous in

the history of all adolescents, "What shall I be?" addressed itself

seriously to my mind. My father was desirous that I should choose medicine

for a profession, and become the fourth physician, in lineal sequence, of

my family on the paternal side.

Medicine. I cavilled at it awhile, that I might bring out to view its

grimmest and most discouraging aspect The cares, trials, humiliations of a

young physician, his months and years of uncompensated drudgery, passed in

awful review before me. I thought of his toils among the poor and lowly,

the vicious and depraved,--of his broken sleep,--the interruptions of his

social ease,--and then of the many scenes so repugnant to delicate nerves

which he has to pass through,--scenes of pain and insanity, of maimed and

severed limbs, and all the eccentricities and fearful forms of disease.

These considerations pressed with such weight on my mind that for a time

my ancestral craft was in danger of being ignominiously rejected by me.

Indeed, I began to think seriously of adopting a very different vocation.

And here I will make a confession, if the gentle reader will take it

confidentially.

It is a familiar fact, that every college-boy has to pass through an

attack of the rhyming frenzy as regularly as the child has to submit to

measles and the whooping-cough. A less frequent, but not less trying

complaint, is that which manifests itself in a passion for the stage and

in an espousal of the delusion that one was born for a great actor. At any

rate, this last was the type which my juvenile _malaise-du-coeur_ finally

assumed.

I have heard of a young gentleman who, whenever he was hard up for money,

went to his nearest relatives and threatened them with the publication of

a volume of his original poems. This threat never failed to open the

paternal purse. I do not know what effect the intimation of my histrionic

aspirations would have had; but one fine day I found myself on my way to

Rochester, in the State of New York.

My _rôle_ of dramatic characters was a very modest one for a beginner. It

embraced only Richelieu, Bertram, Brutus, Lear, Richard, Shylock, Sir

Giles Overreach, Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth. My principal literary

recreation for several years had been in studying these parts; and as I

knew them by heart, I did not doubt that a few rehearsals would put me in

possession of the requisite stage-business. And yet my familiarity with

the theatre was very limited. I had never been behind the scenes. Once,

with a classmate, I had penetrated in the daytime to the stage of the old

Federal-Street Theatre, and looked with awe on the boards formerly trodden

by the elder Kean; but a growl from that august functionary, the prompter,

sent us back in quick retreat, and I had never ventured again into those

sacred precincts.

Arrived at Rochester,--which place I had selected for my _début_ because

of its remoteness from home,--I looked in, the evening of my arrival, to

see the performances at the theatre. It was a hall of humble dimensions,

seating an audience of five or six hundred. The piece was a travesty of

"Hamlet," neither edifying nor amusing. A little of the _couleur-de-rose_

which had flushed my prospect faded that night; but the few friends at

home to whom I had confided my plans had so pertinaciously assured me that

I--the most diffident man in the world--could never appear before an

audience without letting them see I was shaky in the knees, that I

resolved to do what I could to show my depreciators they were false

prophets.

And so I called on the manager,--with a beating heart, as you may suppose.

He was a small, quiet, gentlemanly person, whom I regret I cannot,

consistently with historical truth, show up as a Crummles. But not even

Dickens could have found any salient trait for ridicule in the man.

Frankly and kindly he went into the statistics of the theatrical business,

and showed me, that, unless I was rich, and could afford to play for my

own amusement, the stage held out few inducements; it was barren of

promise to a young man anxious to make himself independent of the world.

I did not reply, "Perish the lucre!" but said that I would be content, in

the early part of my career, to labor for reputation. He soon satisfied me

that he could not give up his stage to an experimentalist, and I did not

urge my suit; but bade Mr. S. good morning, and, a day or two afterwards,

started for Niagara. Here, wet by the mist and listening to the roar of

the great cataract, I speedily forgot my chagrin, and took a not

unfriendly leave of the illusions which had lured me on to try my fortune

on the stage. Even now they return occasionally with all their

fascination.

