"benevolent Howard" of Seville, was attracted about 1661 to the
pitiable state of the brotherhood of the holy charity, and its
hospital of San Jorge: he resolved to restore it to its pristine
glory and usefulness; and, persevering against all discouragements
and difficulties, in less than twenty years, at an expense of
half-a-million of ducats, he accomplished his pious design. For the
restored church Murillo painted eleven pictures, of which eight,
according to Mr Stirling, are the finest works of the master.
Five of these were carried off by plundering Soult, but "the two
colossal compositions of Moses, and the Loaves and Fishes, still
hang beneath the cornices whence springs the dome of the church,
"like ripe oranges on the bough where they originally budded." Long
may they cover their native "walls, and enrich, as well as adorn,
the institution of Mañara! In the picture of the great miracle of
the Jewish dispensation, the Hebrew prophet stands beside the rock
in Horeb, with hands pressed together, and uplifted eyes, thanking
the Almighty for the stream which has just gushed forth at the
stroke of his mysterious rod.... As a composition, this wonderful
picture can hardly be surpassed. The rock, a huge, isolated, brown
crag, much resembles in form, size, and colour, that which is still
pointed out as the rock of Moses, by the Greek monks of the convent
of St Catherine, in the real wilderness of Horeb. It forms the
central object, rising to the top of the canvass, and dividing it
into two unequal portions. In front of the rock, the eye at once
singles out the erect figure of the prophet standing forward from
the throng; and the lofty emotion of that great leader, looking with
gratitude to heaven, is finely contrasted with the downward regards
of the multitude, forgetful of the Giver in the anticipation or
the enjoyment of the gift. Each head and figure is an elaborate
study; each countenance has a distinctive character, and even of
the sixteen vessels brought to the spring, no two are alike in
form."--(Vol. ii. p. 859.) But Cean Bermudez, who enjoyed the
privilege of seeing all these eight masterpieces hanging together
in their own sacred home, preferred The Prodigal's Return, and St
Elizabeth of Hungary--with whose touching history the eloquent
pens of the Count Montalembert and Mr A. Phillipps have made us
familiar--to all the rest.
The Franciscan convent, without the city walls, was yet more
fortunate than the hospital of Mañara, for it possessed upwards
of twenty of this religious painter's works. Now, not one remains
to dignify the ruined halls and deserted cloisters of that once
magnificent convent: but seventeen of these pictures are preserved
in the Seville Museum; among them Murillo's own favourite--that
which he used to call "his own picture"--the charity of St Thomas
of Villanueva. In 1678, Murillo painted three pictures for the
Hospital de los Venerables, two of which, the Mystery of the
Immaculate Conception, and St Peter Weeping, were placed in the
chapel. "The third adorned the refectory, and presented to the
gaze of the Venerables, during their repasts, the blessed Virgin
enthroned on clouds, with her divine Babe, who, from a basket borne
by angels, bestowed bread on three aged priests." These were nearly
his last works; for the art he so loved was now about to destroy her
favourite son: he was mounting a scaffolding to paint the higher
parts of a great altar-piece for the Capuchin church at Cadiz,
representing the espousals of St Catherine, when he stumbled, and
ruptured himself so severely, as to die of the injury. On the 3d of
April 1682, he expired in the arms of his old and faithful friend,
Don Justino Neve, and was buried in the parish church of St. Cruz, a
stone slab with his name, a skeleton and "Vive moriturus," marking
the spot--until the "Vandal" French destroyed the last resting-place
of that great painter, whose works they so unscrupulously
appropriated. Was the last Lord of Petworth aware of this short
epitaph, when he caused to be inscribed on the beautiful memorial to
his ancestors which adorns St Thomas's Chapel in Petworth Church,
the prophetic,[18] solemn words--"Mortuis moriturus?"
[18] He died the year following.
We have ranked Murillo next to Velasquez: doubtless there are many
in England who would demur to this classification; and we own there
are charms in the style of the great religious painter, which it
would be vain to look for in any other master. In tenderness of
devotion, and a certain soft sublimity, his religious pictures are
unmatched; while in colouring, Cean Bermudez most justly says--"All
the peculiar beauties of the school of Andalusia--its happy use of
red and brown tints, the local colours of the region, its skill in
the management of drapery, its distant prospects of bare sierras
and smiling vales, its clouds, light and diaphanous as in nature,
its flowers and transparent waters, and its harmonious depth and
richness of tone--are to be found in full perfection in the works of
Murillo."--(Vol. ii. p. 903.) Mr Stirling draws a distinction, and
we think with reason, between the favourite Virgin of the Immaculate
Conception and the other Virgins of Murillo: the ἠθὸς of the former
is far more elevated and spiritualised than that of any of the
latter class; but, even in his most ordinary and mundane delineation
of the sinless Mary, how sweet, and pure, and holy, as well as
beautiful, does our Lord's mother appear! But perhaps it is as a
painter of children that Murillo is most appreciated in England; nor
can we wonder that such should be the case, when we remember what
the pictures are which have thus impressed Murillo on the English
mind. The St John Baptist with the Lamb, in the National Gallery;
Lord Westminster's picture of the same subject; the Baroness de
Rothschild's gem at Gunnersbury, Our Lord, the Good Shepherd, as a
Child: Lord Wemyss's hardly inferior repetition of it; the picture
of our Lord as a child, holding in his hands the crown of thorns,
in the College at Glasgow; with the other pictures, in private
collections, of our Lord and St John as children, have naturally
made Murillo to be regarded in England as emphatically the painter
of children: and how exquisite is his conception of the Divine Babe
and His saintly precursor! what a sublime consciousness of power,
what an expression of boundless love, are seen in the face of Him
who was yet
"a little child,
Taught by degrees to pray
By father dear, and mother mild,
Instructed day by day."
The religious school of Spanish painting reached its acmé in
Murillo; and, at the risk of being accounted heterodox, we must,
in summing up his merits, express our difference from Mr Stirling
in one respect, and decline to rank the great Sevillian after any
of the Italian masters. Few of Murillo's drawings are known to be
in existence. Mr Stirling gives a list of such as he has been able
to discover, nearly all of which are at the Louvre. We believe,
in addition to those possessed by the British Museum and Mr Ford,
there are two in the collection at Belvoir Castle: one, a Virgin
and Child; the other, an old man--possibly St Francis--receiving a
flower from a naked child.
After Velasquez and Murillo, it may seem almost impertinent to talk
of the merits of other Spanish painters; yet Zurbaran and Cano,
Ribera and Coello, demand at least a passing notice. Francisco
de Zurbaran, often called the Caravaggio of Spain, was born in
Estremadura in 1598. His father, observing his turn for painting,
sent him to the school of Roelas, at Seville. Here, for nearly a
quarter of a century, he continued painting for the magnificent
cathedral, and the churches and religious houses of that fair city.
About 1625, he painted, for the college of St Thomas Aquinas,
an altar-piece, regarded by all judges as the finest of all his
works. It represents the angelic doctor ascending into the heavens,
where, on clouds of glory, the blessed Trinity and the Virgin wait
to receive him; below, in mid air, sit the four doctors of the
Church; and on the ground are kneeling the Emperor Charles V.,
with the founder of the college, Archbishop Diego de Deza, and a
train of ecclesiastics. Mr Stirling says of this singular picture,
"The colouring throughout is rich and effective, and worthy the
school of Roelas; the heads are all of them admirable studies;
the draperies of the doctors and ecclesiastics are magnificent
in breadth and amplitude of fold; the imperial mantle is painted
with Venetian splendour; and the street view, receding in the
centre of the canvass, is admirable for its atmospheric depth and
distance."--(Vol. ii. p. 770.) In 1650, Philip IV. invited him to
Madrid, and commanded him to paint ten pictures, representing the
labours of Hercules, for a room at Buen-retiro. Almost numberless
were the productions of his facile pencil, which, however, chiefly
delighted to represent, the legends of the Carthusian cloister,
and portray the gloomy features and sombre vestments of monks and
friars; yet those who have seen his picture of the Virgin with the
Infant Saviour and St John, at Stafford House, will agree with Mr
Stirling that, "unrivalled in such subjects of dark fanaticism,
Zurbaran could also do ample justice to the purest and most lovely
of sacred themes."--(Vol. 11. p. 775)
Alonzo Cano, born at Grenada in 1601, was, like Mrs Malaprop's
Cerberus, "three gentlemen in one;" that is, he was a great painter,
a great sculptor, and a great architect. As a painter, his powers
are shown in his full-length picture of the Blessed Virgin, with
the infant Saviour asleep on her knees, now in the Queen of Spain's
gallery; in six large works, representing passages in the life
of Mary Magdalene, which still adorn the great brick church of
Getafe, a small village near Madrid; and in his famous picture of
Our Lady of Belem, in the cathedral of Seville. Mr Stirling gives a
beautifully-executed print of this last Madonna, which, "in serene,
celestial beauty, is excelled by no image of the Blessed Virgin ever
devised in Spain."--(P. 803.)
Cano was, perhaps, even greater in sculpture than in painting;
and so fond of the former art, that, when wearied of pencil and
brush, he would call for his chisel, and work at a statue by way
of rest to his hands. On one of these occasions, a pupil venturing
to remark, that to substitute a mallet for a pencil was an odd sort
of repose, was silenced by Cano's philosophical reply,--"Blockhead,
don't you perceive that to create form and relief on a flat surface
is a greater labour than to fashion one shape into another?" An
image of the Blessed Virgin in the parish church at Lebrija, and
another in the sacristy of the Grenada cathedral, are said to
be triumphs of Spanish painted statuary.--(Vol. iii., p. 805)
After a life of strange vicissitudes, in the course of which, on
suspicion of having murdered his wife, he underwent the examination
by torture, he died, honoured and beloved for his magnificent
charities, and religious hatred of the Jews, in his native city, on
the 3d of October 1667.
The old Valencian town of Xativa claims the honour of producing
Josè de Ribera, el Spagnoletto; but though Spain gave him birth,
Italy gave him instruction, wealth, fame; and although in style he
is thoroughly Spanish, we feel some difficulty in writing of him as
belonging wholly to the Spanish school of art, so completely Italian
was he by nurture, long residence, and in his death.
Bred up in squalid penury, he appears to have looked upon the world
as not his friend, and in his subsequent good fortunes to have
revelled in describing with ghastly minuteness, and repulsive force,
all "the worst ills that flesh is heir to." We well recollect the
horror with which we gazed spell-bound on a series of his horrors
in the Louvre--faugh! At Gosford House are a series of Franciscan
monks, such as only a Spanish cloister could contain, painted with
an evident fidelity to nature, and the minutest details of dress
that is almost offensive--even the black dirt under the unwashed
thumb nail is carefully represented by his odiously-accurate and
powerful pencil.
"Non ragioniam di lor
Ma guada e passa."
Had the bold buccaneers of the seventeenth century required the
services of a painter to perpetuate the memory of their inventive
brutality, and inconceivable atrocities, they would have found in El
Spagnoletto an artist capable of delineating the agonies of their
victims, and by taste and disposition not indisposed to their way of
life. Yet in his own peculiar line he was unequalled, and his merits
as a painter will always be recognised by every judge of art. He
died at Naples, the scene of his triumphs, in 1656.
The name of Claudio Coello is associated with the Escurial, and
should have been introduced into the sketch we were giving of its
artists, when the mighty reputation of Velasquez and Murillo broke
in upon our order. He was born at Madrid about the middle of the
seventeenth century, and studied in the school of the younger Rigi.
In 1686 he succeeded Herrera as painter in ordinary to Charles
II. This monarch had erected an altar in the great sacristy of
the Escurial, to the miraculous bleeding wafer known as the Santa
Forma; and on the death of its designer, Rigi, Coello was called
upon to paint a picture that should serve as a veil for the host. On
a canvass six yards high, by three wide, he executed an excellent
work, representing the king and his court adoring the miraculous
wafer, which is held aloft by the prior. This picture established
his reputation, and in 1691 the chapter of Toledo, still the great
patrons of art, appointed him painter to their cathedral. Coello was
a most careful and painstaking painter, and his pictures, says our
author, (vol. iii., p. 1018) "with much of Cano's grace of drawing,
have also somewhat of the rich tones of Murillo, and the magical
effect of Velasquez." He died, it is said, of disappointment at the
success of his foreign rival, Luca Giordano, in 1693.
With Charles II. passed away the Spanish sceptre from the house of
Austria, nor, according to Mr Stirling, would the Genius of Painting
remain to welcome the intrusive Bourbons:--
Old times were changed, old manners gone,
A stranger filled the Philips' throne;
And art, neglected and oppressed,
Wished to be with them, and at rest.
