BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCIV. JUNE, 1849. VOL. LXV.
CONTENTS.
THE CAXTONS.--PART XIII. 637
THE ROMANCE OF RUSSIAN HISTORY, 664
LETTERS TO THE REV. CHARLES FUSTIAN, AN ANGLO-CATHOLIC, 679
AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY, 697
FEUDALISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 713
CIVIL REVOLUTION IN THE CANADAS, 727
DIES BOREALES. NO. I. CHRISTOPHER UNDER CANVASS, 742
INDEX, 768
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BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCIV. JUNE, 1849. VOL. LXV.
THE CAXTONS.--PART XIII.
CHAPTER LXVI.
St Chrysostom, in his work on The Priesthood, defends deceit, if for
a good purpose, by many Scriptural examples; ends his first book by
asserting that it is often necessary, and that much benefit may arise
from it; and begins his second book by saying that it ought not to be
called _deceit_, but "good management."
Good management, then, let me call the innocent arts by which I
now sought to insinuate my project into favour and assent with my
unsuspecting family. And first I began with Roland. I easily induced
him to read some of the books, full of the charm of Australian life,
which Trevanion had sent me; and so happily did those descriptions
suit his own erratic tastes, and the free, half-savage man that
lay rough and large within that soldierly nature, that he himself,
as it were, seemed to suggest my own ardent desire--sighed, as the
careworn Trevanion had done, that "he was not my age," and blew the
flame that consumed me with his own willing breath. So that when at
last--wandering one day over the wild moors--I said, knowing his hatred
of law and lawyers--
"Alas, uncle, that nothing should be left for me but the bar!--"
Captain Roland struck his cane into the peat, and exclaimed, "Zounds,
sir, the bar and lying, with truth and a world fresh from God before
you!"
"Your hand, uncle--we understand each other. Now help me with those two
quiet hearts at home!"
"Plague on my tongue! what have I done?" said the Captain, looking
aghast. Then, after musing a little time, he turned his dark eye on me
and growled out, "I suspect, young sir, you have been laying a trap for
me; and I have fallen into it, like an old fool as I am."
"Oh, sir, if you prefer the bar!--"
"Rogue!"
"Or, indeed, I might perhaps get a clerkship in a merchant's office?"
"If you do, I will scratch you out of the pedigree!"
"Huzza then for Australasia!"
"Well, well, well," said my uncle,
"With a smile on his lip and a tear in his eye;"
"the old sea-king's blood will force its way--a soldier or a rover,
there is no other choice for you. We shall mourn and miss you; but who
can chain the young eagles to the eyrie?"
I had a harder task with my father, who at first seemed to listen to me
as if I had been talking of an excursion to the moon. But I threw in a
dexterous dose of the old Greek _Cleruchiæ_--cited by Trevanion--which
set him off full trot on his hobby, till, after a short excursion to
Euboea and the Chersonese, he was fairly lost amidst the Ionian
colonies of Asia Minor. I then gradually and artfully decoyed him into
his favourite science of Ethnology; and while he was speculating on the
origin of the American savages, and considering the rival claims of
Cimmerians, Israelites, and Scandinavians, I said quietly,--"And you,
sir, who think that all human improvement depends on the mixture of
races--you, whose whole theory is an absolute sermon upon emigration,
and the transplanting and interpolity of our species--you, sir, should
be the last man to chain your son, your elder son, to the soil, while
your younger is the very missionary of rovers."
"Pisistratus," said my father, "you reason by synecdoche--ornamental,
but illogical;" and therewith, resolved to hear no more, my father rose
and retreated into his study.
But his observation, now quickened, began from that day to follow my
moods and humours--then he himself grew silent and thoughtful, and
finally he took to long conferences with Roland. The result was that,
one evening in spring, as I lay listless amidst the weeds and fern that
sprang up through the melancholy ruins, I felt a hand on my shoulder;
and my father, seating himself beside me on a fragment of stone, said
earnestly--"Pisistratus,--let us talk--I had hoped better things from
your study of Robert Hall."
"Nay, dear father, the medicine did me great good: I have not repined
since, and I look steadfastly and cheerfully on life. But Robert Hall
fulfilled his mission, and I would fulfil mine."
"Is there no mission in thy native land, O planeticose and exallotriote
spirit?[1]" asked my father, with compassionate rebuke.
[1] Words coined by Mr Caxton from [Greek: planêtikos], disposed to
roaming, and [Greek: exallotrioô], to export, to alienate.
"Alas, yes! But what the impulse of genius is to the great, the
instinct of vocation is to the mediocre. In every man there is a
magnet; in that thing which the man can do best there is a loadstone."
"Papæ!" said my father, opening his eyes; "and are no loadstones to be
found for you nearer than the great Australasian Bight?"
"Ah, sir, if you resort to irony, I can say no more!" My father looked
down on me tenderly, as I hung my head moody and abashed.
"Son," said he, "do you think that there is any real jest at my heart
when the matter discussed is whether you are to put wide seas and long
years between us?" I pressed nearer to his side, and made no answer.
"But I have noted you of late," continued my father, "and I have
observed that your old studies are grown distasteful to you; and I have
talked with Roland, and I see that your desire is deeper than a boy's
mere whim. And then I have asked myself what prospect I can hold out at
home to induce you to be contented here, and I see none; and therefore
I should say to you, 'Go thy ways, and God shield thee,'--but,
Pisistratus, _your mother_?"
"Ah, sir, that is indeed the question! and there indeed I shrink. But,
after all, whatever I were--whether toiling at the bar, or in some
public office--I should be still so much from home and her. And then
you, sir--she loves _you_ so entirely, that----"
"No," interrupted my father; "you can advance no arguments like these
to touch a mother's heart. There is but one argument that comes home
there--Is it for your good to leave her? If so, there will be no need
of farther words. But let us not decide that question hastily; let you
and I be together the next two months. Bring your books and sit with
me; when you want to go out, tap me on the shoulder and say 'Come.' At
the end of those two months, I will say to you 'Go,' or 'Stay.' And you
will trust me; and if I say the last, you will submit?"
"Oh yes, sir, yes."