While at Rochester, as I was passing through the principal street, I met a

crowd assembled about a lifting-machine. On making trial of it, I found I

could lift four hundred and twenty pounds. I had then been for four years

a gymnast, and I supposed my practice would have qualified me to make the

crowd stare at my achievement. But the result was far from triumphant. I

found what many other gymnasts will find, that _main strength_, by which I

mean the strength of the truckman and the porter, cannot be acquired in

the ordinary exercises of the gymnasium.

Returning home, I began the study of anatomy and physiology, and in the

autumn of 1854 entered the Harvard Medical School. The question of the

extent to which human strength can be developed had long been invested

with a scientific interest to my mind. One of the greatest lifting feats

on authentic record is that of Thomas Topham, an Englishman, who in Bath

Street, Cold Bath Fields, London, on the 28th of May, 1741, lifted three

hogsheads of water, said to weigh, with the connections, _eighteen hundred

and thirty-six pounds_. In the performance of this feat, Topham stood on a

raised platform, his hands grasping a fixture on either side, and a broad

strap over his shoulders communicating with the weight. An immense

concourse of persons was assembled on the occasion,--the performance

having been announced as "in honor of Admiral Vernon," or rather, "in

commemoration of his taking Porto Bello with six ships only." Being a

descendant myself from the Vernon family of Haddon Hall, Derbyshire,

England, I have reserved it for future genealogical inquiry to learn

whether the Admiral was connected with that branch of the Vernons. If so,

a somewhat remarkable coincidence is involved.

I now informed my father that I intended to go through a series of

experiments in lifting. He was afraid I should injure myself, and

expressly forbade any such practice on his premises. To gratify him, I

gave up testing the question for a whole year.

But the desire re-awoke, and I had frequent arguments with my father in

the endeavor to overcome his objections.

"Look at that man," he said to me one day,--pointing to a large, stout

individual in front of us,--"you might practise lifting all your life, and

never be able to lift as much as that big fellow."

"Let me construct a lifting-apparatus in the back-yard, and I will soon

prove to you that you are mistaken," I replied.

Finding that I was bent on the experiment, he at length gave a reluctant

consent.

It was now the August of 1855, and I was in my twenty-second year. My

first lifting-apparatus was constructed in the following manner. I first

sank into the ground a hogshead, and into the hogshead a flour-barrel.

Then I lowered to the bottom of the barrel a rope having at the end a

round stick transversely balanced, about four inches in diameter and

fifteen inches long. A quantity of gravel, nearly sufficient to bury the

stick, was then thrown into the barrel; some oblong stones were placed

across the stick and across and between one another, and the interstices

filled with smaller stones and gravel. When I had by this method about

two-thirds filled the barrel, taking care to keep the axis of the rope in

correspondence with the long axis of the barrel, I judged I had a

sufficient weight for a first trial. I now formed a loop in the end of the

rope over the top of the barrel, and put through it a piece of a

hoe-handle, about two feet long; and standing astride of the hogshead, and

holding the handle with one hand before me and the other

behind,--straightening my body, previously a little flexed,--with mouth

closed, head up, chest out, and shoulders down,--I succeeded in lifting

the barrel, containing a weight of between four and five hundred pounds,

some five or six inches from the bottom of the hogshead.

It was no great feat, after all, considering that I had been for five

years a gymnast. I found that I was inharmoniously developed in many

points of my frame,--was perilously weak in the sides, between the

shoulders, and at the back of the head. However, the day after this trial,

I succeeded in lifting the same weight with somewhat less difficulty. This

induced me to add on a few pounds; and in three or four weeks I could lift

between six and seven hundred. I now had the satisfaction of seeing the

stout gentleman, whom a few months before my father had pointed out as

possessed of a strength I could never attain to, introduced to an

inspection of my apparatus. Through the blinds of a back-parlor window I

watched his movements, as, encouraged by _pater-familias_, he drew off his

coat, moistened his hands, and undertook to "snake up" the big weight. An

ignominious failure to start the barrel was the result. The stout

gentleman tugged till he was so red in the face that apoplexy seemed

imminent, and then he dejectedly gave it up. The reputation he had long

enjoyed of being one of the "strongest men about" must henceforth be a

thing of the past till it fades into a myth.