But we must say that Mr Stirling, in his honest indignation against
France and Frenchmen, has exaggerated the demerits of the Bourbon
kings. Spanish art had been steadily declining for years before
they, with ill-omened feet, crossed the Pyrenees. It was no Bourbon
prince that brought Luca da Presto from Naples to teach the painters
of Spain "how to be content with their faults, and get rid of their
scruples;" and if the schools of Castile and Andalusia had ceased
to produce such artists as those whose praises Mr Stirling has so
worthily recorded, it appears scant justice to lay the blame on the
new royal family. _Pictor nascitur, non fit_--no, not even by the
wielders of the Spanish sceptre. In a desire to patronise art, and
in munificence towards its possessors, Philip V., Ferdinand VI.,
and Charles III., fell little short of their Hapsburg predecessors,
but they had no longer the same material to work upon. The post
which Titian had filled could find no worthier holder under Charles
III., than Rafael Mengs, whom not only ignorant Bourbons, but the
_conoscenti_ of Europe regarded as the mighty Venetian's equal;
and Philip V. not only invited Hovasse, Vanloo, Procaccini, and
other foreign artists to his court, but added the famous collection
of marbles belonging to Christina of Sweden to those acquired by
Velasquez, at an expense of twelve thousand doubloons. To him, also,
is due the completion of the palace of Aranjuez, and the design
of La Granja; nor, when fire destroyed the Alcazar, did Philip V.
spare his diminished treasures, in raising up on its time-hallowed
site a palace which, in Mr Stirling's own words, "in spite of its
narrowed proportions, is still one of the largest and most imposing
in Europe."--(Vol. iii., p. 1163.)
Ferdinand VI. built, at the enormous expense of nineteen millions
of reals the convent of nuns of the order of St Vincent de Sales,
and employed in its decoration all the artistic talent that Spain
then could boast of. Nor can he be blamed if that was but little;
for if royal patronage can produce painters of merit, this monarch,
by endowing the Academy of St Ferdinand with large revenues, and
housing it in a palace, would have revived the glories of Spanish
art.
His successor, Charles III., an artist of some repute himself,
sincerely loved and generously fostered the arts. While King of the
Two Sicilies, he had dragged into the light of day the long-lost
wonders of Herculaneum and Pompeii; and when called to the throne
of Spain and the Indies, he manifested his sense of the obligations
due from royalty to art, by conferring fresh privileges on the
Academy of St Ferdinand, and founding two new academies, one in
Valencia, the other in Mexico. If Mengs and Tiepolo, and other
mediocrities, were the best living painters his patronage could
discover, it is evident from his ultra-protectionist decree against
the exportation of Murillo's, pictures, that he fully appreciated
the works of the mighty dead; and, had his spirit animated Spanish
officials, many a masterpiece that now mournfully, and without
meaning, graces the Hermitage at St Petersburg, or the Louvre at
Paris, would still be hanging over the altar, or adorning the
refectory for which it was painted, at Seville or Toledo. Even
Charles IV., "the drivelling tool of Godoy," was a collector of
pictures, and founder of an academy. In his disastrous reign
flourished Francisco Goya y Lucientes, the last Spanish painter who
has obtained a niche in the Temple of Fame. Though portraits and
caricatures were his forte, in that venerable museum of all that is
beautiful in Spanish Art--the cathedral at Toledo--is to be seen a
fine religious production of his pencil, representing the Betrayal
of our Lord. But he loved painting at, better than for the church;
and those who have examined and wondered at the grotesque satirical
carvings of the stalls in the cathedral at Manchester, will be
able to form some idea of Goya's anti-monkish caricatures. Not
Lord Mark Kerr, when giving the rein to his exuberant fancy, ever
devised more ludicrous or repulsive "monsters" than this strange
successor to the religious painters of orthodox Spain. But when
the vice, and intrigues, and imbecility of the royal knives and
fools, whom his ready graver had exposed to popular ridicule, had
yielded to the unsupportable tyranny of French invaders, the same
indignant spirit that hurried the water-carriers of Madrid into
unavailing conflict with the troops of Murat, guided his caustic
hand against the fierce oppressors of his country; and, while
Gilray was exciting the angry contempt of all true John Bulls at
the impudence of the little Corsican upstart, Goya was appealing
to his countrymen's bitter experience of the tender mercies of the
French invaders. He died at Bordeaux in 1828. Mr Stirling closes his
labours with a graceful tribute to those of Cean Bermudez, "the able
and indefatigable historian of Spanish art, to whose rich harvest of
valuable materials I have ventured to add the fruit of my own humble
gleanings--" a deserved tribute, and most handsomely rendered. But,
before we dismiss this pleasant theme of Spanish art, we would add
one artist more to the catalogue of Spanish painters--albeit, that
artist is a Bourbon!
Near the little town of Azpeitia, in Biscay, stands the magnificent
college of the Jesuits, built on the birth-place of Ignatius Loyola.
Here, in a low room at the top of the building, are shown a piece
of the bed in which he died, and his autograph; and here among its
cool corridors and ever-playing fountains, in 1839, was living the
royal painter--the Infante Don Sebastian. A strange spectacle,
truly, did that religious house present in the summer of 1839:
wild Biscayan soldiers and dejected Jesuits, red boynas and black
cowls, muskets and crucifixes, oaths and benedictions, crossed and
mingled with each other in picturesque, though profane disorder;
and here, released from the cares of his military command, and free
to follow the bent of his disposition, the ex-commander-in-chief
of the Carlist forces was quietly painting altar-pieces, and
dashing off caricatures. In the circular church which, of exquisite
proportions, forms the centre of the vast pile, and is beautiful
with fawn-coloured marble and gold, hung a large and well-painted
picture of his production; and those who are curious in such matters
may see a worse specimen of his royal highness's skill in Pietro
di Cortona's church of St Luke at Rome. On one side of the altar
is Canova's beautiful statue of Religion preaching; on the other
the Spanish prince's large picture of the Crucifixion; but, alas!
it must be owned that the inspiration which guided Velasquez to
his conception of that sublime subject was denied to the royal
amateur. In the academy of St Luke, adjoining the church, is a
well-executed bust of Canova, by the Spanish sculptor Alvarez. We
suspect that, like Goya, the Infante would do better to stick to
caricature, in which branch of art many a pleasant story is told of
his proficiency. Seated on a rocky plateau, which, if commanding
a view of Bilbao and its defenders, was also exposed to their
fire, 'tis said the royal artist would amuse himself and his staff
with drawing the uneasy movements, and disturbed countenances, of
some unfortunate London reporters, who, attached to the Carlist
headquarters, were invited by the commander-in-chief to attend his
person, and enjoy the perilous honour of his company. Be this,
however, as it may, we think we have vindicated the claim of one
living Bourbon prince to be admitted into the roll of Spanish
painters in the next edition of the _Annals_.
In these tumultuous days, when
"Royal heads are haunted like a maukin,"
over half the Continent, and even in steady England grave
merchants and wealthy tradesmen are counselling together on how
little their sovereign can be clothed and fed, and all things are
being brought to the vulgar test of _L. s. d._, it is pleasant to
turn to the artistic annals of a once mighty empire like Spain, and
see how uniformly, for more than five hundred years, its monarchs
have been the patrons, always munificent, generally discriminating,
of the fine arts--how, from the days of Isabella the Catholic, to
those of Isabella the Innocent, the Spanish sceptre has courted,
not disdained, the companionship of the pencil and the chisel.
Mr Stirling has enriched his pages with many an amusing anecdote
illustrative of this royal love of art, and suggestive, alas! of
the painful reflection, that the future annalist of the artists of
England will find great difficulty in scraping together half-a-dozen
stories of a similar kind. With the one striking exception of
Charles I., we know not who among our sovereigns can be compared,
as a patron of art, to any of the Spanish sovereigns, from Charles
V. of the Austrian to Charles III. of the Bourbon race. Lord Hervey
has made notorious George II's ignorance and dislike of art. Among
the many noble and kingly qualities of his grandson, we fear a
love and appreciation of art may not be reckoned; and although, in
his intercourse with men of genius, George IV. was gracious and
generous, what can be said in favour of his taste and discernment?
The previous life of William IV., the mature age at which he
ascended the throne, and the troublous character of his reign,
explain why art received but slight countenance from the court of
the frank and noble-hearted Sailor Prince; but we turn with hope to
the future. The recent proceedings in the Court of Chancery have
made public a fact, already known to many, that her Majesty wields
with skilful hand a graceful graver, and the Christmas plays acted
at Windsor are a satisfactory proof that English art and genius are
not exiled from England's palaces. The professors, then, of that art
which Velasquez and Rubens, Murillo and Vandyck practised, shall yet
see that the Crown of England is not only in ancient legal phrase,
"the Fountain of Honour," but that it loves to direct its grateful
streams in their honoured direction. Free was the intercourse,
unfettered the conversation, independent the relations, between
Titian and Charles V., Velasquez and Philip IV.; let us hope that
Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, will yet witness a revival
of those palmy days of English art, when Inigo Jones, and Vandyck,
and Cowley, Waller, and Ben Jonson, shed a lustre on the art-loving
court of England!
The extracts we have given from Mr Stirling's work will have
sufficiently shown the scope of the _Annals_, and the spirit and
style in which they are written. There is no tedious, inflexible,
though often unmanageable leading idea, or theory of art, running
through these lively volumes. In the introduction, whatever is to
be said on the philosophy of Spanish art is carefully collected,
and the reader is thenceforward left at liberty to carry on the
conclusions of the introduction with him in his perusal of the
_Annals_, or to drop them at the threshold. We would, however,
strongly recommend all who desire to appreciate Spanish art, never
to forget that she owes all her beauty and inspiration to Spanish
nature and Spanish religion. Remember this, O holyday tourist along
the Andalusian coast, or more adventurous explorer of Castile and
Estremadura, and you will not be disappointed with her productions.
Mr Stirling has not contented himself with doing ample justice to
the great painters, and slurring over the comparatively unknown
artists, whose merits are in advance of their fame, but has embraced
in his careful view the long line of Spanish artists who have
flourished or faded in the course of nearly eight hundred years; and
he has accomplished this difficult task, not in the plodding spirit
of a Dryasdust, or with the curt dulness of a catalogue-monger,
but with the discriminating good taste of an accomplished English
gentleman, and in a style at once racy and rhetorical. There are
whole pages in the _Annals_ as full of picturesque beauty as the
scenes or events they describe, and of melody, as an Andalusian
summer's eve; indeed, the vigorous fancy and genial humour of
the author have, on some few occasions, led him to stray from
those strict rules of ἀιδὼς, which we are old-fashioned enough
to wish always observed. But where the charms and merits are so
great, and so many, and the defects so few and so small, we may
safely leave the discovery of the latter to the critical reader, and
satisfy our conscience by expressing a hope that, when Mr Stirling
next appears in the character of author--a period not remote, we
sincerely trust--he will have discarded those few scentless flowers
from his literary garden, and present us with a bouquet--
"Full of sweet buds and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie."
But if he never again put pen to paper, in these annals of the
artists of Spain he has given to the reading public a work which,
for utility of design, patience of research, and grace of language,
merits and has won the highest honours of authorship.
THE DODO AND ITS KINDRED.[19]
[19] _The Dodo and its Kindred; or, the History, Affinities, and
Osteology of the Dodo, Solitaire, and other Extinct Birds of the
Islands Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon._ By H. E. STRICKLAND,
M.A. F.G.S., F.R.G.S., President of the Ashmolean Society, &c., and
A. G. MELVILLE, M.D., Edinburgh, M.R.C. One vol., royal quarto:
London, 1848.
What was the Dodo? When was the Dodo? Where is the Dodo? are all
questions, the first more especially, which it is fully more easy
to ask than answer. Whoever has looked through books on natural
history--for example, that noted but now scarce instructor of our
early youth, the _Three Hundred Animals_--must have observed a
somewhat ungainly creature, with a huge curved bill, a shortish
neck, scarcely any wings, a plumy tuft upon the back--considerably
on the off-side, though pretending to be a tail,--and a very
shapeless body, extraordinarily large and round about the hinder
end. This anomalous animal being covered with feathers, and having,
in addition to the other attributes above referred to, only two
legs, has been, we think justly, regarded as a bird, and has
accordingly been named the Dodo. But why it should be so named
is another of the many mysterious questions, which require to be
considered in the history of this unaccountable creature. No one
alleges, nor can we conceive it possible, that it claims kindred
with either of the only two human beings we ever heard of who
bore the name: "And after him (Adino the Eznite) was Eleazar the
son of Dodo, the Ahohite, one of the three mighty men with David,
when they defied the Philistines that were there gathered together
to battle, and the men of Israel were gone away." Our only other
human Dodo belonged to the fair sex, and was the mother of the
famous Zoroaster, who flourished in the days of Darius Hystaspes,
and brought back the Persians to their ancient fire-worship, from
the adoration of the twinkling stars. The name appears to have
been dropped by both families, as if they were somewhat ashamed of
it; and we feel assured that of such of our readers as admit that
Zoroaster must have had a mother of some sort, very few really
remember now-a-days that her name was Dodo. There were no baptismal
registers in those times; or, if such existed, they were doubtless
consumed in the "great fire"--a sort of periodical, it may be
providential, mode of shortening the record, which seems to occur
from time to time in all civilised countries.