In the December of 1855 I was admitted to the arcana of the

dissecting-room, and forthwith commenced some experiments with the view

of testing the sustaining power of human bones. Some one had told me,

that, in lifting a heavy weight, there was danger of fracturing the neck

of the thigh-bone; but my experiments satisfied me, that, if properly

positioned, it would safely bear a strain of two or three thousand pounds.

And so I concluded that I might securely continue my practice of lifting

till I reached the last-named limit.

In order to get all possible hints from the inspiration and experience of

the past, I studied some of the ancient statues. The specimens of Grecian

statuary at the Boston Athenæum were objects of my frequent

contemplation,--especially the Farnesian Hercules. From this I derived a

proper conception of the bodily outline compatible with the exercise of

the greatest amount of strength. I was particularly struck by the absence

of all exaggeration in the muscular developments as represented. I saw by

this statue that a Hercules must be free from superfluous flesh, neatly

made, and finely organized,--that form and quality were of more account

than quantity in his formation. Some years earlier I might have been more

attracted by the Apollo Belvedere; but it was a Hercules I dreamed of

becoming, and the Apollo was but the incipient and potential Hercules. Two

other statues that shared my admiration and study were the Quoit-Thrower

and the Dying Gladiator. From the careful inspection of all these relics

of ancient Art I obtained some valuable hints as to my own physical

deficiencies. I learned that the upper region of my chest needed

developing, and that in other points I had not yet reached the artist's

ideal of a strong man.

Good casts of these and other masterpieces in statuary may be had at a

trifling cost. Why are they not generally introduced into the gymnasia

attached to our colleges and schools? The habitual contemplation of such

works could not fail to have a good effect upon the physical bearing and

development of the young. We are the creatures of imitation. I remember,

at the school I attended in my seventh year, the strongest boy among my

mates was quite round-shouldered. Fancying that he derived his strength

from his stoop, I began to imitate him; and it was not till I learned that

he was strong in spite of his round shoulders, and not because of them,

that I gave up aping his peculiarity.

On the 29th of January, 1856, I lifted seven hundred pounds in Bailey's

Gymnasium, Franklin Street, Boston. The exhibition created great surprise

among the lookers-on; and at that time it was, perhaps, an extraordinary

feat; but since the extension and growth of the lifting mania, it would

not be regarded by the knowing ones as anything to marvel at. The fourth

of April following, my lifting capacity had reached eight hundred and

forty pounds.

On Fast-Day of that year, two Irishmen knocked at my door and asked to see

the strong man. I presented myself, and they told me there was great

curiosity among the "ould counthrymen" in the vicinity to ascertain if one

Pat Farren, the strongest Irishman in Roxbury, could lift my weight.

"Would it be convanient for me to let him thry?" "Certainly,--and I think

he'll lift it," I modestly added.

Soon afterwards a delegation of Irishmen, rather startling from its

numbers, entered the yard. Among them was Mr. Farren. They surrounded my

lifting-apparatus, while I, unseen, surveyed them from a back window. I

saw Mr. Farren take the handle, straddle the hogshead, throw himself into

a lifting posture, and, straining every muscle to its utmost tension, give

a tremendous pull. But the weight made no sign; and his friends, thinking

he was merely feeling it, said, "Wait a bit,--Pat'll have it up the next

pull." Mr. Farren rested a moment,--then threw off his coat, rubbed his

hands, and, seizing the handle a second time, tugged away at it till his

muscles swelled and his frame quivered. But he failed in starting the

barrel, and a burst of laughter from his friends and backers announced his

defeat.

It is now but justice to Mr. Farren to say that it could hardly be

expected of him to lift such a weight at either the first trial or the

second. A want of confidence, or the maladjustment of the rope, might have

interfered with the full exercise of his strength. I need not say that his

discomfiture was witnessed by me from my hiding-place with the liveliest

satisfaction; for I had begun to pride myself on being able to outlift any

man in the country.

In May, 1856, I received the appointment of medical assistant to Dr.

Walker, at the Lunatic Hospital, South Boston, and gave up for a couple of

months my practice of lifting. The consequence was a rapid diminution of

strength, which suggested to me a return to the lifting exercise. Near the

hospital was a large unoccupied building, formerly the House of Industry.

In the cellar of this building I put a barrel, and loaded it with rocks

and gravel as I had done in Roxbury. Immediately overhead, on the first

floor, I cut a hole, about six inches square, and passed up a rope

attached to the barrel. This rope I looped at the end, for the reception

of a handle. On the floor I nailed two cleats between three and four feet

apart, as guards to keep my feet from slipping. Beginning with about six

hundred pounds, I added a few pounds daily, till I was able, in November,

1856, to lift with my hands alone nine hundred pounds.

Returning home the ensuing winter, I attended a second course of medical

lectures, and, in the routine of labors incident to a medical student's

life, omitted to develop further my powers as a lifter. In the summer of

1857 I became a practitioner of medicine. In the autumn of that year, a

gentleman, who had been looking at my lifting-apparatus, remarked to me,

"If you are as strong as they tell me, what is to prevent your seizing

hold of me, (I weigh only a hundred and eighty pounds) holding me at

arm's-length over your head, and pitching me over that fence?" To this I

replied, that, if he would give me six weeks for practice, I would satisfy

him the thing could be done. He agreed to be on hand at the end of the

time named.

In order to be sure of the muscles that would be brought into play by the

feat, I procured an oblong box with a handle on either side running the

whole length. Into the box I threw a number of brick-bats,--then raised

the box at arm's-length above my head, and threw it over my vaulting-pole,

which was at an elevation of six and a half feet from the ground.

Subsequently I added more brick-bats, till gradually their weight amounted

to precisely one hundred and eighty pounds. Having practised till I could

easily handle and throw the box thus charged, I informed my challenger

that I was ready for him. He came, when, seizing him by the middle, I

lifted him struggling above my head, and threw him over the fence before

he was hardly aware of my intent. As he was somewhat corpulent and puffy,

and the act involved an abdominal pressure which was by no means

agreeable, he expressed himself perfectly satisfied with the experiment,

but objected very decidedly to its repetition.

In June, 1858, I commenced practising with two fifty-pound dumb-bells, and

subsequently added one of a hundred pounds, which I was prompted to get

from hearing that one of that weight was used by Mr. James Montgomery, at

that time a celebrated gymnast of New York City, and afterwards a

successful teacher at the Albany Gymnasium. Not having given much

attention to the development of the extensor muscles of the arms for

several months previous, it was a number of weeks before I could put this

dumb-bell up at arm's-length above my head with one hand. As soon as I

succeeded in doing this with comparative ease, I procured another

hundred-pound dumb-bell, and in a few months succeeded in exercising with

both of the instruments at the same time, raising each alternately above

my head. I then commenced practice with a dumb-bell weighing one hundred

and forty-one pounds. It consisted of two shells connected by a handle,

which, being removable, allowed me to introduce shot, from time to time,

into the cavities of the shells. After a few months of practice, I could,

with a jerk, raise the instrument from my shoulder to arm's-length above

my head. My first public exhibition of this feat took place in

Philadelphia, in April, 1860.

The spring of 1859 was now drawing nigh, and I began to think of giving a

public lecture on Physical Culture, illustrating it with some exhibitions

of the strength to which I had attained. My father approved the venture,

but, bethinking himself of my extreme diffidence, significantly asked,

_when_ I would be ready to permit a public announcement of my intention.