But while the creature in question,--we mean the feathered
biped--has been continuously presented to view in those "vain
repetitions" which unfortunately form the mass of our information in
all would-be popular works on natural history, we had actually long
been at a stand-still in relation to its essential attributes--the
few competent authorities who had given out their opinion upon this,
as many thought, stereotyped absurdity, being so disagreed among
themselves as to make confusion worse confounded. The case, indeed,
seemed desperate; and had it not been that we always entertained a
particular regard for old Clusius, (of whom by-and-by,) and could
not get over the fact that a Dodo's head existed in the Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford, and a Dodo's foot in the British Museum, London,
we would willingly have indulged the thought that the entire Dodo
was itself a dream. But, shaking off the cowardly indolence which
would seek to shirk the investigation of so great a question, let us
now inquire into a piece of ornithological biography, which seemed
so singularly to combine the familiar with the fabulous. Thanks
to an accomplished and persevering naturalist of our own day--one
of the most successful and assiduous inquirers of the younger
generation--we have now all the facts, and most of the fancies,
laid before us in a splendid royal quarto volume, just published,
with numerous plates, devoted to the history and illustration of
the "Dodo and its Kindred." It was, in truth, the latter term that
cheered our heart, and led us again towards a subject which had
previously produced the greatest despondency; for we had always,
though most erroneously, fancied that the great misformed lout of
our _Three Hundred Animals_ was all alone in the wide world, unable
to provide for himself, (and so, fortunately, without a family,)
and had never, in truth, had either predecessors or posterity. Mr
Strickland, however, has brought together the _disjecta membra_ of
a family group, showing not only fathers and mothers, sisters and
brothers, but cousins, and kindred of all degrees. Their sedate and
somewhat sedentary mode of life is probably to be accounted for,
not so much by their early habits as their latter end. Their legs
are short, their wings scarcely existant, but they are prodigiously
large and heavy in the hinder-quarters; and organs of flight would
have been but a vain thing for safety, as they could not, in such
wooded countries as these creatures inhabited, have been made
commensurate with the uplifting of such solid bulk, placed so far
behind that centre of gravity where other wings are worked. We can
now sit down in Mr Strickland's company, to discuss the subject, not
only tranquilly, but with a degree of cheerfulness which we have not
felt for many a day: thanks to his kindly consideration of the Dodo
and "its kindred."
The geographical reader will remember that to the eastward of the
great, and to ourselves nearly unknown, island of Madagascar, there
lies a small group of islands of volcanic origin, which, though not
exactly contiguous among themselves, are yet nearer to each other
than to the greater island just named, and which is interposed
between them and the coast of Southern Africa. They are named
Rodriguez, Bourbon, and Mauritius, or the Isle of France. There is
proof that not fewer than four distinct species of large-bodied,
short-winged birds, of the Dodo type, were their inhabitants in
comparatively recent times, and have now become utterly extinct. We
say utterly, because neither proof nor vestige of their existence
elsewhere has been at any time afforded; and the comparatively
small extent, and now peopled state of the islands in question,
(where they are no longer known,) make the continuous and unobserved
existence of these birds, so conspicuous in size and slow of foot,
impossible.
Now, it is this recent and total extinction which renders the
subject one of more than ordinary interest. Death is an admitted
law of nature, in respect to the _individuals_ of all species.
Geology, "dragging at each remove a lengthened chain" has shown how,
at different and distant eras, innumerable tribes have perished
and been supplanted, or at least replaced, by other groups of
species, entire races, better fitted for the great climatic and
other physical changes, which our earth's surface has undergone
from time to time. How these changes were brought about, many,
with more or less success, (generally less,) have tried to say.
Organic remains--that is, the fossilised remnants of ancient
species--sometimes indicate a long continuance of existence,
generation after generation living in tranquillity, and finally
sinking in a quiet grave; while other examples show a sudden and
violent death, in tortuous and excited action, as if they had been
almost instantaneously overwhelmed and destroyed by some great
catastrophe.
Several local extinctions of elsewhere existing species are known
to naturalists--such as those of the beaver, the bear, and the
wolf, which no longer occur in Great Britain, though historically
known, as well as organically proved by recent remains, to have
lived and died among us. Their extinction was slow and gradual,
and resulted entirely from the inroads which the human race--that
is, the increase of population, and the progress of agriculture
and commerce--necessarily made upon their numbers, which thus
became "_few_ by degrees, and beautifully less." The beaver might
have carried on business well enough, in his own quiet way,
although frequently incommoded by the love of peltry on the part
of a hat-wearing people; but it is clear that no man with a small
family, and a few respectable farm-servants, could either permit
a large and hungry wolf to be continually peeping at midnight
through the key-hole of the nursery, or allow a brawny bruin to
snuff too frequently under the kitchen door, (after having hugged
the watch-dog to death,) when the serving-maids were at supper. The
extirpation, then, of at least two of those quondam British species
became a work of necessity and mercy, and might have been tolerated
even on a Sunday between sermons--especially as naturalists have it
still in their power to study the habits of similar wild beasts, by
no means yet extinct, in the neighbouring countries of France and
Germany.
But the death of the Dodo and its kindred is a more affecting fact,
as involving the extinction of an entire race, root and branch, and
proving that death is a law of the _species_, as well as of the
individuals which compose it,--although the life of the one is so
much more prolonged than that of the other that we can seldom obtain
any positive proof of its extinction, except by the observance of
geological eras. Certain other still existing species, well known
to naturalists, may be said to be, as it were, just hovering on
the brink of destruction. One of the largest and most remarkable
of herbivorous animals--a species of wild cattle, the aurochs
or European bison (_B. priscus_)--exists now only in the forest
of Bialowicksa, from whence the Emperor of Russia has recently
transmitted a living pair to the Zoological Society of London.
Several kinds of birds are also evidently on their last legs. For
example, a singular species of parrot, (_Nestor productus_,) with
the termination of the upper mandible much attenuated, peculiar to
Phipps's Island, near Norfolk Island, has recently ceased to exist
there in the wild state, and is now known as a living species only
from a few surviving specimens kept in cages, and which refuse to
breed. The burrowing parrot from New Zealand is already on the road
to ruin; and more than one species of that singular and wingless
bird, called _Apteryx_, also from the last-named island, may be
placed in the same category. Even in our own country, if the landed
proprietors were to yield to the clamour of the Anti-Game-Law
League, the red grouse or moor-game might cease to be, as they occur
nowhere else on the known earth save in Britain and the Emerald Isle.
The geographical distribution of animals, in general, has been
made conformable to laws which we cannot fathom. A mysterious
relationship exists between certain organic structures and those
districts of the earth's surface which they inhabit. Certain
extensive groups, in both the animal and vegetable kingdom,
are found to be restricted to particular continents, and their
neighbouring islands. Of some the distribution is very extensive,
while others are totally unknown except within a limited space, such
as some solitary isle,
"Placed far amid the melancholy main."
"In the present state of science," says Mr Strickland, "we must
be content to admit the existence of this law, without being
able to enunciate its preamble. It does _not_ imply that organic
distribution depends on soil and climate; for we often find a
perfect identity of these conditions in opposite hemispheres,
and in remote continents, whose faunæ and floræ are almost
wholly diverse. It does not imply that allied but distinct
organisms have been adduced, by generation or spontaneous
development, from the same original stock; for (to pass over
other objections) we find detached volcanic islets, which have
been ejected from beneath the ocean, (such as the Galapagos,
for instance,) inhabited by terrestrial forms allied to those
of the nearest continent, though hundreds of miles distant, and
evidently never connected with them. But this fact may indicate
that the Creator, in forming new organisms to discharge the
functions required from time to time by the ever vacillating
balance of nature, has thought fit to preserve the regularity
of the system by modifying the types of structure already
established in the adjacent localities, rather than to proceed
_per saltum_ by introducing forms of more foreign aspect."
In conformity with this relation between geographical distribution
and organic structure, it has been ascertained that a small portion
of the indigenous animals and plants of the islands of Rodriguez,
Bourbon, and the Isle of France, are either allied to or identical
with the productions of continental Africa, a larger portion with
those of Madagascar, while certain species are altogether peculiar
to the insular group above named.
"And as these three islands form a detached cluster, as compared
to other lands, so do we find in them a peculiar group of birds,
specifically different in each island, yet allied together in
their general characters, and remarkably isolated from any
known forms in other parts of the world. These birds were of
large size and grotesque proportions, the wings too short and
feeble for flight, the plumage loose and decomposed, and the
general aspect suggestive of gigantic immaturity. Their history
is as remarkable as their origin. About two centuries ago,
their native isles were first colonised by man, by whom these
strange creatures were speedily exterminated. So rapid and so
complete was their extinction, that the vague descriptions given
of them by early navigators were long regarded as fabulous or
exaggerated; and these birds, almost contemporaries of our
great-grandfathers, became associated in the minds of many
persons with the griffin and the phœnix of mythological
antiquity."
The aim and object of Mr Strickland's work is to vindicate the
honesty of the rude voyagers of the seventeenth century; to collect
together the scattered evidence regarding the Dodo and its kindred;
to describe and depict the few anatomical fragments which are still
extant of those lost species; to invite scientific travellers to
further and more minute research; and to infer, from the authentic
data, now in hand, the probable rank and position of these creatures
in the scale of nature. We think he has achieved his object very
admirably, and has produced one of the best and most interesting
monographs with which it is our fortune to be acquainted.
So far as we can see, the extension of man's more immediate
influence and agency is the sole cause of the disappearance of
species in modern times--at least we have no proof that any of these
species have perished by what can be called a catastrophe: this is
well exemplified by what we now know of the Dodo and its kindred.
The islands of Mauritius and Bourbon were discovered in the
sixteenth century, (authorities differ as to the precise period,
which they vary from 1502 to 1545,) by Pedro Mascaregnas, a
Portuguese, who named the latter after himself; while he called
the former Cerne, a term applied by Pliny to an island in another
quarter. Of this Cerne nothing definite was ascertained till the
year 1598, when the Dutch, under Jacob Cornelius Neck, finding it
uninhabited, took possession, and changed its name to Mauritius. In
the narrative of the voyage, of which there are several accounts in
different tongues, we find the following notice:--
"This island, besides being very fertile in terrestrial
products, feeds vast numbers of birds, such as turtle-doves,
which occur in such plenty that three of our men sometimes
captured one hundred and fifty in half a day, and might easily
have taken more by hand, or killed them with sticks, if we
had not been overloaded with the burden of them. Grey parrots
are also common there, and other birds, besides a large kind
bigger than our swans, with large heads, half of which is
covered with skin like a hood. These birds want wings, in
place of which are three or four thickish feathers. The tail
consists of a few slender curved feathers of a gray colour. We
called them _Walckvogel_, for this reason, that, the longer
they were boiled, the tougher and more uneatable they became.
Their stomachs, however, and breasts, were easy to masticate.
Another reason for the name was that we had an abundance of
turtle-doves, of a much sweeter and more agreeable flavour."--De
Bry's _India Orientalis_, (1601,) pars v. p. 7.
These walckvogel were the birds soon afterwards called Dodos. The
description given by Clusius, in his _Exotica_, (1605,) is chiefly
taken from one of the published accounts of Van Neck's voyage, but
he adds the following notice, as from personal observation:--
"After I had written down the history of this bird as well
as I could, I happened to see in the house of Peter Pauwius,
Professor of Medicine in the University of Leyden, a leg cut off
at the knee, and recently brought from the Mauritius. It was
not very long, but rather exceeded four inches from the knee
to the bend of the foot. Its thickness, however, was great,
being nearly four inches in circumference; and it was covered
with numerous scales, which in front were wider and yellow, but
smaller and dusky behind. The upper part of the toes was also
furnished with single broad scales, while the lower part was
wholly callous. The toes were rather short for so thick a leg:
the claws were all thick, hard, black, less than an inch long;
but the claw of the hind toe was longer than the rest, and
exceeded an inch."
A Dutch navigator, Heemskerk, remained nearly three months in the
Mauritius, on his homeward voyage in 1602; and in a published
journal kept by Reyer Cornelisz, we read of _Wallichvogels_, and
a variety of other game. One of Heemskerk's captains, Willem van
West-Zanen by name, also left a journal--apparently not published
until 1648--at which time it was edited in an enlarged form by H.
Soeteboom. We there find repeated mention of _Dod-aarsen_ or Dodos;
and the sailors seem to have actually revelled in these birds,
without suffering from surfeit or nausea like Van Neck's crew. As
this tract is very rare, and has never appeared in an English form,
we shall avail ourselves of Mr Strickland's translation of a few
passages bearing on the subject in question:--
"The sailors went out every day to hunt for birds and other
game, such as they could find on land, while they became less
active with their nets, hooks, and other fishing-tackle. No
quadrupeds occur there except cats, though our countrymen have
subsequently introduced goats and swine. The herons were less
tame than the other birds, and were difficult to procure,
owing to their flying amongst the thick branches of the trees.