"Oh, in a few days," I replied, as if it were as small a matter for me to

lecture in public as to lift a thousand pounds in a gymnasium. Weeks flew

by, and still to the galling inquiry, "_When?_" I could only answer,

"Soon, but not just yet." February and March had come and gone, and still

I was not ready. Finally, to the oft-renewed interrogatory, I made this

reply: "As soon as I can shoulder a barrel of flour, a feat which I am

determined to accomplish before an audience, you may announce my lecture."

I had then been practising some two months with a loaded barrel, so

contrived that it should weigh a little more each succeeding day; and it

had now reached a hundred and ninety pounds. About this time it occurred

to me, that, among my many experiments, I had never fairly tried that of a

vegetable diet. I read anew the works of Graham and Alcott; and conceiving

that my strength had reached a stagnation-point, I gave up meat, and

restricted my animal diet to milk.

A barrel of flour weighs on an average two hundred and sixteen pounds. I

therefore could not succeed in shouldering one until twenty-six pounds had

been added to my loaded barrel. Day after day I shouldered my one hundred

and ninety pounds, but could not get an ounce beyond that limit. My grand

theory of the possible development of a man's strength began to look

somewhat insecure.

"So fares the system-building sage,

Who, plodding on from youth to age,

Has proved all other reasoners fools,

And bound all Nature by his rules,--

So fares he in that dreadful hour

When injured Truth exerts her power

Some new phenomenon to raise,

Which, bursting on his frighted gaze,

From its proud summit to the ground,

Proves the whole edifice unsound."

JAMES BEATTIE

The shouldering of a barrel of flour is a feat, by the way, which many an

old inhabitant will tell you that he, or some friend of his, could

accomplish in his eighteenth year. Why it should always be among the _res

gestæ temporis acti_ cannot be readily explained. It is a common belief

that any stout truckman can do the thing; but I have been assured by one

of the leading truckmen of Boston, that there are not, probably, three

individuals in the city who are equal to the accomplishment.

The mode of life that I had hitherto found essential to the keeping up of

my strength was quite simple, and rather negative than positive. From

tobacco and all ardent spirits, including wine, I had to abstain as a

matter of course. Beer and all fermented liquors had also been ruled out.

Impure air must be avoided like poison. Summer and winter I slept with my

windows open. Badly ventilated apartments were scrupulously shunned. Cold

bathing of the entire person was rarely practised oftener than once a week

in cold weather or twice a week in warm weather. A more frequent ablution

seemed to over-stimulate the excretory functions of the skin, so that

excessive bathing defeated its very object. The "tranquil mind" must be

preserved with little or no interruption. Great physical strength cannot

coexist with an unhappy, discontented temper. You must be habitually

cheerful, if you would be strong. With regard to diet,--that was the very

experiment I was trying,--the experiment, namely, of going without solid

animal food. With me it did not succeed. So far from gaining in strength,

hardly did I hold my own. Suddenly I resolved to give up my vegetable

diet, and return to beef-steaks, mutton-chops, and loins of veal. A daily

appreciable increase of strength was soon the consequence. Within ten days

I succeeded in shouldering the loaded barrel weighing two hundred and

sixteen pounds; and a day or two after I shouldered, in the presence of

our grocer himself, a barrel of flour.

I had now no further excuse for deferring my promised lecture. The month

of May had arrived. My father delicately broached the subject of the

announcement. Being a little fractious, perhaps from some ebb in my

strength, I hastily replied,--

"Announce it for the 30th of May."

"What hall shall I engage?"

"Any hall in Boston. Why not the Music Hall?" I added, affecting a valor I

was far from feeling; but, like Macbeth, I now realized that "returning

were as tedious as go o'er."

Mercantile Hall, in Summer Street, was engaged for me,--it being central,

modest in point of size, commodious, and favorably known. At this time I

was in excellent health and weighed one hundred and forty-three pounds.

But from the moment of the public announcement of my lecture, my appetite

for food, for meat particularly, began to fail me. "How peevish and

irritable he is growing!" I heard one member of the family remark to

another. Soon the grocer's scales indicated that my weight was

diminishing. It fell to one hundred and forty-one,--then to one hundred

and forty,--then to one hundred and thirty-eight,--and finally, when the

30th of May arrived, I found I weighed only one hundred and thirty-four

pounds!

The crisis was now at hand. Do not laugh at me, ye self-assured ones, with

your comfortable sense of your own powers,--ye who care as little for an

audience as for a field of cabbages,--do not jeer at one who has felt the

pangs of shyness and quailed under the imaginary terrors of a first public

appearance. For you it may be a small matter to face an audience,--that

nearest approximation to the many-headed monster which we can palpably

encounter; but for one whose diffidence had become the standard of that

quality to his acquaintances the venture was perilous and desperate, as

the sequel showed.

Never had time rolled by with such fearful velocity as on that eventful

day. Breakfast was hardly over before preparations were being made for

dinner. Small appetite had I for either. Before I had finished pacing the

parlor there was a summons to tea. It was like the summons to the

criminal: "Rise up, Master Barnardine, and be hanged." With a most shallow

affectation of _nonchalance_ I sat down at the table. A child might have

detected my agitation; and yet, with horrible insincerity, I alluded to

the news of the day, and asked the family why they were all so silent.

They saw from my look that they might as well have joked with a man on his

way to execution.

Having dressed and adorned myself for the sacrifice, I returned to the

parlor, when the rumbling of coach-wheels, the sudden letting down of

steps, and then a frightfully discordant ring of the doorbell, sent the

blood from my cheeks and made my heart palpitate like a trip-hammer. "Is

th-th-that the off-officer,--I mean the coachman?" I stammered. Yes, there

was no doubt about it.

Straightening my person, I affected a dignified calmness, and assured my

dear, anxious mother that I was not in the least nervous,--oh, not in the

least!

It was a gloomy night, and the streets wore a dismal aspect. The hall was

distant about three miles; but in some mysterious manner, or by some route

which I have never been able to discover, the coachman seemed to abridge

the distance to less than half a mile. We are in Summer Street,--before

the door. Some juvenile amateurs, attracted by stories of the strong man,

surround the carriage to get a sight of him.

"Ha! what are these? Sure, hangmen, That come to bind my hands, and then

to drag me Before the judgment-seat: now they are new shapes, And do

appear like Furies!"

The words of Sir Giles Overreach, one of the parts I had studied during my

histrionic _accès_, were not at all inappropriate to the state of mind in

which, with knee-joints slipping from under me, I now made my way

up-stairs. Having reached the upper entry, I paused, and glanced at the

audience through the windows, before entering the little retiring-room

behind the stage. With an inward groan at my presumption, I passed on. To

think, that, but for my own madness, I might have been at that moment

comfortably at home, reading the evening paper! Nay, were it not better to

be tossing on stormy seas, driving on a lee-shore, toiling as a slave

under a tropic sun, than here, with a gaping audience waiting to devour me

with their eyes and ears?

The first thing I did, on reaching the retiring-room, was to give way to a

fearful fascination and take another peep at the audience from behind a

curtain at the side-entrance. I then looked at my watch. Twenty minutes to

eight! People were pouring in, notwithstanding the inclement weather. The

hall was nearly crowded already. One familiar face after another was

recognized. Surely everybody I know is present.

Another look at my watch. Quarter to eight! Suddenly the frantic thought

occurred to me, What if I have lost my manuscript? Where did I put it?

'Tis in none of my pockets! Good gracious! Has any one seen my manuscript?

Come, Jerome, no fooling at a time like this! Where have you hidden it?

What! You know nothing about it? _Hunt_ for it, then! Wouldn't it be a

charming scrape, if I couldn't find my lecture? Isn't this it, in the

drawer? Oh, yes! I must have put it there unconsciously.