They also caught birds which some name _Dod-aarsen_, others
_Dronten_. When Jacob Van Neck was here, these birds were called
_Wallich-vogels_, because even a long boiling would scarcely
make them tender, but they remained tough and hard, with the
exception of the breast and belly, which were very good; and
also because, from the abundance of turtle-doves which the men
procured, they became disgusted with dodos. The figure of these
birds is given in the accompanying plate: they have great heads,
with hoods thereon; they are without wings or tail, and have
only little winglets on their sides, and four or five feathers
behind, more elevated than the rest; they have beaks and feet,
and commonly, in the stomach, a stone the size of a fist....
"The dodos, with their round sterns, (for they were well
fattened,) were also obliged to turn tail; everything that could
move was in a bustle; and the fish, which had lived in peace for
many a year, were pursued into the deepest water-pools....
"On the 25th July, William and his sailors brought some dodos,
which were very fat; the whole crew made an ample meal from
three or four of them, and a portion remained over.... They
sent on board smoked fish, salted dodos, land-tortoises, and
other game, which supply was very acceptable. They were busy
for some days bringing provisions to the ship. On the 4th of
August, William's men brought fifty large birds on board the
_Bruyn-Vis_; among them were twenty-four or twenty-five dodos,
so large and heavy, that they could not eat any two of them for
dinner, and all that remained over was salted.
"Another day, Hoogeven (William's supercargo) set out from the
tent with four seamen, provided with sticks, nets, muskets, and
other necessaries for hunting. They climbed up mountain and
hill, roamed through forest and valley, and, during the three
days that they were out, they captured another half-hundred
of birds, including a matter of twenty dodos, all which they
brought on board and salted. Thus were they, and the other crews
in the fleet, occupied in fowling and fishing."
In regard to the appellations of these birds, it is not altogether
easy to determine the precise date at which the synonymous term
_Dodars_, from which our name of Dodo is by some derived, was
introduced. It seems first to occur in the journal of Willem van
West-Zanen; but that journal, though written in 1603, appears to
have remained unpublished till 1648, and the name may have been
an interpolation by his editor, Soeteboom. Matelief's Journal,
also, which makes mention of _Dodaersen_, otherwise _Dronten_, was
written in 1606, and Van der Hagen's in 1607; but Mr Strickland has
been unable to find an edition of either work of earlier date than
1646, and so the occurrence of these words may be likewise due to
the officiousness of editors. Perhaps the earliest use of the word
Dodars may date from the publication of Verhuffen's voyage, (1613,)
where, however, it occurs under the corrupt form of _Totersten_.
There seems little doubt that the name of Dodo is derived from
the Dutch root, _Dodoor_, which signifies _sluggard_, and is
appropriate to the leisurely gait and heavy aspect of the creatures
in question. Dodars is probably a homely or familiar phrase among
Dutch sailors, and may be regarded as more expressive than elegant.
Our own Sir Thomas Herbert was the first to use the name of Dodo
in its modern form, and he tells us that it is a Portuguese word.
_Doudo_, in that language, certainly signifies "foolish," or
"simple," and might have been well applied to the unwary habits
and defenceless condition of these almost wingless and totally
inexperienced species; but, as none of the Portuguese voyagers seem
to have mentioned the Dodo by any name whatever, nor even to have
visited the Mauritius, after their first discovery of the island by
Pedro Mascaregnas already named, it appears far more probable that
Dodars is a genuine Dutch term, altered, and it may be amended, by
Sir Thomas Herbert, to suit his own philological fancies.
The Dutch, indeed, seem to have been inspired with a genuine love
of Dodos, and never allowed even the cooing of the delicately
tender turtle-doves to prevent their laying in an ample store of
the more solid, if less sentimental species. Thus, Van der Hagen,
who commanded two ships which remained for some weeks at the
Mauritius in 1607, not only feasted his crews on great abundance of
"tortoises, _dodars_, gray parroquets, and other game," but salted
large quantities, for consumption during the voyage. Verhuffen
touched at the same island in 1611, and it is in his narrative
(published at Frankfort in 1613) that Dodos are called _Totersten_.
He describes them as having--
"A skin like a monk's cowl on the head, and no wings; but, in
place of them, about five or six yellow feathers: likewise, in
place of a tail, are four or five crested feathers. In colour
they are gray; men call them _Totersten_ or _Walckvögel_;
they occur there in great plenty, insomuch that the Dutch
daily caught and ate many of them. For not only these, but in
general all the birds there, are so tame that they killed the
turtle-doves, as well as the other wild pigeons and parrots,
with sticks, and caught them by the hand. They also captured the
totersten or walckvögel with their hands; but were obliged to
take good care that these birds did not bite them on the arms or
legs with their beaks, which are very strong, thick, and hooked;
for they are wont to bite desperately hard."
We are glad to be informed, by the above, of this attempt at
independence, or something at least approaching to the defensive
system. It forms an additional title, on the part of the Dodo, to be
regarded, at all events by the Dutch _cuisiniers_, as "_une pièce de
resistance_."
Sir Thomas Herbert, already named, visited the Mauritius in 1627,
and found it still uninhabited by man. In his _Relation of some
yeares' Travaile_, which, for the amusement of his later years, he
seems to have repeatedly rewritten for various editions, extending
from 1634 to 1677, he both figures and describes our fat friend. His
narration is as follows:--
"The dodo, a bird the Dutch call walckvögel or dod-eersen:
her body is round and fat, which occasions the slow pace, or
that her corpulencie; and so great as few of them weigh less
than fifty pound; meat it is with some, but better to the eye
than stomach, such as only a strong appetite can vanquish; but
otherwise, through its oyliness, it cannot chuse but quickly
cloy and nauseate the stomach, being indeed more pleasurable to
look than feed upon. It is of a melancholy visage, as sensible
of nature's injury in framing so massie a body to be directed
by complimental wings, such indeed as are unable to hoise her
from the ground, serving only to rank her amongst birds. Her
head is variously drest; for one half is hooded with down of a
dark colour, the other half naked, and of a white hue, as if
lawn were drawn over it; her bill hooks and bends downwards; the
thrill or breathing-place is in the midst, from which part to
the end the colour is of a light green, mixt with pale yellow;
her eyes are round and bright, and instead of feathers has a
most fine down; her train (like to a China beard) is no more
than three or four short feathers; her leggs are thick and
black; her talons great; her stomach fiery, so that as she can
easily digest stones; in that and shape not a little resembling
the ostrich."--(P. 383.)
François Cauche, an account of whose voyage, made in 1638, is
published in the _Relations Véritables et Curieuses de l'Isle de
Madagascar_, (Paris, 1651) states that he saw in the Mauritius birds
called Oiseaux de Nazaret, larger than a swan, covered with black
down, with crested feathers on the rump, "as many in number as the
bird is years old." In place of wings there are some black curved
feathers, without webs. The cry is like that of a gosling.
"They only lay one egg, which is white, the _size of a halfpenny
roll_; by the side of which they place a white stone, of the
dimensions of a hen's egg. They lay on grass, which they
collect, and make their nests in the forests; if one kills the
young one, a gray stone is found in the gizzard. We call them
Oiseaux de Nazaret. The fat is excellent to give ease to the
muscles and nerves."
Here let us pause a moment, to consider what was the probable size
of a halfpenny roll in the year 1638. How many vast and various
elements must be taken to account in calculating the dimensions
of that "_pain d'un sol!_" Macculloch, Cobden, Joseph Hume, come
over and help us in this our hour of _knead_! Was corn high or
low? were wages up or down? were bakers honest or dishonest? was
there a fixed measure of quantity for these our matutinal baps? Did
town-councils regulate their weight and quality, or was conscience
left controller, from the quartern loaf downwards to the smallest
form assumed by yeast and flour?
"Tell me where was fancy bread?"
Does no one know precisely what was the size of a halfpenny roll in
the year 1638? In that case, we shall not mention the dimensions of
the Dodo's egg.
There is no doubt that the bird recorded by Cauche was the true
Dodo, although it is probable that he either described it from
memory, or confused it with the descriptions then current of the
cassowary. Thus he adds that the legs were of considerable length,
that it had only three toes, and no tongue--characters (with the
exception of the last, inapplicable, of course, to either kind)
which truly indicate the latter species. This name of "bird of
Nazareth" has, moreover, given rise to a false or phantom species,
called _Didus Nazarenus_ in systematic works, and is supposed to
have been derived from the small island or sandbank of Nazareth, to
the north-east of Madagascar. Now Dr Hamel has recently rendered it
probable that no such island or sandbank is in existence, and so we
need not seek for its inhabitants: at all events, there is no such
bird as the Nazarene Dodo--_Didus Nazarenus_.
The next piece of evidence regarding the Dodo is highly interesting
and important, as it shows that, at least in one instance, this
extraordinary bird was transported alive to Europe, and exhibited in
our own country. In a manuscript preserved in the British Museum,
Sir Hamon Lestrange, the father of the more celebrated Sir Roger,
in a commentary on Brown's _Vulgar Errors_, and _apropos_ of the
ostrich, records as follows:--
"About 1638, as I walked London streets, I saw the picture of a
strange fowle hong out upon a cloth, and myselfe, with one or
two more then in company, went in to see it. It was kept in a
chamber, and was a great fowle somewhat bigger than the largest
turkey-cock, and so legged and footed, but stouter and thicker,
and of a more erect shape; coloured before like the breast of a
young cock fesan, and, on the back, of dunn or deare coulour.
The keeper called it a Dodo; and in the end of a chimney in
the chamber there lay a heape of large pebble stones, whereof
hee gave it many in our sight, some as bigg as nutmegs, and
the keeper told us she eats them, (conducing to digestion);
and though I remember not how farr the keeper was questioned
therein, yet I am confident that afterwards shee cast them all
againe."
It is curious that no confirmation can be obtained of this
exhibition from contemporary authorities. The period was prolific
in pamphlets and broadsides, but political excitement probably
engrossed the minds of the majority, and rendered them careless
of the wonders of nature. Yet the individual in question may in
all likelihood be traced down to the present day, and portions of
it seen and handled by the existing generation. In Tradescant's
catalogue of his "_Collection of Rarities preserved at South
Lambeth, near London_," 1656, we find an entry--"Dodar from the
island Mauritius; it is not able to flie, being so big." It is
enumerated under the head of "Whole birds;" and Willughby, whose
_Ornithologia_ appeared in 1676, says of the Dodo, "Exuvias hujusce
avis vidimus in museo Tradescantiano." The same specimen is
alluded to by Llhwyd in 1684, and by Hyde in 1700,--having passed,
meanwhile, into the Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford, with the rest of
the Tradescantian collection. As Tradescant was the most noted
collector of things natural in his day, and there were few, if
any, to enter into competition with him, it may be well supposed
that such a _rara avis_ as a living Dodo would attract his close
attention, and that it would, in all probability, find its way into
his cabinet on its decease. It may, therefore, be inferred that the
same individual which was exhibited in London, and described by
Lestrange in 1638, is that recorded as a stuffed specimen in the
catalogue of Tradescant's Museum, (1656,) and bequeathed by him,
with his other curiosities, to Elias Ashmole, the munificent founder
of the still existing museum at Oxford.
The considerate reader will not unnaturally ask, Where is now that
last of Dodos? and echo answers, Where? Alas! it was destroyed, "by
order of the Visitors," in 1755. The following is the evidence of
that destruction, as given by Mr J. S. Duncan in the 3d volume of
the _Zoological Journal_, p. 559:--
"In the Ashmolean Catalogue, made by Ed. Llhwyd, musei
procustos, 1684, (Plott being then keeper,) the entry of the
bird is 'No. 29, Gallus gallinaceus peregrinus Clusii,' &c. In a
catalogue made subsequently to 1755, it is stated, 'The numbers
from 5 to 46, being decayed, were ordered to be removed at a
meeting of the majority of the Visitors, Jan. 8, 1755.' Among
these, of course, was included the Dodo, its number being 29.
This is further shown by a new catalogue, completed in 1756, in
which the order of the Visitors is recorded as follows:--'Illa
quibus nullus in margine assignatur numerus, a Musæo subducta
sunt cimelia, annuentibus Vice-Cancellario aliisque Curatoribus
ad ea lustranda convocatis, die Januarii 8vo, A.D. 1755.' The
Dodo is one of those which are here without the number."
By some lucky accident, however, a small portion of "this last
descendant of an ancient race," as Mr Strickland terms it, escaped
the clutches of the destroyers. "The head and one of the feet were
saved from the flames, and are still preserved in the Ashmolean
Museum."[20]
[20] The scientific value of these remnants, Mr Strickland informs
us, has been lately much increased by skilful dissection. Dr Acland,
the lecturer in anatomy, has divided the skin of the cranium down
the mesial line, and, by removing it from the left side, the entire
osteological structure of this extraordinary skull is exposed
to view, while on the other side the external covering remains
undisturbed. The solitary foot was formerly covered by decomposed
integuments, and presented few external characters. These have
been removed by Dr Kidd, the professor of medicine, who has made
an interesting preparation of both the osseous and tendinous
structures.--See _The Dodo and its Kindred_, p. 33.
Let us now retrace our steps, for the sake of taking up, very
briefly, the history of the other known remnants of this now
extinct species. Among the printed books of the Ashmolean Museum,
there is a small tract, of which the second edition (the first is
without date) is entitled, "A Catalogue of many natural rarities,
with great industry, cost, and thirty years' travel in foreign
countries, collected by Robert Hubert, _alias_ Forges, gent. and
sworn servant to his majesty; and daily to be seen at the place
formerly called the Music House, near the west end of St Paul's
Church," 12mo, London, 1665. At page 11 is the following entry:--"A
legge of a Dodo, a great heavy bird that cannot fly: it is a bird
of the Maurcius island." This specimen is supposed to be that which
afterwards passed into the possession of the Royal Society, is
recorded in their catalogue of _Natural and Artificial Curiosities_,
published by Grew in 1681, and is now in the British Museum. It is
somewhat larger than the Ashmolean foot, and, from its excellent
state of preservation, finely exhibits the external characters of
the toes and tarsus.
In Olearus's catalogue of the museum at Gottorf, (the seat of the
Dukes of Schleswig, and recently a less easy one than we have known
it,) of which the first edition was published in 1666, there is the
following notice of a Dodo's head:--
"No. 5 is the head of a foreign bird, which Clusius names
_Gallus peregrinus_, Mirenberg _Cygnus cucullatus_, and the
Dutch walghvögel, from the disgust which they are said to have
taken to its hard flesh. The Dutch seem to have first discovered
this bird in the island of Mauritius; and it is stated to have
no wings, but in place of them two winglets, like the emeu and
the penguins."--(P. 25.)
This specimen, after having been disregarded, if not forgotten,
for nearly two centuries, was lately re-discovered, by Professor
C. Reinhardt, amongst a mass of ancient rubbish, and is now in the
public museum of Copenhagen, where it was examined by Mr Strickland
two years ago.[21] The integumentary portions have been all removed,
but it exhibits the same osteological characters as the Oxford head,
though less perfect, the base of the occiput being absent. It is of
somewhat smaller size.
[21] The collection of the Dukes of Schleswig was removed about the
year 1720, by Frederic IV., from Gottorf to Copenhagen, where it
is now incorporated with the Royal "Kunstkammer" of that northern
capital.
The remnants now noticed--three heads and two feet--are the only
ascertained existing portions of the famous Dodo; a bird which,
as we have seen in the preceding extracts, might have been well
enough known to such of our great great-grandfathers as were in the
sea-faring line.
But when did the last Dodo die? We cannot answer that question
articulately, as to the very year, still less as to the season, or
time of day--and we believe that no intimations of the event were
sent to the kindred; but we do not hesitate to state our belief
that that affecting occurrence or bereavement took place some time
subsequent to the summer of 1681, and prior to 1693. The latest
evidence of the existence of Dodos in the Mauritius is contained
in a manuscript of the British Museum, entitled "A coppey of Mr
Benj. Harry's Journall when he was chief mate of the Shippe Berkley
Castle, Captn. Wm. Talbot commander, on voyage to the Coste and Bay,
1679, which voyage they wintered at the Maurrisshes." On the return
from India, being unable to weather the Cape of Good Hope, they
determined to make for "the Marushes," the 4th June 1681. They saw
the land on the 3d July, and on the 11th they began to build huts,
and with much labour spread out their cargo to dry:--
"Now, having a little respitt, I will make a little description
of the island, first of its producks, then of its parts; ffirst,
of winged and feathered ffowle, the less passant are _Dodos,
whose fflesh is very hard_, a small sort of Gees, reasonably
good Teele, Cuckoes, Pasca fflemingos, Turtle Doves, large
Batts, many small birds which are good.... Heer are many wild
hoggs and land-turtle which are very good, other small creators
on the Land, as Scorpions and Musketoes, these in small numbers,
Batts and ffleys a multitude, Munkeys of various sorts."
After this all historical evidence of the existence of the Dodo
ceases, although we cannot doubt that they continued for yet a
few years. The Dutch first colonised the Mauritius in 1644. The
island is not above forty miles in length; and although, when first
discovered, it was found clothed with dense forests of palms, and
various other trees--among whose columnar stems and leafy umbrage
the native creatures might find a safe abode, with food and
shelter--how speedily would not the improvident rapacity of hungry
colonists, or of reckless fresh-flesh-bereaved mariners, diminish
the numbers of a large and heavy-bodied bird, of powerless wing
and slow of foot, and useful, moreover, in the way of culinary
consumption. Mr Strickland is of opinion that their destruction
would be further hastened, or might be mainly caused, by the dogs,
cats, and swine which accompany man in his migrations, and become
themselves emancipated in the forests. All these creatures are more
or less carnivorous, and are fond of eggs and young birds; and as
the Dodo is said to have hatched only one egg at a time, a single
savage mouthful might suffice to destroy the hope of a family for
many a day.
That the destruction of Dodos was completed by 1693, Mr Strickland
thinks may be inferred from the narrative of Leguat, who, in
that year, remained several months in the Mauritius, and, while
enumerating its animal productions at considerable length, makes no
mention whatever of the bird in question. He adds,--"L'isle était
autrefois toute remplie d'oyes et de canards sauvages; de poules
d'eau, de gelinottes, de tortues de mer et de terre, _mais tout cela
est devenue fort rare_." And, while referring to the "hogs of the
China kind," he states that these beasts do a great deal of damage,
by devouring all the young animals they can catch. It is thus
sufficiently evident that civilisation was making aggressive inroads
on the natural state of the Mauritius even in 1693.
The Dutch evacuated the island in 1712, and were succeeded by the
French, who colonised it under the name of Isle de France; and this
change in the population no doubt accounts for the almost entire
absence of any traditionary knowledge of this remarkable bird among
the later inhabitants. Baron Grant lived in the Mauritius for twenty
years from 1740; and his son, who compiled his papers into a history
of the island, states that no trace of such a bird was to be found
at that time. In the _Observations sur la Physique_ for the year
1778, there is a negative notice, by M. Morel, of the Dodo and its
kindred. "Ces oiseaux, si bien décrits dans le tome 2 de l'Histoire
des Oiseaux de M. le Comte de Buffon, n'ont jamais été vus aux Isles
de France, &c., depuis plus de 60 ans que ces parages sont habités
et visités par des colonies Françoises. Les plus anciens habitans
assurent tous que ces oiseaux monstrueux leur ont toujours été
inconnus." M. Bory St Vincent, who visited the Mauritius and Bourbon
in 1801, and has given us an account of the physical features of
those islands in his "Voyage," assures us (vol. ii. p. 306) that he
instituted all possible inquiries regarding the Dodo (or Dronte) and
its kindred, without being able to pick up the slightest information
on the subject; and although he advertised "une grande recompense a
qui pourrait lui donner la moindre indice de l'ancienne existence
de cet oiseau, un silence universel a prouvé que le souvenir même
du Dronte était perdu parmi les créoles." De Blainville informs us,
(_Nouv. Ann. Mus._ iv. 31,) that the subject was discussed at a
public dinner at the Mauritius in 1816, where were present several
persons from seventy to ninety years of age, none of whom had any
knowledge of any Dodo, either from recollection or tradition.
Finally, Mr J. V. Thompson, who resided for some years in Mauritius
prior to 1816, states, (_Mag. of Nat. Hist._, ii. 443,) that no more
traces could then be found of the Dodo than of the truth of the tale
of Paul and Virginia.
But the historical evidence already adduced, as to the former
existence of this bird, is confirmed in a very interesting manner
by what may be called the pictorial proof. Besides the rude
delineations given by the earlier voyagers, there are several old
oil-paintings of the Dodo still extant, by skilful artists, who had
no other object in view than to represent with accuracy the forms
before them. These paintings are five in number, whereof one is
anonymous; three bear the name of Roland Savery, an eminent Dutch
animal-painter of the early portion of the seventeenth century, and
one is by John Savery, Roland's nephew.
The first of these is the best known, and is that from which the
figure of the Dodo, in all modern compilations of ornithology,
has been copied. It once belonged to George Edwards, who, in his
work on birds, (vi. 294,) tells us, that "the original picture was
drawn in Holland _from the living bird_, brought from St Maurice's
island in the East Indies, in the early times of the discovery of
the Indies by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. It was the property
of the late Sir H. Sloane to the time of his death, and afterwards
becoming my property. I deposited it in the British Museum as a
great curiosity. The above history of the picture I had from Sir H.
Sloane, and the late Dr Mortimer, secretary to the Royal Society."
It is still preserved in the place to which Edwards had consigned
it, and may be seen in the bird gallery, along with the actual foot
already mentioned. Although without name or date, the similarity
both of design and execution, leads to the conclusion that it was by
one or other of the Saverys. It may be seen engraved in the _Penny
Cyclopædia_, in illustration of Mr Broderip's article _Dodo_ in that
work.
The second painting, one of Roland Savery's, is in the royal
collection at the Hague, and may be regarded as a _chef-d'œuvre_.
It represents Orpheus charming the creation, and we there behold the
Dodo spell-bound with his other mute companions. All the ordinary
creatures there shown are depicted with the greatest truthfulness;
and why should the artist, delighting, as he seems to have done, in
tracing the most delicate features of familiar nature, have marred
the beautiful consistency of his design by introducing a feigned,
or even an exaggerated representation? We may here adduce the
invaluable evidence of Professor Owen.
"While at the Hague, in the summer of 1838, I was much struck
with the minuteness and accuracy with which the exotic species
of animals had been painted by Savery and Breughel, in such
subjects as Orpheus charming the Beasts, &c., in which scope
was allowed for grouping together a great variety of animals.
Understanding that the celebrated menagerie of Prince Maurice
had afforded the living models to these artists, I sat down
one day before Savery's Orpheus and the Beasts, to make a list
of the species, which the picture sufficiently evinced that
the artist had had the opportunity to study alive. Judge of my
surprise and pleasure in detecting, in a dark corner of the
picture, (which is badly hung between two windows,) the _Dodo_,
beautifully finished, showing for example, though but three
inches long, the auricular circle of feathers, the scutation
of the tarsi, and the loose structure of the caudal plumes. In
the number and proportions of the toes, and in general form, it
accords with Edwards' oil-painting in the British Museum; and I
conclude that the miniature must have been copied from the study
of a living bird, which, it is most probable, formed part of
the Mauritian menagerie. The bird is standing in profile with a
lizard at its feet."--_Penny Cyclopædia_, xxiii. p. 143.
Mr Strickland, in 1845, made a search through the Royal Gallery of
Berlin, which was known to contain several of Savery's pictures.
Among them, we are happy to say that he found one representing
the Dodo, with numerous other animals, "in Paradise!" It was very
conformable with the figure last mentioned; but what renders this,
our third portrait, of peculiar interest, is, that it affords
a date--the words "Roelandt Savery fe. 1626," being inscribed
on one corner. As the artist was born in 1576, he must have
been twenty-three years old when Van Neck's expedition returned
to Holland; and as we are told by De Bry, in reference to the
Mauritius, that "aliæ ibidem aves visæ sunt, quas walkvogel Batavi
nominarunt, et _unam secum in Hollandiam importarunt_," it is quite
possible that the portrait of this individual may have been taken at
the time, and afterwards recopied, both by himself and his nephew,
in their later pictures. Professor Owen leans to the belief that
Prince Maurice's collection afforded the living prototype,--an
opinion so far strengthened by Edwards's tradition, that the
painting in the British Museum was drawn in Holland from a "living
bird." Either view is preferable to Dr Hamel's suggestion, that
Savery's representation was taken from the Dodo exhibited in London,
as that individual was seen alive by Sir Hamon Lestrange in 1638,
and must therefore (by no means a likely occurrence) have lived, in
the event supposed, at least twelve years in captivity.
Very recently Dr J. J. de Tchudi, the well-known Peruvian traveller,
transmitted to Mr Strickland an exact copy of another figure of
the Dodo, which forms part of a picture in the imperial collection
of the Belvedere at Vienna--by no means a safe location, in these
tempestuous times, for the treasures of either art or nature. But we
trust that Prince Windischgratz and the hanging committee will now
see that all is right, and that General Bem has not been allowed to
carry off this drawing of the Dodo in his carpet-bag. It is dated
1628.
"There are two circumstances," says Mr Strickland, "which give
an especial interest to this painting. First, the novelty of
attitude in the Dodo, exhibiting an activity of character which
corroborates the supposition that the artist had living model
before him, and contrasting strongly with the aspect of passive
stolidity in the other pictures. And, secondly, the Dodo is
represented as watching, apparently with hungry looks, the
merry wriggling of an eel in the water! Are we hence to infer
that the Dodo fed upon eels? The advocates of the Raptorial
affinities of the Dodo, of whom we shall soon speak, will
doubtless reply in the affirmative; but, as I hope shortly
to demonstrate that it belongs to a family of birds all the
other members of which are frugivorous, I can only regard the
introduction of the eel as a pictorial license. In this, as
in all his other paintings, Savery brought into juxtaposition
animals from all countries, without regarding geographical
distribution. His delineations of birds and beasts were
wonderfully exact, but his knowledge of natural history probably
went no further; and although the Dodo is certainly _looking at_
the eel, yet we have no proof that he is going to _eat_ it. The
mere collocation of animals in an artistic composition, cannot
be accepted as evidence against the positive truths revealed by
comparative anatomy."--(P. 30.)