Being in a high state of perspiration, and wiping my forehead incessantly,

I disarrange my hair. Where's that brush? No one can tell. Agony! Where's

the brush? Here on the floor. Oh, yes! There! What a blaze my cheeks are

in! The audience will think they are flushed with Bourbon. No matter. That

manuscript has disappeared again. Confusion! Where is it? Here in your

overcoat-pocket. All right.

Five minutes to eight. Grasping the scroll, I rush to the side-entrance.

The audience begin to manifest their impatience by applause. Suddenly I

hear the bell of the Old South Church strike eight. The last vibration

passes like an ice-bolt through my heart. Wrought up to desperation, I

thrust aside the curtain. This gives a portion of the audience a sight of

me, and I hear some one exclaim, "There he is!" Horrible exposure! I dodge

back out of view, as if to escape the discharge of a battery. A round of

impatient applause rouses me. I count three, and precipitate myself

forward to the centre of the stage.

The hall is filled,--all the seats and most of the standing-places

occupied. But I can no longer recognize any one. Friend and foe are

confounded in an undistinguishable mass; or, rather, they are but parts

and members of one hideous monster, moving itself by one volition, winking

its thousand eyes all at once, and ready to swallow me with a single

deglutition. However, the plunge is made. The worst is over. I rallied

from the shock, and in a clear, but unnecessarily loud and ponderous

voice, pitched many degrees too high, I commenced my lecture.

For some ten minutes, if I may believe the tender reports in the

newspapers the next day, I got on very respectably. I had won the

attention of the audience. But, at an unlucky moment, a fresh arrival of

persons at the door made the monster turn his thousand eyes in that

direction. I mistook it for an indication that he was getting weary of my

talk. My attention was distracted. Then came a suspension of all thought,

an appalling paralysis of memory. Having learnt the first part of my

discourse by heart, I had been reciting it without turning over the leaves

of the manuscript; and now I was unable to recollect at what point I had

left off, or whether I had given five pages or ten.

Frightful dilemma! Stupefied with horror, I gazed intently on the page

before me till the lines became all blurred, and a blue mist wavered

before my eyes. Then came a pause of intensest silence. The monster lying

in wait for me evidently began to anticipate that his victim's time was

come, and so, like a crafty monster, he remained still and patient. Who

could endure a nightmare like this? I felt myself reeling to and fro. Then

a pleasant thrill, like that, perhaps, which drowning men feel, ran

through my frame. All became dark,--and the strong man dropped, like a

felled ox, senseless on the stage.

When consciousness returned I was lying flat on my back, and several

persons were bending over me.

"Keep down,--don't rise," some one said.

"What has happened?" I asked.

"Nothing,--only you were a little faint."

"Faint? A man who can lift a thousand pounds faint--at the sight of an

audience? Absurd! Let me rise."

And in spite of all opposition I rose, grasped my manuscript, walked to

the front of the stage, and resumed my lecture. Alas!

"Reaching above our nature does no good;

We must sink back into our own flesh and blood."

I had not proceeded far before I felt symptoms of a repetition of the

calamity; and lest I should be overtaken before I could retreat, I

stammered a few words of apology, and withdrew ingloriously from public

view. Fresh air and a draught of water, which some obliging friend had

dashed with _eau-de-vie_, soon restored me. But I took the advice of

friends and did not make a third attempt that evening.

The audience, had it been wholly composed of brothers and sisters, could

not have been more indulgent and considerate. One skeptical gentleman was

heard to say,--

"I don't believe he can lift nine hundred pounds."

And another added,--

"Nor I,--any more than that he can shoulder a barrel of flour."

"Or raise his body by the little finger of one hand," said another.

Whereupon a venerable citizen, a gentleman long known and respected as the

very soul of honor, truthfulness, and uprightness, came forward on the

stage before the audience, and with emphatic earnestness, and in a loud,

intrepid tone of voice, exclaimed,--

"Ladies and gentlemen,--The heat of the room was too much for the

lecturer; but he can easily do all the feats announced in the bills. _I've

seen him do them twenty times_."