The fifth and last old painting of the Dodo, is that now in the
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and presented to it by Mr Darby in 1813.
Nothing is known of its previous history. It is the work of John
Savery, the nephew of Roland, and is dated 1651. Its most peculiar
character is the colossal scale on which it has been designed,--the
Dodo of this canvass standing about three feet and a half in height.
"It is difficult," observes our author, "to assign a motive to
the artist for thus magnifying an object already sufficiently
uncouth in appearance. Were it not for the discrepancy of
dates, I should have conjectured that this was the identical
"picture of a strange fowle hong out upon a cloth," which
attracted the notice of Sir Hamon Lestrange and his friends, as
they "walked London streets" in 1638; the delineations used by
showmen being in general more remarkable for attractiveness than
veracity."--(P. 31.)
We have now exhibited the leading facts which establish both the
existence and extinction of this extraordinary bird: the existence,
proved by the recorded testimony of the earlier navigators, the few
but peculiar portions of structure which still remain among us, and
the _vera effigies_ handed down by artists coeval with the period in
which the Dodo lived: the non-existence, deduced from the general
progress of events, and the absence of all knowledge of the species
since the close of the seventeenth century, although the natural
productions of the Mauritius are, in other respects, much better
known to us now than then. Why any particular creature should have
been so formed as to be unable to resist the progress of _humanity_,
and should in consequence have died, it is not for us to say. "There
are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our
philosophy;" and of this we may feel assured, that if, as we doubt
not, the Dodo is extinct, then it has served its end, whatever that
might be.
There is nothing imperfect in the productions of nature, although
there are many organisms in which certain forms and faculties are
less developed than in others. There are certainly, in particular
groups, such things as rudimentary organs, which belong, as it were,
not so much to the individual species, as to the general system
which prevails in the larger and more comprehensive class to which
such species belong; and in the majority of which these organs
fulfil a frequent and obvious function, and so are very properly
regarded as indispensable to the wellbeing of such as use them.
But there are many examples in animal life which indicate that
particular parts of structure remain, in certain species, for ever
in an undeveloped state. In respect to teeth, for instance, the
Greenland whale may be regarded as a _permanent suckling_; for that
huge creature having no occasion for these organs, they never pierce
the gums, although in early life they are distinctly traceable in
the dental groove of the jaws. So the Dodo was a kind of _permanent
nestling_, covered with down instead of feathers, and with wings
and tail (the oars and rudder of all aërial voyagers) so short and
feeble as to be altogether inefficient for the purposes of flight.
Why should such things be? We cannot say. Can any one say why they
should not be? The question is both wide and deep, and they are
most likely to plunge into it who can neither dive nor swim. We
agree with Mr Strickland, that these apparently anomalous facts
are, in reality, indications of laws which the great Creator has
been pleased to form and follow in the construction of organised
beings,--inscriptions in an unknown hieroglyphic, which we may rest
assured must have a meaning, but of which we have as yet scarcely
learned the alphabet. "There appear, however, reasonable grounds for
believing that the Creator has assigned to each class of animals a
definite type or structure, from which He has never departed, even
in the most exceptional or eccentric modifications of form."
As to the true position of the Dodo in systematic ornithology,
various opinions have been emitted by various men. The majority seem
to have placed it in the great Rasorial or Gallinaceous order, as a
component part of the family _Struthionidæ_, or ostrich tribe.
"The bird in question," says Mr Vigors, "from every account
which we have of its economy, and from the appearance of
its head and foot, is decidedly gallinaceous; and, from the
insufficiency of its wings for the purposes of flight, it may
with equal certainty be pronounced to be of the _Struthious_
structure. But the foot has a strong hind-toe, and, with the
exception of its being more robust, in which character it still
adheres to the Struthionidæ, it corresponds to the Linnæan genus
_Crax_, that commences the succeeding family. The bird thus
becomes osculant, and forms a strong point of junction between
those two contiguous groups."--_Linn. Trans._ xiv. 484.
M. de Blainville (in _Nouv. Ann. du Mus._ iv. 24,) contests this
opinion by various arguments, which we cannot here report, and
concludes that the Dodo is a raptorial bird, allied to the vultures.
Mr Broderip, in his article before referred to, sums up the
discussion as follows:--
"If the picture in the British Museum, and the cut in Bontius,
be faithful representations of a creature then living, to make
such a bird of prey--a vulture, in the ordinary acceptation
of the term--would be to set all the usual laws of adaptation
at defiance. A vulture without wings! How was it to be fed?
And not only without wings, but necessarily slow and heavy in
progression on its clumsy feet. The _Vulturidæ_ are, as we
know, among the most active agents for removing the decomposing
animal remains in tropical and inter-tropical climates, and they
are provided with a prodigal development of wing, to waft them
speedily to the spot tainted by the corrupt incumbrance. But no
such powers of wing would be required by a bird appointed to
clear away the decaying and decomposing masses of a luxuriant
tropical vegetation--a kind of vulture for vegetable impurities,
so to speak--and such an office would not be by any means
inconsistent with comparative slowness of pedestrian motion."
Professor Owen, doubtless one of our greatest authorities, inclines
towards an affinity with the vultures, and considers the Dodo as an
extremely modified form of the raptorial order.
"Devoid of the power of flight, it could have had small chance
of obtaining food by preying upon the members of its own class;
and, if it did not exclusively subsist on dead and decaying
organised matter, it most probably restricted its attacks to
the class of reptiles, and to the littoral fishes, _Crustacea_,
&c., which its well-developed back-toe and claw would enable it
to seize, and hold with a firm gripe."--_Transactions of the
Zoological Society_, iii. p. 331.
We confess that, setting aside various other unconformable features
in the structure of the Dodo, the fact, testified by various
authorities, of its swallowing stones, and having stones in its
gizzard, for the mechanical triturition of its food, (a peculiarity
unknown among the raptorial order,) is sufficient to bar the
above view, supported though it be by the opinion of our most
distinguished living anatomist.
In a recent memoir by Professor J. F. Brandt (of which an abstract
is given in the _Bulletin de la Class. Phys. de l'Acad. Imp. de St
Petersburg_, vol. viii. No. 3) we have the following statement:--
"The Dodo, a bird provided with divided toes and cursorial feet,
is best classed in the order of the Waders, among which it
appears, from its many peculiarities, (most of which, however,
are quite referable to forms in this order,) to be an anomalous
link connecting several groups,--a link which, for the reasons
above given, inclines towards the ostriches, and especially also
towards the pigeons."
We doubt the direct affinity to any species of the grallatorial
order, an order which contains the cursorial or swift-running birds,
very dissimilar in their prevailing habits to anything we know of
the sluggish and sedentary Dodo. Professor Brandt may be regarded
as having mistaken analogy for affinity; and, in Mr Strickland's
opinion, he has in this instance wandered from the true method
of investigation, in his anxiety to discover a link connecting
dissevered groups.
What then is, or rather was, the Dodo? The majority of inquirers
have no doubt been influenced, though unconsciously, by its colossal
size, and have consequently sought its actual analogies only among
such huge species as the ostrich, the vulture, and the albatross.
But the range in each order is often enormous, as, for example,
between the _Falco cærulescens_, or finch falcon of Bengal, an
accipitrine bird not bigger than a sparrow, and an eagle of the
largest size; or between the swallow-like stormy petrel and the
gigantic pelican of the wilderness. It appears that Professor J.
T. Rheinhardt of Copenhagen, who rediscovered the cranium of the
Gottorf Museum, was the first to indicate the direct relationship of
the Dodo to the _pigeons_. He has recently been engaged in a voyage
round the world, but it is known that, before he left Copenhagen in
1845, he had called the attention of his correspondents, both in
Sweden and Denmark, to "the striking affinity which exists between
this extinct bird and the pigeons, especially the Trerons." The
Columbine view is that taken up, and so admirably illustrated, by
Mr Strickland, the most recent as well as the best biographer of
the Dodo. He refers to the great strength and curvature of bill
exhibited by several groups of the tropical fruit-eating pigeons,
and adds:
"If we now regard the Dodo as an extreme modification, not of
the vultures, but of those vulture-like frugivorous pigeons,
we shall, I think, class it in a group whose characters are
far more consistent with what we know of its structure and
habits. There is no _a priori_ reason why a pigeon should not
be so modified, in conformity with external circumstances,
as to be incapable of flight, just as we see a grallatorial
bird modified into an ostrich, and a diver into a penguin. Now
we are told that Mauritius, an island forty miles in length,
and about one hundred miles from the nearest land, was, when
discovered, clothed with dense forests of palms and various
other trees. A bird adapted to feed on the fruits produced by
these forests would, in that equable climate, have no occasion
to migrate to distant lands; it would revel in the perpetual
luxuries of tropical vegetation, and would have but little need
of locomotion. Why then should it have the means of flying? Such
a bird might wander from tree to tree, tearing with its powerful
beak the fruits which strewed the ground, and digesting their
stony kernels with its powerful gizzard, enjoying tranquillity
and abundance, until the arrival of man destroyed the balance
of animal life, and put a term to its existence. Such, in my
opinion, was the Dodo,--a colossal, brevipennate, frugivorous
pigeon."--(P. 40.)
For the various osteological and other details by which the
Columbine character of the Dodo is maintained, and as we think
established, we must refer our readers to Mr Strickland's
volume,[22] where those parts of the subject are very skilfully
worked out by his able coadjutor, Dr Melville.
[22] In regard to the figures by which it is illustrated, we beg
to call attention very specially to Plates VIII. and IX., as the
most beautiful examples of the lithographic art, applied to natural
history, which we have yet seen executed in this country.
We shall now proceed to notice certain other extinct species
which form the dead relations of the Dodo, just as the pigeons
continue to represent the tribe from which they have departed. The
island Rodriguez, placed about three hundred miles eastward of the
Mauritius, though not more than fifteen miles long by six broad,
possessed in modern times a peculiar bird, also without effective
wings, and in several other respects resembling the Dodo. It was
named _Solitaire_ by the early voyagers, and forms the species
_Didus solitarius_ of systematic writers. The small island in
question seems to have remained in a desert and unpeopled state
until 1691, when a party of French Protestant refugees settled
upon it, and remained for a couple of years. The Solitaire is thus
described by their commander, Francois Leguat, who (in his _Voyage
et Avantures_, 1708) has given us an interesting account both of
his own doings in general, and of this species in particular.
"Of all the birds in the island, the most remarkable is that
which goes by the name of the _Solitary_, because it is very
seldom seen in company, though there are abundance of them. The
feathers of the male are of a brown-gray colour, the feet and
beak are like a turkey's, but a little more crooked. They have
scarce any tail, but their hind part, covered with feathers,
is roundish like the crupper of a horse: they are taller
than turkeys; their neck is straight, and a little longer in
proportion than a turkey's, when it lifts up its head. Its eye
is black and lively, and its head without comb or cap. They
never fly; their wings are too little to support the weight of
their bodies; they serve only to beat themselves, and to flutter
when they call one another. They will whirl about for twenty or
thirty times together on the same side, during the space of four
or five minutes. The motion of their wings makes then a noise
very much like that of a rattle, and one may hear it two hundred
paces off. The bone of their wing grows greater towards the
extremity, and forms a little round mass under the feathers, as
big as a musket-ball. That and its beak are the chief defence of
this bird. 'Tis very hard to catch it in the woods, but easier
in open places, because we run faster than they, and sometimes
we approach them without much trouble. From March to September
they are extremely fat, and taste admirably well, especially
while they are young; some of the males weigh forty-five pounds.
"The females" continues our enamoured author, "are wonderfully
beautiful, some fair, some brown,--I call them fair, because
they are of the colour of fair hair. They have a sort of peak
like a widow's upon their beak, which is of a dun colour. No
one feather is straggling from the other all over their bodies,
they being very careful to adjust themselves, and make them all
even with their beaks. The feathers on their thighs are round
like shells at the end, and, being there very thick, have an
agreeable effect. They have two risings on their crops, and the
feathers are whiter there than the rest, which lively represents
the fair neck of a beautiful woman. They walk with so much
stateliness and good grace, that one cannot help admiring and
loving them; by which means their fine mien often saves their
lives. Though these birds will sometimes very familiarly come
up near enough to one, when we do not run after them, yet they
will never grow tame. As soon as they are caught they shed
tears without crying, and refuse all manner of meat till they
die."--(P. 71.)
Their natural food is the fruit of a species of plantain. When these
birds are about to build, they select a clean place, and then gather
together a quantity of palm-leaves, which they heap up about a foot
and a half high, and there they sit. They never lay but one egg,
which greatly exceeds that of a goose. Some days after the young
one has left the nest, a company of thirty or forty grown-up birds
brings another young one to it; and the new-fledged bird, with its
father and mother, joining with the band, they all march away to
some by-place.
"We frequently followed them," says Leguat, "and found that
afterwards the old ones went each their way alone, or in
couples, and left the two young ones together, and this we
called a _marriage_. This particularity has something in it
which looks a little fabulous; nevertheless what I say is
sincere truth, and what I have more than once observed with care
and pleasure."
Leguat gives a figure of this singular bird, which in his plate has
somewhat of the air and aspect of a Christmas goose, although, of
course, it wants the web-feet. Its neck and legs are proportionally
longer than those parts of the Dodo, and give it more of a
_struthious_ appearance: but the existing osteological evidence is
sufficient to show that it was closely allied to that bird, and
shared with it in some peculiar affinities to the pigeon tribe. It
is curious that, although Rodriguez is a British settlement, we
have scarcely any information regarding it beyond what is to be
found in the work last quoted, and all that we have since learned
of the Solitary is that it has become extinct. Of late years Mr
Telfair made inquiries of one of the colonists, who assured him
that no such bird now existed on the island; and the same negative
result was obtained by Mr Higgins, a Liverpool gentleman, who, after
suffering shipwreck on Rodriguez, resided there for a couple of
months. As far back as 1789, some bones incrusted by a stalagmite,
and erroneously supposed to belong to the Dodo, were found in a cave
in Rodriguez by a M. Labistour. They afterwards found their way to
Paris, where they may still be seen. We are informed (_Proceedings
of the Zoological Society_, Part I. p. 31) that Col. Dawkins
recently visited these caverns, and dug without finding any thing
but a small bone. But M. Eudes succeeded in disinterring various
bones, among others those of a large species of bird no longer found
alive upon the island. He adds that the Dutch, who first landed at
Rodriguez, left cats there to destroy the rats, which annoyed them.
These cats are now so numerous as to prove very destructive to the
poultry, and he thinks it probable that these feline wanderers
may have extirpated the bird in question, by devouring the young
ones as soon as they were hatched,--a destruction which may have
been effected even before the island became inhabited by the human
race. Be that as it may, Mr Telfair sent collections of the bones
to this country, one of which may be seen in the museum of the
Andersonian Institution, Glasgow. Mr Strickland mourns over the loss
or disappearance of those transmitted to the Zoological Society
of London. We have been informed within these few days that, like
the head of the Danish Dodo, they have been rediscovered, lying
in a stable or other outhouse, in the vicinity of the museum of
that Society. Both the Glasgow specimens, and those in Paris, have
been carefully examined and compared by Mr Strickland, and their
Columbine characters are minutely described by his skilful and
accurate coadjutor, Dr Melville, in the second portion of his work.
Mr S. very properly regards certain peculiarities, alluded to by
Leguat, such as the feeding on dates or plantains, as confirmatory
of his view of the natural affinities already mentioned.
So much for the Solitaire of Rodriguez and its affinities.[23]
A singular fact, however, remains to be yet attended to in this
insular group. The volcanic island of Bourbon seems also to have
contained _brevi-pennate_ birds, whose inability to fly has likewise
led to their extinction. This island, which lies about a hundred
miles south-west of Mauritius, was discovered contemporaneously by
Pedro de Mascaregnas, in the sixteenth century. The earliest notice
which concerns our present inquiry, is by Captain Castleton, who
visited Bourbon in 1613. In the narrative, as given by Purchas, we
read as follows:--
"There is store of land-fowl, both small and great, plentie of
doves, great parrats, and suchlike, and a great fowl of the
bignesse of a turkie, very fat, and so short-winged that they
cannot flie, beeing white, and in a manner tame; and so are all
other fowles, as having not been troubled nor feared with shot.
Our men did beat them down with sticks and stones."--(Ed. 1625,
vol. i. p. 331.)
[23] The companions of Vasco de Gama had, at an earlier period,
applied the name of _Solitaires_ to certain birds found in an
island near the Cape of Good Hope; but these must not be confounded
with those of the Didine group above referred to. They were, in
fact, penguins, and their wings were somewhat vaguely compared
to those of bats, by reason of the peculiar scaly or undeveloped
state of the feathers in these birds. Dr Hamel has shown that the
term _Solitaires_, as employed by the Portuguese sailors, was a
corruption of _sotilicairos_, an alleged Hottentot word, of which
we do not profess to know the meaning, being rather rusted in that
tongue. We know, however, that penguins are particularly gregarious,
and, therefore, by no means solitary, although they may be extremely
_sotilicairious_ for anything we can say to the contrary.
Bontekoe van Hoorn, a Dutch voyager, spent twenty-one days in
Bourbon in 1618, and found the island to abound in pigeons, parrots,
and other species, among which "there were also _Dod-eersen_, which
have small wings; and so far from being able to fly, they were so
fat that they could scarcely walk, and when they tried to run, they
dragged their under side along the ground." There is no reason to
suppose that these birds were actual Dodos, of the existence of
which in Bourbon there is not the slightest proof. That Bontekoe's
account was compiled from recollection rather than from any journal
written at the time, is almost certain from this tragical fact,
that his ship was afterwards blown up, and he himself was the sole
survivor. There is no likelihood that he preserved his papers any
more than his portmanteau, and he no doubt wrote from remembrance of
a large _brevipennate_ bird, whose indolent and unfearing tameness
rendered it an easy prey. Knowing that a bird of a somewhat similar
nature inhabited the neighbouring island, he took it for the same,
and called it Dodo, by a corresponding term.
A Frenchman of the name of Carré visited Bourbon in 1668, and in his
_Voyages des Indes Orientales_, he states as follows:--
"I have seen a kind of bird which I have not found elsewhere; it
is that which the inhabitants call the _oiseau solitaire_, for
in fact it loves solitude, and only frequents the most secluded
places. One never sees two or more of them together, they are
always alone. It is not unlike a turkey, were it not that its
legs are longer. The beauty of its plumage is delightful to
behold. The flesh is exquisite; it forms one of the best dishes
in this country, and might form a dainty at our tables. We
wished to keep two of these birds to send to France and present
them to his Majesty, but, as soon as they were on board ship,
they died of melancholy, having refused to eat or drink."--(Vol.
i. p. 12.)
Almost immediately after M. Carré's visit, a French colony was sent
from Madagascar to Bourbon, under the superintendence of M. de la
Haye. A certain Sieur D. B. (for this is all that is known of his
name or designation) was one of the party, and has left a narrative
of the expedition in an unpublished journal, acquired by Mr Telfair,
and presented by him to the Zoological Society of London. Besides
confirming the accounts given by preceding writers, this unknown
author affords a conclusive proof that a second species of the
same group inhabited the Island of Bourbon. We are indebted to Mr
Strickland for the original passages and the following translation:--
1. "_Solitaires._--These birds are so called because they always
go alone. They are the size of a large goose, and are white,
with the tips of the wings and the tail black. The tail-feathers
resemble those of an ostrich; the neck is long, and the beak
is like that of a woodcock, but larger; the legs and feet like
those of turkeys."
2. "_Oiseaux bleus_, the size of _Solitaires_, have the plumage
wholly blue, the beak and feet red, resembling the feet of a
hen. They do not fly, but they run extremely fast, so that a dog
can hardly overtake them; they are very good eating."
There is proof that one or other of these singular and now unknown
birds existed in Bourbon, at least till toward the middle of the
last century. M. Billiard, who resided there between 1817 and 1820,
states (in his _Voyages aux Colonies Orientales_) that, at the time
of the first colonisation of the island, "the woods were filled with
birds which were not alarmed at the approach of man. Among them was
the _Dodo_ or _Solitaire_, which was pursued on foot: they were
still to be seen in the time of M. de la Bourdonnaye, who sent a
specimen, as a curiosity, to one of the directors of the company."
As the gentleman last named was governor of the Isles of France and
Bourbon from 1735 to 1746, these birds, Mr Strickland observes,
_must_ have survived to the former, and _may_ have continued to the
latter date at least. But when M. Bory St Vincent made a careful
survey of the island in 1801, no such species were to be found. The
description of the bill and plumage shows that they were not genuine
Dodos, but merely entitled to be classed among their kindred. Not a
vestige of their remains is in the hands of naturalists, either in
this or any other country.
We have now finished, under Mr Strickland's guidance, our exposition
of this curious group. The restriction, at any time, of such large
birds to islands of so small a size, is certainly singular. We
cannot, however, say what peculiar and unknown geological changes
these islands may have undergone, by which their extent has been
diminished, or their inter-connexion destroyed. Volcanic groups,
such as those in question, are no doubt generally of less ancient
origin than most others; but it is by no means unlikely that these
islands of Rodriguez, Bourbon, and Mauritius, may once have formed
a united group, or much more expanded mass of terra firma than they
now exhibit; and that, by their partial submergence and separation,
the dominions of the Dodo and its kindred have, like those of many
other heavy chieftains of high degree, been greatly diminished and
laid low. But into this question of ancient boundaries we cannot now
enter.
How pleasant, on some resplendent summer evening, in such a
delicious clime as that of the Mauritius, the sun slowly sinking
amid a gorgeous blaze of light, and gilding in green and gold the
spreading summits of the towering palms,--the murmuring sea sending
its refreshing vesper-breathings through all the "pillared shades"
which stretch along that glittering shore,--how pleasant, we say,
for wearied man to sit in leafy umbrage, and sup on Dodos and their
kindred! Alas! we shall never see such days again.
Dr Hamel, as native of a northern country, is fond of animal food,
and has his senses, naturally sharp enough, so whetted thereby, that
he becomes "sagacious of his _quarry_ from afar." He judiciously
observes, in his recent memoir, (_Der Dodo_, &c.,) that in Leguat's
map the place is accurately indicated where the common kitchen of
the settlers stood, and where the great tree grew under which they
used to sit, on a bench, to take their meals. Both tree and bench
are marked upon the map. "At these two spots," says Dr Hamel, "it is
probable that the bones of a complete skeleton of Leguat's solitaire
might be collected; those of the head and feet on the site of the
kitchen, and the sternum and other bones on that of the tree."
"I feel confident," says Mr Strickland, "that if active
naturalists would make a series of excavations in the alluvial
deposits, in the beds of streams, and amid the ruins of old
institutions in Mauritius, Bourbon, and Rodriguez, he would
speedily discover the remains of the dodo, the two 'solitaires,'
or the 'oiseau bleu.' But I would especially direct attention
to the caves with which these volcanic islands abound. The
chief agents in the destruction of the brevipennate birds were
probably the runaway negroes, who for many years infested
the primeval forests of these islands, and inhabited the
caverns, where they would doubtless leave the scattered bones
of the animals on which they fed. Here, then, may we more
especially hope to find the osseous remains of these remarkable
animals."--(P. 61.)
THE SWORD OF HONOUR.
A TALE OF 1787.
Any old directory of the latter half of the last century will still
show, to the curious in such matters, the address of Messrs. Hope
and Bullion, merchants and general dealers at No. 4, in a certain
high and narrow street in the city of London. Not that this, in
itself, is a very valuable part of history; but to those who look
up at the dirty windows of the house as it now stands, and compare
the narrow pavement and cit-like appearance of the whole locality
with the splendours of Oxford Square or Stanhope Place, where the
business occupant of the premises has now his residence, it will be
a subject of doubt, if not of unbelief, that Mr Bullion--who dwelt
in the upper portions of the building--was as happy, and nearly as
proud, as his successor at the present time. Yet so it is; and,
without making invidious comparisons with the distinguished-looking
lady who does the honours of the mansion in Oxford Square--her
father was a sugar baker, and lived in a magnificent country house
at Mussel hill. I will venture to state, that Mr Bullion had great
reason to be satisfied with the manners and appearance of the young
person who presided at his festive board. Such a rich laugh, and
such a sweet voice, were heard in no other house in the town. And
as to her face and figure, the only dispute among painters and
sculptors was, whether the ever-varying expression of her features
did not constitute her the true property of the Reynoldses and
Romneys,--or the ever-exquisite moulding of her shape did not bring
her within the province of the severer art. At the same time it must
be confessed, that the subject of these disputes took no interest
either in brush or chisel. A bright, happy, clever creature--but no
judge of sciences and arts--was Louise Bullion. Books she had read
a few, and music she had studied a little; yet, with her slender
knowledge of the circulating library, she talked more pleasantly
than Madame de Staël, and sang so sweetly, so naturally, and so
truly, that Mrs Billington was a fool to her. She was a parlour
Jenny Lind. But Mrs Billington was not the only person who was a
fool to her. Oh no!--that sort of insanity was epidemic, and seized
on all that came near her. Even Mr Cocker the book-keeper--a little
man of upwards of fifty, who was so simple, and knew so little of
anything but arithmetic, that he always considered himself, and was
considered by the people, a boy just getting on in his teens--even
Mr Cocker was a fool to her too. For when he was invited to tea,
and had his cups sweetened by her hand, and his whole heart turned,
by some of her pathetic ballads, into something so soft and oily
that it must have been just like one of the muffins she laid on his
plate, he used to go away with a very confused idea of cube roots,
and get into the most extraordinary puzzles in the rule of three.
Miss Louise, he said, would never go out of his head; whereas she
had never once got into it, having established her quarters very
comfortably in another place a little lower down, just inside of
the brass buttons on his left breast; and yet the poor old fellow
went down to his grave without the remotest suspicion that he had
ever been in love. The people used to say that his perplexities, on
those occasions, were principally remarkable after supper--for an
invitation to tea, in those hospitable times, included an afterpiece
in the shape of some roaring hot dishes, and various bowls of a
stout and jovial beverage, whose place, I beg to say, is poorly
supplied by any conceivable quantity of negus and jellies! Yes,
the people used to say that Cocker's difficulties in calculation
arose from other causes than his admiration of Miss Louise and her
songs; but this was a calumny--and, in fact, any few extra glasses
he took were for the express purpose of clearing his head, after it
had got bewildered by her smiles and music; and therefore how could
they possibly be the cause of his bewilderment? I repeat that Mr
Cocker was afflicted by the universal disease, and would have died
with the greatest happiness to give her a moment's satisfaction.
And so would all the clerks, except one, who was very short-sighted
and remarkably deaf, and who was afterwards tried on suspicion of
having poisoned his wife; and so would her aunt, Miss Lucretia
Smith, though her kindness was so wonderfully disguised that the
whole world would have been justified in considering it harshness
and ill-nature. It was only her way of bestowing it--as if you were
to pour out sugar from a vinegar cruet; and a good old, fussy,
scolding, grumbling, advising, tormenting, and very loving lady was
Miss Lucretia Smith--very loving, I say, not only of her niece, and
her brother-in-law, but of anybody that would agree to be loved.
Traditions existed that, in her youth, she had been a tremendous
creature for enthusiasms and romances; that she had flirted with all
the officers of the city militia, from the colonel downwards, and
with all the Lord Mayors' chaplains for an infinite series of years;
and that, though nothing came of all her praiseworthy efforts, time
had had a strengthening instead of a weakening effect on all these
passages--till now, in her fifty-third year, she actually believed
she had been in love with them all, and on the point of marriage
with more than half.
And this constituted the whole of Mr Bullion's establishment--at
least all his establishment which was regularly on the books;
but there was a young man so constantly in the house--so much at
home there--so welcome when he came, so wondered at when he staid
away--in short, so much one of the family, that I will only say, if
he was not considered a member of it, he ought to have been. For
what, I pray you, constitutes membership, if intimacy, kindness,
perpetual presence, and filial and fraternal affection--filial to
the old man, fraternal to the young lady--do not constitute it?
You might have sworn till doomsday, but Mr Cecil Hope would never
have believed that his home was anywhere but at No. 4. Nay, when,
by some accident, he found himself for a day in a very pretty, very
tasteful, and very spacious house he had in Hertfordshire, with
a ring-fence of fourteen hundred acres round it, he felt quite
disconsolate, and as if he were in a strange place. The estate
had been bought, the house had been built--as the money had been
acquired, by his father, who was no less a person than the senior
partner in the firm of Hope and Bullion, but had withdrawn his
capital from the trade, laid it out in land, superintended the
erection of his mansion, pined for his mercantile activities, and
died in three years of having nothing to do. So Cecil was rich
and unencumbered; he was also as handsome as the Apollo, who,
they say, would be a very vulgar-looking fellow if he dressed
like a Christian; and he (not the Apollo, but Cecil Hope) was
four-and-twenty years of age, five feet eleven in height, and
as pleasant a fellow as it is possible to conceive. So you may
guess whether or not he was in love with Louise. Of course he
was,--haven't I said he was a young man of some sense, and for whom
I have a regard? He adored her. And now you will, perhaps, be asking
if the admiration was returned--and that is one of the occasions on
which an impertinent reader has a great advantage over the best and
cunningest of authors. They can ask such impudent questions,--which
they would not dare to do unless under the protection and in the
sanctuary, as it were, of print, and look so amazingly knowing while
pausing for a reply, that I have no patience with the fellows at
all; and, in answer to their demand whether Louise returned the
love of Cecil Hope, I will only say this--I will see them hanged
first, before I gratify their curiosity. Indeed, how could I hold
up my head in any decent society again, if I were to commit such
a breach of confidence as that? Imagine me confessing that she
looked always fifty times happier in his presence than when he was
away--imagine me confessing that her heart beat many thumps quicker
when anybody mentioned his name--imagine me, I say, confessing
all this, and fifty things more, and then calling myself a man of
honour and discretion! No: I say again I will see the reader hanged
first, before I will answer his insolent question; so let that be
an understood thing between us, that I will never reveal any secret
with which a young lady is kind enough to intrust me.
And this, I think, is a catalogue of all the household above the
good old warehouse. Ah! no,--there is the excellent Mr Bullion
himself. He is now sixty; he has white hair, a noble, even a
_distingué_ figure: look into any page of any fashionable novel of
any year, for an explanation of what that means. On the present
occasion, you would perhaps conclude that the long-backed,
wide-tailed blue coat, the low-flapped waistcoat, tight-fitting
knee-br--ch--s, white cotton stockings in-doors, long gaiters out,
with bright-buckled square-toed shoes, may be a little inconsistent
with the epithet _distingué_. But this is a vulgar error, and
would argue that nobody could look _distingué_ without lace and
brocade. Now, only imagine Mr Bullion in a court-dress, with a
silk bag floating over his shoulder, to tie up long tresses which
have disappeared from his head for many years; a diamond-hilted
rapier that probably has no blade, and all the other portions of
that graceful and easy style of habiliment,--dress him in this way,
and look at him bowing gracefully by means of his three-cornered
hat, and you will surely grant he would be a _distingué_ figure
then,--and why not in his blue coat and smalls?
But _distingué_-looking men, even in court-dresses, may be great
rascals, and even considerable fools. Then was Mr Bullion a
rascal?--no. A fool?--no. In short, he was one of the best of men,
and could have been recognised during his life, if any one had
described him in the words of his epitaph.
Well,--we must get on. Day after day, for several months before
the date we have got to, a sort of mystery seemed to grow deeper
and deeper on the benevolent features of the father of Louise.
Something--nobody could tell what--had lifted him out of his
ordinary self. He dropt dark hints of some great change that was
shortly to take place in the position of the family: he even
took many opportunities of lecturing Cecil Hope on the miseries
of ill-assorted marriages, particularly where the lady was of a
family immeasurably superior to the man's. Miss Smith thought he was
going to be made Lord Mayor; Cecil Hope supposed he was about to be
appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Louise thought he was
growing silly, and took no notice of all the airs he put on, and the
depreciatory observations he made on the rank of a country squire.
As to Mr Cocker, he was already fully persuaded that his master was
the greatest man in the world, and, if he had started for king,
would have voted him to the throne without a moment's hesitation.
At last the origin of all these proceedings on the part of Mr
Bullion began to be suspected. A little dark man, with the brightest
possible eyes, shrouded in a great cloak, with a broad-brimmed hat
carefully drawn over his brows, and just showing to the affrighted
maid who opened the door the aforesaid eyes, fixed on her with such
an expression of inquiry that they fully supplied the difficulty
he experienced in asking for Mr Bullion in words,--for he was a
foreigner, not much gifted with the graces of English pronunciation.
This little dark and inquisitive man came to the house two or
three times a-week, and spent several hours in close consultation
with Mr Bullion. On emerging from these councils, it was easy to
see, by that gentleman's countenance, whether the affair, whatever
it was, was in a prosperous condition or not. Sometimes he came
into the supper-room gloomy and silent, sometimes tripping in
like a sexagenarian Taglioni, and humming a French song,--for his
knowledge of that language was extraordinary,--and his whole idea
of a daughter's education seemed to be, to make her acquire the
true Parisian accent, and to read Molière and Corneille. So Louise,
to gratify the whim of her father, had made herself perfect in
the language, and could have entered into a correspondence with
Madame de Sevigné without a single false concord, or a mistake in
spelling. Who could this little man be, who had such influence
on her father's spirits? They watched him, but could see nothing
but the dark cloak and slouched hat, which disappeared down some
side street, and would have puzzled one of the detective police to
keep them in view. Her thoughts rested almost constantly on this
subject. Even at church--for they were regular church-goers, and
very decided Protestants, as far as their religious feelings could
be shown in hating the devil and the Pope--she used to watch her
father's face, but could read nothing there but a quiet devotion
during the prayers, and an amiable condescension while listening to
the sermon. Rustlings of papers as the little visitor slipt along
the passage, revealed the fact that there were various documents
required in their consultations; and on one particular occasion,
after an interview of unusual duration, Mr Bullion accompanied his
mysterious guest to the door, and was overheard, by the conclave
who were assembled in the little parlour for supper, very warm in
his protestations of obligation for the trouble he had taken, and
concluding with these remarkable words--"Assure his Excellency of
my highest consideration, and that I shall not lose a moment in
throwing myself at the feet of the King." Louise looked at Cecil on
hearing these words; and as Cecil would probably have been looking
at Louise, whether he had heard these words or not, their eyes
met with an expression of great bewilderment and surprise,--the
said bewilderment being by no means diminished when his visitor
replied--"His Excellency kisses your hands, and I leave your
Lordship in the holy keeping of the saints."
"Papa is rather flighty--don't you think so, Cecil?" said Louise.
"Both mad," answered that gentleman with a shake of the head.
"Mr Bullion is going to be Lord Mayor," said Miss Lucretia, with
a vivid remembrance of the flirtations and grandeurs of the
Mansion-house.
Mr Cocker said nothing aloud, and was sorely puzzled for a long
time, but ended with a confused notion, derived principally from the
protection of the saints, that his patron was likely to be Pope.
All, however, sank into a gaping silence of anticipation, when
Mr Bullion, after shutting the door, as soon as his visitor had
departed, began to whistle Malbrook, and came into the supper-room.
CHAPTER II.
"Enjoy yourselves, _mes enfants_," said the old gentleman; "I have
not kept you waiting, I hope. Miss Smith, I kiss your hand--_ma
fille, embrassemoi_."
"What's the matter with you, papa?" replied the young lady, and not
complying with the request; "you speak as if you were a foreigner.
Have you forgotten your mother-tongue?"
And certainly it was not difficult to perceive that there was an
unusual tone assumed by Mr Bullion, with the slightest possible
broken English admitted into his language.
"My mother-tongue?" said the senior. "Bah! 'tis not the time yet--I
have not forgot it--not quite--but kiss me, Louise."
"Well, since you speak like a Christian, I won't refuse; but do be a
good, kind, communicative old man, and tell us what has kept you so
long. Do tell us who that hideous man is."
"Hideous, my dear!--'tis plain you never saw him."
"He's like the bravo of Venice," said Louise; "isn't he, Cecil?"
"He's more like Guy Faux," said the gentleman appealed to.
"He's like a gipsy fortune-teller," continued Miss Smith.
"Uncommon like a 'ousebreaker," chimed in Mr Cocker: "I never see
such a rascally-looking countenance."
"Are you aware, all this time, that you are giving these
descriptions of a friend of mine,--a most learned, lofty,
reverend--but, pshaw! what nonsense it is, getting angry with folks
like you. Eagles should fight with eagles."
But the lofty assumptions of Mr Bullion made no impression on his
audience. One word, however, had stuck in the tympanum of Miss
Smith's ear, and was beating a tremendous tattoo in her heart--
"Reverend, did you say, brother-in-law. If that little man is
reverend, mark my words. I know very well what he's after. If we're
not all spirited off to the Disquisition in Spain, I wish I may
never be marr--I mean--saved."
"Nonsense, aunt," said Louise. "You're not going to turn Dissenter,
father?"
"Better that than be a Papist, anyhow," sulked out Lucretia.
"Miss Smith," said Mr Bullion, "have the kindness, madam, to make
no observation on what I do, or what friends I visit or receive in
this house. If the gentleman who has now left me were a Mahommedan,
he should be sacred from your impertinent remarks. Give me another
potato, and hold your tongue."
"To you, Mr Hope," continued the senior, "and to you, Mr Cocker,
and to you, Miss Lucretia, who are unmixed plebeians from your
remotest known ancestry, it may appear surprising that a man so
willingly undertakes the onerous duties entailed on him by his lofty
extraction, as to surrender the peace and contentment which he feels
to be the fitter accompaniments of your humble yet comfortable
position. For my daughter and me far other things are in store--we
sit on the mountain-top exposed to the tempest, though glorified by
the sunshine, and look without regret to the contemptible safety
and inglorious ease of the inhabitants of the vale. Take a glass of
wine, Mr Cocker. I shall always look on you with favour."
Mr Cocker took the glass as ordered, and supposed his patron was
repeating a passage out of Enfield's _Speaker_. "Fine language,
sir, very fine language, indeed! particular that about sunshine on
the mountains. A remarkable clever man, Mr Enfield; and I can say
Ossian's Address to the Sun myself."
But in the mean time Louisa walked round the table, and laid hold of
her father's hand, and putting her finger on his pulse, looked with
a face full of wisdom, while she counted the beats; and giving a
satisfied shake of the head, resumed her seat.
"A day or two's quiet will do, without a strait waistcoat," she
said; "but I will certainly tell the porter never to admit that
slouch-faced muffled-up impostor, who puts such nonsense into his
head."